ICT news

• Microsoft Is Offering Rewards Points for Using Edge Instead of Google Chrome

  12-11-2025 21:05 via it.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft employs various schemes to stop Edge users from switching to Chrome, and the latest includes financial rewards for sticking with the browser. As spotted by Windows Latest, select users who search on Bing within Microsoft Edge for a link to download Google Chrome are now shown an offer to stay with the browser. It gives users 1,300 Microsoft Rewards points, which can be redeemed for gift cards (examples include Amazon, Roblox, and Spotify) or donated
  
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• Australian Eateries Turn To Automatic Tipping as Cost of Doing Business Climbs

  22-12-2025 21:05 via slashdot.org
  Australian restaurants facing a mounting cost-of-doing-business crisis are turning to automatic service charges as a way to shore up revenue. The practice is legal under Australian consumer law as long as customers are notified beforehand and can opt out, but it risks alienating diners in a country where tipping has traditionally been optional.
  Wes Lambert, chief executive of the Australian Cafe and Restaurant Association, said only a handful of businesses in central business districts currently
  
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• Why Some Avatar: Fire and Ash Scenes Look So Smooth, and Others Don't

  22-12-2025 20:27 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  If you watched Avatar: Fire and Ash in James Cameron's preferred high frame rate 3D format and noticed certain sequences appearing unusually smooth while others had the traditional cinematic look, that visual inconsistency is entirely intentional. The third Avatar film continues Cameron's frame rate experimentation from The Way of Water, selectively deploying 48 frames per second for underwater and flying sequences while keeping dialogue scenes at the standard 24 FPS.
  The human eye perceives som
  
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• What the Linux Desktop Really Needs To Challenge Windows

  22-12-2025 19:41 via linux.slashdot.org
  Linux's share of the desktop market has climbed to as much as 11% by one count, but that figure includes Chromebooks, and the traditional Linux desktop remains hamstrung by the same fragmentation that killed Unix decades ago. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, writing in The Register, argues that the proliferation of Linux desktops -- more than a dozen significant interfaces exist today, and DistroWatch lists "upwards of a hundred" -- makes it nearly impossible for ordinary users to know where to start.
  
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• Instacart Kills AI Pricing Tests That Charged Some Customers More Than Others

  22-12-2025 19:02 via slashdot.org
  Instacart has ended its AI-powered pricing tests after a study from Groundwork Collaborative, Consumer Reports and More Perfect Union revealed that the grocery delivery platform was showing different customers different prices for identical items at the same store. The company said Monday that retailers can no longer use Eversight, the AI pricing technology Instacart acquired in 2022, to run such tests.
  "Now, if two families are shopping for the same items, at the same time, from the same store
  
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• Visa Says AI Will Start Shopping and Paying For You In 2026

  22-12-2025 18:21 via slashdot.org
  BrianFagioli writes: Visa says it has completed hundreds of secure, AI-initiated transactions with partners, arguing this proves agent driven shopping is ready to move beyond experiments. The company believes 2025 will be the last full year most consumers manually check out, with AI agents handling purchases at scale by the 2026 holiday season. Nearly half of US shoppers already use AI tools for product discovery, and Visa wants to extend that shift all the way through payment using its Intellig
  
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• State of Play: Who Holds the Power in the Video Games Industry in 2025?

  22-12-2025 17:41 via games.slashdot.org
  The video games industry in 2025 finds itself caught between the familiar forces of consolidation and job losses that have plagued creative industries, and a newer development: governments and the ultra-wealthy have begun treating games as tools of political influence. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund closed a $55 billion deal for EA this year and acquired Niantic, the makers of Pokemon Go, in March.
  Microsoft's 2023 acquisition of Activision already signaled the direction of travel. The wo
  
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• Samsung Is Putting Google Gemini AI Into Your Refrigerator, Whether You Need It or Not

