ICT news

• Red Hat is Dropping Its Support for LibreOffice

  03-06-2023 20:34 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  The Red Hat Package Managers for LibreOffice "have recently been orphaned," according to a post by Red Hat manager Matthias Clasen on the "LibreOffice packages" mailing list, "and I thought it would be good to explain the reasons behind this."
  The Red Hat Display Systems team (the team behind most of Red Hat's desktop efforts) has maintained the LibreOffice packages in Fedora for years as part of our work to support LibreOffice for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We are adjusting our engineering prior
  
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• Japan Votes to Restart Fukushima Nuclear Plant 15 Years After Its Meltdown

  27-12-2025 18:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  The 2011 meltdown at Fukushima's nuclear plant "was the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986," CNN remembers.
  But this week Japanese authorities "have approved a decision to restart the world's biggest nuclear power plant," reports CNN, "which has sat dormant for more than a decade following the Fukushima nuclear disaster."
  Despite nerves from many local residents, the Niigata prefectural assembly, home to the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, approved a bill on Monday that clears the
  
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• Should Physicists Study the Question: What is Life?

  27-12-2025 17:34 via science.slashdot.org
  An astrophysicist at the University of Rochester writes that "many" of his colleagues in physics "have come to believe that a mystery is unfolding in every microbe, animal, and human." And it's a mystery that:
  - "Challenges basic assumptions physicists have held for centuries"
  - "May even help redefine the field for the next generation"
  - "Could answer essential questions about AI."
  In short, while physicists have favored a "reductionist" philosophy about the fundamental laws controlling the uni
  
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• Free Software Foundation Receives 'Historic' Donations Worth Nearly $900K - in Monero

  27-12-2025 16:34 via news.slashdot.org
  On Wednesday (Christmas Eve), the Free Software Foundation announced it had received two major contributions totaling around $900,000 USD — in the cryptocurrency Monero.
  The two donations "are among some of the largest private gifts ever made to the organization," the FSF said in a statement.
  "The donors wish to remain anonymous," according to the FSF's statement:The organization is in its annual winter fundraising drive, currently at three-quarters of its $400,000 USD winter goal, and wil
  
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• Video Call Glitches Evoke Uncanniness, Damage Consequential Life Outcomes

  27-12-2025 13:00 via slashdot.org
  Those brief freezes and audio hiccups that plague video calls are not the benign nuisances that most people assume them to be, according to a new study published in Nature that found glitches during virtual interactions can meaningfully damage hiring prospects, reduce trust in healthcare providers and even correlate with lower chances of being granted parole.
  Researchers from Columbia, Cornell, and the University of Missouri-Kansas City conducted ten studies examining glitches across thousands o
  
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• Taiwan's iPass Releases Floppy Disk Pre-Paid Cash Card

  27-12-2025 11:01 via it.slashdot.org
  Taiwan's iPass has released a limited-edition prepaid payment card shaped exactly like a 3.5-inch floppy disk. The company, perhaps rightly so, felt the need to include a warning on the product listing: "This product only has a card function and does not have a 3.5mm [sic] disk function, please note before purchasing."
  The NFC-enabled novelty card went on sale starting Christmas Eve and comes in black or yellow finishes at 1:1 scale. It works across Taiwan's public transport network -- buses, tr
  
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• Toll Roads Are Spreading in America

  27-12-2025 09:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  Toll roads are expanding across the U.S. as the traditional gas tax funding model for highways collapses. Indiana became the first state to authorize tolls on all of its existing interstate highways when Governor Mike Braun signed legislation in June.
  The federal gas tax hasn't been raised since 1993. In fiscal 2024, the federal government spent $27 billion more on road maintenance than it collected from fuel taxes, and at state and local levels, fuel taxes covered barely a quarter of road spend
  
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• Rocket Crashes in Brazil's First Commercial Launch

