ICT news

• Munich Students Smashed the World Record For EV Distance On a Single Charge

  17-09-2023 05:44 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  At 103 miles/kWh (or 0.6 kWh/100 km), the new "muc22" car built by students from the Technical University of Munich "is 25 times more efficient than any EV on sale..." writes Ars Technica. "For those who think in terms of miles per gallon, it's the equivalent of traveling 3,815 miles on a single gallon of gas.
  The car has a top speed of just 26 mph (42 km/h) — and without a driver it weighs just 374 lbs (170 kg):In a six-day test at Munich airport, it set a new distance record on a single
  
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• Big Companies That Invest Heavily in AI Also Hire More People, Report Suggests

  05-07-2026 23:55 via it.slashdot.org
  "Companies spending heavily on AI are growing headcount faster, even in the entry-level roles that many fear are doomed," writes TechCrunch. That's the conclusion of new report tracking AI spending from Ramp's corporate card/bill pay data as well as Revelio Labs' workforce records from 21,599 U.S. firms:
  According to the report, "high-intensity adopters" — firms that spend on average $30 per employee per month on AI in the first three months — saw headcount increase 10.2%. Headcount
  
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• Microsoft and Amazon Commit Billions to New AI Implementation Units for Businesses

  05-07-2026 22:54 via slashdot.org
  Microsoft is investing $2.5 billion in a new group "assisting clients with AI implementations," reports CNBC:[Microsoft] said Thursday that 6,000 employees will be embedded with clients, in a practice that's become known as forward deployed engineering [or FDE]... The announcement comes two days after cloud rival Amazon said it was putting $1 billion behind an FDE initiative to support fast-paced AI engagements. Leading AI labs Anthropic and OpenAI both established FDE groups in May, partnering
  
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• Ask Slashdot: Which Apps Aren't Available on Linux?

  05-07-2026 21:54 via linux.slashdot.org
  Have you ever needed a Linux application which only exists in the Windows world? Long-time Slashdot reader BrendaEM writes:Windows does have a lot of useful app (but smaller than "power apps"). Some of these are closed source, some are open, but they're not all available in Linux yet.
  My list would have to contain Gimp Tookit versions of: IrfanView image manager, which I think is unequaled in Linux (though it does work to some extent under Wine). I also miss the full version of 7-Zip, because of
  
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• Windows 11 Identifier Code Used to Arrest 19-Year-Old Over Alleged Ransomware Spree

  05-07-2026 19:54 via yro.slashdot.org
  America's Justice Department and FBI teamed joined Finland's National Bureau of Investigation to arrest a teenager they say is part of one of the world's biggest cybercrime syndicates, reports Tom's Hardware. The "Scattered Spider" syndicate has extorted over $100 million in ransom payments, according to Department of Justice figures:
  19-year-old Peter Stokes is a dual U.S.-Estonian citizen who was trying to board a flight to Japan from Helsinki, when law enforcement caught up with him. [T]he ma
  
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• Short Story Accused of Being AI-written Goes on to Win Contest's First Prize

  05-07-2026 18:34 via slashdot.org
  "A story widely accused on social media of being written using AI has gone on to win the overall Commonwealth short story prize," reports the Guardian.
  In mid-May the story had been selected as a regional winner, but with critics on X and Bluesky "claiming it showed 'obvious markers' of AI use."In the wake of the controversy, the Commonwealth Foundation conducted a review of the regional winners, which it said involved looking at drafts, time-stamped documents and notes. "We are satisfied with t
  
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• GoDaddy Warns India's Crackdown on Fake Site Registrars Could Upend Internet Privacy Everywhere

  05-07-2026 17:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  "The internet is filled with fakes," writes Gizmodo. "A court in India is setting out to address the problem by requiring more transparency from domain registrars to make it easier to crack down on fraud. And while the intentions might be good, Reuters is reporting that major American domain registrar GoDaddy is sounding the warning bells that the court's decision could fundamentally reshape the internet well beyond India's borders."GoDaddy argues the move would even make the internet less safe,
  
