SUNDAY, 09 AUGUST 2020, 16:16
The cosmologist, author and Twitter sensation on ‘heat death’, getting heckled by Stephen Hawking – and being name-checked on a No 1 album
Katie Mack achieves two improbable feats with her new book, The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking). First, she writes about the end of the universe with a jauntiness that makes it not actually that depressing. And second, she takes concepts in...
“As controversy rages over the governance of Google’s Istio service mesh, Microsoft has seen an opportunity to offer a simple and truly open alternative,” reports InfoWorld:Microsoft has announced that it will release its own open source service mesh — called Open Service Mesh (OSM) — and transfer it to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) as soon as possible. This sets the...
Consumer research firm NPD group has published the ten best-selling games of 2020 to date.
A government-funded system known as Most Serious Violence was built to predict first offenses but turned out to be wildly inaccurate.
WIRED Tested. These are our favorite portable Bluetooth speakers of all shapes and sizes, from waterproof clip-ons to a massive boombox.
If you don’t have AC at home, or are stuck in the heat outdoors, we have tips and gear for you.
New computer simulations model an alternate way of thinking about the cosmos: as a cyclic universe that has no beginning or end.
South African mobile users must remain wary of fraudulent SIM swaps, which could expose their personal and banking information to criminals.
You don’t have to stay inside Google and Apple’s walled gardens. But if you choose to venture out, proceed with caution.
Researchers found troubling bugs in open-source libraries used by financial institutions.
Using millions of programs in online repositories, Intel, Georgia Tech, and MIT researchers created a tool called MISIM (Machine Inferred code Similarity) with a database of code scored by the similarity of its outcomes to suggest alternatives (and corrections) to programmers. The hope is “to aid developers with nitty-gritty choices like ‘what is the most efficient way to use this API’ or ‘how...
Among the hackers who trawl the Internet for vulnerable systems are a class of uninvited security researchers who uncover security flaws not to exploit them, but report them.
“For the first time ever, the world’s largest companies are telling hundreds of thousands of workers to stay away from the office for a full year, or longer,” notes the Atlantic. “If, in five years, these edicts have no lingering effects on office culture, that would be awfully strange…”Ambitious engineers, media makers, marketers, PR people, and others may be more inclined to strike out on...
Contact tracing must improve to prevent resurgence, say care chief and top scientist
Coronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverage
One of the government’s most influential scientific advisers is warning that the loosening of lockdown may have already gone too far and that an urgent increase in coronavirus testing and faster contact tracing is essential to prepare for a...
Survey sparks concern over misconceptions about vaccines and scepticism about science
Coronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverage
Only half the population of Britain definitely would accept being vaccinated against Covid-19. That is the shock conclusion of a group of scientists and pollsters who have found that only 53% of a test group of citizens said they would be certain or...
Twitter Inc. has held early talks about a potential combination with TikTok, the Chinese-owned video-sharing app that the Trump administration has declared a national-security threat, Dow Jones reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
The Gauteng provincial health department has suspended its supply chain chief director following an investigation into corruption in the awarding of personal protective equipment (PPE) contracts, reports the Sunday Times.
Communications Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams is allegedly at war over the payment of the R350 COVID-19 relief grants and the appointment of a new SAPO CEO – Report.
Long-time Slashdot reader goombah99 wonders how college students should approach this next academic year. First, should defer their next academic year? Even universities opening their dorms are still limiting their dining facilities to take-out box lunches and offering most of their classes online. (Though some give students a choice of online or in-person classes). Yet despite the new rules,...
South Africa’s COVID-19 infections show signs of slowing across most provinces, and Ramaphosa could announce eased lockdown restrictions later this week.
China’s Great Firewall “is now blocking HTTPS connections set up via the new TLS 1.3 encryption protocol and which use ESNI (Encrypted Server Name Indication),” reports ZDNet:The block has been in place for more than a week, according to a joint report authored by three organizations tracking Chinese censorship — iYouPort, the University of Maryland, and the Great Firewall Report. ZDNet also...