Miscellaneous Tech News
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Facebook avoids Apple with cloud-gaming launch
Facebook has launched its first "cloud-streamed" video games but is not offering them to iPhones or iPads.
Initially, only five titles already available as standalone smartphone apps will be accessible - via the main Facebook and Facebook Gaming apps on Android and Facebook's website on PCs. Later, it may add "all types of games". But it is not offering the product on Apple's iOS mobile operating system because "we don't know if launching on the App Store is a viable path". The two US technology giants clashed earlier this year, when Apple prevented Facebook from offering more basic "mini-games" via the iOS version of its Facebook Gaming app on the grounds this broke its App Store rules. -
Social media: Is it really biased against US Republicans?
Wednesday promises to be another stressful day for Facebook, Google and Twitter.
Their chief executives will be grilled by senators about whether Big Tech has too much freedom and abuses it. For Republicans, this is the opportunity they've been waiting for. Two weeks ago, Twitter prevented people posting links to a critical New York Post investigation into Joe Biden. It then apologised for failing to explain its reasoning before ditching a rule it had used to justify the action. For many Republicans, this was the final straw - incontrovertible evidence that social media is biased against conservatives.The accusation is that Silicon Valley is at its core liberal and thus a bad arbiter of what's acceptable on its platforms. -
Google SMTP Relay Service appears to be down, at least in NY.
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Brexit border software developers warn of delays
Essential post-Brexit freight software is unlikely to be ready on time for 1 January, those building it have warned.
A delay could hinder efforts to get products on to shop shelves and might push up prices. The Association of Freight Software Suppliers (AFSS) said its members could not guarantee delivery because officials had failed to give it details and direction for the project. But the government insisted the work was still "on track" for 1 January. Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is the department involved. The software is supposed to help transport companies submit their paperwork digitally, which is necessary for relevant taxes to be calculated. The idea is to "minimise the time the vehicles, which currently move seamlessly across the border, would need to be stationary while checks are made on the goods inside them", explained Kevin Green, marketing director at Logistics UK. -
Facebook, Twitter and Google face questions from US senators
The chief executives of Facebook, Twitter, and Google faced more than three and a half hours of questions from US Senators on Wednesday.
At present, the firms cannot be sued over what their users post online, or the decisions they make over what to leave up and take down. But some politicians have raised concerns that this "sweeping immunity" encourages bad behaviour. The three CEOs say they need the law to be able to moderate content. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter's Jack Dorsey and Google's Sundar Pichai were summoned before the Senate after both Democrats and Republicans agreed to call them in for questioning. But some Democrats used their time to question that decision, so close to election day, and decried it as a political ploy. -
Spotify and Joe Rogan under fire over Alex Jones role
Spotify is facing criticism from anti-misinformation groups and its own staff over the appearance of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on the Joe Rogan show.
Rogan's hugely popular podcast signed an exclusivity deal with Spotify earlier this year for $100m (£77m). But Spotify staff have expressed concerns internally about the appearance of Jones as a guest. Spotify banned Jones' own podcast two years ago over hate speech.The tech firm, however, declined to comment about Mr Rogan's broadcast. Over the course of a three-hour podcast, Jones discussed a range of topics, including how effective mask wearing was against Covid-19, and the risk of vaccines making people sick. Mr Rogan did fact checks of his own during the show. -
Raspberry Pi 400: A computer for the coronavirus age?
A whole computer contained in a keyboard - just connect it to a monitor and you are ready to go.
It sounds like an idea from the 1980s. Remember the ZX Spectrum, the Commodore Amiga or the BBC Micro? Well, the 2020 version is the Pi 400. It's the latest product from Raspberry Pi, the organisation founded to get children coding. And the £67 device - or £95 with a mouse and cables - may help answer the challenge of getting cheap computing to youngsters affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The idea, says the organisation's founder Eben Upton, is to mirror the simplicity of those 1980s devices. "It gets into your life as a utility device, as a thing that you buy to do your schoolwork or play games on," he explains. -
@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Raspberry Pi 400: A computer for the coronavirus age?
A whole computer contained in a keyboard - just connect it to a monitor and you are ready to go.
