Shameless Plug

Xiaomi Shows Off Phone That Can Charge To 100% In 8 Minutes Published on June 01, 2021 at 09:00AM Xiaomi's at it again: The company's new fast charging technology can get a smartphone from 0 to 100 percent battery in less than 8 minutes. From a report: The 200W wired charging tech, used on a modified Xiaomi MI 11 Pro with a 4,000mAh battery, gets the phone from 0-10% in just 44 seconds. The phone gets to 50% in 3 minutes, and it's fully charged in 7:57 minutes. In a YouTube video, Xiaomi also showcased its 120W wireless charging tech, which gets a smartphone with a 4,000mAh battery from 0 to 100 percent battery in 15 minutes. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Seagate 'Exploring' Possible New Line of Crypto-Specific Hard Drives Published on June 01, 2021 at 07:00AM In a Q&A with TechRadar, storage hardware giant Seagate revealed it is keeping a close eye on the crypto space, with a view to potentially launching a new line of purpose-built drives. From the report: Asked whether companies might develop storage products specifically for cryptocurrency use cases, Jason M. Feist, who heads up Seagate's emerging products arm, said it was a "possibility." Feist said he could offer no concrete information at this stage, but did suggest the company is "exploring this opportunity and imagines others may be as well." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Intel's latest 11th Gen Processor Brings 5.0GHz Speeds To Thin and Light Laptops Published on June 01, 2021 at 04:30AM Intel made a splash earlier in May with the launch of its first 11th Gen Tiger Lake H-series processors for more powerful laptops, but at Computex 2021, the company is also announcing a pair of new U-series chips -- one of which marks the first 5.0GHz clock speed for the company's U-series lineup of lower voltage chips. From a report: Specifically, Intel is announcing the Core i7-1195G7 -- its new top of the line chip in the U-series range -- and the Core i5-1155G7, which takes the crown of Intel's most powerful Core i5-level chip, too. Like the original 11th Gen U-series chips, the new chips operate in the 12W to 28W range. Both new chips are four core / eight thread configurations, and feature Intel's Iris Xe integrated graphics (the Core i7-1195G7 comes with 96 EUs, while the Core i5-1155G7 has 80 EUs.) The Core i7-1195G7 features a base clock spee...

Two New Laws Restrict Police Use of DNA Search Method Published on June 01, 2021 at 03:30AM New laws in Maryland and Montana are the first in the nation to restrict law enforcement's use of genetic genealogy, the DNA matching technique that in 2018 identified the Golden State Killer, in an effort to ensure the genetic privacy of the accused and their relatives. From a report: Beginning on Oct. 1, investigators working on Maryland cases will need a judge's signoff before using the method, in which a "profile" of thousands of DNA markers from a crime scene is uploaded to genealogy websites to find relatives of the culprit. The new law, sponsored by Democratic lawmakers, also dictates that the technique be used only for serious crimes, such as murder and sexual assault. And it states that investigators may only use websites with strict policies around user consent. Montana's new law, sponsored by a Republican, is narrower, requiring that government investigators ob...

Amazon Devices Will Soon Automatically Share Your Internet With Neighbors Published on June 01, 2021 at 02:30AM If you use Alexa, Echo, or any other Amazon device, you have just over a week to opt out of an experiment that leaves your personal privacy and security hanging in the balance. From a report: On June 8, the merchant, Web host, and entertainment behemoth will automatically enroll the devices in Amazon Sidewalk. The new wireless mesh service will share a small slice of your Internet bandwidth with nearby neighbors who don't have connectivity and help you to their bandwidth when you don't have a connection. By default, Amazon devices including Alexa, Echo, Ring, security cams, outdoor lights, motion sensors, and Tile trackers will enroll in the system. And since only a tiny fraction of people take the time to change default settings, that means millions of people will be co-opted into the program whether they know anything about it or not. The Amazon webpage linked abo...

