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'Let's Watch Netflix: Three Words Guaranteed To Kill a Romantic Mood' Published on May 01, 2019 at 09:30AM Is streaming video responsible for America's falling fertility rate? 'One of us usually ends up falling asleep.' From a report: Once upon a time, Netflix dates were synonymous with romance, best captured by the viral hashtag #NetflixandChill, a euphemistic suggestion disguised as an invitation to watch TV. These days, the literal chill of the on-demand streaming video service is so great that some young couples call it the new birth control [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled]. [...] Demographers have lots of theories about why the U.S. fertility rate recently hit an all-time low, ranging from the aftereffects of the recession that followed the financial crisis to the broader use of long-term birth control. It is hard to ignore, anecdotally at least, the impact of streaming entertainment, popularized by Netflix and available from the likes of Am...

Apple Says Its Photo Editing Suite Aperture Won't Run in Future macOS Versions Published on May 01, 2019 at 07:00AM In a new support document, Apple has indicated that its legacy photo editing suite Aperture will not run in future versions of macOS after macOS Mojave. From a report: The support document provides users with steps to migrate Aperture libraries to Apple's newer Photos app for Mac or Adobe Lightroom Classic. Apple ceased development of Aperture in June 2014 and removed the software from the Mac App Store in April 2015 after the launch of the Photos app for Mac. However, the application continues to function on macOS Mojave for users who still have it installed, albeit with some performance limitations. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mark Shuttleworth Sees Increased Demand For Enterprise Ubuntu Linux Desktop Published on May 01, 2019 at 04:30AM Canonical's real money comes from the cloud and Internet of Things, but AI and machine learning developers are demanding -- and getting -- Ubuntu Linux desktop with enterprise support. From a report: In a wide-ranging conversation at Open Infrastructure Summit, Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu Linux and its corporate parent Canonical, said: "We have seen companies signing up for Linux desktop support, because they want to have fleets of Ubuntu desktop for their artificial intelligence engineers." This development caught Shuttleworth by surprise. "We're starting actually now to commercially support the desktop in a way that we've never been asked to before," he said. Of course, Ubuntu has long been used by developers, but Shuttleworth explained, "Previously, those were kind of off the books, under the table. You know, 'Don't ...

Fox News Breaking News Alert Former Minneapolis police officer found guilty in 2017 death of unarmed woman shot after calling 911 04/30/19 3:20 PM

Fox News Breaking News Alert Maduro was 'ready' to leave Venezuela before Russia convinced him to stay, Pompeo tells Fox News 04/30/19 3:13 PM

Expect a Major Asteroid Strike in Your Lifetime, Says NASA Head Published on May 01, 2019 at 03:30AM This week, as scientists work through an exercise simulating an imminent asteroid impact with Earth, NASA's administrator Jim Bridenstine warned the real-world threat should be taken seriously. From a report: Bridenstine acknowledged "the giggle factor," the dismissive response the topic has been met with in the past, at the start of his keynote remarks Monday at the International Academy of Astronautics Planetary Defense Conference in College Park, Maryland. "We have to make sure that people understand that this is not about Hollywood, it's not about movies," he said. "This is about ultimately protecting the only planet we know, right now, to host life and that is the planet Earth." As part of the conference activities, space agencies will also be live-tweeting a fictional exercise simulating what it might be like if such an asteroid were discove...

NASA Launch Services Program (LSP) investigators have determined the technical root cause for the Taurus XL launch failures of NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) and Glory missions in 2009 and 2011, respectively: faulty materials provided by aluminum manufacturer, Sapa Profiles, Inc. (SPI). April 30, 2019 from NASA https://go.nasa.gov/2J7RZXZ

Fedora 30 Linux Distro Is Here Published on May 01, 2019 at 02:30AM Fedora 30, the newest release of the venerable Linux distribution that serves (in part) as the staging environment for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, was released Tuesday, bringing with it a number of improvements and performance optimizations. From a report: he most exciting aspect, for workstation/desktop users at least, is the update to GNOME 3.32. Of course, that is hardly the only notable update -- the DNF package manager is getting a performance boost, for instance. In other words, this is a significant operating system upgrade that should delight both existing Fedora users and beginners alike. "Fedora 30 brings enhancements to all editions with updates to the common underlying packages, from bug fixes and performance tweaks to new versions. In Fedora 30, base updates include Bash shell 5.0, Fish 3.0, the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) 9 and Ruby 2.6. Fedora 30 also now uses the zchunk format for data compressio...

