Google is planning to banish third-party cookies, and last year the company proposed an alternative to user tracking called FLoC (“Federated Learning of Cohorts”). This week, Google said FLoC had officially flown the coop. In its place, the company announced on Tuesday that it would be trying out another cookie…
Source: Gizmodo – Google’s New Plan for Tracking Users Is Still All About Your Browsing History
Many signs can tip you off to the fact that you are becoming an old person. Your neighbors suddenly seeming loud and obnoxious instead of like the hosts of terrific parties, for example. You develop a sudden preference for footwear that is “comfortable.” You realize you have no idea who some of the highest-paid…
Source: LifeHacker – The Secret to Making Colonoscopy Prep Bearable
With fitness watches becoming more popular over the years, training by heart rate has gotten even more accessible—you can just glance down at your Garmin, Fitbit, Apple Watch, or whatever expensive gadget you wear on your wrist to find out how your heart rate is doing. But what if you never hopped on the smartwatch…
Source: LifeHacker – The Easiest, Cheapest Way to Train by Heart Rate
Enlarge / Logitech G413 SE mechanical keyboard.
Logitech introduced two mechanical keyboards to its lineup on Monday. Shipping in February, the boards are part of the company’s PC gaming brand, but with their $70 starting price and classic, toned-down look, they’re also interesting candidates for someone seeking a productivity keyboard with mechanical switches.
The Logitech G G413 SE and G413 TKL SE are $80 and $70, respectively, offering a reasonable entry point for people who might think mechanical keyboards are too expensive. Logitech, specifically its G gaming brand, isn’t afraid to overload its keyboards with RGB lighting, but the backlight on these boards comes in white only. The standard G413 is available with an all-white or all-red backlight.
You can get the non-SE G413 with a red backlight. (credit: Logitech)
A subdued appearance continues with a top case made of aluminum-magnesium alloy with a brushed black finish that matches the black PBT keycaps. The plastic should be an upgrade from the non-SE G413’s ABS plastic keyboards, as PBT is generally more resistant to degradation over time.
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Source: Ars Technica – New Logitech mechanical keyboards are conservative in looks and price
First, he forgot his PIN — then he started looking for hackers. From a report: In early 2018, Dan Reich and a friend decided to spend $50,000 in Bitcoin on a batch of Theta tokens, a new cryptocurrency then worth just 21 cents apiece. At first, they held the tokens with an exchange based in China, but within weeks, a broad crackdown on cryptocurrency by the Chinese government meant they would soon lose access to the exchange, so they had to transfer everything to a hardware wallet. Reich and his friend chose a Trezor One hardware wallet, set up a PIN, and then got busy with life and forgot about it. By the end of that year, the token had sunk to less than a quarter of its value, come back up, and then crashed again. Reich decided he wanted to cash out, but his friend had lost the paper where he’d written the PIN and couldn’t remember the digits. They tried guessing what they thought was a four-digit PIN (it was actually five), but after each failed attempt, the wallet doubled the wait time before they could guess again. After 16 guesses, the data on the wallet would automatically erase. When they reached a dozen tries, they stopped, afraid to go further. Reich gave up and wrote off the money in his mind. He was willing to take the loss — until the price started to rise again. From a low of around $12,000, the value of their tokens started to skyrocket. By the end of 2020, it would be worth more than $400,000, rising briefly to over $3 million. It would be hard to get into the wallet without the PIN — but it wasn’t impossible.
And with potentially millions on the line, Reich and his friend vowed to find a way inside. The only way to own cryptocurrency on the blockchain is to have sole possession of a private key associated with a block of currency — but managing those keys has been a, sometimes high-stakes, challenge from the beginning. […] The cryptocurrency data firm Chainalysis estimates that more than 3.7 million Bitcoins worth $66.5 billion are likely lost to owners. Currency can be lost for many reasons: the computer or phone storing a software wallet is stolen or crashes and the wallet is unrecoverable; the owner inadvertently throws their hardware wallet away; or the owner forgets their PIN or dies without passing it to family members. As the value of their inaccessible tokens rapidly rose in 2020, Reich and his friend were desperate to crack their wallet. They searched online until they found a 2018 conference talk from three hardware experts who discovered a way to access the key in a Trezor wallet without knowing the PIN. The engineers declined to help them, but it gave Reich hope. “We at least knew that it was possible and had some directional idea of how it could be done,” Reich says. Then they found a financier in Switzerland who claimed he had associates in France who could crack the wallet in a lab. But there was a catch: Reich couldn’t know their names or go to the lab. He’d have to hand off his wallet to the financier in Switzerland, who would take it to his French associates. It was a crazy idea with a lot of risks, but Reich and his friend were desperate. Gripping story.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Cracking a Million Crypto Wallet
When I woke up this morning, I did not expect to catch an eyeful of Final Fantasy VII villain Sephiroth’s perky nipples. Yet here we are. Life always finds a way, you know? Here’s FantasyToys’ life-size Sephiroth bust for your viewing pleasure.
