ICT news

• Microsoft To Replace All C/C++ Code With Rust By 2030

  23-12-2025 02:03 via developers.slashdot.org
  Microsoft plans to eliminate all C and C++ code across its major codebases by 2030, replacing it with Rust using AI-assisted, large-scale refactoring. "My goal is to eliminate every line of C and C++ from Microsoft by 2030," Microsoft Distinguished Engineer Galen Hunt writes in a post on LinkedIn. "Our strategy is to combine AI and Algorithms to rewrite Microsoft's largest codebases. Our North Star is '1 engineer, 1 month, 1 million lines of code.' To accomplish this previously unimaginable task
  
  Read more

• 2015 Radio Interview Frames AI As 'High-Level Algebra'

  24-12-2025 11:00 via science.slashdot.org
  Longtime Slashdot reader MrFreak shares a public radio interview from 2015 discussing artificial intelligence as inference over abstract inputs, along with scaling limits, automation, and governance models, where for-profit engines are constrained by nonprofit oversight: Recorded months before OpenAI was founded, the conversation treats intelligence as math plus incentives rather than something mystical, touching on architectural bottlenecks, why "reasoning" may not simply emerge from brute forc
  
  Read more

• What Might Adding Emojis and Pictures To Text Programming Languages Look Like?

  24-12-2025 08:00 via developers.slashdot.org
  theodp writes: We all mix pictures, emojis, and text freely in our communications. So why not in our code? That's the premise of "Fun With Python and Emoji: What Might Adding Pictures to Text Programming Languages Look Like?" (two-image Bluesky explainer; full slides), which takes a look at what mixing emoji with Python and SQL might look like. A GitHub repo includes a Google Colab-ready Python notebook proof of concept that does rudimentary emoji-to-text translation via an IPython input transfo
  
  Read more

• Inside Uzbekistan's Nationwide License Plate Surveillance System

  24-12-2025 04:30 via yro.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Across Uzbekistan, a network of about a hundred banks of high-resolution roadside cameras continuously scan vehicles' license plates and their occupants, sometimes thousands a day, looking for potential traffic violations. Cars running red lights, drivers not wearing their seatbelts, and unlicensed vehicles driving at night, to name a few. The driver of one of the most surveilled vehicles in the system was tracked over six months as he travele
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• iOS 26.3 Brings AirPods-Like Pairing To Third-Party Devices In EU Under DMA

  24-12-2025 03:10 via devices.slashdot.org
  Under pressure from the Digital Markets Act, Apple's iOS 26.3 adds AirPods-style proximity pairing and notification support for third-party accessories in the EU. The changes will roll out to European users in 2026. MacRumors reports: The Digital Markets Act requires Apple to provide third-party accessories with the same capabilities and access to device features that Apple's own products get. In iOS 26.3, EU wearable device makers can now test proximity pairing and improved notifications.Here a
  
  Read more

• John Carreyou and Other Authors Bring New Lawsuit Against Six Major AI Companies

  24-12-2025 02:30 via yro.slashdot.org
  A group of authors led by John Carreyrou has filed a new lawsuit against Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, Meta, xAI, and Perplexity, accusing the AI firms of training models on pirated copies of their books. TechCrunch reports: If this sounds familiar, it's because another set of authors already filed a class action suit against Anthropic for these same acts of copyright infringement. In that case, the judge ruled that it was legal for Anthropic and similar AI companies to train on pirated copies of b
  
  Read more

• Meta Is Using The Linux Scheduler Designed For Valve's Steam Deck On Its Servers

  24-12-2025 01:50 via linux.slashdot.org
  Phoronix's Michael Larabel writes: An interesting anecdote from this month's Linux Plumbers Conference in Tokyo is that Meta (Facebook) is using the Linux scheduler originally designed for the needs of Valve's Steam Deck... On Meta Servers. Meta has found that the scheduler can actually adapt and work very well on the hyperscaler's large servers. [...]The presentation at LPC 2025 by Meta engineers was in fact titled "How do we make a Steam Deck scheduler work on large servers." At Meta they have
  
  Read more

• ServiceNow To Buy Armis For $7.75 Billion As It Bets Big On Cybersecurity For AI