  22-12-2025 17:00 via slashdot.org
  BrianFagioli writes: Samsung is bringing Google Gemini directly into the kitchen, starting with a refrigerator that can see what you eat. At CES 2026, the company plans to show off a new Bespoke AI Refrigerator that uses a built in camera system paired with Gemini to automatically recognize food items, including leftovers stored in unlabeled containers. The idea is to keep an always up to date inventory without manual input, track what is added or removed, and surface suggestions based on what i
  
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• Welcome To America's New Surveillance High Schools

  22-12-2025 16:21 via news.slashdot.org
  Beverly Hills High School has deployed an AI-powered surveillance apparatus that includes facial recognition cameras, behavioral analysis software, smoke detector-shaped bathroom listening devices from Motorola, drones, and license plate readers from Flock Safety -- a setup the district spent $4.8 million on in the 2024-2025 fiscal year and considers necessary given the school's high-profile location in Los Angeles.
  Similar systems are spreading to campuses nationwide as schools try to stop mass
  
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• iRobot Founder Says FTC Treated Blocked Deals 'Like Trophies' as Bankruptcy Follows Failed Amazon Acquisition

  22-12-2025 15:40 via slashdot.org
  Colin Angle, the founder of iRobot who built the company from his living room over 35 years and sold more than 50 million Roomba vacuums, watched his creation file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this month after what he describes as an "avoidable" regulatory ordeal that killed Amazon's $1.7 billion acquisition bid. In an interview with TechCrunch, Angle recounted the 18-month investigation by the FTC and European regulators that preceded Amazon's January 2024 decision to abandon the deal. The
  
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• Spotify Says 'Anti-Copyright Extremists' Scraped Its Library

  22-12-2025 15:00 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  A group of activists has scraped Spotify's entire library, accessing 256 million rows of track metadata and 86 million audio files totaling roughly 300TB of data. The metadata has been released via Anna's Archive, a search engine for "shadow libraries" that previously focused on books.
  Spotify described the activists as "anti-copyright extremists who've previously pirated content from YouTube and other platforms" and confirmed it is actively investigating the incident. The activists claim this r
  
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• Is Xbox Betting on Cross-Platform Gaming?

  22-12-2025 13:34 via games.slashdot.org
  A "slew of layoffs, price hikes and studio closures" for Microsoft's Xbox "have led many to declare — not for the first time — that the Xbox is dead," reports CNBC.
  Or is it just changing its business model?The company's overall gaming revenue decreased 2% year-over-year, with a 29% dip in Xbox hardware sales, according to Microsoft's first-quarter earnings for fiscal 2026. The broader console industry has been in a major slump, with hardware spending down 27% year-over-year in Novem
  
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• Apple Developer's Account Restored After Compromised Gift Card Incident

  22-12-2025 11:34 via apple.slashdot.org
  "It's all fixed," says that Apple developer who was locked out of his Apple Account after redeeming a compromised Apple Gift Card.
  "A lovely man from Singapore, working for Apple Executive Relations, who has been calling me every so often for a couple of days, has let me know it's all fixed. It looks like the gift card I tried to redeem, which did not work for me, and did not credit my account, was already redeemed in some way (sounds like classic gift card tampering), and my account was caught
  
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• In 2025 Scammers Have Stolen $835M from Americans Using Fake Customer Service Numbers

  22-12-2025 07:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  They call it "the business-impersonator scam". And it's fooled 396,227 Americans in just the first nine months of 2025 — 18% more than the 335,785 in the same nine months of 2024. That's according to a Bloomberg reporter (who also fell for it in late November), citing the official statistics from America's Federal Trade Commission:Some pose as airline staff on social media and respond to consumer complaints. Others use texts or e-mails claiming to be an airline reporting a delayed or cance
  
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• The U.S. Could Ban Chinese-Made Drones Used By Police Departments

  22-12-2025 05:05 via news.slashdot.org
  Tuesday the White House faces a deadline to decide "whether Chinese drone maker DJI Technologies poses a national security threat," reports Bloomberg. But their article notes it's "a decision with the potential to ground thousands of machines deployed by police and fire departments across the US."One person making the case against the drones is Mike Nathe, a North Dakota Republican state representative described by the Post as "at the forefront of a nationwide campaign sounding alarms about the
  
