ICT news

• Is NASA's Moon Rocket Getting Canceled?

  16-11-2024 08:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  "NASA has squandered $27 billion on the SLS moon rocket -- $6 billion over budget and 5 years late," writes longtime Slashdot reader schwit1. "The SLS isn't reusable so even if they finished it -- it is already obsolete. It is clear to everyone that the boondoggle has failed but the newest plan is to find a way to blame Trump. There is a big desire for big changes." Futurism reports: According to Ars Technica senior space reporter Eric Berger's insider sources, there's an "at least 50-50" chance
  
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• After 16 Years, 'Interim' CTO Finally Eradicating Fujitsu and Horizon From the UK's Post Office

  22-02-2026 09:34 via news.slashdot.org
  Besides running tech operations at the UK's Post Office, their interim CTO is also removing and replacing Fujitsu's Horizon system, which Computer Weekly describes as "the error-ridden software that a public inquiry linked to 13 people taking their own lives."
  After over 16 years of covering the scandal they'd first discovered back in 2009, Computer Weekly now talks to CTO Paul Anastassi about his plans to finally remove every trace of the Horizon system that's been in use at Post Office branche
  
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• Ask Slashdot: What's Your Boot Time?

  22-02-2026 06:34 via ask.slashdot.org
  How much time does it take to even begin booting, asks long-time Slashdot reader BrendaEM. Say you want separate Windows and Linux boot processes, and "You have Windows on one SSD/NVMe, and Linux on another. How long do you have to wait for a chance to choose a boot drive?"
  And more importantly, why is it all taking so long?
  In a world of 4-5 GHz CPU's that are thousands of times faster than they were, has hardware become thousands of times more complicated, to warrant the longer start time? Is
  
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• DNA Technology Convicts a 64-Year-Old for Murdering a Teenager in 1982

  22-02-2026 03:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  "More than four decades after a teenager was murdered in California, DNA found on a discarded cigarette has helped authorities catch her killer," reports CNN:Sarah Geer, 13, was last seen leaving her friend's houseï in Cloverdale, California, on the evening of May 23, 1982. The next morning, a firefighter walking home from work found her body, the Sonoma County District Attorney's Office said in a news release... Her death was ruled a homicide, but due to the "limited forensic science of th
  
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• Pro-Gamer Consumer Movement 'Stop Killing Games' Will Launch NGOs in America and the US

  22-02-2026 00:43 via yro.slashdot.org
  The consumer movement Stop Killing Games "has come a long way in the two years since
  YouTuber Ross Scott got mad about Ubisoft's
  destruction of The Crew in 2024," writes the gaming news site PC Gamer. "The short version is, he won: 1.3 million people signed the group's petition, mandating its consideration by the European Union, and while Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot reminded us all that nothing is forever, his company promised to never do something like that again." (And Ubisoft has since updated
  
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• Pro-Gamer Consumer Movement 'Stop Killing Games' Will Launch NGOs in America and the EU

  22-02-2026 00:43 via yro.slashdot.org
  The consumer movement Stop Killing Games "has come a long way in the two years since
  YouTuber Ross Scott got mad about Ubisoft's
  destruction of The Crew in 2024," writes the gaming news site PC Gamer. "The short version is, he won: 1.3 million people signed the group's petition, mandating its consideration by the European Union, and while Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot reminded us all that nothing is forever, his company promised to never do something like that again." (And Ubisoft has since updated
  
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• Hit Piece-Writing AI Deleted. But Is This a Warning About AI-Generated Harassment?

