 Engineers Investigating NASA's Voyager 1 Telemetry Data
The engineering team with NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft is trying to solve a mystery: The interstellar explorer is operating normally, receiving and executing commands from Earth, along with gathering and returning science data. But readouts from the probe's attitude articulation and control system (AACS) don't reflect what's actually happening onboard. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory reports: The AACS controls the 45-year-old spacecraft's orientation. Among other tasks, it keeps Voyager 1's high
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Rocket Engine Exhaust Pollution Extends High Into Earth's Atmosphere
The American Institute of Physics reports via Phys.Org: In Physics of Fluids, researchers from the University of Nicosia in Cyprus assessed the potential impact of a rocket launch on atmospheric pollution by investigating the heat and mass transfer and rapid mixing of the combustion byproducts for altitudes up to 67 kilometers into the atmosphere. The team modeled the exhaust gases and developing plume at several altitudes along a typical trajectory of a standard present-day rocket. They did thi
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New Bluetooth Hack Can Unlock All Kinds of Devices
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: When you use your phone to unlock a Tesla, the device and the car use Bluetooth signals to measure their proximity to each other. Move close to the car with the phone in hand, and the door automatically unlocks. Move away, and it locks. This proximity authentication works on the assumption that the key stored on the phone can only be transmitted when the locked device is within Bluetooth range. Now, a researcher has devised a hack that allow
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Solar-Powered Desalination Device Wins MIT $100K Competition
The winner of this year's MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition is commercializing a new water desalination technology. MIT News reports: Nona Desalination says it has developed a device capable of producing enough drinking water for 10 people at half the cost and with 1/10th the power of other water desalination devices. The device is roughly the size and weight of a case of bottled water and is powered by a small solar panel. The traditional approach for water desalination relies on a power-i
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Older People Using TikTok To Defy Ageist Stereotypes, Research Finds
Older TikTok users are using the online platform, regarded as the virtual playground of teenagers, to defy ageist stereotypes of elderly people as technophobic and frail. The Guardian reports: Research has found increasing numbers of accounts belonging to users aged 60 and older with millions of followers. Using the platform to showcase their energy and vibrancy, these TikTok elders are rewriting expectations around how older people should behave both on and off social media. "These TikTok elder
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Netflix Customers Canceling Service Increasingly Includes Long-Term Subscribers
Netflix lost 200,000 subscribers last quarter and potentially two million this current period, according to a note to shareholders from last month. Now, new research highlights that the number of long-standing subscribers canceling Netflix rose precipitously in the past few years. 9to5Mac reports: The data provided by the research firm Antenna to The Information shows that people who had been subscribers for more than three years accounted for just 5% of total cancelations at the start of 2022,
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Apple Reverses Remote Work Policy After Machine Learning Head Decamps To Alphabet
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: One of Apple's highest-profile return-to-office detractors reportedly landed a new gig at Alphabet's DeepMind, marking the latest drama over Big Tech's remote work scuffles. That move, ironically, comes right around the same time Apple decided to walk back its most recent return-to-office push. In an internal memo viewed by Bloomberg Tuesday, the company said it will delay its three-day in-office work requirement set to take effect on May 23. The
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The Passwords Most Used By CEOs Are Startlingly Dumb
A recent cybersecurity report shows how immensely idiotic many CEOs and business owners can be, considering the strength of their chosen account passwords. PC Gamer reports: The research comes from NordPass password manager which identified back in 2020 that the general public's most commonly used passwords were sequential numbers like '123456', 'picture1', and yep, you guessed it: 'password'. The more recent research sample consists of 290 million cybersecurity data breaches around the globe, a
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Google Messages RCS Is Being Abused For Ads In India
Over the past few weeks, Google Messages users in India have been reporting more and more ads showing up through RCS messaging. 9to5Google reports: While many brands -- even in the US and other countries -- have used messaging apps and SMS texts to advertise new products to former customers, these ads going on in India are not necessarily the result of a user's buying activity. Business messaging on RCS, as Google's Jibe website points out, is supposed to be used for things such as sending copie
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Why Tesla Was Kicked Out of the S&P 500's ESG Index
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: The S&P 500 booted electric vehicle maker Tesla from its ESG Index as part of an annual update to the list. Meanwhile, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and even oil and gas multinational Exxon Mobil were still included on the list. The S&P 500 ESG Index uses environmental, social and governance data to rank and effectively recommend companies to investors. Its criteria include hundreds of data points per company that pertain to the way businesses af
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Homeland Security Puts Its 'Disinformation Governance Board' on Ice
Department of Homeland Security said it will pause on the agency's weeks-old Disinformation Governance Board. From a report: The board -- which had stated it's intended goal was to "coordinate countering misinformation related to homeland security." -- was widely criticized by Republicans and right-wing media outlets. A DHS spokesperson said in a statement to Axios that the board was "grossly and intentionally mischaracterized: it was never about censorship or policing speech in any manner. It w
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CDC Expresses Concern About Possibility of Undetected Monkeypox Spread in UK
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has expressed concern about an unusual outbreak of monkeypox in the United Kingdom, suggesting there appears to be at least some undetected transmission of the virus there and warning of the possibility that the outbreak could spread beyond U.K. borders. From a report: "We do have a level of concern that this is very different than what we typically think of from monkeypox. And I think we have some concern that there could be spread outside the U.K
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Who Owns Einstein? The Battle For the World's Most Famous Face
During his lifetime, Einstein resisted the attempts to commercialise his identity. Now someone makes more than $12 million a year on image licensing. Even the law that allows this profiteering is contentious. Can an heir inherit rights that did not yet exist during the originator's lifetime? More on this on a long read from The Guardian.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Sony Readies For 'Metaverse Revolution' With Cross-Platform Push
Japanese conglomerate Sony said it is well-positioned to play a leading role in the metaverse, or immersive virtual worlds, which commentators speculate will massively disrupt industries and establish new powerhouses. From a report: "The metaverse is at the same time a social space and live network space where games, music, movies and anime intersect," Chief Executive Kenichiro Yoshida said at a strategy briefing on Wednesday, pointing to the use of free-to-play battle royale title Fortnite from
