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takyon writes:

Microsoft is trying to fight fake news with its Edge mobile browser

Microsoft has started warning users of its Edge mobile browser about untrustworthy news sites. The software giant has partnered with NewsGuard to provide warnings in its Edge browser for iOS and Android, and this functionality has been added this week as an optional setting. NewsGuard was founded by journalists Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, and rates sites based on a variety of criteria including their use of deceptive headlines, whether they repeatedly publish false content, and transparency regarding ownership and financing.

Microsoft first started offering an optional NewsGuard browser extension for Edge on the desktop version of Windows 10 last year, but the move to build this directly into the mobile version suggests the company may be looking to make this a core part of Edge in the future. The Guardian reports that Edge mobile is now warning users that the Daily Mail's website, Mail Online, "generally fails to maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability."

WhatsApp Tries To Curb Misinformation, And Annoying Aunts And Uncles

WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging platforms in the world. With about 1.5 billion users, it's a free way to text and place international voice and video calls.

But recently the platform, which is owned by Facebook, has faced accusations of being used to spread misinformation — with serious consequences. Last year in India, rumors spread mostly on WhatsApp led to mob killings. In the run-up to Brazil's recent elections, misinformation and conspiracy theories also went viral on the messaging app.

WhatsApp is now limiting the number of people users can forward messages to, to five. [...] WhatsApp "carefully evaluated this test and listened to user feedback over a six-month period," a company spokesperson told NPR. "The forward limit significantly reduced forwarded messages around the world. We'll continue to listen to user feedback about their experience, and over time, look for new ways of addressing viral content."

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Core blimey... When is an AMD CPU core not a CPU core? It's now up to a jury of 12 to decide

A class-action lawsuit against AMD claiming false advertising over its "eight core" FX processors has been given the go-ahead by a California judge.

US district judge Haywood Gilliam last week rejected [PDF] AMD's claim that "a significant majority" of people understood the term "core" the same way it did as "not persuasive."

What tech buyers imagine represents a core when it comes to processors would be a significant part of such a lawsuit, the judge noted, and so AMD's arguments were "premature."

The so-called "eight core" chips contain four Bulldozer modules, the lawsuit notes, and these "sub-processors" each contain a pair of instruction-executing CPU cores. So, four modules times two CPU cores equals, in AMD's mind, eight CPU cores.

And here's the sticking point: these two CPU cores, within a single Bulldozer module, share caches, frontend circuitry, and a single floating point unit (FPU). These shared resources cause bottlenecks that can slow the processor, it is claimed.

The plaintiffs, who sued back in 2015, argue that they bought a chip they thought would have eight independent processor cores – the advertising said it was the "first native 8-core desktop processor" – and paid a premium for that.

Original Submission

martyb writes:

New Shepard Makes 10th Launch as Blue Origin Aims to Fly Humans Late in 2019:

Under clear west Texas skies on Wednesday morning, Blue Origin's autonomous New Shepard launch system made what appeared to be a flawless flight into space and back. After separating from its booster, the spacecraft ascended to a height of 106.9km before returning to Earth by parachute. The booster also made a nominal powered landing.

For Blue Origin, the company's first flight of its reusable New Shepard system in more than six months served a dual purpose. It provided additional test data for the launch system as the company moves closer to crewed flights, and the launch allowed the company to fly eight NASA-sponsored research and technology payloads into space through NASA's Flight Opportunities program.

During the webcast, Blue Origin's head of sales, Ariane Cornell, said the company was "aiming" to conduct human flights on board New Shepard before the end of 2019, but stressed that Blue Origin would not compromise on safety to meet any arbitrary dates. The company has yet to begin selling tickets for the six-person capsule, or set a price for the 11-minute experience that will take passengers above the Kármán line and provide a few minutes of weightlessness.

Also at cnet:

The rocket company -- which is owned by Amazon boss Jeff Bezos -- sent eight NASA-sponsored research projects up to spend a little time at the edge of space before smoothly returning to Earth.

It was New Shepard's 10th mission (NS-10) and originally set for December, but halted due to "a ground infrastructure issue." The mission was rescheduled for Monday, but wind forecasts pushed it again to Wednesday.

