ICT news

• Microsoft Tells Engineers 'Tokenmaxxing Is Not What We Are Optimizing For'

  04-08-2026 22:00 via slashdot.org
  Microsoft is introducing AI token budgets for employees, making the cheaper GPT-5.6 its default internal model and telling engineers to focus on business results rather than maximizing AI usage. 404 Media reports: "As we accelerate our use of GitHub Copilot to deliver on our goals, we all need to be aware of how we consume tokens," Jay Parikh, an executive vice president at Microsoft said in an email to Microsoft employees. GitHub is owned by Microsoft, and GitHub Copilot is an AI coding tool. "
  
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• Taxi Drivers Rarely Die of Alzheimer's

  11-08-2026 07:16 via science.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report from The Conversation, written by Hatim Sharif, a civil and environmental engineer who has "spent more than two decades staring at maps" and spatial data. Sharif finds one connection especially fascinating: the link between spatial reasoning and why taxi drivers seem to have lower rates of Alzheimer's. From the report: Taxi and ambulance drivers are less likely than workers in almost any other job to die of Alzheimer's disease. That was the surprising result o
  
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• Cyber Vulnerability Sweep Picks Up Royal Navy Drones Sending Data To China

  11-08-2026 01:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  A routine security assessment found that cameras aboard Royal Navy Kraken unmanned surface vessels were sending "heartbeat" signals to an IP address in China. "A thorough investigation found no evidence of MoD data or systems being accessed, compromised or transmitted externally," said a Ministry of Defense spokesperson. "Our assurance and testing processes are designed to identify and address potential vulnerabilities early, and we continue to undertake routine security activity across our syst
  
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• A Data Breach At Shipping Giant Ceva Logistics Is Rippling Across Banks, Retailers, Steam Gamers, and Beyond

  11-08-2026 00:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Ceva Logistics, one of the world's largest shipping and logistics giants, has been hacked. Several companies that rely on Ceva for shipping their products to their customers say that their personal information was also stolen in the breach. The cyberattack on Ceva is affecting at least eight warehouses across Europe used for shipping goods across the continent, the company told TechCrunch. Industry news site FreightWaves reports that the hack
  
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• Valve Slowly Expands SteamOS Support On Non-Valve Hardware

  10-08-2026 23:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Valve is continuing to broaden SteamOS support beyond its own hardware, with the latest beta adding "initial gamepad support" for a few recent gaming handhelds and improving compatibility for a few others. Ars Technica reports: Those newly supported handhelds include MSI's Claw 8 EX AI+, the extremely expensive, extremely powerful handheld built around Intel's Arc G3 processor that launched this summer. While SteamOS has long included beta support for "other AMD powered handhelds," Valve has onl
  
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• First Rival Android App Store Arrives In the US Play Store

  10-08-2026 22:01 via slashdot.org
  Aptoide has become the first third-party Android app store available directly through Google Play in the U.S. "The change is a direct result of Google's litigation with Epic, which saw a judge rule in 2024 that the Play Store would have to open up to third-party stores," notes The Verge. The change makes rival storefronts far easier to discover and install, potentially opening the door for Epic, Amazon, Samsung, Microsoft and others to distribute their own app stores through Google's store. From
  
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• Wall Street Giants Partner With Nvidia On $500 Billion AI Financing Deal

  10-08-2026 21:00 via news.slashdot.org
  Nvidia is working with Wall Street heavyweights on a potential $500 billion financing package for AI infrastructure (source paywalled; alternative source). The consortium includes BlackRock's Global Infrastructure Partners, Brookfield Asset Management, Goldman Sachs and KKR. The Financial Times reports: The partnership underscores Nvidia's growing efforts to raise capital for itself and its clients to continue assembling the chips, power production and data centres at the heart of the AI boom. T
  
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• Meta's 'Open' Muse Glimmer Model Can Run On a Single Computer

