ICT news

• Scientists Create 'Woolly Mice'

  04-03-2025 17:40 via science.slashdot.org
  
  EmagGeek shares a report: Scientists have genetically engineered mice with some key characteristics of an extinct animal that was far larger -- the woolly mammoth. This "woolly mouse" marks an important step toward achieving the researchers' ultimate goal -- bringing a woolly mammoth-like creature back from extinction, they say.
  "For us, it's an incredibly big deal," says Beth Shapiro, chief science officer at Colossal Biosciences, a Dallas company trying to resurrect the woolly mammoth and othe
  
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• 'Vibe Coding Kills Open Source'

  03-02-2026 19:01 via news.slashdot.org
  Four economists across Central European University, Bielefeld University and the Kiel Institute have built a general equilibrium model of the open-source software ecosystem and concluded that vibe coding -- the increasingly common practice of letting AI agents select, assemble and modify packages on a developer's behalf -- erodes the very funding mechanism that keeps open-source projects alive.
  The core problem is a decoupling of usage from engagement. Tailwind CSS's npm downloads have climbed s
  
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• YouTube Kills Background Playback on Third-Party Mobile Browsers

  03-02-2026 18:00 via news.slashdot.org
  YouTube has confirmed that it is blocking background playback -- the ability to keep a video's audio running after minimizing the browser or locking the screen -- for non-Premium users across third-party mobile browsers including Samsung Internet, Brave, Vivaldi and Microsoft Edge.
  Users began reporting the issue last week, noting that audio would cut out the moment they left the browser, sometimes after a brief "MediaOngoingActivity" notification flashed before media controls disappeared. A Goo
  
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• PayPal's CEO Change Blindsided HP's Board

  03-02-2026 17:00 via slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: PayPal said on Tuesday it was booting its CEO and replacing him with its board chair Enrique Lores, sparing no ambiguity as to why: "The pace of change and execution was not in line with the Board's expectations," it said in a statement. One group that was blindsided was HP, where Lores was until Tuesday serving as CEO, according to people familiar with the matter.
  Lores' switchup sent them rushing to launch a search process, those people said. HP's board doe
  
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• Adobe Is Killing A Popular Animation And Game Development Program

  03-02-2026 16:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  Adobe has emailed users of Adobe Animate to let them know the popular animation and game development program will be discontinued on March 1, an abrupt decision that has angered animators and game developers who say the tool remains an industry standard in television and game production.
  Animate, the successor to the once-popular Flash, is widely used for graphic creation, animation and building games in HTML5. The company has not offered a reason for the shutdown. On BlueSky, artist and animato
  
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• Fintech CEO and Forbes 30 Under 30 Alum Charged for Alleged Fraud

  03-02-2026 15:00 via slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: By now, the Forbes 30 Under 30 list has become more than a little notorious for the amount of entrants who go on to be charged with fraud.[...] Gokce Guven, a 26-year-old Turkish national and the founder and CEO of fintech startup Kalder, was charged last week with alleged securities fraud, wire fraud, visa fraud, and aggravated identity theft. The New York-based fintech startup -- which uses the "Turn Your Rewards into [a] Revenue Engine" tagline -- says it
  
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• The Switch is Now Nintendo's Best-Selling Console of All Time

  03-02-2026 12:30 via games.slashdot.org
  The original Switch is officially Nintendo's best-selling console of all time after surpassing the DS handheld in lifetime sales. From a report: In its latest earnings release, Nintendo reports that the Nintendo Switch has, as of December 31, 2025, sold 155.37 million units since its launch in 2017, compared to 154.02 million units for the 2004 Nintendo DS.
  In November, Nintendo reported that the Switch and DS were neck and neck. We expected the holiday sales period would see the Switch surpass
  
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• Hidden Car Door Handles Are Officially Being Banned In China

  03-02-2026 08:01 via tech.slashdot.org
  sinij writes: Automakers have increasingly implemented door handles that retract into the bodywork for aerodynamic reasons, but they are now off limits in China.
  My issue is with electronic-only door latch mechanism. It should be possible to open the door from both inside and outside the car in case of complete power loss.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• SpaceX Acquires xAI in $1.25 Trillion All-Stock Deal

