An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Executives from some of the globe’s leading technology firms are demanding that Texas not adopt “discriminatory” bathroom legislation. On the table in Texas is a law similar to one enacted — and later partially repealed — in North Carolina. The tech companies have aligned themselves with critics of the bill who believe the legislation is unfair to the transgender community. “As large employers in the state, we are gravely concerned that any such legislation would deeply tarnish Texas’ reputation as open and friendly to businesses and families,” the companies wrote Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. “Our ability to attract, recruit and retain top talent, encourage new business relocations, expansions and investment, and maintain our economic competitiveness would all be negatively affected.” Pending Texas Senate legislation would prohibit transgender people in Texas from using restrooms matching their gender identities. The House on Sunday passed its own bill that would apply the bathroom limitations solely at schools. The tech companies, however, aren’t threatening to pull out of Texas, like some did over the same issue in North Carolina. The letter sent to Gov. Abbott was signed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon chief Jeff Wilke, IBM head Ginni Rometty, Microsoft President Brad Smith, and Google’s Sundar Pichai. There were 14 companies — including Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, Silicon Labs, Celanese Corp., GSD&M, Salesforce, and Gearbox Software — signing on to the letter. “Discrimination is wrong and it has no place in Texas or anywhere in our country,” the companies wrote.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google Lobby Against Texas ‘Bathroom’ Bill

New submitter omaha393 writes: Researchers at MIT used a 3D printing approach to develop a biomimetic composite capable of withstanding 70-85% more resistance than typical helmet designs. The material was manufactured using a composite of hard and soft printable polymers called VeroMagenta and TangoBlackPlus. The polymers were printed to overlay in a specific pattern that mimics conch shell molecular hierarchy, thus preventing cracks from spreading and offering a substantially more crack-resistant material. The researchers propose the material can be custom tailored and readily printed for future helmets and body armor manufacturing. The study has been published in Advanced Materials.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Conch Shells Inspire Next Generation Helmets, Body Armor

Obfiscator writes: Journalism has long had potential to change the world. The latest elections in the United States demonstrated new dimensions of this, with the rise of “fake news” and “echo chambers,” as well as a president who has few reservations in expressing his thoughts of the media. The Christian Science Monitor has been a favorite news site of mine for years, due to their objective and balanced reporting, as well as their tendency to avoid “breaking news” and provide detailed analysis a few days later. Very few stories are going to impact my world to the point where waiting a couple days to read about them will make a difference. Despite the name, the vast majority of articles have no religious context (they address this in their FAQ). CSM has recently switched to be completely behind a paywall, as well. In their words, “We hope the Monitor Daily addresses both those trends. It is pushed to where our readers are and offers this pact: We will deliver our distinctive view of the world and you support financially our ability to produce that news.” Is this the next trend: moving away from advertising revenues? Will this create more balanced journalism, as there is no need to attract clicks? Or will it deepen “echo chambers?” How do Slashdotters choose their news sites?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Ask Slashdot: How Do You Choose a News Source?

New submitter aafrn writes: “Ran Bar-Zik, a web developer at AOL, has discovered and reported a bug in Google Chrome that allows websites to record audio and video without showing a visual indicator,” reports BleepingComputer. “The bug is not as bad as it sounds, as the malicious website still needs to get the user’s permission to access audio and video components, but there are various ways in which this issue could be weaponized to record audio or video without the user’s knowledge. The bug’s central element is a ‘red circle and dot’ icon that Chrome usually shows when recording audio or video streams.” Bar-Zik discovered that if the JavaScript code that does the actual audio and video recording is launched inside a small popup, the icon is not shown anymore. This opens the door for various types of scenarios, where an attacker that has tricked a user into granting him permission to record audio and video records user data but when the user doesn’t expect this (no visual indicator). For example, an attacker could disguise audio/video recording code inside popup ads. If the user doesn’t close the popup, the popup continues to stream audio and video from the victim’s house. Google declined to consider this a security bug.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Google Chrome Bug Lets Sites Record Audio and Video Without a Visual Indicator

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Windows XP isn’t as vulnerable to the WannaCry ransomware as many assumed, according to a new report from Kryptos research. The company’s researchers found that XP computers hit with the most common WannaCry attack tended to simply crash without successfully installing or spreading the ransomware. If true, the result would undercut much of the early reporting on Windows XP’s role in spreading the globe-spanning ransomware. The core of WannaCry is a vulnerability in a Windows file-sharing system called SMB, which allowed WannaCry to spread quickly across vulnerable systems with no user interaction. But when Kryptos researchers targeted an XP computer with the malware in a lab setting, they found that the computers either failed to install or exhibited a “blue screen of death,” requiring a hard reset. It’s still possible to manually install WannaCry on XP machines, but the program’s particular method of breaking through security simply isn’t effective against the older operating system. The worst-case scenario, and likely scenario,” the Kryptos report reads, “is that WannaCry caused many unexplained blue-screen-of-death crashes.” While they cut against much of the early analysis of WannaCry, Kryptos’ findings are consistent with early research from Kaspersky Lab, which found that Windows XP accounted for an “insignificant” percentage of the total infections. Kaspersky found the bulk of infections on machines running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Windows XP Computers Were Mostly Immune To WannaCry