ICT news

• Systemd's Growth Over 2022

  31-12-2022 16:34 via linux.slashdot.org
  Phoronix checks systemd's Git activity in 2022 (and compares it to previous years):
  If measuring a open-source project's progress by the commity activity per year, while not the most practical indicator, systemd had a very good year. In 2022 there were 6,271 commits which is under 2021's all-time-high of 6,787 commits. But this year's activity count effectively ties 2018 for second place with the most commits in a given calendar year.
  This year saw 201k lines of new code added to systemd and 110
  
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• Andrew Yang Warns AI Will Displace Millions of White-Collar Workers Within 18 Months

  18-02-2026 20:25 via news.slashdot.org
  Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate and longtime Universal Basic Income advocate, published a blog post this week warning that AI is about to displace millions of white-collar workers in the U.S. over the next 12 to 18 months, a wave he has taken to calling "the Fuckening."
  Yang cited a conversation with the CEO of a publicly traded tech company who said the firm is cutting 15% of its workforce now and plans another 20% cut in two years, followed by yet another 20% two years after tha
  
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• Linus Torvalds on How Linux Went From One-Man Show To Group Effort

  18-02-2026 19:45 via linux.slashdot.org
  Linus Torvalds has told The Register how Linux went from a solo hobby project on a single 386 PC in Helsinki to a genuinely collaborative effort, and the path involved crowdsourced checks, an FTP mirror at MIT, and a licensing decision that opened the floodgates.
  Torvalds released the first public snapshot, Linux 0.02, on October 5, 1991, on a Finnish FTP server -- about 10,000 lines of code that he had cross-compiled under Minix. He originally wanted to call it "Freax," but his friend Ari Lemmk
  
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• Vermont EV Buses Prove Unreliable For Transportation This Winter

  18-02-2026 19:05 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader writes: Electric buses are proving unreliable this winter for Vermont's Green Mountain Transit, as it needs to be over 41 degrees for the buses to charge, but due to a battery recall the buses are a fire hazard and can't be charged in a garage.
  Spokesman for energy workers advocacy group Power the Future Larry Behrens told the Center Square: "Taxpayers were sold an $8 million 'solution' that can't operate in cold weather when the home for these buses is in New England."
  "We'r
  
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• Microsoft Says Bug Causes Copilot To Summarize Confidential Emails

  18-02-2026 18:28 via it.slashdot.org
  Microsoft says a Microsoft 365 Copilot bug has been causing the AI assistant to summarize confidential emails since late January, bypassing data loss prevention (DLP) policies that organizations rely on to protect sensitive information. From a report: According to a service alert seen by BleepingComputer, this bug (tracked under CW1226324 and first detected on January 21) affects the Copilot "work tab" chat feature, which incorrectly reads and summarizes emails stored in users' Sent Items and Dr
  
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• Leaked Email Suggests Ring Plans To Expand 'Search Party' Surveillance Beyond Dogs

  18-02-2026 17:40 via yro.slashdot.org
  Ring's AI-powered "Search Party" feature, which links neighborhood cameras into a networked surveillance system to find lost dogs, was never intended to stop at pets, according to an internal email from founder Jamie Siminoff obtained by 404 Media.
  Siminoff told employees in early October, shortly after the feature launched, that Search Party was introduced "first for finding dogs" and that the technology would eventually help "zero out crime in neighborhoods." The on-by-default feature faced in
  
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• WordPress Gets AI Assistant That Can Edit Text, Generate Images and Tweak Your Site

  18-02-2026 17:00 via slashdot.org
  WordPress has started rolling out an AI assistant built into its site editor and media library that can edit and translate text, generate and edit images through Google's Nano Banana model, and make structural changes to sites like creating new pages or swapping fonts.
  Users can also invoke the assistant by tagging "@ai" in block notes, a commenting feature added to the site editor in December's WordPress 6.9 update. The tool is opt-in -- users need to toggle on "AI tools" in their site settings
  
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• Lab-Grown Meat Exists (But Nobody Wants To Eat It)

