 'Cheating Volkswagen Diesels Have Become A Hot Commodity'
Remember the Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal? "In the end, after paying huge fines and seeing key executives head to prison, VW agreed to buy back nearly 380,000 of the offending cars in the United States, to fix or scrap," reports the New York Times.
But this week the director of industry analytics for online car marketplace CarGurus tells them that VW has now added more share in certified pre-owned sales than any other brand.
Jalopnik reports:
The resulting used VWs are surprisingly
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Ask Slashdot: How Do You Estimate the Cost of an Algorithm Turned Into an ASIC?
"Another coder and I are exploring the possibility of having a video-processing algorithm written in C turned into an ASIC ("Application Specific Integrated Circuit") hardware chip that could go inside various consumer electronics devices," writes Slashdot reader dryriver.
The problem? There seems to be very little good information on how much a 20Kb, or 50Kb or indeed a 150Kb algorithm written in the C language would cost to turn in an ASIC or "Custom Chip".
We've been told that "the chi
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UK Cybersecurity Agency Urges Devs To Drop Python 2
Python's End-of-Life date is 129 days away, warns the UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). "There will be no more bug fixes, or security updates, from Python's core developers."
An anonymous reader quotes ZDNet:
The UK's cyber-security agency warned developers Thursday to consider moving Python 2.x codebases to the newer 3.x branch due to the looming end-of-life of Python 2, scheduled for January 1, 2020... "If you continue to use unsupported modules, you are risking the security of
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First Alleged Crime In Space?
bobstreo tipped us off to an interesting story. The BBC reports that NASA "is reported to be investigating a claim that an astronaut accessed the bank account of her estranged spouse from the International Space Station, in what may be the first allegation of a crime committed in space."
Anne McClain acknowledges accessing the account from the ISS but denies any wrongdoing, the New York Times reports... The astronaut told the New York Times through a lawyer that she was merely making sure tha
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 Graphcore founder Nigel Toon to talk about AI chips at Disrupt Berlin
It's easy to forget that Silicon Valley starts with 'silicon', and that there would be no technology innovation without innovation at the silicon level. And Graphcore is well aware of that as the Bristol-based company is designing its own dedicated AI chipset. That's why I'm glad to announce that Graphcore co-founder and CEO Nigel Toon […]
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Brazil Tries Deploying Its Military To Fight Fires in the Amazon
"As an ecological disaster in the Amazon escalated into a global political crisis, Brazil's president, Jair Bolsonaro, took the rare step on Friday of mobilising the armed forces to help contain blazes of a scale not seen in nearly a decade," reports the New York Times:
The sudden reversal, after days of dismissing growing concern over hundreds of fires raging across the Amazon, came as international outrage grew over the rising deforestation in the world's largest tropical rainforest. Europe
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ITER: 'Where the Sun Will Be Re-Born on Earth'
Long-time Slashdot reader rinka shares an article about "the place where the Sun will be re-born on Earth":
The world's best scientists are trying to create a 'miniature Sun' on Earth to tap its fusion energy, costing over €20 billion... [G]lobally ITER is the most expensive science project on Earth ever to be undertaken in the 21st century. The total weight of the ITER reactor will be about 28,000 tonnes...
Being made collaboratively by USA, Russia, South Korea, China, Japan, Europe
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2019 Hugo Award Winners Include a Fan Fiction Site and 'Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse'
DevNull127 writes: The 77th World Science Fiction Convention announced the winners of the 2019 Hugo Awards at a ceremony Sunday night.
Here's some of the highlights. At least two of these stories can be read (for free) online:
BEST NOVELETTE: "If at First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again," by Zen Cho. The entire text is availabe online in the B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog, where it was published in November of 2018.
BEST SHORT STORY: "A Witch's Guide to Escape: A Practical Compend
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Facebook Awards $100,000 Prize For New Code Isolation Technique
ZDNet reports:
Facebook has awarded a $100,000 prize to a team of academics from Germany for developing a new code isolation technique that can be used to safeguard sensitive data while it's being processed inside a computer. The award is named the Internet Defense Prize, and is a $100,000 cash reward that Facebook has been giving out yearly since 2014 to the most innovative research presented at USENIX, a leading security conference that takes place every year in mid-August in the US.
