ICT news

• Red Meat Allergy Caused By Ticks Is an 'Emerging Public Health Concern': CDC

  28-07-2023 05:30 via science.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from ABC News: Alpha-gal syndrome (AGS) is a serious, potentially life-threatening allergic reaction that arises after people eat red meat or consume products with alpha-gal, a type of sugar found in most mammals, the CDC says. The syndrome is typically caused by a bite from the lone star tick, which transfers alpha-gal into the victim's body which in turn triggers an immune system response. The CDC says the number of AGS cases are underdiagnosed in the U.S. a
  
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• A Secret New Elizabeth Holmes Documentary Stuns Telluride

  08-09-2026 21:00 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Telluride just managed one of its best-kept secrets in years, per The Hollywood Reporter. On Sunday night, festival-goers filed into a 650-seat theater with their phones locked away, having no idea what they were about to see, told only that it ran nearly three hours, hadn't been shown anywhere, and that its principal creators would be in the audience. The surprise premiere they went on to enjoy is a new documentary from co-directors Nathan Fi
  
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• LG TVs Caught Spying Even When Offline or On Standby

  08-09-2026 20:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  A Gamers Nexus investigation found that LG smart TVs are almost constantly logging and uploading data about owners and their homes, even while they are offline or in standby mode. "The company's TV sets scan Wi-Fi networks for nearby devices, record audio logs through their microphones, and use audio and video sampling to recognize exactly what you're watching from across the TV inputs," reports The Verge. From the report: Gamers Nexus partnered with fellow YouTubers Level1Techs and independent
  
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• Google DeepMind Publishes AI-Powered Predictions For Effect of All 9 Billion Mutations to Human DNA

  08-09-2026 19:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  Google DeepMind has released AlphaGenome Atlas, a free research database containing AI-generated predictions for the effects of all 9 billion possible single-letter mutations in the human genome. Built from its AlphaGenome model, the atlas is designed to help scientists interpret both protein-coding and harder-to-understand regulatory DNA. Fortune reports: AlphaGenome Atlas, as DeepMind calls the database, is a precomputed catalogue of what each substitution of a single DNA base is likely to do
  
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• Teen Reading Slumps to Worst This Century Due to Surge in Screen Time

  08-09-2026 18:00 via news.slashdot.org
  Teen reading, math, and science scores have fallen to their lowest levels since international PISA testing began in 2000, with 15-year-olds now reading at roughly the level previously expected of students a year younger. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) linked weaker results to more screen time, less reading for pleasure, and digital distraction. It also found that students who regularly used AI chatbots for tasks like drafting essays and summarizing text scored
  
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• Secretive DHS 'Predictive Policing' Unit Is Analyzing Americans' Financial Habits, Pulling Them Over

  08-09-2026 17:00 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader writes: Border Patrol is running secretive predictive policing units that analyze Americans' financial activity and other data, then feed that intelligence to local police who pull people over who are not suspected of any specific crime, but which the government thinks may be worth searching, 404 Media has found. The units, the name of which 404 Media is revealing here for the first time, are called Predictive Intelligence Targeting Teams (PITT). In one case, a PITT analyzed
  
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• AMD Working To 'Push Rust Deep into the GPU Stack'

  08-09-2026 13:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  Phoronix reports:
  AMD is building out what they are describing as an "elite" team of developers for driving Rust code "deep into the GPU stack" from firmware to drivers, shader compilers, and other GPU software in Rust. AMD Senior Fellow Harsh Meno posted this week to LinkedIn about this new effort...
  And note this AMD job posting that's active for hiring a software development engineer to work on Rust code...
  "We are building next-generation systems software for AMD GPUs with Rust as a core tec
  
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• Three Cities, 16 Years And $1 Billion Later, 'Defiant' Lucas Museum of Narrative Art Opens To Mixed Reviews