  10-08-2026 20:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  Meta has released Muse Glimmer, a slimmed-down open-weight AI model designed to run locally on a single GPU for agent tasks such as scheduling, file management, coding, and tool use. The release is based on Meta's closed Muse Spark 1.2 model and appears to be aimed at attracting developers who want capable AI agents without relying entirely on cloud-hosted services. Engadget reports: Facebook said that it's making the "weights" that AI systems use to choose responses available to everyone on Hug
  
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• Taiwan 'Throttles' Mobile Internet For First Time During Annual War Games

  10-08-2026 19:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  Taiwan deliberately throttled mobile internet across the Taichung area during its annual Han Kuang war games, "simulating communication disruption in the event of a Chinese attack or natural disaster," reports Reuters. The drill accompanied air-raid exercises and military rehearsals aimed at defending strategically important areas such as the Penghu Islands. From the report: Democratically governed Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, has long lived with the threat of a Chinese invas
  
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• AI Assistant Hacks Gym Website In First Known Australian Autonomous Cyber Attack

  10-08-2026 18:00 via it.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from ABC News & Headlines: Andrew asked his personal assistant to book him a spot in one of his gym's coveted morning classes. It was a task he thought was well suited to this particular assistant because the booking form was online and because his assistant was not a person -- it was artificial intelligence (AI). But Andrew was shocked by what happened next. His AI assistant found a way to book the gym class months further in advance than the gym allowed,
  
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• Paramount Promises 30 Film-A-Year Contracts After WBD Acquisition

  10-08-2026 17:00 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  Paramount is making commitments to major theater chains to release 30 films annually for three years if its Warner Bros. deal goes through. According to Deadline, the written commitment was sent to "at least one of the top two circuits" (specifically Regal but AMC may have also received a written commitment) and includes "an exclusive 45-day theatrical window and a 90-day window to streaming." From the report: When it comes to the big chains, it matters for them to be on the right side of histor
  
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• Toxic Underground Fires Are Spreading at California Landfills

  10-08-2026 13:34 via news.slashdot.org
  Three years ago environmental regulators discovered garbage burning deep inside California's Chiquita Canyon Landfill, reports the Los Angeles Times. [Alternate URL here.] "Few imagined the calamity that would follow.
  "Somehow the landfill's pollution control system introduced oxygen below, causing decades-old waste to rapidly decompose, generating intense heat and eventually widespread smoldering, federal and state environmental agencies say."
  The broiling temperatures released toxic gases and
  
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• How Accurate Are Flock's AI-Powered License-Reading Cameras?

  10-08-2026 09:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  Futurism reports:404 Media revealed that a July 10 audit by the Los Angeles Police Department Office of the Inspector General caught the department's ALPR cameras generating 161 false stolen-vehicle alerts in just two months — each one ending with officers pulling over an innocent driver. Factoring in 337 alerts which "resulted in the recovery of stolen vehicles," the LAPD's cameras carry an error rate of 32.3 percent, effectively giving officers a one-in-three chance at pulling an innocen
  
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• Microsoft Responds to Outcry After Quietly Installing Beta 'Photos' App on Enterprise Machines

  10-08-2026 06:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  Microsoft's cloud storage app OneDrive got a new Photos app in the worst possible way, reports the blog Neowin . "The app is reportedly showing up even on Windows 11 Enterprise machines, despite apparently being a beta application aimed at consumer functionality."One admin questioned why a beta app was appearing on an Enterprise SKU in the first place, while another described the situation as yet another consumer-oriented feature being forced onto corporate PCs. Things get even more frustrating
  
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• Privacy Backlash Explodes Against Meta's Smart Glasses

  10-08-2026 03:59 via yro.slashdot.org
  With nearly 70% of the market, "Meta wants its smart glasses to be a big hit," writes the Los Angeles Times. But after some users found ways to disable the light that warns people they're being filmed, "the high-tech specs have also turned into a liability, as some are calling the gadget 'pervert glasses...'"Some people are using the glasses — which look like a pair of regular spectacles — to record people without their knowledge and publish the videos on social media. The users secr
  
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• AI Reviews Bring 'New Normal' to Linux Release Candidates: Lots of Bug Fixes

