ICT news

• Utah Locals Are Getting Cheap 10 Gbps Fiber Thanks To Local Governments

  18-05-2024 03:25 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Karl Bode writes via Techdirt: Tired of being underserved and overbilled by shitty regional broadband monopolies, back in 2002 a coalition of local Utah governments formed UTOPIA -- (the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency). The inter-local agency collaborative venture then set about building an "open access" fiber network that allows any ISP to then come and compete on the shared network. Two decades later and the coalition just announced that 18 different ISPs now compete for Uta
  
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• 87% in New Poll Say Cost an Important Reason For Halting Studies

  18-06-2024 20:07 via news.slashdot.org
  
  A new Gallup survey released Tuesday found cost and work conflicts are the top reasons Americans choose to discontinue their higher education. From a report: In the poll, 87 percent said cost was a "very" or "moderately" important reason for pursuing further institutional study, while 81 percent pointed to work conflicts. The other two leading reasons were the time it takes to complete a degree at 73 percent and lack of remote options at 70 percent. Cost tops the list among all demographic group
  
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• Nvidia Vaults Past Apple and Microsoft To Become World's Most Valuable Company

  18-06-2024 19:14 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Nvidia has leapfrogged Microsoft and Apple to become the most valuable company in the world, following months of explosive share price growth driven by demand for its chips and an investor frenzy over artificial intelligence. From a report: The company's shares climbed 3.2 per cent to $135.18 on Tuesday, bringing its market capitalisation to $3.332tn and surpassing the two tech giants that have long jostled for pole position on US stock markets.
  Nvidia has been the chief beneficiary of a boom in
  
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• AI Images in Google Search Results Have Opened a Portal To Hell

  18-06-2024 18:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Google image search is serving users AI-generated images of celebrities in swimsuits and not indicating that the images are AI-generated. In a few instances, even when the search terms do not explicitly ask for it, Google image search is serving AI-generated images of celebrities in swimsuits, but the celebrities are made to look like underage children. If users click on these images, they are taken to AI image generation sites, and in a couple of cases the r
  
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• Los Angeles Schools To Consider Ban on Smartphones

  18-06-2024 18:04 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The Los Angeles Unified School District on Tuesday will consider banning smartphones for its 429,000 students in an attempt to insulate a generation of kids from distractions and social media that undermine learning and hurt mental health. From a report: The proposal was being formulated before U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on Monday called for a warning label on social media platforms, akin to those on cigarette packages, due to what he considers a mental health emergency. The board of the
  
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• Apple Suspends Work on Next High-End Headset

  18-06-2024 17:29 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  The Information: Apple has told at least one supplier that it has suspended work on its next high-end Vision headset, an employee at a manufacturer that makes key components for the Vision Pro said. The pullback comes as analysts and supply chain partners have flagged slowing sales of the $3,500 device. The company is still working on releasing a more affordable Vision product with fewer features before the end of 2025, the person involved in its supply chain and a person involved in the manufac
  
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• EV Maker Fisker Files for Bankruptcy

  18-06-2024 16:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Fisker filed for bankruptcy on Monday, months after the electric-vehicle startup stopped production of its only model, the oft-malfunctioning Ocean SUV. From a report: Fisker is the second plug-in car company started by Henrik Fisker -- a famed designer of BMW and Aston Martin sports cars -- to end up in bankruptcy. An earlier venture, Fisker Automotive, filed for Chapter 11 protection in 2013 after a series of recalls spelled the downfall of its battery supplier, a fellow recipient of US Energy
  
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• SUSE Wants a Piece of the AI Cake, Too

  18-06-2024 16:02 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  SUSE, a Luxembourg-based open-source company, is launching a new vendor- and LLM-agnostic generative AI platform called SUSE AI solutions. The company aims to leverage the potential of AI to gain a stronger foothold in the U.S. market, where it has struggled to establish brand recognition compared to competitors like Red Hat and Canonical. SUSE CEO Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen believes that the open-source model provides infinite potential for enterprise customers, offering support, security, and long
  
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• London Underground Hosts Tests For 'Quantum Compass' That Could Replace GPS

  18-06-2024 15:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Dr Joseph Cotter takes some unusual pieces of luggage on his trips on the London underground. They include a stainless steel vacuum chamber, a few billion atoms of rubidium and an array of lasers that are used to cool his equipment to a temperature just above absolute zero. While not the average kit you would expect to find being dragged into carriages on the District Line, this is the gear that Cotter -- who works at Imperial College London
  
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• CISA and Partners Release Guidance for Modern Approaches to Network Access Security

