ICT news

• Shuttered Electric Air Taxi Startup Lilium May Be Saved After All

  24-12-2024 17:14 via slashdot.org
  
  A consortium of investors has resurrected Lilium just days after the electric air taxi startup ceased operations and laid off about 1,000 employees. From a report: Mobile Uplift Corporation, a company set up by investors from Europe and North America, has agreed to acquire the operating assets of the startup's two subsidiaries, Lilium GmbH and Lilium eAircraft GmbH, per an announcement Tuesday.
  The parent company, Lilium N.V, will not receive any funds in accordance with German insolvency law. T
  
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• Apple Explains Why It Doesn't Plan To Build a Search Engine

  26-12-2024 03:56 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Apple has no plans to develop its own search engine despite potential restrictions on its lucrative revenue-sharing deal with Google, citing billions in required investment and rapidly evolving AI technology as key deterrents, according to a court filing [PDF].
  In a declaration filed with the U.S. District Court in Washington, Apple Senior Vice President Eddy Cue said creating a search engine would require diverting significant capital and employees, while recent AI developments make such an inv
  
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• Russia Bans Crypto Mining in Multiple Regions, Citing Energy Concerns

  26-12-2024 01:30 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  The Russian government has banned crypto mining in ten regions for a period of six years, according to reporting by the state-owned news agency Tass. Engadget adds: Russia has cited the industry's high power consumption rates as the primary reason behind the ban. Crypto is particularly power-hungry, as mining operations already account for nearly 2.5 percent of US energy use.
  This ban takes effect on January 1 and lasts until March 15, 2031. The country's Council of Ministers has also stated tha
  
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• Porch Pirates Are Now Raising the Price You Pay at Checkout

  26-12-2024 00:01 via slashdot.org
  
  Lost deliveries, shipping delays and theft on the front porch have become such growing problems that companies are making consumers pay for package protection. From a report: Tens of thousands of online retailers now offer the service for a few dollars per order. The fees go to young companies -- Route and Corso, to name two -- that promise to make customers whole without charging the merchant if a delivery doesn't arrive. Consumers are finding that retailers either ask them to pay for package p
  
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• Microsoft Edge Takes a Victory Lap With Some High-Looking Usage Stats For 2024

  25-12-2024 23:05 via it.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft has published a year in review for its Edge browser and talked up AI-powered chats while lightly skipping over the software's stagnating market share. The company had some big numbers to share. There had been over 10 billion AI-powered chats with Copilot from inside the Edge browser window (although it did not disclose how many chats were customers asking how to install Chrome). Some 38 trillion characters had been auto-translated. Seven trillion me
  
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• Apple Is Not Losing Google's Billions Without a Fight

  25-12-2024 20:11 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Apple may be worth one and a half Googles now, but the world's most valuable company needs its relationship with the world's largest search engine to keep clicking. From a report: Such was evident Monday when Apple filed papers seeking to participate in the penalty phase of the Justice Department's antitrust case against Google. The search giant lost that case in August and is now battling the government over what remedies are appropriate. The DOJ has a long wish list that includes breaking the
  
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• Bret Taylor Urges Rethink of Software Development as AI Reshapes Industry

  25-12-2024 17:10 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  Software development is entering an "autopilot era" with AI coding assistants, but the industry needs to prepare for full autonomy, argues former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor. Drawing parallels with self-driving cars, he suggests the role of software engineers will evolve from code authors to operators of code-generating machines. Taylor, a board member of OpenAI and who once rewrote Google Maps over a weekend, calls for new programming systems, languages, and verification methods to ensure AI-
  
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• Headlights Are Growing Brighter

  25-12-2024 17:03 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Modern LED headlights are significantly brighter and more glaring than traditional halogen bulbs, creating dangerous driving conditions, lighting experts report. The newer lights produce an intense, concentrated beam that is bluer and more disorienting, particularly affecting older drivers. "Headlights are getting brighter, smaller and bluer. All three of those things increase a particular kind of glare. It's called discomfort glare," said Daniel Stern, chief editor of Driving Vision News.Read m
  