NSA Spied on European Politicians Through Danish Telecommunications Hub Published on June 01, 2021 at 01:31AM Denmark's foreign secret service allowed the US National Security Agency to tap into a crucial internet and telecommunications hub in Denmark and spy on the communications of European politicians, a joint investigation by some of Europe's biggest news agencies revealed on Sunday. From a report: The covert spying operation, called Operation Dunhammer, took place between 2012 and 2014, based on a secret partnership signed by the two agencies. The secret pact, signed between the NSA and the Danish Defense Intelligence Service (Danish: Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste, FE) allowed US spies to deploy a data interception system named XKeyscore on the network of Sandagergardan, an important internet and communications hub in the city of Dragor, near Copenhagen, where several key submarine cables connected Denmark (and continental Europe) to the Scandinavian peninsula. The NS...

'Amazon Prime Is an Economy-Distorting Lie' Published on June 01, 2021 at 01:00AM Matt Stoller, looking at this month's antitrust suit against Amazon filed by D.C. attorney general Karl Racine: To understand why, we have to start with the idea of free shipping. Free shipping is the God of online retail, so powerful that France actually banned the practice to protect its retail outlets. Free shipping is also the backbone of Prime. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos knew that the number one pain point for online buyers is shipping -- one third of shoppers abandon their carts when they see shipping charges. Bezos helped invent Prime for this reason, saying the point of Prime was to use free shipping "to draw a moat around our best customers." The goal was to get people used to buying from Amazon, knowing they wouldn't have to worry about shipping charges. Once Amazon had control of a large chunk of online retail customers, it could then begin dictating terms of sellers ...

California's Controversial Math Overhaul Focuses on Equity Published on June 01, 2021 at 12:30AM A plan to reimagine math instruction for 6 million California students has become ensnared in equity and fairness issues -- with critics saying proposed guidelines will hold back gifted students and supporters saying it will, over time, give all kindergartners through 12th-graders a better chance to excel. From a report: The proposed new guidelines aim to accelerate achievement while making mathematical understanding more accessible and valuable to as many students as possible, including those shut out from high-level math in the past because they had been "tracked" in lower level classes. The guidelines call on educators generally to keep all students in the same courses until their junior year in high school, when they can choose advanced subjects, including calculus, statistics and other forms of data science. Although still a draft, the Mathematics Framework achieved a m...

Nestle Document Says Majority of Its Food Portfolio is Unhealthy Published on June 01, 2021 at 12:06AM The world's largest food company, Nestle, has acknowledged that more than 60% of its mainstream food and drinks products do not meet a "recognised definition of health" and that "some of our categories and products will never be 'healthy' no matter how much we renovate." FT: A presentation circulated among top executives this year, seen by the Financial Times, says only 37 per cent of Nestle's food and beverages by revenues, excluding products such as pet food and specialised medical nutrition, achieve a rating above 3.5 under Australia's health star rating system. This system scores foods out of five stars and is used in research by international groups such as the Access to Nutrition Foundation. Nestle, the maker of KitKats, Maggi noodles and Nescafe, describes the 3.5 star threshold as a "recognised definition of health." Within i...

Amazon Calls For Funding K-12 CS, Eyes $250M Seed Money From Congress Published on May 31, 2021 at 11:52PM theodp writes: The U.S. isn't producing nearly enough students trained in computer science to meet the future demands of the American workforce," lamented Amazon in a Friday press release, adding that it is "urging Congress and legislatures across the U.S. to support — and fund — computer science education in public schools." Well, the 'urging' seems to be working. On Friday, Representatives Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN) reintroduced the Computer Science for All Act (Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft all lobbied for the bill's predecessor, the CS for All Act of 2019), which provides $250 million in new grants to support a diverse 'tech pipeline' in pre-K through grade 12 education. Amazon and Amazon-funded nonprofit Code.org were cited as the bill's 'supporting organizations' and quoted in Lee's accom...

