ICT news

• Python 3.12 Brings New Features and Fixes

  27-05-2023 22:36 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  "The Python programming language releases new versions yearly, with a feature-locked beta release in the first half of the year and the final release toward the end of the year," writes InfoWorld.
  So now Python 3.12 beta 1 has just been released, and InfoWorld compiled a list of its most significant new features. Some highlights:- The widely used Linux profiler tool perf works with Python, but only returns information about what's happening at the C level in the Python runtime. Information about
  
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• Gentoo Linux Plans Migration from GitHub Over 'Attempts to Force Copilot Usage for Our Repositories'

  11-01-2026 20:29 via linux.slashdot.org
  Gentoo Linux posted its 2025 project retrospective this week. Some interesting details:Mostly because of the continuous attempts to force Copilot usage for our repositories, Gentoo currently considers and plans the migration of our repository mirrors and pull request contributions to Codeberg. Codeberg is a site based on Forgejo, maintained by a non-profit organization, and located in Berlin, Germany. Gentoo continues to host its own primary git, bugs, etc infrastructure and has no plans to chan
  
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• Personal Info on 17.5 Million Users May Have Leaked to Dark Web After 2024 Instagram Breach

  11-01-2026 18:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shared this report from Engadget:
  If you received a bunch of password reset requests from Instagram recently, you're not alone. As reported by Malwarebytes, an antivirus software company, there was a data breach revealing the "sensitive information" of 17.5 million Instagram users. Malwarebytes added that the leak included Instagram usernames, physical addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and more.
  The company added that the "data is available for sale on the dark web an
  
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• China Tests a Supercritical CO2 Generator in Commercial Operation

  11-01-2026 17:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  "China recently placed a supercritical carbon dioxide power generator into commercial operation," writes CleanTechnica, "and the announcement was widely framed as a technological breakthrough."The system, referred to as Chaotan One, is installed at a steel plant in Guizhou province in mountainous southwest China and is designed to recover industrial waste heat and convert it into electricity. Each unit is reported to be rated at roughly 15 MW, with public statements describing configurations tot
  
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• That Bell Labs 'Unix' Tape from 1974: From a Closet to Computing History

  11-01-2026 16:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  Remember that re-discovered computer tape with one of the earliest versions of Unix from the early 1970s? This week several local news outlets in Utah reported on the find, with KSL creating a video report with shots of the tape arriving at Silicon Valley's Computer History Museum, the closet where it was found, and even its handwritten label.
  The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the closet where it was found also contained "old cords from unknown sources and mountains of papers that had been dump
  
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• Cory Doctorow: Legalising Reverse Engineering Could End 'Enshittification'

  11-01-2026 13:34 via news.slashdot.org
  Scifi author/tech activist Cory Doctorow has decried the "enshittification" of our technologies to extract more profit. But Saturday he also described what could be "the beginning of the end for enshittification" in a new article for the Guardian — "our chance to make tech good again".There is only one reason the world isn't bursting with wildly profitable products and projects that disenshittify the US's defective products: its (former) trading partners were bullied into passing an "anti-
  
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• C# (and C) Grew in Popularity in 2025, Says TIOBE

  11-01-2026 09:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  For a quarter century, the TIOBE Index has attempted to rank the popularity of programming languages by the number of search engine results they bring up — and this week they had an announcement.
  Over the last year the language showing the largest increase in its share of TIOBE's results was C#.
  TIOBE founder/CEO Paul Jansen looks back at how C++ evolved:From a language-design perspective, C# has often been an early adopter of new trends among mainstream languages. At the same time, it suc
  
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• Elon Musk: X's New Algorithm Will Be Made Open Source in Seven Days

  11-01-2026 06:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  "We will make the new ð algorithm...open source in 7 days," Elon Musk posted Saturday on X.com. Musk says this is "including all code used to determine what organic and advertising posts are recommended to users," and "This will be repeated every 4 weeks, with comprehensive developer notes, to help you understand what changed."
  Some context from Engadget:Musk has been making promises of open-sourcing the algorithm since his takeover of Twitter, and in 2023 published the code for the site's "
  
