Share | RSS | Widgets | Home

« < 1 2 3 4 > »

Mexican Cartels Lure Chemistry Students To Make Fentanyl 01:45	Slashdot
Mexican Cartels Lure Chemistry Students To Make Fentanyl schwit1 writes: Recruiters approach students with tempting offers, often after observing them for weeks. Promising salaries of over $800 per month -- double the average pay for chemists in Mexican companies, along with potential bonuses like cars or housing -- recruiters capitalize on the financial struggles of young professionals. These "cooks" are tasked with improving fentanyl's addictive quality and finding alternative synthesis methods to mitigate supply chain disruptions caused by strict... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Nike-owned NFT Wearables Startup RTFKT is Winding Down 00:31	Slashdot
Nike-owned NFT Wearables Startup RTFKT is Winding Down RTFKT, the NFT project most known for its attempt at making "digital shoes" a thing, is shutting down, according to a statement on Monday. From a report: The project, acquired by athletic wear juggernaut Nike in 2021 for an undisclosed sum, plans to fully unwind by the end of January, though its Ethereum-based tokens will remain accessible. Launched in 2020 amid the beginnings of the mania around NFTs and the metaverse, RTFKT quickly garnered a reputation as a fast-moving startup. It spun up "... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Company Claims 1,000% Price Hike Drove It From VMware T... 02-12-24 22:01	Slashdot
Company Claims 1,000% Price Hike Drove It From VMware To Open Source Rival An anonymous reader shares a report: Companies have been discussing migrating off of VMware since Broadcom's takeover a year ago led to higher costs and other controversial changes. Now we have an inside look at one of the larger customers that recently made the move. According to a report from The Register today, Beeks Group, a cloud operator headquartered in the United Kingdom, has moved most of its 20,000-plus virtual machines (VMs) off VMware and to OpenNebula, an open source cloud and edg... Read the full article on Slashdot »
The Casual Moviegoer is a Thing of the Past 02-12-24 21:05	Slashdot
The Casual Moviegoer is a Thing of the Past U.S. movie theaters are struggling to attract casual moviegoers, who once made up a significant portion of box office revenues, as shorter theatrical runs and changing consumer habits reshape the industry. The domestic box office, which regularly exceeded $10 billion in annual ticket sales before COVID-19, is expected to reach only $8.5 billion this year. Films now average 32 days in theaters compared to 80 days pre-pandemic, limiting opportunities for audiences to discover movies spontaneousl... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Getty Images CEO Says Content-Scraping AI Groups Use 'P... 02-12-24 20:10	Slashdot
Getty Images CEO Says Content-Scraping AI Groups Use 'Pure Theft' For Profit Getty Images CEO has criticized AI companies' stance on copyright, particularly pushing back against claims that all web content is fair use for AI training. The statement comes amid Getty's ongoing litigation against Stability AI for allegedly using millions of Getty-owned images without permission to train its Stable Diffusion model, launched in August 2022. Acknowledging AI's potential benefits in areas like healthcare and climate change, Getty's chief executive argued against the industry'... Read the full article on Slashdot »
'Brain Rot' Named Oxford Word of the Year 2024 02-12-24 19:10	Slashdot
'Brain Rot' Named Oxford Word of the Year 2024 Oxford University Press: Following a public vote in which more than 37,000 people had their say, we're pleased to announce that the Oxford Word of the Year for 2024 is 'brain rot.' Our language experts created a shortlist of six words to reflect the moods and conversations that have helped shape the past year. After two weeks of public voting and widespread conversation, our experts came together to consider the public's input, voting results, and our language data, before declaring 'brain rot... Read the full article on Slashdot »
ChatGPT Refuses To Say One Specific Name 02-12-24 18:24	Slashdot
ChatGPT Refuses To Say One Specific Name An anonymous reader shares a report: ChatGPT users have spotted an unusual glitch that prevents the AI chatbot from saying the name 'David Mayer.' OpenAI's hugely popular AI tool responds to requests to write the name with an error message, stating: "I'm unable to produce a response." The chat thread is then ended, with people forced to open a new chat window in order to keep interacting with ChatGPT. Read the full article on Slashdot »
Employee Lawsuit Accuses Apple of Spying on Its Workers 02-12-24 17:01	Slashdot
Employee Lawsuit Accuses Apple of Spying on Its Workers A new lawsuit filed by a current Apple employee accuses the company of spying on its workers via their personal iCloud accounts and non-work devices. From a report: The suit, filed Sunday evening in California state court, alleges Apple employees are required to give up the right to personal privacy, and that the company says it can "engage in physical, video and electronic surveillance of them" even when they are at home and after they stop working for Apple. Those requirements are part of a ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Intel CEO Gelsinger Exits as Chip Pioneer's Turnaround ... 02-12-24 15:30	Slashdot
Intel CEO Gelsinger Exits as Chip Pioneer's Turnaround Falters Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has stepped down amid the company's continued struggles against rivals, with shares losing over half their value this year. The chipmaker announced Monday that Chief Financial Officer David Zinsner and Executive Vice President Michelle Johnston Holthaus will serve as interim co-CEOs while the board searches for a permanent replacement. Gelsinger, 63, was hired in 2021 to lead an ambitious turnaround aimed at reclaiming Intel's technological edge from competitors like Ta... Read the full article on Slashdot »
China Extends Dominance Over US in Critical Technology ... 02-12-24 15:17	Slashdot
China Extends Dominance Over US in Critical Technology Race China has overtaken the United States as the dominant force in critical technology research, according to a report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. The study found China now leads in 57 of 64 critical technologies, up from just three technologies in 2003-2007, while U.S. leadership dropped from 60 to seven technologies over the same period. China has made significant gains in quantum sensors, high-performance computing, and semiconductor chip manufacturing. The U.S. maintains it... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Bluesky's Open API Means Anyone Can Scrape Your Data fo... 02-12-24 13:34	Slashdot
Bluesky's Open API Means Anyone Can Scrape Your Data for AI Training. It's All Public Bluesky says it will never train generative AI on its users' data. But despite that, "one million public Bluesky posts — complete with identifying user information — were crawled and then uploaded to AI company Hugging Face," reports Mashable (citing an article by 404 Media). "Shortly after the article's publication, the dataset was removed from Hugging Face," the article notes, with the scraper at Hugging Face posting an apology. "While I wanted to support tool development for the... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Exxon Lobbyist Investigated Over 'Hack-and-Leak' of Env... 02-12-24 09:34	Slashdot
Exxon Lobbyist Investigated Over 'Hack-and-Leak' of Environmentalist Emails America's FBI "has been investigating a longtime Exxon Mobil consultant," reports Reuters, "over the contractor's alleged role in a hack-and-leak operation that targeted hundreds of the oil company's biggest critics, according to three people familiar with the matter." The operation involved mercenary hackers who successfully breached the email accounts of environmental activists and others, the sources told Reuters. The scheme allegedly began in late 2015, when U.S. authorities contend that th... Read the full article on Slashdot »
For Moon Missions, Researchers Test a 3D-Printable, Wat... 02-12-24 07:20	Slashdot