A
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India's Chandrayaan-2 Spacecraft Enters the Moon's Orbit
Long-time Slashdot reader William Robinson writes: An unmanned spacecraft, Chandrayaan 2, India launched last month has begun orbiting the moon before it lands on the far side to search for water. The spacecraft is in orbit of 114 km x 18072 km and will continue circling the moon in a tighter orbit until reaching a distance of about 100 km x 30 km from the moon's surface. "The lander will then separate from the orbiter and use rocket fuel to brake as it attempts to land in the south polar region
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Three Smart Ovens Turned On Overnight, Then Preheated To 400 Degrees
AmiMoJo quote the Verge:
At least three smart June Ovens have turned on in the middle of the night and heated up to 400 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. The ovens' owners aren't sure why this happened, and June tells The Verge that user error is at fault...
The June Oven debuted in 2015 as a $1,495 countertop oven that uses a camera and computer vision to identify food that's been placed inside. The company raised nearly $30 million in funding and released its second-generation version in 20
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Why Are 'Supply Chain Attacks' on Open Source Libraries Getting Worse?
"A rash of supply chain attacks hitting open source software over the past year shows few signs of abating, following the discovery this week of two separate backdoors slipped into a dozen libraries downloaded by hundreds of thousands of server administrators," reports Ars Technica:
The compromises of Webmin and the RubyGems libraries are only the latest supply chain attacks to hit open source software. Most people don't think twice about installing software or updates from the official site
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Quantum Radar Has Been Demonstrated For the First Time
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Shabir Barzanjeh at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria and a few colleagues have used entangled microwaves to create the world's first quantum radar. Their device, which can detect objects at a distance using only a few photons, raises the prospect of stealthy radar systems that emit little detectable electromagnetic radiation. The device is simple in essence. The researchers create pairs of entangled microwave photons
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Driving Volkswagen's all-electric ID Buggy concept
The VW electric ID Buggy concept is delightful and bright, stout and smiling. It’s a vehicle fit for the sunshine and sand dunes, or perhaps a less committing slow roll along the beach. And so my first drive in a prototype of the all-electric buggy — along the coast near Spanish Bay in Monterey, Calif., […]
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Amazon Joins Walmart In Saying Tesla Solar Panels Caught Fire
Earlier today, it was reported that Tesla is working to resolve the lawsuit Walmart filed against the company earlier this week over defective solar panels. However, this story is far from over as Amazon has chimed in by saying it too has seen its Tesla solar panels catch fire. Bloomberg reports: On Friday, Amazon.com Inc. said a June 2018 blaze on the roof of one of its warehouses in Redlands, California, involved a solar panel system that Tesla's SolarCity division had installed. The Seattle-b
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Netflix Tests 'Collections' That Are Curated By Humans Instead of Algorithms
Netflix is testing an all-new recommendation system called "Collections" that relies on humans instead of neural networks. TechCrunch reports: While Netflix today already offers thematic suggestions of things to watch, based on your Netflix viewing history, Collections aren't only based on themes. According to Netflix, the titles are curated by experts on the company's creative teams, and are organized into these collections based on similar factors -- like genre, tone, story line and character
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The new Disney+ streaming service is oriented around fans and families
You can tell a lot about a service by what it prioritizes on its home screen. With the new Disney + service the focus is initially organized by fan base, with different silos for the company’s various studios and the fans that follow them. As the company gets the service off the ground — and […]
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 The Best Web Hosting Providers for 2019 - CNET
Find the best web hosting providers using price comparisons and reviews from our expert hosting editor. You can also find hosting for different needs like e-commerce, enterprise, specific content management systems and more.
