There's a new problem with driverless test vehicles. Wired obtain records from San Francisco's public transit agency for about six months showing that driverless cars testing on city streets "resulted in at least 83 minutes of direct delays" for the city's "Muni" buses. And "t … | Continue reading
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Intel is slowly moving into the dedicated graphics market, and its graphics driver releases are looking a lot more like Nvidia's and AMD's than they used to. For its dedicated Arc GPUs and the architecturally similar integrat … | Continue reading
Engineers at the European Space Agency (ESA) are getting ready for a Windows 98 upgrade on an orbiter circling Mars. The Verge reports: The Mars Express spacecraft has been operating for more than 19 years, and the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MAR … | Continue reading
Do Kwon, the CEO of Terra creator Terraform Labs, was one of the pseudonymous co-founders behind the failed algorithmic stablecoin Basis Cash, CoinDesk reported Wednesday. From the report: Basis Cash (BAC) was a closely watched revival in decentralized finance (DeFi) circles when … | Continue reading
At the end of the year 2000, Noah Grey created the free and open-source blogging software Greymatter (now maintained by a community of users). Wil Wheaton's new book describes it as "the original, primordial blogging platform. Blogs look like they do... because Noah Grey did it … | Continue reading
Twitter today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an entity wholly owned by Elon Musk, for $54.20 per share in cash in a transaction valued at approximately $44 billion. Upon completion of the transaction, Twitter will become a privately he … | Continue reading
The Washington Post looks at what happened after Starlink activated its satellite-based internet service to help Ukraine:Ukraine has already received thousands of antennas from Musk's companies and European allies, which has proved "very effective," Ukraine's minister of digital … | Continue reading
The New York Times reports that "After more than three weeks without being able to leave the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine, 64 workers were able to be rotated out, the plant said on Sunday."Staff at the plant, which includes more than 200 technical personnel a … | Continue reading
"With so many coming together on the side of Ukraine (even those who traditionally stay neutral in international affairs), asking ICANN to take action against Russia seems like it could be a reasonable proposition under the circumstances," writes new Slashdot submitter unimind. " … | Continue reading
Phoronix reports:System76's Pop!_OS Linux distribution already has their own "COSMIC" desktop that is based on GNOME, but moving ahead they are working on their own Rust-written desktop that is not based on GNOME or any existing desktop environment. Stemming from a Reddit discuss … | Continue reading
"A drone laden with explosives targeted the residence of Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi in Baghdad early on Sunday," reports Reuters, "in what the Iraqi military called an attempted assassination, but said Kadhimi escaped unhurt."The attack, which security sources said i … | Continue reading
Epic Games is ending a pandemic-inspired policy of granting every other Friday off, sparking an uproar among staff. From a report: An internal Slack channel was filled with pleas from employees for the game publisher to reconsider. Several people said the extra vacation days had … | Continue reading
"All Linux and Mac-based computers pull their time zones from a massively important database — the time zone database," explains Medium's tech site OneZero. And this vastly crucial project is ultimately overseen by one man who Medium calls "The Time Zone King."The process … | Continue reading
One of the largest providers of HTTPS certificates, Let's Encrypt, will stop using an older root certificate next week -- meaning you might need to upgrade your devices to prevent them from breaking. From a report: Let's Encrypt, a free-to-use nonprofit, issues certificates that … | Continue reading
Freenode's Linux support channel has an official web page at freenode.linux.community, which now bears this announcement: 22+ year old ##linux on freenode has been seized by freenode staff The community's (multi-platform) site reminds visitors of the alternative channels #linux … | Continue reading
"It never occurred to me that a Facebook-appointed panel could avoid a clear decision about Donald Trump's heinous online behavior," writes a New York Times technology reporter. "But that is what it's done..." They call the board's decision "kind of perfect, actually, since it f … | Continue reading