  03-02-2026 04:46 via slashdot.org
  Elon Musk's SpaceX has acquired his AI startup xAI in an all-stock deal that values the combined entity at $1.25 trillion, ahead of what would be the largest initial public offering in history. SpaceX pegged its own valuation at $1 trillion -- a markup from the $800 billion it commanded in a December secondary stock sale -- and priced xAI at $250 billion based on a recent $20 billion funding round that valued the two-year-old AI company at $230 billion.
  SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen told investors on
  
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• A Century of Hair Samples Proves Leaded Gas Ban Worked

  03-02-2026 03:30 via science.slashdot.org
  Scientists at the University of Utah have analyzed nearly a century's worth of human hair samples and found that lead concentrations dropped 100-fold after the EPA began cracking down on leaded gasoline and other lead-based products in the 1970s.
  The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, drew on hair collected from Utah residents -- some preserved in family scrapbooks going back generations. Lead levels peaked between 1916 and 1969 at around 100 parts per mi
  
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• Leica Camera's Owners Weigh $1.2 Billion Sale of Controlling Stake

  03-02-2026 01:01 via slashdot.org
  The owners of Leica Camera AG -- Austrian billionaire Andreas Kaufmann and private equity giant Blackstone -- are considering a sale of a controlling stake in the German camera maker in a deal that could value the company at about $1.2 billion, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
  HSG, formerly known as Sequoia Capital China, and Altor Equity Partners are among a handful of bidders. The Kaufmann family could re-invest following a transaction. Leica traces its roots roughly
  
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• Feds Skipping Infosec Industry's Biggest Conference This Year

  02-02-2026 23:33 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency won't attend the annual RSA Conference in March, an agency spokesperson confirmed to The Register. Sessions involving speakers from the FBI and National Security Agency (NSA) have also disappeared from the agenda.
  "Since the beginning of this administration, CISA has made significant progress in returning to our statutory, core mission and focusing on President Trump's policies for maximum security for a
  
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• Finland To Introduce 'Green Wave' Automated System For Emergency Vehicles

  02-02-2026 22:01 via news.slashdot.org
  alternative_right writes: Fintraffic's national traffic priority system, which is set to be introduced this summer, will recognize the location of an emergency vehicle and automatically change the lights to green to facilitate its passage. (Why isn't everyone doing this already?)Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Microsoft Weighs Retreat From Windows 11 AI Push, Reviews Copilot Integrations and Recall

  02-02-2026 21:01 via tech.slashdot.org
  Microsoft is reevaluating its AI strategy on Windows 11 and plans to scale back or remove Copilot integrations across built-in apps after months of sustained user backlash, according to a Windows Central report citing people familiar with the company's plans.
  Copilot features in apps like Notepad and Paint are under review and could be pulled entirely or stripped of their Copilot branding in favor of a more streamlined experience. The company has paused work on adding new Copilot buttons to any
  
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• The AI Boom Is Coming for Apple's Profit Margins

  02-02-2026 20:00 via apple.slashdot.org
  Apple's long-standing dominance over its electronics supply chain is eroding as AI companies outbid the iPhone maker for critical components like chips, memory and specialized glass fiber, giving suppliers the leverage to demand that Apple pay more. CEO Tim Cook acknowledged the pressure during a Thursday earnings call, noting constraints in chip supplies and significant increases in memory prices.
  Nvidia has overtaken Apple as TSMC's largest customer, CEO Jensen Huang said on a podcast; Apple h
  
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• Vibe-coded Social Network for AI Bots Exposed Data on Thousands of Humans

  02-02-2026 19:01 via it.slashdot.org
  Moltbook, a Reddit-like social network that launched last week and bills itself as a platform "built exclusively for AI agents," had a security vulnerability that exposed private messages shared between agents, the email addresses of more than 6,000 human owners, and over a million credentials, according to research published Monday by cybersecurity firm Wiz.
  The flaw has since been fixed after Wiz contacted Moltbook. Wiz cofounder Ami Luttwak called it a classic byproduct of "vibe coding." Molt
  
