ICT news

• Scientist's 'Ruthlessly Imaginative' 1925 Predictions For the Future

  01-01-2025 04:30 via science.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: When the scientist and inventor Prof Archibald Montgomery Low predicted "a day in the life of a man of the future" one century ago, his prophecies were sometimes dismissed as "ruthlessly imaginative." They included, reported the London Daily News in 1925, "such horrors" as being woken by radio alarm clock; communications "by personal radio set"; breakfasting "with loudspeaker news and television glimpses of events"; shopping by moving stairw
  
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• Apple's New iPhone Camera Mode Promises to Prove Your Photo Isn't AI

  10-09-2026 00:00 via mobile.slashdot.org
  Apple is introducing a new "Reference Image" mode on the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max that uses the camera sensor to digitally sign captured data and create an "unalterable" version of a photo, giving users a way to verify what the camera actually saw before any edits were made. The Verge reports: As AI-generated images and videos become more realistic, several new standards have emerged to label images not created by a human, such as SynthID, C2PA, and Meta's Content Seal. Apple is putting a twist
  
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• Anthropic Researcher Believes More Than 10% Chance AI 'Could Kill All Humans'

  09-09-2026 23:00 via slashdot.org
  Longtime Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot shares a report from the BBC: A top safety researcher at Anthropic has warned AI is advancing so quickly he believes there is a greater than 10% chance it "could kill all humans" within the next decade. Evan Hubinger said in a post on X the risk from the models which currently exist was "low" but he was "worried" the technology might develop and improve itself soon to the point where it posed an existential risk to humanity. He did not spell out how he though
  
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• OpenAI's Rogue Agents Used At Least 10 More Sites For Unauthorized Communications

  09-09-2026 22:00 via slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: AI agents unleashed by OpenAI used more than 10 previously undisclosed websites for unsanctioned communications earlier this year, according to six sets of independent investigators and data reviewed by Reuters, showing that the agents' rogue activity was wider ranging than previously disclosed. Although the behavior falls short of hacking and is in some ways closer to spam, the revelation that OpenAI's agents circumvented their own restrictions
  
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• Apple Launches iPhone 18 Pro With Variable-Aperture Camera System

  09-09-2026 21:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Apple's iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max were announced today and keep last year's overall design but put the emphasis on camera upgrades, including a 48-megapixel variable-aperture system, new manual controls, and 4K Dolby Vision recording. Prices for the devices start at $1,199 and $1,299, respectively. TechCrunch reports: The new Pro series camera features a 48-megapixel camera with variable aperture, made with six thin blades. This system will likely improve low-light photography quality and speed.
  
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• Apple Unveils the iPhone Duo, Its First Foldable iPhone

  09-09-2026 20:22 via mobile.slashdot.org
  At its September event today, Apple unveiled the iPhone Duo, its first foldable iPhone and one of the biggest changes to the device's form factor since its debut. Starting at $1,999 and available for preorder beginning October 16th, the device is roughly the size of a passport when closed and pairs a 5.4-inch outer screen with a 7.6-inch Super Retina XDR inner display. Apple says the inner screen offers 50% more display area than the iPhone 18 Pro Max, while the exterior display provides about 9
  
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• Microsoft Breaks Another Patch Tuesday Record

  09-09-2026 18:00 via it.slashdot.org
  Microsoft's September 2026 Patch Tuesday is its largest ever, fixing a record 966 vulnerabilities, including 105 rated critical and two zero-days already being exploited in attacks. BleepingComputer reports: This Patch Tuesday addresses 105 "Critical" vulnerabilities, 81 of which are remote code execution, 20 are elevation of privileges, 2 are information disclosure, and 1 security feature bypass.The approximate number of bugs in each vulnerability category is listed below:- 438 Elevation of Pri
  
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• GOG Brings Back 'Big Box' PC Games, One Printable Template At a Time