Privacy-oriented messaging app Signal tried to run a very candid ad campaign on Facebook-owned Instagram, but it wasn't meant to be. From a report: Signal explained how it went down in a blog post Tuesday. The idea was to post ads on Instagram which use the data an online adverti … | Continue reading
Berkshire Hathaway is trading at more than $421,000 per Class A share, and the market is optimistic. That's a problem. From a report: The price has grown so high, it has nearly hit the maximum number that can be stored in one common way exchange computers handle digits. On Tuesda … | Continue reading
Last week came the news that Dan Kaminsky, security researcher (and popular speaker at security conferences), had passed away at the age of 42. In a half hour the DEF CON security convention will hold a special online memorial for Dan Kaminsky on Discord. But interestingly, Kamin … | Continue reading
For the first time in nearly 15 years, Microsoft is changing the default Microsoft Office font -- and it wants your help to pick a new one. The Verge reports: While there are more than 700 font options in Word, Microsoft has commissioned five new custom fonts for Office, in a mo … | Continue reading
Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 shared this analysis from Just Security:Huawei's plans for 6G and beyond make U.S. concerns over 5G look paltry: Huawei is proposing a fundamental internet redesign, which it calls "New IP," designed to build "intrinsic security" into the web. In … | Continue reading
A Facebook content moderator (contracted through Accenture) quit their position in Austin, Texas — but also left a critical internal note which was later leaked by a senior tech reporter at BuzzFeed who described it as "blistering." SFGate also calls it "a harrowing account … | Continue reading
michaelmalak writes: The Colorado Senate President Pro Tempore, Kerry Donovan, is the prime sponsor of SB21-132,Digital Communications Regulation, which if passed, would fine websites $5,000 per day as a class 2 misdemeanor if they "allow" user comments that: "...promote hate spe … | Continue reading
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Last Friday, a man entered the Beverly Hills police department, only to be treated to a mini DJ set that could potentially get his Instagram account banned. Sennett Devermont was at the department to file a form to obtain body … | Continue reading
In an interview on Tuesday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk sat down with one of Tesla's harshest critics, Sandy Munro, and discussed the issues that plagued early Model 3s. CNN reports: In early 2018 engineering consultant Sandy Munro, who tears apart and reverse-engineers cars to assess q … | Continue reading
"More than at any point since the QAnon conspiracy began, there is a tremendous opportunity to pull disaffected followers out of the conspiracy," writes FiveThirtyEight. And while it's just one of three possible scenarios, online posts suggest at least some members are abandoning … | Continue reading
Here's an interesting tidbit from The Wall Street Journal:ICQ was a pioneering, mid-1990s internet messaging service then used on bulky PCs on dial-up. It was a precursor to AOL Instant Messenger, and was last in vogue when the TV show "Friends" was in its prime and PalmPilots we … | Continue reading
An anonymous reader shares an article that's part of the Future Agenda, a series from Slate in which experts suggest specific, forward-looking actions the new Biden administration should implement. Here's an excerpt: Consumers in the U.S. face an infuriating lack of transparency … | Continue reading
For seekers of a right-leaning free-speech utopia, "Parler may turn out to be, in the end, a false refuge," warns Marc Ambinder at MSNBC:First — sorry, folks — Parler does censor. It removes users, regularly. It does not actually seem to tolerate hate speech, and beca … | Continue reading
"The rising popularity of alternative social media app Parler is raising concerns over the spread of misinformation and potential for radicalizing users on a platform that's taken a hands-off approach to regulating content," reports The Hill's reporter on technology policy:The ap … | Continue reading
"The posts were appearing at a rate of about one per minute, and the posts were lengthy, most around six paragraphs long..." writes software engineer Philip Winston.I read through some of the posts. The quality was incredibly good, no machine could have written these even a few y … | Continue reading
Almost everything in today's hospitals is a computer. Our ultrasound machines run on anything from DOS to Windows 7, so do MRI's, CT's, many x-ray machines and other diagnostic devices. Even those that run other embedded systems are commonly operated from a Windows computer. And … | Continue reading