For Moon Missions, Researchers Test a 3D-Printable, Waterless Concrete "If NASA establishes a permanent presence on the moon, its astronauts' homes could be made of a new 3D-printable, waterless concrete," writes MIT Technology Review. "Someday, so might yours. "By accelerating the curing process for more rapid construction, this sulfur-based compound could become just as applicable on our home terrain as it is on lunar soil..." Building a home base on the moon will demand a steep supply of moon-based infrastructure: launch pads, shelter, and radiation blockers.... Read the full article on Slashdot »
As Space Traffic Crowds Earth Orbit: a Push for Global... 02-12-24 05:17	Slashdot
As Space Traffic Crowds Earth Orbit: a Push for Global Cooperation An anonymous reader shared this report from Reuters:The rapid increase in satellites and space junk will make low Earth orbit unusable unless companies and countries cooperate and share the data needed to manage that most accessible region of space, experts and industry insiders said. A United Nations panel on space traffic coordination in late October determined that urgent action was necessary and called for a comprehensive shared database of orbital objects as well as an international fra... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Scientists Have Finally Found the Gene That Gives Cats ... 02-12-24 02:34	Slashdot
Scientists Have Finally Found the Gene That Gives Cats Orange Fur Slashdot reader sciencehabit writes:Most orange cats are boys, a quirk of feline genetics that also explains why almost all calicos and tortoiseshells are girls. Scientists curious about those sex differences—or perhaps just cat lovers—have spent more than 60 years unsuccessfully seeking the gene that causes orange fur and the striking patchwork of colors in calicos and tortoiseshells. Now, two teams have independently found the long-awaited mutation and discovered a protein that ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Oxford's Word of the Year: 'Brain Rot' 02-12-24 01:06	Slashdot
Oxford's Word of the Year: 'Brain Rot' "Are you spending hours scrolling mindlessly on Instagram reels and TikTok?" asks the BBC. "If so, you might be suffering from brain rot, which has become the Oxford word of the year." It is a term that captures concerns about the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content, especially on social media. The word's usage saw an increase of 230% in its frequency from 2023 to 2024. Psychologist and Oxford University Professor, Andrew Przybylski says the popularity of the wor... Read the full article on Slashdot »
UN Plastic Treaty Talks Collapse Without a Deal 01-12-24 23:29	Slashdot
UN Plastic Treaty Talks Collapse Without a Deal United Nations members gathered this week in Busan, South Korea to negotiate the first treaty reducing plastic pollution. But Politico reports that "talks collapsed late Sunday after negotiators failed to resolve their differences and agree on a global plastic treaty. At the heart of the disagreement was a refusal by oil-rich nations led by Saudi Arabia to accept a deal that put limits on plastic production... Throughout the two years of talks, oil-rich and plastic-producing states had repeatedl... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Bluesky Passes Threads for Active Website Users, But Co... 01-12-24 21:58	Slashdot
Bluesky Passes Threads for Active Website Users, But Confronts 'Scammers and Impersonators' Bluesky now has more active website users than Threads in the U.S., according to a graph from the Financial Times. And though Threads still leads in app usage, "Prior to November 5 Threads had five times more daily active users in the U.S. than Bluesky... Now, Threads is only 1.5 times larger than its rival, Similarweb said." But "the influx of new users has opened up new opportunities for scammers and impersonators," Engadget reported this week: A recent analysis by Alexios Mantzarlis, direct... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Greg Kroah-Hartman Sees 'Tipping Point' for Rust Driver... 01-12-24 20:34	Slashdot
Greg Kroah-Hartman Sees 'Tipping Point' for Rust Drivers in Linux Kernel Greg Kroah-Hartman noted some coming changes in Linux 6.13 will make it possible to create "way more" Rust-based kernel drivers. "The veteran kernel developer believes we're at a tipping point of seeing more upstream Rust drivers ahead," reports Phoronix: These Rust char/misc changes are on top of the main Rust pull for Linux 6.13 that brought 3k lines of code for providing more Rust infrastructure. Linux 6.13 separately is also bringing Rust file abstractions. "Sorry for doing this at the e... Read the full article on Slashdot »
CJIT - C, Just In Time! 01-12-24 19:34	Slashdot
CJIT - C, Just In Time! Long-time Slashdot reader jaromil writes: As a fun project, we hacked together a C interpreter (based on Tiny C Compiler) that compiles C code in-memory and runs it live. CJIT today is a 2MB executable that can do a lot, including call functions from any installed library on Linux, Windows, and MacOSX. Slashdot reader oliwer points out "they are also including a REPL, which could be interesting." And the CJIT web page promises there's "no EULA to sign, no IDE to install... 100% Free and open... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Leaked Documents Show What Phones Secretive Tech 'Grayk... 01-12-24 18:34	Slashdot
Leaked Documents Show What Phones Secretive Tech 'Graykey' Can Unlock Primarily used by law enforcement, Graykey unlocks mobile devices to extract data from both Android and iOS systems, according to the blog AppleInsider, "though its effectiveness varies depending on the specific hardware and software involved." But while its capabilities are rarely disclosed, "a leak of some Grayshift's internal documents was recently reported on by 404 Media." According to the data, Graykey can only perform "partial" data retrieval from iPhones running iOS 18 and iOS 18.0.1. ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
'Hour of Code' Cartoon Includes a Shout-Out to AI 01-12-24 17:34	Slashdot
'Hour of Code' Cartoon Includes a Shout-Out to AI Nonprofit Code.org has posted this year's cartoon for "Hour of Code," their annual learn-to-code event for schoolchildren. Long-time Slashdot reader theodp notes its animated pigeon gives a shout-out to the AI that could ultimately replace programmers: In an Instagram post introducing the video, Code.org explains: "Bartlett the Pigeon just learned how to code and now thinks he's smarter than us. Honestly...he might be. Meet the face (and feathers) of this year's #HourOfCode." In the video, Ba... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Spacecraft Face 'Sophisticated and Dangerous' Cybersecu... 01-12-24 16:34	Slashdot
Spacecraft Face 'Sophisticated and Dangerous' Cybersecurity Threats "Spacecraft, satellites, and space-based systems all face cybersecurity threats that are becoming increasingly sophisticated and dangerous," reports CNBC. "With interconnected technologies controlling everything from navigation to anti-ballistic missiles, a security breach could have catastrophic consequences." Critical space infrastructure is susceptible to threats across three key segments: in space, on the ground segment and within the communication links between the two. A break in one ca... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Utilities Are Trying Enormous 'Flow' Batteries Big Enou... 01-12-24 13:34	Slashdot
Utilities Are Trying Enormous 'Flow' Batteries Big Enough to Oust Coal Power Plants To help replace power plants, Japan's northernmost island, Hokkaido, "is turning to a new generation of batteries designed to stockpile massive amounts of energy," reports the Washington Post. "The Hokkaido Electric Power Network (HEPCO Network) is deploying flow batteries, an emerging kind of battery that stores energy in hulking tanks of metallic liquid." [F]low batteries are making their debut in big real-world projects. Sumitomo Electric, the company that built the Hokkaido plant, has als... Read the full article on Slashdot »
What 'The Oregon Trail' Co-Creator Thinks of Apple's Pl... 01-12-24 09:34	Slashdot
What 'The Oregon Trail' Co-Creator Thinks of Apple's Plans for a Movie It's one of the most successful — and oldest — computer games of all-time. This week CBS News Minnesota interviewed Bill Heinemann, who in 1971 co-created "The Oregon Trail" as an educational video game simulating pioneers travelling west. "It's surprising and gratifying and humbling, in a way, that a little thing that I spent two weeks on has become a worldwide phenomenon," Heinemann said... The game's become known for the many ways players can die, including by dysentery, but Hein... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Despite Clean Energy Use, Global Warming is Still Proje... 01-12-24 05:34	Slashdot