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Google Blocks File Manager Total Commander From Allowing Users To Sideload Apps
An anonymous reader shares a report: Total Commander has been around since the 90s, eventually expanding into Android after the platform launched over a decade ago. The app has more than 10 million downloads on the Play Store, still supporting OS versions as far back as Android 2.2. With a new update, developer Christian Ghisler has removed the ability to install APK files on Android, blaming Google Play policies in the patch notes for the app. It's a shocking twist for the service and, seemingl
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Senators Urge FTC To Probe ID.me Over Selfie Data
Some of more tech-savvy Democrats in the U.S. Senate are asking the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate identity-proofing company ID.me for "deceptive statements" the company and its founder allegedly made over how they handle facial recognition data collected on behalf of the Internal Revenue Service, which until recently required anyone seeking a new IRS account online to provide a live video selfie to ID.me. From a report: In a letter to FTC Chair Lina Khan, the Senators charge that
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Napster Gets Bought Again, This Time With a Web3 Pivot in the Works
Napster has been acquired again, this time by two companies from the web3 sector: Hivemind and Algorand. "Dear friends, we are excited to share that we've taken Napster Group private, and to bring the iconic music brand to web3," wrote Hivemind founder Matt Zhang on LinkedIn. From a report: "Volatile market and uncertain times often bring exciting opportunities. At Hivemind, we believe in developing thesis and building enduring value. Music x Web3 is one of the most exciting spaces we've come ac
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Ransomware Attackers Get Short Shrift From Zambian Central Bank
Zambia's central bank said it refused to pay ransom to a group known as Hive that was behind a cybersecurity breach that caused minimal damage to its systems. From a report: "All of our core systems are still up and running," Greg Nsofu, information and communications technology director at the Bank of Zambia, told reporters in Lusaka, the capital. "Not much sensitive data has actually been shipped out." Only some test data may have been leaked, he said. "Knowing that we had protected our core s
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Apple Reportedly Testing E Ink Outer Display for Upcoming Foldable
An anonymous reader shares a report: Ming-Chi Kuo is one of a handful of Apple analysts whose reports always warrant a second look, regardless of how strange they might seem at first blush. We've heard plenty of reports that the company is testing its own version of a foldable device, in its customary style of being fashionably late to the party, while also being the best dressed there. It stands to reason that the company is experimenting with all sorts of takes on the form factor. While compan
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China Makes a Comeback in Bitcoin Mining Despite Government Ban
While the US extended its leading position as the dominant location for Bitcoin mining, China has reemerged as the second-largest locale despite a government ban on the activity last year. From a report: The US accounted for 37.84% of global hashrate, a measure of computing power used to extract the digital currency, between September 2021 to January, according to the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, in a report released on Tuesday. The hashrate, also responsible for securing the Bitcoi
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Google Subsidiary in Russia To File for Bankruptcy
The Russian subsidiary of Alphabet's Google plans to file for bankruptcy, saying it had become impossible for the company to pay employees and suppliers. From a report: Google submitted a notice of intent to declare itself bankrupt, according to a message published Wednesday on Russia's Fedresurs registry. A Google spokesperson separately said an earlier move by authorities to seize its bank account made continuing operations in the country impossible. "The Russian authorities' seizure of Google
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India Says VPN Firms Unwilling To Comply With New Rules 'Will Have To Pull Out' of the Country
India is pushing ahead with its new cybersecurity rules that will require cloud service providers and VPN operators to maintain names of their customers and their IP addresses and suggested firms unwilling to comply to pull out of the world's second largest internet market. From a report: The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team clarified (PDF) on Wednesday that "virtual private server (VPS) providers, cloud service providers, VPN service providers, virtual asset service providers, virtual as
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GrubHub Was Getting 6,000 Orders A Minute During Its Promo Day, Overwhelming Restaurants
A delivery app marketing campaign offering a "free lunch" -- aka a $15 promo code valid for three hours -- sent customers and restaurant workers alike into a spiral on Tuesday as thousands of orders jammed the system and disgruntled New Yorkers tweeted through their hunger pains. BuzzFeed News reports: GrubHub's New York City campaign on May 17 touted the physical and mental benefits of eating lunch, but yielded dozens of complaints, cancelled orders and service workers telling BuzzFeed News the
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Contact Lens That Can Release Drug Could Be Used To Treat Glaucoma
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Researchers in China revealed they have developed a contact lens that can sense an increase in pressure within the eye and release an anti-glaucoma drug should the pressure exceed a certain level. Writing in the journal Nature Communications, the team describe how they created the device using an upper and lower lens, with a snowflake-shaped pressure sensor and wireless power transfer device sandwiched between them around the rim of the lens
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South Korea Turns To Surveillance As 'Ghost Surgeries' Shake Faith In Hospitals
After scandals in which doctors let unsupervised assistants operate on patients, South Korea is becoming one of the first to require cameras in operating rooms. The New York Times reports: Ethicists and medical officials, including those at the American College of Surgeons, have cautioned that surveilling surgeons to deter malpractice may undermine trust in doctors, hurt morale, violate patient privacy and discourage physicians from taking risks to save lives. The Korea Medical Association, whic
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New York Now Has More Airbnb Listings Than Apartments For Rent
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Curbed: The fever isn't breaking. There are now bidding wars for one in every five Manhattan rental apartments (and one in three luxury units), according to the most recent Douglas Elliman report. Inventory in all of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and northwest Queens has been hovering well below 10,000 units -- as of April, the number was just 7,669. Which is several thousand less than the number of entire-apartment and entire-home Airbnb rentals available in New
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Hong Kong Considers Blocking Telegram As Part of Crackdown On Doxing
Hong Kong is planning a ban on the Telegram messaging service, which is widely used by pro-democracy activists. International Business Times reports: Local media reported that the ban on Telegram was being considered as a means to crack down on rampant doxing, under which pro-democracy campaigners are exposing online sensitive personal data of government officials and citizens. Hong Kong's privacy commissioner for personal data might decide in favor of blocking or restricting access to Telegram
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'I Want An iPhone Mini-Sized Android Phone!'