  27-12-2025 06:01 via science.slashdot.org
  The first-ever commercial rocket launched at Brazil's Alcantara Space Center crashed soon after liftoff late earlier this week, dealing a blow to Brazilian aerospace ambitions and shares of South Korean satellite launch company Innospace. From a report: The rocket began its vertical trajectory as planned after liftoff [Monday] at 10:13 p.m. local time (0113 GMT) but fell to the ground after something went wrong 30 seconds into its flight, Innospace CEO Kim Soo-jong said in a letter to shareholde
  
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• Mesh Networks Are About To Escape Apple, Amazon and Google Silos

  27-12-2025 03:00 via mobile.slashdot.org
  After more than two decades of promises and false starts in the mesh networking space, the smart home standards that Apple, Amazon and Google have each championed are finally set to escape their respective brand silos and work together in a single unified network.
  Starting January 1, 2026, Thread 1.4 becomes the Thread Group's only certified standard, bringing a crucial new capability called credential sharing. Devices from different manufacturers can now securely join the same mesh network -- a
  
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• Driverless Future Gains Momentum With Global Robotaxi Deployments

  27-12-2025 01:30 via tech.slashdot.org
  The global push to put autonomous taxis on public roads is accelerating as ride-hailing companies and technology firms advance from pilot programs toward limited commercial rollouts in cities across China, the United States, Europe and the Middle East.
  WeRide and Uber launched Level 4 fully driverless robotaxi operations in Abu Dhabi in November and began offering robotaxi passenger rides on Uber's platform in Dubai the following month. Amazon's Zoox started offering free rides to select early u
  
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• NASA Chief Says US Will Return To Moon Within Trump's Second Term

  27-12-2025 00:40 via science.slashdot.org
  NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, who was confirmed by the Senate just last week after a turbulent nomination process that stretched across most of 2025, said Friday that the United States will return to the moon within President Donald Trump's second term. Isaacman made the comments during an interview on CNBC, calling Trump's recommitment to lunar exploration key to unlocking what he described as an "orbital economy." He said: "We want to have that opportunity to explore and realize the scien
  
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• New York To Require Social Media Platforms To Display Mental Health Warnings

  27-12-2025 00:07 via news.slashdot.org
  Social media platforms with infinite scrolling, auto-play and algorithmic feeds will be required to display warning labels about their potential harm to young users' mental health under a new law, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced on Friday. From a report: "Keeping New Yorkers safe has been my top priority since taking office, and that includes protecting our kids from the potential harms of social media features that encourage excessive use," Hochul said in a statement.
  This month Austra
  
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• FFmpeg Developer Files DMCA Against Rockchip After Two-Year Wait for License Fix

  26-12-2025 21:00 via it.slashdot.org
  GitHub has disabled Rockchip's Media Process Platform repository after an FFmpeg developer filed a DMCA takedown notice, nearly two years after the open-source project first publicly accused the Chinese chipmaker of license violations. The notice, filed December 18, claims Rockchip copied thousands of lines of code from FFmpeg's libavcodec library -- including decoders for H.265, AV1, and VP9 formats -- stripped the original copyright notices, falsely claimed authorship and redistributed the cod
  
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• Indian IT Was Supposed To Die From AI. Instead It's Billing for the Cleanup.

  26-12-2025 19:40 via it.slashdot.org
  Two years after generative AI was supposed to render India's $250 billion IT services industry obsolete, the sector is finding that enterprises still need someone to handle the unglamorous plumbing work that large-scale AI deployment demands. Less than 15% of organizations are meaningfully deploying the new technology, according to investment bank UBS, and Indian IT firms are positioning themselves to capture the preparatory work -- data cleanup, cloud migration, system integration -- that chann
  
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• As AI Companies Borrow Billions, Debt Investors Grow Wary

  26-12-2025 18:37 via news.slashdot.org
  While stock investors have pushed AI-related shares to repeated highs this year, debt markets are telling a more cautious story as newer AI infrastructure companies find themselves paying significantly elevated interest rates to borrow money. Applied Digital, a data center builder, sold $2.35 billion of debt in November at a 9.25% coupon -- roughly 3.75% above similarly rated companies, or about 70% more in interest costs. The pattern has repeated across several deals.
  Wulf Compute, a subsidiary
  