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• FCC 'Rip and Replace' Provision For Chinese Tech Tops Cyber Provisions in Defense Bill

  25-12-2024 16:07 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  The annual defense policy bill signed by President Joe Biden Monday evening allocates $3 billion to help telecom firms remove and replace insecure equipment in response to recent incursions by Chinese-linked hackers. From a report: The fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act outlines Pentagon policy and military budget priorities for the year and also includes non-defense measures added as Congress wrapped up its work in December. The $895 billion spending blueprint passed the Senate and
  
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• Elite Colleges Have a Looming Money Problem

  25-12-2024 15:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  They gave it the old college try, but America's elite universities are facing money problems partly of their own creation.ÂFrom a report: It might not seem that way compared with the broader world of U.S. higher education. Ivy League institutions and a handful in a similar orbit like Stanford, Duke and the University of Chicago aren't just blessed to have international cachet and their pick of excellent students and professors -- they also have the most money and the richest alumni. By con
  
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• In Maine, Remote Work Gives Prisoners a Lifeline

  25-12-2024 14:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Boston Globe: Every weekday morning at 8:30, Preston Thorpe makes himself a cup of instant coffee and opens his laptop to find the coding tasks awaiting his seven-person team at Unlocked Labs. Like many remote workers, Thorpe, the nonprofit's principal engineer, works out in the middle of the day and often stays at his computer late into the night. But outside Thorpe's window, there's a soaring chain-link fence topped with coiled barbed wire. And at n
  
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• Critics, Not Fans, Perpetuate the Failed Second Album Myth, Study Shows

  25-12-2024 11:00 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  A new study reveals that the widely accepted "sophomore slump" phenomenon -- where a band's second album is perceived as significantly worse than the first -- exists primarily in professional critics' reviews, not fan ratings. Researchers suggest this bias stems from social conformity among critics, while fans provide more consistent and reliable evaluations across albums. "If every music critic has heard of a sophomore slump and everyone knows it happens, they might be convinced to over-apply i
  
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• NASA's Parker Solar Probe Completes Historic Christmas Eve Flyby of the Sun

  25-12-2024 08:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  NASA's Parker Solar Probe made a historic approach on Christmas Eve, flying within 3.8 million miles of the Sun at a record-breaking speed of 430,000 mph. It marks humanity's closest encounter with a star. Live Science reports: Mission control cannot communicate with the probe during this rendezvous due to its vicinity to the sun, and will only know how the spacecraft fared in the early hours of Dec. 27 after a beacon signal confirms both the flyby's success and the overall state of the spacecra
  
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• AI Beats Human Experts At Distinguishing American Whiskey From Scotch

  25-12-2024 04:30 via slashdot.org
  
  An AI system has outperformed human experts in distinguishing between American whiskey and Scotch, achieving 100% accuracy by identifying subtle differences in the chemical composition of the spirits. New Scientist reports: Andreas Grasskamp at the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV in Germany and his colleagues trained an AI molecular odor prediction algorithm called OWSum on descriptions of different whiskies. Then, in a study involving 16 samples -- nine types of S
  
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• Scientists Observe 'Negative Time' In Quantum Experiments

  25-12-2024 03:02 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Researchers at the University of Toronto have experimentally observed "negative time" in photon interactions with atoms, suggesting a measurable effect rather than an illusion. The researchers stress that these findings, posted on the preprint server arXiv, don't imply time travel. Phys.Org reports: The experiments, conducted in a cluttered basement laboratory bristling with wires and aluminum-wrapped devices, took over two years to optimize. The lasers used had to be carefully calibrated to avo
  
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• South Korea Mulls Creating 'KSMC' Contract Chipmaker To Compete With TSMC

