ICT news

• The Rich Country With the Worst Mobile-Phone Service

  15-11-2024 20:25 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Economist: Britain has long been a pioneer in telecoms. In 1837 it built the world's first commercial telegraph; the first transatlantic call was placed from London in 1927; in 1992 a British programmer sent the first text message to a mobile phone. Today it lags rather than leads. According to figures provided to The Economist by Opensignal, a research firm, Britain ranks 46th for download speeds out of the 56 developed and developing countries for which there are data. That gives it the worst
  
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• Biden Administration Finalizes $6.6 Billion In Chips Grants For TSMC

  16-11-2024 00:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  The White House said it's completed a $6.6 billion grant agreement with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) through the Chips and Science Act. "Today's announcement is among the most critical milestones yet in the implementation of the bipartisan CHIPS & Science Act, and demonstrates how we are ensuring that the progress made to date will continue to unfold in the coming years, benefitting communities all across the country," Biden said in a statement. The Hill reports: The gra
  
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• Ask Slashdot: Have AI Coding Tools Killed the Joy of Programming?

  15-11-2024 23:20 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  Longtime Slashdot reader DaPhil writes: I taught myself to code at 12 years old in the 90s and I've always liked the back-and-forth with the runtime to achieve the right result. I recently got back from other roles to code again, and when starting a new project last year, I decided to give the new "AI assistants" a go.My initial surprise at the quality and the speed you can achieve when using ChatGPT and/or Copilot when coding turned sour over the months, as I realized that all the joy I felt ab
  
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• Laundry-Sorting Robot Spurs AI Hopes and Fears At Europe's Biggest Tech Event

  15-11-2024 22:40 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: This year's Web Summit, in Lisbon, was all about artificial intelligence -- and a robot sorting laundry. Digit, a humanoid built by the US firm Agility Robotics, demonstrated how far AI has come in a few years by responding to voice commands -- filtered through Google's Gemini AI model -- to sift through a pile of colored T-shirts and place them in a basket. It wasn't a seamless demonstration but the enthusiastic response, nearly two years o
  
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• FTC Reports 50% Drop in Unwanted Call Complaints Since 2021

  15-11-2024 21:04 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The Federal Trade Commission reported Friday that the number of consumer complaints about unwanted telemarketing phone calls has dropped over 50% since 2021, continuing a trend that started three years ago. From a report: This year, the FTC has received 1.1 million reports regarding robocalls, down from 1.2 million one year before 2023 and from more than 3.4 million in 2021. According to this year's National Do Not Call Registry Data Book -- which provides the most recent data on robocall compla
  
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• Cop Summits 'No Longer Fit For Purpose', Say Leading Climate Policy Experts

  15-11-2024 19:50 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Future UN climate summits should be held only in countries that can show clear support for climate action and have stricter rules on fossil fuel lobbying, according to a group of influential climate policy experts. The group includes former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, the former president of Ireland Mary Robinson, the former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres and the prominent climate scientist Johan Rockstrom.
  They have written to the UN demanding th
  
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• Internet Archive Now Hosts Classic Unreal Games; Epic Games Gives Blessing

  15-11-2024 19:05 via games.slashdot.org
  
  Classic first-person shooters Unreal (1998) and Unreal Tournament are now available for free on the Internet Archive, with official OK from publisher Epic Games.
  An Epic spokesperson confirmed to PC Gamer that users are permitted to "independently link to and play these versions." Players can download the games directly from the Internet Archive and apply patches from Github for modern Windows compatibility, or use simplified installers through oldunreal.com. Both titles run on current hardware
  
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• Sony's Had the Year From Hell

  15-11-2024 18:34 via slashdot.org
  
  Sony faces mounting challenges after a year marked by major setbacks in its gaming and film divisions. The company's $200-400 million gaming project "Concord" sold only 25,000 copies before being discontinued, while PlayStation 5 sales targets were cut from 25 million to 21 million units.
  Sony Pictures struggled with underperforming Spider-Man spin-offs and high-profile departures, including CEO Tony Vinciquerra. Over 1,200 employees were laid off across divisions, and profits fell 39% to $124 m
  
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• Is Anyone Crazy Enough To Audit Super Micro Computer?

  15-11-2024 17:52 via slashdot.org
  
  Server maker Super Micro Computer is facing mounting challenges after EY resigned as its auditor on October 24, citing concerns about management's integrity and ethical values. EY's departure came just months after replacing Deloitte & Touche, which had audited Super Micro for two decades through June 2023.
  The resignation raises questions about potential issues Deloitte may have missed. Super Micro has appointed a special committee and hired legal and forensic accounting firms to investigat
  
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• Cloud Migration Is Back (If You Ignore the Actual Numbers)

  15-11-2024 17:06 via it.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: The cloud migration narrative that powered tech valuations during the pandemic is attempting a comeback, but the underlying data suggests a more complex story.
  UBS's new survey of IT services reveals a striking disconnect between industry expectations and customer reality. While executives proclaim "2025 will be far better than what we've seen in 2024," their enterprise clients report having migrated merely 15% of workloads to the cloud, with the remainder pr
  