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• The Economic Divide Between Big and Small Companies Is Growing

  26-12-2025 17:24 via news.slashdot.org
  While America's largest corporations are riding a wave of surging profits and AI-fueled stock market enthusiasm to record highs, small businesses across the country are cutting staff and scaling back operations as years of high inflation, cautious consumers and tariff confusion take their toll.
  Private firms with fewer than 50 workers have steadily shed jobs over the past six months, according to payroll processor ADP, cutting 120,000 positions in November alone. Midsize and large firms continue
  
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• Retreating From EVs Could Be Hazardous For Western Carmakers

  26-12-2025 16:08 via tech.slashdot.org
  Western carmakers retreating from electric vehicles amid softening government mandates could find themselves in a precarious position as Chinese rivals continue gaining ground in the EV market they're choosing to de-prioritize. The EU on December 16th dropped its earlier plan to ban petrol car sales outright from 2035, instead requiring carmakers to cut emissions from new vehicles by 90% from 2021 levels. The day before, Ford announced a $19.5 billion asset writedown as it rethinks its EV strate
  
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• AI's Hunger For Memory Chips Could Shrink Smartphone and PC Sales in 2026, IDC Says

  26-12-2025 15:05 via it.slashdot.org
  The global smartphone and PC markets face potential contractions of up to 5.2% and 8.9% respectively in 2026, according to downside risk scenarios from IDC that trace the problem to memory chip manufacturers shifting production capacity away from consumer electronics toward AI data centers. Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology have pivoted their limited cleanroom space toward high-bandwidth memory for AI servers, restricting supply of the conventional DRAM and NAND used in phones
  
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• China Launches $21 Billion Venture Capital Funds To Invest in 'Hard Technology'

  26-12-2025 13:31 via slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: China on Friday launched three venture capital funds to invest in "hard technology" areas, state broadcaster CCTV reported. The capital contribution plans for the funds have been finalised, each with more than 50 billion yuan ($7.14 billion), according to the report. The funds will primarily invest in early-stage startups and the targets should be valued at less than 500 million yuan, an official said on Friday, adding that no single investment would amount t
  
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• 'Memory is Running Out, and So Are Excuses For Software Bloat'

  26-12-2025 11:01 via developers.slashdot.org
  The relentless climb in memory prices driven by the AI boom's insatiable demand for datacenter hardware has renewed an old debate about whether modern software has grown inexcusably fat, a column by the Register argues. The piece points to Windows Task Manager as a case study: the current executable occupies 6MB on disk and demands nearly 70MB of RAM just to display system information, compared to the original's 85KB footprint.
  "Its successor is not orders of magnitude more functional," the colu
  
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• Cursor CEO Warns Vibe Coding Builds 'Shaky Foundations' That Eventually Crumble

  26-12-2025 08:00 via developers.slashdot.org
  Michael Truell, the 25-year-old CEO and cofounder of Cursor, is drawing a sharp distinction between careful AI-assisted development and the more hands-off approach commonly known as "vibe coding." Speaking at a conference, Truell described vibe coding as a method where users "close your eyes and you don't look at the code at all and you just ask the AI to go build the thing for you." He compared it to constructing a house by putting up four walls and a roof without understanding the underlying w
  
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• Gmail Users May Soon Be Able To Change Their Email Address and Keep the Old One

  26-12-2025 02:55 via it.slashdot.org
  Google appears to be testing a feature that would let users change their @gmail.com address for the first time, according to an official support document. The support page exists only in Hindi, suggesting an India-first rollout, and Google notes that users will "gradually begin to see this option."
  The feature would let users switch to a new @gmail address while retaining full access to their old one, effectively giving a single account two working email addresses. Emails sent to either address
  
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• Apple Settles Brazilian Antitrust Case, Must Allow Third-Party App Stores and External Payment Links