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• Nature-Inspired Computers Are Shockingly Good At Math

  11-01-2026 03:34 via science.slashdot.org
  An R&D lab under America's Energy Department annnounced this week that "Neuromorphic computers, inspired by the architecture of the human brain, are proving surprisingly adept at solving complex mathematical problems that underpin scientific and engineering challenges."Phys.org publishes the announcement from Sandia National Lab:
  In a paper published in Nature Machine Intelligence, Sandia National Laboratories computational neuroscientists Brad Theilman and Brad Aimone describe a novel algor
  
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• Four More Tech Bloggers are Switching to Linux

  10-01-2026 23:34 via linux.slashdot.org
  Is there a trend? This week four different articles appeared on various tech-news sites with an author bragging about switching to Linux.
  "Greetings from the year of Linux on my desktop," quipped the Verge's senior reviews editor, who finally "got fed up and said screw it, I'm installing Linux.They switched to CachyOS — just like this writer for the videogame magazine Escapist:I've had a fantastic time gaming on Linux. Valve's Windows-to-Linux translation layer, Proton, and even CachyOS' b
  
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• AI-Powered Social Media App Hopes To Build More Purposeful Lives

  10-01-2026 22:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  A founder of Twitter and a founder of Pinterest are now working on
  "social media for people who hate social media," writes a Washington Post columnist.
  "When I heard that this platform would harness AI to help us live more meaningful lives, I wanted to know more..."Their bid for redemption is West Co. — the Workshop for Emotional and Spiritual Technology Corporation — and the platform they're testing is called Tangle, a "purpose discovery tool" that uses AI to help users define their
  
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• AI Fails at Most Remote Work, Researchers Find

  10-01-2026 21:34 via it.slashdot.org
  A new study "compared how well top AI systems and human workers did at hundreds of real work assignments," reports the Washington Post.They add that at least one example "illustrates a disconnect three years after the release of ChatGPT that has implications for the whole economy."
  AI can accomplish many impressive tasks involving computer code, documents or images. That has prompted predictions that human work of many kinds could soon be done by computers alone. Bentley University and Gallup fo
  
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• Amazon Plans Massive Superstore Larger Than a Walmart Supercenter Near Chicago

  10-01-2026 20:34 via slashdot.org
  Amazon "has submitted plans for a large-format store near Chicago that would be larger than a Walmart Supercenter," reports CNBC:
  As part of the plans, Amazon has proposed building a one-story, 229,000-square-foot building [on a 35-acre lot] in Orland Park, Illinois, that would offer a range of products, such as groceries, household essentials and general merchandise, the city said on Saturday. By comparison, Walmart's U.S. Supercenters typically average 179,000 square feet... The Orland Park Pl
  
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• China's 'Artificial Sun' Breaks Nuclear Fusion Limit Thought to Be Impossible

  10-01-2026 19:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  "Scientists in China have made a breakthrough with fusion energy that could finally overcome one of the most stubborn barriers to realising the next-generation energy source," reports the Independent:
  A team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) said its experimental nuclear reactor, dubbed the 'artificial Sun', achieved a plasma density that was previously thought impossible... Through a new process called plasma-wall self organisation, the CAS researchers were able to keep the plasma stab
  
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• Meta Announces New Smartglasses Features, Delays International Rollout Claiming 'Unprecedented' Demand'

  10-01-2026 18:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  This week Meta announced several new features for "Meta Ray-Ban Display" smartglasses:- A new teleprompter feature for the smart glasses (arriving in a phased rollout)- The ability to send messages on WhatsApp and Messenger by writing with your finger on any surface. (Available for those who sign up for an "early access" program).- "Pedestrian navigation" for 32 cities. ("The 28 cities we launched Meta Ray-Ban Display with, plus Denver, Las Vegas, Portland, and Salt Lake City," and with more cit
  
