ICT news

• Rust Users Push Back as Popular 'Serde' Project Ships Precompiled Binaries

  19-08-2023 21:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  "Serde, a popular Rust (de)serialization project, has decided to ship its serde_derive macro as a precompiled binary," reports Bleeping Computer.
  "The move has generated a fair amount of push back among developers who worry about its future legal and technical implications, along with a potential for supply chain attacks, should the maintainer account publishing these binaries be compromised."According to the Rust package registry, crates.io, serde has been downloaded over 196 million times over
  
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• Richard Stallman Was Asked: Is Software Piracy Wrong?

  26-01-2026 13:34 via news.slashdot.org
  Friday 72-year-old Richard Stallman made a two-hour-and-20-minutes appearance at the Georgia Institute of Technology, talking about everything from AI and connected cars to smartphones, age verfication laws, and his favorite Linux distro. But early on, Stallman also told the audience how "I despise DRM...I don't want any copy of anything with DRM. Whatever it is, I never want it so badly that I would bow down to DRM." (So he doesn't use Spotify or Netflix...)
  This led to an interesting moment wh
  
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• Is Google Prioritizing YouTube and X Over News Publishers on Discover?

  26-01-2026 09:34 via news.slashdot.org
  Earlier this month, the media site Press Gazette reported that now Google "is increasingly prioritising AI summaries, X posts and Youtube videos" on its "Discover" feed (which appears on the leftmost homescreen page of many Android phones and the Google app's homepage).
  "The changes could be devastating for publishers who rely heavily on Discover for referral traffic. And it looks set to accelerate a global trend of declining traffic to publishers from both Google search and Discover."Xavi Beuma
  
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• Startup Uses SpaceX Tech to Cool Data Centers With Less Power and No Water

  26-01-2026 06:44 via hardware.slashdot.org
  California-based Karman Industries "says it has developed a cooling system that uses SpaceX rocket engine technology to rein in the environmental impact of data centers," reports the Los Angeles Times, "chilling them with less space, less power and no water."
  Karman has developed a cooling system similar to the heat pumps in the average home, except its pumps use liquid carbon dioxide as refrigerant, which is circulated using rocket engine technology rather than fans. The company's efficient pum
  
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• New Linux/Android 2-in-1 Tablet 'Open Slate' Announced by Brax Technologies

  26-01-2026 05:24 via news.slashdot.org
  Brax Technologies just announced "a privacy-focused alternative to locked-down tablets" called open_slate that can double as a consumer tablet and a Linux-capable workstation on ARM.
  Earlier Brax Technologies built the privacy-focused smartphone BraX3, which co-founder Plamen Todorov says proved "a privacy-focused mobile device could be designed, crowdfunded, manufactured, and delivered outside the traditional Big Tech ecosystem."
  Just as importantly, BraX3 showed us the value of building with t
  
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• KDE's 'Plasma Login Manager' Stops Supporting FreeBSD - Because Systemd

  26-01-2026 03:04 via bsd.slashdot.org
  KDE's "Plasma Login Manager" is apparently dropping support for FreeBSD, the Unix-like operating system, reports the blog It's FOSS. They cite a recently-accepted merge request from a KDE engineer to drop the code supporting FreeBSD, since the login manager relies on systemd/logind:systemd and logind look like hard dependencies of the login manager, which means the software is built to work exclusively with these components and cannot function without them... logind is a component of systemd tha
  
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• Washington State May Mandate 'Firearm Blueprint Detection Algorithms' For 3D Printers

  26-01-2026 02:04 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Adafruit managing director Phillip Torrone (also long-time Slashdot reader ptorrone ) writes: Washington State lawmakers are proposing bills (HB 2320 and HB 2321) that would require 3D printers and CNC machines to block certain designs using software-based "firearms blueprint detection algorithms." In practice, this means scanning every print file, comparing it against a government-maintained database, and preventing "skilled users" from bypassing the system. Supporters frame this as a response
  
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• Google Discover Replaces News Headlines With Sometimes Inaccurate AI-Generated Alternatives

  26-01-2026 01:04 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shared this report from The Verge:
  In early December, I brought you the news that Google has begun replacing Verge headlines, and those of our competitors, with AI clickbait nonsense in its content feed [which appears on the leftmost homescreen page of many Android phones and the Google app's homepage]. Google appeared to be backing away from the experiment, but now tells The Verge that its AI headlines in Google Discover are a feature, one that "performs well for user satisf
  
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• Gasoline Out of Thin Air? It's a Reality!