  10-08-2026 02:59 via linux.slashdot.org
  Linux Torvalds expects Linux 7.2 should be released next weekend "unless something really bad
  pops up," Torvalds said while announcing today's release candidate.
  But there's something interesting about Linux 7.2-rc7, writes Phoronix. "By the time the Linux kernel typically hits a -rc7 release things have usually settled quite well. But in today's world of AI/LLM coding/review agents, the kernel activity continues at an all-time high."Tons of bug fixes continued to trickle in across the kernel sp
  
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• Flock Accused of Reactivating Its Cameras Without Notifying a Town

  10-08-2026 01:15 via yro.slashdot.org
  A Massachusetts newspaper reports that officials from the town of Littleton (population: 10,141) "claim that five of Littletonâ(TM)s Flock Safety cameras were switched back on by the company without informing the town..."Littleton had temporarily disabled the cameras earlier this year, according to the article, but upon discovering the cameras were still active, city officials say they directed the Town Counsel "to initiate cancellation of the contract with Flock Safety and directed the To
  
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• California City Declares State of Emergency After Cyberattack

  10-08-2026 00:15 via yro.slashdot.org
  NBC Bay Area brings news from the small idyllic California town of Suisun City (population: 29,518). The city council "declared a state of emergency Saturday after a cyberattack that shut down computer systems including 911 public safety operations.""Malicious software infected and compromised" the East Bay community's information technology systems beginning about 5:45 a.m. Friday, the city said on social media. "The cybersecurity incident hit critical public safety operations, including 911 ro
  
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• AI-Powered Browser Just Generates Every Website From Scratch

  09-08-2026 23:15 via idle.slashdot.org
  XDA Developers reports:
  On July 22, a Google DeepMind engineer, Vidy Thatte, shared a snippet of a browser he built that "treats every URL as a prompt and generates a site from scratch" on his X account. Just a few days later, he shared a TestFlight link to let iPhone users try it for themselves. The browser he launched is called Gem, and it's a browser that doesn't really...browse.
  Instead of fetching a webpage from a server the way Chrome or Safari would, Gem hands whatever URL you type over t
  
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• Ask Slashdot: What are the Costs of Switching Between Windows, MacOS, and Chrome?

  09-08-2026 22:15 via ask.slashdot.org
  UI changes, lost productivity, untransferrable knowledge... Long-time Slashdot reader theodp notes the folly of switching to an unfamiliar new environment to be "more productive"...
  Champions of the switch often insist workers will be able to hit the ground running and get the same or even more work done from the get-go in the new unfamiliar environment because it's 'more productive', a conclusion often shaped by conventional wisdom or their 'gut' feeling. Decision makers may also mistake their
  
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• Slashdot Reader Builds 'Spaced Linux', a New Devuan-Based, User-Friendly Desktop Distro

  09-08-2026 19:41 via linux.slashdot.org
  "I've been a Linux IT administrator for 30 years now," says crhylove (Slashdot reader #205,956), in a new video on his YouTube channel. "I used to be a data center architect, at one point I was the IT director for 13 school districts... I just haven't been happy overall with all the other operating systems out there... "I've been working really diligently for the last few weeks on a new distro called Spaced Linux that is exactly what I want to use. It's heavily focused on the [zoom-friendly 3D]
  
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• OpenAI Announces It's Enhancing Security Controls, Pausing Some Work for New AI Model Astra

  09-08-2026 18:41 via it.slashdot.org
  OpenAI announced Friday it's pausing work on its Astra AI model because of security concerns. The Guardian reports:
  The company had evaluated the agent, Astra, and found "significant advancements in agentic coding and cybersecurity", which had moved to a "critical" threshold... OpenAI stated that the model was not involved in an incident in which one of its AI agents went rogue during a test, accessed the open web and hacked a startup, Hugging Face... The reports have increased concerns about ad
  
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• Brain Activity Reveals the Melodies That People Imagine

  09-08-2026 17:34 via science.slashdot.org
  Researchers believe they've found evidence that brain signals reveal the pitches of notes in imagined musical melodies, reports Medical Express:
  Study participants were 10 epilepsy patients with electrodes on the surfaces of their brains for clinical monitoring. Participants quietly listened to the first bars of children's tunes, then imagined the melodies of subsequent bars before humming their imagined melodies. Brain activity from the patients carried information about relative pitches within
  