The reusable rocket reached its apogee and fell back to Earth, using its booster engine to cushion its landing and remain upright.

Skip ahead to about 42 minutes into the webcast to see the actual launch, ascent, and return.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Waymo announces major expansion in Michigan, the cradle of the US auto industry

Waymo is expanding its presence in Michigan, the state synonymous with the US auto industry. The Google self-driving spinoff announced Tuesday that its plan to build a 200,000-square-foot manufacturing center and hire up to 400 employees over the next five years was just approved by the state's economic development corporation. It's a sign that Waymo is interested in gaining more control over its production process as it seeks to grow its business of deploying autonomous vehicles.

The Michigan Economic Development Corporation approved an $8 million incentive to Waymo to build its manufacturing plant in the state, The Detroit News reported. Under the deal, Waymo agrees to create a minimum of 100 new jobs in the state, but would receive the $8 million incentive only if it exceeds that minimum and creates up to 400 jobs. Total investment in the facility will be $13.6 million, MEDC says.

[...] In a blog post, Waymo said it would look to hire engineers, operations experts, and fleet coordinators. "This will be the world's first factory 100%-dedicated to the mass production of [Level 4] autonomous vehicles," the company said.

Also at TechCrunch.

Previously: Google's Waymo Plans to Launch a Self-Driving Car Service in December
Waymo Announces Limited Debut of "Driverless" Taxi Service in Phoenix, AZ

Original Submission

Apparition writes:

Google engineers have proposed changes to Chromium which would completely break content-blocking extensions, including various ad blockers, ostensibly for "security" reasons.

Per The Register:

In a note posted Tuesday to the Chromium bug tracker, Raymond Hill, the developer behind uBlock Origin and uMatrix, said the changes contemplated by the Manifest v3 proposal will ruin his ad and content blocking extensions, and take control of content away from users.

Content blockers may be used to block ads, but they have broader applications. They're predicated on the notion that users, rather than anyone else, should be able to control how their browser presents and interacts with remote resources.

Manifest v3 refers to the specification for browser extension manifest files, which enumerate the resources and capabilities available to browser extensions. Google's stated rationale for making the proposed changes is to improve security, privacy and performance, and supposedly to enhance user control.

"Users should have increased control over their extensions," the design document says. "A user should be able to determine what information is available to an extension, and be able to control that privilege."

But one way Google would like to achieve these goals involves replacing the webRequest API with a new one, declarativeNetRequest.

[...] Hill, who said he's waiting for a response from the Google software engineer overseeing this issue, said in an email to The Register: "I understand the point of a declarativeNetRequest API, and I am not against such API. However I don't understand why the blocking ability of the webRequest API – which has existed for over seven years – would be removed (as the design document proposes). I don't see what is to be gained from doing this."

Hill observes that several other capabilities will no longer be available under the new API, including blocking media elements larger than a specified size, disable JavaScript execution by injecting Content-Security-Policy directives, and removing the outgoing Cookie headers.

And he argues that if these changes get implemented, Chromium will no longer serve users.

The Register points out that this will not just affect Google Chrome and Chromium, but also Chromium based web browsers such as Brave Browser and Microsoft Edge.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Seeing double could help resolve dispute about how fast the universe is expanding

The question of how quickly the universe is expanding has been bugging astronomers for almost a century. Different studies keep coming up with different answers — which has some researchers wondering if they've overlooked a key mechanism in the machinery that drives the cosmos.

[...] At the heart of the dispute is the Hubble constant, a number that relates distances to the redshifts of galaxies — the amount that light is stretched as it travels to Earth through the expanding universe. Estimates for the Hubble constant range from about 67 to 73 kilometers per second per megaparsec, meaning that two points in space 1 megaparsec apart (the equivalent of 3.26 million light-years) are racing away from each other at a speed between 67 and 73 kilometers per second.

[...] [Scientists] chose one specific subset of quasars — those whose light has been bent by the gravity of an intervening galaxy, which produces two side-by-side images of the quasar on the sky.