Despite Clean Energy Use, Global Warming is Still Projected to Continue The world's use of clean energy "is rapidly growing", reports the Washington Post, "but not fast enough to keep temperatures in check..." Many experts say it will be the economics of clean energy that defines the future of the planet — and how developing countries choose to meet their growing electricity demands. "What happens in emerging and developing economies in the next decade in some sense is the whole ballgame," said Jason Bordoff, founding director of the Center for Global Energy... Read the full article on Slashdot »
OpenWRT One Released: First Router Designed Specificall... 01-12-24 03:14	Slashdot
OpenWRT One Released: First Router Designed Specifically For OpenWrt Friday the Software Freedom Conservancy announced the production release of the new OpenWrt One network router — designed specifically for running the Linux-based router OS OpenWrt (a member project of the SFC). "This is the first wireless Internet router designed and built with your software freedom and right to repair in mind. "The OpenWrt One will never be locked down and is forever unbrickable." This device services your needs as its owner and user. Everyone deserves control of thei... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Oceans Cool the Climate More Than We Thought, Study Finds 01-12-24 00:23	Slashdot
Oceans Cool the Climate More Than We Thought, Study Finds "Polar oceans constitute emission hotspots during the summer," according to a new paper published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Science Advances. "And including those sea-to-air fluxes in an atmospheric chemistry-climate model "results in a net radiative effect that has far-reaching implications." The research was led by a team of scientists from Spain's Institute of Marine Sciences and the Blas Cabrera Institute of Physical Chemistry, according to an announcement from the UK's Unive... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Bitcoin Heads for Nearly 40% November Gain, Edging Clos... 30-11-24 22:50	Slashdot
Bitcoin Heads for Nearly 40% November Gain, Edging Closer to $100,000 November 5: Bitcoin's price reaches an all-time high of $74,200. November 11: Bitcoin sets a new record of $84,000. November 12: Bitcoin pushes past $90,000. And Friday, CNBC reported: Bitcoin is on pace to post a 38% gain for November, according to Coin Metrics, which would make the month its best since February, when it gained 45% following the launch of spot bitcoin ETFs... Bulls expect bitcoin's price to reach $100,000 by the end of 2024 and potentially double by the end of 2025.Re... Read the full article on Slashdot »
New Cosmological Model Proposes Dark Matter Production ... 30-11-24 21:50	Slashdot
New Cosmological Model Proposes Dark Matter Production During Pre-Big Bang Inflation To explain the origins of dark market, a new model of the universe has been proposed by researchers, reports Phys.org. "Their idea is that dark matter would be produced during a infinitesimally short inflationary phase when the size of the universe quickly expanded exponentially..."Although inflation is mostly accepted by cosmologists as part of the Big Bang picture based on some evidence (though there is meaningful dissent), the driver of inflation is still unknown... [T]o-date research ha... Read the full article on Slashdot »
WordPress Anti-Spam Plugin Vulnerability Exposes 200,00... 30-11-24 20:34	Slashdot
WordPress Anti-Spam Plugin Vulnerability Exposes 200,000 Sites to RCE Attacks "A flaw in a WordPress anti-spam plugin with over 200,000 installations allows rogue plugins to be installed on affected websites," reports Search Engine Journal. The authentication bypass vulnerability lets attackers gain full access to websites without a username or password, according to the article, and "Security researchers rated the vulnerability 9.8 out of 10, reflecting the high level of severity..."The flaw in the Spam protection, Anti-Spam, FireWall by CleanTalk plugin, was pinpoi... Read the full article on Slashdot »
US Insurers Are Still Charging for HIV Prevention Pills... 30-11-24 19:34	Slashdot
US Insurers Are Still Charging for HIV Prevention Pills That Should Be Free The Washington Post reports on tens of thousands of Americans "forced to pay for medication" to prevent the HIV infections, "despite federal requirements guaranteeing free access to treatment...according to multiple studies and interviews with medical professionals, activists and patients."Insurance companies are skirting rules compelling them to pay for pre-exposure prophylaxis treatment, known as PrEP, researchers and HIV advocacy organizations say — leaving patients to shell out hund... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Threads Adds 35 Million More Members in November - But ... 30-11-24 18:34	Slashdot
Threads Adds 35 Million More Members in November - But Bluesky's Traffic is Surging At the start of November Threads had 275 million members. But in 30 days it's apparently increased another 12%, reports The Verge:Threads has accrued over 35 million signups so far in November and is "going on three months with more than a million signups a day," Meta spokesperson Alec Booker told The Verge in an email today. 20 million of those signups have come since November 14th, as Axios notes... At the same time, Bluesky has seen a surge of interest. The platform grew to 15 million us... Read the full article on Slashdot »
YouTube is Full of Old, Unseen Home Videos. Now You Ca... 30-11-24 17:34	Slashdot
YouTube is Full of Old, Unseen Home Videos. Now You Can Watch Them at Random From a new web project called IMG_0001: Between 2009 and 2012, iPhones had a built-in "Send to YouTube" button in the Photos app. Many of these uploads kept their default IMG_XXXX filenames, creating a time capsule of raw, unedited moments from random lives. Inspired by Ben Wallace, I made a bot that crawled YouTube and found 5 million of these videos! Watch them below, ordered randomly. The Washington Post reports that it's the same 22-year-old software engineer who created Bop Spotter &mda... Read the full article on Slashdot »
To Urge Local Shopping, America Celebrates 15th Annual ... 30-11-24 16:34	Slashdot
To Urge Local Shopping, America Celebrates 15th Annual 'Small Business Saturday' The New York Post writes that "After the COVID-19 pandemic upended mom-and-pops around the city and resulted in thousands shuttering for good, it is important — now more than ever — to shop local." America's Small Business Administration issued their own statement urging shoppers to "champion small businesses nationwide and #ShopSmall on Saturday, linking to a site mapping small businesses in your area. (And there's also a directory listing online small businesses.) Small Business... Read the full article on Slashdot »
TfL Abandons Plans For Driverless Tube Trains 30-11-24 13:00	Slashdot
TfL Abandons Plans For Driverless Tube Trains Transport for London (TfL) has dropped its investigation into how it could introduce driverless trains on the London Underground. From a report: One of the many conditions imposed on TfL during the pandemic to keep services running when most of us were stuck at home was that it would investigate how it could introduce driverless trains on the Underground. TfL was required to produce a business case for converting the Waterloo & City line and Piccadilly line to a DLR-style operation, and in S... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Performance Improvement Plans Surge in US as Companies ... 30-11-24 10:30	Slashdot
Performance Improvement Plans Surge in US as Companies Seek Stealth Job Cuts Performance improvement plans, a controversial corporate tool for managing underperforming employees, are becoming increasingly prevalent in U.S. workplaces. HR Acuity data shows workers subject to performance actions rose from 33.4 per 1,000 in 2020 to 43.6 per 1,000 in 2023. While companies maintain PIPs offer a path to improvement, WSJ -- citing HR executives and former employees -- describes them as primarily providing legal protection against wrongful termination lawsuits and an alternati... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Google Offered Millions To Ally Itself With Trade Body ... 30-11-24 07:02	Slashdot