  08-09-2026 10:34 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  It looks like a spaceship hovering over South Los Angeles, writes CNN, with futuristic tube-like elevators and an exhibition of Banksy murals. There's a room featuring Luke Skywalker's X-34 Landspeeder, but in its gardens there's a 19th-century cast of a sculpture showing David conquering Goliath — and then a bronze statue of Princess Leia strangling Jabba the Hutt with a chain. Next to Rosie the Riveter. CNN argues it's the museum's message that "all forms of art and mythology on display
  
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• Why Google Told Drivers to Drive a Longer Way On Purpose

  08-09-2026 07:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  "A team at Google's research arm used Google Maps to reroute a small portion of drivers in 10 U.S. cities," reports SFGate — including San Francisco and Los Angeles.
  "Through their experiment, which was published in the journal Nature Cities in June, the researchers sought to evenly spread traffic down more corridors as the drivers head to similar destinations, in the hopes of reducing congestion."
  The experiments nudged up vehicle speeds by 2% on average on the congested roads, and shorte
  
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• Does Brave Browser Load Faster Than Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge?

  08-09-2026 04:34 via news.slashdot.org
  The Brave web browser published a new round of benchmarks claiming its desktop browser uses less system resources than Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Firefox — and also loads pages faster.
  The blog Linuxiac reports:According to Brave's testing, the browser used 44% less CPU, 28% less memory, and 10% less energy on average compared with the three competing browsers. It also completed page loads 20% faster while transferring 26% less inbound data and 39% less outbound data...
  - Brave averaged a
  
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• Switzerland's Federal Government Tests Open-Source Alternatives to Microsoft on 3,000 Computers

  08-09-2026 01:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  Switzerland has a population of 9,154,242. And its federal government just launched a pilot program to test open source alternatives to Microsoft 365 on 3,000 workstations, reports the blog It's FOSS. "That's about 7% of the federal workforce."The target is to complete the migration by end of 2027... On September 3, 2026, the Federal Council published results of "PoC BOSS", a feasibility proof-of-concept involving 172 federal employees who tested the openDesk suite, a German open-source collabor
  
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• Instead of Fighting AI, Some Teachers Work It Into Their Lessons

  07-09-2026 22:34 via news.slashdot.org
  Last year the writing program at the University of Baltimore used an app that tracks students while they're writing in Google Docs, offering teachers a video playing back revisions "with a scoreboard of all the edits, pastes and minutes spent on it," writes the Washington Post. "Is it surveillance? Yes, I think obviously," says the program's director.
  But was there a better way?She is one of a dozen educators around the country who told The Post that they're experimenting with a different approa
  
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• A Man Charged His EV at a Dealership - and Was Billed $418

  07-09-2026 19:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  The EV blog Electrek reports:A Clinton Township, Michigan man was charged $418 for a single EV charging session at Elder Hyundai's Macomb Township store after finding the charger listed as publicly available on the EVgo app, but didn't discover the charges until after wrapping up his 40-ish minute charging session. "I was flabbergasted," explained Stanley Kpenkann, who had been driving a rented Chevy Bolt EV at the time. "Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be saddled with a bill of $
  
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• 'She Lost Her Sight. Her Billionaire Father Bet On a Daring New Treatment.'

  07-09-2026 16:34 via science.slashdot.org
  "Billionaire Bill Ackman's life was upended this February when his 26-year-old daughter collapsed in her Brooklyn apartment, suffering a brain hemorrhage that would render her unable to move, speak or see," writes the Washingon Post. But then...The hedge fund manager did what any good father would do — at least, any father with vast financial resources and what friends describe as a "Mr. Fix-It" tendency. He sprung into action, getting her topline care at New York City's Mt. Sinai Hospital
  
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• 'The Jobs Apocalypse Is Postponed. An AI Jobs Boom Is Here'

  07-09-2026 13:34 via slashdot.org
  A new article about AI in The Economist argues that "Initial effects of the technology on employment look positive."Perhaps AI will eventually make many humans unemployable — but there is no sign of it yet. On September 4th the Bureau of Labour Statistics reported that the American economy added 162,000 jobs in August, far above expectations. The unemployment rate is just 4.1%, lower than in almost 90% of months over the past half-century. Young workers, often cast as AI's first victims, a
  
