ICT news

• Trump Promises He'd Commute the Life Sentence of 'Silk Road' Founder Ross Ulbricht

  26-05-2024 05:34 via politics.slashdot.org
  
  In 2011 Ross Ulbricht launched an anonymous, Tor-hidden "darknet" marketplace (with transactions conducted in bitcoin). By 2015 he'd been sentenced to life in prison for crimes including money laundering, distributing narcotics, and trafficking in fraudulent identity documents — without the possibility of parole.
  Today a U.S. presidential candidate promised to commute that life sentence — Donald Trump, speaking at the national convention of the Libertarian Party as it prepares to nom
  
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• Three of Vietnam's Five Undersea Internet Cables Are Down

  17-06-2024 17:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Three out of Vietnam's five active international undersea internet cables are down, state media said over the weekend, the second major round of outages in the country in just over a year. From a report: The problems with the three cables, which connect Vietnam with the United States, Europe and Asia, have "significantly affected Vietnam's internet connection with the world", reported the official Vietnam News Agency. Vietnam is connected to the global internet mainly via five undersea cables wi
  
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• Wells Fargo Bet on a Flashy Rent Credit Card. It Is Costing the Bank Dearly.

  17-06-2024 16:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Wells Fargo's co-branded credit card partnership with fintech startup Bilt Technologies is causing the bank to lose up as much as $10 million monthly, according to a WSJ report. The bank agreed to a co-branded program with the fintech startup that most other big banks -- including JPMorgan Chase -- passed on, incorrectly modeled key assumptions and sees no path to profitability. The card, which allows users to pay rent without fees while earning rewards, has attracted many young customers. From
  
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• YouTube Introduces Experimental 'Notes' for Users To Add Context To Videos

  17-06-2024 16:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  YouTube is piloting a new feature called "Notes" that allows viewers to add context and information under videos. The move comes as YouTube aims to minimize the spread of misinformation on its platform, particularly during the pivotal 2024 U.S. election year. The feature, similar to Community Notes on X (formerly Twitter), will initially be available on mobile in the U.S. in English.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• ASUS Releases Firmware Update for Critical Remote Authentication Bypass Affecting Seven Routers

  17-06-2024 13:34 via mobile.slashdot.org
  
  A report from BleepingComputer notes that ASUS "has released a new firmware update that addresses a vulnerability impacting seven router models that allow remote attackers to log in to devices." But there's more bad news:Taiwan's CERT has also informed the public about CVE-2024-3912 in a post yesterday, which is a critical (9.8) arbitrary firmware upload vulnerability allowing unauthenticated, remote attackers to execute system commands on the device. The flaw impacts multiple ASUS router models
  
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• Researchers Devise Photosynthesis-Based Energy Source With Negative Carbon Emissions

  17-06-2024 10:39 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Researchers have devised a way to extract energy from the photosynthesis process of algae, according to an announcement from Concordia University.
  Suspended in a specialized solution, the algae forms part of a "micro photosynthetic power cell" that can actually generate enough energy to power low-power devices like Internet of Things (IoT) sensors.
  "Photosynthesis produces oxygen and electrons. Our model traps the electrons, which allows us to generate electricity," [says Kirankumar Kuruvinashet
  
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• America's Defense Department Ran a Secret Disinfo Campaign Online Against China's Covid Vaccine

  17-06-2024 07:45 via news.slashdot.org
  
  "At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. military launched a secret campaign to counter what it perceived as China's growing influence in the Philippines..." reports Reuters.
  "It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China, a Reuters investigation found."
  Reuters interviewed "more than two dozen current and former U.S officials, military contractors, social media analysts and academic researchers," and also revi
  
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• ASUS Promises Support Overhaul After YouTube Investigators Allege Dishonesty

  17-06-2024 04:25 via games.slashdot.org
  
  ASUS has suddenly agreed "to overhaul its customer support and warranty systems," writes the hardware review site Gamers Nexus — after a three-video series on its YouTube channel documented bad and "potentially illegal" handling of customer warranties for the channel's 2.2 million viewers.
  The Verge highlights ASUS's biggest change:
  If you've ever been denied a warranty repair or charged for a service that was unnecessary or should've been free, Asus wants to hear from you at a new email a
  