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• Virgin Media O2 Deploys AI Decoy To Waste Scammers' Time

  15-11-2024 16:31 via slashdot.org
  
  British telecom Virgin Media O2 has deployed an AI tool to combat phone scammers by wasting their time with fake conversations, the company said. The AI system, named Daisy, uses voice synthesis to mimic an elderly woman and engages fraudsters in lengthy discussions about fictitious family members or provides false bank details, keeping them occupied for up to 40 minutes per call.
  Virgin Media O2 embedded phone numbers connected to Daisy within scammer call lists targeting vulnerable individuals
  
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• Brazil's Online Betting Surge Sparks Debt Crisis as Users Turn To 400% Loans

  15-11-2024 15:50 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Brazilian officials are scrambling to control a gambling boom that has led some citizens to take out loans with interest rates as high as 438% to fund their betting habits, sparking concerns about household debt levels.
  The surge in online betting has doubled Brazil's gambling population to 52 million in six months, with the central bank estimating monthly gambling spending between 18-21 billion reais ($3.1-3.6 billion) through August 2024. Central Bank President Roberto Campos Neto said lower-i
  
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• Republican States' Attorneys General Sue SEC, Gensler Over Crypto 'Overreach'

  15-11-2024 15:01 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Eighteen Republican state attorneys general have sued the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Chair Gary Gensler on Thursday, challenging the agency's authority to regulate cryptocurrency markets.
  The lawsuit, led by Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, alleges the SEC has exceeded its statutory powers by attempting to assume broad regulatory control over digital assets without congressional authorization. The complaint argues the agency's actions infringe on states' rights t
  
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• Australia To Make Big Tech Liable For Citizens' Online Safety

  15-11-2024 14:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: The Australian government plans to enact laws requiring big tech firms to protect its citizens online, the latest move by the center-left Labor administration to crack down on social media including through age limits and curbs on misinformation. Communications Minister Michelle Rowland announced the government's plan for a legislated Digital Duty of Care in Australia on Wednesday night, saying it aligned with similar laws in the UK and Europea
  
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• Open Source Fights Back: 'We Won't Get Patent-Trolled Again'

  15-11-2024 11:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols reports: [...] At KubeCon North America 2024 this week, CNCF executive director Priyanka Sharma said in her keynote, "Patent trolls are not contributors or even adopters in our ecosystem. Instead, they prey on cloud-native adopters by abusing the legal system. We are here to tell the world that these patent trolls don't stand a chance because CNCF is uniting the ecosystem to deter them. Like a herd of musk oxen, we will run them off our pasture." CNCF CTO Chris Ani
  
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• Rocket Lab Signs First Neutron Launch Customer

  15-11-2024 08:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Rocket Lab says it has signed the first customer for its Neutron launch vehicle, with a launch planned for mid-2025. SpaceNews reports: The company announced Nov. 12 that it signed a contract with an undisclosed "commercial satellite constellation operator" for two launches of Neutron, one in mid-2026 and the other in 2027, a deal that could lead to additional launches for the same customer. "We see this agreement as an important opportunity that signifies the beginning of a productive collabora
  
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• Half-Life 2 Celebrates 20th Anniversary

  15-11-2024 04:30 via games.slashdot.org
  
  Each day leading up through the 16th (the official day Half-Life 2 was launched), Ars Technica will be publishing a new article looking back at the game and its impact. Here's an excerpt from an article published today by Ars Technica's Kyle Orland: When millions of eager gamers first installed Half-Life 2 20 years ago, many, if not most, of them found they needed to install another piece of software alongside it. Few at the time could imagine that piece of companion software -- with the pithy n
  
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• Meet Evo, the DNA-trained AI That Creates Genomes From Scratch

  15-11-2024 03:02 via science.slashdot.org
  
  sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: What if, rather than scouring the internet, ChatGPT could search all of the DNA on Earth? That future just got a bit closer with Evo, an AI model reported today in Science. The program -- trained on billions of lines of genetic sequences -- can design new proteins and even whole genomes. Previous AIs could only interpret and predict relatively short sections of DNA, and they could only work with groups of nucleotides -- the A, C, G, T alphabet
  
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• Datacenters Line Up For 750MW of Oklo's Nuclear-Waste-Powered Small Reactors

  15-11-2024 02:25 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Datacenter operators are increasingly turning to small modular reactors (SMRs) like those developed by Oklo to meet growing energy demands. According to The Register, Oklo has secured commitments from two major datacenter providers for 750 MW of power, pending regulatory approvals. It brings the firm's planned nuclear build-out to 2.1 gigawatts. From the report: Oklo's designs are, from what we understand, inspired by the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II) and utilize liquid-metal cooling.
  