Facebook Will Let Users Chat Across Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp Published on May 01, 2019 at 01:30AM An anonymous reader shares a report: There were rumors that Facebook was going to make its messaging products interoperable, but now it appears they're about to be a reality. At F8, Messenger's head of consumer product Asha Sharma said that in the future, users will soon be able to send messages across Facebook's three different messaging platforms: Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp. "We believe people should be able to talk to anyone anywhere," she said. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Indonesia Plans To Move Its Capital Out Of Jakarta, A City That's Sinking Published on May 01, 2019 at 12:30AM Indonesia has announced plans to build a new capital city as its current capital, Jakarta, struggles with pollution, traffic gridlock -- and the fact that the city is sinking. From a report: After a Cabinet meeting on Monday, planning minister Bambang Brodjonegoro said President Joko Widodo has decided to move the capital out of Indonesia's main island, Java. It's not clear exactly when this will happen, or where the new capital would be located. The idea has been out there for decades, though previous leaders have been unable to accomplish the ambitious plan. Earlier this month, Widodo secured another term in office, according to independent polling organizations. His challenger also declared victory, and official results have not yet been announced. "The idea to move the capital city appeared long ago. ... But it has never been decided or discussed in a pl...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Says the 'Future is Private' Published on April 30, 2019 at 11:40PM Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he's committed to turning his company around. Onstage at Facebook's F8 developer conference, the chief executive said that privacy will be the defining pillar of his social network's sprawling empire going forward. From a report: His opening statements build on the massive shift in Zuckerberg's vision for the company that he first outlined early last month when he announced that Facebook would transition away from the News Feed and public posts and toward a "privacy-focused communications platform" that unified its messaging products around concepts like ephemerality and encryption. "The future is private," Zuckerberg told the crowd, noting that Facebook's most dominant vision over the last decade was to build global communities that would bring the world together, for better or worse. "Over time, I bel...

'Cyber Event' Disrupted US Grid Networks Published on April 30, 2019 at 10:30PM A "cyber event" interrupted grid operations in parts of the western United States last month, according to a cryptic report posted by the Department of Energy. From a report: The March 5 incident lasted from 9 a.m. until nearly 7 p.m. but didn't lead to a power outage, based on a brief summary of the electric disturbance report filed by the victim utility. If remote hackers interfered with grid networks in California, Utah and Wyoming, as the DOE filing suggests, the event would be unprecedented. A cyberattack is not known to have ever disrupted the flow of electricity anywhere in the United States, though Russian hackers briefly cut off power to parts of Ukraine in 2015 and again in 2016. DOE uses a broad definition of "cyber event," describing it as any disruption to an electrical system or grid communication network "caused by unauthorized access" to hardware, ...

Fox News Breaking News Alert Schumer says Trump agreed to $2 trillion infrastructure package at White House meeting 04/30/19 10:15 AM

Vodafone Denies Bloomberg Report on Security Flaws in Huawei Equipment Published on April 30, 2019 at 09:30PM Vodafone denied a Bloomberg report on Tuesday that stated it had found "backdoors" hidden in Huawei equipment supplied to its Italian business dating back years, per BBC . From a report: What they're saying: Vodafone said the "backdoors" in the report were actually a common industry protocol: "The 'backdoor' that Bloomberg refers to is Telnet, which is a protocol that is commonly used by many vendors in the industry for performing diagnostic functions. It would not have been accessible from the internet. Bloomberg is incorrect in saying that this 'could have given Huawei unauthorised access to the carrier's fixed-line network in Italy.' In addition, we have no evidence of any unauthorised access. This was nothing more than a failure to remove a diagnostic function after development." Read more of this story at Slashdot...

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3, or OCO-3, sits on the large vibration table (known as the "shaker") in the Environmental Test Lab at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. via NASA https://go.nasa.gov/2GTftOU

Facing Sharp Questions, Boeing CEO Refuses To Admit Flaws in 737 MAX Design Published on April 30, 2019 at 08:30PM Iwastheone shares a report: In a tense and steely news conference, his first since two deadly crashes of 737 MAX airplanes, Boeing Chairman and CEO Dennis Muilenburg faced sharp questioning but refused to admit flaws in the design of the airplane's systems. "We have gone back and confirmed again, as we do the safety analysis, the engineering analysis, that we followed exactly the steps in our design and certification processes that consistently produce safe airplanes," he said. "It was designed per our standards. It was certified per our standards." In the case of the MAX, those processes certified as safe a new flight-control system that was triggered on both the Lion Air and Ethiopian crash flights by a single faulty sensor and then engaged repeatedly to push the nose of each airplane down. Boeing is currently flight testing a software redesign ...