  18-02-2026 16:20 via science.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: In 2013, scientists unveiled the first lab-grown burger at a cost of $330,000. By 2023, the FDA approved cultivated chicken for sale. The price had dropped to around $10-$30 per pound, and over $3 billion in investor money had poured into more than 175 companies developing meat grown from animal cells instead of slaughtered animals.
  The promise is straightforward: real meat, no slaughter required. You could eat beef without killing cattle, chicken without ind
  
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• FDA Reverses Decision and Agrees To Review Moderna's Flu Vaccine

  18-02-2026 15:40 via science.slashdot.org
  The Food and Drug Administration has reversed its decision on Moderna's flu vaccine and has agreed to review it for possible approval, Moderna announced on Wednesday. From a report: Last week, the agency rejected Moderna's application for review of a new flu vaccine, saying the company's research design was flawed. But in subsequent discussions the company said that the agency had relented and agreed to begin a review.
  Moderna said it split its application for the flu vaccine based on age, seeki
  
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• India Tells University To Leave AI Summit After Presenting Chinese Robot as Its Own

  18-02-2026 15:00 via slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: An Indian university has been asked to vacate its stall at the country's flagship AI summit after a staff member was caught presenting a commercially available robotic dog made in China as its own creation, two government sources said.
  "You need to meet Orion. This has been developed by the Centre of Excellence at Galgotias University," Neha Singh, a professor of communications, told state-run broadcaster DD News this week in remarks that have since gone vira
  
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• Thousands of CEOs Just Admitted AI Had No Impact On Employment Or Productivity

  18-02-2026 14:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fortune: In 1987, economist and Nobel laureate Robert Solow made a stark observation about the stalling evolution of the Information Age: Following the advent of transistors, microprocessors, integrated circuits, and memory chips of the 1960s, economists and companies expected these new technologies to disrupt workplaces and result in a surge of productivity. Instead, productivity growth slowed, dropping from 2.9% from 1948 to 1973, to 1.1% after 1973. Ne
  
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• Single Dose of DMT Rapidly Reduces Symptoms of Major Depression

  18-02-2026 11:00 via science.slashdot.org
  In a small double-blind clinical trial, a single intravenous dose of DMT produced rapid and clinically meaningful reductions in symptoms of major depressive disorder within a week, with effects lasting up to three months in some patients. "Unlike psilocybin and lysergic acid diethylamide ( LSD), whose effects can last for hours, intravenous DMT has a half-life of around five minutes," notes ScienceAlert. "Its psychedelic effects are correspondingly brief, potentially making it more practical to
  
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• Air Pollution Emerges As a Direct Risk Factor For Alzheimer's Disease

  18-02-2026 08:00 via science.slashdot.org
  Longtime Slashdot reader walterbyrd shares a report from ABC News: In a study of nearly 28 million older Americans, long-term exposure to fine particle air pollution raised the risk of Alzheimer's disease. That link held even after researchers accounted for common conditions like high blood pressure, stroke and depression. Fine particle air pollution, known as PM2.5, consists of tiny particles in the air that come from car exhaust, power plants, wildfires, and burning fuels, according to the Ame
  
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• Bayer Agrees To $7.25 Billion Proposed Settlement Over Thousands of Roundup Cancer Lawsuits

  18-02-2026 04:30 via yro.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Agrochemical maker Bayer and attorneys for cancer patients announced a proposed $7.25 billion settlement Tuesday to resolve thousands of U.S. lawsuits alleging the company failed to warn people that its popular weedkiller Roundup could cause cancer. The proposed settlement comes as the U.S. Supreme Court is preparing to hear arguments in April on Bayer's assertion that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's approval of Roundup wi
  
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• Claude Sonnet 4.6 Model Brings 'Much-Improved Coding Skills', Upgraded Free Tier

  18-02-2026 03:02 via developers.slashdot.org
  Anthropic has released Claude Sonnet 4.6, the first upgrade to its mid-tier AI model since version 4.5 arrived in September 2025. The new model features a "1M token context window" and delivers a "full upgrade of the model's skills across coding, computer use, long-context reasoning, agent planning, knowledge work, and design." From Anthropic: Sonnet 4.6 brings much-improved coding skills to more of our users. Improvements in consistency, instruction following, and more have made developers with
  
