Day: September 23, 2020

ISS Maneuvers to Avoid Space Debris, in What’s Becoming the New Normal

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Yesterday, NASA and Russian flight controllers performed an “avoidance maneuver” to protect the International Space Station from a wayward chunk of space debris. This episode—already the third of its kind this year—highlights a growing problem and the importance of mitigating potential collisions in space. Low Earth orbit (LEO) is vast and mostly empty, but when Read more about ISS Maneuvers to Avoid Space Debris, in What’s Becoming the New Normal[…]

Firefox usage is down 85% despite Mozilla’s top exec pay going up 400%

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Mozilla recently announced that they would be dismissing 250 people. That’s a quarter of their workforce so there are some deep cuts to their work too. The victims include: the MDN docs (those are the web standards docs everyone likes better than w3schools), the Rust compiler and even some cuts to Firefox development. Like most Read more about Firefox usage is down 85% despite Mozilla’s top exec pay going up 400%[…]

Samsung Is Rolling Out Its ECG App to Its Smartwatches Today – and only for Samsung phone owners

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Samsung may have first made an ECG-capable smartwatch with the Galaxy Watch Active2, but it wasn’t until earlier this summer that it actually got clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to enable the medical-grade feature. That announcement came in dramatic fashion at its Unpacked event in August, where the company unveiled yet another Read more about Samsung Is Rolling Out Its ECG App to Its Smartwatches Today – and only for Samsung phone owners[…]

Adidas now stands for All Day I’m Disconnecting All Servers as owners of ‘smart’ Libra scales furious over bricked kit – don’t trust stuff that needs cloud

Posted on by Robin Edgar

In 2015, German sportswear manufacturer Adidas acquired a plucky Austrian IoT startup called Runtastic, which, among other things, manufactured a $129.99 “smart” scale called Libra. Now that product is being discontinued, preventing owners from synchronising their data or even downloading the app required to use it. In a post published yesterday, Adidas announced the discontinuation Read more about Adidas now stands for All Day I’m Disconnecting All Servers as owners of ‘smart’ Libra scales furious over bricked kit – don’t trust stuff that needs cloud[…]

Microservices guru says think serverless, not Kubernetes: You don’t want to manage ‘a towering edifice of stuff’

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Sam Newman, a consultant and author specialising in microservices, told a virtual crowd at dev conference GOTOpia Europe that serverless, not Kubernetes, is the best abstraction for deploying software. Newman is an advocate for cloud. “We are so much in love with the idea of owning our own stuff,” he told attendees. “We end up Read more about Microservices guru says think serverless, not Kubernetes: You don’t want to manage ‘a towering edifice of stuff’[…]

Village Traces 18 Months of Internet Outages to Old TV Set

Posted on by Robin Edgar

A rural village in Wales has been suffering through internet outages and slowdowns for 18 months. The situation baffled technicians until they realized that turning off one man’s TV solved everything. On Tuesday, U.K.-based broadband provider Openreach explained in a release that every morning, around 7 a.m., residents of the Aberhosan village found themselves experiencing Read more about Village Traces 18 Months of Internet Outages to Old TV Set[…]

Amazon Restricts How Rival Device Makers Buy Ads on Its Site

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Some makers of smart speakers, video doorbells and other hardware hit roadblocks buying key ads in search results on Amazon; gadgets made by e-commerce giant get edge. From a report: Amazon.com is limiting the ability of some competitors to promote their rival smart speakers, video doorbells and other devices on its dominant e-commerce platform, according Read more about Amazon Restricts How Rival Device Makers Buy Ads on Its Site[…]

Facebook Fights Climate Change by Mass Banning of Climate Groups

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Just last week, Facebook launched an initiative to uplift climate science. It was wildly misguided, yes, but the company was trying to show it’s down for the cause or something. Now, the company is proving just how devoted to climate activism it is by, um, booting environmental justice organizers from the platform. Tight! Hundreds of Read more about Facebook Fights Climate Change by Mass Banning of Climate Groups[…]

The Nvidia RTX 3080 eBay Debacle Exposed a Scalper Bot Civil War

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Last week, RTX 3080 scalpers pissed off a lot of Nvidia GPU fans by buying up all the graphics cards and attempting to resell them for hundreds of dollars more than the actual MSRP. Unfortunately, this is a common scalper tactic: Buy up as many items of a single product as possible, create a false Read more about The Nvidia RTX 3080 eBay Debacle Exposed a Scalper Bot Civil War[…]

OpenAI Sells out to Microsoft: exclusive license for mega-brain GPT-3 for anything and everything

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Microsoft has bagged exclusive rights to use OpenAI’s GPT-3 technology, allowing the Windows giant to embed the powerful text-generating machine-learning model into its own products. “Today, I’m very excited to announce that Microsoft is teaming up with OpenAI to exclusively license GPT-3, allowing us to leverage its technical innovations to develop and deliver advanced AI Read more about OpenAI Sells out to Microsoft: exclusive license for mega-brain GPT-3 for anything and everything[…]

Another body for the Google graveyard: Chrome Web Store payments, citing alternatives – unlike Apple. Costs were 5%, also unlike Apple’s 30%.

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Google has decided to shut down the Chrome Web Store payments API permanently after what was supposed to be a temporary closure at the start of the year. In January, the internet advertising biz halted the publication of Chrome apps, extensions, and themes in the Chrome Web Store that were either paid-for or took in-app Read more about Another body for the Google graveyard: Chrome Web Store payments, citing alternatives – unlike Apple. Costs were 5%, also unlike Apple’s 30%.[…]

Facebook says it may quit Europe over ban on sharing data with US

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Facebook has warned that it may pull out of Europe if the Irish data protection commissioner enforces a ban on sharing data with the US, after a landmark ruling by the European court of justice found in July that there were insufficient safeguards against snooping by US intelligence agencies. In a court filing in Dublin, Read more about Facebook says it may quit Europe over ban on sharing data with US[…]