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• Medical Evacuation from Space Station Next Week for Astronaut in Stable Condition

  10-01-2026 17:34 via science.slashdot.org
  It will be the first medical evacuation from the International space station in its 25-year history. The Guardian reports:An astronaut in the orbital laboratory reportedly fell ill with a "serious" but undisclosed issue. Nasa also had to cancel its first spacewalk of the year... The agency did not identify the astronaut or the medical problem, citing patient privacy. "Because the astronaut is absolutely stable, this is not an emergent evacuation," [chief health and medical officer Dr. James] Pol
  
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• More US States Are Preparing Age-Verification Laws for App Stores

  10-01-2026 16:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  Yes, a federal judge blocked an attempt by Texas at an app store age-verification law.But this year Silicon Valley giants including Google and Apple "are expected to fight hard against similar legislation," reports Politico, "because of the vast legal liability it imposes on app stores and developers."
  In Texas, Utah and Louisiana, parent advocates have linked up with conservative "pro-family" groups to pass laws forcing mobile app stores to verify user ages and require parental sign-off. If tho
  
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• How the Free Software Foundation Kept a Videoconferencing Software Free

  10-01-2026 15:34 via news.slashdot.org
  The Free Software Foundation's president Ian Kelling is also their senior systems administrator. This week he shared an example of how "the work we put in to making sure a program is free for us also makes it free for the rest of the world."
  During the COVID-19 pandemic, like everyone everywhere, the FSF increased its videoconferencing use, especially videoconferencing software that works in web browsers. We have experience hosting several different programs to accomplish this, and BigBlueButton
  
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• French-UK Starlink Rival Pitches Canada On 'Sovereign' Satellite Service

  10-01-2026 14:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBC.ca: A company largely owned by the French and U.K. governments is pitching Canada on a roughly $250-million plan to provide the military with secure satellite broadband coverage in the Arctic, CBC News has learned. Eutelsat, a rival to tech billionaire Elon Musk's Starlink, already provides some services to the Canadian military, but wants to deepen the partnership as Canada looks to diversify defence contracts away from suppliers in the United States
  
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• Scientists Tried To Break Einstein's Speed of Light Rule

  10-01-2026 11:00 via science.slashdot.org
  Scientists are putting Einstein's claim that the speed of light is constant to the test. While researchers found no evidence that light's speed changes with energy, this null result dramatically tightens the constraints on quantum-gravity theories that predict even the tiniest violations. ScienceDaily reports: Special relativity rests on the principle that the laws of physics remain the same for all observers, regardless of how they are moving relative to one another. This idea is known as Loren
  
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• Meta Signs Deals With Three Nuclear Companies For 6+ GW of Power

  10-01-2026 08:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Meta has signed long-term nuclear power deals totaling more than 6 gigawatts to fuel its data centers: "one from a startup, one from a smaller energy company, and one from a larger company that already operates several nuclear reactors in the U.S," reports TechCrunch. From the report: Oklo and TerraPower, two companies developing small modular reactors (SMR), each signed agreements with Meta to build multiple reactors, while Vistra is selling capacity from its existing power plants. [...] The de
  
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• AI Models Are Starting To Learn By Asking Themselves Questions

  10-01-2026 04:30 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: [P]erhaps AI can, in fact, learn in a more human way -- by figuring out interesting questions to ask itself and attempting to find the right answer. A project from Tsinghua University, the Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence (BIGAI), and Pennsylvania State University shows that AI can learn to reason in this way by playing with computer code. The researchers devised a system called Absolute Zero Reasoner (AZR) that first uses a la
  
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• AI Is Intensifying a 'Collapse' of Trust Online, Experts Say