Google Offered Millions To Ally Itself With Trade Body Fighting Microsoft An anonymous reader shares a report: Google Cloud dangled hundreds of million of euros worth of financial incentives to ally itself with an association of European cloud providers that had lodged a complaint against Microsoft, according to confidential documents seen by The Register. Amit Zavery, the former Vice President of Google Cloud Platform, presented to a selection of members of the Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers in Europe (CISPE) trade body, then to the board and finally to the... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Ship's Crew Suspected of Deliberately Dragging Anchor f... 30-11-24 05:02	Slashdot
Ship's Crew Suspected of Deliberately Dragging Anchor for 100 Miles To Cut Baltic Cables SpzToid writes: A Chinese commercial vessel that has been surrounded by European warships in international waters for a week is central to an investigation of suspected sabotage that threatens to test the limits of maritime law -- and heighten tensions between Beijing and European capitals. Investigators suspect that the crew of the Yi Peng 3 bulk carrier -- 225 meters long, 32 meters wide and loaded with Russian fertilizer -- deliberately severed two critical data cables last week as its anch... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Riot Games is Cracking Down on Players' Off-Platform Co... 30-11-24 01:01	Slashdot
Riot Games is Cracking Down on Players' Off-Platform Conduct Riot Games has announced sweeping changes to its terms of service, expanding penalties for player misconduct beyond in-game behavior to include content creation and social media activities. The new rules, Engadget reports, enable "Riot-wide bans" for violations across platforms where players discuss or stream Riot games. The company will not actively monitor social media but will respond to reported violations, particularly during game livestreams. Read the full article on Slashdot »
Canada's Major News Organizations Band Together To Sue ... 30-11-24 00:18	Slashdot
Canada's Major News Organizations Band Together To Sue OpenAI A broad coalition of Canada's major news organizations, including the Toronto Star, Metroland Media, Postmedia, The Globe and Mail, The Canadian Press and CBC, is suing tech giant OpenAI, saying the company is illegally using news articles to train its ChatGPT software. From a report: It's the first time all of a country's major news publishers have come together in litigation against OpenAI. The suit, filed in Ontario's Superior Court of Justice Friday morning, seeks punitive damages, disgorgem... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Both KDE and GNOME To Offer Official Distros 29-11-24 21:55	Slashdot
Both KDE and GNOME To Offer Official Distros king*jojo writes: KDE and GNOME have decided that because they're not big and complicated enough already, they might work better if they have their own custom distributions underneath. What's the worst that could happen? A talk from this year's KDE conference, Akademy 2024, looks like it's going to become real. The talk, by KDE developer Harald Sitter, was entitled An Operating System of Our Own, and the idea sounds simple enough: Sitter proposed an official KDE Linux distribution. Now the pro... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Meta Plans $10 Billion Global 'Mother of All' Subsea Ca... 29-11-24 19:02	Slashdot
Meta Plans $10 Billion Global 'Mother of All' Subsea Cables Meta plans to build a $10 billion private, "mother of all" undersea fiber-optic cable network spanning over 40,000 kilometers around the world, according to TechCrunch. The project, dubbed "W" for its shape, would run from the U.S. east coast to the west coast via India, South Africa and Australia, avoiding regions prone to cable sabotage including the Red Sea and South China Sea. The social media giant, which co-owns 16 existing cable networks, aims to gain full control over traffic prioritiz... Read the full article on Slashdot »
The New Climate Math on Hurricanes 29-11-24 18:00	Slashdot
The New Climate Math on Hurricanes Climate change has intensified hurricane wind speeds by an average of 19 mph in 84% of North Atlantic hurricanes between 2019-2024, according to new research that links warming ocean temperatures to storm intensity for individual hurricanes. This year, Hurricanes Helene and Milton slammed into Florida, breaking meteorological records and causing catastrophic damage. The study by Climate Central found that higher sea surface temperatures elevated most hurricanes by an entire category on the Saf... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Journal Scam Targets Top Science Publishers 29-11-24 17:01	Slashdot
Journal Scam Targets Top Science Publishers Major academic publishers including Elsevier and Springer Nature are grappling with a sophisticated new journal hijacking scam that precisely mimics their websites to deceive researchers. The fraudulent operation, reported by Retraction Watch, has cloned at least 13 legitimate journals through fake domains, according to Crossref data. The scam, the publication reports, features high-quality website clones that replicate even cookie consent popups. The operation assigns its own DOI prefix to pu... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Big Tech Slams Australia's Youth Social Media Ban 29-11-24 16:01	Slashdot
Big Tech Slams Australia's Youth Social Media Ban Major technology companies criticized Australia's new law banning social media access for users under 16, which passed parliament on Thursday with bipartisan support. The legislation threatens fines up to $32 million for platforms failing to block minors. TikTok warned the ban could drive young users to riskier online spaces, while Meta called it a "predetermined process," questioning the rushed parliamentary review that gave stakeholders only 24 hours for submissions. Reuters adds: Snapchat par... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Crypto Entrepreneur Eats $6 Million Banana on Stage 29-11-24 14:23	Slashdot
Crypto Entrepreneur Eats $6 Million Banana on Stage Crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun consumed Maurizio Cattelan's "Comedian" artwork -- a banana taped to a wall -- during an event in Hong Kong on Friday, declaring "the real value is the concept itself." Sun, founder of cryptocurrency platform Tron, purchased the piece for $6.2 million at Sotheby's last week, significantly above its $1-1.5 million estimate. The acquisition included only a certificate of authenticity and assembly instructions, not the physical banana or tape. The Chinese-born entre... Read the full article on Slashdot »
GIMP 3.0 - a Milestone For Open-Source Image Editing 29-11-24 14:05	Slashdot
GIMP 3.0 - a Milestone For Open-Source Image Editing LWN: The long-awaited release of the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) 3.0 is on the way, marking the first major update since version 2.10 was released in April 2018. It now features a GTK 3 user interface and GIMP 3.0 introduces significant changes to the core platform and plugins. This release also brings performance and usability improvements, as well as more compatibility with Wayland and complex input sources. GIMP 3.0 is the first release to use GTK 3, a more modern foundation than ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
'AI Ambition is Pushing Copper To Its Breaking Point' 29-11-24 12:30	Slashdot
'AI Ambition is Pushing Copper To Its Breaking Point' An anonymous reader shares a report: Datacenters have been trending toward denser, more power-hungry systems for years. In case you missed it, 19-inch racks are now pushing power demands beyond 120 kilowatts in high-density configurations, with many making the switch to direct liquid cooling to tame the heat. Much of this trend has been driven by a need to support ever larger AI models. According to researchers at Fujitsu, the number of parameters in AI systems is growing 32-fold approximately... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Panasonic Brings Its Founder Back To Life as an AI 29-11-24 08:40	Slashdot
Panasonic Brings Its Founder Back To Life as an AI Panasonic -- founded in 1918 as Matsushita Electric Housewares Manufacturing Works -- has created an AI version of its long deceased founder, Konosuke Matsushita. The Register has more: Matsushita died in 1989, and Panasonic explained that the number of people he personally trained is falling, making the AI necessary. "We believe it is important for our employees to correctly understand the management philosophy of our founder, Konosuke Matsushita, on which our Basic Management Policy is based, ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Japan's 'God of Management' Comes Back To Life as an AI... 29-11-24 08:40	Slashdot
