California Senate passes net neutrality bill

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Xordac Prime

California just edged closer to establishing its own net neutrality law in the wake of the FCC’s decision to kill federal measures. The state Senate has passed a bill that would not only institute rules like those the FCC implemented in 2015, but wo…

Source: Engadget – California Senate passes net neutrality bill

San Francisco to Uber, Lyft: If your drivers aren’t employees, prove it

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Xordac Prime

San Francisco’s city attorney has issued formal subpoenas to Uber and Lyft in order to ascertain whether the ride-sharing companies classify their drivers as employees or contractors in the wake of a landmark decision handed down by the California Supreme Court earlier this month.

Under the opinion in that case, known as Dynamex, the court found that workers can only be considered contractors under a three-part test that seeks to determine exactly how independent they are.

City Attorney Dennis Herrera will now seek “proof that Uber and Lyft have lawfully classified drivers as independent contractors or provide their drivers with minimum wage, sick leave, health care contributions, and paid parental leave.”

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Source: Ars Technica – San Francisco to Uber, Lyft: If your drivers aren’t employees, prove it

Personal Injury Law Firms Are Serving Ads to People While They're in the ER

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Xordac Prime

Injury lawyers have historically used catchy jingles and memorable slogans to entice recovering patients to secure their services. Now, the 20-second TV or radio spot might soon be replaced with ads sent directly to the phones of patients as they sit in emergency rooms.

A Rare Behind the Scenes Look at Disney World's Most Advanced Audio-Animatronic Character

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Xordac Prime

A lot of us are still scratching our heads over Disney’s decision to spend millions of dollars building Pandora—The World of Avatar in its Animal Kingdom park, especially with Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge opening so soon. But at least the themed area, which is celebrating its one year anniversary, led to the creation of…

Qualcomm Launches a New Chip Specifically For Standalone AR, VR Devices

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Xordac Prime

Yesterday at the Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara, California, Qualcomm announced a new chip specifically designed for standalone augmented reality and virtual reality devices: the Snapdragon XR1. Ars Technica reports: The company is staying tight-lipped on technical details about the new SoC for the time being. Qualcomm says the SoC will use a Kryo CPU and Adreno GPU, as Qualcomm chips typically do, but exactly how those and the rest of the XR1’s building blocks will be configured isn’t yet clear. That said, Qualcomm is slotting the XR1 below its existing Snapdragon 845 — the chip powering most of the year’s highest-end smartphones — in terms of memory bandwidth and GPU power. It is primarily aiming XR1 devices at “lean back” experiences like 360-degree video viewing, at least to start.

Even still, the company says the XR1 can output video up to 4K resolution at 60 frames per second, that it’ll keep motion-to-photon latency “well below” 20 milliseconds (so as to prevent nausea and motion sickness), and that it can handle both 3DoF and 6DoF tracking for headsets and accompanying controllers if needed. (Devices with the latter allow users to replicate a fuller range of movement in a virtual space.) Qualcomm is talking up the chip’s power management and 3D-audio abilities and its support for always-on voice assistance as well.

Routing-protocol breach of US cellular carrier exposed customer data

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Xordac Prime

The US Department of Homeland Security recently warned that malicious hackers may have targeted US phone users by exploiting a four-decades-old networking protocol used by cell phone providers around the world, according to a spokesman for US Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). Meanwhile, the spokesman said, one of the nation’s major cellular carriers recently experienced a breach of that same protocol that exposed customer data.

Short for Signalling System No. 7, SS7 is the routing protocol that allows cell phone users to connect seamlessly from network to network as they travel throughout the world. With little built-in security and no way for carriers to verify one another, SS7 has always posed a potential hole that people with access could exploit to track the real-time location of individual users. In recent years, the threat has expanded almost exponentially, in part because the number of companies with access to SS7 has grown from a handful to thousands. Another key reason: hackers can now abuse the routing protocol not just to geolocate people but, in many cases, to intercept text messages and voice calls.

SS7 already being exploited

In a letter Sen. Wyden received last week, DHS officials warned that “nefarious actors may have exploited” SS7 to “target the communications of American citizens,” Wyden spokesman Keith Chu told Ars, confirming an article published Wednesday by The Washington Post. On Tuesday, Wyden sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai that heightened concerns of SS7 hacks on US infrastructure.

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Source: Ars Technica – Routing-protocol breach of US cellular carrier exposed customer data

Lake Michigan May Get Its First-Ever Tropical Cyclone Tonight

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Xordac Prime

The early start to hurricane season continues with what could be the first landfalling tropical cyclone to make it to Lake Michigan on record.

Cyberstalking is More Effective With Venmo

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Xordac Prime

Mobile peer-to-peer payment app Venmo is great for splitting a dinner bill or giving a friend gas money, but according to a report from MarketWatch, it’s also great at helping you spy on people! In Venmo, transactions are public by default, so while the amount of the transfer is hidden, your payment activity shows who you are sending payments to, and what for if you put in a description of the payment. This allows any would be sleuth to find out if you’ve been spending time with someone you shouldn’t have, or spending money on less than legal things.