Source: Kotaku – Life-Sized Final Fantasy Bust Has Realistic Sephiroth Nipples, And They’re Excited To See You
Every once in a while, a hack comes along that fills you with a mix of awe and judgment for being so basic, so obvious, that you can’t believe you didn’t think of it yourself. But while you mutter “duh” under your breath, you must reluctantly admit, it was news to you.
Source: LifeHacker – Yes, You Should Use a Mug to Make Perfectly Round Cookies
How to install the Zoom client on Ubuntu using the snap command, and alternatively how to install Zoom using the .deb file.
Source: LXer – How to Install the Zoom Client on Ubuntu
GM and LG are building a third Ultium factory in the US. The $2.6 billion plant in Lansing, Michigan will make batteries for GM’s electric vehicles.
Ultium Cells, a joint venture between the companies, expects to create 1,700 manufacturing jobs at the plant, which is projected to open in late 2024. At full production, Ultium expects the factory to have a battery cell capacity of 50 gigawatt hours, and it will be able to adapt to advancements in materials and tech. Construction is underway on Ultium’s other battery manufacturing sites in Tennessee and Ohio.
Ultium’s cells can be stacked vertically or horizontally inside battery packs, which allows GM to customize the layout for each vehicle design. Energy options range between 50kWh and 200kWh. GM says Ultium system may deliver a range of 450 miles or more on a single charge and accelerate from zero to 60MPH in three seconds. The company is designing Ultium-powered EVs with fast charging in mind — most of them will have 400-volt battery packs and up to 200 kW fast charging. Electric trucks, meanwhile, will have 800-volt packs with 350kW charging.
The Ultium factory forms part of a new $7 billion investment by GM (the company’s largest single outlay to date) in four Michigan sites. The automaker is spending $4 billion to convert a plant in Orion Township, which will become its second US manufacturing location for the Chevrolet Silverado EV and electric GMC Sierra.
Conversion work is underway, and GM expects to start making the electric trucks at the plant in 2024. It expects to retain around 1,000 current jobs and add more than 2,350. Production of the Chevrolet Bolt EV and EUV will continue during the transition. The company projects that it will convert half of its North American assembly capacity to EV production by 2030.
GM is aiming to make more than a million EVs in the US per year by the end of 2025, and today’s investment announcement forms a key part of that. The company’s also spending more than $510 million to increase production at two sites in the Lansing area, one of which is building the next-gen Chevrolet Traverse and Buick Enclave.
Source: Engadget – GM is building EV production and battery factories in Michigan
You’ve reached the end of a job interview, or maybe you’ve just been offered a new role. You’re feeling confident. Then, your potential future manager asks if you have any questions for them. How can you tactfully secure critical information about your future boss, directly from your future boss?
Source: LifeHacker – Tough Questions You Should Always Ask a Hiring Manager
To help support artists during the pandemic in 2020, Bandcamp began waiving commissions for purchases made on the first Friday of every month. And after supporting Bandcamp Fridays throughout 2021, Bandcamp’s next commission-free shopping day is returning on February 4th.
In total, the company says its 17 Bandcamp Fridays to date have paid out more than $70 million to artists and labels during the pandemic, with more than 800,000 customers participating since its start in March 2020. Following the first Bandcamp Friday in 2022, the next slate of commission-free sales days will take place on March 4th, April 1st and May 6th. And in case there’s any doubt if it’s a Bandcamp Friday or not, there’s even a helpful website that can quickly sort things out.
Bandcamp says that during its commission-free sales days an average of 93 percent of revenue makes its way to musicians, with the remaining 7 percent being reserved for payment processors. Meanwhile, on a regular day, around 82 percent of sales get passed on to artists and labels, resulting in around a 10 to 11 percent cut for Bandcamp (which is still significantly lower than the standard 30 percent commission tech giants like Apple and Google receive from their app stores).
Sadly, because there’s no clear end in sight to the pandemic, it remains to be seen what happens to Bandcamp Fridays going into the summer and fall. And with COVID-19 infections peaking right now in several parts of the world, it’s really anyone’s guess how long these no-commission sales days might have to continue before we can safely return to large in-person events.
