ICT news

• New Kindle Feature Uses AI To Answer Questions About Books - And Authors Can't Opt Out

  12-12-2025 22:40 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon has quietly added a new AI feature to its Kindle iOS app -- a feature that "lets you ask questions about the book you're reading and receive spoiler-free answers," according to an Amazon announcement.
  The company says the feature, which is called Ask this Book, serves as "your expert reading assistant, instantly answering questions about plot details, character relationships, and thematic elements without disrupting your reading flow."
  Publishing indus
  
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• Scientists Thought Parkinson's Was in Our Genes. It Might Be in the Water

  15-12-2025 17:40 via science.slashdot.org
  For decades, Parkinson's disease research has overwhelmingly focused on genetics -- more than half of all research dollars in the past two decades flowed toward genomic studies -- but a growing body of evidence now points to something far more mundane as a primary culprit: contaminated drinking water.
  A landmark study by epidemiologist Sam Goldman compared Marines stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, where trichloroethylene (TCE) had contaminated the water supply for approximately 35 yea
  
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• How Did the CIA Lose a Nuclear Device?

  15-12-2025 17:00 via news.slashdot.org
  Sixty years after a team of American and Indian climbers abandoned a plutonium-powered generator on the slopes of Nanda Devi, one of the world's most forbidding Himalayan peaks, the U.S. government still refuses to acknowledge that the mission ever happened. The device, a SNAP-19C portable generator containing plutonium isotopes including Pu-239 -- the same material used in the Nagasaki bomb -- was left behind in October 1965 when a sudden blizzard forced climbers to retreat from Camp Four, just
  
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• Electricity Is Now Holding Back Growth Across the Global Economy

  15-12-2025 16:21 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Grid constraints that were once a hallmark of developing economies are now plaguing the world's richest nations, and new research from Bloomberg Economics finds that rising electricity system stress is directly hurting investment. The analysis examined all G20 countries and found that a one-standard-deviation increase in grid stress relative to a country's historical average lowers the investment share of GDP by around 0.33 percentage points -- a 1.5% to 2% hit to capital outlays.
  The Netherland
  
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• LG's Software Update Forces Microsoft Copilot Onto Smart TVs

  15-12-2025 15:40 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  LG smart TV owners discovered over the weekend that a recent webOS software update had quietly installed Microsoft Copilot on their devices, and the app cannot be uninstalled. Affected users report the feature appears automatically after installing the latest webOS update on certain models, sitting alongside streaming apps like Netflix and YouTube.
  LG's support documentation confirms that certain preinstalled or system apps can only be hidden, not deleted. At CES 2025, LG announced plans to inte
  
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• Security Researcher Found Critical Kindle Vulnerabilities That Allowed Hijacking Amazon Accounts

  15-12-2025 15:01 via it.slashdot.org
  The Black Hat Europe hacker conference in London included a session titled "Don't Judge an Audiobook by Its Cover" about a two critical (and now fixed) flaws in Amazon's Kindle. The Times reports both flaws were discovered by engineering analyst Valentino Ricotta (from the cybersecurity research division of Thales), who was awarded a "bug bounty" of $20,000 (£15,000 ).He said: "What especially struck me with this device, that's been sitting on my bedside table for years, is that it's conne
  
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• Are Warnings of Superintelligence 'Inevitability' Masking a Grab for Power?

  15-12-2025 09:34 via slashdot.org
  Superintelligence has become "a quasi-political forecast" with "very little to do with any scientific consensus, emerging instead from particular corridors of power." That's the warning from James O'Sullivan, a lecturer in digital humanities from University College Cork. In a refreshing 5,600-word essay in Noema magazine, he notes the suspicious coincidence that "The loudest prophets of superintelligence are those building the very systems they warn against..."
  "When we accept that AGI is inevit
  
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• SpaceX Alleges a Chinese-Deployed Satellite Risked Colliding with Starlink