Japan's 'God of Management' Comes Back To Life as an AI Model Panasonic has created an AI clone of its late founder Konosuke Matsushita based on his writings, speeches, and over 3,000 voice recordings. From a local media report: Known as Japan's "god of management," the Panasonic icon is one of the most respected by the Japanese business community, and comes back to life in digital form to impart wisdom directly to those he never met in person. "As the number of people who received training directly from Matsushita has been on the decline, we decided to ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Intel Required To Keep Control of Foundries Under $7.9 ... 29-11-24 06:30	Slashdot
Intel Required To Keep Control of Foundries Under $7.9 Billion Chips Act Deal Intel must maintain majority control of its foundries as a condition of receiving $7.86 billion in U.S. CHIPS Act funding, according to terms disclosed in a regulatory filing [PDF]. The semiconductor giant will need to keep at least 50.1% ownership if the foundry unit is spun off privately, while no single shareholder can hold more than 35% of shares if it goes public unless Intel remains the largest stakeholder. The restrictions, which also require Intel to remain a customer, come as the compan... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Footprints Suggest Different Human Relatives Lived Alon... 29-11-24 04:01	Slashdot
Footprints Suggest Different Human Relatives Lived Alongside One Another A million and a half years ago, amid giant storks and the ancestors of antelopes, two extinct relatives of humans walked along the same muddy lakeshore in what is today northern Kenya, new research suggests. From a report: An excavation team uncovered four sets of footprints preserved in the mud at the Turkana Basin, a site that has led to important breakthroughs in understanding human evolution. The discovery, announced on Thursday in a paper in the journal Science, is direct evidence that diff... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Google's Chrome Worth Up To $20 Billion If Judge Orders... 29-11-24 03:10	Slashdot
Google's Chrome Worth Up To $20 Billion If Judge Orders Sale Alphabet's Chrome browser could go for as much as $20 billion if a judge agrees to a Justice Department proposal to sell the business, in what would be a historic crackdown on one of the world's biggest tech companies. From a report: The department will ask the judge, who ruled in August that Google illegally monopolized the search market, to require measures related to artificial intelligence and its Android smartphone operating system, according to people familiar with the plans. Read mor... Read the full article on Slashdot »
UK Lawmakers Vote in Support of Assisted Dying 29-11-24 03:01	Slashdot
UK Lawmakers Vote in Support of Assisted Dying British members of parliament have voted to legalize assisted dying, approving a contentious proposal that would make the United Kingdom one of a small handful of nations to allow terminally ill people to end their lives. From a report: Lawmakers in the House of Commons voted by 330 to 275 to support the bill, after an hours-long debate in the chamber and a years-long campaign by high-profile figures that drew on emotional first-hand testimony. Britain is now set to join a small club of nation... Read the full article on Slashdot »
NHS Major 'Cyber Incident' Forces Hospitals To Use Pen ... 29-11-24 00:00	Slashdot
NHS Major 'Cyber Incident' Forces Hospitals To Use Pen and Paper The ongoing cybersecurity incident affecting a North West England NHS group has forced sites to fall back on pen-and-paper operations. From a report: The Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Trust updated its official line on the incident on Wednesday evening, revealing new details about the case, but remains coy about the true nature of the attack. "After detecting suspicious activity, as a precaution, we isolated our systems to ensure that the problem did not spread. This resulted in some... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Canada's Antitrust Watchdog Sues Google Alleging Anti-C... 28-11-24 23:38	Slashdot
Canada's Antitrust Watchdog Sues Google Alleging Anti-Competitive Conduct in Advertising Canada's Competition Bureau is suing Alphabet's Google over alleged anti-competitive conduct in online advertising, the antitrust watchdog said on Thursday. From a report: The Competition Bureau, in a statement, said it had filed an application with the Competition Tribunal seeking an order that, among other things, requires Google to sell two of its ad tech tools. It is also seeking a penalty from Google to promote compliance with Canada's competition laws, the statement said. Google said the... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Coffee at Highest Price in 47 years 28-11-24 19:32	Slashdot
Coffee at Highest Price in 47 years An anonymous reader shares a report: Coffee beans hit their highest price in 47 years, driven by bad weather in Vietnam and Brazil, the biggest producers of robusta and arabica beans respectively. Brazil saw its worst drought in 70 years this year followed by heavy rains, raising fears that next season's output will drop, further pinching already tight global supplies. Vietnam has itself had three years of low output. Arabica beans hit $3.18 a pound on Wednesday, leading Nestle, the world's ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
French Porn Block Fails on Site URL Detail 28-11-24 18:12	Slashdot
French Porn Block Fails on Site URL Detail A Paris court order to block porn website xHamster in France over insufficient age verification has resulted in an unintended loophole. The ruling only restricted "fr[dot]xhamster[dot]com" subdomain following nonprofits' complaint, leaving the main site accessible despite the DNS-level block by internet providers. Read the full article on Slashdot »
Even Central Banks Are Losing Faith in CBDCs 28-11-24 17:08	Slashdot
Even Central Banks Are Losing Faith in CBDCs Central bank support for digital currencies appears to have fallen sharply, with only 13% of central bankers surveyed by OMFIF Digital Monetary Institute backing CBDCs as a cross-border payment solution, down from 31% in 2023. The survey found just 10% of respondents are actively developing CBDCs, compared with 21% last year. The decline comes despite major initiatives including the Bank for International Settlements' Project Agora and China's Project mBridge. The BIS recently withdrew from mB... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Plastics Lobbyists Make Up Biggest Group at Vital UN Tr... 28-11-24 16:01	Slashdot
Plastics Lobbyists Make Up Biggest Group at Vital UN Treaty Talks Record numbers of plastic industry lobbyists are attending global talks that are the last chance to hammer out a treaty to cut plastic pollution around the world. From a report: The key issue at the conference will be whether caps on global plastic production will be included in the final UN treaty. Lobbyists and leading national producers are furiously arguing against any attempt to restrain the amount that can be produced, leaving the talks on a knife-edge. New analysis by the Center for Int... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Australia To Ban Under-16s From Social Media After Pass... 28-11-24 15:00	Slashdot
Australia To Ban Under-16s From Social Media After Passing Landmark Law Australia will ban children under 16 from using social media after its senate approved what will become a world-first law. From a report: Children will be blocked from using platforms including TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook, a move the Australian government argue is necessary to protect their mental health and wellbeing. The online safety amendment (social media minimum age) bill will impose fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars ($32.5 million) on platforms for systemic failu... Read the full article on Slashdot »
NASA Aircraft Uncovers Cold War Nuclear Missile Tunnels... 28-11-24 14:00	Slashdot
