This review looks at the BrosTrend Linux USB WiFi Adapter AC1200 (AC3L). Unlike most Wi-Fi sellers, BrosTrend provide Linux support for Ubuntu and Ubuntu-based distros.
Source: LXer – BrosTrend Linux WiFi Adapter AC1200 AC3L Review
Monthly Archives: December 2022
Google Voice Will Now Warn You About Potential Spam Calls
Google has announced that it’s adding a red “suspected spam caller” warning to Google Voice calls if it doesn’t think they’re legitimate. From a report: In a post on Thursday, the company says it’s identifying spam “using the same advanced artificial intelligence” system as it does with its traditional phone app for Android. If the spam label appears, you’ll also have the option of confirming that a call was spam — in which case any future calls will be sent straight to your voicemail — or clarifying that it wasn’t, which will get rid of the label for future calls.
Google Voice has had the ability to automatically filter calls identified as spam to voicemail for years, and has also allowed you to screen calls before actually picking them up, but those options may not have been great if you’re the type of person who gets a lot of important calls from unknown numbers. Google does say that you’ll have to turn off the Filter Spam feature by going to Settings > Security > Filter spam if you want the automatic spam labeling.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Google Voice Will Now Warn You About Potential Spam Calls
The Biggest Michelle Yeoh-Ments of 2022 (and Beyond)
We’ve loved her for decades, but 2022 brought Michelle Yeoh to new heights with a standout role that garnered her accolades, and at last gave her the undivided attention of an entire industry. In between her past work on Star Trek: Discovery and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and this year’s The Witcher:…
Source: Gizmodo – The Biggest Michelle Yeoh-Ments of 2022 (and Beyond)
Video Game Gear: 10 Things We Got In 2022 That We Now Can't Live Without
With another year of gaming now receding into the past, it seems a good occasion to look back and geek out over some of the gadgets, gizmos, and hardware in general that thrilled our nerdy little hearts in 2022.
Source: Kotaku – Video Game Gear: 10 Things We Got In 2022 That We Now Can’t Live Without
You Should Get In on Wesson's $3 Million False Advertising Settlement
There are certain kitchen staples that many people tend to buy and use without giving them much thought—including some types of cooking oils. Sure, we may pay more attention to olive oil, and whether it’s virgin or extra-virgin, or where it came from, but when it comes to vegetable and canola oils, that’s not…
Source: LifeHacker – You Should Get In on Wesson’s Million False Advertising Settlement
New York Governor Neuters Right To Repair Law With A Single Line
After a lengthy legislative process, New York has become the first US state to enact a law protecting a consumer’s right to repair their own devices. Well, mostly. The law included some exemptions as passed by the state assembly, and governor Kathy Hochul has made additional alterations in an approval message. While the new law will make it
Source: Hot Hardware – New York Governor Neuters Right To Repair Law With A Single Line
Honda Issues Batch Recall For Acura TLX Vehicles And Blames It On Robots
Honda of America has issued a recall affecting a batch of Acura TLX four-door sedans sold in the United States. It sounds like a massive recall, but it really isn’t by the number, anyway. The issue is still very crucial if you happen to own or plan to own one of the vehicles affected by robot sabotage.
Powered by a 272-hp turbocharged inline-four
Source: Hot Hardware – Honda Issues Batch Recall For Acura TLX Vehicles And Blames It On Robots
Insurance Policy Does Not Cover Ransomware Attack on Software, Ohio Supreme Court Says
The Ohio Supreme Court has unanimously overruled a judgment of the Ohio Second District Court of Appeals and moved that there must be “direct” physical loss or physical damage in the company’s computer software for insurance policy coverage. From a report: In the three-year court proceedings between the greater Dayton medical billing software maker EMOI and its insurance service provider Lansing, Michigan-based Owners Insurance Company, the latter asserted that the insurance contract unambiguously stated only “direct physical loss” or “direct physical damage” to media would be covered under the insurance policy.
The court in its final ruling gave the rationale that a computer might have physical electronic components that are “tangible” in nature but the information stored there has no “physical presence”; thus a ransomware attack on the company software has no coverage under the company’s insurance policy. The judgment against EMOI concludes that a software developer can’t use its property insurance to cover losses. A district judge had dismissed EMOI’s case against Owners, which the developer brought forth just months after the attack. But the appellate court in November 2021 had ruled in favor of EMOI stating that the claimant could sue the insurance company for allegedly treating its claim in bad faith by failing to properly examine “the various types of damage that can occur to media such as software.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Insurance Policy Does Not Cover Ransomware Attack on Software, Ohio Supreme Court Says
Kotaku's Top 10 Games Of 2022
I was warned of how heated Kotaku’s GOTY arguments traditionally get when I first started here in November, so I was a little nervous when I was put in charge of organizing and tabulating our list of the best games of the year.