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• GNOME Receiving Additional Design Help From Germany's Sovereign Tech Agency Fellowship

  09-08-2026 16:34 via news.slashdot.org
  The new GNOME Boxes app for accessing virtual systems has reached beta, announced This Week in GNOME. There's also been more work on the Sushi file previewer for Nautilus, and Papers 51 Beta can now add visual signatures to PDF documents.
  But Phoronix noted one more announcement. "Germany's Sovereign Tech Agency announced earlier this year a new fellowship program and now as part of that, for the next two years GNOME has a fellow dedicated to working on design and community management... paid to
  
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• Flock Camera Vandalism Continues Around America, While 100 Communities Reject ALPRs

  09-08-2026 13:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  Dozens of Flock cameras have been vandalized around Dallas Texas in the last six months, reports a local news station. In Utah, ABC News reports, a county sheriff's office even said Wednesday a Flock camera was even vandalized within days of its being installed. And in the Minnesota city of Winona, "Every Flock license plate reader camera operated by the Winona Police Department has been sawed off and stolen in what investigators believe was a coordinated theft," according to local media:
  All ei
  
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• Quake Celebrates 30th Anniversary: New Official Episode With New Maps and Mechanics

  09-08-2026 11:52 via games.slashdot.org
  To celebrate Quake's 30th anniversary, Bethesda released "a brutal new episode" — a new campaign chapter titled Dawn of the Machine "delivering ferocious combat, labyrinthine level design, and nightmarish realms that twist reality beyond recognition..."
  Face deadly new twists on familiar foes, including the Rocket Ogre, Demo Dog, Blood Shambler, and more. Each variant introduces lethal new behaviours — from overwhelming firepower to explosive death traps — forcing you to rethin
  
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• RAMageddon? 2027 Memory Capacity Reportedly Sold Out

  09-08-2026 09:52 via hardware.slashdot.org
  IGN reports:
  [A] new report suggests that all three memory manufacturers — Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron — have collectively sold through their 2027 memory manufacturing capacity to, you guessed it, AI companies.
  According to a report from Digitimes and spotted by TweakTown, all DRAM and HBM capacity has been sold through for 2027, with no further supply planned. (The companies themselves have not yet confirmed this to be the case.) Of course, that only means that retail prices are g
  
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• Google Should Still Be Forced To Shed Chrome, Advocacy Group Argues

  09-08-2026 05:52 via tech.slashdot.org
  "Google should be required to divest the Chrome browser, and prohibited from paying Apple to distribute Google's search engine, the nonprofit advocacy group Public Knowledge argues in a new court filing," MediaPost reports, citing a friend-of-the-court brief filed Tuesday in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals:
  The group adds that "independent ownership" of Chrome "would open the distribution channel Google controls and allow Chrome to serve browser users when it makes privacy decisions and determ
  
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• Slashdot Reader Builds a Photo-Verification App for iPhones

  09-08-2026 01:57 via apple.slashdot.org
  Long-time Slashdot reader BrianFagioli is announcing that he's released a new iPhone app that creates a cryptographic witness for photos without uploading the original image.
  The app hashes the file, signs the hash using a dedicated identity stored in Apple Keychain, and publishes the witness to Nostr relays while keeping the photo inside the app unless the user chooses to export it.
  Rather than trying to determine whether a scene was genuine, the app — named Veridenz — answers a nar
  
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• Slashdot Reader Builds a Free Photo-Verification App for iPhones

  09-08-2026 01:57 via apple.slashdot.org
  Long-time Slashdot reader BrianFagioli is announcing that he's released a new iPhone app that creates a cryptographic witness for photos without uploading the original image.
  The app hashes the file, signs the hash using a dedicated identity stored in Apple Keychain, and publishes the witness to Nostr relays while keeping the photo inside the app unless the user chooses to export it.
  Rather than trying to determine whether a scene was genuine, the app — named Veridenz — answers a nar
  
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