  15-12-2025 06:24 via science.slashdot.org
  "A SpaceX executive says a satellite deployed from a Chinese rocket risked colliding with a Starlink satellite," reports PC Magazine:On Friday, company VP for Starlink engineering, Michael Nicolls, tweeted about the incident and blamed a lack of coordination from the Chinese launch provider CAS Space. "When satellite operators do not share ephemeris for their satellites, dangerously close approaches can occur in space," he wrote, referring to the publication of predicted orbital positions for su
  
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• Roomba Maker 'iRobot' Files for Bankruptcy After 35 Years

  15-12-2025 04:24 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Roomba manufacturer iRobot filed for bankruptcy today, reports Bloomberg.After 35 years, iRobot reached a "restructuring support agrement that will hand control of the consumer robot maker to Shenzhen PICEA Robotics Co, its main supplier and lender, and Santrum Hong Kong Compny."Under the restructuring, vacuum cleaner maker Shenzhen PICEA will receive the entire equity stake in the reorganised company... The plan will allow the debtor to remain as a going concern and continue to meet its commitm
  
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• Like Australia, Denmark Plans to Severely Restrict Social Media Use for Teenagers

  15-12-2025 02:24 via tech.slashdot.org
  "As Australia began enforcing a world-first social media ban for children under 16 years old this week, Denmark is planning to follow its lead," reports the Associated Press, "and severely restrict social media access for young people."The Danish government announced last month that it had secured an agreement by three governing coalition and two opposition parties in parliament to ban access to social media for anyone under the age of 15. Such a measure would be the most sweeping step yet by a
  
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• CEOS Plan to Spend More on AI in 2026 - Despite Spotty Returns

  15-12-2025 01:17 via it.slashdot.org
  The Wall Street Journal reports that 68% of CEOs "plan to spend even more on AI in 2026, according to an annual survey of more than 350 public-company CEOs from advisory firm Teneo."
  And yet "less than half of current AI projects had generated more in returns than they had cost, respondents said."They reported the most success using AI in marketing and customer service and challenges using it in higher-risk areas such as security, legal and human resources.Teneo also surveyed about 400 instituti
  
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• 'Investors in Limbo'. Will the TikTok Deal's Deadline Be Extended Again?

  14-12-2025 23:59 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shared this report from the BBC:
  A billionaire investor keen on buying TikTok's US operations has told the BBC he has been left in limbo as the latest deadline for the app's sale looms.The US has repeatedly delayed the date by which the platform's Chinese owner, Bytedance, must sell or be blocked for American users. US President Donald Trump appears poised to extend the deadline for a fifth time on Tuesday. "We're just standing by and waiting to see what happens," investor Fr
  
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• Podcast Industry Under Siege as AI Bots Flood Airways with Thousands of Programs

  14-12-2025 22:34 via slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shared this report from the Los Angeles Times:Popular podcast host Steven Bartlett has used an AI clone to launch a new kind of content aimed at the 13 million followers of his podcast "Diary of a CEO." On YouTube, his clone narrates "100 CEOs With Steven Bartlett," which adds AI-generated animation to Bartlett's cloned voice to tell the life stories of entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs and Richard Branson. Erica Mandy, the Redondo Beach-based host of the daily news podcast ca
  
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• Podcast Industry Under Siege as AI Bot Flood Airways with Thousands of Programs

  14-12-2025 22:34 via slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shared this report from the Los Angeles Times:Popular podcast host Steven Bartlett has used an AI clone to launch a new kind of content aimed at the 13 million followers of his podcast "Diary of a CEO." On YouTube, his clone narrates "100 CEOs With Steven Bartlett," which adds AI-generated animation to Bartlett's cloned voice to tell the life stories of entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs and Richard Branson. Erica Mandy, the Redondo Beach-based host of the daily news podcast ca
  
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• Entry-Level Tech Workers Confront an AI-Fueled Jobpocalypse

  14-12-2025 21:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  AI "has gutted entry-level roles in the tech industry," reports Rest of World.
  One student at a high-ranking engineering college in India tells them that among his 400 classmates, "fewer than 25% have secured job offers... there's a sense of panic on the campus."
  Students at engineering colleges in India, China, Dubai, and Kenya are facing a "jobpocalypse" as artificial intelligence replaces humans in entry-level roles. Tasks once assigned to fresh graduates, such as debugging, testing, and rout
  
