It’s hard to say how long The Metal has been around. This is because The Metal does not care for the laws of linear time. What we do know is that for thousands of years, humanity has both feared and revered The Metal, as evidenced once again by the recent discovery of an ancient skull cult.
Source: Gizmodo – New Evidence of an Ancient Neolithic Skull Cult Proves Humans Have Always Been Metal
Space junk is a huge problem in orbit. Over 500,000 pieces of debris are currently orbiting the Earth at up to 17,500 miles per hour, and we haven’t yet figured out how to clean it up. But engineers at Stanford may have made a breakthrough: They’ve d…
Source: Engadget – A lizard-inspired robot gripper may solve our space-junk problems
Eight days ago Lennart Poettering of systemd fame unveiled his work on the new casync project while this week he is talking about a new tool…
Source: Phoronix – Lennart Formally Introduces “mkosi” Tool
We’re just two days away from the official deadline to apply for Engadget’s unreal arts program for unreal times. But what is time, really?
In the spirit of breaking with convention, we’ve extended the deadline to apply for Engadget’s Alternate Real…
Source: Engadget – Apply now for Engadget’s 0,000 immersive art program
It is a strange and wonderful experience where you don’t know what’s around the corner
Source: TreeHugger – Biking and walking in Berlin is a breath of fresh air (metaphorically, not literally)
The influx of money that tourists bring may be good for the economy, but many Italians are saying, ‘Enough!’
Source: TreeHugger – How industrial-style tourism is hurting Italy
This is a video from the rear window of a Tesla Model S of a Porsche that spins out while trying to keep up with the Tesla Model S’s 0-60MPH in 2.5 seconds Ludicrous Mode out of a turn. The guy in the Tesla just cackles. Me? I didn’t think it was funny, mostly because these two shouldn’t be speeding around on those streets to begin with. Does that look like a race track to you? You could cause an accident driving like that. You could also cause an accident driving like this. “Like how?” Like I’m driving right now. “Wait — are you driving and writing this?” No, I’m just topless. “And why would that cause an accident?” What if I told you my nipples look like red lights?
Keep going for the video.
Source: Geekologie – Porsche Spins Out Trying To Keep Up With Tesla S’s Acceleration
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | WIN-Initiative)
Charter Communications has filed a complaint against Verizon, saying the telco violated New York state’s public service law and regulations by denying access to utility poles.
Charter is required to extend its network in New York state to 145,000 homes and businesses by May 2020 under a condition imposed on its purchase of Time Warner Cable, and it was supposed to complete the first 36,250 locations by May of this year. Charter last week was fined by New York regulators for failing to complete the first wave of construction on time, but it largely blamed its failure on Verizon in a complaint filed on Saturday with the New York Public Service Commission.
“In the face of Verizon’s intransigence, Charter has been unable to satisfy the milestones in the Buildout Condition,” Charter said. Charter is the second-largest cable company in the US after Comcast.
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Source: Ars Technica – Verizon illegally denied Charter access to utility poles, complaint says
Ever since Apple Music got its big redesign last year, you’ve had access to just two personalized playlists: a favorites mix and a new releases mix. Suffice it to say that this won’t cover the bases if you want tunes that suit a specific mood. Howe…
Source: Engadget – Apple Music’s latest personalized playlist helps you chill
Samsung caught a whole mess of bad press last year after numerous reports of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphone exploding. The company, however, apparently believes there’s still a rabid fanbase demanding a defused version of its mobile time bomb. So a refurbished version of the phone is going back on shelves next…
Source: Gizmodo – Samsung Wants to Sell Refurbished Note 7s With the Silliest Possible Name
FBI agents on Tuesday paid visits to at least a dozen employees of Kaspersky Lab, a Russia-based cyber-security company, asking questions about that company’s operations as part of a counter-intelligence inquiry, multiple sources familiar with the matter told NBC News. From a report: In a classic FBI investigative tactic, agents visited the homes of the employees at the end of the work day at multiple locations on both the east and west coasts, the sources said. There is no indication at this time that the inquiry is part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election meddling and possible collusion. Kaspersky has long been of interest to the U.S. government. Its cyber-security software is widely used in the United States, and its billionaire owner, Eugene Kaspersky, has close ties to some Russian intelligence figures, according to U.S. officials.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – FBI Interviews Employees of Russia-Linked Cyber Security Firm Kaspersky Lab
Enlarge / CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks at Facebook’s 2016 “F8” conference. (credit: Facebook)
This article originally appeared on ProPublica on June 28, 2017.
In the wake of a terrorist attack in London earlier this month, a US congressman wrote a Facebook post in which he called for the slaughter of “radicalized” Muslims. “Hunt them, identify them, and kill them,” declared US Rep. Clay Higgins, a Louisiana Republican. “Kill them all. For the sake of all that is good and righteous. Kill them all.”