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• Google Loses Yet Another AI Pioneer As Keras Creator Leaves

  15-11-2024 01:45 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Francois Chollet, an AI pioneer and creator of the Keras framework, announced that he's leaving Google to co-found a new company. Neowin reports: In his parting message, Chollet assured that he would still be active with Keras and participate in its development on GitHub. His successor, Jeff Carpenter, will now lead Keras at Google, and Chollet expressed his full confidence in the team's future direction.Keras has come a long way since Chollet released it in 2015, initially as a high-level neura
  
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• Teen Pleads Guilty To Making 375 'Swatting' Calls Across US

  15-11-2024 01:02 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  quonset shares a report from CNN: Between August 2022 and January 2024, hundreds of swatting calls were made across the country targeting religious institutions, government offices, schools, and random people. Authorities were finally able to track down the criminal, Alan Fillon, who entered the plea to four counts of making interstate threats to injure the person of another, the US Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Florida said in a news release. He faces up to five years in prison o
  
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• OpenMP 6.0 Released

  15-11-2024 00:20 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  Phoronix's Michael Larabel reports: The OpenMP Architecture Review Board announced from SC24 that OpenMP 6.0 is now available as a major upgrade to the OpenMP specification for multi-process programming within C / C++ / Fortran. A big emphasis on OpenMP 6.0 is making it easier for developers to embrace. OpenMP 6.0 aims to make it easier to support parallel programming in new applications, easier to adapt to new use-cases, and more fine-grained developer control.OpenMP 6.0 simplifies task program
  
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• ChatGPT For macOS Now Works With Third-Party Apps, Including Apple's Xcode

  14-11-2024 23:40 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  An update to OpenAI's ChatGPT app for macOS adds integration with third-party apps, including developer tools such as VS Code, Terminal, iTerm2 and Apple's Xcode. 9to5Mac reports: In a demo seen by 9to5Mac, ChatGPT was able to understand code from an Xcode project and then provide code suggestions without the user having to manually copy and paste content into the ChatGPT app. It can even read content from more than one app at the same time, which is very useful for working with developer tools.
  
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• Japanese Government To Invest $65 Billion To Support Domestic Chip Sector

  14-11-2024 23:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Data Center Dynamics: The Japanese government is planning to invest approximately $65 billion to support the country's semiconductor and AI industries. The initiative, which will run until the end of the decade, is expected to generate ~$104 billion in public and private investment during the period. According to a report from Reuters, this new round of funding will specifically target state-backed chip foundry Rapidus and other AI chip suppliers.Rapidus
  
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• Academic Papers Yanked After Authors Found To Have Used Unlicensed Software

  14-11-2024 22:22 via science.slashdot.org
  
  An academic journal has retracted two papers because it determined their authors used unlicensed software. The Register: Elsevier's Ain Shams Engineering Journal withdrew two papers exploring dam failures after complaints from Flow Science, the Santa Fe, New Mexico-based maker of a computational fluid dynamics application called FLOW-3D.
  "Following an editorial investigation as a result of a complaint from the software distributor, the authors admitted that the use of professional software, FLOW
  
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• US Regulators Plan To Investigate Microsoft's Cloud Business

  14-11-2024 21:41 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The Federal Trade Commission is preparing to launch an investigation into anti-competitive practices at Microsoft's cloud computing business, Financial Times reported Thursday, as the US regulator continues to pursue Big Tech in the final weeks of Joe Biden's presidency. From the report: The FTC is examining allegations that Microsoft is abusing its market power in productivity software by imposing punitive licensing terms to prevent customers from moving their data from its Azure cloud service
  
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• Microsoft Releases Windows 11 ISOs for Arm64-based PCs

  14-11-2024 21:01 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: After dragging its feet for years, Microsoft has finally released the first official Windows 11 ISOs for PCs with an Arm64 processor. This means users can now clean install Windows 11 using official offline media on an Arm64-based PC, including the latest Snapdragon X Copilot+ PCs.
  The ISOs contain version 24H2 can be downloaded from the official Microsoft website, and are around 5GB in size depending on the language you select. According to the company, the
  
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• Second Life for Server Components

  14-11-2024 20:24 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Scientists have developed a method to reuse components from decommissioned data center servers, potentially reducing the carbon footprint of cloud computing infrastructure.
  The research team from Microsoft, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Washington demonstrated that older RAM modules and solid-state drives can be safely repurposed in new server builds without compromising performance, according to papers presented at recent computer architecture conferences.
  When combined with
  
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• Researchers Are Trying To Reinvent the Wheel

  14-11-2024 19:42 via science.slashdot.org
  
  South Korean researchers have developed a "morphing" wheel that can navigate stairs and obstacles up to 1.3 times its radius, potentially revolutionizing mobility devices and robotics.
  The wheel, created by the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM), features a chain-based outer hoop and sensor-controlled spoke wires that adjust stiffness based on terrain. Inspired by water droplet mechanics, it transitions between solid and fluid states when encountering impediments.Read more of this
  
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• Google Rolls Out Call Screening AI To Thwart Phone Fraudsters

  14-11-2024 19:01 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Google is rolling out AI-powered scam call detection for Android phones, aiming to protect users from increasingly sophisticated phone fraud schemes. The new feature, available in beta for Pixel 6 and newer devices, analyzes conversation patterns in real-time to identify potential scams. When suspicious patterns emerge, such as urgently requesting fund transfers, the system alerts users through audio, haptic, and visual warnings.
  The detection system operates entirely on-device using Google's ma
  
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