Intel Lays Off Hundreds of Tech Admins

Intel has reportedly laid off a number of information technology workers at sites across the company this week. Sources say the layoffs are numbered in the hundreds, but Intel has declined to specify how many people lost their jobs or describe the rationale for the cutbacks. OregonLive reports: The cuts took place at sites across the company, including Oregon, Intel’s largest site with 20,000 workers. Cuts also took place at other Intel facilities in the United States and at a large administrative facility in Costa Rica, according to people familiar with the layoffs. Though Intel forecasts flat sales in 2019, people inside the company said this week’s layoffs don’t appear to be strictly a cost-cutting move. Rather, they said the cuts appeared to reflect a broad change in the way Intel is approaching its internal technical systems.

Information technology (IT) professionals don’t usually develop new technology but they play an essential role in managing a company’s internal systems. Their work is particularly important at tech companies such as Intel, which depend on IT workers to keep systems secure and running smoothly. This week’s layoffs appear to be Intel’s biggest cutbacks since 2016, when the company eliminated 15,000 jobs across the company through layoffs, buyouts and early retirement offers. “Changes in our workforce are driven by the needs and priorities of our business, which we continually evaluate. We are committed to treating all impacted employees with professionalism and respect,” Intel said in a brief statement acknowledging the cuts to The Oregonian/OregonLive. Intel isn’t the only tech company laying off workers right now. A new report from The Mercury News reveals many Bay Area tech firms will be laying off about 1,200 jobs between now and Memorial Day. The layoffs are expected from SAP, Oracle America, PayPal, Instacart, Thin Film Electronics, and others.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



Source: Slashdot – Intel Lays Off Hundreds of Tech Admins

Truth Is Stranger than Fiction in This Week's Best New Comics

We’ve all got at least a few deeply-held beliefs that would alarm our peers were they ever to be made public. But having faith in the wild ideas lurking in their minds is what makes the heroes of this week’s best new comics fascinating, even if they themselves don’t properly feel that way.

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Source: io9 – Truth Is Stranger than Fiction in This Week’s Best New Comics

Pro Removed From $1 Million Magic Tournament Accused Of Harassing Women

On Wednesday, one of the most prominent players in the Magic: The Gathering scene was unceremoniously dropped from this weekend’s first-ever $1 million tournament for the strategy card game. Since then, as questions have been raised about the unspecified reasons behind Turtenwald’s removal, sources have told Kotaku

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Source: Kotaku – Pro Removed From Million Magic Tournament Accused Of Harassing Women

Facebook COO says it's 'exploring' restrictions on who can go live

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg took to the Instagram blog this evening saying “We have heard feedback that we must do more – and we agree.” Despite the lack of credibility big tech companies have when it comes to dealing with dangerous hate group…

Source: Engadget – Facebook COO says it’s ‘exploring’ restrictions on who can go live

Oh, Just A Few Videos Of The Highly Venomous Six-Eyed Sand Spider Burying Themselves

These are several videos of the highly venomous six-eyed sand spider burying themselves in the substrate to await some prey to ambush. Did you know the southern Africa native six-eyed sand spider have extremely necrotic (killing cells and tissue) venom and “can survive a year without a meal or even a drop to drink”? Ahahahaha, shit! If your kids are bad, you should show them these videos to straighten them out. If your kids are good, you should show them these videos to keep them that way. You should just show your kids these videos. Just do it already, what’s another lifelong fear really?

Keep going for the videos you should show your kids, and don’t forget to mention the part about how venomous they are and how they can go a year without eating or drinking.

Source: Geekologie – Oh, Just A Few Videos Of The Highly Venomous Six-Eyed Sand Spider Burying Themselves

Toyota Security Breach Exposes Personal Info of 3.1 Million Clients

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: The personal information of roughly 3.1 million Toyota customers may have been leaked following a security breach of multiple Toyota and Lexus sales subsidiaries, as detailed in a breach notification issued by the car maker today. As detailed in a press release published on Toyota’a global newsroom, unauthorized access was detected on the computing systems of Tokyo Sales Holdings, Tokyo Tokyo Motor, Tokyo Toyopet, Toyota Tokyo Corolla, Nets Toyota Tokyo, Lexus Koishikawa Sales, Jamil Shoji (Lexus Nerima), and Toyota West Tokyo Corolla. “It turned out that up to 3.1 million items of customer information may have been leaked outside the company. The information that may have been leaked this time does not include information on credit cards,” says the data breach notification. Toyota has not yet confirmed if the attackers were able to exfiltrate any of the customer personal information exposed after the IT systems of its subsidiaries were breached. Toyota said in a statement: “We apologize to everyone who has been using Toyota and Lexus vehicles for the great concern. We take this situation seriously, and will thoroughly implement information security measures at dealers and the entire Toyota Group.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



Source: Slashdot – Toyota Security Breach Exposes Personal Info of 3.1 Million Clients

Sony And Microsoft Can’t Match Nintendo Directs

This week saw Sony and Microsoft both getting in on the video news show format. Sony had its first PlayStation “State of Play” video, focused on PSVR titles. And Xbox put out the first episode of its “ID@Xbox Game Pass,” a mouthful of a name for a presentation that included both announcements and developer interviews.…

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Source: Kotaku – Sony And Microsoft Can’t Match Nintendo Directs

Patriot Launches Viper VPN100 SSDs: Up to 2TB, Massive Heatsink

Patriot this week started sales of its top-of-the-range VPN100-series SSDs. Prototypes of these drives based on the Phison PS5012-E12 controller were demonstrated at CES 2018, but it took the company and its partner quite some time to finalize them. The undertaken efforts paid quite well: the Viper VPN100 promises to be one of the fastest SSDs on the market. To ensure that the drive performs consistently, Patriot equipped it with a large heatsink and an external thermal sensor.