  21-02-2026 23:43 via developers.slashdot.org
  Last week an AI agent wrote a blog post attacking the maintainer who'd rejected the code it wrote. But that AI agent's human operator has now come forward, revealing their agent was an OpenClaw instance with its own accounts, switching between multiple models from multiple providers. (So "No one company had the full picture of what this AI was doing," the attacked maintainer points out in a new blog post.)But that AI agent will now "cease all activity indefinitely," according to its GitHub profi
  
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• America's Peace Corps Announces 'Tech Corps' Volunteers to Help Bring AI to Foreign Countries

  21-02-2026 22:43 via yro.slashdot.org
  Over 240,000 Americans volunteered for Peace Corps projects in 142 countries since the program began more than half a century ago.
  But now the agency is launching a new initiative — called Tech Corps. "It's the Peace Corps, but make it AI," explains Engadget:
  The Peace Corps' latest proposal will recruit STEM graduates or those with professional experience in the artificial intelligence sector and send them to participating host countries.According to the press release, volunteers will be
  
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• Code.org President Steps Down Citing 'Upending' of CS By AI

  21-02-2026 21:35 via news.slashdot.org
  Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes:Last July, as Microsoft pledged $4 billion to advance AI education in K-12 schools, Microsoft President Brad Smith told nonprofit Code.org CEO/Founder Hadi Partovi it was time to "switch hats" from coding to AI. He added that "the last 12 years have been about the Hour of Code, but the future involves the Hour of AI." On Friday, Code.org announced leadership changes to make it so."I am thrilled to announce that Karim Meghji will be stepping into the role o
  
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• T2 Linux Restores XAA In Xorg, Making 2D Graphics Fast Again

  21-02-2026 20:35 via linux.slashdot.org
  Berlin-based T2 Linux developer René Rebe (long-time Slashdot reader ReneR) is announcing that their Xorg display server has now restored its XAA acceleration architecture, "bringing fixed-function hardware 2D acceleration back to many older graphics cards that upstream left in software-rendered mode."
  Older fixed-function GPUs now regain smooth window movement, low CPU usage, and proper 24-bit bpp framebuffer support (also restored in T2). Tested hardware includes ATi Mach-64 and Rage-12
  
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• The Salvation Army Opens a Digital Thrift Store On Roblox

  21-02-2026 19:34 via games.slashdot.org
  Slashdot reader BrianFagioli writes: The Salvation Army has launched what it calls the world's first digital thrift store inside Roblox, an experience named Thrift Score that lets players browse virtual racks and buy digital fashion for their avatars.
  While I understand the strategy of meeting Gen Z and Gen Alpha where they already spend time and money, I feel uneasy about turning something that, in the real world, often serves low income families in genuine need into a gamified aesthetic inside
  
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• Researchers Discover Ancient Bacteria Strain That Resists 10 Modern Antibiotics

  21-02-2026 18:34 via science.slashdot.org
  CNN reports on a 13,000-year-old glacier in a Romanian cave, where scientists say a bacterial strain they thawed and analyzed "is resistant to 10 modern antibiotics used to treat diseases such as urinary tract infections and tuberculosis."
  But there's no evidence the bacteria is harmful to humans, CNN notes, and "The scientists said the insights they have gained from the work may help in the fight against modern superbugs that can't be treated by commonly used antibiotics."
  Analysis of the Psych
  
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• Is 'Brain Rot' Real? How Too Much Time Online Can Affect Your Mind.

  21-02-2026 17:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  Can being "very online" really affect our brains, asks the Washington Post:
  Research suggests that scrolling through short videos on TikTok, Instagram or YouTube Shorts is affecting our attention, memory and mental health. A recent meta-analysis of the scientific literature found that increased use of short-form video was linked with poorer cognition and increased anxiety...
  In a 2025 study published in the journal Translational Psychiatry, researchers looked at longitudinal data from more than
  
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• How Python's Security Response Team Keeps Python Users Safe

  21-02-2026 16:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  This week the Python Software Foundation explained how they keep Python secure. A new blog post recognizes the volunteers and paid Python Software Foundation staff on the Python Security Response Team (PSRT), who "triage and coordinate vulnerability reports and remediations keeping all Python users safe."Just last year the PSRT published 16 vulnerability advisories for CPython and pip, the most in a single year to date! And the PSRT usually can't do this work alone, PSRT coordinators are encoura
  
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• Hazardous Substances Found In All Headphones Tested By ToxFREE Project

  21-02-2026 14:00 via science.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: You wear them at work, you wear them at play, you wear them to relax. You may even get sweaty in them at the gym. But an investigation into headphones has found every single pair tested contained substances hazardous to human health, including chemicals that can cause cancer, neurodevelopmental problems and the feminization of males. [...] Researchers say that while individual doses from particular sources may be low, a "cocktail effect" of
  