  25-01-2026 22:56 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Can Aircela's machine "create gasoline using little more than electricity and the air that we breathe"? Jalopnik reports...The Aircela machine works through a three-step process. It captures carbon dioxide directly from the air... The machine also traps water vapor, and uses electrolysis to break water down into hydrogen and oxygen... The oxygen is released, leaving hydrogen and carbon dioxide, the building blocks of hydrocarbons. This mixture then undergoes a process known as direct hydrogenati
  
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• Richard Stallman Critiques AI, Connected Cars, Smartphones, and DRM

  25-01-2026 20:36 via news.slashdot.org
  Richard Stallman spoke Friday at Atlanta's Georgia Institute of Technology, continuing his activism for free software while also addressing today's new technologies.
  Speaking about AI, Stallman warned that "nowadays, people often use the term artificial intelligence for things that aren't intelligent at all..." He makes a point of calling large language models "generators" because "They generate text and they don't understand really what that text means." (And they also make mistakes "without ba
  
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• US Congress Fails to Repeal 'Kill Switch' for Cars Mandate

  25-01-2026 18:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  Newsweek reports on how the U.S. Congress is debating "kill switch" technology for vehicles, "which would be able to monitor diver behavior, detect impairment such as intoxication and intervene...""While the technology is not yet a legal requirement in cars, Congress passed a law with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021 that requires the Department of Transportation to create the mandate."Republican Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky introduced an amendment to a federal spen
  
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• The Android 'NexPhone': Linux on Demand, Dual-Boots Into Windows 11 - and Transforms Into a Workstation

  25-01-2026 17:34 via mobile.slashdot.org
  The "NexDock" (from Nex Computer) already turns your phone into a laptop workstation. Purism chose it as the docking station for their Librem 5 phones.
  But now Nex is offering its own smartphone "that runs Android 16, launches Debian, and dual-boots into Windows 11," according to the blog It's FOSS:
  Fourteen years after the first concept video was teased, the NexPhone is here, powered by a Qualcomm QCM6490, which, the keen-eyed among you will remember from the now-discontinued Fairphone 5.
  By 20
  
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• The Case Against Small Modular Nuclear Reactors

  25-01-2026 16:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Small modular nuclear reactors (or SMRs) are touted as "cheaper, safer, faster to build and easier to finance" than conventional nuclear reactors, reports CNN. Amazon has invested in X-Energy, and earlier this month, Meta announced a deal with Oklo, and in Michigan last month, Holtec began the long formal licensing process for two SMRs with America's Nuclear Regulatory Commission next to a nuclear plant it hopes to reactive. (And in 2024, California-based Kairos Power broke ground in Tennessee o
  
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• The Risks of AI in Schools Outweigh the Benefits, Report Says

  25-01-2026 13:34 via news.slashdot.org
  This month saw results from a yearlong global study of "potential negative risks that generative AI poses to student". The study (by the Brookings Institution's Center for Universal Education) also suggests how to prevent risks and maximize benefits:
  After interviews, focus groups, and consultations with over 500 students, teachers, parents, education leaders, and technologists across 50 countries, a close review of over 400 studies, and a Delphi panel, we find that at this point in its trajecto
  
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• Former Canonical Developer Advocate Warns Snap Store Isn't Safe After Slow Responses to Malware Reports

  25-01-2026 09:44 via linux.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shared this article from the blog Linuxiac
  In a blog post, Alan Pope, a longtime Ubuntu community figure and former Canonical employee who remains an active Snap publisher... [warns of] a persistent campaign of malicious snaps impersonating cryptocurrency wallet applications. These fake apps typically mimic well-known projects such as Exodus, Ledger Live, or Trust Wallet, prompting users to enter wallet recovery phrases, which are then transmitted to attackers, resulting in d
  