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• AI Researcher Warns Data Science Could Face a Reproducibility Crisis

  17-06-2024 02:16 via slashdot.org
  
  Long-time Slashdot reader theodp shared this warning from a long-time AI researcher arguing that data science "is due" for a reckoning over whether results can be reproduced. "Few technological revolutions came with such a low barrier of entry as Machine Learning..."
  Unlike Machine Learning, Data Science is not an academic discipline, with its own set of algorithms and methods... There is an immense diversity, but also disparities in skill, expertise, and knowledge among Data Scientists... In pr
  
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• FCC Approves Mysterious SpaceX Device: Is It for the Starlink Mini Dish?

  17-06-2024 00:34 via mobile.slashdot.org
  
  "SpaceX has received FCC clearance to operate a mysterious 'wireless module' device," PC Magazine reported earlier this week, speculating that the device "might be a new Starlink router."
  On Tuesday, the FCC issued an equipment authorization for the device, which uses the 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi radio bands. A document in SpaceX's filing also says it features antennas along with Wi-Fi chips apparently from MediaTek. Another document calls the device by the codename "UTW-231," and defines it as a "
  
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• 'Blue Screen of Death' Comes To Linux

  16-06-2024 23:10 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  In 2016, Phoronix remembered how the early days of Linux kernel mode-setting (KMS) had brought hopes for improved error messages. And one long-awaited feature was errors messages for "Direct Rendering Manager" (or DRM) drivers — something analgous to the "Blue Screen of Death" Windows gives for critical errors.
  Now Linux 6.10 is introducing a new DRM panic handler infrastructure enabling messages when a panic occurs, Phoronix reports today. "This is especially important for those building
  
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• Which Way is the EV Market Headed? And Does the US Lag the World?

  16-06-2024 21:58 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Wednesday the annual electric vehicle outlook report was released by market researcher BloombergNEF. And the analyst wrote that "Our long-term outlook for EVs remains bright," according to the Los Angeles Times:In 2023, EVs made up 18% of global passenger-vehicle sales. By 2030, according to the report, 45% will be EVs. That number jumps to 73% by 2040 — still short of what the world needs to reach net zero emissions in transportation, the firm says, but enough to achieve major reductions
  
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• 53 LA County Public Health Workers Fall for Phishing Email. 200,000 People May Be Affected

  16-06-2024 20:44 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  The Los Angeles Times reports that "The personal information of more than 200,000 people in Los Angeles County was potentially exposed after a hacker used a phishing email to steal the login credentials of 53 public health employees, the county announced Friday."
  Details that were possibly accessed in the February data breach include the first and last names, dates of birth, diagnoses, prescription information, medical record numbers, health insurance information, Social Security numbers and oth
  
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• Flesh-Eating Bacteria That Can Kill in Two Days Spreads in Japan

  16-06-2024 19:44 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Bloomberg reports:
  A disease caused by a rare "flesh-eating bacteria" that can kill people within 48 hours is spreading in Japan after the country relaxed Covid-era restrictions. Cases of streptococcal toxic shock syndrome (STSS) reached 977 this year by June 2, higher than the record 941 cases reported for all of last year, according to the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, which has been tracking incidences of the disease since 1999.
  Group A Streptococcus (GAS) typically causes swelli
  
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• Wine Staging 9.11 Released with A Patch For A 17 Year Old Bug

  16-06-2024 18:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Building off Friday's release of Wine 9.11, the development team has now also released Wine Staging 9.11 with some 428 patches, reports Phoronix founder Michael Larabel:Catching my interest was a patch for Bug 7955. That right away catches my attention since the latest Wine bug reports are at a bug ticket number over 56,000.... Yep, Bug 7955 dates back 14 years ago to April 2007.
  The #7955 bug report is over the S-Hoai Windows client displaying an application exception when clicking the "File" o
  