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• OpenAI's First ChatGPT Gadget Could Be a Smart Speaker With a Camera

  21-02-2026 11:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  OpenAI is reportedly developing its first consumer hardware product: a $200-$300 smart speaker with a built-in camera capable of recognizing "items on a nearby table or conversations people are having in the vicinity." It's also said to feature Face ID-style authentication for purchases. The Verge reports: In addition to the smart speaker, OpenAI is "possibly" working on smart glasses and a smart lamp, The Information reports. (Apple may also be working on a smart lamp.) But OpenAI's glasses mig
  
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• US Particle Accelerators Turn Nuclear Waste Into Electricity, Cut Radioactive Life By 99.7%

  21-02-2026 08:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Researchers at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility are advancing Accelerator-Driven Systems (ADS) that use high-energy proton beams to transmute long-lived nuclear waste into shorter-lived isotopes. "The process also generates significant heat, which can be harnessed to produce additional electricity for the grid," reports Interesting Engineering. The projects are supported by $8.17 million in grants from the Department of Energy's NEWTON (Nuclear Energy Waste Transmutation Optimi
  
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• NASA Eyes March 6 To Launch 4 Astronauts To the Moon On Artemis II Mission

  21-02-2026 04:30 via science.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: NASA could launch four astronauts on a mission to fly around the moon as soon as March 6th. That's the launch date (PDF) that the space agency is now working towards following a successful test fueling of its big, 322-foot-tall moon rocket, which is standing on a launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida."This is really getting real," says Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator of NASA's exploration systems development mission directorate
  
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• Fury Over Discord's Age Checks Explodes After Shady Persona Test In UK

  21-02-2026 03:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  Backlash intensified against Discord's age verification rollout after it briefly disclosed a UK age-verification test involving vendor Persona, contradicting earlier claims about minimal ID storage and transparency. Ars Technica explains: One of the major complaints was that Discord planned to collect more government IDs as part of its global age verification process. It shocked many that Discord would be so bold so soon after a third-party breach of a former age check partner's services recentl
  
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• Pinterest Is Drowning in a Sea of AI Slop and Auto-Moderation

  21-02-2026 02:25 via tech.slashdot.org
  Users say Pinterest has become flooded with AI-generated images and heavy-handed automated moderation, with artists reporting wrongful takedowns and their hand-drawn work mislabeled as "AI modified." As the company doubles down on AI features and layoffs, longtime users argue the platform's creative ecosystem is being undermined. 404 Media reports: "I feel like, increasingly, it's impossible to talk to a single human [at Pinterest]," artist and Pinterest user Tiana Oreglia told 404 Media. "Along
  
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• Meta's Metaverse Leaves Virtual Reality

  21-02-2026 01:45 via tech.slashdot.org
  Meta is pivoting Horizon Worlds away from its original VR-centric metaverse vision and toward a mobile-first strategy, "explicitly separating" its Quest VR platform from the virtual world. TechCrunch reports: By going mobile-first, Horizon Worlds is positioning itself to compete with popular platforms like Roblox and Fortnite. "We're in a strong position to deliver synchronous social games at scale, thanks to our unique ability to connect those games with billions of people on the world's bigges
  
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• Cyber Stocks Slide As Anthropic Unveils 'Claude Code Security'

  21-02-2026 01:02 via it.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Shares of cybersecurity software companies tumbled Friday after Anthropic PBC introduced a new security feature into its Claude AI model. Crowdstrike Holdings was the among the biggest decliners, falling as much as 6.5%, while Cloudflare slumped more than 6%. Meanwhile, Zscaler dropped 3.5%, SailPoint shed 6.8%, and Okta declined 5.7%. The Global X Cybersecurity ETF fell as much as 3.8%, extending its losses on the year to 14%.Anthropic said th
  
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• Goldman Sachs Launches AI-Free Index