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• Google's 'AI Overviews' Cite YouTube For Health Queries More Than Any Medical Sites, Study Suggests

  25-01-2026 06:34 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shared this report from the Guardian:
  Google's search feature AI Overviews cites YouTube more than any medical website when answering queries about health conditions, according to research that raises fresh questions about a tool seen by 2 billion people each month.
  The company has said its AI summaries, which appear at the top of search results and use generative AI to answer questions from users, are "reliable" and cite reputable medical sources such as the Centers for Dise
  
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• Infotainment, EV Charger Exploits Earn $1M at Pwn2Own Automotive 2026

  25-01-2026 03:34 via it.slashdot.org
  Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative sponsored its third annual Pwn2Own Automotive competition in Tokyo this week, receiving 73 entries, the most ever for a Pwn2Own event.
  "Under Pwn2Own rules, all disclosed vulnerabilities are reported to affected vendors through ZDI," reports Help Net Security, "with public disclosure delayed to allow time for patches."Infotainment platforms from Tesla, Sony, and Alpine were among the systems compromised during demonstrations. Researchers achieved code execution
  
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• Work-From-Office Mandate? Expect Top Talent Turnover, Culture Rot

  25-01-2026 00:34 via it.slashdot.org
  CIO magazine reports that "the push toward in-person work environments will make it more difficult for IT leaders to retain and recruit staff, some experts say.""In addition to resistance, there would also be the risk of talent turnover," [says Lawrence Wolfe, CTO at marketing firm Converge]... "The truth is, both physical and virtual collaboration provide tremendous value...." IT workers facing work-from-office mandates are two to three times more likely than their counterparts to look for new
  
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• Airlines Cancel Over 10,000 US Flights Due To Massive Winter Storm

  24-01-2026 23:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  "Airlines canceled more than 10,000 U.S. flights scheduled for this weekend," reports CNBC, "as a massive winter storm sweeps across the country, with heavy snow and sleet forecast, followed by bitter cold... set to snarl travel for hundreds of thousands of people for days."More than 3,500 flights on Saturday were canceled, according to flight tracker FlightAware. Many of Saturday's cancellations were in and out of Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, with about 1,300 scrubbed flights, and a
  
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• Cheap Green Tech Allows Faster Path To Electrification For the Developing World

  24-01-2026 22:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Slashdot reader Mr. Dollar Ton summarizes this article from Bloomberg:According to a new report from think tank "Ember", the availability of cheap green tech can have developing countries profit from earlier investment and skip steps in the transition from fossil to alternatives.
  India is put forward as an example. While China's rapid electrification has been hailed as a miracle, by some measures, India is moving ahead faster than China did when it was at similar levels of economic development.
  
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• Microsoft 365 Endured 9+ Hours of Outages Thursday

  24-01-2026 21:34 via it.slashdot.org
  Early Friday "there were nearly 113 incidents of people reporting issues with Microsoft 365 as of 1:05 a.m. ET," reports Reuters. But that's down "from over 15,890 reports at its peak a day earlier, according to Downdetector." Reuters points out the outage affected antivirus software Microsoft Defender and data governance software Microsoft Purview, while CRN notes it also impacted "a number of Microsoft 365 services" including Outlook and Exchange online:During the outage, Outlook users receive
  
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• AI Luminaries Clash At Davos Over How Close Human-Level Intelligence Really Is

  24-01-2026 20:34 via slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shared this report from FortuneThe large language models (LLMs) that have captivated the world are not a path to human-level intelligence, two AI experts asserted in separate remarks at Davos. Demis Hassabis, the Nobel Prize-winning CEO of Google DeepMind, and the executive who leads the development of Google's Gemini models, said today's AI systems, as impressive as they are, are "nowhere near" human-level artificial general intelligence, or AGI. [Though the artilcle notes t
  
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• NASA Confident, But Some Critics Wonder if Its Orion Spacecraft is Safe to Fly

  24-01-2026 19:34 via science.slashdot.org
  "NASA remains confident it has a handle on the problem and the vehicle can bring the crew home safely," reports CNN.
  But "When four astronauts begin a historic trip around the moon as soon as February 6, they'll climb aboard NASA's 16.5-foot-wide Orion spacecraft with the understanding that it has a known flaw — one that has some experts urging the space agency not to fly the mission with humans on board..."
  The issue relates to a special coating applied to the bottom part of the spacecraf
  