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• Apple Is Reportedly Planning To Launch AI-Powered Glasses, a Pendant, and AirPods

  18-02-2026 02:25 via hardware.slashdot.org
  According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman (paywalled), Apple is reportedly developing AI-powered smart glasses, a wearable pendant, and camera-equipped AirPods that connect to the iPhone and use "visual context" to let Siri perform real-world actions. The Verge reports: Apple is reportedly aiming to start production of its smart glasses in December, ahead of a 2027 launch. The new device will compete directly with Meta's lineup of smart glasses and is rumored to feature speakers, microphones, and a h
  
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• Discord Rival Maxes Out Hosting Capacity As Players Flee Age-Verification Crackdown

  18-02-2026 01:45 via tech.slashdot.org
  Following backlash over Discord's global rollout of strict age-verification checks, users are flocking to rival platform TeamSpeak and overwhelming its servers. According to PC Gamer, the Discord alternative said its hosting capacity has been maxed out in a number of regions including the U.S. From the report: [A]s I saw for myself while testing out free Discord alternatives, it's hard to deny the appeal of TeamSpeak. It's quick and easy to make an account, join or start a group chat, or join a
  
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• NPR's Radio Host David Greene Says Google's NotebookLM Tool Stole His Voice

  18-02-2026 01:02 via yro.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Washington Post: David Greene had never heard of NotebookLM, Google's buzzy artificial intelligence tool that spins up podcasts on demand, until a former colleague emailed him to ask if he'd lent it his voice. "So... I'm probably the 148th person to ask this, but did you license your voice to Google?" the former co-worker asked in a fall 2024 email. "It sounds very much like you!"Greene, a public radio veteran who has hosted NPR's "Morning Edition" an
  
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• Idea Raised For Nicer DRM Panic Screen Integration On Fedora Linux

  18-02-2026 00:20 via linux.slashdot.org
  A proposal within the Fedora Linux community suggests improving the kernel's DRM Panic screen to a more user-friendly, BSOD-style experience. Phoronix reports: Open-source developer Jose Exposito proposed today a nicer experience for DRM Panic integration on Fedora. Rather than using DRM Panic with just the kernel log contents being encoded in the QR code displayed when a kernel panic occurs, the proposal is to have a customized Fedora web-page with the encoded QR contents to be shown on that we
  
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• KDE Plasma 6.6 Released

  17-02-2026 23:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  Longtime Slashdot reader jrepin writes: KDE Plasma is a popular desktop (and mobile too) environment for GNU/Linux and other UNIX-like operating systems. Among other things, it also powers the desktop mode of the Steam Deck gaming handheld. The KDE community today announced the latest release: Plasma 6.6.In this new major release, Spectacle can recognize texts from screenshots, a new on-screen keyboard and new login manager are available for testing, and a first-time wizard Plasma Setup was adde
  
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• Most VMware Users Still 'Actively Reducing Their VMware Footprint,' Survey Finds

  17-02-2026 23:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: More than two years after Broadcom took over VMware, the virtualization company's customers are still grappling with higher prices, uncertainty, and the challenges of reducing vendor lock-in. Today, CloudBolt Software released a report, "The Mass Exodus That Never Was: The Squeeze Is Just Beginning," that provides insight into those struggles. CloudBolt is a hybrid cloud management platform provider that aims to identify VMware customers' pa
  
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• US Lawyers Fire Up Privacy Class Action Accusing Lenovo of Bulk Data Transfers To China

  17-02-2026 22:26 via yro.slashdot.org
  A US law firm has accused Lenovo of violating Justice Department strictures about the bulk transfer of data to foreign adversaries, namely China. From a report: The case filed by Almeida Law Group on behalf of San Francisco-based "Spencer Christy, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated" centers on the Data Security Program regulations implemented by the DOJ last year. According to the suit, these were "implemented to prevent adversarial countries from acquiring large quantit
  
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• The Small English Town Swept Up in the Global AI Arms Race

  17-02-2026 21:45 via news.slashdot.org
  Residents of Potters Bar, a small town just north of London, are trying to block what would be one of Europe's largest data centers from being built on 85 acres of rolling farmland that separates their community from the neighboring village of South Mimms. Multinational operator Equinix acquired the land last October after the local council granted planning permission in January 2025, and the company intends to break ground this year on a development it estimates will cost more than $5 billion.
  