Eric Migicovsky, founder of smartwatch company Pebble and lover of small Android phones, decided to take matters into his own hands and "rally other fans of small phones together" to put pressure on phone manufacturers to consider making a small Android phone -- complete with all the premium features one could expect to find in a larger device. Essentially, what he wants is an iPhone Mini-sized phone running Android. Is that too much to ask?
Here's an excerpt from his manifesto (via smalland
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FreeBSD 13.1 Released
FreeBSD 13.1 has been released today. Some of the new features include UEFI boot improvements for AMD64, a wide variety of hardware driver improvements, and support for freebsd-update to allow creating automated snapshots of the boot environment to try to make operating system updates foolproof. Phoronix reports: Some of the other changes with FreeBSD 13.1 include enabling Position Independent Executable (PIE) support by default on 64-bit architectures, a new "zfskeys" service script for the aut
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DeepMind Unveils 'Gato' AI Capable of Completing a Wide Range of Complex Tasks
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Independent: Human-level artificial intelligence is close to finally being achieved, according to a lead researcher at Google's DeepMind AI division. Dr Nando de Freitas said "the game is over" in the decades-long quest to realize artificial general intelligence (AGI) after DeepMind unveiled an AI system capable of completing a wide range of complex tasks, from stacking blocks to writing poetry. Described as a "generalist agent," DeepMind's new Gato A
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Apple Now Letting Developers Automatically Charge for Some Subscription Price Increases
Apple today informed developers that it is implementing a new subscription feature that will allow customers to be charged automatically when an app's subscription price goes up, which is not the way that subscriptions work at the current time. MacRumors reports: Right now, customers must explicitly agree to a pricing change when the cost of a subscription increases through an "Agree to New Price" interface. If a customer does not tap on agree when the warning comes up, their subscription is aut
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China Chipmaker SMIC Says Phone, PC Demand Has Dropped 'Like a Rock'
Top Chinese chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Co. says demand for mobile phones, personal computers and home appliances has dropped "like a rock" and shows no signs of recovering. From a report: Speaking to investors on Friday, CEO Zhao Haijun said the Russia-Ukraine war and China's COVID lockdowns have massively dented demand for consumer electronics and home appliances, which in turn has led to a "serious" adjustment in chip orders for those segments. "Many smartphone, PC and
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Angry IT Admin Wipes Employer's Databases, Gets 7 Years In Prison
Han Bing, a former database administrator for Lianjia, a Chinese real-estate brokerage giant, has been sentenced to 7 years in prison for logging into corporate systems and deleting the company's data. BleepingComputer reports: Bing allegedly performed the act in June 2018, when he used his administrative privileges and "root" account to access the company's financial system and delete all stored data from two database servers and two application servers. This has resulted in the immediate cripp
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Russia Says It's Not Planning To Block YouTube or Cut Itself Off From Internet
Russia is not planning to block Alphabet's YouTube, the minister for digital development said on Tuesday, acknowledging that such a move would likely see Russian users suffer and should therefore be avoided. From a report: Russia has blocked other foreign social media platforms, but despite months of fines and threats against YouTube for failing to delete content Moscow deems illegal and for restricting access to some Russian media, it has stopped short of delivering a killer blow to the video-h
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Software Freedom Conservancy Wins Big Step Forward For Open-Source Rights
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: The Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC), a non-profit organization that promotes open-source software and defends the free software General Public License (GPL), recently sued major TV vendor Vizio for abusing the GPL with its Linux-based SmartCast OS. Vizio replied that the SFC had no right to ask for the source code. On May 13, however, the SFC succeeded in federal court with its motion to have its lawsuit against Vizio remanded back to Superior C
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Ransomware Gang Threatens To Overthrow Costa Rica Government
A ransomware gang that infiltrated some Costa Rican government computer systems has upped its threat, saying its goal is
now to overthrow the government. From a report: Perhaps seizing on the fact that President Rodrigo Chaves had only been in office for a week, the Russian-speaking Conti gang tried to increase the pressure to pay a ransom by raising its demand to $20 million. Chaves suggested Monday in a news conference that the attack was coming from inside as well as outside Costa Rica. "We
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Microsoft Names Info-Stealers That Target Crypto Wallets 'Cryware'
Microsoft blog: The steep rise in cryptocurrency market capitalization, not surprisingly, mirrors a marked increase in threats and attacks that target or leverage cryptocurrencies. But Microsoft researchers are observing an even more interesting trend: the evolution of related malware and their techniques, and the emergence of a threat type we're referring to as cryware. Cryware are information stealers that collect and exfiltrate data directly from non-custodial cryptocurrency wallets, also kno
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Fed Chair Says Interest Rates Should Have Gone Up Sooner
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell acknowledged in an interview with Marketplace on Thursday that the central bank could have moved faster to raise interest rates and cut inflation, as the central bank comes under increasing scrutiny over whether it waited too long to act on prices. From a report: "If you had perfect hindsight you'd go back, and it probably would have been better for us to have raised rates a little sooner," Powell said in an interview released Thursday with Marketplace's Ka
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US Officials Say Pentagon Committed To Understanding UFO Origins
Two senior U.S. defense intelligence officials said on Tuesday the Pentagon is committed to determining the origins of what it calls "unidentified aerial phenomena" -- commonly termed UFOs -- but acknowledged many remain beyond the government's ability to explain. From a report: The two officials, Ronald Moultrie and Scott Bray, appeared before a House of Representatives intelligence subcommittee for the first public U.S. congressional hearing on the subject in a half century. It came 11 months
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Google Will Start Distributing a Security-Vetted Collection of Open-Source Software Libraries
Google announced a new initiative Tuesday aimed at securing the open-source software supply chain by curating and distributing a security-vetted collection of open-source packages to Google Cloud customers. From a report: The new service, branded Assured Open Source Software, was introduced in a blog post from the company. In the post, Andy Chang, group product manager for security and privacy at Google Cloud, pointed to some of the challenges of securing open-source software and stressed Google
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Apple Delays Plan To Have Staff in Office Three Days a Week