Source: Kotaku – Kotaku’s Top 10 Games Of 2022
Study Finds An Apple Watch Can Predict Your Stress Level With Surprising Accuracy
A new study has determined that the Apple Watch can be fairly adept at predicting stress levels of its users. The study was performed by a team of researchers from the University of Waterloo, Canada.
The Apple Watch is a highly-popular smartwatch that has many useful features and functions. From being able to check text messages and take
Source: Hot Hardware – Study Finds An Apple Watch Can Predict Your Stress Level With Surprising Accuracy
Oops! NVIDIA Leaks GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Specs And Performance Chart Ahead Of Launch
At this point, NVIDIA might as well officially announce the next Ada Lovelace card that we all know is coming. We’re of course talking about the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, which continues to make appearances ahead of next week’s anticipated reveal. And not just in obscure leaks, either. The latest pre-release discovery comes from one of NVIDIA’s
Source: Hot Hardware – Oops! NVIDIA Leaks GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Specs And Performance Chart Ahead Of Launch
Have Yourself a Very X-Files New Year, With a Side of Zombies
The X-Files generally didn’t give much shine to holidays—aside from a few notable exceptions, like the season-six classic “How the Ghosts Stole Christmas.” But the looming arrival of the year 2000 was too juicy for a show that reveled in conspiracy theories to ignore, and thus the aptly titled “Millennium” popped up…
Source: Gizmodo – Have Yourself a Very X-Files New Year, With a Side of Zombies
OnePlus 11 Leak Reveals Three Configs, Fresh Images And An Unboxing Shot
In a fresh deluge of spec leaks and photos, details of the near-flagship OnePlus 11 have pretty much revealed the full monty, confirming most, if not all that we know about the smartphone so far.
First off, Digital Chat Station on Weibo revealed an image apparently showing final specs on the OnePlus 11, confirming what we reported recently
Source: Hot Hardware – OnePlus 11 Leak Reveals Three Configs, Fresh Images And An Unboxing Shot
Suddenly Everyone Is Hunting for Alternatives To the US Dollar
King Dollar is facing a revolt. Tired of a too-strong and newly weaponized greenback, some of the world’s biggest economies are exploring ways to circumvent the US currency. From a report: Smaller nations, including at least a dozen in Asia, are also experimenting with de-dollarization. And corporates around the world are selling an unprecedented portion of their debt in local currencies, wary of further dollar strength. No one is saying the greenback will be dethroned anytime soon from its reign as the principal medium of exchange. Calls for “peak dollar” have many times proven premature. But not too long ago it was almost unthinkable for countries to explore payment mechanisms that bypassed the US currency or the SWIFT network that underpins the global financial system.
Now, the sheer strength of the dollar, its use under President Joe Biden to enforce sanctions on Russia this year and new technological innovations are together encouraging nations to start chipping away at its hegemony. “This will simply intensify the efforts in Russia and China to try to manage their part of the world economy without the dollar,” said Paul Tucker, a former deputy governor of the Bank of England in a Bloomberg podcast. Writing in a newsletter last week, John Mauldin, an investment strategist and president of Millennium Wave Advisors with more than three decades of markets experience said the Biden administration made an error in weaponizing the US dollar and the global payment system. “That will force non-US investors and nations to diversify their holdings outside of the traditional safe haven of the US,” said Mauldin.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Suddenly Everyone Is Hunting for Alternatives To the US Dollar
17 Fantastic Games That Went Under The Radar In 2022
A lot of fantastic games came out in 2022. Maybe not as many as we would have liked, especially with blockbuster after blockbuster getting delayed to 2023. But push beyond the Elden Rings and God of War Ragnaröks and you’ll discover a cornucopia of overlooked, underrated gems that run the gamut from text-adventure…
Source: Kotaku – 17 Fantastic Games That Went Under The Radar In 2022
You Don't Need a Separate Stain-Removing Spray for Your Laundry
When it comes to laundry supplies, the number of products we have, verses the ones we actually need don’t necessarily match up. And with storage space in our homes often in short supply, it makes sense to pare down the collection of products we’ve accumulated over the years.
Source: LifeHacker – You Don’t Need a Separate Stain-Removing Spray for Your Laundry
Tech Monopolies Broke Universities
Most egregiously, the highest levels have been staffed not by experienced administrators with an understanding of the demands and complexities of a university network, but by “industry dropouts” who bring toxic corporate buzzwords and hostile values into an institution that requires curious, tactful consultation, openness, trust and cooperation.
Source: LXer – Tech Monopolies Broke Universities
NASA Seeks Private Sector Help To Extend Hubble's Life Span For Deep Space Exploration
NASA is seeking interest and ideas in developing capabilities to re-boost the orbit of a satellite. The space agency is considering utilizing the Hubble Space Telescope for a demonstration in the next few years.