  18-06-2024 14:00 via cisa.gov
  Today, CISA, in partnership with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), released guidance, Modern Approaches to Network Access Security, along with the following organizations: New Zealand’s Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB); 
  New Zealand’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-NZ); and 
  The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS).The guidance urges business owners of all sizes to move toward more robust security solutions—such as Zero Trus
  
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• Apple's Battery Supplier TDK Says It Made a Big Breakthrough

  18-06-2024 12:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Rocio Fabbro reports via Quartz: TDK, the largest maker of smartphone batteries in the world, said Monday that it has successfully developed a material that could be used in a new battery with "significantly higher energy density" than its existing cells. Energy density refers to how much energy a battery can store relative to its size or weight. The material will be used in TDK's CeraCharge solid-state battery, which it says has an energy density of 1,000 watt-hours per liter -- approximately 1
  
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• Chinese Producer of Netflix's 'The Three-Body Problem' Is Poisoned in Suspected Murder Attempt

  18-06-2024 09:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Lin Qi, chairman of China's Yoozoo Group and executive producer on Netflix's "The Three-Body Problem," is currently hospitalized in Shanghai following a suspected deliberate poisoning by colleague Xu Yao, who has been detained by police. Despite internal strife, Yoozoo reassured stakeholders that operations have returned to normal, with Lin in stable condition. Variety reports: Netflix announced in September that it will adapt all three books in the critically acclaimed "Three-Body Problem" sci-
  
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• Nearly 20% of Running Microsoft SQL Servers Have Passed End of Support

  18-06-2024 07:20 via it.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: IT asset management platform Lansweeper has dispensed a warning for enterprise administrators everywhere. Exactly how old is that Microsoft SQL Server on which your business depends? According to chief strategy officer Roel Decneut, the biz scanned just over a million instances of SQL Server and found that 19.8 percent were now unsupported by Microsoft. Twelve percent were running SQL Server 2014, which is due to drop out of extended support on July 9 -- mean
  
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• Kenya's First Nuclear Plant Faces Fierce Opposition

  18-06-2024 05:30 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Kilifi County's white sandy beaches have made it one of Kenya's most popular tourist destinations. Hotels and beach bars line the 165 mile-long (265km) coast; fishers supply the district's restaurants with fresh seafood; and visitors spend their days boating, snorkelling around coral reefs or bird watching in dense mangrove forests. Soon, this idyllic coastline will host Kenya's first nuclear plant, as the country, like its east African neig
  
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• The Short, Happy Reign of CD-ROM

  18-06-2024 03:25 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  "Over at Fast Company, where we're celebrating 1994 Week, I wrote about the year of Peak CD-ROM, when excitement over the medium's potential was sky-high and the World Wide Web's audience still numbered in the extremely low millions," writes Slashdot reader and Fast Company technology editor Harry McCracken (harrymcc). "I cover once-famous products such as Microsoft's Encarta encyclopedia, the curse of shovelware, the rise of a San Francisco neighborhood known as 'Multimedia Gulch,' and why the
  
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• Meta Accused of Trying To Discredit Ad Researchers

  18-06-2024 01:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Thomas Claburn reports via The Register: Meta allegedly tried to discredit university researchers in Brazil who had flagged fraudulent adverts on the social network's ad platform. Nucleo, a Brazil-based news organization, said it has obtained government documents showing that attorneys representing Meta questioned the credibility of researchers from NetLab, which is part of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). NetLab's research into Meta's ads contributed to Brazil's National Consume
  
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• $2.4 Million Texas Home Listing Boasts Built-In 5,786 sq ft Data Center

  18-06-2024 00:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  A Zillow listing for a $2.4 million house in a Dallas suburb is grabbing attention for its 5,786-square-foot data center with immersion cooling tanks, massive server racks, and two separate power grids. Tom's Hardware reports: With a brick exterior, cute paving, and mini-McMansion arch stylings, the building certainly looks to be a residential home for the archetypal Texas family. Prospective home-buyers will thus be disappointed by the 0 bedroom, 1 bathroom setup, which becomes a warehouse-feel
  
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• French Court Orders Google, Cloudflare, Cisco To Poison DNS To Stop Piracy

  18-06-2024 00:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: A French court has ordered Google, Cloudflare, and Cisco to poison their DNS resolvers to prevent circumvention of blocking measures, targeting around 117 pirate sports streaming domains. The move is another anti-piracy escalation for broadcaster Canal+, which also has permission to completely deindex the sites from search engine results. [...] Two decisions were handed down by the Paris judicial court last month; one concerning Premier Leag
  