It sounds like an idea from the 1980s. Remember the ZX Spectrum, the Commodore Amiga or the BBC Micro? Well, the 2020 version is the Pi 400. It's the latest product from Raspberry Pi, the organisation founded to get children coding. And the £67 device - or £95 with a mouse and cables - may help answer the challenge of getting cheap computing to youngsters affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The idea, says the organisation's founder Eben Upton, is to mirror the simplicity of those 1980s devices. "It gets into your life as a utility device, as a thing that you buy to do your schoolwork or play games on," he explains.Dash and I were discussing this this morning. It's really cool, like Commodore 64 throwback cool. Biggest problem is... when keyboard computers were a thing they only plugged into a monitor. One power plug, one monitor cable, and it was still annoying. Today we are used to keyboards being a single small wire, or none at all. But suddenly to have power, two HDMI, mouse and maybe networking all plugged into your keyboard, not to mention external hard drive(s) and more, talk about cumbersome unless your keyboard is totally tied down and can't be pulled around by the weight of the cables.
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Malicious npm package opens backdoors on programmers' computers
JavaScript library posing as a Twilio-related library opens backdoors to let attackers access infected workstations.
The npm security team has removed today a malicious JavaScript library from the npm website that contained malicious code for opening backdoors on programmers' computers.
The JavaScript library was named "twilio-npm," and its malicious behavior was discovered over the weekend by Sonatype, a company that monitors public package repositories as part of its developer security operations (DevSecOps) services.
In a report published today, Sonatype said the library was first published on the npm website on Friday, was discovered on the same day, and removed today after the npm security team blacklisted the package.
Despite a short lifespan on the npm portal, the library was downloaded more than 370 times and automatically included in JavaScript projects built and managed via the npm (Node Package Manager) command-line utility. -
5G: Using drones to beam signals from the stratosphere
Plans to beam 5G signals to the public via drones that stay airborne for nine days at a time have been announced by two UK firms.
They want to use antenna-equipped aircraft powered by hydrogen to deliver high-speed connectivity to wide areas. Stratospheric Platforms and Cambridge Consultants say they could cover the whole of the UK with about 60 drones. But telecoms analysts question whether the economic case for this scheme is quite as simple as it sounds. The Cambridge-based companies say they would run the service in partnership with existing mobile operators. They are already backed by Deutsche Telekom, which hopes to trial the technology in rural southern Germany in 2024. -
@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
5G: Using drones to beam signals from the stratosphere
Plans to beam 5G signals to the public via drones that stay airborne for nine days at a time have been announced by two UK firms.
They want to use antenna-equipped aircraft powered by hydrogen to deliver high-speed connectivity to wide areas. Stratospheric Platforms and Cambridge Consultants say they could cover the whole of the UK with about 60 drones. But telecoms analysts question whether the economic case for this scheme is quite as simple as it sounds. The Cambridge-based companies say they would run the service in partnership with existing mobile operators. They are already backed by Deutsche Telekom, which hopes to trial the technology in rural southern Germany in 2024.Are they dirigibles? I hope they're dirigibles.
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@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-mint-introduces-its-own-take-on-the-chromium-web-browser/
I wonder how long before LMDE will be Linux Mint developers main focus? Isn't LMDE their backup plan in case Canonical do something so drastic that forces Linux Mint to switch to LMDE?
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@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Dish doesn't look too bad, modem i guess just follows cyber truck lol. Interested in seeing how this goes and when world coverage goes. As in the UK we still have not spots for Broadband and 4G. If the price is right might get it for home, I'm only on 50-60Mb connection.
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@hobbit666 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Dish doesn't look too bad, modem i guess just follows cyber truck lol. Interested in seeing how this goes and when world coverage goes. As in the UK we still have not spots for Broadband and 4G. If the price is right might get it for home, I'm only on 50-60Mb connection.
I've got customers all over the US struggling to get a solid 3Mb/s equivalent. The US really needs this. Right in Cincinnati I can't get a connection as good as my team in the rural jungle areas of Nicaragua get!
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@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Right in Cincinnati
You will not get Starlink in Cincinnati either.
It will not be sold in the cities for a long, long time.Satellite broadband, even these Very LEO constellations have large coverage areas.
Selling into a city will overload the network. This is simple physics limitations of the technology.
I am 100% sure that someone at SpaceX has done the math on the constellation size that they would have to have in orbit before selling into cities.
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Bitcoin: $1bn seized from Silk Road account by US government
More than $1bn (£772m) in Bitcoin linked to the notorious Silk Road website has been seized by the US Department of Justice (DoJ).
Earlier this week, crypto-currency watchers noticed about 70,000 bitcoins being moved from an account believed to be linked to the illicit marketplace. Silk Road was an online black market, selling everything from drugs to stolen credit cards and murderers-for-hire. It was shut down by the US government in 2013. The sum is the largest amount of crypto-currency seized to date by the Department of Justice. On Thursday, US Attorney David Anderson confirmed that the officials had seized the crypto-currency assets. "Silk Road was the most notorious online criminal marketplace of its day," he said in a statement.
