ICT news

• Reddit Sales Growth Slowdown Preceded Fight Over New API Fees

  23-06-2023 18:52 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  A stark business reality faced Reddit before a user uprising engulfed its site this month: slowing sales growth. From a report: Reddit's revenue rose 38% in 2022 to about $670 million last year, two people familiar with the matter said, faster than many other internet ad firms but a steep slowdown from the more than doubling of revenue the company experienced in 2021 over 2020. The slowdown adds to uncertainty about Reddit's hopes of going public. It comes in the wake of a highly public battle b
  
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• GTA VI Is a Worrying Sign For the Future of Physical Games

  24-06-2026 23:00 via games.slashdot.org
  Rockstar Games has revealed the price of Grand Theft Auto VI to be $79.99, and confirmed that the physical versions of the game won't include a disc. Instead, they'll contain a one-time download code when it launches November 19. "Not only is that a disappointing decision for people who like to own physical games, but given the scale of the next GTA, it also sets a bad precedent for the rest of the industry," reports The Verge. From the report: There are a lot of advantages to buying digital. Yo
  
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• OpenAI Unveils First Chip As Part of Broadcom Deal

  24-06-2026 22:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  OpenAI and Broadcom have unveiled Jalapeno, OpenAI's first custom AI chip, designed primarily to handle inference for ChatGPT and other services. It's a major step in OpenAI's plan to "build the full stack behind its models and products," says OpenAI. "By designing more of the stack ourselves, we can serve more intelligence with greater efficiency and keep pushing advanced AI toward broader access." CNBC reports: The chip with Broadcom is an ASIC, which industry experts say is less flexible than
  
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• Walmart's First Nuclear Deal Shows Demand Beyond AI Data Centers

  24-06-2026 21:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Barron's: Walmart is signing a long-term contract to buy nuclear power for the first time ever, a promising sign that the industry's future is supported by more than just the AI data center boom. The retail giant agreed on Tuesday to buy power from a nuclear plant in Illinois owned by Constellation Energy for its operations in the area, including its stores and a high-tech warehouse in Illinois that stores and sorts perishable food.Walmart will buy 176 me
  
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• Bob Iger's Disney Wanted Apple, Twitter, and 007

  24-06-2026 20:00 via apple.slashdot.org
  In an exit interview with The Financial Times (paywalled), former Disney CEO Bob Iger says the company seriously considered buying Twitter, explored a potential merger with Apple, and pursued the James Bond franchise during his tenure. The Verge reports: According to Iger, Disney came close to buying Twitter from co-founder Jack Dorsey "at a very attractive price," sometime prior to Elon Musk buying the social media platform in 2022 and changing its name to X. Iger had plans to turn Twitter into
  
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• Boffin Claims Microsoft's 'Quantum Leap' Is Invalid Due To 'Basic Python Errors'

  24-06-2026 19:00 via developers.slashdot.org
  A peer-reviewed Nature critique argues that Microsoft's 2025 Majorana quantum-computing breakthrough -- and its claim that it could enable "a truly meaningful quantum computer not in decades, as some have predicted, but in years" -- is fundamentally flawed. According to Dr Henry Legg, a lecturer at the University of St Andrews, the claims were undermined by omitted data, selective plotting, and basic Python errors that concealed alternative results. Microsoft, for its part, says the bugs were mi
  
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• Trump Admin Announces $17.5 Billion In Loans For 10 New Large Nuclear Reactors

  24-06-2026 18:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: The Trump administration is providing $17.5 billion to speed the development of 10 new large nuclear reactors to meet the skyrocketing power demand from massive data centers. Energy Secretary Chris Wright cited "tremendous interest" among developers of data centers that would buy the power, as well as utilities and energy companies. The nuclear plants could begin construction by 2030 and become operational in the mid-2030s, Wright an
  
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• A 25-Year-Old Blog Looks Back At 40 Years of Computing