  10-01-2026 03:02 via news.slashdot.org
  Experts interviewed by NBC News warn that the rapid spread of AI-generated images and videos is accelerating an online trust breakdown, especially during fast-moving news events where context is scarce. From the report: President Donald Trump's Venezuela operation almost immediately spurred the spread of AI-generated images, old videos and altered photos across social media. On Wednesday, after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot a woman in her car, many online circulated
  
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• Intel Is 'Going Big Time Into 14A,' Says CEO Lip-Bu Tan

  10-01-2026 02:25 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan says the company is "going big time" into its 14A (1.4nm-class) process, signaling confidence in yields and hinting at at least one external foundry customer. Tom's Hardware reports: Intel's 14A is expected to be production-ready in 2027, with early versions of process design kit (PDK) coming to external customers early this year. To that end, it is good to hear Intel's upbeat comments about 14A. Also, Tan's phrasing 'the customer' could indicate that Intel has at least one
  
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• Microsoft May Soon Allow IT Admins To Uninstall Copilot

  10-01-2026 01:45 via it.slashdot.org
  Microsoft is testing a new Windows policy that lets IT administrators uninstall Microsoft Copilot from managed devices. The change rolls out via Windows Insider builds and works through standard management tools like Intune and SCCM. BleepingComputer reports: The new policy will apply to devices where the Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Copilot are both installed, the Microsoft Copilot app was not installed by the user, and the Microsoft Copilot app was not launched in the last 28 days. "Adm
  
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• Google: Don't Make 'Bite-Sized' Content For LLMs If You Care About Search Rank

  10-01-2026 01:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a big business. While some SEO practices are useful, much of the day-to-day SEO wisdom you see online amounts to superstition. An increasingly popular approach geared toward LLMs called "content chunking" may fall into that category. In the latest installment of Google's Search Off the Record podcast, John Mueller and Danny Sullivan say that breaking content down into bite-sized chunks for LLMs like Gem
  
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• CES Worst In Show Awards Call Out the Tech Making Things Worse

  10-01-2026 00:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  Longtime Slashdot reader chicksdaddy writes: CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, isn't just about shiny new gadgets. As AP reports, this year brought back the fifth annual Worst in Show anti-awards, calling out the most harmful, wasteful, invasive, and unfixable tech at the Las Vegas show. The coalition behind the awards -- including Repair.org, iFixit, EFF, PIRG, Secure Repairs, and others -- put the spotlight on products that miss the point of innovation and make life worse for users.2026 Wors
  
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• Latest SteamOS Beta Now Includes NTSYNC Kernel Driver

  09-01-2026 23:40 via games.slashdot.org
  Valve has added the NTSYNC kernel driver to the SteamOS 3.7.20 beta, laying the groundwork for improved Windows game synchronization performance via Wine and Proton. Phoronix reports: For gearing up for that future Proton NTSYNC support, SteamOS 3.7.20 enables the NTSYNC kernel driver and loads the module by default. Most Linux distributions are at least already building the NTSYNC kernel module though there's been different efforts on how to handle ensuring it's loaded when needed. The presence
  
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• Italy Fines Cloudflare 14 Million Euros For Refusing To Filter Pirate Sites On Public 1.1.1.1 DNS

  09-01-2026 23:02 via yro.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Italy's communications regulator AGCOM imposed a record-breaking 14.2 million-euro fine on Cloudflare after the company failed to implement the required piracy blocking measures. Cloudflare argued that filtering its global 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver would be "impossible" without hurting overall performance. AGCOM disagreed, noting that Cloudflare is not necessarily a neutral intermediary either.[...] "The measure, in addition to being one of the f
  
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• Microsoft Windows Media Player Stops Serving Up CD Album Info

  09-01-2026 22:25 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft is celebrating the resurgence of interest in physical media in the only way it knows how... by halting the Windows Media Player metadata service. Readers of a certain vintage will remember inserting a CD into their PC and watching Windows Media Player populate with track listings and album artwork. No more.
  Sometime before Christmas, the metadata servers stopped working and on Windows 10 or 11, the result is the same: album not found. We tried this
  
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