Quic Gives the Internet's Data Transmission Foundation a Needed Speedup Published on May 31, 2021 at 09:38PM One of the internet's foundations just got an upgrade. From a report: Quic, a protocol for transmitting data between computers, improves speed and security on the internet and can replace Transmission Control Protocol, or TCP, a standard that dates back to Ye Olde Internet of 1974. Last week, the Internet Engineering Task Force, which sets many standards for the global network, published Quic as a standard. Web browsers and online services have been testing the technology for years, but the IETF's imprimatur is a sign the standard is mature enough to embrace fully. It's extremely hard to improve the internet at the fundamental level of data transmission. Countless devices, programs and services are built to use the earlier infrastructure, which has lasted decades. Quic has been in public development for nearly eight years since Google first announced Quic in 20...

Fox News Breaking News Alert President Biden delivers Memorial Day address at Arlington National Cemetery 05/31/21 7:34 AM

World's Fastest AI Supercomputer Built from 6,159 NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPUs Published on May 31, 2021 at 05:04PM Slashdot reader 4wdloop shared this report from NVIDIA's blog, joking that maybe this is where all NVIDIA's chips are going: It will help piece together a 3D map of the universe, probe subatomic interactions for green energy sources and much more. Perlmutter, officially dedicated Thursday at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), is a supercomputer that will deliver nearly four exaflops of AI performance for more than 7,000 researchers. That makes Perlmutter the fastest system on the planet on the 16- and 32-bit mixed-precision math AI uses. And that performance doesn't even include a second phase coming later this year to the system based at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. More than two dozen applications are getting ready to be among the first to ride the 6,159 NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPUs in Perlmutter, the largest A100-powe...

China Allows Couples To Have Three Children Published on May 31, 2021 at 07:30PM China has announced that it will allow couples to have up to three children, after census data showed a steep decline in birth rates. From a report: China scrapped its decades-old one-child policy in 2016, replacing it with a two-child limit which has failed to lead to a sustained upsurge in births. The cost of raising children in cities has deterred many Chinese couples. The latest move was approved by President Xi Jinping at a meeting of top Communist Party officials. It will come with "supportive measures, which will be conducive to improving our country's population structure, fulfilling the country's strategy of actively coping with an ageing population and maintaining the advantage, endowment of human resources," according to Xinhua news agency. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Fox News Breaking News Alert President Biden, Vice President Harris participate in wreath-laying ceremony at Tomb of the Unknown Soldier 05/31/21 7:00 AM

World's Faster AI Supercomputer Built from 6,159 NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPUs Published on May 31, 2021 at 05:04PM Slashdot reader 4wdloop shared this report from NVIDIA's blog, joking that maybe this is where all NVIDIA's chips are going: It will help piece together a 3D map of the universe, probe subatomic interactions for green energy sources and much more. Perlmutter, officially dedicated Thursday at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), is a supercomputer that will deliver nearly four exaflops of AI performance for more than 7,000 researchers. That makes Perlmutter the fastest system on the planet on the 16- and 32-bit mixed-precision math AI uses. And that performance doesn't even include a second phase coming later this year to the system based at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. More than two dozen applications are getting ready to be among the first to ride the 6,159 NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPUs in Perlmutter, the largest A100-power...

YouTube Channel Remembers and Preserves Ads From US Military's TV Service Published on May 31, 2021 at 01:04PM The American Forces Network is a U.S. government TV and radio broadcast service provided by the military for overseas personnel. But there's an interesting quirk. As an official Department of Defense product, it's not allowed to run ads or even mention commercial products, according to Stars and Stripes. "Instead, it lets commanders put out messages about force protection, weather, current events and base services." And that's where things get creative... Killer vending machines, security-conscious hamsters and a roommate who devolves into a caveman. These are some of the memorable features of Garry Terrell's vast collection of military-grade videos from the American Forces Network and its predecessor, the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service. The son of a former U.S. soldier, Terrell is trying to preserve "all things AFN/AFRTS," ...

Facebook and Instagram Confront Historically Bad 'Reputational Crisis' in the Middle East Published on May 31, 2021 at 09:04AM NBC News reports: Facebook is grappling with a reputation crisis in the Middle East, with plummeting approval rates and advertising sales in Arab countries, according to leaked documents obtained by NBC News. The shift corresponds with the widespread belief by pro-Palestinian and free speech activists that the social media company has been disproportionately silencing Palestinian voices on its apps — which include Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — during this month's Israel-Hamas conflict... Instagram has taken the greatest reputational hit, according to a presentation authored by a Dubai-based Facebook employee that was leaked to NBC News, with its approval ratings among users falling to a historical low. The social media company regularly polls users of Facebook and Instagram about how much they believe the company cares about them. Facebook co...