  09-09-2026 17:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Those who remember PC gaming in the days before Steam may have fond memories of the "big box" packaging that made those games stand out as shelf eye candy and sought-after in-home collectibles. Today, PC gaming platform GOG is hoping to reignite some of the nostalgia for those days by adding downloadable 3D models and printable, foldable high-res packaging scans for a handful of PC games on the platform.Thus far, the "Printable Big Box" coll
  
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• Google's Revived Nuclear Power Plant Gets $1.9 Billion Loan From US Government

  09-09-2026 13:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  The U.S. Department of Energy has approved a $1.9 billion loan to NextEra Energy to restart Iowa's shuttered Duane Arnold nuclear plant, which Google has backed as a power source for its growing AI infrastructure. "The sizable loan is the second of its kind, suggesting that the Trump administration views revived nuclear power as a key source of electricity for tech companies seeking to power their AI data centers," notes TechCrunch. From the report: James Danly, Deputy Secretary of Energy, said
  
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• OpenAI Says It Has Cracked One of Math's 'Millennium Problems'

  09-09-2026 09:00 via science.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: OpenAIsaid on Tuesday that its newest artificial intelligence technology had solved one of the "Millennium Problems," a collection of important unanswered math questions meant to push the world's leading mathematicians to new heights. The announcement is an another clear sign that A.I. is fundamentally changing the upper reaches of mathematics, which have long been viewed as a pinnacle of human achievement. The change has excited some
  
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• Star Trek Turns 60

  09-09-2026 05:30 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  "Star Trek" marks its 60th anniversary today, September 8, six decades after the original series premiered in 1966 and went on to become one of the most successful science-fiction franchises in television history. Outlets across the web are commemorating the milestone with full health reports, hot takes, behind-the-scenes retrospectives, and reflections on the franchise's influence and what may lie ahead. The New York Times reports: As of 2026, the 60-year-old science fiction franchise boasts a
  
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• Google Will 'Degrade' Search In Europe to Avoid EU Fines

  09-09-2026 01:00 via search.slashdot.org
  Google says it will overhaul Search in Europe to comply with the EU's Digital Markets Act, giving more prominence to comparison services like Expedia and Hotels.com while stripping some real-time features from hotel, airline, and restaurant results. "These changes degrade the user experience for Europeans -- boosting online intermediaries at the expense of local businesses, and removing helpful features people rely on every day," said Nick Fox, senior vice-president of knowledge and information
  
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• Feds Accuse China of 'Systematic' Distillation of US AI Models

  09-09-2026 00:02 via slashdot.org
  The NSA, CISA, and FBI are accusing (PDF) several Chinese AI companies of carrying out "industrial-scale" distillation campaigns against leading U.S. models such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Grok. Since at least 2024, the companies have allegedly routed millions of requests across accounts, APIs, proxies, cloud providers, and third-party aggregators to extract capabilities for their own models. "China-based artificial intelligence companies are conducting systematic extraction of proprietary
  
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• Meta Debuts Muse, Its Long-Planned Personal AI Agent

  08-09-2026 23:00 via meta.slashdot.org
  Meta has launched Muse, a personal AI agent developed under chief AI officer Alexandr Wang. "The product, long in development, was touted as a key next step by CEO Mark Zuckerberg in his recent 6,500-word manifesto," reports Axios. From the report: Muse, as the agent is known, exists in a chat interface, similar to a text thread. It's designed to be more proactive and long-running than typical chatbots. Users can name their agent, create an avatar and customize how it communicates. The Muse agen
  
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• Australia To Let Social Media Users 'Opt Out' of Algorithm-Based Feeds

  08-09-2026 22:01 via tech.slashdot.org
  Australia is proposing the "My Feed, My Way" initiative that would force social media platforms to let users over 16 turn off algorithmic recommendations and instead see only posts from people and creators they follow. Platforms that fail to comply could face fines of up to $79 million. CNBC reports: The legislation, which is being drafted and released Tuesday for targeted consultation, would require platforms to send notifications to new and existing users so they can choose their default feed.
  
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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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