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• Notepad++ Compromised By State Actor

  02-02-2026 18:00 via it.slashdot.org
  Luthair writes: Notepad++ claims to have been targeted by a state actor, given their previous stance on Uyghurs one can speculate about a candidate. Notepad++, in a blog post: According to the analysis provided by the security experts, the attack involved infrastructure-level compromise that allowed malicious actors to intercept and redirect update traffic destined for notepad-plus-plus.org. The exact technical mechanism remains under investigation, though the compromise occurred at the hosting
  
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• High-Speed Internet Boom Hits Low-Tech Snag: a Labor Shortage

  02-02-2026 17:01 via news.slashdot.org
  The U.S. laid fiber-optic cables to a record number of homes last year as billions of dollars in federal broadband grants and a surge in data-center construction fueled an enormous buildout, but the industry does not have enough workers to sustain the pace.
  A 2024 report by the Fiber Broadband Association and the Power & Communication Contractors Association projects 58,000 new fiber jobs between 2025 and 2032 and estimates 120,000 workers will leave the field in that period, mostly through
  
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• Starbucks Bets on Robots To Brew a Turnaround in Customers

  02-02-2026 15:43 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Starbucks has been pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into AI and automation -- testing robots that take drive-through orders, virtual assistants that help baristas recall recipes and manage schedules, and scanning tools that count inventory -- as the 55-year-old coffee chain tries to reverse several years of struggling sales.
  The company last week reported its first same-store sales increase in two years in the U.S., where it earns roughly 70% of its revenue. Shares still slid 5% on concer
  
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• China's Decades-Old 'Genius Class' Pipeline Is Quietly Fueling Its AI Challenge To the US

  02-02-2026 15:00 via news.slashdot.org
  China's decades-old network of elite high-school "genius classes" -- ultra-competitive talent streams that pull an estimated 100,000 gifted teenagers out of regular schooling every year and run them through college-level science curricula -- has produced the core technical talent now building the country's leading AI and technology companies, the Financial Times reported Saturday.
  Graduates of these programs include the founder of ByteDance, the leaders of e-commerce giants Taobao and PDD, the b
  
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• Is AI Really Taking Jobs? Or Are Employers Just 'AI-Washing' Normal Layoffs?

  02-02-2026 13:34 via it.slashdot.org
  The New York Times lists other reasons a company lays off people. ("It didn't meet financial targets. It overhired. Tariffs, or the loss of a big client, rocked it...")
  "But lately, many companies are highlighting a new factor: artificial intelligence. Executives, saying they anticipate huge changes from the technology, are making cuts now."A.I. was cited in the announcements of more than 50,000 layoffs in 2025, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a research firm... Investors may appl
  
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• Linux Kernel Developer Chris Mason's New Initiative: AI Prompts for Code Reviews

  02-02-2026 10:34 via linux.slashdot.org
  Phoronix reports:
  Chris Mason, the longtime Linux kernel developer most known for being the creator of Btrfs, has been working on a Git repository with AI review prompts he has been working on for LLM-assisted code review of Linux kernel patches. This initiative has been happening for some weeks now while the latest work was posted today for comments... The Meta engineer has been investing a lot of effort into making this AI/LLM-assisted code review accurate and useful to upstream Linux kernel s
  
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• Is the TV Industry Finally Conceding That the Future May Not Be 8K?