  26-12-2025 01:39 via apple.slashdot.org
  Apple has agreed to a settlement with Brazil's antitrust regulator that will require the company to allow third-party app stores on iPhones and permit developers to direct users to external payment options, marking another country where Apple's tightly controlled App Store model is being pried open by government action.
  Brazil's Administrative Council of Economic Defense approved the settlement this week, resolving an investigation that began in 2022 into whether Apple's restrictions on app dist
  
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• Fake MAS Windows Activation Domain Used To Spread PowerShell Malware

  25-12-2025 22:00 via it.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: A typosquatted domain impersonating the Microsoft Activation Scripts (MAS) tool was used to distribute malicious PowerShell scripts that infect Windows systems with the 'Cosmali Loader'. BleepingComputer has found that multiple MAS users began reporting on Reddit yesterday that they received pop-up warnings on their systems about a Cosmali Loader infection.
  Based on the reports, attackers have set up a look-alike domain, "get[dot]activate[dot]win," which clos
  
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• Wall Street Has Stopped Rewarding 'Strategic' Layoffs

  25-12-2025 20:01 via slashdot.org
  Goldman Sachs analysts have identified a notable shift in how investors respond to corporate layoff announcements, finding that even job cuts attributed to automation and AI-driven restructuring are now causing stock prices to fall rather than rise. The investment bank linked recent layoff announcements to public companies' earnings reports and stock market data, concluding that stocks dropped by an average of 2% following such announcements, and companies citing restructurings faced even harshe
  
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• Chinese Social Media Users Criticize Authorities in Rare Sign of Dissent

  25-12-2025 19:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Chinese social media users criticized two key government policies, rare signs of public dissent in the country where the internet is heavily censored. The death of the former head of China's one-child policy agency -- which for decades forced women to carry out abortions and sterilizations -- sparked criticism of the demographic effort, with one netizen lamenting the "children who were lost."
  Others, meanwhile, criticized Beijing's leadership over its ongoing
  
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• Framework Raises Memory Prices Again, Suggests Customers Bring Their Own RAM

  25-12-2025 18:01 via it.slashdot.org
  Framework has announced yet another price increase for memory modules, the second in roughly a month, and the company is now actively encouraging customers to source their own RAM elsewhere if they can find better deals. The laptop maker cited "extreme memory shortages and price volatility" as the reason for the hike, noting that 32GB modules and smaller currently cost around $10 per gigabyte while 48GB modules run approximately $13 per gigabyte.
  Framework said it expects to raise prices again b
  
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• Waymo Pays Workers $22 To Close Doors on Stranded Robotaxis

  25-12-2025 17:01 via tech.slashdot.org
  Waymo's fleet of autonomous robotaxis can navigate city streets and compete with human taxi drivers, but they become stranded when a passenger leaves a door ajar -- prompting the company to pay tow truck operators around $20 to $24 through an app called Honk just to push a door shut. The owner of a towing company in Inglewood, California, completes up to three such jobs a week for Waymo, sometimes freeing vehicles by removing seat belts caught in doors. Another Los Angeles tow operator said loca
  
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• Nvidia Buying Groq's Assets For $20 Billion in Its Largest Deal on Record

  25-12-2025 16:01 via slashdot.org
  Nvidia has agreed to buy assets from Groq, a designer of high-performance artificial intelligence accelerator chips, for $20 billion in cash, according to Alex Davis, CEO of Disruptive, which led the startup's latest financing round in September. From a report: Davis, whose firm has invested more than half a billion dollars in Groq since the company was founded in 2016, said the deal came together quickly.
  Groq raised $750 million at a valuation of about $6.9 billion three months ago. Investors
  
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• Trump Administration To Overhaul Lottery System For H-1B Visas

  25-12-2025 15:00 via news.slashdot.org
  The Trump administration has announced it would replace the lottery programme used to grant H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers with a system that prioritises higher-paid individuals. From a report: The Department of Homeland Security said it would begin to implement a "weighted" selection process to give an advantage to higher-skilled and higher-paid applicants from February, according to a statement posted on its website. Matthew Tragesser, Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesperson,
  
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