NASA Aircraft Uncovers Cold War Nuclear Missile Tunnels Under Greenland Ice An anonymous reader quotes a report from Space.com: NASA scientists conducting surveys of arctic ice sheets in Greenland got an unprecedented view of an abandoned "city under the ice" built by the U.S. military during the Cold War. During a scientific flight in April 2024, a NASA Gulfstream III aircraft flew over the Greenland Ice Sheet carrying radar instruments to map the depth of the ice sheet and the layers of bedrock below it. The images revealed a new view of Camp Century, a Cold War-era U... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Ryugu Asteroid Sample Rapidly Colonized By Terrestrial ... 28-11-24 11:00	Slashdot
Ryugu Asteroid Sample Rapidly Colonized By Terrestrial Life Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from Phys.org: Researchers from Imperial College London have discovered that a space-returned sample from asteroid Ryugu was rapidly colonized by terrestrial microorganisms, even under stringent contamination control measures. In the study, [...] researchers analyzed sample A0180, a tiny (1 x 0.8 mm) particle collected by the JAXA Hayabusa 2 mission from asteroid Ryugu. Transported to Earth in a hermetically sealed chamber, the sample was opened... Read the full article on Slashdot »
PFAS and Microplastics Become More Toxic When Combined,... 28-11-24 08:00	Slashdot
PFAS and Microplastics Become More Toxic When Combined, Research Shows A University of Birmingham study reveals that PFAS and microplastics have a synergistic effect that significantly increases their toxicity. "The study's authors exposed water fleas to mixtures of the toxic substances and found they suffered more severe health effects, including lower birth rates, and developmental problems, such as delayed sexual maturity and stunted growth," reports The Guardian. From the report: The enhanced toxic effects raise alarm because PFAS and microplastics are research... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Denmark Will Plant 1 Billion Trees, Convert 10% Farmlan... 28-11-24 04:30	Slashdot
Denmark Will Plant 1 Billion Trees, Convert 10% Farmland Into Forest An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Danish lawmakers on Monday agreed on a deal to plant 1 billion trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest and natural habitats over the next two decades in an effort to reduce fertilizer usage. The government called the agreement "the biggest change to the Danish landscape in over 100 years." Under the agreement, 43 billion kroner ($6.1 billion) have been earmarked to acquire land from farmers over the next two decades, the govern... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Senators Say TSA's Facial Recognition Program Is Out of... 28-11-24 03:02	Slashdot
Senators Say TSA's Facial Recognition Program Is Out of Control A bipartisan group of 12 senators has urged the TSA inspector general to investigate the agency's use of facial recognition technology, citing concerns over privacy, civil liberties, and its expansion to over 430 airports without sufficient safeguards or proven effectiveness. Gizmodo reports: "This technology will soon be in use at hundreds of major and mid-size airports without an independent evaluation of the technology's precision or an audit of whether there are sufficient safeguards in plac... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Data Broker Leaves 600K+ Sensitive Files Exposed Online 28-11-24 02:25	Slashdot
Data Broker Leaves 600K+ Sensitive Files Exposed Online A security researcher discovered an unprotected database belonging to SL Data Services containing over 600,000 sensitive files, including criminal histories and background checks with names, addresses, and social media accounts. The Register reports: We don't know how long the personal information was openly accessible. Infosec specialist Jeremiah Fowler says he found the Amazon S3 bucket in October and reported it to the data collection company by phone and email every few days for more than tw... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Google Opens AI Campus In London 28-11-24 01:45	Slashdot
Google Opens AI Campus In London British Prime Minister Keir Starmer inaugurated London's first Google-funded AI Campus in Camden, aiming to equip young people with AI and machine learning skills. Reuters reports: The center, based in Camden, an area which Starmer represents in parliament and which is also home to Google's future offices in Kings Cross, has already started a two-year pilot project for local students. An first cohort of 32 people aged 16-18 will have access to resources in AI and machine learning and receive men... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Tornado Cash Sanctions Overturned By US Appeals Court 28-11-24 01:02	Slashdot
Tornado Cash Sanctions Overturned By US Appeals Court A U.S. federal appeals court ruled that sanctions against Tornado Cash, a crypto transaction anonymization service, must be abandoned, stating that its immutable smart contracts do not constitute "property" under U.S. law and that the Treasury overstepped its authority. The ruling is available here (PDF). CoinDesk reports: The decision answers a controversial privacy debate on whether the government -- via a sanctions list maintained by the U.S. Treasury Department -- has a right to target the t... Read the full article on Slashdot »
The World's First Unkillable UEFI Bootkit For Linux 28-11-24 00:20	Slashdot
The World's First Unkillable UEFI Bootkit For Linux An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Over the past decade, a new class of infections has threatened Windows users. By infecting the firmware that runs immediately before the operating system loads, these UEFI bootkits continue to run even when the hard drive is replaced or reformatted. Now the same type of chip-dwelling malware has been found in the wild for backdooring Linux machines. Researchers at security firm ESET said Wednesday that Bootkitty -- the name unknown threat ac... Read the full article on Slashdot »
FTC Launches Broad Microsoft Antitrust Investigation 27-11-24 23:40	Slashdot
FTC Launches Broad Microsoft Antitrust Investigation The FTC has opened a broad antitrust investigation into Microsoft, including of its software licensing and cloud computing business. Bloomberg first reported the news. Reuters reports: The probe was approved by FTC Chair Lina Khan ahead of her likely departure in January. The election of Donald Trump as U.S. president and the expectation he will appoint a fellow Republican with a softer approach toward business, leaves the outcome of the investigation up in the air. The FTC is examining allega... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Former Android Leaders Are Building an 'Operating Syste... 27-11-24 23:02	Slashdot
Former Android Leaders Are Building an 'Operating System For AI Agents' The Verge's Wes Davis reports: A new startup created by former Android leaders aims to build an operating system for AI agents. Among them is Hugo Barra, Google's former VP of Android product management, who says the new company -- named "/dev/agents" -- will revisit the leaders' "Android roots." "We can see the promise of AI agents, but as a developer, it's just too hard to build anything good," /dev/agents cofounder and CEO and Google's former Android VP of engineering David Singleton told B... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Hacker In Snowflake Extortions May Be a US Soldier 27-11-24 22:25	Slashdot
Hacker In Snowflake Extortions May Be a US Soldier An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: Two men have been arrested for allegedly stealing data from and extorting dozens of companies that used the cloud data storage company Snowflake, but a third suspect -- a prolific hacker known as Kiberphant0m -- remains at large and continues to publicly extort victims. However, this person's identity may not remain a secret for long: A careful review of Kiberphant0m's daily chats across multiple cybercrime personas suggests they are a U.... Read the full article on Slashdot »
LinkedIn Posts Are Now Mostly AI-Written, Study Shows 27-11-24 21:41	Slashdot
LinkedIn Posts Are Now Mostly AI-Written, Study Shows More than half of longer English posts on LinkedIn are likely generated by AI, according to research from AI detection firm Originality AI. The company analyzed nearly 9,000 public posts over 100 words published between 2018 and 2024, finding AI usage surged 189% after ChatGPT's launch in early 2023, Wired reported Wednesday. LinkedIn, which also offers AI writing tools to premium subscribers, told Wired that it does not track AI-generated content levels but maintains "robust defenses" against... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Leica Just Recorded the Highest Revenue in Its Entire 1... 27-11-24 21:01	Slashdot