  24-06-2026 17:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Ancient Slashdot reader Mark Round writes: Longtime reader here (since mid-1999 -- Hot Grits! Oog the Caveman! Beowulf clusters!), and I can still remember posting back on Slashdot's own 5th anniversary. Time's rolled on: my own blog just turned 25, and it's now roughly 40 years since I first sat down at a computer. So I went digging through archive.org, old backups, and a box of ZIP disks, and wrote up a long look back at four decades of computing through the one website that's been my online h
  
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• Mushroom Behind 'Tiny Human' Visions Lacks Genes For Known Psychedelics

  24-06-2026 13:00 via science.slashdot.org
  alternative_right shares a report from ScienceAlert: If you consumed a wild mushroom and suddenly started seeing tiny people around you, you might reasonably assume it contained a familiar psychedelic. But that does not appear to be the case with Lanmaoa asiatica, known locally as jian shou qing, a mushroom species sold in markets in Yunnan, southwestern China. When eaten undercooked, the mushroom can produce vivid visions of miniature people -- not unlike Gulliver on his travels to Lilliput. To
  
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• Europe: The World's Fastest-Warming Continent

  24-06-2026 11:00 via news.slashdot.org
  fjo3 shares a report from the AFP: The latest heatwave sweeping across Europe is a stark reminder that it is the world's fastest-warming continent, stretching into an Arctic that is heating at an even greater pace. Britain, France, Italy and Spain have issued red alerts and health warnings for much of their territory this week as the region endures its second heat episode since May.Here is a look at why Europe is warming faster than elsewhere: The planet as a whole is around 1.4C warmer than in
  
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• US AI Stock Sell-Off Shakes Markets From Wall Street To Asia

  24-06-2026 08:00 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A tech sell-off shook global markets on Tuesday as attention turned away from developments in the US war with Iran and toward the future of AI companies and chipmakers that have driven stock markets to record highs. The tech-heavy Nasdaq index closed 2.2% lower on Tuesday. The S&P 500 was also down by Tuesday afternoon, dropping 1.43% while the Dow remained steady. All three major US indices have hit record highs this year, riding off a
  
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• 29-Year-Old Squid Proxy Bug 'Squidbleed' Can Leak Cleartext HTTP Requests

  24-06-2026 01:00 via it.slashdot.org
  A 29-year-old bug in the Squid web proxy, dubbed Squidbleed and tracked as CVE-2026-47729, can let an authorized proxy user retrieve fragments of another user's cleartext HTTP requests, including credentials and session tokens. The security researcher who reported the flaw credited Anthropic's Claude Mythos Preview for the discovery. The Hacker News reports: Squid describes this as an attack by a trusted client: someone already permitted to use the proxy, not any random host on the internet. Tha
  
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• China Reclaims Fastest Supercomputer At 2 Exaflops

  24-06-2026 00:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  Longtime Slashdot reader hackingbear shares a report from TOP500: The 67th edition of the TOP500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers was announced today at the ISC 2026 conference in Hamburg, Germany. LineShine, a previously unlisted system installed in China, debuts at No. 1, displacing El Capitan as the world's most powerful supercomputer as measured by the High Performance Linpack (HPL) benchmark. LineShine achieved 2.198 Exaflop/s on HPL -- about 80 percent of its 2.736 Exaflop/
  
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• Wikipedia Cofounder Larry Sanger Banned From Site for 'Canvassing'

  23-06-2026 23:00 via news.slashdot.org
  Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger has been indefinitely banned from editing the site after editors concluded that he violated its canvassing rules, "or in other words, calling on his followers off platform in order to influence Wikipedia's content," reports 404 Media. Sanger says the ban proves Wikipedia suppresses ideological diversity, while editors argue he was trying to mobilize an outside audience to influence internal decisions and had ignored an earlier warning. From the report: The discus
  
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• Walmart, In Biggest Deal In Two Years, Buys Advertising Tech Firm Vibe.co