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• Polar Bears are Rewiring Their Own Genetics to Survive a Warming Climate

  14-12-2025 20:12 via news.slashdot.org
  "Polar bears are still sadly expected to go extinct this century," with two-thirds of the population gone by 2050," says the lead researcher on a new study from the University of East Anglia in Britain.
  But their research also suggests polar bears "are rapidly rewiring their own genetics in a bid to survive," reports NBC News, in "the first documented case of rising temperatures driving genetic change in a mammal."
  "I believe our work really does offer a glimmer of hope — a window of oppor
  
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• America Adds 11.7 GW of New Solar Capacity in Q3 - Third Largest Quarter on Record

  14-12-2025 18:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  America's solar industry "just delivered another huge quarter," reports Electrek, "installing 11.7 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity in Q3 2025. That makes it the third-largest quarter on record and pushes total solar additions this year past 30 GW..."
  According to the new "US Solar Market Insight Q4 2025" report from Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie, 85% of all new power added to the grid during the first nine months of the Trump administration came from solar and stor
  
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• Purdue University Approves New AI Requirement For All Undergrads

  14-12-2025 17:34 via news.slashdot.org
  Nonprofit Code.org released its 2025 State of AI & Computer Science Education report this week with a state-by-state analysis of school policies complaining that "0 out of 50 states require AI+CS for graduation."
  But meanwhile, at the college level, "Purdue University will begin requiring that all of its undergraduate students demonstrate basic competency in AI," writes former college president Michael Nietzel, "starting with freshmen who enter the university in 2026."
  The new "AI working co
  
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• Repeal Section 230 and Its Platform Protections, Urges New Bipartisan US Bill

  14-12-2025 16:34 via news.slashdot.org
  U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said Friday he was moving to file a bipartisan bill to repeal Section 230 of America's Communications Decency Act."The law prevents most civil suits against users or services that are based on what others say," explains an EFF blog post."Experts argue that a repeal of Section 230 could kill free speech on the internet," writes LiveMint — though America's last two presidents both supported a reapl:During his first presidency, US President Donald Trump called
  
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• Time Magazine's 'Person of the Year': the Architects of AI

  14-12-2025 13:34 via news.slashdot.org
  Time magazine used its 98th annual "Person of the Year" cover to "recognize a force that has dominated the year's headlines, for better or for worse. For delivering the age of thinking machines, for wowing and worrying humanity, for transforming the present and transcending the possible, the Architects of AI are TIME's 2025 Person of the Year."One cover illustration shows eight AI executives sitting precariously on a beam high above the city, while Time's 6,700-word article promises "the story o
  
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• Trump Ban on Wind Energy Permits 'Unlawful', Court Rules

  14-12-2025 09:44 via hardware.slashdot.org
  A January order blocking wind energy projects in America has now been vacated by a U.S. judge and declared unlawful, reports the Associated Press:[Judge Saris of the U.S. district court for the district of Massachusetts] ruled in favor of a coalition of state attorneys general from 17 states and Washington DC, led by Letitia James, New York's attorney general, that challenged President Trump's day one order that paused leasing and permitting for wind energy projects... The coalition that opposed
  
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• New Rule Forbids GNOME Shell Extensions Made Using AI-Generated Code

  14-12-2025 06:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shared this report from Phoronix:
  Due to the growing number of GNOME Shell extensions looking to appear on extensions.gnome.org that were generated using AI, it's now prohibited. The new rule in their guidelines note that AI-generated code will be explicitly rejected:
  "Extensions must not be AI-generated
  While it is not prohibited to use AI as a learning aid or a development tool (i.e. code completions), extension developers should be able to justify and explain the code they
  
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• Is the R Programming Language Surging in Popularity?