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• Bitcoin-based Liquid Network Says $320 Million Withdrawn in Hack

  07-09-2026 09:30 via yro.slashdot.org
  Reuters reports:
  Liquid Network, a Bitcoin-based payments and settlement network, said on Sunday that about $320 million was withdrawn from its federation wallet in a hack.
  "Purported white-hat hackers" withdrew around 4,000 of the 4,200 bitcoin held in its Liquid Federation wallet, Liquid Network said in a post on X.
  "Liquid wallets will be impacted," their post concluded, adding "and we're sorry for any inconvenience."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Roku's 24/7 AI Slop Channel Is Even Worse Than Expected

  07-09-2026 06:30 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  A new streaming TV channel shows films made with genAI, reports Engadget. "Fairground AI Creator TV" is free — and supported with ads — describing its material as "AI Cinema":
  "AI-generated" can make it sound as though someone typed a sentence into a machine and came back five minutes later to find a finished movie. Fairground's catalog shows why that description can be too simple. Take Lost Garden: The Awakening of the Lantern Knight. According to its Fairground page, creator Frank
  
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• US Military Disables Ad Trackers On Devices To Protect Troops

  07-09-2026 03:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  Slashdot reader DeanonymizedCoward writes: Reuters reports that the US Military is disabling ad tracking on devices, to prevent adversaries from buying publicly-available tracking data to assist in targeting troops. Military officials say that they have disabled trackers on a variety of computers and mobile devices, according to letters released on Friday by Sen. Ron Wyden, and following reports that commercially-available tracking data has been used to target troops in the Middle East....Wyden
  
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• Where a Massive Solar Storm Could Take Down the US Power Grid for Millions

  07-09-2026 01:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  A new study published Friday in AGU Advances "depicts the most advanced picture yet of how a rare but massive solar storm could affect some US industries and electric systems more than others," reports CNN.
  "During a 250-year solar storm, the East Coast would have widespread potential for grid failure."Researchers modeled what a Carrington Event — a 1-in-150-year geomagnetic storm or even rarer — could mean for the modern day. They estimate the US economy would lose about $1.5 billio
  
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• TiVo Will Start Charging Fees For Its Automatic Commercial Break-Skipping Feature 'SkipMode'

  06-09-2026 22:34 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  TiVo is notifying customers about changes to "one of its longest-standing and most popular DVR features," reports the blog Cord Cutter News:Starting November 2, 2026, the current version of SkipMode that allows users to jump over commercial breaks with a single button press on the remote will no longer be available. The company is instead preparing to test a new paid add-on called Premium Auto Commercial Skip.SkipMode has been a core part of the TiVo experience for years. After a supported show
  
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• Flock Offered Webinar Teaching Cops How to Surveil 'No Kings' Protesters

  06-09-2026 19:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  Thursday 404 Media reported that Flock taught America's cops "how they could surveil the No Kings protests" against President Trump (as well as "small parades") in a webinar last year that described "using a mix of Flock's technology and law enforcement's own databases."In the webinar, Flock's director of market management Caity Peak explains how real time crime centers — which are police surveillance centers that utilize Flock cameras and other surveillance cameras — can be used for
  
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• UN Votes To Encourage Map Projections More Accurately Reflecting the True Size of Continents

  06-09-2026 16:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  The United Nations has an announcement. "The UN General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to encourage governments, schools and tech companies worldwide to stop using maps that make Africa look far smaller than it really is."
  By 164 votes to one, Member States on Friday endorsed a resolution promoting map projections that more accurately reflect the true size of continents — the culmination of an African-led campaign against the 16th-century Mercator projection, still the most widely used
  
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• Private German Rocket Makes History, Reaches Orbit From European Soil

  06-09-2026 13:34 via science.slashdot.org
  "No rocket had ever reached orbit from Western European soil — until today," reports Space.com.DW.com reports that a Spectrum space rocket from German company Isar Aerospace launched today from the Arctic Norwegian spaceport at Andoya:"Germany has spaceflight capabilities," said the country's Ministry for Research, Technology and Space on X, praising a "milestone that impressively demonstrates our country's innovative strength and technical expertise". This was the German company's second
  