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• In Memoriam: Dr. Ed Stone, Former NASA JPL Director and Voyager Project Scientist

  16-06-2024 17:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Slashdot reader hackertourist shared this announcement from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory:Edward C. Stone, former director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and project scientist of the Voyager mission for 50 years, died on June 9, 2024. He was age 88...Stone served on nine NASA missions as either principal investigator or a science instrument lead, and on five others as a co-investigator (a key science instrument team member). These roles primarily involved studying energetic ions from the
  
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• CISA Head Warns Big Tech's 'Voluntary' Approach to Deepfakes Isn't Enough

  16-06-2024 16:34 via slashdot.org
  
  The Washington Post reports:
  Commitments from Big Tech companies to identify and label fake artificial-intelligence-generated images on their platforms won't be enough to keep the tech from being used by other countries to try to influence the U.S. election, said the head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. AI won't completely change the long-running threat of weaponized propaganda, but it will "inflame" it, CISA Director Jen Easterly said at The Washington Post's Futurist S
  
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• What Advice Would You Give a First-Time Linux User?

  16-06-2024 13:22 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  ZDNet published a new article this week with their own tips for new Linux users. It begins by arguing that switching to the Linux desktop "is easier than you think" and "you'll find help everywhere". (And also that "You won't want for apps.")
  That doesn't mean it has everything. For example, there is no version of Adobe Photoshop. There is GIMP (which is just as powerful as Photoshop) but for those of you accustomed to Adobe's de facto standard, you're out of luck. The worst-case scenario is you
  
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• FAA Investigating How Counterfeit Titanium Got Into Boeing and Airbus Jets

  16-06-2024 10:10 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  "Titanium that was distributed with fake documentation has been found in commercial Boeing and Airbus jets," reports CNN. America's Federal Aviation Administration is now investigating whether those components pose a safety hazard to the public," along with the manufacturers of the aircraft and supplier Spirit AeroSystems.
  "A parts supplier found small holes in the material from corrosion," the New York Times reported Friday:Boeing and Airbus both said their tests of affected materials so far ha
  
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• Is There Life on This Saturn Moon? Scientists Plan a Mission to Find Out

  16-06-2024 06:59 via science.slashdot.org
  
  It's one of Saturn's 146 moons — just 310 miles in diameter (or 498 kilometers). Yet the European Space Agency plans to send a robot on a one-billion mile trip to visit it. Why?Because astronomers have discovered Enceladus "possesses geysers that regularly erupt from its surface and spray water into space," reports the Guardian:Even more astonishing, these plumes contain complex organic compounds, including propane and ethane. "Enceladus has three key ingredients that are considered to be
  
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• Is C++ More Popular Than C?

  16-06-2024 04:24 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  Last month TIOBE announced its estimate that the four most popular programming languages were:1. Python
  2. C
  3. C++
  4. JavaBut this month C++ "overtook" C for the first time, TIOBE announced, becoming (according to the same methodology) the #2 most popular programming language, with C dropping to #3. " C++ has never been that high in the TIOBE index," says TIOBE Software CEO Paul Jansen in the announcement, "whereas C has never been that low."
  1. Python
  2. C++
  3. C
  4. JavaC++ started a new life
  
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• Security Lessons from the Change Healthcare Ransomware Catastrophe

  16-06-2024 00:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  The $22 million paid by Change Healthcare's parent company to unlock its systems "may have emboldened bad actors to further target the vulnerable industry," writes Axios:
  There were 44 attacks against the health care sector in April, the most that [cybersecurity firm] Recorded Future has seen in the four years it's been collecting data. It was also the second-largest month-over-month jump, after 30 ransomware attacks were recorded in March. There were 32 attacks in February and May.
  But an analy
  
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• Researchers Find No Amount of Alcohol is Healthy For You

  15-06-2024 23:34 via slashdot.org
  
  The New York Times magazine remembers that once upon a time, in the early 1990s, "some prominent researchers were promoting, and the media helped popularize, the idea that moderate drinking...was linked to greater longevity.
  "The cause of that association was not clear, but red wine, researchers theorized, might have anti-inflammatory properties that extended life and protected cardiovascular health..."More recently, though, research has piled up debunking the idea that moderate drinking is good
  