  14-12-2025 04:44 via developers.slashdot.org
  The R programming language "is sometimes frowned upon by 'traditional' software engineers," says the CEO of software quality services vendor Tiobe, "due to its unconventional syntax and limited scalability for large production systems." But he says it "continues to thrive at universities and in research-driven industries, and "for domain experts, it remains a powerful and elegant tool."
  Yet it's now gaining more popularity as statistics and large-scale data visualization become important (a tren
  
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• System76 Launches First Stable Release of COSMIC Desktop and Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS

  14-12-2025 02:34 via news.slashdot.org
  This week System76 launched the first stable release of its Rust-based COSMIC desktop environment, reports 9to5Linux.
  Announced in 2021, it's designed for all GNU/Linux distributions — and it shipping with Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS (based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS):
  Previous Pop!_OS releases used a version of the COSMIC desktop that was based on the GNOME desktop environment. However, System76 wanted to create a new desktop environment from scratch while keeping the same familiar interface and user expe
  
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• 'Free Software Awards' Winners Announced: Andy Wingo, Alx Sa, Govdirectory

  14-12-2025 01:35 via news.slashdot.org
  This week the Free Software Foundation honored Andy Wingo, Alx Sa, and Govdirectory with this year's annual Free Software Awards (given to community members and groups making
  "significant" contributions to software freedom):
  Andy Wingo is one of the co-maintainers of GNU Guile,
  the official extension language of the GNU operating system and the
  Scheme "backbone" of GNU
  Guix. Upon receiving the award, he stated: "Since I learned
  about free software, the vision of a world in which hackers freely
  s
  
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• Applets Are Officially Going, But Java In the Browser Is Better Than Ever

  14-12-2025 00:19 via developers.slashdot.org
  "The entire java.applet package has been removed from JDK 26, which will release in March 2026," notes Inside Java.
  But long-time Slashdot reader AirHog links to this blog post reminding us that
  "Applets Are Officially Gone, But Java In The Browser Is Better Than Ever."
  This brings to an official end the era of applets, which began in 1996. However, for years it has been possible to build modern, interactive web pages in Java without needing applets or plugins. TeaVM provides fast, performant, a
  
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• Startup Successfully Uses AI to Find New Geothermal Energy Reservoirs

  13-12-2025 23:17 via hardware.slashdot.org
  A Utah-based startup announced last week it used AI to locate a 250-degree Fahrenheit geothermal reservoir, reports CNN. It'll start producing electricity in three to five years, the company estimates — and at least one geologist believes AI could be an exciting "gamechanger" for the geothermal industry.[Startup Zanskar Geothermal & Minerals] named it "Big Blind," because this kind of site — which has no visual indication of its existence, no hot springs or geysers above ground,
  
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• Firefox Survey Finds Only 16% Feel In Control of Their Privacy Choices Online

  13-12-2025 22:17 via news.slashdot.org
  Choosing your browser "is one of the most important digital decisions you can make, shaping how you experience the web, protect your data, and express yourself online," says the Firefox blog. They've urged readers to "take a stand for independence and control in your digital life."
  But they also recently polled 8,000 adults in France, Germany, the UK and the U.S. on "how they navigate choice and control both online and offline" (attending in-person events in Chicago, Berlin, LA, and Munich, San
  
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• The World's Electric Car Sales Have Spiked 21% So Far in 2025

  13-12-2025 19:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Electrek reports:EV and battery supply chain research specialists Benchmark Mineral Intelligence reports that 2.0 million electric vehicles were sold globally in November 2025, bringing global EV sales to 18.5 million units year-to-date. That's a 21% increase compared to the same period in 2024.Europe was the clear growth leader in November, while North America continued to lag following the expiration of US EV tax credits. China, meanwhile, remains the world's largest EV market by a wide margin
  
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• How a 23-Year-Old in 1975 Built the World's First Handheld Digital Camera

  13-12-2025 18:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  In 1975, 23-year-old electrical engineer Steve Sasson joined Kodak. And in a new interview with the BBC, he remembers that he'd found the whole photographic process "really annoying.... I wanted to build a camera with no moving parts. Now that was just to annoy the mechanical engineers...""You take your picture, you have to wait a long time, you have to fiddle with these chemicals. Well, you know, I was raised on Star Trek, and all the good ideas come from Star Trek. So I said what if we could j
  
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