Linking ideas with the world
Starting today, Windows 10 users are finding that the /sfc scannow feature is no longer working and that it states it found, but could not fix, corrupted Windows Defender PowerShell files. The Windows System File Checker tool, commonly known as SFC, has a /scannow argument that will check the integrity of all protected Winodws system files and Read more about Windows 10 SFC /scannow Can’t Fix Corrupted Files After Update[…]
Apple has pushed a silent update to Macs, disabling the hidden web server installed by the popular Zoom web-conferencing software. A security researcher this week went public with his finding that the mechanism used to bypass a Safari prompt before entering a Zoom conference was a hidden local web server. Jonathan Leitschuh focused largely on Read more about Apple removes Zoom’s dodgy hidden web server on your Mac without telling you – shows who really pwns your machine[…]
Apple has disabled the Apple Watch Walkie Talkie app due to an unspecified vulnerability that could allow a person to listen to another customer’s iPhone without consent, the company told TechCrunch this evening. Apple has apologized for the bug and for the inconvenience of being unable to use the feature while a fix is made. Read more about Apple disables Walkie Talkie app due to vulnerability that could allow iPhone eavesdropping[…]
Computer scientists have developed a card-playing bot, called Pluribus, capable of defeating some of the world’s best players at six-person no-limit Texas hold’em poker, in what’s considered an important breakthrough in artificial intelligence. Two years ago, a research team from Carnegie Mellon University developed a similar poker-playing system, called Libratus, which consistently defeated the world’s Read more about ‘Superhuman’ AI Crushes Poker Pros at Six-Player Texas Hold’em[…]
Google admitted on Thursday that more than 1,000 sound recordings of customer conversations with the Google Assistant were leaked by some of its partners to a Belgian news site. […] “We just learned that one of these language reviewers has violated our data security policies by leaking confidential Dutch audio data,” Google product manager of Read more about Google admits leaked private voice conversations, decides to clamp down on whistleblowers, not improve privacy[…]
In the winter of 2010, a 19-year-old Moroccan man named Kacem Ghazzali logged into his email to find a message from Facebook informing him that a group he had created just a few days prior had been removed from the platform without explanation. The group, entitled “Jeunes pour la séparation entre Religion et Enseignement” (or Read more about How American Corporations Are Policing Online Speech Worldwide[…]
T-Mobile screwed over millions of customers when it collected their geolocation data and sold it to third parties without their consent. Now, two of these customers are trying to pursue a class-action lawsuit against the company for the shady practice, but the telecom giant is using another shady practice to force them to settle their Read more about T-Mobile Says Customers Can’t Sue Because It Violates Its ToS[…]
Not only is your Google Home device listening to you, a new report suggests there might be a Google contractor who’s listening as well. Even if you didn’t ask your device any questions, it’s still sending what you say to the company, who allow an actual person to collect data from it. […] VRT, with Read more about Google contractors are secretly listening to your Assistant and Home recordings[…]
One of the former attorneys behind dodgy copyright-demand factory Prenda Law has been sentenced to 60 months in prison. Yes, the same Prenda Law that seeded file-sharing networks with smut flicks it owned the rights to in order to extract eye-watering copyright infringement settlements from downloaders. Judge Joan Ericksen, of a US federal district court Read more about Prenda Law bosses in jail for seeding porn videos to d/l sites and then suing the downloaders[…]
In a study published in Nature on July 3, researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory used an algorithm called Word2Vec sift through scientific papers for connections humans had missed. Their algorithm then spit out predictions for possible thermoelectric materials, which convert heat to energy and are used in many heating and cooling applications. The Read more about AI Trained on Old Scientific Papers Makes Discoveries Humans Missed[…]
Scientists from the University Hospital of Dresden Technical University in Germany bio-printed skin and bone samples upside down to help determine if the method could be used in a low-gravity environment. It worked. ESA released videos of the printing in action. The skin sample was printed using human blood plasma as a “bio ink.” The researchers added Read more about Scientists 3D-print human skin and bone for Mars astronauts[…]
“While neuronally encoded behavior isn’t thought to be inherited across generations, we wanted to test the possibility that environmentally triggered modifications could allow ‘memory’ of parental experiences to be inherited,” explains Julianna “Lita” Bozler, a Ph.D. candidate in the Bosco Lab at the Geisel School of Medicine, who served as lead author on the study. Read more about Study finds that parental ‘memory’ is inherited across generations[…]