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• 2026 Hugo Award Winners Include Ursula Le Guin-Authored Graphic Novel

  06-09-2026 09:34 via news.slashdot.org
  This year's Hugo Award winners were announced last weekend at Worldcon — the world's longest-running science fiction/fantasy convention. The Orange County Register reports there were fans "clad in capes, gowns and elaborate character costumes," with famous attendees including Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin, who held a book signing:Martin attended his first Worldcon in 1971 in Boston, before he published his first novel. Fresh out of his graduate studies, Martin, then 22 years o
  
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• To Promote Grand Theft Auto 6, Mayor Might Transform Miami into 'Vice City'

  06-09-2026 06:34 via games.slashdot.org
  Rockstar Games and the mayor of Miami-Dade county are discussing a joint marketing campaign transforming parts of the county to look like areas from Grand Theft Auto 6, reports the blog Rock Paper Shotgun:The proposed publicity event would include "an immersive arrival experience" at Miami International Airport. with signs for Vice City and planes coated in GTA 6 livery, together with branded Metromover skytrains and specially designed manhole covers... [I]t proposes a dockyard visual installati
  
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• How US Campaigns Are Already Using AI to Try to Sway Voters

  06-09-2026 03:34 via politics.slashdot.org
  39 U.S. congressional candidates "reported paying for an OpenAI subscription this election cycle," writes the Washington Post, citing campaign finance disclosures.
  This means the campaigns "are using the technology to court voters — despite limits imposed by leading AI companies to protect elections from the technology's risks."Two [candidates] said explicitly in filings that they had used the subscription for advertising, even though the company's policies prohibit candidates from using t
  
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• FSF is Now on Bluesky - But Won't Advocate Signing Up Due to Nonfree JavaScript

  06-09-2026 00:34 via news.slashdot.org
  The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is now on Bluesky, they announced this week. But "We can't advocate that you sign up for a Bluesky account like we do with Mastodon or PeerTube since signing up for Bluesky means loading the registration page's nonfree JavaScript..."While federated, Bluesky is generally not considered part of the "fediverse" network of social media services like Mastodon and PeerTube, as it uses its own AT protocol rather than ActivityPub... Hosting your own Bluesky "Personal D
  
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• The World Now Has More Seniors Than Young People - for the First Time In History

  05-09-2026 23:00 via slashdot.org
  "There are now more seniors in the world than young children," reports the International Business Times, citing a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau report. And it warns that "The share of the population aged 65 and over is projected to nearly double, from 10.5 percent (about 1 in 10 people) in 2025 to 19.6 percent (about 1 in 5 people) by 2060."The world is expected to add another 2 billion people from 2025 to 2060, increasing global population from around 8 billion to around 10 billion...
  
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• Cancer Deaths Attributable to Alcohol Rose 58% Over the Last 33 Years

  05-09-2026 18:50 via science.slashdot.org
  CNN reports that alcohol "may play a greater role in death from numerous types of cancers in the United States than previously known, according to a new study.""While it's true that overall cancer mortality has declined, we found the percentage of cancer deaths proportionally attributable to alcohol rose over 58% in people 20 and older over the last 33 years," said the study's first author Dr. Chinmay Jani... It didn't take much alcohol to raise one's risk — about one standard drink a day,
  
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• Hundreds More Flock Cameras Removed in the US This Week. Flock Caught Repackaging Traffic Data

  05-09-2026 14:20 via yro.slashdot.org
  Florida's Republican Governor Ron DeSantis said this week he's removing Flock cameras from state roadways. And according to a local news report, that led sheriff's departments in at least three other Florida counties to also "announce they're ending their own license plate reader programs." The same week in Texas, the Dallas Police Department announced it's also shutting down over 300 more Flock cameras, acccording to The Hill, after Republican Governor Greg Abbott ordered state agencies to halt
  
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