Apple delayed a plan to require workers to come back to the office three days a week, citing a resurgence in Covid-19 cases, marking the latest setback in its efforts to return to normal. From a report: The company informed employees Tuesday that it's delaying the requirement, which had been slated to go into effect on May 23, according to a memo seen by Bloomberg. However, the company is still expecting workers to come to the office two days per week. The company said the requirement is being d
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Telehealth Startup Cerebral Halts Controlled Substance Prescriptions
Mental health startup Cerebral will no longer prescribe most controlled substances, The Wall Street Journal reported. From a report: The embattled company is facing investigations from the US Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration over its prescribing practices, which, until this week, included offering prescriptions for stimulants like Adderall. Company co-founder Kyle Robertson wrote in an email reviewed by The Wall Street Journal that it would stop prescribing most cont
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White House Slams Bezos Criticism of Biden Tax Comments
The White House slammed Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on Monday after the billionaire accused President Biden of "misdirection" in his comments on inflation and corporate taxes. From a report: Biden tweeted Friday that the wealthiest corporations must "pay their fair share" to help bring down record-high inflation. Biden also recently met with Amazon labor organizers after their union victory. Bezos responded to Biden claiming inflation and corporate taxes aren't related. "Raising corp taxes is fine
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Coinbase Slows Hiring To Help Weather Market Downturn
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has reined in a plan to triple its headcount this year in response to turbulent market conditions. From a report: Emilie Choi, Coinbase's president and chief operating officer, said in a blog post on Tuesday that the firm would be slowing hiring to "reprioritize our hiring needs against our highest-priority business goals." The note had been circulated among staff earlier. "Heading into this year, we planned to triple the size of the company. Given current market
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Mastercard Launches 'Wave To Pay' Programme
Mastercard is launching a "controversial" biometric payments programme in stores, as the card company tries to keep pace with nimble fintechs and bigger competitors such as Amazon. From a report: Retailers that sign up to its pilot scheme can allow customers to pay in-store with a gesture such as a smile or a wave. The system, which requires customers to enrol first, could also be connected to loyalty programmes and purchase history. "Payments is a wide space, and we are trying to offer what cus
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Miami's Mayor Backed MiamiCoin Crypto -- Then Its Price Dropped 95%
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: On Feb. 2, the city of Miami cashed out its cryptocurrency MiamiCoin for the first time, depositing $5.25 million into city coffers. Miami mayor Francis Suarez hailed it as a "historic moment" and predicted the cryptocurrency could one day even replace municipal taxes as the government's primary source of funding. MiamiCoin's creator, an organization called CityCoins, has been no less enthusiastic, portraying the coin as a financial experiment tha
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Playing Video Games Has An Unexpected Effect On Kids' IQ, Says New Study
Researchers have linked spending more time playing video games with a boost in intelligence in children, which goes some way to contradicting the narrative that gaming is bad for young minds. ScienceAlert reports: While the difference in cognitive abilities was a small one and isn't enough to show a causal relationship, it is enough to be notable -- and the study was careful to factor in variables including differences in genetics and the child's socio-economic background. Meanwhile, watching TV
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New Study Lays Out Hidden Backstory Behind Deadly Pacific Northwest Heatwave
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: Last summer, a deadly wave of heat struck the Pacific Northwest, causing temperatures to soar more than 30 degrees Fahrenheit above normal and killing more than a thousand people. A new study has uncovered the sequence of events that precipitated the disaster, providing information that could further our understanding of heat formation on the North American continent. By reviewing large-scale weather conditions and formations before the heat wav
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All-in-Summit: Interview With Elon Musk
All-in-Summit -- a conference hosted by Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks and David Friedberg, who also operate a popular weekly podcast by the same name -- interviewed Elon Musk on Monday. In the wide-ranging interview, Musk talked about Twitter's bot problem and among other things, gave more insight into the scale and ambitions of Tesla and SpaceX.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Judge Rules California Law Requiring Women On Corporate Boards Is Unconstitutional
A Los Angeles judge has ruled that California's landmark law requiring women on corporate boards is unconstitutional. CBS News reports: Superior Court Judge Maureen Duffy-Lewis said the law that would have required boards have up to three female directors by this year violated the right to equal treatment. The ruling was dated Friday. The conservative legal group Judicial Watch had challenged the law, claiming it was illegal to use taxpayer funds to enforce a law that violates the equal protecti
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'Black Mirror' Returns For Season 6
According to Variety, a new series of "Black Mirror" is in the works at Netflix. From the report: It's been almost three years since Season 5 of the dystopian drama premiered on the streaming service in June 2019, but sources indicate that a new anthology series of "Black Mirror" is shaping up, and casting is now underway. While details about specific stories are being kept under lock and key, Variety understands that Season 6 will have more episodes than Season 5, which comprised of just three
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Google Lets Personal Users Stay On 'No-Cost Legacy G Suite' With Custom Gmail Domain
Back in April, Google delayed when G Suite legacy free-edition users had to start paying for Workspace. The company will now let you stay on a "Free Legacy Edition of G Suite for personal use" as the "no-cost" alternative in a rather notable policy change. 9to5Google reports: This "no-cost" option is for people that aren't interested in paying for Workspace but want to retain access to their data and not just export via Google Takeout. For the past few months, people have been waiting to join a
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Researchers Devise iPhone Malware That Runs Even When Device Is Turned Off
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: When you turn off an iPhone, it doesn't fully power down. Chips inside the device continue to run in a low-power mode that makes it possible to locate lost or stolen devices using the Find My feature or use credit cards and car keys after the battery dies. Now researchers have devised a way to abuse this always-on mechanism to run malware that remains active even when an iPhone appears to be powered down. It turns out that the iPhone's Bluet
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Stablecoins Not Ready for Consumer Payments, US Watchdog Says
The recent collapse of a popular stablecoin shows that the tokens aren't ready to be used by consumers to make payments, according to a key US watchdog. From a report: "People wonder: Is it going to be one day used for consumer payments?" Rohit Chopra, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said in a Bloomberg TV interview Monday. "Many are thinking it's not ready yet."