More than 2,500 resellers and integrators have signed a petition opposing Microsoft’s intention to remove free software licences granted to members of the channel to run their business.The changes are described here:Effective July 1, 2020, we will retire the internal use rights (IUR) association with the product licenses partners receive in the Microsoft Action Pack Read more about Microsoft Action Pack software no longer for all sellers of MS products, reseller rebellion[…]
A publicly accessible and unsecured ElasticSearch server owned by the Jiangsu Provincial Public Security Department of the Chinese province Jiangsu leaked two databases containing over 90 million people and business records. Jiangsu (江苏省) is an eastern-central coastal Chinese province with a population of over 80 million and an urban population of more than 55 million accounting for 68.76% of Read more about Over 90 Million Records Leaked by Chinese Public Security Department[…]
A large-scale payment card skimming campaign that successfully breached 962 e-commerce stores was discovered today by Magento security research company Sanguine Security. The campaign seems to be automated according to Sanguine Security researcher Willem de Groot who told BleepingComputer that the card skimming script was added within a 24-hour timeframe. “It would be nearly impossible to breach 960+ Read more about Magento webshop Automated Magecart Campaign Hits Over 960 Breached Stores[…]
Do you watch Netflix or use Facebook? If so, then you are indirectly leveraging Amazon’s incredible scale and dominance of the cloud. Source: The Impressive Stats Behind Amazon’s Dominance of the Cloud
Canon’s G7 X line has long been a favorite of photographers who wanted a travel-friendly camera that could still capture high-quality images. But with the rise of smartphones and the decline of point-and-shoots, Canon began pushing its compact cameras towards vloggers, who I’ve seen use cameras like the G7 X and Sony’s RX100 line as Read more about Canon Stabs Tradition in the Back With Camera That Supports Vertical Video[…]
Indoor levels of carbon dioxide could be clouding our thinking and may even pose a wider danger to human health, researchers say. While air pollutants such as tiny particles and nitrogen oxides have been the subject of much research, there have been far fewer studies looking into the health impact of CO2. However, the authors Read more about Indoor carbon dioxide levels could be a health hazard, scientists warn[…]
On Monday, security researcher Jonathan Leitschuh publicly disclosed a serious zero-day vulnerability in conferencing software Zoom—which apparently achieves its click-to-join feature, which allows users to go directly to a video meeting from a browser link, on Mac computers by installing a local web server running as a background process that “accepts requests regular browsers wouldn’t,” Read more about Serious Security Flaw With Teleconferencing App Zoom Allows Websites to Hijack Mac Webcams – and you can’t fix it by uninstalling[…]
Permissions on Android apps are intended to be gatekeepers for how much data your device gives up. If you don’t want a flashlight app to be able to read through your call logs, you should be able to deny that access. But even when you say no, many apps find a way around: Researchers discovered Read more about More than 1,000 Android apps harvest data even after you deny permissions[…]
The UK Information Commissioner’s Office has warned BA it faces a whopping £183.39m following the theft of million customer records from its website and mobile app servers. The record-breaking fine – more or less the lower end of the price of one of the 747-400s in BA’s fleet – under European General Data Protection Regulation Read more about UK data regulator threatens British Airways with 747-sized fine for massive personal data blurt[…]
On newer Linux distributions, there’s a hard regression either within the kernel but more likely some cross-kernel/user-space interaction issue leaving newer Linux distributions unbootable. While Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and older Linux distributions boot Zen 2, to date I have not been able to successfully boot the likes of Ubuntu 19.04, Manjaro Linux, and Fedora Workstation Read more about AMD Ryzen 7 3700X + Ryzen 9 3900X Offer Incredible Linux Performance – if you can get it to boot. Which newer distros seemingly can’t[…]
Taiwanese artist Hsu Tung Han, however, uses them for inspiration in his latest series of stunning wooden sculptures. By carving delicate block-shaped details that separate from various parts of the sculpture, Han successfully creates the bizarre yet magnificently original illusion of pixelation in 3D form. He applies this technique masterfully on his most recent finished Read more about Dynamic Wood Sculptures Carved to Look Like Pixelated Glitches[…]
Researchers in a warming Arctic are discovering organisms, frozen and presumed dead for millennia, that can bear life anew. These ice age zombies range from simple bacteria to multicellular animals, and their endurance is prompting scientists to revise their understanding of what it means to survive. “You wouldn’t assume that anything buried for hundreds of Read more about Ancient life awakens amid thawing ice caps and permafrost[…]
The tech world is probably sitting on the edge of a charger revolution, and most of us just haven’t realized it yet. No, I’m not talking about USB-C (sadly); I’m talking about GaN (gallium nitride) chargers, a material that’s started to replace silicon in chargers. I’ve had the chance to try out two of the Read more about The next generation of GaN wall chargers is getting smaller and better[…]