  23-06-2026 22:00 via slashdot.org
  Walmart is acquiring self-serve connected-TV ad platform Vibe.co for a reported $1.4 billion, adding it to an advertising ecosystem that already includes smart-TV maker Vizio. AdExchanger reports: On Tuesday, Walmart announced that it is buying Vibe.co, the French self-serve ad platform that specializes in helping small brands buy streaming commercials with similar ease and precision as they get from search and social. Vibe has been vying for a bigger share of the ad dollars moving to connected
  
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• Mark Zuckerberg Directed Meta To Create a Prediction Markets App

  23-06-2026 21:00 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Mr. Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, recently dispatched a small team at his company to create a smartphone app similar to Polymarket and Kalshi, two employees with knowledge of the matter said. Users would not wager money, and the app would probably rely on a video game-like points system instead, one person said, though the company had not ruled out the eventual use of real money betting. The app is internally referred to as
  
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• Digital Euro Expected To Launch By 2029 After EU Backing

  23-06-2026 20:00 via news.slashdot.org
  The European Parliament's economic committee has backed a digital euro designed to reduce Europe's dependence on US-controlled payment networks such as Visa and Mastercard. The ECB-backed currency is targeted for launch by 2029 after a full parliamentary vote and negotiations with EU member states. Euronews reports: Under the proposal, consumers would be able to hold digital euros in a dedicated wallet, subject to a holding limit that has yet to be determined. The system would support both onlin
  
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• Meta Launches Cheaper Smart Glasses Without Ray-Ban

  23-06-2026 19:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  Meta has launched its first smart glasses without Ray-Ban branding. Starting at $299, they're cheaper than the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 while retaining EssilorLuxottica as a design and manufacturing partner. The Verge reports: As far as style and specs, the Meta Glasses aren't that different from Ray-Bans. The internal specs are the same as the recently released Ray-Ban Meta Optics Styles, with slightly longer battery life. The Adventurer models have thinner rims, while the Fury models hew a bit close
  
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• Oracle Cuts 21,000 Jobs As It Embraces AI

  23-06-2026 18:00 via developers.slashdot.org
  Oracle cut roughly 21,000 jobs over the past year as it reorganized around AI and ramps up spending on data centers for customers such as OpenAI and Meta. The restructuring cost the company about $1.8 billion and, while Oracle says AI deployment may drive further reductions, it also warns the cuts could create skills shortages and hurt productivity. The BBC reports: The software and cloud computing firm says it had around 141,000 full-time employees as of May 31, 2026, down from about 162,000 wo
  
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• UK Considers Forcing Social Media Firms To Prioritize Trusted News

  23-06-2026 17:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Britain is considering forcing social media companies to prioritize what the government called trusted news sources as part of its broader push to tighten regulation of the sector. The culture department said on Monday it was considering requiring platforms such as Meta's Facebook, Alphabet-owned YouTube and TikTok to make content from public service media -- including the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 -- and other trusted news providers easier to find
  
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• Canada Plans 'Nuclear Renaissance' With Up To 10 Reactors Built By 2040

  23-06-2026 13:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Canada has unveiled a national strategy to build up to 10 new nuclear reactors over the next 15 years as it seeks to double electricity-grid capacity by 2050. Energy Minister Tim Hodgson called it a plan for a "new civilian nuclear renaissance.""If our goal is to double our grid and build a low-carbon economy in less than 25 years, there is no credible plan to do that without nuclear energy and the clean, reliable baseload power it provides," Hodgson said. "There is no credible plan for Canada t
  
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• NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Arrives In Florida

  23-06-2026 09:00 via science.slashdot.org
  NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has arrived at Kennedy Space Center ahead of a Falcon Heavy launch targeted for no earlier than August 30. The observatory will survey the sky about 1,000 times faster than Hubble with a field of view at least 100 times wider, helping scientists study dark matter, dark energy, and exoplanets. Spaceflight Now reports: NASA's next great observatory, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, arrived at the Kennedy Space Center aboard the agency's massive Pegasu
  
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• GM Installs Robots At Flagship EV Factory After Laying Off 1,300 Workers