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• EV Batteries Defy Expectations, Last Hundreds of Thousands of Miles

  05-07-2026 14:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  247,000 miles on an EV battery? So says the owner of a U.K.-based used-car sales company that specializes in Evs, who tells the Wall Street Journal EV batteries keep performing well even after several hundred thousand miles. "They are proving themselves to be exceptionally reliable."After five years on the road, the average EV will still be able to drive up to 95% of its original range, according to Recurrent, a data-science company that provides a battery-monitoring tool for EVs — better
  
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• Hobbit-like Humans May Have Scavenged Komodo Dragons' Leftovers to Survive

  05-07-2026 10:34 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  CNN reports:
  Prehistoric human relatives, nicknamed "hobbits" due to their short stature, may have been scavengers, rather than skilled hunters capable of taking down big game or building cooking fires, according to new research. The study adds to growing evidence that Homo floresiensis, which had a brain only slightly bigger than that of a chimpanzee, wasn't as advanced as scientists previously believed....
  The researchers believe that much like how Komodo dragons hunt water buffaloes today, th
  
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• New Google Ad Imagines America's 'Declaration of Independence' Written With AI Help

  05-07-2026 06:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shared this report from TechCrunch:Two hundred and fifty years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a new commercial from Google asks: What if the Founding Fathers had access to Google Workspace?With the tagline "Group project, but make it 1776," the ad depicts a largely unseen Thomas Jefferson mid-draft when he gets a nagging text from Ben Franklin, leading to a very Google-centric collaboration process. Edits are suggested in Google Docs, a meeting gets sch
  
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• Are Wars Blurring Lines Between Corporate and National Security?

  05-07-2026 03:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  Subsea cables. Ukrainian power stations. Russian oil refineries. Even airports, water-desalination plants and Amazon data centers.
  They've all become targets in wartime, notes the Wall Street Journal, and around the world now arguments "are already brewing between companies and governments over new regulations and potential costs."In Germany, powerful associations representing private companies and municipal utilities have pushed back against new standards for physical protection, warning they c
  
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• New DNA Tech Identifies Soldier Killed in America's Revolution in 1780

  04-07-2026 23:34 via news.slashdot.org
  South Carolina's pine forests "have spent centuries hiding a secret as old as America itself," reports CBS News:In August 1780, British and American soldiers clashed there, leading to a terrible defeat for the Continental army [fighting for the 13 colonies rebelling against England]. Battlefield archaeologists Jim Legg and Steve Smith have been studying the site for decades, but recently, they made a shocking discovery: The sandy soil was home to several sets of remains buried in shallow graves.
  
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• 842,000 American Households Lost Power Today During a Heatwave

  04-07-2026 22:34 via news.slashdot.org
  As America began celebrating its 250th birthday Saturday, 842,000 homes reported power outages, notes ABC News. Figures from tracking site PowerOutage showed states in America's Northeast and Midwest were impacted by severe weather and extreme heat.That number, which will fluctuate throughout the day as crews work to restore power, is for households, meaning that the number of people impacted by these outages is likely to be much larger... Millions of Americans, however, will be contending with
  
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• Did Microsoft Shift Its Profits to Low-Tax Countries?

  04-07-2026 21:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  Microsoft is apparently shifting its profits to countries with low taxes — and out of countries where they have many more employees and significant sales. Back in 2005 Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer even said that a low corporate tax rate "is part of the overall advantage of doing business in Ireland," remembers long-time Slashdot reader theodp. (Ballmer added "It would be disingenuous to say otherwise.")But in 2026 the EU now requires a country-by-country compliance report, and the Ne
  
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• FSF Shares Update on 'LibrePhone' and New Automated Site Monitoring Tool

  04-07-2026 20:34 via news.slashdot.org
  At the end of 2025, the FSF launched LibrePhone project, which is working to "better understand and reverse-engineer the nonfree blobs used by a great majority of (if not all) system on a chip designs available today." The FSF's summer newsletter shares this update:
  We started with researching the proprietary files in Android phones supported by the Lineage project, an Android-based volunteer-led mobile phone operating system with much free software already in it. Our current, primary focus is o
  