  24-12-2025 01:10 via slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from MarketWatch: ServiceNow announced a deal to acquire cybersecurity company Armis on Tuesday, marking a new milestone in the software giant's artificial-intelligence business strategy. The $7.75 billion all-cash transaction is part of ServiceNow's goal of advancing governance and trust in autonomous AI agents, and the company's largest transaction to date. "The acquisition of Armis will extend and enhance ServiceNow's Security, Risk, and [Operational Techno
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Ireland's Diarmuid Early Wins World Microsoft Excel Title

  24-12-2025 00:30 via tech.slashdot.org
  Irish competitor Diarmuid Early, dubbed the "Lebron James of Excel spreadsheets," has won the 2025 Microsoft Excel World Championship in Las Vegas, dethroning three-time champion Andrew Ngai. The BBC reports: The esport showpiece in December attracted competitors worldwide as 256 spreadsheet heads battled it out across knockout rounds to join the final 24 in Vegas. [...] A three-time champion in the financial Excel tournaments, this win was Diarmuid's first in the overall competition. He held th
  
  Read more

• Judge Blocks Texas App Store Age Verification Law

  23-12-2025 23:50 via yro.slashdot.org
  A federal judge blocked Texas' app store age-verification law, ruling it likely violates the First Amendment by forcing platforms to gate speech and collect data in an overly broad way. The law was set to go into effect on January 1, 2026. The Verge reports: In an order granting a preliminary injunction on the Texas App Store Accountability Act (SB 2420), Judge Robert Pitman wrote that the statute "is akin to a law that would require every bookstore to verify the age of every customer at the doo
  
  Read more

• LimeWire Re-Emerges In Online Rush To Share Pulled '60 Minutes' Segment

  23-12-2025 23:10 via yro.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: CBS cannot contain the online spread of a "60 Minutes" segment that its editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, tried to block from airing. The episode, "Inside CECOT," featured testimonies from US deportees who were tortured or suffered physical or sexual abuse at a notorious Salvadoran prison, the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism. "Welcome to hell," one former inmate was told upon arriving, the segment reported, while also highlighting a clip
  
  Read more

• 'Fragmented' Microsoft Tools Undercut Efficiency at Amazon and Whole Foods, Internal Deloitte Review Finds

  23-12-2025 22:30 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: It's been more than eight years since Amazon bought Whole Foods, but the two companies still haven't aligned their setup for the Microsoft software their employees use. That disconnect was flagged in an 8-week Deloitte review of Whole Foods' use of Microsoft 365 apps earlier this year, according to an internal document obtained by Business Insider. Deloitte found that Whole Foods relies on "fragmented" Microsoft toolsets, has loose security and data-retention
  
  Read more

• Is the Dictionary Done For?

  23-12-2025 21:51 via news.slashdot.org
  In the late 1980s, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary sat on the New York Times best-seller list for 155 consecutive weeks and eventually sold 57 million copies, a figure believed to be second only to the Bible in the United States -- but those days are thoroughly gone. Stefan Fatsis's new book "Unabridged: The Thrill of (and Threat to) the Modern Dictionary" chronicles what Louis Menand describes in The New Yorker as "a losing struggle" for legacy dictionaries to survive in the internet ag
  
  Read more

• Europe's Public Institutions Are Quietly Ditching US Cloud Providers

  23-12-2025 21:10 via tech.slashdot.org
  European public institutions are quietly migrating away from American cloud providers and office software, driven less by policy ambitions in Brussels than by the mundane legal reality that GDPR-mandated risk assessments keep flagging the US CLOUD Act as an unacceptable threat to citizen data.
  Austria's Federal Ministry for Economy, Energy and Tourism moved 1,200 employees to the open-source platform Nextcloud in four months. Germany's Schleswig-Holstein has already transitioned 24,000 of its 30
  
  Read more

• Samsung's 2026 Gaming Monitors Promise 6K, 3D, and Up To 1,040Hz

  23-12-2025 20:44 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Samsung is breaking new ground with its 2026 lineup of gaming monitors, with the Odyssey 3D G90XH becoming the first to feature a 6K display with "glasses-free 3D." The new monitor comes with a 32-inch IPS panel, offering real-time eye-tracking that "adjusts depth and perspective" based on your position, along with a speedy 165Hz refresh rate that you can boost to 330Hz with a Dual Mode feature that switches to 3K.
  [...] A 6K 3D display isn't the only notable
  