[...] Chopra said there may be "movement" on crypto regulation this year. Regulators are studying a range of
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Ad-Tech Firms Grab Email Addresses From Forms Before They're Even Submitted
Tracking, marketing, and analytics firms have been exfiltrating the email addresses of internet users from web forms prior to submission and without user consent, according to security researchers. Some of these firms are said to have also inadvertently grabbed passwords from these forms. The Register reports: In a research paper scheduled to appear at the Usenix '22 security conference later this year, authors Asuman Senol (imec-COSIC, KU Leuven), Gunes Acar (Radboud University), Mathias Humber
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Apple Patches Dozens of Security Flaws With iOS 15.5, Over 50 Fixes For macOS 12.4
Apple has released iOS 15.5, macOS 12.4, and more today with updates like new features for Apple Cash, the Podcasts app, and the Studio Display webcam fix. However, a bigger reason to update your devices is the security patches with today's releases. iOS 15.5 includes almost 30 security fixes while macOS 12.4 features over 50. 9to5Mac reports: Apple shared all the details for the security fixes in its latest software for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and more on its support page. For both iOS and Mac, many
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Microsoft Doubles Salary Budget To Retain Staff As Cost of Living Rises
An anonymous reader quotes a report originally published at Bloomberg: Microsoft plans to "nearly double" its budget for employee salaries and boost the range of stock compensation it gives some workers by at least 25%, an effort to retain staff and help people cope with inflation. The move will mainly affect "early to mid-career employees," the software giant said in a statement Monday. "As we approach our annual total rewards process, we are making a significant additional investment this year
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Do Kwon Proposes Creating Another Blockchain From Terra's Ashes
Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon offered another proposal to revive its troubled Terra blockchain by getting rid of the failed TerraUSD stablecoin and revamping the project into a new network. From a report: Kwon wants to copy the blockchain's code to create a new network, called Terra, and to distribute new tokens to former Terra supporters like key app developers, those whose computers order transactions on the network, and those who still hold TerraUSD, Kwon wrote in a post on a research for
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MIT, Harvard Scientists Find AI Can Recognize Race From X-rays
A doctor can't tell if somebody is Black, Asian, or white, just by looking at their X-rays. But a computer can, according to a surprising new paper by an international team of scientists, including researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School. From a report: The study found that an artificial intelligence program trained to read X-rays and CT scans could predict a person's race with 90 percent accuracy. But the scientists who conducted the study say they ha
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Netflix Exploring Live Streaming For First Time
Netflix is going live for the first time. From a report: Deadline understands that the streamer is exploring the launch of live streaming. It plans to roll out the capability, which Netflix confirmed was in the early stages of development, for its swathe of unscripted shows and stand-up specials. It would mean that Netflix would be able to use it for live voting for competition series and talent contests such as its upcoming dance competition series Dance 100 from The Circle producer Studio Lamb
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New US Lab To Create Versions of Atoms Never Recorded on Earth
From carbon to uranium, oxygen to iron, chemical elements are the building blocks of the world around us and the wider universe. Now, physicists are hoping to gain an unprecedented glimpse into their origins, with the opening of a new facility that will create thousands of peculiar and unstable versions of atoms never before recorded on Earth. From a report: By studying these versions, known as isotopes, they hope to gain new insights into the reactions that created the elements within exploding
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Sony Reveals Game Lineup and Launch Dates for PlayStation Plus Relaunch
Sony has announced the initial lineup of games for its revamped, multi-tier PlayStation Plus subscription service, and firmed up its launch dates over the next five weeks. From a report: The service will launch in Asia on May 24, Japan on June 2, North and South America on June 13, and Europe, Australia, and New Zealand on June 23. Games coming to the subscription service include Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, the Demon's Souls remake, Insomniac's Spider-Man games, and Red Dead Redemption 2. But th
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Uber Launches Robot Food Delivery in California
Uber on Monday said it launched pilot food delivery services with autonomous vehicles in two California cities, and said it was adding electric vehicle charging stations into its global driver app. From a report: The announcements are part of Uber's annual product event where the ride-hail and food delivery company showcases the latest updates to its app. Uber announced one food delivery service using autonomous cars, and a separate pilot using sidewalk robots. Both services are available to Ube
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Spotify Experiments With Musician NFT Galleries
Spotify is testing a way for artists to display their non-fungible token (NFT) collections. From a report: The music streaming platform has rolled out the test for some users on Android in the US and currently includes NFT previews for artists like Steve Aoki and The Wombats. "Spotify is running a test in which it will help a small group of artists promote their existing third-party NFT offerings via their artist profiles," a Spotify spokesperson said in a statement to Music Ally. "We routinely
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JetBlue Launches Hostile Takeover of Spirit
JetBlue launched a hostile takeover of Spirit Airlines after its earlier acquisition offer was rejected. The New York-based airline said in a release that its tender offer for $30-per-share was "all-cash" and "fully financed." From a report: Earlier this month, Spirit's board of directors rejected JetBlue's $32-a-share bid to acquire the airline in favor of an existing merger agreement with Frontier, one of its ultra-low-cost competitors. The board cited antitrust issues and "an unacceptable lev