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• AOL's Owner Bending Spoons Hits Wall Street with $1.7 billion IPO

  04-07-2026 19:34 via slashdot.org
  "The owner of AOL and other tech businesses hit Wall Street with a $1.7 billion initial public offering Wednesday," reports the Associated Press:
  The company is getting $1 billion in proceeds, while the rest is going to shareholders. The stock surged 39.7% in its first day of trading under the symbol "BSP" on the Nasdaq, giving it a market value of $25.2 billion.Among the company's well-known holdings are the event creation and ticketing company Eventbrite, and the video hosting service Vimeo...
  
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• EchoStar's US Satellite Pay-TV Provider Dish DBS Files for Bankruptcy

  04-07-2026 18:34 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  EchoStar's satellite pay-TV unit Dish DBS has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
  protection, reports Reuters. The move also applies to its wireless subsidiaries, according to the article, and "facilitates the wind-down of Dish Wireless's 5G network operations following an unexpected delay in a spectrum license sale to AT&T... under which EchoStar agreed to sell about 50 megahertz of its nationwide spectrum for $23 billion."Some context from Deadline.com:Charlie Ergen, who co-founded EchoStar an
  
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• Decades-Old Bash Tricks Expose AI Coding Agents To Supply Chain Attacks

  04-07-2026 17:34 via linux.slashdot.org
  Slashdot reader wiredmikey writes: AI security researchers have uncovered a structural security flaw dubbed GuardFall that allows decades-old Bash shell tricks to bypass safeguards in most open source AI coding agents. By exploiting shell behaviors such as quote removal and variable expansion, attackers can hide malicious commands in repositories, README files, Makefiles, or other content consumed by AI agents. If executed — particularly in auto-approve or CI environments—the command
  
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• What Is a Quantum Computer Good For? Absolutely Nothing - Yet

  04-07-2026 16:34 via science.slashdot.org
  The Verge argues that researchers "have made genuine progress in quantum computing — it's just been largely incremental and too esoteric to immediately capture the public's imagination."
  And there are predictions that quantum computers will finally do something useful as soon as 2028:
  The drama can overshadow the real progress in quantum computing...
  Researchers have improved the qubits themselves, so they hold onto information longer. When they hold onto information longer, you can fit in
  
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• Startup Targets Datacenters With 3D-Printed Nuclear Reactor Module

  04-07-2026 13:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Startup Ampera has unveiled what it calls the first 3D-printed nuclear reactor module, built around a silicon-carbide core and pressure vessel designed for a thorium-based microreactor. The company says future systems could deliver 15 or 30 megawatts for up to 30 years without refueling. When The Register asked about availability, their spokesperson said: "We expect the power generation portion of the system to be available as early as 2027, with the nuclear module being available to customers a
  
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• Video Game History Foundation Says Piracy Remains the Only Viable Preservation Method

  04-07-2026 09:00 via games.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechSpot: Video Game History Foundation founder Frank Cifaldi recently supported claims that piracy is the only effective way to preserve video games. The comments lay the blame squarely on game companies' refusal to keep legacy content available or allow archivists to build legal repositories. Sony's announcement that all PlayStation games will be digital-only from 2028 onward has sparked concern that titles will become harder to preserve and more easily
  
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• Alibaba To Ban Claude Code In Workplace Over Alleged Backdoor Risks

  04-07-2026 04:00 via slashdot.org
  Alibaba has reportedly banned employees from using Anthropic's Claude Code and directed them to its own Qoder platform amid a growing dispute over features that can help identify China-linked users. Reuters reports: The ban is part of a deepening spat between the two companies after Anthropic accused Alibaba of illicitly extracting its Claude AI model capabilities -- a dispute that highlights the frantic race between the U.S. and China to take the lead in artificial intelligence. [...] Anthropic
  
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• Valve Open-Sources Steam Machine's E-Ink Display