  23-06-2026 05:30 via hardware.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Dozens of new robot arms have been installed at General Motors' flagship electric vehicle factory in Detroit -- even as 1,300 workers remain out of work following what was supposed to be a temporary layoff. The latest automation push has spurred union pushback over a potentially existential issue for automakers and their workers. General Motors installed approximately 50 robot arms at GM's Factory Zero plant in Detroit, Michigan, according t
  
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• Microsoft Accidentally Breaks Replying To an Email On Outlook

  23-06-2026 01:00 via it.slashdot.org
  Microsoft has accidentally introduced a bug in Outlook for Mac that omits the original message from email replies, making it difficult for recipients to follow conversation history. Until Microsoft releases a fix, its suggested workaround is to roll back from version 16.110 and disable automatic updates, which is "great for users in full control of their devices -- not so good for anyone with a managed device," notes The Register. "Administrators with fleets of Macs running Outlook should brace
  
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• Following User Outcry, AMD Reinstates Memory Encryption In Consumer CPUs

  23-06-2026 00:00 via it.slashdot.org
  Last week, AMD was found to have stripped memory encryption from its consumer CPUs without any warning or notice. Now, following a wave of backlash on social media, the chipmaker has now reinstated the protection, though it still hasn't explained why the safeguard was disabled in the first place. Ars Technica reports: Following the revelation, social media was deluged by comments from AMD consumers decrying the move. They noted that AMD's quiet removal of TSME after supporting it for so long see
  
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• Valve Will Finally Let You Build Your Own Steam Machine With SteamOS For Desktop

  22-06-2026 23:00 via games.slashdot.org
  With the price of the new Steam Machine starting at $1,049, you might want to consider making your own Steam Machine instead. An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Valve says that "starting with the SteamOS 3.8 release, you can put together your own Steam Machine using whatever PC parts you want." SteamOS 3.8.10 launched last week with a slew of updates, including "improved compatibility with recent Intel and AMD platforms." Alongside that improved compatibility, Valve is giving ga
  
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• Google Invests $75 Million In A24 To Develop AI-Powered Filmmaking Tools

  22-06-2026 22:00 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  Google is investing roughly $75 million in A24 as part of a research partnership with DeepMind to develop AI-powered filmmaking tools and workflows. "The deal represents the latest marriage between a Hollywood studio and AI in an era where companies have oscillated between partnerships and lawsuits," reports Variety. From the report: A24 partner Scott Belsky, who leads the studio's technology division A24 Labs, told the Journal the studio's Google partnership differed from other deals because AI
  
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• Some Electricians Think Building Data Centers Is For Sellouts

  22-06-2026 21:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: As Big Tech dumps billions of dollars into America's data center buildout, a slew of opportunities have opened up to the electricians wiring these massive facilities. In some cases, the scale of the projects and the demanding construction timelines are fueling talent wars for the industry's best and brightest. The US-based International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) has argued that its workers are "powering the AI Revolution," and a set
  
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• Valve Prices the Steam Machine At $1,049

  22-06-2026 20:00 via games.slashdot.org
  Valve's new Steam Machine will launch June 29 starting at $1,049 and go up from there depending on the configuration. Although it costs considerably more than the PS5 ($599.99) and Xbox Series X ($649.99), "the value proposition for the Steam Machine is that it can play your library of Steam games you may have accumulated over years (or even decades), rather than just PlayStation games, and it's also a full Linux PC that you can customize to your heart's content," reports The Verge. "Valve also
  
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• AI Law Firm Wins UK Court Case For First Time

  22-06-2026 19:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  Garfield AI, the UK's first regulator-approved AI law firm, has won its first court case after helping a freelancer recover 7,000 pounds in unpaid fees. "I was owed money for work I had done, but it felt like the process of recovering it could be too stressful, expensive and time-consuming," said Tamires Camal Taquidir, a freelancer who had provided HR-related services to a hospitality business. "Garfield made it possible for me to pursue the claim and keep going. When the counterclaim was broug
  
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