harrymcc writes: In the 1960s, Bob Moog helped invent electronic music as we know it by popularizing the synthesizer. He died in 2005, but Moog synthesizers are still widely used by top musical acts. And now his life, work, and legacy are the subject of a new museum in Asheville, NC, his hometown. Over at Fast Company, Sean Captain took a look at the museum, Moog’s accomplishments, and the...

GitHub today launched Sponsors, a new tool that lets you give financial support to open-source developers through recurring monthly payments. Developers will be able to opt into having a “Sponsor me” button on their GitHub repositories and open-source projects will also be able to highlight their funding models, no matter whether that’s individual contributions to developers or using Patreon,...

The Senate on Thursday passed a bill that aims to crack down on unwanted robocalls. “The legislation would impose stiffer fines of as much as $10,000 per call on robocallers who knowingly flout the rules on calls and would increase the statute of limitations to three years, up from one year,” reports CNN. “It also instructs the Federal Communications Commission to develop further regulations...

Samsung has developed a new artificial intelligence system for creating deepfakes — fabricated clips that make people appear to do or say things they never did — that only needs as little as one photo. CNET reports: The technology, of course, can be used for fun, like bringing a classic portrait to life. The Mona Lisa, whose enigmatic smile is animated in three different videos to demonstrate...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: As reported by The Washington Post and CNET, the heads of NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warn [5G wireless networks] could set back the world’s weather forecasting abilities by 40 years — reducing our ability to predict the path of deadly hurricanes and the amount of time available to evacuate. It’s because...

Elon Musk’s Boring Company now has a paying customer. “Late Wednesday, the board of directors of the Las Vegas Conventions and Visitors Authority voted to grant a $48,675,000 contract to the Boring Company to build a 0.83-mile, three-station version of the company’s Loop mass-transit system inside of Vegas’ sprawling, revamped convention center, which is currently under construction,” reports...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Comcast may be harming its reputation by failing to reveal all of its lobbying activities, including its involvement in trade associations and lobbying at the state level, a group of shareholders says in a proposal that asks for more lobbying disclosures. Comcast’s disclosures for its lobbying of state governments “are often cursory or...

Facebook released its community standards enforcement report Thursday morning, offering a much more in-depth look at the inner workings of the company than previously seen. From a report: One of the most surprising insights came from Facebook’s removal of fake accounts. The company said it removed 2.2 billion accounts in the first quarter of the 2019. That’s a jump of nearly double compared to...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday rebuffed calls for the company to be broken up over competition concerns, disputing claims the firm has grown too dominant. From a report: During a call with reporters, Zuckerberg was pressed to address recent calls from Democratic officials and one Facebook co-founder for federal regulators to force the company to spin off WhatsApp and Instagram,...

Julian Assange was charged Thursday in an 18-count superseding indictment for his role in orchestrating the 2010 WikiLeaks disclosures, described by the U.S. government as “one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States.” From a report: According to the Justice Department, the new charges from a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia...

Several departments inside social media giant Snap have dedicated tools for accessing user data, and multiple employees have abused their privileged access to spy on Snapchat users, Motherboard reported on Thursday. From the report: Two former employees said multiple Snap employees abused their access to Snapchat user data several years ago. Those sources, as well as an additional two former...