Higgins’ plea for violent revenge went untouched by Facebook workers who scour the social network deleting offensive speech.
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Source: Ars Technica – Facebook’s secret rules mean that it’s ok to be anti-Islam, but not anti-gay
You can finally add “swimming pools” to your running list of seemingly mundane-but-murderous-pastimes. At around 7pm EDT on Monday, local authorities in Tampa responded to an emergency call involving five sick children at a local pool. As reported by ABC News and others, a “cloud of chlorine gas” appeared in the…
Source: Gizmodo – How a Chlorine ‘Freak Accident’ in a Pool Hospitalized Five Kids
While Vulkan has taken much of the spotlight in the past year when it comes to multi-platform graphics APIs, OpenGL continues to be used by many games, a lot of commercial/workstation software continues relying on OpenGL and that will not change over night, and there it continues to be a widely-used graphics API even if it may not be as fast or customizable as Vulkan. While we previously heard there would likely not be a new version of OpenGL in the foreseeable future, it appears OpenGL 4.6 is on the way…
Source: Phoronix – OpenGL 4.6 Appears To Be On The Way
It is looking that Petya might have been a wolf in wolf’s clothing which brings an interesting new wrinkle to the surface in all of this ransomware nonsense that we are dealing with. Petya, NotPetya, NewPetya, whatever you may want to call it, looks as though its primary goal may have not to been to actually be ransomware at all, but rather a tool that was being directed at specific entities in order to destroy data residing on those systems. Ransomware may have just been a cover for something more nefarious as is being looked into by security experts currently. It looks as though the worst is behind us at this time. If you have patched with Microsoft Security Bulletin MS17-010 – Critical and have Windows Defender up to date with current definitions, you should be “safe” from Petya and its variants.
Point of entry for Petya appears to be a corrupted Ukrainian accounting software and a Ukrainian government website hacked to be a watering hole. Petya was likely updated WannaCry code.
The killswitch that referred to earlier has been tested extensively and does in fact work. It seems that WannaCry greatly hampered Petya’s ability to infect systems globally, due to the extensive attention that WannaCry did get. And this again brings into question the exact motive behind Petya.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – You Petya Ass We Have Some Details
LG’s W-series “Picture-on-Wall” TVs wowed us at CES, but we knew the massive 65-inch and 77-inch hyperthin screens would cost a mint. Especially since last year’s top-of-the-line G-series started at $5,000. Wonder no longer, screen aficionados: The l…
Source: Engadget – LG’s 77-inch Wallpaper TV is selling for the low, low price of k
Humans don’t like dying, they don’t like the idea of dying, and most have made not dying an important part of their life. Lots of folks are interested in making us not die for longer, so it was a real bummer last year when a team of researchers said that the maximum human lifespan has plateaued at around 115 years of…
Source: Gizmodo – Scientists Push Back Against Controversial Paper Claiming a Limit To Human Lifespans
Celarent Darii writes: There is a vulnerability in the latest ubuntu distributions due to the DNS resolver included in systemd. The inclusion of the dns resolver was lamented by many on the mailing list, not without cause. All are advised to update their distribution.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Vulnerability Discovered In Latest Ubuntu Distributions, Users Advised To Update
If you’re packing your laptop in a checked bag, the best advice is probably don’t do it. From lost luggage to lost data, there’s so much that can go wrong. With the threat of a laptop ban looming, though, you may not have a choice. Whatever the circumstance, you want to keep your laptop safe once you drop off your bag…
Source: LifeHacker – What to Do Before Packing Your Laptop in a Checked Bag
Enlarge / Customers of the telecommunications and Internet provider TalkTalk are among those who have been targeted in a Windows support scam operation in the UK. London Police announced the arrest of four suspected of involvement with the ring today. (credit: Carl Court/Getty Images)
City of London Police, collaborating with Microsoft, have made four arrests as the result of a two-year investigation into rings of “Windows support” fraudsters. The arrests, London Police Commander Dave Clark told the press, “are just the beginning of our work, making the best use of specialist skills and expertise from Microsoft, local police forces, and international partners to tackle a crime that often targets the most vulnerable in our society.”
The four suspects—a man and woman working together in Surrey, and another couple working from South Shields, Tyneside, are accused of being involved with a scheme operating out of a call center in India. Their role in the scams is not clear.
The scam, similar to the one Ars intercepted in January, seeks to convince would-be victims to install remote-access software on their computers and then to set up recurring credit card billing for technical support or anti-virus software. In these cases, the scammers often posed as employees of the UK Internet service providers BT and TalkTalk, saying that they had been authorized by Microsoft to provide technical support.
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Source: Ars Technica – London police arrest four in Windows support scam bust