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Binance's LUNA Investment, Which Peaked at $1.6 Billion, Now Worth Just $3,000
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said the crypto exchange made large paper gains on its investment in Luna but has now lost practically all of them. From a report: The exchange invested $3 million into the Terra ecosystem in 2018, receiving 15 million Luna tokens. At Luna's peak price, that investment was worth $1.6 billion, according to Zhao. Yet due to last week's collapse of Luna -- and its related stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) -- that investment has now plummeted in value to just $3,400. Or, in Zhao's
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Not a Single Car Was Sold in Shanghai Last Month
For evidence of just how tight Shanghai's lockdown has been, consider this: not a single car was sold in the city last month. From a report: The majority of the city's 25 million residents were mostly confined to their homes or residential compounds in April as part of a sweeping lockdown to stamp out the nation's worst Covid outbreak since the virus emerged in Wuhan more than two years ago. Almost all dealerships in the city were closed during the month, the Shanghai Automobile Sales Associatio
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Bitcoin Has No Future as a Payments Network, Says FTX Chief
Bitcoin has no future as a payments network because of its inefficiency and high environmental costs, according to one of crypto's most influential chief executives. From a report: Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the digital asset exchange FTX, said the proof of work system of validating blockchain transactions, which underpins bitcoin, was not capable of scaling up to cope with the millions of transactions that would be needed to make the cryptocurrency an effective means of payment. "The bitcoin
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The US Army's Unsettling New Recruitment Video for Psychological Warfare
Task and Purpose reports on "a new and somewhat unnerving recruiting pitch from the U.S. Army's 4th Psychological Operations Group" that asks viewers one simple question: "Have you ever wondered who's pulling the strings?"
The three-and-a-half minute, movie trailer-esque video was released by the 4th PSYOP Group on Youtube on May 2. Since then it's brought in 329,396 views, and it's not hard to see why: This is not your father's recruiting commercial. Complete with eerie whistling in the ba
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Is Python About to Get Faster?
"Python 3.11 will bear the fruits of CPython's multi-year effort to make Python a faster programming language," reports ZDNet.
"Core Python (CPython) developer Mark Shannon shared details about the project to make Python faster at the PyCon 2022 conference this week..."
Last year, Microsoft funded a project for the Python Software Foundation (PSF), led by Python creator Guido van Rossum and Shannon, to make Python twice as fast as the current stable 3.10 series. The vision is to nudge Pyt
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EA Plans Free Mobile 'Lord of the Rings' Game
Electronic Arts and Middle-earth Enterprises "announced on Monday an upcoming free mobile game called The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth," reports CNET:
With the role-playing game, Lord of the Rings fans can look forward to experiencing the iconic universe in a whole new way.... The game will feature immersive storytelling with iconic plot lines, turn-based combat and a selection of characters from both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit to battle the evils of Middle-earth.
"Th
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'Lord of the Rings' Prequel Series Will Explore 'Unseen History' of Middle-Earth
The site GeekyTyrant is excited about Amazon's upcoming eight-episode series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power — premiering September 2 and set in Middle-earth's "Second Age," thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings.)
With the film being set in a completely different age, I was expecting Middle-Earth to be very different than what we've seen in the past. As we've seen in the first trailer that was released, the show does has a similar visual st
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Twitter Turns Its Privacy Policy Into a Videogame about a Dog
What did you think of Twitter Data Dash?
The Guardian describes it as "a Super Nintendo-style browser game that recaps Twitter's private policy."
And the Verge applauds the game — released Wednesday — for its "delightful pixel art aesthetic."
"Welcome to PrivaCity!" reads a description of the game on the site. "Get your dog, Data, safely to the park.
"Dodge cat ads, swim through a sea of DMs, battle trolls, and learn how to take control of your Twitter experience along t
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Luna Cryptocurrency's Collapse Led to Multi-Million-Dollar Exploits, Closure of a Crypto Money Market
The Record reports that the decentralized money market Venus Protocol "announced on Thursday evening about $11 million had been lost due to people exploiting the historic collapse of the Luna cryptocurrency and its sister stablecoin UST."
Venus Protocol and several other platforms use Chainlink to provide its users with real-time price estimations of the tokens on its platform that are available for lending and borrowing. But the tool began having issues with Luna on Thursday as the price conti
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Georgia Gets a Second Electric Vehicle Facility? Hyundai Plans $7B Plant
Hyundai is expected to announce that it's building "a massive electric vehicle plant near Savannah, Georgia," reports the Associated Press, citing a U.S. official "familiar with the anticipated announcement."
The plant is expected to bring thousands of new jobs to Georgia.
The plant could grow to include 8,500 employees and would be built on a 2,200-acre (890-hectare) site that state and local governments own near the hamlet of Ellabell, Georgia, said two people familiar with Georgia's talk
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Downed Russian Fighters Said to Be Found With Basic GPS 'Taped To the Dashboards'
An anonymous reader quotes Business Insider:
Wrecked Russian fighter jets are being found with rudimentary GPS receivers "taped to the dashboards" in Ukraine because their inbuilt navigation systems are so bad, the UK's defense secretary, Ben Wallace, said.... "[W]hilst Russia has large amounts of artillery and armor that they like parading, they are unable to leverage them for combined arms maneuver and just resort to mass indiscriminate barrages," he added....