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• OpenAI CEO Says Company Could Become a For-Profit Corporation Like xAI, Anthropic

  15-06-2024 22:34 via slashdot.org
  
  Wednesday The Information reported that OpenAI had doubled its annualized revenue — a measure of the previous month's revenue multiplied by 12 — in the last six months. It's now $3.4 billion (which is up from around $1 billion last summer, notes Engadget).
  And now an anonymous reader shares a new report from The Information:OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently told some shareholders that the artificial intelligence developer is considering changing its governance structure to a for-profit
  
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• Have Scientists Found 'Potential Evidence' of Dyson Spheres?

  15-06-2024 21:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Have scientists discovered infrared radiation, evidence of waste heat generated by the energy-harvesting star-surrounding spheres first proposed by British American physicist Freeman Dyson? CNN reports:
  [A] new study that looked at 5 million stars in the Milky Way galaxy suggests that seven candidates could potentially be hosting Dyson spheres — a finding that's attracting scrutiny and alternate theories... Using historical data from telescopes that pick up infrared signatures, the researc
  
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• Rust's Foundation Announces a New 'Safety-Critical Rust Consortium'

  15-06-2024 20:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  This week the Rust Foundation jointly announced "the Safety-Critical Rust Consortium" with industry partners including Arm, AdaCore, Lynx Software Technologies, and Toyota's mobility tech subsidiary Woven. Its goal is supporting "responsible use" of Rust "in safety-critical software — systems whose failure can impact human life or cause severe environmental or property harm."
  "This is exciting," said Rust creator Graydon Hoare in a statement. "I am truly pleased to see the Rust Foundation
  
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• Solar Modules Deployed In France In 1992 Still Provide 79.5% of Original Output

  15-06-2024 19:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  French photovoltaics group Hespul tested solar panels installed in 1992, reports PV Magazine:The testing showed that the modules still produce on average 79.5% of their initial power after 31 years of operation. In a previous testing carried out 11 years ago, the panels were found to produce 91.7% of their initial power. "This result exceeds the performance promised by the manufacturers who said the panels would have maintained 80% of their output after 25 years," said Hespul.
  The drop in perfor
  
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• Linux vs Windows 11 Copilot+ PCs? TUXEDO Unveils Snapdragon X Elite ARM Notebook

  15-06-2024 18:34 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  Slashdot reader BrianFagioli shares his report from BetaNews:
  The PC community is abuzz with Qualcomm's recent announcement of its Snapdragon X Elite SoC, a powerhouse chipset that promises to revolutionize the performance and energy efficiency of laptops and tablets. While Windows 11 Copilot+ PCs are set to feature this advanced processor, Linux enthusiasts have reasons to celebrate as well. You see, TUXEDO Computers is bringing this cutting-edge technology to the Linux world with its upcoming
  
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• An AI-Generated Candidate Wants to Run For Mayor in Wyoming

  15-06-2024 17:34 via politics.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shared this report from Futurism:
  An AI chatbot named VIC, or Virtually Integrated Citizen, is trying to make it onto the ballot in this year's mayoral election for Wyoming's capital city of Cheyenne.But as reported by Wired, Wyoming's secretary of state is battling against VIC's legitimacy as a candidate — and now, an investigation is underway.According to Wired, VIC, which was built on OpenAI's GPT-4 and trained on thousands of documents gleaned from Cheyenne council
  
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• Python 'Language Summit' 2024: Security Workflows, Calendar Versioning, Transforms and Lightning Talks

  15-06-2024 16:04 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  Friday the Python Software Foundation published several blog posts about this year's "Python Language Summit" May 15th (before PyCon US), which featured talks and discussions by core developers, triagers, and Python implementation maintainers.
  There were several lightning talks. One talk came from the maintainer of the PyO3 project, offering Rust bindings for the Python C API (which requires mapping Rust concepts to Python — leaving a question as to how to map Rust's error-handling panic!
  
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