Jimmy Fallon Played a Video Game on Air, Meaning That Streaming Your Own Game Gets You Taken Down as a Pirate Published on April 30, 2019 at 07:30PM AmiMoJo shares a report: NBC (and the other broadcasters) provides copies of its shows to YouTube's Content ID filter, which is supposed to protect copyright by blocking uploads of videos that match ones in its database of claimed videos. That means that if you own the copyright to something that is aired on NBC, any subsequent attempts by you or your fans to upload your work will be blocked as copyright infringements, and could cost you your YouTube account. The latest casualty of this is the video game Beat Saber. Jimmy Fallon played part of one of Beat Saber's levels, and so no one else cold upload their own gameplay of that level to YouTube without being accused of copyright infringement and blocked. After a lot of fast work by Beat Saber, they managed to get the ban lifted. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hackers Steal and Ransom Financial Data Related To Some of the World's Largest Companies Published on April 30, 2019 at 05:55PM Hackers have broken into an internet infrastructure firm that provides services to dozens of the world's largest and most valuable companies, including Oracle, Volkswagen, Airbus, and many more as part of an extortion attempt, Motherboard reported Tuesday. From the report: The attackers have also threatened to release data from all of those companies, according to a website seemingly set up by the hackers to distribute the stolen material. Citycomp, the impacted Germany-based firm, provides servers, storage, and other computer equipment to large companies, according to the company's website. Michael Bartsch, executive director of Deutor Cyber Security Solutions, a firm Citycomp said was authorized to speak about the case, confirmed the breach to Motherboard in an email Tuesday. "Citycomp has been hacked and blackmailed and the attack is ongo...

Vodafone Says It Found Hidden Backdoors in Huawei Equipment Published on April 30, 2019 at 02:10PM For months, Huawei has faced U.S. allegations that it flouted sanctions on Iran, attempted to steal trade secrets from a business partner and has threatened to enable Chinese spying through the telecom networks it's built across the West. Now Vodafone Group has acknowledged to Bloomberg that it found vulnerabilities going back years with equipment supplied by Shenzhen-based Huawei for the carrier's Italian business. From the report: While Vodafone says the issues were resolved, the revelation may further damage the reputation of a major symbol of China's global technology prowess. Europe's biggest phone company identified hidden backdoors in the software that could have given Huawei unauthorized access to the carrier's fixed-line network in Italy, a system that provides internet service to millions of homes and businesses, according to Vodafone's security briefin...

Why Everyone Is Watching TV With Closed Captioning On These Days Published on April 30, 2019 at 12:00PM Jason Kottke: A few months ago I noticed that several friends (who speak English and aren't deaf) routinely watch TV and movies with closed captions and subtitles on. I asked about this on Twitter and the resulting thread was fascinating. Turns out many of you watch TV this way for all kinds of different reasons -- to follow complex dialog in foreign or otherwise difficult accents, some folks better retain information while reading, keeping the sound down so as not to wake sleeping children in tight living spaces, and lots of people who aren't deaf find listening difficult for many reasons (some have trouble listening to dialogue when thereâ(TM)s any sort of non-ambient noise in the background). Read more of this story at Slashdot.

US Will Rethink Cooperation With Allies Who Use Huawei Published on April 30, 2019 at 09:00AM Washington does not see any distinction between core and non-core parts of 5G networks and will reassess sharing information with any allies which use equipment made by China's Huawei, a U.S. cybersecurity official said on Monday. From a report: "It is the United States' position that putting Huawei or any other untrustworthy vendor in any part of the 5G telecommunications network is a risk," said Robert Strayer, deputy assistant secretary for cyber, international communications and information policy at the State Department. "If other countries insert and allow untrusted vendors to build out and become the vendors for their 5G networks we will have to reassess the ability for us to share information and be connected with them in the ways that we are today," he said. Further reading: UK To Let Huawei Firm Help Build 5G Network. Read more of this story at Slash...

A Bitter Turf War is Raging on the Brexit Wikipedia Page Published on April 30, 2019 at 07:00AM Wikipedia editors are battling to tell the story of Brexit as it happens. And on such a hotly-debated page, every edit is controversial and suspicions run wild. From a report: Editors are parrying death threats, doxxing attempts and accusations of bias, as the crowdsourced epic has become the centre of a relentless tug-of-war over who gets to write the history of the UK as it happens. Originally posted in January 2014, what began life as "Proposed referendum on United Kingdom membership of the European Union" has bloated into a 11,757-word behemoth. But the article's vast size is the least of its problems. In private, and on discussion pages, editors tell tales of turf wars, sock puppet accounts, and anonymous figures hellbent on stuffing the article with information that supports their point of view. "I was heavily involved with the Brexit page, but gave up more than a ...