  21-02-2026 00:20 via news.slashdot.org
  Goldman Sachs has launched an "S&P ex-AI" index (SPXXAI) that tracks the S&P 500 stocks not related to AI, offering investors a way to "hedge their exposure to the AI trade," reports Axios. From the report: "Excluding 'AI enablers' from the passive benchmark would eliminate the noise introduced by the AI hype," Louis Miller, head of the firm's equity custom basket desk, wrote in a note to clients about the new index.The ex-AI index is a compilation of all the stocks in the S&P 500 th
  
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• Wikipedia Blacklists Archive.today, Starts Removing 695,000 Archive Links

  20-02-2026 23:40 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The English-language edition of Wikipedia is blacklisting Archive.today after the controversial archive site was used to direct a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against a blog. In the course of discussing whether Archive.today should be deprecated because of the DDoS, Wikipedia editors discovered that the archive site altered snapshots of webpages to insert the name of the blogger who was targeted by the DDoS. The alterations we
  
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• Phil Spencer Retiring After 38 Years At Microsoft

  20-02-2026 23:00 via games.slashdot.org
  Xbox chief and Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer is leaving Microsoft after nearly 40 years at the company. "Meanwhile, Xbox President Sarah Bond, "long thought by many both inside and outside of Microsoft to be Spencer's heir apparent, has resigned," reports IGN. From the report: The new CEO of Microsoft Gaming will be Asha Sharma, currently the President of Microsoft's CoreAI product. Finally, Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty is being promoted to Chief Content Officer and will work closely wi
  
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• Microsoft Deletes Blog Telling Users To Train AI on Pirated Harry Potter Books

  20-02-2026 22:20 via it.slashdot.org
  Microsoft pulled a year-old blog post this week after a Hacker News thread flagged that it had encouraged developers to download all seven Harry Potter books from a Kaggle dataset -- incorrectly marked as public domain -- and use them to train AI models on the company's Azure platform.
  The blog, written in November 2024 by senior product manager Pooja Kamath, walked users through building Q&A systems and generating fan fiction using the copyrighted texts, and even included a Microsoft-brande
  
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• OpenAI Has No Moat, No Tech Edge, No Lock-in and No Real Plan, Analyst Warns

  20-02-2026 21:44 via slashdot.org
  OpenAI faces four fundamental strategic problems that no amount of fundraising or capex announcements can paper over, according to analyst Benedict Evans: it has no unique technology, its enormous user base is shallow and fragile, incumbents like Google and Meta are leveraging superior distribution to close the gap, and its product roadmap is dictated by whatever the research labs happen to discover rather than by deliberate product strategy.
  The company claims 800-900 million weekly active user
  
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• Several Meta Employees Have Started Calling Themselves 'AI Builders'

  20-02-2026 21:05 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Meta product managers are rebranding. Some are now calling themselves "AI builders," a signal that AI coding tools are changing who gets to build software inside the company. One of them, Jeremie Guedj, announced the change in a LinkedIn post last week. "I still can't believe I'm writing this: as of today, my full-time job at Meta is AI Builder," he wrote.
  Guedj has spent more than a decade as a traditional product manager, a role that sets the road map and s
  
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• AMC Theatres Will Refuse To Screen AI Short Film After Online Uproar

  20-02-2026 20:25 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: When will AI movies start showing up in theaters nationwide? It was supposed to be next month. But when word leaked online that an AI short film contest winner was going to start screening before feature presentations in AMC Theatres, the cinema chain decided not to run the content.
  The issue began earlier this week with the inaugural Frame Forward AI Animated Film Festival announcing Igor Alferov's short film Thanksgiving Day had won the contest. The prize p
  
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• How Streaming Became Cable TV's Unlikely Life Raft

  20-02-2026 19:45 via tech.slashdot.org
  Cable TV providers have spent the past decade losing tens of millions of households to streaming services, but companies like Charter Communications are now slowing that exodus by bundling the very apps that once threatened to replace them.
  Charter added 44,000 net video subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2025, its first growth in that count since 2020, after integrating Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ directly into Spectrum cable packages -- a deal that grew out of a contentious 2023 contract disput
  
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