  03-07-2026 22:00 via news.slashdot.org
  Valve has open-sourced the design for a customizable e-ink front panel for the Steam Machine, dubbed the "Inkterface." "All of it is available on their GitLab under the MIT license, which goes over everything you need to make your own and stick it on the front of your fancy new Steam Machine," reports GamingOnLinux. From the report:
  They're now calling it the "Inkterface" and there's a good few things you'll need to make it including:
  1 x Adafruit ESP32 Feather with 2MB PSRAM.
  1 x Adafruit eInk
  
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• New PamStealer macOS Malware Uses Clever Tradecraft To Remain Stealthy

  03-07-2026 17:00 via apple.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Researchers have found a never-before-seen piece of macOS malware that combines a series of clever tradecraft to infect Macs with stealthy, custom-developed credential-stealing code. The malware is delivered in two stages. The first is distributed in a disk image that masquerades as Maccy, a clipboard manager for Macs. It's compiled as AppleScript that is notable for the way it delivers the second stage. The malware is named PamStealer becau
  
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• US Life Expectancy On Track To Reach Record High

  03-07-2026 12:00 via news.slashdot.org
  The US age-adjusted death rate fell to a record low in 2025, likely pushing life expectancy to a record high as overdose deaths declined and mortality improved across all age groups. CNN reports: There were about 689 deaths for every 100,000 people in the US in 2025, according to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- the lowest rate recorded in more than a century of tracking. The age-adjusted rate has fallen 22% since 2021, landing about 4% lower than it was jus
  
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• Amazon Has Enough Satellites To Launch Its Starlink Competitor

  03-07-2026 08:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  Amazon says its Leo satellite network now has enough spacecraft in orbit to begin limited commercial internet service, with 396 satellites providing "continuous service across initial latitudes." Early performance will likely be uneven, however, and well behind Starlink. "It'll be years before Amazon can boast similar performance numbers as it continues to launch a planned 3,232 Leo satellites," reports The Verge. From the report: SpaceX went live with its "Better than nothing beta" back in 2020
  
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• Sitting For More Than 30 Minutes At a Time Linked To Higher Risk of Cancer Death

  03-07-2026 04:00 via science.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Researchers who tracked more than 90,000 people over a decade found that sitting or lying down while awake for more than 30 minutes in one period each day was associated with an increased risk of cancer death. The risk increases for every additional hour of continuous inactivity, the findings suggest. However, the researchers also found breaking up periods of sedentary behavior longer than 30 minutes with bursts of physical activity could he
  
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• Labor Force Participation Rate Falls To Lowest In 50 years

  02-07-2026 23:05 via news.slashdot.org
  The US unemployment rate fell to 4.2% in June largely because 720,000 people left the labor force, pushing participation to 61.5%. Excluding the Covid-era jobs market, that's the lowest participation rate since June 1976. CNBC reports: The decline in the labor force marks a "massive exodus" driven by multiple factors, said Mike Reid, head of U.S. economics at RBC. "The unemployment rate fell to 4.2% as both the number of unemployed workers and the size of the labor force pulled back," Reid wrote
  
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• AI Agent Executes 'First' End-To-End Ransomware Attack

  02-07-2026 22:00 via it.slashdot.org
  Sysdig says it has documented the first ransomware attack carried out end to end by an AI agent, which autonomously exploited exposed systems, stole credentials, established persistence, compromised a production database, and destroyed data. The research team named the attacker "JadePuffer" and said it gained initial access to an internet-facing Langflow instance by exploiting CVE-2025-3248. "The most striking characteristic, however, was the LLM's behavior," Sysdig director of threat research M
  
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• Godot Game Engine No Longer Accepts AI Code

  02-07-2026 21:00 via games.slashdot.org
  The Godot Foundation will stop accepting AI-authored code, agent-submitted pull requests, and AI-generated text in contributor communications after maintainers were overwhelmed by low-effort submissions. "It is time for us to recognize that these problems aren't going away and therefore we need to take steps to reduce the burden on maintainers while ensuring we still have a pipeline to mentor new contributors to become future maintainers," the Godot Foundation said in a blog post. Contributors m
  
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