  25-12-2024 02:25 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware: Although Samsung Foundry is a major chip contract manufacturer, the South Korean government mulls creating a government-funded contract chipmaker tentatively called Korea Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, KSMC, reports The Korea Biz Wire. Industry experts and academics have proposed the initiative.The Semiconductor Industry Association's Ahn Ki-hyun called for a long-term government investment. Experts project that an investment of KRW
  
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• North Korean Hackers Stole $1.3 Billion Worth of Crypto This Year

  25-12-2024 01:45 via it.slashdot.org
  
  In 2024, North Korean state-sponsored hackers stole $1.34 billion in cryptocurrency across 47 attacks, marking a 102.88% increase from 2023 and accounting for 61% of global crypto theft. BleepingComputer reports: Although the total number of incidents in 2024 reached a record-breaking 303, the total losses figure isn't unprecedented, as 2022 remains the most damaging year with $3.7 billion. Chainalysis says most of the incidents this year occurred between January and July, during which 72% of th
  
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• More Than 140 Kenya Facebook Moderators Diagnosed With Severe PTSD

  25-12-2024 01:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: More than 140 Facebook content moderators have been diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder caused by exposure to graphic social media content including murders, suicides, child sexual abuse and terrorism. The moderators worked eight- to 10-hour days at a facility in Kenya for a company contracted by the social media firm and were found to have PTSD, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and major depressive disorder (MDD), by Dr I
  
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• One Third of Adults Can't Delete Device Data

  25-12-2024 00:20 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  The UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) warns that while most adults recognize the importance of wiping personal data from old devices, nearly 30% don't know how, and a significant number of young people either don't care or find it too cumbersome. The Register reports: Clearing personal data off an old device is an important step before ditching it or handing it on to another user. However, almost three in ten (29 percent) of adults don't know how to remove the information, according t
  
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• El Salvador Strikes $1.4 Billion IMF Deal After Scaling Back Bitcoin Policies

  24-12-2024 23:40 via slashdot.org
  
  El Salvador secured a $1.4 billion loan deal with the IMF after agreeing to scale back its bitcoin policies, making cryptocurrency acceptance voluntary for businesses and limiting public sector involvement. The deal aims to stabilize the country's economy, with bitcoin's recent rally boosting the value of El Salvador's holdings. The BBC reports: In 2021, El Salvador became the first country in the world to make bitcoin legal tender. This week, the cryptocurrency briefly hit a fresh record high o
  
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• Cloudflare Must Block 'Piracy Shield' Domains and IP Addresses Across Its Service

  24-12-2024 23:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: In a landmark ruling, the Court of Milan has ordered (PDF) Cloudflare to block pirate streaming services that offer Serie A football matches. The court found that Cloudflare's services are instrumental in facilitating access to live pirate streams, undermining Italy's 'Piracy Shield' legislation. The order, which applies in Italy, affects Cloudflare's CDN, DNS resolver, WARP and proxy services. It also includes a broad data disclosure sectio
  
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• Post Office Creates CTO Role To Support 'Extensive and Complex' Plans

  24-12-2024 22:22 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The UK Post Office has appointed Paul Anastassi as interim CTO amid efforts to replace its controversial Horizon IT system, which led to hundreds of wrongful convictions of subpostmasters due to software errors since 1999.
  The appointment, the news of which an anonymous reader shared, comes as the Post Office grapples with its $1.25 billion over-budget New Branch IT project, which was recently paused after being deemed "unachievable" in a government report. The organization is reportedly conside
  
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• '2024 Was the Year Gamers Really Started Pushing Back On the Erosion of Game Ownership'

  24-12-2024 21:40 via games.slashdot.org
  
  Mass game shutdowns and service terminations marked 2024 as a pivotal year for digital ownership concerns in the gaming industry. PC Gamer adds: The arguments have been around forever, but they've been made concrete by the simple fact that, over the last decade in particular, we've seen more and more games simply disappear. And we're not talking about obscure hobbyist projects, but seriously big budget titles that companies have spent millions developing, and hundreds of devs have spent years of
  