Doesn’t anyone just use cash to buy their drugs anymore? As creepy as this is, there are a few things to take away. First is don’t put information you don’t want online. Second is if someone spends hours reading your transaction history, be thankful that they are your ex.

Ben Ryan, a 28-year-old Jersey Shore resident, came across an old fling on Venmo and couldn’t resist checking to see what he had been up to. “I saw his name come up and I was, like, ‘Oh, this is going to be good,'” Ryan told MarketWatch. “I couldn’t believe I was actually doing this. I was going back to 2016. I sat in bed and scrolled.”

Discussion

Source: [H]ardOCP – Cyberstalking is More Effective With Venmo

Ambien Has Some Terrible Side Effects, Even If It Doesn't Make You Racist

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Xordac Prime

Last night, Soros truther and former hit ABC star Roseanne Barr penned a barrage of tweets attempting to explain some recent racist, paranoid tweets that got her namesake show cancelled. Among the explanations she offered, such as it being Memorial Day, she alluded to tweeting while taking the sleep aid zolpidem,…

Activists Are Using Robots to Send Abortion Pills to Northern Ireland

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Xordac Prime

Activists say they will use robots to deliver abortion pills to Northern Ireland, where abortion is only legal if the life of the woman is endangered. While it’s illegal in the region for a pregnant woman to have a medical abortion in nearly all cases, the organizations operating the robots said on Wednesday that they…

Google's Pixel 3 XL might have a notch and edge-to-edge screen

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Xordac Prime

We’ve been impressed with Google’s Pixel phones, but their terrible sales haven’t lived up to their critical reputation. The Pixel 2 replaced the first model after just a year, so it was a good bet that the Pixel 3 would come out around the same time…

Source: Engadget – Google’s Pixel 3 XL might have a notch and edge-to-edge screen

Drunk YouTuber's Fake Shooter 'Experiment' Sent Disney Resort Into Lockdown, Cops Say

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Xordac Prime

YouTube has spawned a lot of egregiously dumb shit: Everything from a high-profile scandal over a video gawking at a suicide victim in a Japanese forest to a vlogger wearing a Nazi armband at a Donald Trump rally as part of a “social experiment.” But an incident where an 22-year-old man allegedly ran around a Disney…

Earther You Asked For This | The A.V.

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Xordac Prime

Earther You Asked For This | The A.V. Club A frustrating Handmaid’s Tale gets a bunch of things almost right—and one thing exactly right | The Takeout IHOP apologizes for manager who caused family of boy without arms to leave restaurant |

Source: LifeHacker – Earther You Asked For This | The A.V.

Disney's Stickman: A Human-Sized Acrobatic, Robotic Stickperson

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Xordac Prime

This is a video demonstration of Disney Research’s Stickman — a robotic, acrobatic stickperson that can do single and double backflips before landing flat on its spine. Some more info from Disney while I dare to to do a double backflip through a flaming hoop. “That’s a volcano.” Shhhhhhh!:

Human performers have developed impressive acrobatic techniques over thousands of years of practicing the gymnastic arts. At the same time, robots have started to become more mobile and autonomous and can begin to imitate these stunts in dramatic and informative ways. We present a simple two degree of freedom robot that uses a gravity-driven pendulum launch and produces a variety of somersaulting stunts. The robot uses an IMU and a laser range-finder to estimate its state mid-flight and actuates to change its motion both on and off the pendulum.

No word what Stickman will eventually be used for, but knowing Disney as intimately as I do *winks at Minnie and Daisy* it will probably have something to do with making a ton of money. Obviously, I want on board. Where is this boat taking us, anyway? “The all new Pirates Of The Caribbean ride.” Sweet, grab the rum out of my backpack. “Where’s the mixer?” We’ll just use some of the water from the ride, it has a taste.

Keep going for the video.

Source: Geekologie – Disney’s Stickman: A Human-Sized Acrobatic, Robotic Stickperson

Stick Bugs Could Be Thriving by Getting Pooped Out of Birds

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Xordac Prime

If you wanna thrive on this planet, you have to figure out a way to be fruitful and multiply. If you’re a stick bug, that could mean getting pooped out of a bird.

Reddit Surpasses Facebook To Become the Third Most Visited Site in the US: Alexa

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Xordac Prime

According to Alexa, the Amazon-owned web traffic analyzing platform, more people now visit Reddit than Facebook in the US. From a report: Spotted, of course, on Reddit by user IamATechieNerd, the stats will be a big boost for the social sharing platform, especially with many users still irked about the recent re-design. It’s important to note that analyzing web traffic using a tool like Alexa is not an exact science, but it’s interesting that it has now put Reddit ahead of Facebook. If the stats are to be believed, Google is still the most visited site, followed by YouTube, Reddit, and Facebook, with Amazon rounding out the top five.

Sixers president accused of leaking info with burner Twitter accounts

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Xordac Prime

More than a few people have burner Twitter accounts to track news, comment anonymously or even make in-jokes between friends. For Philadelphia 76ers basketball operations president Bryan Colangelo, however, those disposable accounts may land him in…

Source: Engadget – Sixers president accused of leaking info with burner Twitter accounts