An anonymous reader writes:
A “spaceshot” company that emerged from Y Combinator three summers ago and is targeting a revolutionary change in the way computers work has landed $64 million to help it in the race against much bigger tech giants. Rigetti Computing, which operates out of Berkeley and Fremont, is tackling quantum computing and going up against research being done by the likes of IBM, Intel, Microsoft and others… Rigetti is building a cloud quantum computing platform for artificial intelligence and computational chemistry. It recently opened up private beta testing of ‘Forest’, its API for quantum computing in the cloud. It integrates directly with existing cloud infrastructure and treats the quantum computer as an accelerator.
“The potential to make a positive impact on humanity is enormous,” said Chad Rigetti, the startup’s founder and CEO — who declined to say whether the company is actually earning any revenue yet.

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Source: Slashdot – Y Combinator-Funded Startup To Do Quantum Computing — Only Better

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fierce Telecom: During a press event yesterday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said that next up on President Trump’s telecom agenda is to roll back the FCC’s 2015 Open Internet net neutrality rules. However, according to some reports, that might not happen as quickly as Congress’ recent move to rescind rules that prevented internet service providers from selling users’ data. As noted by the New York Times, Spicer said that President Trump had “pledged to reverse this overreach” created by net neutrality. He said the FCC’s net neutrality rules, passed in 2015, are an example of “bureaucrats in Washington” placing unfair restrictions on internet service providers, essentially “picking winners and losers” in the telecom market. In comments aimed at the wider telecom market, Spicer said Trump will “continue to fight Washington red tape that stifles American innovation, job creation and economic growth.” However, as the NYT reports, the process to repeal net neutrality likely won’t follow the same procedure as Congress’ recent vote to remove broadband privacy rules — since those rules were only a year old, Congress was able to use the Congressional Review Act to move forward with its action. The FCC’s net neutrality rules, however, are more than two years old and so can’t be reviewed by that same act. Thus, it may fall on newly installed FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to rescind the FCC’s Open Internet rules, which he voted against when he was a commissioner at the agency under former chief Tom Wheeler.

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Source: Slashdot – Net Neutrality Is Trump’s Next Target, Administration Says [Flagged]

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fierce Telecom: During a press event yesterday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said that next up on President Trump’s telecom agenda is to roll back the FCC’s 2015 Open Internet net neutrality rules. However, according to some reports, that might not happen as quickly as Congress’ recent move to rescind rules that prevented internet service providers from selling users’ data. As noted by the New York Times, Spicer said that President Trump had “pledged to reverse this overreach” created by net neutrality. He said the FCC’s net neutrality rules, passed in 2015, are an example of “bureaucrats in Washington” placing unfair restrictions on internet service providers, essentially “picking winners and losers” in the telecom market. In comments aimed at the wider telecom market, Spicer said Trump will “continue to fight Washington red tape that stifles American innovation, job creation and economic growth.” However, as the NYT reports, the process to repeal net neutrality likely won’t follow the same procedure as Congress’ recent vote to remove broadband privacy rules — since those rules were only a year old, Congress was able to use the Congressional Review Act to move forward with its action. The FCC’s net neutrality rules, however, are more than two years old and so can’t be reviewed by that same act. Thus, it may fall on newly installed FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to rescind the FCC’s Open Internet rules, which he voted against when he was a commissioner at the agency under former chief Tom Wheeler.

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Source: Slashdot – Net Neutrality Is Trump’s Next Target, Administration Says