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• Google Launches CO2 Battery Plants for Long-Duration Storage of Renewable Energy

  22-12-2025 02:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  In July Google promised to scale the CO2 batteries of "Energy Dome" as a long-duration energy storage solution. Now IEEE Spectrum visits its first plant in Sardinia, where 2,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide power a turbine generating 20 MW over 10 hours — storing "large amounts of excess renewable energy until it's needed..."
  "Google likes the concept so much that it plans to rapidly deploy the facilities in all of its key data-center locations in Europe, the United States, and the Asia-Pacifi
  
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• Are 'Geek Gifts' Becoming Their Own Demographic?

  21-12-2025 23:34 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland wonders if "gifts for geeks" is the next big consumer demographic:
  For this year's holiday celebrations, Hallmark made a special Christmas tree ornament, a tiny monitor displaying screens from the classic video game "Oregon Trail." ("Recall the fun of leading a team of oxen and a wagon loaded with provisions from Missouri to the West....") Top sites and major brands are now targeting the "tech" demographic — including programmers, sysadmins and even vi
  
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• 'Confused' Waymos Stopped in Intersections During San Francisco Power Outage

  21-12-2025 22:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  "On Saturday, videos shared widely on social media showed Waymo vehicles stopped mid-intersection with hazard lights flashing, forcing other cars to maneuver around them," reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
  The Independent notes that "Without working traffic lights, the driverless cars were seemingly left confused, with many halting in their tracks and causing major traffic jams. Local riders and pedestrians shared photos and videos of the vehicles stuck at intersections with long lines of dri
  
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• Indie Game Awards Disqualifies 'Clair Obscur' Over GenAI Usage

  21-12-2025 21:34 via games.slashdot.org
  "Perhaps no group of fans, industry workers, and consumers is more intense about AI use than gamers...." writes New York magazine's "Intelligencer" column:Just this month, the latest Postal game was axed by its publisher, which was "overwhelmed with negative responses"
  from the "concerned Postal community" after fans spotted
  AI-generated material in the game's trailer. The developers of Arc
  Raiders were accused
  of using AI instead of voice actors, leading to calls for boycotts,
  while the develop
  
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• Do Gamers Hate AI? Indie Game Awards Disqualifies 'Clair Obscur' Over GenAI Usage

  21-12-2025 21:34 via games.slashdot.org
  "Perhaps no group of fans, industry workers, and consumers is more intense about AI use than gamers...." writes New York magazine's "Intelligencer" column:Just this month, the latest Postal game was axed by its publisher, which was "overwhelmed with negative responses"
  from the "concerned Postal community" after fans spotted
  AI-generated material in the game's trailer. The developers of Arc
  Raiders were accused
  of using AI instead of voice actors, leading to calls for boycotts,
  while the develop
  
  Read more

• Package Forge: The Lesser Known Snap/Flatpak Alternative Without Distro Lock-In

  21-12-2025 20:34 via linux.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shared this report from the site It's FOSS:Linux gives you plenty of ways to install software: native distro packages, Flatpak, Snap, AppImage, source builds, even curl-piped installers. The catch is that each one solves a different problem, yet none of them fully eliminates the "works here, breaks there" reality across all distros. Package Forge (PkgForge) is a new project with a narrower mission: deliver truly distro-independent portable applications that run the same way a
  
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• Inaugural 'Hour of AI' Event Includes Minecraft, Microsoft, Google and 13.1 Million K-12 Schoolkids

  21-12-2025 19:34 via news.slashdot.org
  Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: Last September, tech-backed nonprofit Code.org pledged to engage 25 million K-12 schoolchildren in an "Hour of AI" this school year. Preliminary numbers released this week by the Code.org Advocacy Coalition showed that [halfway through the five-day event Computer Science Education Week] 13.1 million users had participated in the inaugural Hour of AI, attaining 52.4% of its goal of 25 million participants.In a pivot from coding to AI literacy, the Hour of
  
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• Will Work Change Over the Next 20 Years?