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Complex Quantum Teleportation Achieved For the First Time
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: Researchers from the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University of Vienna have experimentally demonstrated what was previously only a theoretical possibility. Together with quantum physicists from the University of Science and Technology of China, they have succeeded in teleporting complex high-dimensional quantum states. The research teams report this international first in the journal Physical Review Letters. In their study, the researche
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Seattle Has Figured Out How To End the War On Drugs
Nicholas Kristof writes in an opinion piece for The New York Times about Seattle's "bold approach to narcotics that should be a model for America." Instead of being prosecuted for being caught with small amounts of drugs, that person is steered toward social services to get help. "In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs," writes Kristof. "It is relying less on the criminal justice toolbox to deal with hard drugs and more on the public health toolbox." From the report: This mo
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YouTube Says It Will Now Remove 'Violent' and 'Mature' Videos Pretending To Be Kid-Friendly
YouTube announced it is changing its policy in regard to how it treats videos targeted toward minors and young children. "The video platform says it will now remove all content that contains 'violent' or 'mature' themes if it is targeted toward kids, either through the title of the video, its description, or the accompanying tags," reports The Verge. From the report: Going forward, YouTube says this type of content "will no longer be allowed on the platform." Prior to this change, YouTube was ag
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Google Agrees To Meet With YouTubers Union Right Before Deadline
Last month, FairTube -- a collaboration between a group that calls itself the "YouTubers Union" and Europe's largest trade union, IG Metall -- sent Google a list of demands to achieve better working conditions. The letter gave YouTube with a deadline of August 23 to respond or else it would face "a shitstorm," according to Jorg Sprave, the founder of the YouTubers Union. On the last day, hours before the deadline, Google Germany sent a formal letter back to FairTube that said it had "a strong in
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Apple Contractors Were Each Listening To 1,000 Siri Recordings a Day, Says Report
According to The Verge, citing a report from the Irish Examiner, Apple used human contractors to listen to an arduous 1,000 Siri recordings every day to help make the digital assistant better at giving you what you want. Some of those recordings included personal data and snippets of conversations, one contractor says. An anonymous reader shares the report: Apple's Siri assistant currently records and sends snippets of your voice requests back to Apple to be studied so that Apple can try to make
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Facebook Bans Ads From The Epoch Times
Facebook has banned advertising from The Epoch Times, the Falun Gong-related publication and conservative news outlet, as the social network struggles to implement a consistent political advertising policy. The New York Times reports: Facebook issued the ban on Friday after NBC News published a report this week that said The Epoch Times had obscured its connection to recent Facebook ads promoting President Trump and conspiracy content. The Epoch Times, started in 2000 by a group of Chinese-Ameri
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Qualcomm Wins a Pause In Enforcement of FTC Ruling
Qualcomm has won a partial stay against the enforcement of a sweeping antitrust ruling in a lawsuit brought by the FTC. "The company on May 21 lost in an antitrust lawsuit and has been fighting to have the ruling put on hold while it pursued an appeal," reports Reuters. "The San Diego-based company argued that letting the ruling stand could upend its talks with phone makers over chips for 5G, the next generation of wireless data networks." From the report: In the ruling issued on Friday, the 9th
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Tesla Working To Resolve Dispute With Walmart Over Solar Panel Fires
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Walmart and Tesla are actively negotiating to resolve the lawsuit Walmart filed against Tesla earlier this week over defective solar panels, the two companies said in a joint statement sent out on Thursday evening. "Walmart and Tesla look forward to addressing all issues and re-energizing Tesla solar installations at Walmart stores, once all parties are certain that all concerns have been addressed," the statement said. The companies say the
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Employees Connect Nuclear Plant To the Internet So They Can Mine Cryptocurrency
Ukrainian authorities are investigating a potential security breach at a local nuclear power plant after employees connected parts of its internal network to the internet so they could mine cryptocurrency. From a report: The investigation is being led by the Ukrainian Secret Service (SBU), who is looking at the incident as a potential breach of state secrets due to the classification of nuclear power plants as critical infrastructure. Investigators are examining if attackers might have used the
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Why Are There So Many Weird Tech Patents?
Companies are constantly patenting strange things they have no intention of developing. From a report: Amazon is putting humans in cages to protect them from machines! Facebook is selling your face to advertisers so it can CGI you into ads! Sony has a system where you can skip ads if you stand up and yell the brand's name! None of these things are technically true -- they're headlines driven by patents filed by these companies. In each case, the company has not developed these technologies. And
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Uber's $1-Per-Ride 'Safe Rides Fee' Had Nothing To Do With Safety
Uber imposed a $1-per-ride surcharge it called a "Safe Rides Fee" in 2014, but it was a just a play for profit. From a report: The money collected by the company from the fee -- estimated at around $500 million -- was never earmarked specifically for safety and was "devised primarily to add $1 of pure margin to each trip," according to New York Times . At the time, Uber was facing rising costs from insurance and background checks, so the company came up with the idea of imposing a safety fee to
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Top US Publishers Sue Amazon's Audible For Copyright Infringement
Amazon's Audible was sued by some of the top U.S. publishers for copyright infringement on Friday, aiming to block a planned rollout of a feature called 'Audible Captions' that shows the text on screen as a book is narrated. From a report: The lawsuit was filed by seven members of the Association of American Publishers (AAP), including HarperCollins Publishers, Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan Publishers. "Essentially Audible wants to provide the tex
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Here's the first trailer for the upcoming Disney+ Star Wars series, The Mandalorian
It’s here! About ten months after we learned that Jon Favreau would be heading up a Star Wars series called “The Mandalorian” on Disney’s soon-to-launch streaming service Disney+, we have the first full trailer. It premiered this evening during the Disney+ panel at the D23 conference. Bounty hunting is a complicated profession. @TheMandalorian, an […]
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Vape lung has claimed its first victim, and the CDC is investigating
A person has died from what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention speculate is a vaping-related condition. Nearly 200 other cases of varying severeness have been reported nationwide described by the CDC as "severe unexplained respiratory systems after reported vaping or e-cigarette use."