NASA, other federal agencies, and commercial entities have an ever-increasing number of aging on-orbit satellites. This presents
Source: Hot Hardware – NASA Seeks Private Sector Help To Extend Hubble’s Life Span For Deep Space Exploration
NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile GPU Crushes Last-Gen Flagship In Benchmark Leak
Unless the mountains of leaks and rumors are all wrong, NVIDIA will unveil its initial lineup of GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs for laptops at its GeForce Beyond event just days before the Consumer Electronics Show officially begins next week. That will presumably include its upcoming flagship mobile GPU, the GeForce RTX 4090. As we wait for an
Source: Hot Hardware – NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile GPU Crushes Last-Gen Flagship In Benchmark Leak
There’s never been a better time stop tweeting
There’s never really been a shortage of reasons to spend less time on Twitter. Even before Elon Musk’s chaotic takeover, the platform was long plagued by misinformation, hate speech, harassment and other ills that made it less than welcoming.
There’s never been a better time to quit Twitter. The Elon Musk-induced chaos at the company has breathed new life into a crop of alternative platforms, and has inspired a new wave of competing efforts to win over disillusioned Twitter users.
Competition emerges
Of all the alternatives out there, none have benefited as much as Mastodon. The open-source service was created in 2016, and first gained notoriety in 2017, when some Twitter users were upset with changes the company had made to the functionality of @-replies. At that time though, it didn’t gain much traction outside a small base of hardcore enthusiasts.
Mel Melcon via Getty Images
That all changed from the second Musk announced he wanted to buy Twitter. Mastodon saw an immediate spike back in April and the momentum has only increased, according to the nonprofit. “Mastodon has recently exploded in popularity, jumping from approx. 300K monthly active users to 2.5M between the months of October and November, with more and more journalists, political figures, writers, actors and organizations moving over,” founder Eugen Rochko wrote in a recent blog post.
The service isn’t a perfect analog to Twitter. Its platform, which runs on thousands of servers, can make signing up a bit confusing. And a couple of the platform’s most popular servers, like mastodon.social, have at times halted new sign-ups due to surging demand.
But, as Rochko points out, the decentralized platform has become one of the top platforms of choice for some of Twitter’s most influential — and most followed — users. Tellingly, when Musk briefly imposed a ban on accounts promoting alternative social networks, Mastodon’s official Twitter account was the only social app to be suspended.
Mastodon is far from the only previously-niche app to get a boost from turmoil at Twitter. Other apps like CounterSocial, which has a Tweetdeck-like interface, and Tribel, which describes itself as a “pro-democracy Twitter alternative” have also seen an uptick in sign-ups.
There’s also a wave of competition from fresh upstarts. Post News, a new service from former Waze CEO Noam Bardin has also tried to capitalize on Twitter’s dysfunction. The service, which is currently invitation-only, rushed to launch an early version of its beta in November in hopes of drawing away disillusioned Twitter users. Post, which bills itself as a place “to discover, read, watch, discuss and share premium news content without subscriptions or ads,” has more than 610,000 people on its waitlist, according to Bardin.
The Washington Post via Getty Images
Another app that’s emerged, seemingly out of nowhere, is Hive Social, an image-centric platform with a feed that looks more like Instagram than Twitter. The service was founded in 2019, and hit 1.5 million users in November, according to the company. The site has had some notable security issues, which it claims to have fixed, but has still managed to make an impression with Gen Z Twitter users.
Legacy platforms are also trying to seize the opportunity created by growing apathy for Twitter. Tumblr claimed to see a surge in new and returning users, according to Matt Mullenweg, CEO of parent company Automattic. The site has also made a habit of trolling Musk and his new policies for Twitter, including with the addition of a $7.99 “Important Blue Internet Checkmark” for users’ blogs. Mullenweg has also said Tumblr will adopt ActivityPub, the protocol powering Mastodon, to make the two services interoperable.
Meta is also keen to challenge its longtime rival. The company recently launched a new “Notes” feature within Instagram that allows users to share status updates at the top of their inbox. At 60 characters, it’s hardly a full-fledged Twitter alternative, but it might not be the last such feature we see from Meta. The New York Timesreports that the company has discussed several ideas to go after Twitter’s “bread and butter.”
The future for Twitter Quitters
It’s hardly the first time that unpopular decisions within Twitter have sparked an interest in alternatives. But in the past, surges to outside platforms have been relatively short lived. And most would-be competitors are still only a fraction of the size of Twitter.
Even with an influx of new users, Mastodon, Post News, Hive Social and Tumblr are still substantially smaller than Twitter. And, as unpopular and autocratic and Musk’s policy decisions seem, the idea of starting over on a new platform can feel daunting. Not everyone can easily rebuild their social graphs on alternative sites, and some may find the growing crop of Twitter clones to also be unwelcoming (this is especially true if you rely on accessibility features, as many of the newer platforms haven’t invested much in these features.)
Still, this particular moment feels different than other times when Twitter has struggled to keep disgruntled users around. For one, there are more choices than ever before for those looking for a reason to leave. But it’s also unique because there are more people actually active on these alternatives than ever before.
Source: Engadget – There’s never been a better time stop tweeting