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• OpenAI Has Discussed Making a Humanoid Robot, Report Says

  24-12-2024 21:02 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Over the past year, OpenAI has dropped not-so-subtle hints about its revived interest in robotics: investing in startups developing hardware and software for robots such as Figure and Physical Intelligence and rebooting its internal robotics software team, which it had disbanded four years ago.
  Now, OpenAI could be taking that interest to the next level. The company has recently considered developing a humanoid robot, according to two people with direct knowl
  
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• '2024 Was the Year the Bottom Fell Out of the Games Industry'

  24-12-2024 20:21 via games.slashdot.org
  
  The video game industry faced unprecedented turmoil in 2024, with layoffs reaching record levels and exceeding 2023's total of 10,000 jobs lost by 40%. Major studios including Microsoft's Arkane Austin and Sony's Firewalk were shuttered, while indie developers struggled to secure funding amid the downturn.
  Industry analyst Matthew Ball attributed the crisis -- in a conversation with Wired -- to multiple factors, including rising development costs, shifting consumer spending, and game pricing cha
  
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• How Apple Developed an Nvidia Allergy

  24-12-2024 19:42 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Apple has long avoided directly purchasing Nvidia's chips and is now developing its own AI server chip with Broadcom, aiming for production by 2026, The Information reported Tuesday, shedding broader light on why the two companies don't get along so well.
  The relationship deteriorated after a 2001 meeting where Steve Jobs accused Nvidia of copying technology from Pixar, which he then controlled. Relations worsened in 2008 when Nvidia's faulty graphics chips forced Apple to extend MacBook warrant
  
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• ASUS Christmas Campaign Sparks Malware Panic Among Windows Users

  24-12-2024 19:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  ASUS computer owners have been reporting widespread alarm after a Christmas-themed banner suddenly appeared on their Windows 11 screens, accompanied by a suspicious "Christmas.exe" process in Task Manager.
  The promotional campaign, first reported by WindowsLatest, was delivered through ASUS' pre-installed Armoury Crate software. It displays a large wreath banner that covers one-third of users' screens. The unbranded holiday display, which can interrupt gaming sessions and occasionally crashes ap
  
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• Google is Using Anthropic's Claude To Improve Its Gemini AI

  24-12-2024 18:20 via slashdot.org
  
  Contractors working to improve Google's Gemini AI are comparing its answers against outputs produced by Anthropic's competitor model Claude, TechCrunch reported Tuesday, citing internal correspondence. From the report: Google would not say, when reached by TechCrunch for comment, if it had obtained permission for its use of Claude in testing against Gemini.
  As tech companies race to build better AI models, the performance of these models are often evaluated against competitors, typically by runn
  
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• Arizona Races To Power Data Center Boom as Maricopa County Set For Number 2 Spot

  24-12-2024 17:48 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Arizona's Maricopa County is set to become the nation's second-largest data center hub by 2028, as the state grapples with surging electricity demands and infrastructure challenges. The county has approved at least 20 new data center projects, trailing only Virginia's Loudoun County in scale.
  Arizona Public Service, the state's largest utility provider, projects data centers will account for 55% of its future electricity needs. The utility board recently approved an 8% rate hike to bolster power
  
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• Drinking Tea and Coffee Linked To Lower Risk of Head and Neck Cancer in Study

  24-12-2024 16:24 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Research finds people who have more than four coffees a day have 17% lower chance of head and neck cancers. From a report: If the only thing getting you through a mountain of present-wrapping is a mug of tea or coffee, be of good cheer. Researchers have found people who consume those drinks have a slightly lower risk of head and neck cancers. There are about 12,800 new head and neck cancer cases and about 4,100 related deaths in the UK every year, according to Cancer Research UK.
  The new study d
  
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