Dealing with the Coronavirus is challenging enough, from the rising death toll and negative economic impact, to the stay-at-home orders and everything involved with social distancing. One thing we do not have to worry about, however, is the supposed silent installation of a COVID-19 “track and trace” app on Android and iPhone devices.
Claims
Source: Hot Hardware – Apple And Google’s COVID-19 Contact Tracing Phone Platform: Separating Truth From Pure FUD
Google will expand free shopping results from a narrow experiment in its shopping tab to the main search engine, dramatically expanding their reach. From a report: The company announced the move today in a blog post written by commerce president Bill Ready. The shift is part of a continuous move away from paid search results and follows a trend of users searching more for information on subjects like the coronavirus and less for products. At the same time, advertisers have been cutting spending as the pandemic takes an economic toll. Ready attributed the move to Google’s desire to help sellers and buyers connect and noted that it remains difficult for users to find what they need online in terms of product, price, and seller reputation. Likewise, digital remains a challenge for many small businesses, even as shoppers continue to gravitate toward online purchasing. “It’s crucial that we help people find all the best options available and help merchants more easily connect with consumers online,” Ready wrote.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Google Expands Free Retail Listings Into Search as Pandemic Hits Ad Sales
A demo from CTurt shows an SNES emulator running on a PS2 from a burned DVD-R.
Nearly 20 years after its initial release, a hacker has found a way to run homebrew software on an unmodified PlayStation 2 using nothing but a carefully burned DVD-ROM.
Previous efforts to hack the PS2 relied on internal modifications, external hardware (like pre-hacked memory cards and hard drives), or errors found only on very specific models of the system. The newly discovered FreeDVDBoot differs from this previous work by exploiting an error in the console’s DVD video player to create a fully software-based method for running arbitrary code on the system.
Security researcher CTurt laid out the FreeDVDBoot discovery and method in detail in a blog post this weekend. By decrypting and analyzing the code used for the PS2’s DVD player, CTurt found a function that expects a 16-bit string from a properly formatted DVD but will actually easily accept over 1.5 megabytes from a malicious source.
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Source: Ars Technica – New hack runs homebrew code from DVD-R on unmodified PlayStation 2
Slated for Linux 5.9 is finally mainlining the FSGSBASE patches that have been floating around the kernel mailing list for years. Testing last week showed the tentative x86/fsgsbase patches helping Intel Xeon Linux performance but with AMD also supporting this instruction set extension going back to Bulldozer, how is it looking on the likes of AMD? Here are some benchmarks.
Source: Phoronix – AMD EPYC 7F72 Performance On A Linux FSGSBASE-Patched Kernel
Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson is set to become one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s key power players in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Disney+’s upcoming series that follows its titular Avengers as they keep fighting the good superhero fight. Sam’s newfound prominence tracks closely with the character’s path to …
Source: Gizmodo – Anthony Mackie Rightfully Calls Marvel Out for Its Lack of Diversity Behind the Camera
Warm air doesn’t reach Antarctica as easily as the rest of the globe, but a new study has found that not even the South Pole is safe from the influences of human-driven climate change.
Source: Gizmodo – The South Pole Is Warming Three Times Faster Than the Rest of Earth
It’s pretty ridiculous that this is even an issue, but people have been refusing to wear masks because they think it’ll lead to suffocation or carbon dioxide poisoning. And since common sense isn’t effective and these people think dentists and surgeons are dropping dead every day, a registered nurse from Oakland felt compelled to make this demonstration using a pulse oximetry sensor to show that wearing masks is completely safe. Even with three surgical masks covering his nose and mouth, his oxygen and carbon dioxide transfer remained normal, with no effects to his oxygen saturation levels or any buildup of carbon dioxide.
Unfortunately, this guy is trying to use science to persuade people who clearly don’t care about science. This is where I’d usually make a joke, but people politicizing a pandemic and refusing to do something as simple as wearing a mask to save lives just isn’t funny. A virus doesn’t care about your freedoms or political beliefs, and killing somebody because you’re too selfish to wear a piece of cloth over your face makes you a pathetic human being. Masks aren’t worn to protect you, they’re worn to protect other people. Surgeons don’t wear a mask because they don’t want to catch your cooties. They wear a mask so they don’t cough or sneeze into your open wound and kill you. Refusing to wear a mask is the same as a surgeon refusing to wash their hands before operating because of “their freedoms.” You’re not a hero or freedom fighter, you’re a joke and the entire world is laughing at you. Wear a mask.
Keep going for the full science-filled video.
Source: Geekologie – Nurse demonstrates that wearing a mask doesn’t affect oxygen levels or cause carbon dioxide poisoning
As the past few weeks of primaries have shown us, this election cycle is going to be a challenging one for voters—to say the least.