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• US Insurer 'Lemonade' Cuts Rates 50% for Drivers Using Tesla's 'Full Self-Driving' Software

  24-01-2026 18:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shared this report from Reuters:
  U.S. insurer Lemonade said on Wednesday it would offer a 50% rate cut for drivers of Tesla electric vehicles when the automaker's Full Self-Driving (FSD) driver assistance software is steering because it had data showing it reduced accidents. Lemonade's move is an endorsement of Tesla CEO Elon Musk's claims that the company's vehicle technology is safer than human drivers, despite concerns flagged by regulators and safety experts.
  As part of a
  
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• A Game Studio's Fired Co-Founder Hijacked Its Domain Name, a New Lawsuit Alleges

  24-01-2026 17:34 via games.slashdot.org
  Three co-founders of the game studio That's No Moon "are suing another co-founder for allegedly hijacking the company's website domain name," reports the gaming news site Aftermath, "taking the website offline and disabling employee access to email accounts, according to a new lawsuit."
  Tina Kowalewski, Taylor Kurosaki, and Nick Kononelos filed a complaint against co-founder and former CEO Michael Mumbauer on Tuesday in a California court. [Game studio] That's No Moon, which was founded in 2020
  
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• Anthropic Updates Claude's 'Constitution,' Just In Case Chatbot Has a Consciousness

  24-01-2026 16:34 via slashdot.org
  TechCrunch reports:
  On Wednesday, Anthropic released a revised version of Claude's Constitution, a living document that provides a "holistic" explanation of the "context in which Claude operates and the kind of entity we would like Claude to be...." For years, Anthropic has sought to distinguish itself from its competitors via what it calls "Constitutional AI," a system whereby its chatbot, Claude, is trained using a specific set of ethical principles rather than human feedback... The 80-page do
  
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• Hollywood Tries To Take Pirate Sites Down Globally Through India Court

  24-01-2026 14:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: The High Court in New Delhi, India, has granted another pirate site blocking order in favor of American movie industry giants, including Apple, Warner., Netflix, Disney and Crunchyroll. The injunction targets notorious pirate sites, requesting blockades at Indian ISPs. More crucially, however, globally operating domain registrars, including U.S. companies, are also compelled to take action. However, despite earlier cooperation, most don't se
  
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• Smartwatches Help Detect Abnormal Heart Rhythms 4x More Often In Clinical Trial

  24-01-2026 11:00 via science.slashdot.org
  A clinical trial found that seniors at high stroke risk who wore an Apple Watch were four times more likely to have hidden heart rhythm disorders detected than those receiving standard care. The researchers noted that over half the time, these smartwatch wearers with heart rhythm problems hadn't shown any symptoms prior to diagnosis. From U.S. News & World Report: Later editions of Apple Watches are equipped with two functions that can help monitor heart health -- photoplethysmography (PPG),
  
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• Study Shows How Earthquake Monitors Can Track Space Junk Through Sonic Booms

  24-01-2026 08:00 via science.slashdot.org
  A new study shows that earthquake monitoring networks can track falling space debris by detecting the sonic booms produced during atmospheric reentry, sometimes more accurately than radar. The Associated Press reports: Scientists reported Thursday that seismic readings from sonic booms that were generated when a discarded module from a Chinese crew capsule reentered over Southern California in 2024 allowed them to place the object's path nearly 20 miles (30 kilometers) farther south than radar h
  
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• New Filtration Technology Could Be Gamechanger In Removal of PFAS 'Forever Chemicals'

  24-01-2026 04:30 via science.slashdot.org
  Bruce66423 shares a report from the Guardian: New filtration technology developed by Rice University may absorb some Pfas "forever chemicals" at 100 times the rate than previously possible, which could dramatically improve pollution control and speed remediations. Researchers also say they have also found a way to destroy Pfas, though both technologies face a steep challenge in being deployed on an industrial scale. A new peer-reviewed paper details a layered double hydroxide (LDH) material made
  
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