  Read more

• Remote Work is Officially Dead, Says the World's Largest Recruiter

  23-12-2025 19:50 via slashdot.org
  The great return-to-office battle has effectively concluded and a clear pecking order has emerged, according to Sander van 't Noordende, the CEO of Randstad, a staffing giant that places around half a million workers in jobs every week. Remote work is becoming a status symbol reserved for star performers and those possessing rare skills. "You have to be very special to be able to demand a 100% remote job," van 't Noordende told Fortune. "That's increasingly the story. You have to have very speci
  
  Read more

• Australia Poised for Desalination Boom as Water Shortages Loom

  23-12-2025 19:16 via slashdot.org
  Australia is on track for a significant expansion of desalination capacity -- converting seawater to freshwater -- to meet the needs of a swelling population at a time of declining average rainfall. From a report: The world's driest inhabited continent is projected to build or expand 11 desalination plants worth more than A$23 billion ($15 billion) over the next 10 years, according to a research report by Dominic McNally at Oxford Economics.
  "Our population growth forecasts imply an additional 1
  
  Read more

• 5K Gaming Is Too Hard, Even for an RTX 5090D

  23-12-2025 18:28 via games.slashdot.org
  Asus has been showcasing its new 5K 27-inch ROG Strix 27 Pro gaming monitor running at 5,120 x 2,880 resolution and up to 180Hz, but even Nvidia's flagship RTX 5090 struggles to deliver smooth frame rates at this demanding pixel count. In testing conducted by Asus, the RTX 5090D -- a Chinese-exclusive variant with weaker AI performance -- achieved just 51 frames per second in a Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark at ultra ray traced settings. The test system ran an AMD Ryzen 9950X3D processor, had DLSS set
  
  Read more

• Ryanair Fined $301M Over 'Abusive Strategy' To Limit Ticket Sales By Online Travel Agencies

  23-12-2025 17:41 via slashdot.org
  Speaking of Italy's competition authority , it has fined Ryanair $301 million for abusing its dominant market position to limit sales of tickets by online travel agents. The Guardian: The authority said Europe's largest airline had "implemented an abusive strategy to hinder travel agencies" via an "elaborate strategy" of technical obstacles for agents and passengers to make it difficult for online travel agents to sell Ryanair tickets and instead force sales through its own website.
  The fine rel
  
  Read more

• Apple and Google Asking Some Employees With H-1B Visas To Avoid International Travel

  23-12-2025 17:01 via apple.slashdot.org
  Tech giants Google and Apple are asking some employees with H-1B visas to reconsider international travel, as their legal teams warned that visa processing delays could keep employees abroad for months, according to Business Insider. From a report: Law firms representing the tech giants sent memos advising staff who require visa stamps for reentry to stay in the U.S., warning that international travel could entangle them in visa screening delays following the introduction of a new social media s
  
  Read more

• Apple Fined $116 Million Over App Privacy Prompts

  23-12-2025 16:22 via apple.slashdot.org
  Apple has been fined $116 million by Italy's antitrust regulator over the "excessively burdensome" privacy rules it imposes on third-party apps. From a report: The Italian Competition Authority (AGCM) says that Apple abused its dominant app store market position by burdening developers with "disproportionate" terms around data collection that exceed privacy law requirements, compared to rules for native iOS apps.
  The fine specifically targets the App Tracking Transparency (ATT) policy Apple laun
  
  Read more

• US To Impose Tariffs on Chips From China

  23-12-2025 15:40 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: The United States will take action against China's semiconductor industry, setting new tariffs on chips from China from June 23, 2027, that have 0% duties currently, the US Trade Representative said.
  The announcement comes following a year-long investigation into China's chip imports into the United States, launched by the Biden administration and led by the U.S. Trade Representative. "China's targeting of the semiconductor industry for dominance is unreasona
  
  Read more

• China Bans E-commerce Platforms From Forcing Lowest Prices or Abusing Algorithms

