THURSDAY, 25 FEBRUARY 2021, 09:41
UK researchers seek to dispel concerns over pills prescribed for those at higher risk of heart attack and strokes
Statins are generally not the cause of the muscle aches and pains that stop some people taking the pills prescribed to protect them against serious heart problems, according to a novel study that hopes to dispel some of the concerns.
Two million people in the UK who are at higher...
Verizon Communications committed $45 billion for 5G wireless airwaves in a government auction that attracted record bidding as the largest U.S. mobile carriers race to build faster networks. From a report: At $23 billion, AT&T was the second-highest bidder, according to the Federal Communications Commission, which ran the auction. Participants also included T-Mobile US Inc. and pay-TV providers...
Nasa scientists release the first sounds ever recorded on Mars, a light gust of wind on the planet’s surface on Monday.
‘I invite you now to, if you would like to, close your eyes and just imagine yourself sitting on the surface of Mars and listening to the surroundings,’ says Dave Gruel, camera suite lead for the Perseverance rover
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RoccamOccam writes: The developers at Discord have seen success with Rust on their video encoding pipeline for Go Live and on their Elixir NIFs’ server. Recently, they penned a post explaining how they have drastically improved the performance of a service by switching its implementation from Go to Rust. From the post, “Remarkably, we had only put very basic thought into optimization as the...
Now that the consumer electronics big-box store has shuttered, future generations need a place to go to touch and discover the next great piece of tech.
Worried about the security of Linux and open-source code, Google is sponsoring a pair of full-time developers to work on the kernel’s security. From a report: The internet giant builds code from its own repositories rather than downloading outside binaries, though given the pace at which code is being added to Linux, this task is non-trivial. Google’s open-source security team lead Dan Lorenc...
The Federal Reserve’s system that allows financial institutions to send money back and forth electronically went down Wednesday morning. From a report: The “operational error,” as the Fed described it, impacted multiple services, including its pivotal automated clearinghouse system, which connects depository and related institutions send electronic credit and debt transfers. There were no...
Controversial data-crunching firm Palantir’s deal with the UK health service is under the spotlight.
Frosty P writes: The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) has removed Marko Rodriguez from the TinkerPop project he co-founded because his provocative Twitter posts were said to have violated the ASF Code of Conduct. “I was removed from the project I started 11 years ago for ‘publishing offensive humor that borders on hate speech,'” Rodriguez explained in an email to The Register. “However, now...
Practical and ethical concerns are valid, but a well-designed policy with the right legal safeguards could make a valuable difference
Boris Johnson appears, at last, to have learned the folly of overconfidence in fighting the pandemic. He used to make rash promises with grandiose optimism. Now his plans are laden with caveats. The adjustment is welcome, albeit too late for those whose lives...
When Amazon made a unilateral decision in early February to stop accepting documentaries and short films via Prime Video Direct (a policy that also covers “slide shows, vlogs, podcasts, tutorials, filmed conferences, monologues, toy play, music videos, and voiceover gameplay”), the announcement also served as a quiet purge. Amazon also has been dropping long-running documentary titles from the...
JustWatch makes finding where shows or movies are streaming online super easy. Hallelujah.
Starlink broadband speeds will double to 300Mbps “later this year,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on Twitter this week. SpaceX has been telling users to expect speeds of 50Mbps to 150Mbps since the beta began a few months ago. From a report: Musk also wrote that “latency will drop to ~20ms later this year.” This is no surprise, as SpaceX promised latency of 20ms to 40ms during the beta and had...
UnknowingFool and scores of other readers have shared this report: Fry’s Electronics, the decades-old superstore chain with locations in nine American states, appears to have gone defunct. Bay Area TV station KRON-4 was the first press outlet to confirm the news late Tuesday, saying that Fry’s will shut down all 30 of its American locations. The retailer will reportedly make an announcement at...
Bidorbuy was launched at the height of the dotcom boom and nearly lost everything when the bubble burst. Here is the incredible story of how one man saved the company.
Home affairs committee chair Yvette Cooper ‘astonished’ by Priti Patel’s responses to questions
Coronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverage
A former military barracks being used to house asylum seekers has had at least 197 positive cases of Covid-19 this year alone, far higher than previously thought, the most senior civil servant at the Home Office has revealed.
The total...
PlayStation’s head honcho shares news on PS5 stock, Sony’s 2021 release schedule, and a new PlayStation VR headset.
HP has announced that it is acquiring gaming peripheral company HyperX for $425 million. The purchase will give HP a major foothold in the gaming accessory market. From a report: This transaction will result in HP buying the HyperX brand from Kingston, the current owner, but HP notes in the announcement post that “Kingston will retain the DRAM, flash, and SSD products for gamers and...
The SA Revenue Service will receive an additional allocation of R3 billion to modernise its technology infrastructure and systems, reveals finance minister Tito Mboweni.
Cosmic radio backlights are helping scientists size up “missing” forms of matter and might offer clues about what makes up the universe.