Leica Just Recorded the Highest Revenue in Its Entire 100-Year History PetaPixel: Leica Camera announced that its 2023/2024 fiscal year saw it achieve the highest revenue in the entire history of the company. It saw 14% growth to 554 million euros ($586.3 million) over last year's already spectacular 485 million euros. Last winter, Leica announced that it had set a sales record for the 2022/23 financial year and it has shattered that achievement now in 2024. The company says it was able to build on its successful business and sustain the growth of its earnings. T... Read the full article on Slashdot »
RIP Delicious Library 27-11-24 20:21	Slashdot
RIP Delicious Library Wil Shipley, announcing the end of Delicious Library, a media cataloging app: Amazon has shut off the feed that allowed Delicious Library to look up items, unfortunately limiting the app to what users already have (or enter manually). I wasn't contacted about this. I've pulled it from the Mac App Store and shut down the website so nobody accidentally buys a non-functional app. John Gruber of DaringFireball adds: The end of an era, but it's kind of surprising it was still functional until now... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Philippines Recruits Civilian Tech Talent To Fend Off C... 27-11-24 19:41	Slashdot
Philippines Recruits Civilian Tech Talent To Fend Off Cyber Attacks The Philippine Army is recruiting civilian hackers to bolster its cybersecurity defenses amid rising digital threats from China, army officials said. The 120-member Cyber Battalion has hired 70 tech experts in their 20s and 30s since 2020, offering them military training and the opportunity to serve the nation despite lower wages than private sector jobs. The initiative follows cyber attacks on Philippine government servers, including those of the Coast Guard and President Marcos Jr., which au... Read the full article on Slashdot »
China Woos Western Tech Talent in Race for Chip Supremacy 27-11-24 19:01	Slashdot
China Woos Western Tech Talent in Race for Chip Supremacy Chinese companies are aggressively recruiting foreign tech talent as a key strategy to gain technological supremacy, prompting national security concerns across Western nations and Asia, WSJ reported Wednesday, citing multiple intelligence officials and corporate sources. The campaign focuses particularly on advanced semiconductor expertise, with companies like Huawei offering triple salaries to employees at critical firms like Zeiss SMT and ASML, which produce essential components for cutting-e... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Sony Says It Sold 160 Million PlayStation 2 Units in Mi... 27-11-24 18:21	Slashdot
Sony Says It Sold 160 Million PlayStation 2 Units in Milestone Disclosure Sony has confirmed the PlayStation 2 has sold over 160 million units worldwide since its 2000 launch, marking the first official acknowledgment of its record-breaking lifetime sales. The figure, revealed on Sony's 30th anniversary PlayStation website, cements PS2's position as the best-selling gaming console ever, ahead of Nintendo DS at 154.02 million units and Nintendo Switch at 146 million units. Read the full article on Slashdot »
Italian Authorities Shut Down $3.2 Billion-a-Year Pirat... 27-11-24 17:42	Slashdot
Italian Authorities Shut Down $3.2 Billion-a-Year Pirate TV, Streaming Ring A piracy ring that gave 22 million subscribers in Europe cheap access to content stolen from international streaming services has been shut down by Italian authorities after a two-year investigation. From a report: The criminal enterprise used a complex international IT system to "capture and resell" live programming and other on-demand content from companies including sports broadcaster DAZN, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Paramount, Sky and Disney+, prosecutors said in a statement on Wednesday. Auth... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Most Smart Device Makers Fail To Reveal Software Suppor... 27-11-24 17:01	Slashdot
Most Smart Device Makers Fail To Reveal Software Support Periods, FTC Finds Nearly 89% of smart device manufacturers fail to disclose how long they will provide software updates for their products, a Federal Trade Commission staff study found this week. The review of 184 connected devices, including hearing aids, security cameras and door locks, revealed that 161 products lacked clear information about software support duration on their websites. Basic internet searches failed to uncover this information for two-thirds of the devices. "Consumers stand to lose a lot of... Read the full article on Slashdot »
AI Publishing Startup Plans To Release 8,000 Books Next... 27-11-24 16:22	Slashdot
AI Publishing Startup Plans To Release 8,000 Books Next Year Startup Spines plans to publish up to 8,000 books in 2025 using AI, charging authors between $1,200 and $5,000 for editing, design and distribution services. The venture-backed company, which recently secured $16 million in funding, promises to reduce publishing timelines to two to three weeks while allowing authors to retain full royalties. Co-founder Yehuda Niv describes Spines as a "publishing platform" rather than self-publishing. The announcement has drawn criticism from industry professi... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Singapore Emerges as Key Testing Ground for Autonomous ... 27-11-24 15:41	Slashdot
Singapore Emerges as Key Testing Ground for Autonomous Vehicles Singapore is positioning itself as a key testing ground for autonomous vehicles, attracting major Chinese firms and establishing unified national guidelines that contrast with fragmented regulations in the U.S. and China. China's WeRide launched the country's first public autonomous bus service on Sentosa island in June, while multiple companies are deploying self-driving vehicles for logistics and transportation. The controlled rollout aligns with Singapore's strategy to address labor shortag... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Microsoft Slaps Windows 11 Update Hold on Hardware Conn... 27-11-24 15:01	Slashdot
Microsoft Slaps Windows 11 Update Hold on Hardware Connected To eSCL Devices Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 11 24H2 has issues with USB-connected devices that support the Scanner Communication Language (eSCL) protocol. From a report: A compatibility hold has been applied to the hardware. The hold means that hardware connected to a USB device supporting the eSCL protocol will not be offered an upgrade to Windows 11 24H2. Microsoft said: "This issue primarily affects USB-connected multifunction devices or standalone scanners that support scan functionality and the eS... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Russia-Linked Hackers Exploited Firefox, Windows Bugs I... 27-11-24 14:00	Slashdot
Russia-Linked Hackers Exploited Firefox, Windows Bugs In 'Widespread' Hacking Campaign An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Security researchers have uncovered two previously unknown zero-day vulnerabilities that are being actively exploited by RomCom, a Russian-linked hacking group, to target Firefox browser users and Windows device owners across Europe and North America. RomCom is a cybercrime group that is known to carry out cyberattacks and other digital intrusions for the Russian government. The group -- which was last month linked to a ransomware attack targe... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Qualcomm Reportedly Loses Interest In Intel Takeover 27-11-24 11:00	Slashdot
Qualcomm Reportedly Loses Interest In Intel Takeover Qualcomm's interest in acquiring Intel is cooling due to the complexity of the deal, Intel's debt, and regulatory hurdles. However, according to Bloomberg, Qualcomm may still explore acquiring certain divisions of Intel to expand into markets like PCs and networking. Tom's Hardware reports: [T]he proposed acquisition faced significant obstacles, including Intel's $50 billion debt, dropping CPU market share, and its struggling semiconductor manufacturing unit, an area where Qualcomm lacks experti... Read the full article on Slashdot »
FCC Approves T-Mobile, SpaceX License To Extend Coverag... 27-11-24 08:00	Slashdot