Light from the two images takes different routes to Earth. When the quasar's brightness fluctuates, the two images flicker one after another, rather than at the same time. The delay in time between those two flickers, along with information about the meddling galaxy's gravitational field, can be used to trace the light's journey and deduce the distances from Earth to both the quasar and the foreground galaxy. Knowing the redshifts of the quasar and galaxy enabled the scientists to estimate how quickly the universe is expanding.

[...] The UCLA-led team came up with an estimate for the Hubble constant of about 72.5 kilometers per second per megaparsec, a figure in line with what other scientists had determined in research that used distances to supernovas — exploding stars in remote galaxies — as the key measurement. However, both estimates are about 8 percent higher than one that relies on a faint glow from all over the sky called the cosmic microwave background, a relic from 380,000 years after the Big Bang, when light traveled freely through space for the first time.

H0LiCOW - IX. Cosmographic analysis of the doubly imaged quasar SDSS 1206+4332 and a new measurement of the Hubble constant (DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stz200) (DX)

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

Netflix has become the first streaming company to join the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Hollywood’s most powerful lobbying group. This is the first time a non-Hollywood group has joined the group which consists of the six Hollywood studios. The MPAA has been a strong proponent of Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) in all technologies it touches and lobbies extensively for maximal reductions in use.

The Netflix-MPAA union coincides with the streamer becoming a card-carrying member of the Oscar race after securing an unprecedented 15 nominations on Tuesday morning. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and Sarandos are intent on upping the company's profile as a legitimate force in the movie business, and joining the MPAA will further that goal.

Additionally, once Fox is merged with Disney, the MPAA will have one less member, meaning a loss of as much as $10 million to $12 million in annual dues. Sources say the MPAA is courting other new members as well (Amazon could be a candidate).

Articles about Netflix have been featured a lot on SN in many different contexts.

Earlier on SN:
Video Streaming Services set for Cambrian Explosion (2019)
Netflix to Raise $2 Billion in Debt to Fund More Original Content (2018)
Netflix is the Latest Company to Try Bypassing Apple's App Store (2018)
[. . .]

Original Submission

takyon writes:

U.S. insulin costs per patient nearly doubled from 2012 to 2016, study finds

The cost of insulin for treating Type 1 diabetes in the United States nearly doubled over a recent five-year period, underscoring a national outcry over rising drug prices, according to a new analysis.

A patient with Type 1 diabetes incurred annual insulin costs of $5,705, on average, in 2016. The average cost was roughly half that, at $2,864 per patient, in 2012, according to a report released on Tuesday by the nonprofit Health Care Cost Institute.

The figures represent the combined amount paid by a patient and their health plan for the medicine and do not reflect rebates paid at a later date.

Original Submission

aristarchus writes:

This was just too funny not to submit. Do you not have the latest keyboard-logging Windows 10 on your, um computer? Not your computer, you know. But now, it turns out, according to the formerly great tech journal ZDNet, you are at risk! "Awake! Fear! Fire! Foes! Awake!"

But, wait for it, only if you run Windows.

Over half of applications installed on Windows PCs are out-of-date, potentially putting the security of users at risk through flaws in software that have already been patched by vendors.

Around 55 percent of software installed on PCs across the globe is in the form of an older version of the application, according to research by security company Avast — and that number has risen from 48 percent in their previous report.

Based upon anonyimized[sic] and aggregated data from 163 million devices around the world, Avast's PC trends report also suggests that almost one in six Windows 7 users and one in ten Windows 10 users are running out-of-date versions of their operating system, also leaving them open to exploitation of system-level security vulnerabilities.

Some of the programs most commonly left out-of-date include Adobe Shockwave, VLC Media Player, Skype, Java Runtime Environment, and 7-Zip Filemanager.

Putting off installing updates and running outdated applications can cause bugs and incompatibility problems for users, but more significantly, running out-of-date software can provide an open door for hackers to take advantage of holes left in programs that haven't had critical security updates applied.