  23-12-2025 15:01 via slashdot.org
  China has unveiled new rules to rein in aggressive pricing tactics by online platforms, prohibiting e-commerce operators from forcing merchants to offer discounts or setting different prices based on user demographics without consent. The 29-article regulation -- jointly issued over the weekend by the National Development and Reform Commission, State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), and Cyberspace Administration of China -- lays out detailed compliance requirements that target severa
  
  Read more

• Uber, Lyft Set To Trial Robotaxis In the UK In Partnership With China's Baidu

  23-12-2025 14:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  Uber and Lyft plan to trial robotaxis in London starting in 2026 using autonomous vehicles from Baidu, as the UK fast-tracks approvals for self-driving cars on public roads. CNBC reports: Lyft's testing of Baidu's initial fleet of dozens of vehicles will begin in 2026, pending regulatory approval, "with plans to scale to hundreds from there," Lyft CEO David Risher said in a post on social media platform X on Monday. Meanwhile, Uber said that its first pilot is expected to start in the first half
  
  Read more

• Safety Panel Says NASA Should Have Taken Starliner Incident More Seriously

  23-12-2025 11:00 via science.slashdot.org
  joshuark shares a report from Ars Technica: For the better part of two months last year, most of us had no idea how serious the problems were with Boeing's Starliner spacecraft docked at the International Space Station. A safety advisory panel found this uncertainty also filtered through NASA's workforce. [...] The Starliner capsule was beset by problems with its maneuvering thrusters and pernicious helium leaks on its 27-hour trip from the launch pad to the ISS. For a short time, Starliner comm
  
  Read more

• How a Power Outage In Colorado Caused US Official Time To Be 4.8 Microseconds

  23-12-2025 08:00 via science.slashdot.org
  Tony Isaac shares a report from NPR: The U.S. government calculates the country's official time using more than a dozen atomic clocks at a federal facility northwest of Denver. But when a destructive windstorm knocked out power to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) laboratory in Boulder on Wednesday and a backup generator subsequently failed, time ever so slightly slowed down. The lapse "resulted in NIST UTC [universal coordinated time] being 4.8 microseconds slower than i
  
  Read more

• Garmin Emergency Autoland Has First Save

  23-12-2025 04:30 via tech.slashdot.org
  "Garmin's Collier Trophy award-winning Autonomi emergency Autoland, a system designed to safely land an aircraft in the event of pilot incapacitation, made its first real-world use and save on Saturday," writes Slashdot reader slipped_bit. AvBrief.com reports: Social media posts from flight tracking hobbyists reported a King Air 200 squawked 7700 about 2 p.m. local time today. The Autoland system was initiated and landed the aircraft at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport near Denver. A recordin
  
  Read more

• FCC Bans Foreign-Made Drones Over National Security, Spying Concerns

  23-12-2025 02:40 via news.slashdot.org
  The FCC has banned approval of new foreign-made drones and components, citing "an unacceptable risk" to national security. The move will most heavily impact DJI but it "does not affect drones or drone components that are currently sold in the United States." Reuters reports: The tech was placed on the commission's "Covered List," barring DJI and other foreign drone manufacturers from receiving the FCC's approval to sell new drone models for import or sale in the U.S. In Monday's announcement, th
  
  Read more

• Alphabet Acquires Data Center and Energy Infrastructure Company Intersect For $4.75 Billion

  23-12-2025 01:20 via news.slashdot.org
  Alphabet is acquiring Intersect for $4.75 billion to accelerate data center and power-generation capacity as AI infrastructure demand surges. CNBC reports: Alphabet said Intersect's operations will remain independent, but that the acquisition will help bring more data center and generation capacity online faster. "Intersect will help us expand capacity, operate more nimbly in building new power generation in lockstep with new data center load, and reimagine energy solutions to drive U.S. innovat
  
  Read more

• Cyberattack Disrupts France's Postal Service, Banking During Christmas Rush

  23-12-2025 00:40 via it.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: With just three days to go before Christmas, a cyberattack knocked France's national postal service offline Monday, blocking and delaying package deliveries and online payments. The timing was miserable for millions of people at the height of the Christmas season, as frazzled postal workers fended off frustrated customers. No one immediately claimed responsibility, but suspicions abounded.What the postal service La Poste called a ''m
  
  Read more

Follow @newslocke_ict on Twitter!