Fox News Breaking News Alert Kyle Larson wins NASCAR Coca-Cola 600 05/30/21 7:36 PM

Will America Confront the Kremlin Over SolarWinds' Latest Massive Phishing Attack? Published on May 31, 2021 at 07:04AM In the latest SolarWinds mass-phishing attack, "The highest percentage of emails went to the United States, but [incident response firm] Volexity also saw a significant number of victims in Europe..." according to Security Week. In an article shared by Slashdot reader wiredmikey, they note that the attackers apparently compromised the Constant Contact account of USAID, an independent agency of the United States federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance — and then impersonated it in emails "to roughly 3,000 accounts across over 150 organizations in 24 countries." So what happens next? The Associated Press reports: The White House says it believes U.S. government agencies largely fended off the latest cyberespionage onslaught blamed on Russian intelligence operatives, sayi...

Viral TikTok Video Attracts 2,500 Teenagers to Rowdy California Birthday Party. 175 Arrested Published on May 31, 2021 at 05:23AM A birthday party for 17-year-old Adrian Lopez turned into a viral TikTok event that drew thousands of unruly party-goers to Huntington Beach, California, reports the Los Angeles Times. Just not Adrian Lopez, "who in the days leading up to the party was increasingly nervous about all the attention." When it was over, more than 175 people were arrested, city officials and merchants were adding up the damage, and everyone was wondering who should be blamed and who should be billed... The high schooler's invitation was picked up by TikTok's "For You" algorithm and viewed by people across the country. The announcement was curious: Who was this mystery teen, and would anyone actually go to his party? Some TikTok users, including internet celebrities, began posting about it, and videos with the hashtag #adrianskickback have since drawn...

Resale Prices Triple for NVIDIA Chips as Gamers Compete with Bitcoin Miners Published on May 31, 2021 at 04:22AM "In the niche world of customers for high-end semiconductors, a bitter feud is pitting bitcoin miners against hardcore gamers," reports Quartz: At issue is the latest line of NVIDIA graphics cards — powerful, cutting-edge chips with the computational might to display the most advanced video game graphics on the market. Gamers want the chips so they can experience ultra-realistic lighting effects in their favorite games. But they can't get their hands on NVIDIA cards, because miners are buying them up and adapting them to crunch cryptographic codes and harvest digital currency. The fierce competition to buy chips — combined with a global semiconductor shortage — has driven resale prices up as much as 300%, and led hundreds of thousands of desperate consumers to sign up for daily raffles for the right to buy chips at a significant mark-up. To broker a peace bet...

Fox News Breaking News Alert Can't hit the snooze on slang origin of left's cancel culture buzzword 05/30/21 2:42 PM

One Startup's Quest to Take on Chrome and Reinvent the Web Browser Published on May 31, 2021 at 03:13AM "The web browser is a crucial part of modern life, and yet it hasn't really been revised since the '90s," writes Protocol. "That may be about to change." The browser tab is an underrated thing. Most people think of them only when there are too many, when their computer once again buckles under Chrome's weight. Even the developers who build the tabs — the engineers and designers working on Chrome, Firefox, Brave and the rest — haven't done much to them. The internet has evolved in massive, earth-shaking ways over the last two decades, but tabs haven't really changed since they became a browser feature in the mid '90s. Josh Miller, however, has big plans for browser tabs. Miller is the CEO of a new startup called The Browser Company, and he wants to change the way people think about browsers altogether. He sees browsers as operating sys...