Well, there it is. If you run Windows, you are running a security risk. Funny they would think how current your capitulation to the "Dark Side" is would make any difference. But on the other hand, the advice in general is good, just do not run anything out of Redmond, where the Dark Lord rules, and keep up to date on security patches. Except on my Android Phone. They ask me to do security upgrades, and I think, "Why?" I cannot remove the goddamned bloat-ware they put on goddamned thing, and they want me to approve upgrades? Hell no! I will rot in hell with my aging Android phone, with a version of Android nearly as old as I am, because the bastards will not allow me to upgrade to a more current version!

If Linux did shit like this, systemd aside, I would be BSD all the way. Sorry, too much commentary for a submission. But, really? Am I wrong?

P.S. When exactly did ZDNet take the tumble? Does anyone remember? Was it with the review of the new Microsoft Disk Compression Utility?

Original Submission

takyon writes:

PCIe 5.0 is coming:

The industry has been stuck on PCIe 3.0 for roughly seven years, and even though the first support for PCIe 4.0 on the desktop will land soon in AMD's third-gen Ryzen chips and the first PCIe 4.0 SSDs just cropped up, the industry is already adopting PCIe 5.0. The new standard doubles throughput over PCIe 4.0, yielding a data rate of 32 GT/s.

Today PCI-SIG, the organization that defines PCIe standards, announced that it ratified Version 0.9 of the PCI Express 5.0 specification, signaling that end devices will come to market in the near future. (Companies design end devices as early as revision 0.4 and often launch with 0.9.)

[...] PCIe 4.0 brings 64GBps of throughput, while PCIe 5.0 will double that to 128GBps. Both revisions still use the 128b/130b encoding scheme that debuted with PCIe 3.0. PCI-SIG representatives said they are satisfied with the 20% reduction in overhead facilitated by the 128b/130b encoding, and further encoding refinements to reduce the current 1.5% overhead are subject to a diminishing point of returns.

PCIe 5.0 also brings other features, like electrical changes to improve signal integrity, backward-compatible CEM connectors for add-in cards, and backward compatibility with previous versions of PCIe. The PCI-SIG also designed the new standard to reduce latency and tolerate higher signal loss for long-reach applications.

Previously: PCIe 4.0 to be Available This Year, PCIe 5.0 in 2019

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Popular Mechanics has interviewed SpaceX CEO Elon Musk about his decision to move to a stainless steel design for Starship Super Heavy (formerly BFR). The interview reveals new details about the design, including micro-perforations on the outside of the windward side of the rocket that can bleed water or fuel for cooling:

Ryan D'Agostino: How does stainless steel compare [to carbon fiber]?

Elon Musk: The thing that's counterintuitive about the stainless steel is, it's obviously cheap, it's obviously fast—but it's not obviously the lightest. But it is actually the lightest. If you look at the properties of a high-quality stainless steel, the thing that isn't obvious is that at cryogenic temperatures, the strength is boosted by 50 percent.

Most steels, as you get to cryogenic temperatures, they become very brittle. You've seen the trick with liquid nitrogen on typical carbon steel: You spray liquid nitrogen, you can hit it with a hammer, it shatters like glass. That's true of most steels, but not of stainless steel that has a high chrome-nickel content. That actually increases in strength, and ductility is still very high. So you have, like, 12 to 18 percent ductility at, say, minus 330 degrees Fahrenheit. Very ductile, very tough. No fracture issues.

[...] [Here's] the other benefit of steel: It has a high melting point. Much higher than aluminum, and although carbon fiber doesn't melt, the resin gets destroyed at a certain temperature. So typically aluminum or carbon fiber, for a steady-state operating temperature, you're really limited to about 300 degrees Fahrenheit. It's not that high. You can take little brief excursions above that, maybe 350. Four hundred, you're really pushing it. It weakens. And there are some carbon fibers that can take 400 degrees Fahrenheit, but then you have strength knockdowns. But steel, you can do 1500, 1600 degrees Fahrenheit.

takyon writes:

The European Space Agency plans to start mining for natural resources on the moon

The European Space Agency plans to start mining for water and oxygen on the moon by 2025.

The agency announced Monday it has signed a 1-year contract with European aerospace company ArianeGroup to explore mining regolith, also known as lunar soil or moon dust.