Source: AnandTech – Patriot Launches Viper VPN100 SSDs: Up to 2TB, Massive Heatsink

Five Multi-Device Alternatives to Apple's Canceled AirPower Charger

Apple has finally announced that AirPower, the wireless charging mat that promised to charge your iPhone, AirPods, and Apple Watch, has officially been canceled. While there probably aren’t any products that rival what Apple promised for the ill-fated AirPower, there are a number of charging pads that can juice up all…

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Source: LifeHacker – Five Multi-Device Alternatives to Apple’s Canceled AirPower Charger

Lego Batman Celebrates 80 Years of Comics Batman, and More of the Most Bat-tastic Toys of the Week

Welcome back to Toy Aisle, io9’s regular round up of all the shiny new bits of plastic threatening our bank accounts that we’ve seen on the internet. This week: Batman celebrates his 80th birthday the Lego way, Nebula strikes a pose with a new Figuarts toy, and the most perfect Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles kitchen…

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Source: io9 – Lego Batman Celebrates 80 Years of Comics Batman, and More of the Most Bat-tastic Toys of the Week

Climate Change Drove Neanderthals to Cannibalism, New Research Suggests

Neanderthals are famous for having lived through the last major ice age, yet for a period of around 14,000 years they had to endure the effects of a naturally occurring global warming cycle. Struggling to adapt to the changing conditions, the Neanderthals turned to cannibalism in desperation, according to a…

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Source: Gizmodo – Climate Change Drove Neanderthals to Cannibalism, New Research Suggests

Google Store lists unannounced 'Nest Hub Max' 10-inch smart display

In case you were wondering what’s next in smart displays and hubs, the Google Store may have revealed the answer. As Android Police points out, a (now-removed) interactive graphic on the store’s connected home page listed all the smart devices we’re…

Source: Engadget – Google Store lists unannounced ‘Nest Hub Max’ 10-inch smart display

The Head of the FTC Just Debunked the FCC's Favorite Excuse for Killing Net Neutrality

Two weeks before voting to rollback the net neutrality rules, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post in which he laid out his case for killing off the policy that ensured a free and open internet. In it, he offered up one widely-disputed argument for doing so: that blocking, throttling,…

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Source: Gizmodo – The Head of the FTC Just Debunked the FCC’s Favorite Excuse for Killing Net Neutrality

Overwatch Pro Blocks Racist Message With His Own Face During Stream

During a recent stream, New York Excelsior Overwatch player and impossibly pleasant married person Jong-ryeol “Saebyeolbe” Park came up against a particularly unpleasant foe. Another player decided to use Overwatch’s in-game notification system to spam Saebyeolbe with a racist message he couldn’t immediately block.

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Source: Kotaku – Overwatch Pro Blocks Racist Message With His Own Face During Stream

Critical Magento SQL Injection Flaw Could Soon Be Targeted By Hackers

itwbennett writes: The popular e-commerce platform Magento has released 37 security issues affecting both the commercial and open-source versions, four of which are critical. ‘Of those, one SQL injection flaw is of particular concern for researchers because it can be exploited without authentication,’ writes Lucian Constantine for CSO. Researchers from Web security firm Sucuri ‘have already reverse-engineered the patch [for that flaw] and created a working proof-of-concept exploit for internal testing’ says Constantin. ‘The SQL vulnerability is very easy to exploit, and we encourage every Magento site owner to update to these recently patched versions to protect their ecommerce websites,’ the researchers warn in a blog post.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



Source: Slashdot – Critical Magento SQL Injection Flaw Could Soon Be Targeted By Hackers

Section 230 Is the Foundation of the Internet, So Why Do Republicans Want to Change It?

Without Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, most of your favorite websites would not survive—nor would they have existed at all. The modern internet would be a much different place without this short little bit of legislation that has become a sort of First Amendment of the web. Now, a growing contingent of…

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Source: Gizmodo – Section 230 Is the Foundation of the Internet, So Why Do Republicans Want to Change It?

Apple Cancels Vaporware AirPower Wireless Charger For iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods

Apple Cancels Vaporware AirPower Wireless Charger For iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods
It’s not often that we’re witness to vaporware products from Apple, but AirPower definitely fit that category. The wireless accessory – which was supposed to charge an iPhone, AirPods and Apple Watch simultaneously — was first announced alongside the iPhone X way back in September 2017, and was supposed to launch in 2018. However, 2018 came

Source: Hot Hardware – Apple Cancels Vaporware AirPower Wireless Charger For iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods

Get Back To Work!: A Cat Laptop Scratching Post

cat-scratch-laptop-1.jpg

This is the ~$32 Cat Scratch Laptop designed and sold by SUCK UK. The laptop features a customizable screen you can slide any picture you want into, a corrugated cardboard keyboard for scratching, and an attached fuzzy toy mouse(!). You know, whenever my cat curls up on my laptop I always joke to my girlfriend that maybe he’s finally decided to start pulling his own weight around here and actually make some money for us. I mean he never is, he’s usually just pulling all my keyboard keys off, but I joke about it anyways. My girlfriend always laughs, but deep down I know she hates me and wishes I’d stop.

Keep going for a few more shots.

Source: Geekologie – Get Back To Work!: A Cat Laptop Scratching Post

A Filmmaker Thinks He Can Turn Clicker Universal Paperclips Into A Movie

Clicker-ish game Universal Paperclips may be getting a feature-length film treatment, the New Yorker first reported yesterday. Intrigued and a little confused, Kotaku spoke with the filmmaker over e-mail this morning to get more details.

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Source: Kotaku – A Filmmaker Thinks He Can Turn Clicker Universal Paperclips Into A Movie