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• Apple Developing Thinner MacBook Pro, Apple Watch, and iPhone

  17-06-2024 23:20 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple appears ready to embrace a thinner design language with the upcoming MacBook Pro, Apple Watch, and iPhone. MacRumors reports: When the M4 iPad Pro was unveiled last month, Apple touted it as the company's thinnest product ever, and even compared it to the 2012 iPod nano to emphasize its slim dimensions. Writing in the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Gurman says that like the iPad Pro, Apple is now focused on delivering the thinnest possible
  
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• McDonald's Pauses AI-Powered Drive-Thru Voice Orders

  17-06-2024 22:40 via slashdot.org
  
  After two years of testing, McDonald's has ended its use of AI-powered drive-thru ordering. "The company was trialing IBM tech at more than 100 of its restaurants but it will remove those systems from all locations by the end of July, meaning that customers will once again be placing orders with a human instead of a computer," reports Engadget. From the report: As part of that decision, McDonald's is ending its automated order taking (AOT) partnership with IBM. However, McDonald's may be conside
  
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• Surgeon General Wants Tobacco-Style Warning Applied To Social Media Platforms

  17-06-2024 22:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on Monday called on Congress to require a tobacco-style warning for visitors to social media platforms. In an op-ed published in The New York Times, Murthy said the mental health crisis among young people is an urgent problem, with social media "an important contributor." He said his vision of the warning includes language that would alert users to the potential mental health harms of the websites and apps. "A s
  
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• Hackers Demand as Much as $5 Million From Snowflake Clients

  17-06-2024 21:20 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Cybercriminals are demanding payments of between $300,000 and $5 million apiece from as many as 10 companies breached in a campaign that targeted Snowflake customers, according to a security firm helping with the investigation. From a report: The hacking scheme has entered a "new stage" as the gang looks to profit from the most valuable information it has stolen, said Austin Larsen, a senior threat analyst at Google's Mandiant security business, which helped lead Snowflake's inquiry. That includ
  
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• Apple Discontinues 'Buy Now, Pay Later' Service

  17-06-2024 20:42 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Apple said on Monday it will no longer offer its "buy now, pay later" service, Apple Pay Later, in the United States, and will instead focus on bringing installment loan offerings to Apple Pay users globally later this year. The company told 9to5Mac that the new feature will allow users to access installment loans from eligible credit and debit cards, as well as lenders, when checking out with Apple Pay.
  Existing Apple Pay Later users in the U.S. will still be able to manage their loans through
  
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• Proton Seeks To Secure Its Privacy-Focused Future With a Nonprofit Model

  17-06-2024 20:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Proton, the secure-minded email and productivity suite, is becoming a nonprofit foundation, but it doesn't want you to think about it in the way you think about other notable privacy and web foundations. From a report: "We believe that if we want to bring about large-scale change, Proton can't be billionaire-subsidized (like Signal), Google-subsidized (like Mozilla), government-subsidized (like Tor), donation-subsidized (like Wikipedia), or even speculation-subsidized (like the plethora of crypt
  
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• US Sues Adobe Over Subscription Plan Disclosures

  17-06-2024 18:52 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The U.S. government on Monday sued Adobe, accusing the maker of Photoshop and Acrobat of harming consumers by enrolling them in its most lucrative subscription plans without clearly disclosing important terms. From a report: In a complaint filed in the San Jose, California, federal court, the government said Adobe failed to adequately disclose hefty early termination fees, sometimes reaching hundreds of dollars, when customers sign up for "annual, paid monthly" subscription plans.
  The government
  
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• Amazon-Powered AI Cameras Used To Detect Emotions of Unwitting UK Train Passengers

  17-06-2024 18:41 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Thousands of people catching trains in the United Kingdom likely had their faces scanned by Amazon software as part of widespread artificial intelligence trials, new documents reveal. Wired: The image recognition system was used to predict travelers' age, gender, and potential emotions -- with the suggestion that the data could be used in advertising systems in the future. During the past two years, eight train stations around the UK -- including large stations such as London's Euston and Waterl
  
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• AI in Finance is Like 'Moving From Typewriters To Word Processors'

  17-06-2024 18:02 via slashdot.org
  
  The accounting and finance professions have long adapted to technology -- from calculators and spreadsheets to cloud computing. However, the emergence of generative AI presents both new challenges and opportunities for students looking to get ahead in the world of finance. From a report: Research last year by investment bank Evercore and Visionary Future, which incubates new ventures, highlights the workforce disruption being wreaked by generative AI. Analysing 160mn US jobs, the study reveals t
  
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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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