A new study conducted by Which? magazine has found that “the battery life claimed by laptop manufacturers rarely lives up to reality. “Although Apple’s battery life claims were the closest to reality, in the case of some other manufacturers, their laptops lasted hours less than the stated time,” reports Digital Trends. From the report: In its testing, Which looked at the battery life claims of 67 different laptop models from manufacturers as diverse as Asus, Apple, Acer, HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Toshiba — some of the world’s most popular laptop makers. It found that while Apple’s average claim of 10 hours was proven correct — and was even slightly better in some cases — Dell’s claims were overstated by more than four hours, and HP, close to five. The times listed in the header image are the average claimed battery life for all of the laptops Which? has tested over the past year versus the times it recorded in its internal testing. That involved charging the laptops to full, then running them down to nothing three times, using online web browsing via Wi-Fi or watching local videos to do so. Out of all laptops tested, the only manufacturer to understate battery claims was Apple. In one case, it claimed that its MacBook Pro 13 could achieve 10 hours of usage, while tests suggested it could go for as long as 12 hours. At the other end of the spectrum though, there were some really egregious overstatements. The Lenovo Yoga 510 has a claimed battery life of five hours — it only lasted two hours and seven minutes. The HP Pavilion 14-al115na is supposed to be able to run for nine hours, but was only capable of four hours and 25 minutes. The Acer E15 claimed six hours but ran for just under three hours.

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Source: Slashdot – Study Shows Laptop Batteries Often Don’t Last As Long As They Say

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: A new tool released on GitHub last week can help paranoid sysadmins keep track of whenever someone plugs in or disconnects an USB-based device from high-value workstations. Called USB Canary, this tool is coded in Python and currently, works only on Linux (versions for Windows and Mac are in the works). The tool works by watching USB ports for any activity while the computer is locked, which generally means the owner has left his desk. If an USB device is plugged in or unplugged, USB Canary can perform one of two actions, or both. It can alert the owner by sending an SMS message via the Twilio API, or it can post a message in a Slack channel, which can be monitored by other co-workers. USB Canary can prove to be a very useful tool for large organizations that feature strict PC policies. For example, if you really want to enforce a “No USB drives” at work, this could be the tool for the job. Further, with modifications, it could be used for logging USB activity on air-gapped systems.

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Source: Slashdot – USB Canary Sends An SMS When Someone Tinkers With Your USB Ports

bongey writes: Palmer Lucky has left Facebook, which bought Oculus for $2 billion. The anti-Hillary memes controversy led to the resignation. UploadVR reports: “According to Oculus, this will be Palmer’s last week with Friday marking his official last day as an employee of Facebook. In an official statement, the company said that: ‘Palmer will be dearly missed. Palmer’s legacy extends far beyond Oculus. His inventive spirit helped kickstart the modern VR revolution and helped build an industry. We’re thankful for everything he did for Oculus and VR, and we wish him all the best.’ When asked if Luckey’s departure was voluntary, Facebook representatives declined to comment, citing a policy of not discussing internal personnel matters. This revelation comes around one year after Luckey himself hand-delivered the first consumer Oculus Rift to a pre-order customer in Alaska. In just over 12 months, the 24-year-old transformed from the face of one of the tech world’s most well-known teams into a bit of a recluse, disappearing from public view during the 2016 US presidential election and emerging only for an appearance in court.” UploadVR has provided a timeline of events leading up to Luckey’s departure in their report.

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Source: Slashdot – Oculus Co-Founder and Rift Creator Palmer Luckey Leaves Facebook

Joe Venzor, a former employee at boot manufacturer Lucchese, had a near total meltdown after he got fired from his IT system administrator position. According to TechSpot, he shut down the company’s email and application servers and deleted the core system files. Venzor now faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. From the report: Venzor was let go from his position at the company’s help desk and immediately turned volatile. He left the building at 10:30AM and by 11:30, the company’s email and application servers had been shut down. Because of this, all activities ground to a halt at the factory and employees had to be sent home. When the remaining IT staff tried to restart them, they discovered the core system files had been deleted and their account permissions had been demoted. Eventually the company was forced to hire a contractor to clean up all of the damage, but this resulted in weeks of backlog and lost orders. While recovering from the attack was difficult, finding out who did it was simple. Venzor was clearly the prime suspect given the timing of the incident, so they checked his account history. They discovered he had collected usernames and passwords of his IT colleagues, created a backdoor account disguised as an office printer, and used that account from his official work computer.

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Source: Slashdot – Rogue System Administrator Faces 10 Years In Prison For Shutting Down Servers, Deleting Core Files On the Day He Was Fired