Is Natural Gas (Mostly) Good for Global Warming? Published on May 31, 2021 at 02:16AM Natural gas "creates less carbon emissions than the coal it replaces, but we have to find ways to minimize the leakage of methane." That's the opinion of Vaclav Smil, a distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Manitoba and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, writing in IEEE's Spectrum (in an article shared by Slashdot reader schwit1): Natural gas is abundant, low-cost, convenient, and reliably transported, with low emissions and high combustion efficiency. Natural-gas-fired heating furnaces have maximum efficiencies of 95 to 97 percent, and combined-cycle gas turbines now achieve overall efficiency slightly in excess of 60 percent. Of course, burning gas generates carbon dioxide, but the ratio of energy to carbon is excellent: Burning a gigajoule of natural gas produces 56 kilograms of carbon dioxide, about 40 percent less than the 95 kg emitted by bituminous coal...

YouTube Takes Down Ads Showing Belarusian Blogger's Possibly-Forced Confession Video Published on May 31, 2021 at 12:37AM Last Sunday Belarus "forcibly landed a Ryanair plane flying from Athens to Vilnius and arrested the opposition blogger Roman Protasevich and his girlfriend, who were on board," Reuters reports. By Tuesday the Guardian reports there was a "confession" video which the blogger's father said his son had clearly been physically coerced into recording. And then... YouTube ran advertisements featuring confession videos published by Belarusian authorities of detained journalist and activist Roman Protasevich and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega, according to a number of people on social media... The YouTube advertisements appear to have been purchased by a pro-government channel with less than 2,000 subscribers with a name which translates to "Belarus, country for life." The channel has published a number of viral videos about Belarus and ...

Fox News Breaking News Alert Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just fired back at coalition effort to oust him 05/30/21 12:00 PM

Aerion Shuts Down, Halts Work On Proposed Supersonic Business Jet Published on May 30, 2021 at 11:34PM Despite $11.2 billion worth of orders, and partners like Boeing, General Electric and Berkshire Hathaway, Aerion says it still couldn't raise enough money to head into production "in the current financial environment," according to a Flying magazine shared by schwit1: The Aerion SST — the most promising effort in years to represent the next step in supersonic travel since the demise of the Anglo-French Concorde — has reached the end of the line after the company said it had run short of cash. The Reno, Nevada-based aircraft builder said Friday it is closing its doors for good according to a story in Florida Today... In March 2021, NetJets offered Aerion a vote of confidence by ordering 20 of the SSTs as well as agreeing to become the exclusive fractional business jet operator for the new aircraft. Each AS2 was priced at $120 million in today's dollars. Read more ...

Space Plane Startup Promises One-Hour Rides to Anywhere on Earth at 9,000 MPH Published on May 30, 2021 at 11:04PM "Traveling in a space plane is a lot like traveling in a regular plane, except for the middle part," quips Bloomberg Business Week: After reaching cruising altitude, the pilot hits the rocket boosters and blasts the aircraft to the edge of space at more than 9,000 mph, or about 12 times the speed of sound. The plane travels at that speed for about 15 minutes, then glides against the atmosphere to slow itself down, cruising back to Earth to land at a conventional airport. Venus Aerospace Corp., a startup pursuing a hypersonic space plane, is aiming to use this technique to ferry people from Los Angeles to Tokyo in about an hour. The company was started by two former Virgin Orbit LLC employees: Sarah "Sassie" Duggleby, a code-writing launch engineer, and her husband, Andrew, who managed launch, payload, and propulsion operations... Venus now has 15 empl...

Florida Health Department's Actions Investigated as Fired Data Manager Now Granted 'Whistleblower' Status Published on May 30, 2021 at 10:04PM In March of 2020, Florida's governor was assuring the state that there was no evidence of Covid-19 in Florida, remembers the Washington Post. But there was — as far back as January. The Tampa Bay Times reports that when questioned Florida's Department of Health told its data manager to hide that data from public view, "emails from within the agency reviewed by the Miami Herald and others show." Eventually that data manager was fired, and within months her home had been raided by gun-toting police officers. But that's not the end of the story. The latest development? That data manager is now instead "officially a whistleblower under Florida law, the Office of the Inspector General told her attorneys Friday," the Tampa Bay Times reports. The Inspector General now says the data manager has indeed shown ...