Source: Engadget – Bandcamp is bringing back monthly commission-free Fridays
The Biden administration has concluded that a global semiconductor shortage will persist until at least the second half of this year, promising long-term strain on a range of U.S. businesses including auto makers and the consumer electronics industry. From a report: U.S. officials plan to investigate claims of possible price gouging for chips used by auto and medical device makers, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Tuesday. “We aren’t even close to being out of the woods as it relates to the supply problems with semiconductors,” Raimondo said in a briefing with reporters discussing the findings of an industry report her agency conducted that was released Tuesday. The report, based on information from more than 150 companies in the chip supply chain, shows “there is a significant, persistent mismatch in supply and demand for chips.” The companies “did not see the problem going away in the next six months,” according to the report. “The semiconductor supply chain remains fragile,” the report said, despite months of work by the Biden administration to try to relieve shortages. “Demand continues to far outstrip supply.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Biden Team Says Global Chip Shortage To Stretch Through 2022
We often think of sci-fi films as bombastic, grand canvases for spaceships, lasers, and robots. But After Yang, the new film by South Korean-born filmmaker Kogonada, uses a handful of those elements to be grand in a whole other way. It’s an emotionally fulfilling story of family and loss set in a fascinating world…
Source: Gizmodo – After Yang Offers A Serene Sci-Fi Rumination on Loss
Elgato, a division of Corsair Gaming, has rolled out a new peripheral you might not have realized you needed but could help level up your stream game. Called the Stream Deck Pedal, it’s a glorified foot pedal like the ones used in the transcription field (it looks very much like the one I used when I dabbled in medical transcription many years
Source: Hot Hardware – Elgato Stream Deck Pedal Arrives To Kick Your Twitch Streaming Up A Notch
Sony’s recent soundbars have been tailored to high-end users, but the company now has something aimed more at those who just want an upgrade from their TV’s built-in speakers. The company has unveiled an HT-S400 soundbar that offers a few tricks while keeping the price down to $300. While it’s a 2.1-channel system, it offers virtual surround sound (S-Force Pro Front Surround, in Sony-speak) to provide more immersive audio for your movies and shows. It’s a fairly powerful system for the class, too, with a rather large 130W wireless subwoofer contributing to a total 330W of output.
The bar unsurprisingly offers tight integration with recent Sony TVs thanks to settings integration and wireless audio support. You can stream other Bluetooth audio, too. And while it’s not clear how well Sony’s clarity- and voice-optimized speaker designs work in practice, you may appreciate the options for both HDMI ARC and optical audio.
The HT-S400 will be available in April 2022. That’s a long time to wait for a soundbar like this, but it might be justifiable if you either live in the Sony ecosystem or just want an alternative to lower-end soundbars from companies like Samsung and Vizio.
Enlarge / Artist’s conception of Wordle players trying to avoid foreknowledge of tomorrow’s puzzle solution. (credit: Adam Drobiec / EyeEm)
If you’re one of the many, many people hooked on Wordle—and especially if you’re someone who likes to share your spoiler-free results publicly each day—we have a word of warning for you. There are people who are determined to spoil your good time by shoving tomorrow’s Wordle answer in your face.
The spoiler Twitter account Wordlinator was one of the most prominent trolls on the scene, describing itself as “sent from the future to terminate wordle bragging.” @Wordlinator would reply to seemingly random Wordle-results tweets with impolite messages designed to “teach you a lesson” by including the answer to the next day’s game (as archived here).
Wordlinator and its ilk take advantage of Wordle‘s less-than-secure Javascript coding, which lists the answer to all 2,315 of the game’s five-letter puzzles in daily order in a plaintext array buried in publicly viewable files referenced in the webpage’s source code.
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Source: Ars Technica – Beware—trolls are out to spoil tomorrow’s Wordle for you
Last week, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced that the “Doomsday Clock” will remain set at 100 seconds to midnight, the closest humanity has been to complete annihilation since the clock was created. We haven’t moved the needle since 2020, when it sunk to its current, dismal, less-than-two-minutes-left…
Source: LifeHacker – The ‘Doomsday Clock’ Is Stupid, Actually
Samsung has built a fingerprint security chip that is aimed at making payment cards and other types of biometric cards more secure. The new security solution combines a fingerprint sensor with other technology in order to strengthen your payment cards against thieves.
In a day and age where carrying cash is becoming a thing of the past,
Source: Hot Hardware – Samsung’s All-In-one Fingerprint IC Brings Biometric Security To Payment Cards And IDs
History’s face-punchiest man, Adolf Hitler, is the star of a new sex game, fittingly titled Sex with Hitler. (Heads up, that link is very NSFW.) It’s currently riding high on Steam’s “New Releases” charts, but as Vice reports, some players are upset about a minor feature: The genocidal dictator has two testicles.…
Source: Kotaku – Hitler Sex Game Riles Up Steam Users Over Extra Testicle
A science expedition in 2016 revealed a subsurface habitat in which microbes were found living at temperatures approaching 250 degrees Fahrenheit. Now, a follow-up study reveals how this remarkable microbial community manages to beat the heat.
Source: Gizmodo – How Life in the ‘Deep Biosphere’ Thrives Despite Temperatures That Would Fry Humans