Source: LifeHacker – How to Make Sure Your Vote Is Counted
In honor of the 10-year anniversary of PlayStation Plus, Sony is giving away a bonus game as part of this month’s lineup. From July 7th through to August 3rd, PS Plus subscribers can grab NBA 2K20, Rise of the Tomb Raider and Erica for free. While NB…
Source: Engadget – The PS Plus lineup for July includes a bonus game
Apple said last week that it declined to implement 16 new web technologies (Web APIs) in Safari because they posed a threat to user privacy by opening new avenues for user fingerprinting. Technologies that Apple declined to include in Safari because of user fingerprinting concerns include: Web Bluetooth – Allows websites to connect to nearby Bluetooth LE devices.
Web MIDI API – Allows websites to enumerate, manipulate and access MIDI devices.
Magnetometer API – Allows websites to access data about the local magnetic field around a user, as detected by the device’s primary magnetometer sensor.
Web NFC API – Allows websites to communicate with NFC tags through a device’s NFC reader.
Device Memory API – Allows websites to receive the approximate amount of device memory in gigabytes.
Network Information API – Provides information about the connection a device is using to communicate with the network and provides a means for scripts to be notified if the connection type changes.
Battery Status API – Allows websites to receive information about the battery status of the hosting device.
Web Bluetooth Scanning – Allows websites to scan for nearby Bluetooth LE devices.
Ambient Light Sensor – Lets websites get the current light level or illuminance of the ambient light around the hosting device via the device’s native sensors.
[…]
The vast majority of these APIs are only implemented in Chromium-based browsers, and very few on Mozilla’s platform. Apple claims that the 16 Web APIs above would allow online advertisers and data analytics firms to create scripts that fingerprint users and their devices.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Apple Declined To Implement 16 Web APIs in Safari Due To Privacy Concerns
Since the pandemic began, Google has been working to surface relevant, reliable information. Now, with rates of the virus and state policies varying so widely across the country, Google wants to provide users with more local information. Today, it an…
Source: Engadget – Google News will direct users to local COVID-19 info
Twitter user @phi6 used fridge magnets to make this Super Mario stop motion animation with their 4-year-old son over the weekend. The result is pretty impressive for something thrown together over a weekend. It makes me wish I did fun projects like this with my own dad, but instead we just played a dumb game where I would wait in the living room while he went to the corner store to get cigarettes and then never come home ever again.
Keep going for the full video.
Source: Geekologie – Stop motion ‘Super Mario’ level made using fridge magnets
Two years ago, io9 shared author Molly Tanzer’s Victorian fantasy novel Creatures of Will & Temper in serialized excerpts. And now we’ve got good news for fans of the author, not to mention fans of free books: We’re doing it again, with her newest title! Check out chapter twenty-eight today.
Source: io9 – Read Creatures of Charm and Hunger: Chapter 28
As good as VR gaming can be, much of it assumes full mobility — and that risks leaving behind people with physical disabilities who’d love to play. That might not be an issue in the future for at least some games. 2MW has released WalkinVR Driver, a…
Source: Engadget – Steam add-on makes VR games more accessible
For the most part, desktop PCs have been trending towards smaller designs, culminating in things like Intel’s diminutive Next Unit of Computing (NUC) and its even tinier Compute Stick. While not quite as compact, Lenovo’s new ‘ThinkCentre M75n IoT Nano Desktop’ is yet another example of a space saving design with modern hardware inside.
This
Source: Hot Hardware – Lenovo Debuts ThinkCentre M75n Fanless AMD-Powered Nano Desktop PC
If you’re like me, you’ve probably balked at elaborate, multi-device wireless chargers like Logitech’s Powered 3-in-1 Dock. You’d typically be paying $100 or more (in this case $130) to tidy your setup and avoid plugging in cables, and that’s on top…
Source: Engadget – Logitech’s Powered 3-in-1 Dock makes a case for premium wireless chargers
Apple is ready to move on from Intel after over 13 years of being a loyal partner. Apple announced its move to Intel processors back in 2006, and the first shipping systems came early in 2007. Earlier this month, the folks in Cupertino announced that starting in late 2020, it will begin offering Macs powered by its own Apple Silicon.
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Source: Hot Hardware – Apple’s Mac Mini A12Z Developer Transition Kits Arrive As Intel Exodus Takes Shape
Dash Electric Griddle | $40 | Amazon
Source: LifeHacker – Cook The Breakfast of Your Dreams With a Dash Electric Griddle
It’s no secret that LG’s been struggling with its smartphones for some time; now, it’s betting on a new strategy. Following the V60 ThinQ 5G, the Korean conglomerate is shifting away from its flagship G and V series to focus on an entirely new approa…
Source: Engadget – LG Velvet hands-on: The case for mid-range, dual-screen phones
In a few short years, neural-network-powered automated face swaps have gone from being mildly convincing to eerily believable. But through new research from Disney, neural face-swapping is poised to become a legitimate and high-quality tool for visual effects studios working on Hollywood blockbusters.
Source: Gizmodo – Disney’s Developed Movie-Quality Face-Swapping Technology That Promises to Change Filmmaking