"Google has decided to disable a feature in Windows 10 version 2004 that allowed Chrome and Microsoft Edge browsers to use a lot less RAM," reports ZDNet:Windows 10 gave Win32 apps including Chrome access to a 'segment heap' API to allow apps to reduce memory usage, but as Techdo … | Continue reading
Microsoft seems to be getting a kick out seeing users struggle to find Windows 10 features these days. After moving the Fresh Start feature in the latest version, 2004, and reducing the number of days Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, and Education users can manually delay updates, the … | Continue reading
WHY would any SANE programmer put business logic into the model layer?To uniformly enforce rules when accommodating multiple applications accessing the same data.Another reason is that the database will usually be the longest living part of the software architecture.In terms of t … | Continue reading
Today is Anzac Day, a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand for those who served, marked on the anniversary of the 1915 campaign that led to the first major casualties for Australian and New Zealand Army Corp forces during World War One. "More than 87,000 Turks … | Continue reading
The Y Combinator company Flexport is a San Francisco-based freight-forwarding and customs brokerage company. (Its investors include Google Ventures and Peter Thiel's Founders Fund.) But on March 23rd Flexport announced they were now re-focusing all their resources to get critica … | Continue reading
In Microsoft's Chromium-based Edge browser, Chrome's extensions "work as good as they work on Chrome browsers," argues the MS Power User blog. But guess what happens when you use Edge to visit Chrome's "Web Store" for downloading extensions?According to Google, internet users sho … | Continue reading
Due to a U.S. government ban on sales to Huawei, Google revoked its license for popular apps last spring (including Gmail and the Play Store). But this week Huawei executive Fred Wangfei suggested that even if that ban is lifted, Huawei would continue developing its own app ecos … | Continue reading
"No, the luxurious Borgata Hotel, Casino and Spa isn't located in a central New Jersey wildlife preserve," reports a local news team in New York. But an ad for the casino in Waze was apparently tagged with the wrong geographical coordinates, CNN reports, and....The Jackson towns … | Continue reading
theodp writes: Major League Baseball Regulations "prohibit the use of electronic equipment during games and state that no such equipment may be used for the purpose of stealing signs or conveying information designed to give a Club an advantage," reminded MLB Commissioner Rob Ma … | Continue reading
theodp writes: Dismissing questions of whether Ivanka Trump's Tuesday CES keynote appearance on The Path to the Future of Work should have gone to somebody else who's had more to do with tech in the administration, CES Chief Gary Shapiro informed the BBC: "Ivanka Trump actually … | Continue reading
The world's five regional Internet registry have an unincorporated organization called the Number Resource Organization, and they also all have representatives on a supporting organization affiliated with ICANN called the Address Supporting Organization (ASO). This week the ASO " … | Continue reading
In October the Register reported that 20 Stack Exchange moderators had distanced themselves from the geeky Q&A site to protest policy changes and the removal of moderator Monica Cellio "over alleged violations of as-yet unpublished Code of Conduct changes." Cellio just posted … | Continue reading
An anonymous reader writes:The New York Times just profiled 15-year-old "businessman" Rowan Winch, who made up to $10,000 a month from his Instagram feed. ("He planned to purchase a Tesla next year, when he's eligible to get his driver's license.") Rowan started by re-selling g … | Continue reading
Jeff Archambeault (Slashdot reader #41,488) writes:Amateur Radio and computing worlds mourn the death of another pioneer. From Phil Karn, KA9Q on the the 44Net mailing list: I have very sad news. My good friend, Brian Kantor, WB6CYT suddenly passed away this week at his home in S … | Continue reading
Christine Peterson, a long-time futurist who co-founded the nanotech advocacy group the Foresight Institute in 1986 and coined the term "Open Source software" among other things writes: I am currently cited on the home page of the Ethical Source Movement, home of the Ethical Sour … | Continue reading
AndrewFlagg writes: When it comes to using strong username and passwords for administrative purposes let alone customer facing portals, Equifax appears to have dropped the ball. Equifax used the word "admin" as both password and username for a portal that contained sensitive info … | Continue reading