SATURDAY, 27 APRIL 2024, 08:40
Staying close to friends isn’t always easy. From calling out flakiness to singing together in a choir, experts share their advice on how to keep the spark alive
There is no getting around it, you have to make time to be a good friend. According to Robin Dunbar, professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Oxford and author of Friends: Understanding the Power of our Most Important...
Eskom’s reliance on expensive diesel to manage power supply has cost South Africa nearly R65 billion in the past 5 years.
An anonymous reader quotes a report published last week by Physics World: Researchers at the Dutch quantum institute QuTech in Delft have announced plans to build Europe’s first 100-quantum bit (qubit) quantum computer. When complete in 2026, the device will be made publicly available, providing scientists with a tool for quantum calculations and simulations. The project is funded by the Dutch...
The FTC is issuing more than $5.6 million in refunds to Ring customers as part of a privacy settlement. The Associated Press reports: In a 2023 complaint, the FTC accused the doorbell camera and home security provider of allowing its employees and contractors to access customers’ private videos. Ring allegedly used such footage to train algorithms without consent, among other purposes. Ring was...
In its third-quarter earnings call on Thursday, Microsoft reported a 30% drop in Xbox console sales, after reporting a 30% drop last April. “It blamed the nosedive on a ‘lower volume of consoles sold’ during the start of 2024,” reports Kotaku. From the report: In February, Grand Theft Auto VI parent company Take-Two claimed in a presentation to investors that there were roughly 77 million “gen...
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit overturned a prior district court decision, lifting the injunction that blocked New York’s law mandating that ISPs offer $15 broadband plans to low-income families. Ars Technica reports: The ruling (PDF) is a loss for six trade groups that represent ISPs, although it isn’t clear right now whether the law will be enforced. For consumers who qualify...
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: A new campaign tracked as “Dev Popper” is targeting software developers with fake job interviews in an attempt to trick them into installing a Python remote access trojan (RAT). The developers are asked to perform tasks supposedly related to the interview, like downloading and running code from GitHub, in an effort to make the entire...
The free tax filing pilot from the IRS that rolled out in 12 states last month saved filers an estimated $5.6 million in tax preparation fees for federal returns, said IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel. CNBC reports: This season, more than 140,000 taxpayers successfully filed returns using IRS Direct File, a free tax filing pilot from the IRS, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury and...
Tobias Mann reports via The Register: Canadian systems builder 45 Drives is perhaps best known for the dense multi-drive storage systems employed by the likes of Backblaze and others, but over the last year the biz has expanded its line-up to virtualization kit, and now low-power clients and workstations aimed at enterprises and home enthusiasts alike. 45 Drives’ Home Client marks a departure...
More like Robot Rock, am I right? (Sorry.) These are some of the best dust-busters around and they’re cheaper than usual.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Darktrace is set to go private in a deal that values the U.K.-based cybersecurity giant at around $5 billion. A newly formed entity called Luke Bidco Ltd., formed by private equity giant Thoma Bravo, has tabled an all-cash bid of $7.75 per share, which represents a 44% premium on its average price for the three-month period ending April 25....
A judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by superconductivity physicist Ranga Dias against his employer, the University of Rochester in New York. From a report: In February, a university investigation found that he had committed scientific misconduct by, among other things, fabricating data to claim the discovery of superconductors — materials with zero electrical resistance — at room...
The head of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency warned the country’s leading research universities on Thursday that foreign states are targeting their institutions and imperilling national security. The Record: “We know that our universities are being actively targeted by hostile actors and need to guard against the threat posed to frontier research in the most sensitive sectors,” said the...
In an investigative report into crashes and deaths associated with Tesla Autopilot, federal regulators concluded that the system lacked standard protections.
A now-abandoned USB worm that backdoors connected devices has continued to self-replicate for years since its creators lost control of it and remains active on thousands, possibly millions, of machines, researchers said Thursday. ArsTechnica: The worm — which first came to light in a 2023 post published by security firm Sophos — became active in 2019 when a variant of malware known as PlugX...
From Road House to Bottoms, these are the must-watch films on Amazon Prime Video.
From Mr. and Mrs. Smith to Fallout, these are our picks for what you should be watching on the streamer.
Captchas that aim to distinguish humans from nefarious bots are demanding more brain power. WSJ: The companies and cybersecurity experts who design Captchas have been doing all they can to stay one step ahead of the bad actors figuring out how to crack them. A cottage industry of third-party Captcha-solving firms — essentially, humans hired to solve the puzzles all day — has emerged. More...
Research shows AMH is suppressed in vapers compared with non-vapers, as it is in smokers
Women should give up vaping if they are hoping to get pregnant, according to a study that suggests it may affect fertility.
In the first research to demonstrate a link between fertility prospects and electronic cigarettes across a large population, analysis of blood samples from 8,340 women revealed that...
Nintendo is once again flexing its copyright muscles by filing takedown requests for user-generated content on the popular game platform.
The GNOME Foundation, a non-profit organization supporting the GNOME desktop environment, has been operating at a deficit for several years, depleting its financial reserves. Robert McQueen, the foundation’s president, has announced plans to increase fundraising efforts in a new blog post. McQueen adds: As you may be aware, the GNOME Foundation has operated at a deficit (nonprofit speak for a...