Last month, Ukrainian troo
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Report: 'Nvidia's LHR Limiter Has Fallen, But Gamers Shouldn't Worry'
Slashdot reader Hmmmmmm shared this report from Hot Hardware:
When Nvidia launched its Ampere Lite Hash Rate (LHR) graphics card with the feared Ethereum anti-mining limiter, the world knew it was only a matter of time before someone or a team cracked it. NiceHash, the company that designed the QuickMiner software and Excavator miner, has finally broken Nvidia's algorithm, restoring LHR graphics cards to their 100% Ethereum mining performance....
Graphics card pricing has been plummeting,
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Why This California Commission Unanimously Rejected a New Water Desalination Plant
Calfornia already has 12 water desalination plants — with 15 more proposed, one local news station reported last year. "These plants, which experts say weren't viable or aren't as needed as they were 20 years ago, are being looked at now in a more critical light in the struggle to adapt to less rainfall and climate change."
In 2015 Slashdot covered the launch of a desalination plant in in Carlsbad, California. "56 million gallons a day," brags its web site now. "The Pacific is now on t
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How Industrial Light & Magic Helped Resurrect ABBA with Digital ABBA-Tars
"After they broke up four decades ago, ABBA famously refused all kinds of money for reunion ABBA-tars and performances," writes Rolling Stone.
"But a few years ago, British entrepreneur Simon Fuller pitched an idea that piqued the Swedish superstars' interest..."
"We got sort of turned on by the thought that we could actually be onstage without us being there," ABBA singer-songwriter Benny Andersson says over Zoom.
The band, along with Fuller and their producers Ludvig Andersson (Benn
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Surprise: Microsoft Has a Second Internal-Use-Only Linux Distro
ZDNet reports there's more than just the one Microsoft-created Linux distribution for internal use only called CBL (Common Base Linux) Mariner.
"It turns out there's another Microsoft-developed Linux distribution that's also for internal use that's known as CBL-Delridge or CBL-D."
I discovered the existence of CBL-D for the first time this week in a rather round-about way. I stumbled onto a February 2 blog post from Hayden Barnes. a Senior Engineering Manager at SuSE who led the Windows o
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Facing High Demand, Texas Asks 26 Million to Use Less Electricity This Weekend
Friday a heat wave hit Texas — prompting the non-profit that manages power for Texas's 26 million customers to...ask them to use less of it.
"The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) made the appeal in a statement Friday, saying that soaring temperatures increased demand and caused six power generation facilities to trip offline," reports CNN. "That resulted in the loss of about 2,900 megawatts of electricity."
The statement asks Texans "to conserve power when they can by
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How Ukraine Uses Facial Recognition Technology to Identify Dead Russian Soldiers and War Criminals
"Ukraine is using facial recognition technology to identify bodies of Russian soldiers killed in war," reads the chyron on CNN's latest video report. It explains how Ukraine is using the technology "both to help with this difficult task and help advance their aims in the propaganda war with Moscow." And it may even help identify suspected war criminals.
But first Ukraine's chief civil-military liaison officer tells CNN that Geneva Convention rules mandate storing the bodies of the enemy (to
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Ask Slashdot: What's the Best Alternative to Google's Search Results?
"I first heard about Google here on Slashdot," writes Captain Chad (Slashdot reader #102,831).
"At the time I was using AltaVista for web searches, but Google immediately proved its superiority."
Now 20+ years later I struggle with Google's latest system. It appears to be interpreting the perceived intent of my search request instead of using the very specific keywords I provide. I'm often getting results that aren't on the same topic as what I'm looking for, and adding more keywords seem
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Red Hat CEO: Remote Working is 'Just Another Day' to the Open Source World
Red Hat's CEO/president Paul Cormier assessed the last two years in a speech at this week's Red Hat Summit. "Globally we saw nearly every industry go to 100% remote working overnight."
Regardless of industry and size, organizations learned to operate virtually and on-demand. Companies needed to deliver goods and services to customers without a set brick-and-mortar footprint. We saw new tech hubs emerge in unlikely places because workers we no longer bound by needing to be based in specific ci
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Gunman Livestreams Killing of 10 On Twitch - After Radicalization On 4chan
Slashdot reader DevNull127 writes: 10 people were killed in a grocery store in Buffalo, New York this afternoon — and three more were injured — by a guman who livestreamed the massacre on Twitch. "A Twitch spokesperson said the platform has investigated and confirmed that the stream was removed 'less than two minutes after the violence started,'" reports NBC News.
The Raw Story reports that the 18-year-old suspected gunman had also apparently posted a 106-page manifesto online pr
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Elon Musk Warns Twitter Users, 'You Are Being Manipulated by the Algorithm'
Twitter's potential new owner just made this announcement to his 93.1 million followers. "Very important to fix your Twitter feed," the annoncement began:
1. Tap home button.
2. Tap stars on upper right of screen.
3. Select "Latest tweets".
You are being manipulated by the algorithm in ways you don't realize.
Easy to switch back & forth to see the difference.
Currently it's been pinned to the top of Elon Musk's Twitter feed. And minutes later, he added this reply to his own
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Nuclear Energy: the Case Against
"We do not need to plunge headlong into a nuclear future," argues Serhii Plokhy, author of the book Atoms and Ashes: From Bikini Atoll to Fukushima.
He notes Belgium's adding a 10-year extension to the life of two of its nuclear reactors, France's program to build 14 new reactors, and Boris Johnson's pledge to create supply 25% of the UKs power needs with nuclear energy by 2050.
On the surface, the switch to nuclear makes sense. It would not only enable European countries to meet their ambiti
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America's FAA Shifts Gears Slightly on Certifying Future 'Flying Taxi' Pilots
Flying cars — or even electric flying taxis — are the dream of several well-funded manufacturers building "electric vertical-takeoff and landing aircraft" (or eVTOLs).
But will they face stricter government regulations than anticipated? Long-time Slashdot reader
wired_parrot reports that America's Federal Aviation Administration has shifted gears — "revising it certification requirements for eVTOLS from small aircraft to a powered-lift category." (The original submission cit
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Should Social Networks Let You Take Your Followers to Other Services?