  02-02-2026 06:34 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  "Technology companies spent part of the 2010s trying to convince us that we would want an 8K display one day..." writes Ars Technica.
  "However, 8K never proved its necessity or practicality."LG Display is no longer making 8K LCD or OLED panels, FlatpanelsHD reported today... LG Electronics was the first and only company to sell 8K OLED TVs, starting with the 88-inch Z9 in 2019. In 2022, it lowered the price-of-entry for an 8K OLED TV by $7,000 by charging $13,000 for a 76.7-inch TV. FlatpanelsHD
  
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• EU Deploys New Government Satcom Program in Sovereignty Push

  02-02-2026 04:13 via science.slashdot.org
  The EU "has switched on parts of its homegrown secure satellite communications network for the first time," reports Bloomberg, calling it part of a €10.6 billion push to "wean itself off US support amid growing tensions."
  SpaceNews notes the new government program GOVSATCOM pools capacity from eight already on-oribit satellites from France, Spain, Italy, Greece and Luxembourg — both national and commercial. And they cite this prediction by EU Defense and Space Commissioner Andrius Kub
  
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• What Go Programmers Think of AI

  02-02-2026 02:13 via developers.slashdot.org
  "Most Go developers are now using AI-powered development tools when seeking information (e.g., learning how to use a module) or toiling (e.g., writing repetitive blocks of similar code)." That's one of the conclusions Google's Go team drew from September's big survey of 5,379 Go developers.But the survey also found that among Go developers using AI-powered tools, "their satisfaction with these tools is middling due, in part, to quality concerns."
  Our survey suggests bifurcated adoption — w
  
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• Anthropic's $200M Pentagon Contract at Risk Over Objections to Domestic Surveillance, Autonomous Deployments

  02-02-2026 00:59 via tech.slashdot.org
  Talks "are at a standstill" for Anthropic's potential $200 million contract with America's Defense Department, reports Reuters (citing several people familiar with the discussions.") The two issues?
  - Using AI to surveil Americans
  - Safeguards against deploying AI autonomouslyThe company's position on how its AI tools can be used has intensified disagreements between it and the Trump administration, the details of which have not been previously reported... Anthropic said its AI is "extensively u
  
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• Is Meta's Huge Spending on AI Actually Paying Off?

  01-02-2026 23:59 via tech.slashdot.org
  The Wall Street Journal says that Meta "might be reaping some of the richest benefits from the AI boom so far."Meta's revenue grew 22% year over year in 2025 to $201 billion, and the company expects even bigger gains in the current quarter, potentially as high as 34%. That is huge growth for a company that brought in nearly $60 billion in the latest three-month period. And Zuckerberg signaled that Meta was just scratching the surface of AI's potential. "Our world-class recommendation systems are
  
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• Bitcoin Drops 40% in Four Months. Bloomberg Blames Absence of Buyers and Belief

  01-02-2026 22:49 via slashdot.org
  October saw Bitcoin reach $123,742. But less than four months later, "The world's largest cryptocurrency slipped below $76,000..." Bloomberg reports, "dropping about 40% from its 2025 peak..."
  "What began as a sharp crash in October has morphed into something more corrosive: a selloff shaped not by panic, but by absence of buyers, momentum and belief."
  Unlike the October drawdown, there's been no obvious spark, cascading liquidations or systemic shock — just fading demand, thinning liquidi
  
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• Walmart Begins Building Out Nationwide EV Charging Network Across America

  01-02-2026 21:22 via tech.slashdot.org
  Walmart, the world's largest retailer, will be adding spaces for electric vehicle charging to parking lots in 19 different states, reports MLive:The move follows up on a plan announced in 2023 to build a network of charging stations at Walmart and Sam's Club stores throughout the U.S... "With a store or club located within 10 miles of approximately 90% of Americans, we are uniquely positioned to deliver a convenient charging option that will help make EV ownership possible whether people live in
  
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• When 20-Year-Old Bill Gates Fought the World's First Software Pirates

  01-02-2026 20:22 via news.slashdot.org
  Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland writes: Just months after his 20th birthday, Bill Gates had already angered the programmer community," remembers this 50th-anniversary commemoration of Gates' Open Letter to Hobbyists. "As the first home computers began appearing in the 1970s, the world faced a question: Would its software be free?"
  Gates railed in 1976 that "Most of you steal your software." Gates had coded the BASIC interpreter for Altair's first home computer with Paul Allen and Monte Dav
  
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