FCC Approves T-Mobile, SpaceX License To Extend Coverage To Dead Zones The FCC said it has approved a license for T-Mobile and SpaceX's Starlink to provide supplemental coverage to cover internet dead zones. Reuters reports: The license marks the first time the FCC has authorized a satellite operator collaborating with a wireless carrier to provide supplemental telecommunications coverage from space on some flexible-use spectrum bands allocated to terrestrial service. The partnership aims to extend the reach of wireless networks to remote areas and eliminate "dead ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
'Lollipop' Device Brings Taste To Virtual Reality 27-11-24 04:30	Slashdot
'Lollipop' Device Brings Taste To Virtual Reality An anonymous reader quotes a report from IEEE Spectrum: Virtual- and augmented-reality setups already modify the way users see and hear the world around them. Add in haptic feedback for a sense of touch and a VR version of Smell-O-Vision, and only one major sense remains: taste. To fill the gap, researchers at the City University of Hong Kong have developed a new interface to simulate taste in virtual and other extended reality (XR). The group previously worked on other systems for wearable inte... Read the full article on Slashdot »
'Enshittification' Is Officially the Biggest Word of th... 27-11-24 03:00	Slashdot
'Enshittification' Is Officially the Biggest Word of the Year The Macquarie Dictionary, the national dictionary of Australia, has picked "enshittification" as its word of the year. Gizmodo reports: The Australians define the word as "the gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking." We've all felt this. Google search is filled with garbage. The internet is clogged with SEO-farming websites that clog up results. Faceboo... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Uber's Gig-Economy Workforce Now Includes Programmers 27-11-24 02:01	Slashdot
Uber's Gig-Economy Workforce Now Includes Programmers Uber's gig-economy workforce now includes programmers. According to Bloomberg, "The company is expanding beyond its rideshare roots to enter a hot new market: helping other businesses outsource some of their artificial intellgience development to independent contractors." From the report: Its new AI training and data labeling division, called Scaled Solutions, builds on an internal team that tackles large-scale annotation tasks for Uber's rideshare, food delivery and freight units. According to ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Job Seekers Doubt AI's Promised Productivity Gains 27-11-24 01:25	Slashdot
Job Seekers Doubt AI's Promised Productivity Gains Despite significant enterprise AI hype, most job seekers remain unconvinced of its benefits, with 69% doubting its ability to enhance work performance and 62% skeptical it reduces workloads. The findings come from a study conducted by Resume Genius. The Register reports: Consistent with the majority opinion that AI in the workplace has failed to impress, only 34 percent of respondents said they were worried about being replaced by a bot, while just 30 percent think AI will increase competition f... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Huawei's Mate 70 Smartphones Will Run Its New Android-F... 27-11-24 00:45	Slashdot
Huawei's Mate 70 Smartphones Will Run Its New Android-Free OS An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Huawei has announced its new Mate 70 series smartphone lineup, which will be the first offered with the company's new HarmonyOS Next operating system that doesn't rely on Google's Android services and won't run any Android apps, according to a report by Reuters. The four models of the Mate 70 also don't feature any US hardware following a half decade of US sanctions. The Mate 70, Mate 70 Pro, Mate 70 Pro Plus, and Mate 70 RS will also be offe... Read the full article on Slashdot »
OpenAI's Sora Video Generator Appears To Have Leaked 27-11-24 00:04	Slashdot
OpenAI's Sora Video Generator Appears To Have Leaked A group appears to have leaked access to Sora, OpenAI's video generator, in protest of what they're calling duplicity and "art washing" on OpenAI's part. From a report: On Tuesday, the group published a project on the AI dev platform Hugging Face seemingly connected to OpenAI's Sora API, which isn't yet publicly available. Using their authentication tokens -- presumably from an early access system -- the group created a frontend that lets users generate videos with Sora. Read more of this s... Read the full article on Slashdot »
ISPs Say Their 'Excellent Customer Service' Is Why User... 26-11-24 23:25	Slashdot
ISPs Say Their 'Excellent Customer Service' Is Why Users Don't Switch Providers Ars Technica's Jon Brodkin reports: Lobby groups for Internet service providers claim that ISPs' customer service is so good already that the government shouldn't consider any new regulations to mandate improvements. They also claim ISPs face so much competition that market forces require providers to treat their customers well or lose them to competitors. Cable lobby group NCTA-The Internet & Television Association told the Federal Communications Commission in a filing (PDF) that "providing... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Microsoft Denies Using Word and Excel Data To Train AI ... 26-11-24 22:45	Slashdot
Microsoft Denies Using Word and Excel Data To Train AI Models Microsoft has denied claims that it automatically enables data collection from Word and Excel documents to train its AI models. The controversy emerged after cybersecurity expert nixCraft reported that Microsoft's Connected Experiences feature was collecting user data by default. While Microsoft's services agreement grants the company rights to use customer content, officials stated via Twitter that document data is not used for AI training. Read the full article on Slashdot »
Intel's CHIPS Act Funding Cut By Over $600 Million 26-11-24 22:01	Slashdot
Intel's CHIPS Act Funding Cut By Over $600 Million The Biden administration is reducing Intel's CHIPS Act award by over $600 million, citing a $3 billion military contract the chipmaker was also awarded. Engadget reports: Initially set to receive $8.5 billion from the domestic silicon production bill, the company will get up to $7.85 billion instead. On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that Intel has extended some plant openings beyond 2030 government deadlines. Intel posted its biggest-ever quarterly loss last month after announcing 15,000 ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Forbes 30 Under 30 Founder Who Sold AI Chatbot To Schoo... 26-11-24 21:25	Slashdot
Forbes 30 Under 30 Founder Who Sold AI Chatbot To Schools Charged With Fraud An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: The founder of an artificial intelligence start-up focused on education was arrested and charged with defrauding her investors, lying about the company's profits and falsely claiming that some of the largest school districts in the country, including New York City's, were her customers. The founder, Joanna Smith-Griffin, started the company, AllHere Education, in 2016, with the goal of using artificial intelligence to increase student ... Read the full article on Slashdot »
Anthropic Says Claude AI Can Match Your Unique Writing ... 26-11-24 20:45	Slashdot
Anthropic Says Claude AI Can Match Your Unique Writing Style Anthropic is adding a new feature to its Claude AI assistant that will give users more control over how the chatbot responds to different writing tasks. From a report: The new custom styles are available to all Claude AI users, enabling anyone to train it to match their own communication style or select from preset options to quickly adjust the tone and level of detail it provides. This update aims to personalize the chatbot's replies and make them feel more natural or appropriate for specific... Read the full article on Slashdot »
US Senators Propose Law To Require Bare Minimum Securit... 26-11-24 20:05	Slashdot
US Senators Propose Law To Require Bare Minimum Security Standards American hospitals and healthcare organizations would be required to adopt multi-factor authentication (MFA) and other minimum cybersecurity standards under new legislation proposed by a bipartisan group of US senators. From a report: The Health Care Cybersecurity and Resiliency Act of 2024 [PDF], introduced on Friday by US Senators Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), Mark Warner (D-Virginia), John Cornyn (R-Texas), and Maggie Hassan (D-New Hampshire), would, among other things, require better coordinat... Read the full article on Slashdot »

« < 1 2 3 4 > »