The Washington Post reports on the "My Friends My Data" coalition, a group of start-up founders "working to push tech giants to adopt a new industry-wide standard that would allow users to transfer their followings from one app to another, thereby creating more competition between platforms."
"Large social media companies are intentionally holding our personal contact information hostage," said Daniel Liss, founder and CEO of Dispo, a photography-based social network. "This limits consumer ch
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CentOS Successor Rocky Linux Gets $26M to Fund Push Into Enterprise Space
"CIQ has landed $26 million in funding to support its plans to expand the use of Rocky Linux in the enterprise space," reports ZDNet.
Last year, Red Hat decided to stop supporting CentOS 8 and shifted focus to CentOS Stream. CentOS had some huge enterprise users, among them Disney, GoDaddy, RackSpace, Toyota, and Verizon. In response, Greg Kurtzer, one of CentOS's founders, kicked off Rocky Linux in December 2020.... Kurtzer says Rocky Linux adoption has been "massive", with monthly downloa
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Hackers Are Exploiting WordPress Tools to Hawk Scams
"If you've visited a website in recent days and been randomly redirected to the same pages with sketchy "resources" or unwanted ads, it's likely the site in question was 1) built with WordPress tools and 2) hacked," reports Gizmodo.
Details come from this blog post by researchers at Sucuri (a security provider owned by GoDaddy):
As outlined in our latest hacked website report, we've been tracking a long-lasting campaign responsible for injecting malicious scripts into compromised WordPress web
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Want to Run Python Code in a Browser? Soon You Might Be Able To
ZDNet reports news from PyCon 2022 ("the first in-person meet-up for Python contributors since 2019 due to the pandemic")
"Developers revisited the idea of running Python code in the browser...."
CPython developer Christian Heimes and fellow contributor Ethan Smith detailed how they enabled the CPython main branch to compile to WebAssembly. CPython, short for Core Python, is the reference implementation that other Python distributions are derived from. CPython now cross-compiles to Wasm u
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After 28 Flights, Is NASA's 'Ingenuity' Mars Helicopter Nearing the End of Its Life?
After traveling 300 miles on the underbelly of the Perseverance rover, the "Ingenuity" helicopter has made 28 different flights over the surface of Mars, reports the Washington Post, staying aloft for a total of nearly one hour, flying 4.3 miles with a maximum speed of 12.3 miles per hour and a top altitude of 39 feet. "It's traversed craters, taken photos of regions that would be hard to reach on the ground, and served as a surprisingly resilient scout that has adapted to the changing Martian a
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FAA Revokes Certificates of Two Pilots Involved in Plane-Swapping Attempt
Whatever happened to those two pilots who attempted to swap planes in mid-air — skydiving from one to the other while the planes slowly tumbled toward the desert 65 miles southeast of Phoenix?
One pilot successfully reached the other plane — but the other pilot didn't, parachuting safely to the ground instead. "All of our safety protocols worked," the first pilot said triumphantly in a documentary streamed on Hulu. Er, but what about that second plane, slowly tumbling toward the
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Security Expert Nabs Expired Domain for a Popular NPM Library's Email Address
"Security consultant Lance Vick recently acquired the expired domain used by the maintainer of a widely used NPM package," reports the Register, "to remind the JavaScript community that the NPM Registry still hasn't implemented adequate security."
"I just noticed 'foreach' on NPM is controlled by a single maintainer," wrote Vick in a Twitter post on Monday. "I also noticed they let their domain expire, so I bought it before someone else did. I now control 'foreach' on npm, and the 36,826 proj
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White House Joins OpenSSF, Linux Foundation In Securing Open-Source Software
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Securing the open-source software supply chain is a huge deal. Last year, the Biden administration issued an executive order to improve software supply chain security. This came after the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack shut down gas and oil deliveries throughout the southeast and the SolarWinds software supply chain attack. Securing software became a top priority. In response, The Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) and Linux Foundation
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Classic Japanese Audio Brand Onkyo Files For Bankruptcy
Onkyo, one of the best-known Japanese manufacturers of home theater equipment, has "filed for bankruptcy at Osaka District Court on Friday, with total liabilities of around 3.1 billion yen ($24 million)," reports Nikkei Asia. The report is sparse on details but attributes the bankruptcy to a "market shift to streaming and smartphones."
In mid-2020, Onkyo USA Corporation ended a 45-year run as Onkyo's exclusive sales, marketing and distribution division for the Americas, according to Audiohol
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House of Representatives To Give Staff Free Peloton Memberships
schwit1 shares a report: The House of Representatives [...] will provide taxpayer-funded Peloton memberships to all of its staff, costing taxpayers roughly $100,000 per month. The move comes one year after the fitness company set up a lobbying shop in Washington. Memberships to the exercise service, which offers workout classes, will be available to House staff in Washington, D.C., and in district offices, as well as to Capitol police officers, Fox Business reported. The number of people eligibl
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Hackers Are Using SEO To Rank Malicious PDFs On Search Engines, Research Finds
An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: Today, researchers at security service edge provider, Netskope, published the Netskope Cloud and Threat Report: Global Cloud and Malware Trends, which found that phishing downloads rose 450% over the past 12 months, and highlighted that attackers are using search engine optimization (SEO) to rank malicious PDF files on search engines. The report's findings show that phishing attempts are constantly evolving, and attackers aren't just targetin
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San Francisco Police Are Using Driverless Cars As Mobile Surveillance Cameras
BeerFartMoron shares a report from Motherboard: For the last five years, driverless car companies have been testing their vehicles on public roads. These vehicles constantly roam neighborhoods while laden with a variety of sensors including video cameras capturing everything going on around them in order to operate safely and analyze instances where they don't. While the companies themselves, such as Alphabet's Waymo and General Motors' Cruise, tout the potential transportation benefits their se
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