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• Microsoft's AI Chief Says All White-Collar Desk Work Will Be Automated Within 18 Months

  17-02-2026 21:04 via slashdot.org
  Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman expects "human-level performance on most, if not all professional tasks" from AI, and believes most work involving "sitting down at a computer" -- accounting, legal, marketing, project management -- will be fully automated within the next year or 18 months. He pointed to exponential growth in computational power and predicted that creating a new AI model will soon be as easy as "creating a podcast or writing a blog."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Britain Lost 14,000 Pubs, a Quarter, in 13 Years

  17-02-2026 20:25 via news.slashdot.org
  Britain has lost more than 14,000 pubs since 2009, a decline from roughly 54,000 registered public houses and bars to under 40,000 by 2022, according to a new analysis of UK business register data by data analyst Lauren Leek. The North East, North West, Yorkshire and the Midlands lost 25 to 30% of their stock; London saw the smallest decline.
  Leek trained a random forest model on 49,840 pubs and found spatial isolation -- how far a pub stood from its nearest neighbour -- was the single strongest
  
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• A YouTuber's $3M Movie Nearly Beat Disney's $40M Thriller at the Box Office

  17-02-2026 19:45 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  Mark Fischbach, the YouTube creator known as Markiplier who has spent nearly 15 years building an audience of more than 38 million subscribers by playing indie-horror video games on camera, has pulled off something that most independent filmmakers never manage -- a self-financed, self-distributed debut feature that has grossed more than $30 million domestically against a $3 million budget.
  Iron Lung, a 127-minute sci-fi adaptation of a video game Fischbach wrote, directed, starred in, and edited
  
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• Blind Listening Test Finds Audiophiles Unable To Distinguish Copper Cable From a Banana or Wet Mud

  17-02-2026 19:05 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: A moderator on diyAudio set up an experiment to determine whether listeners could differentiate between audio run through pro audio copper wire, a banana, and wet mud. Spoiler alert: the results indicated that users were unable to accurately distinguish between these different 'interfaces.'
  Pano, the moderator who built the experiment, invited other members on the forum to listen to various sound clips with four different versions: one taken from the original
  
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• Micron's PCIe 6.0 SSD Hits Mass Production at 28 GB/s

  17-02-2026 18:25 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Micron has begun mass production of the 9650 series, the industry's first PCIe 6.0 SSD, capable of sequential read speeds up to 28 GB/s and random read performance of 5.5 million IOPS -- roughly double the throughput of the fastest PCIe 5.0 drives available today.
  The drive targets AI and data center workloads and ships in E1.S and E3.S form factors across two variants: the Pro, available in capacities up to 30.72 TB, and the endurance-oriented Max, topping out at 25.6 TB. Both variants share th
  
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• 99% of Adults Over 40 Have Shoulder 'Abnormalities' on an MRI, Study Finds

  17-02-2026 17:44 via science.slashdot.org
  Up to a third of people worldwide have shoulder pain; it's one of the most common musculoskeletal complaints. But medical imaging might not reveal the problem -- in fact, it could even cloud it. From a report: In a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine this week, 99 percent of adults over 40 were found to have at least one abnormality in a rotator cuff on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The rotator cuff is the group of muscles and tendons in a shoulder joint that keeps the upper arm bone s
  
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• China Once Stole Foreign Ideas. Now It Wants To Protect Its Own

  17-02-2026 17:05 via slashdot.org
  China's courts are now handling more than 550,000 intellectual-property cases a year -- making it the world's most litigious country for IP disputes -- as the nation's own companies, once notorious for copying foreign designs and technology, find themselves on the defensive against a domestic counterfeiting epidemic fueled by excess factory capacity.
  The problem runs from knockoff "Lafufu" plush toys (cheap copies of Pop Mart's wildly popular Labubu dolls, which prompted a nationwide crackdown a
  
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