The New York Times looks at “a wave of new battery technologies that could lead to novel designs in consumer electronics and help accelerate the electrification of cars and airplanes. They may even help store electricity on the power grid, lending a ha…
First Evidence of Elusive ‘Triangle Singularity’ Shows Particles Swapping Identities
LiveScience reports that physicists sifting through old particle accelerator data “have found evidence of a highly-elusive, never-before-seen process: a so-called triangle singularity.”
Long-time Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot shares their report:
First…
Senator Wyden Reflects on 9/11’s Legacy: Mass Surveillance
“After 9/11, I took the threat of terrorism seriously, still do,” U.S. Senator Ron Wyden tells Fast Company. “But also I was concerned about how the new surveillance authorities might be abused…”
From Fast Company’s report:
After the 9/11 attacks…
20 Years After the World Trade Center Attack, a Nation Remembers
I first saw the news on the front page of Yahoo.com. But every American remembers where they were when they heard the news. “The World Trade Towers in new york were crashed into by 2 planes, one on each tower, 18 minutes apart,” CmdrTaco posted on Slas…
Security Weaknesses in Mozilla VPN Found and Addressed by Audit
“Recently, browsing leader Mozilla shared the result of an independent security audit on its VPN service,” reports Fossbytes.
“Upon inspection, a few vulnerabilities were discovered in the VPN, one of which was reportedly a major risk.”
In a blog pos…
Can a Code-Writing AI Be Good News For Humans?
“A.I. Can Now Write Its Own Computer Code,” blares a headline in the New York Times, adding “That’s Good News for Humans. (Alternate URL here.)
The article begins with this remarkable story about Codex (the OpenAI software underlying GitHub Copilot):
…
Krebs Also Hit By Massive DDOS, Apparently Caused by Compromised Routers
“On Thursday evening, KrebsOnSecurity was the subject of a rather massive (and mercifully brief) distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack,” the site reports.
Citing a new blog post from DDoS protection firm Qrator Labs, Krebs writes that “The ass…
New Texas Law Tries Making it Illegal for Social Media Sites to Ban Users Over Political Viewpoints
The U.S. state of Texas “has made it illegal for social media platforms to ban users ‘based on their political viewpoints’,” repots the BBC:
Prominent Republican politicians have accused Facebook, Twitter and others of censoring conservative views… …
A Surprise Contributor to Climate Change? Food Waste
The Guardian writes:
About a third of all the world’s food goes to waste, and producing, transporting and letting that food rot releases 8-10% of global greenhouse gases. If food waste were a country, it would have the third-biggest carbon footprint a…
Will Gaming Change Humanity As We Know It?
“The advent of gaming, especially computer gaming, marks a fundamental break in human affairs,” argues American economist Tyler Cowen (in a Bloomberg opinion column).
“Gaming is profoundly transforming two central aspects of the modern world: culture…