Miscellaneous Tech News
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Pigs can play video games with their snouts, scientists find
Pigs can play video games, scientists have found, after putting four fun-loving swine to the test.
Four pigs - Hamlet, Omelette, Ebony and Ivory - were trained to use an arcade-style joystick to steer an on-screen cursor into walls. Researchers said the fact that the pigs understood the connection between the stick and the game "is no small feat". And the pigs even continued playing when the food reward dispenser broke - apparently for the social contact. Usually, the pigs would be given a food pellet for "winning" the game level. But during testing, it broke - and they kept clearing the game levels when encouraged by some of the researchers' kind words. "This sort of study is important because, as with any sentient beings, how we interact with pigs and what we do to them impacts and matters to them," lead author Dr Candace Croney said. -
US President Joe Biden 'pauses' TikTok and WeChat bans
US President Joe Biden has paused legal action against TikTok and WeChat, which could have seen the apps banned in the United States.
While president, Donald Trump had sought to ban both apps, claiming they were a national security threat. Both companies had taken legal action against the proposed bans. The new administration has now asked for an "abeyance" - or suspension - of proceedings while it revisits whether the apps really pose a threat. The delay means both apps can continue to operate in the US while new staff at government agencies "become familiar with the issues in this case", the legal documents state. Mr Trump had claimed that the spread in the US of mobile apps developed and owned by Chinese firms threatened "the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States". -
The most cost effective Caller ID source is gone.
opencnam.com now redirects to home.neustar/telo-customers
And there is no way to sign up for a new account.
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@JaredBusch said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
The most cost effective Caller ID source is gone.
And there is no way to sign up for a new account.
So, @Skyetel any chance of this being a new service offering?
Telnyx offers it https://telnyx.com/pricing/id-services-and-data
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@JaredBusch said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@JaredBusch said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
The most cost effective Caller ID source is gone.
And there is no way to sign up for a new account.
So, @Skyetel any chance of this being a new service offering?
Telnyx offers it https://telnyx.com/pricing/id-services-and-data
Not in the way OpenCNAM did it I'm afraid. Telo was last place to buy it independently and Nuester is moving to neuter anyone from selling CNAM services that aren't attached to DIDs with large volumes. I suspect that most places, including Telnyx, will eventually be forced to stop selling it independently too. This industry died with Telo and I was extremely upset about it. (We ourselves were a Telo Carrier customer).
The main reason that Neustar is neutering everyone is because end users and small firms have a habit of caching the records to save money - something explicitly prevented in everything remotely connected to Neustar data. If providers who are selling CNAM data cannot 100% guarantee to Neustar that their data is not being cached (even by their end users), they'll be liable for a nasty lawsuit; and by extension so too would end users. Telo was the only place that had lax caching policies and, most importantly, an independent dataset. Everyone else now is just reselling Neustar and are plebs in their kingdom.
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@Skyetel said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
end users and small firms have a habit of caching the records to save money
Yes, a not insignificant amount of money for some places either.
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Full-face hot-wax TikTok videos prompt warnings
Viral videos of people having full-face "hot wax" treatments on TikTok have led to warnings from skin experts.
They show softened resin covering subjects' face, mouth and neck - and partially penetrating their ears and nose - before being removed. A barber posting some of the most watched examples says it is beneficial. But the British Association of Dermatologists (BAD) said: "Attempting to wax inside your nose or ears is not recommended." A UK-based skin specialist has also raised safety concerns about the risk of obstructed breathing. And one expert has suggested TikTok should add a warning. -
Bill Gates: Solving Covid easy compared with climate
Fifty-one billion and zero - the two numbers Bill Gates says you need to know about climate.
Solving climate change would be "the most amazing thing humanity has ever done", says the billionaire founder of Microsoft. By comparison, ending the pandemic is "very, very easy", he claims. Mr Gates's new book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, is a guide to tackling global warming. Don't underestimate the scale of the challenge, he told me when we spoke last week. "We've never made a transition like we're talking about doing in the next 30 years. There is no precedent for this." Fifty-one billion is how many tonnes of greenhouse gases the world typically adds to the atmosphere each year. -
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Reddit removed 6% of all posts made last year
Reddit removed 6% of all content posted in 2020, according to the site's annual transparency report.
Of the 3.4 billion posts made by its users in 2020, 233 million were removed - almost all for spam. More than 99% of removals were classed as spam, with the remainder made up of a mix of offensive content - including harassment, violent speech and sexualisation of minors. The number of removed posts rose almost 30% year on year. More than 131 million posts were removed by the platform's automated moderator, while the rest were taken down personally by administrators. The automated moderator bot is used to approve posts made in Reddit's myriad small communities - called subreddits - and it has the power to remove any images or text submissions that contain banned words or phrases. -
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Nvidia limits crypto-mining on new graphics card
Graphics card-maker Nvidia says it will deliberately reduce the efficiency of its latest card by 50% when it is used to mine the crypto-currency Ethereum.
Crypto-currency enthusiasts have contributed to a shortage of graphics cards by snapping up supplies to use for non-gaming purposes. Nvidia said it had intervened to make sure its products "end up in the hands of gamers". But it will also sell a bespoke crypto-currency mining processor. Graphics cards (GPUs) are a crucial component of a gaming PC. A modern card can produce the high-resolution and high frame-rate graphics that gamers expect. But several factors, including manufacturing delays during the coronavirus pandemic, have contributed to a shortage. -
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https://klarasystems.com/articles/openzfs-draid-finally/
OpenZFS gets dRAID
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@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
https://klarasystems.com/articles/openzfs-draid-finally/
OoenZFS gets dRAID
Is that like druid?
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Margaret Mitchell: Google fires AI ethics founder
Google has fired the founder and co-head of its artificial intelligence ethics unit, claiming she violated the company's code of conduct.
In a statement, Google said an investigation found Margaret Mitchell had moved files outside the company. The ethics unit has been under scrutiny since December, following the departure of another senior figure, Timnit Gebru. Both women had campaigned for more diversity at Google and raised concerns about censorship within the company. Ms Mitchell announced the news in a tweet, which read "I'm fired". For the past five weeks she had been locked out of Google's systems, including her emails and calendars. -
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Musk: Starlink will hit 300Mbps and expand to “most of Earth” this year
SpaceX CEO teases higher speeds, lower latency, and near-global coverage.
Starlink broadband speeds will double to 300Mbps "later this year," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on Twitter yesterday. SpaceX has been telling users to expect speeds of 50Mbps to 150Mbps since the beta began a few months ago. Musk also wrote that "latency will drop to ~20ms later this year." This is no surprise, as SpaceX promised latency of 20ms to 40ms during the beta and had said months ago that "we expect to achieve 16ms to 19ms by summer 2021." It sounds like the speed and latency improvements will roll out around the same time as when Starlink switches from beta to more widespread availability. Two weeks ago, Starlink opened preorders for service expected to be available in the second half of 2021, albeit with limited availability in each region.