Water and oxygen can be extracted from regolith, potentially making it easier for humans to spend time on the moon in the future, according to ArianeGroup. The research could also make it possible to produce rocket fuel on the moon, enabling future expeditions to go further into space, the aerospace company said.

[...] The mission would be a collaboration between aerospace scientists and technicians in France, Germany and Belgium. The project is now in the research phase, with scientists hoping to use an Ariane 64 rocket in coming years to send mining equipment to the moon.

Previously: New ESA Head Wörner: 'We Could Build All Kinds of Things with Moon Concrete'
ESA Expert Envisions "Moon Village" by 2030-2050

Related: Moon Base Could Cost Just $10 Billion Due to New Technologies
How to Get Back to the Moon in 4 Years, Permanently
Who Owns The Moon? A Space Lawyer Answers

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Orange Pi 3 H6: An updated version of the Raspberry Pi competitor that starts at US$29.90

Following the recent RAM upgrade for the Orange Pi, Shenzhen Xunlong Software has released the Orange Pi 3 H6, a new version of its single-board computer. The Raspberry Pi competitor is equipped with an Allwinner H6 SoC that integrates four ARM Cortex A53 cores that clock up to 1.8 GHz and an ARM Mali-T720 GPU. The SoC is complemented with 1 GB or 2 GB of LPDDR3 RAM depending on the model purchased and 8 GB of eMMC flash storage. There are also two versions with no pre-installed storage.

All four models are otherwise equally equipped though. The Orange Pi 3 H6 has an HDMI 2.0a port, a Composite video output and a 3.5 mm jack. There is also a Gigabit Ethernet port and a Wi-Fi module that supports up to IEEE 802.11 ac and Bluetooth 5.0. Moreover, Shenzhen Xunlong Software has equipped the device with four USB 3.0 Type-A ports, one USB 2.0 port and a TF card slot.

$30-40.

Previously: The New 64-bit Orange Pi is a Quad-core Computer for $20

Original Submission

mechanicjay writes:

The author postulates that the cloud will automate away low-level IT jobs, comparing the situation to automation in manufacturing.

I've been saying for awhile now that we're getting close to a crisis point in the IT world. The mid-tier IT worker is in imminent danger of being automated out of existence, and just like with the vanished factory jobs of the last 30 years, nobody wants to admit it's happening until it's too late.

[...] So how do you know if your job is going to disappear into the cloud? You don't really need me to tell you. You already feel it in your bones. Repetition is a sure warning sign. If you're building the same integrations, patching the same servers over and over again every day, congratulations – you've already become a robot. It's only a matter of time before a small shell script makes it official.

The solution is simple, but not easy: you simply must keep moving. If you don't know how to code, learn - like planting a tree, the best time to start was ten years ago, but the second best time is now. If your technical competence is ten years out of date, don't cling to your hard-won kingdom of decaying knowledge and sabotage any attempts at change: get out and pick up a certification, attend a meetup, something. Anything. At the end of the day, we're all self-taught engineers.

Otherwise, I'll tell you what will happen. The economy will take a small dip, or your department will get re-orged, and you will lose that job as an operations engineer on a legacy SaaS product. You'll look around for a similar job in your area and discover that nobody is hiring people anymore whose skill set is delivering a worse version of what AWS's engineers can do for a fraction of the cost. And by then you won't have the luxury of time to level up your skills.

I'm wondering how I craft an exit from this industry in the next handful of years.

https://forrestbrazeal.com/2019/01/16/cloud-irregular-the-creeping-it-apocalypse/

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Phys.org:

In a new paper, education researchers from the University of South Australia (UniSA) say that while the technology may be innovative, ClassDojo encourages an archaic approach to school discipline and neglects a genuinely educational approach to developing behaviour.

Further, they express concern that the app conditions children to accept rising levels of surveillance and control.

"Class Dojo can be understood as yet another data-gathering surveillance technology that is contributing to a culture of surveillance that has become normalised in schools", said Jamie Manolev, a doctoral candidate at UniSA and the study's lead author.

Is ClassDojo helping parents learn what their kids are getting up to at school, or is it normalizing surveillance for students?

Original Submission