  21-12-2025 18:34 via it.slashdot.org
  What is the future of work? The Wall Street Journal asked five workplace experts and practitioners.
  So while AI "is already doing tasks once relegated to newly minted college graduates in many professions," the Journal predicts that in the next 20 years AI "will have an impact on the role of managers, how organizations measure business outcomes and accelerate tasks that once took months."
  A senior partner at the consulting firm Mercer predicts AI (plus advances in quantum computing) will enable
  
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• FSF Says Nintendo's New DRM Allows Them to Remotely Render User's Device 'Permanently Unusuable'

  21-12-2025 17:34 via games.slashdot.org
  "In the lead up to its Switch 2 console release, Nintendo updated its user agreement," writes the Free Software Foundation, warning that Nintendo now claims "broad authority to make consoles owned by its customers permanently unusable.""Under Nintendo's most aggressive digital restrictions management (DRM) update to date, game console owners are now required to give Nintendo the unilateral right to revoke access to games, security updates, and the Internet, at its sole discretion."
  The new agree
  
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• FSF Says Nintendo's New DRM Allows Them to Remotely Render User Devices 'Permanently Unusable'

  21-12-2025 17:34 via games.slashdot.org
  "In the lead up to its Switch 2 console release, Nintendo updated its user agreement," writes the Free Software Foundation, warning that Nintendo now claims "broad authority to make consoles owned by its customers permanently unusable.""Under Nintendo's most aggressive digital restrictions management (DRM) update to date, game console owners are now required to give Nintendo the unilateral right to revoke access to games, security updates, and the Internet, at its sole discretion."
  The new agree
  
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• Trump Admin to Hire 1,000 for New 'Tech Force' to Build AI Infrastructure

  21-12-2025 16:34 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shared this report from CNBC:
  The Trump administration on Monday unveiled a new initiative dubbed the "U.S. Tech Force," comprising about 1,000 engineers and other specialists who will work on artificial intelligence infrastructure and other technology projects throughout the federal government.Participants will commit to a two-year employment program working with teams that report directly to agency leaders in "collaboration with leading technology companies," according to a
  
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• While Releasing 'Avatar 3', James Cameron Questions the Future of Movies

  21-12-2025 13:34 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  "If I get to do another Avatar film, it'll be because the business model still works," James Cameron tells CNN in a video interview — adding "That I can't guarantee, as I sit here today. That'll play out over the next month, really." He says theatre is a "sacred space," and while it will never go away, "I think that it could fall below a threshhold where the kinds of movies that I like to make and that I like to see... won't be sustainable, they won't be economically viable. And that can h
  
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• Is America's Tech Industry Already Facing a Recession?

  21-12-2025 09:34 via it.slashdot.org
  America's unemployment rate for tech jobs rose to 4% in November, and "has been steadily rising since May," reports the Washington Post (citing data from the IT training/certifications company CompTIA).Between October and November, the number of technology workers across different industries fell 134,000, while the number of people working in the tech industry declined by more than 6,800. Tech job postings were also down by more than 31,800, the report found, citing data from the Bureau of Labor
  
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• Rust's 'Vision Doc' Makes Recommendations to Help Keep Rust Growing

  21-12-2025 06:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  The team authoring the Rust 2025 Vision Doc interviewed Rust developers to find out what they liked about the language — and have now issued three recommendations "to help Rust continue to scale across domains and usage levels."— Enumerate and describe Rust's design goals and integrate them into our processes, helping to ensure they are observed by future language designers and the broader ecosystem.— Double down on extensibility, introducing the ability for crates to influence
  
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• Bell Labs 'Unix' Tape from 1974 Successfully Dumped to a Tarball

  21-12-2025 03:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  Archive.org now has a page with "the raw analog waveform and the reconstructed digital tape image (analog.tap), read at the Computer History Museum's Shustek Research Archives on 19 December 2025 by Al Kossow using a modified tape reader and analyzed with Len Shustek's readtape tool." A Berlin-based retrocomputing enthusiast has created a page with the contents of the tape ready for bootstrapping, "including a tar file of the filesystem," and instructions on dumping an RK05 disk image from tape
  
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