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Backup service IDrive launches a face recognition API for developers
I did a bit of a double take when I first saw this announcement. IDrive, an online cloud storage and backup service, is launching a face recognition API today that goes up against the likes of AWS Rekognition and others. That seems like a bit of an odd move for a backup company, but it […]
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Trump Orders US Businesses To Find Alternative To China
President Trump said Friday U.S. companies were "hereby ordered" to start looking for alternatives to doing business in China after Beijing said it would impose tariffs on $75 billion worth of additional U.S. products. From a report: "Our Country has lost, stupidly, Trillions of Dollars with China over many years," Mr. Trump wrote in a series of tweets [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source]. "They have stolen our Intellectual Property at a rate of Hundreds of Billions of
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Americans Are Waiting Three Years To Replace Their Phones, Study Finds
A new study released by Strategy Analytics reflects the current state of the smartphone industry. Apparently, consumers in the US -- Baby Boomers, in particular -- are increasingly delaying their smartphone purchase for three or more years. From a report: In addition, the average iPhone now remains active for 18 months, while the average Samsung phone remains active for 16.5. The era of yearly phone upgrades is over. Smartphone shipments have been dropping around the world over the past year, an
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Confirmed: Disney is making an Obi-Wan series with Ewan McGregor
The rumors have been suggesting it for a while now, and fans have been pretty much begging for it… and it’s happening: Ewan McGregor will return to the role of Obi-Wan for a new Disney+ series. Disney dropped the news at a panel during D23 this evening, almost immediately after premiering the trailer for its […]
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Graphics That Seem Clear Can Easily Be Misread
An anonymous reader shares a report: "A picture is worth a thousand words." That saying leads us to believe that we can readily interpret a chart correctly. But charts are visual arguments, and they are easy to misunderstand if we do not pay close attention. Alberto Cairo, chair of visual journalism at the University of Miami, reveals pitfalls in an example diagrammed here. Learning how to better read graphics can help us navigate a world in which truth may be hidden or twisted. Say that you are
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Walmart and Tesla are going to try and work things out
Walmart came out swinging earlier this week in a lawsuit that accused Tesla of breach of contract and gross negligence over problems with rooftop solar panel systems installed at the retail giant’s stores. Now, just days later, the lawsuit has been placed on hold while the two companies try to reach an agreement that would […]
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Facebook Said It Would Give Detailed Data To Academics. They're Still Waiting.
An anonymous reader shares a report: In 2018, Facebook announced a partnership to provide data to academics to "help people better understand the broader impact of social media on democracy -- as well as improve our work to protect the integrity of elections." In April of this year, the first batch of winning proposals was announced. "The urgency of this research cannot be overstated," wrote the founders of Social Science One, the entity that operates the program. It describes itself as "an LLC
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Google Doesn't Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore
Google posted new internal rules that discourage employees from debating politics, a shift away from the internet giant's famously open culture. From a report: The new "community guidelines" tell employees not to have "disruptive" conversations and warn workers that they'll be held responsible for whatever they say at the office. The company is also building a tool to let employees flag problematic posts and creating a team of moderators to monitor conversations, a Google spokeswoman said. "Whil
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Bag Week 2019: A whole bunch of fannies
It's finally Bag Week again! The most wonderful week of the year at TechCrunch. Just in time for back to school, we're bringing you reviews of bags of all varieties: from backpacks to rollers to messengers to… The fanny pack. Or hip pack, waist bag, belt bag, sling, crossbody and sometimes bum bag, because where you're […]
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Watch a Waymo self-driving car test its sensors in a haboob
Waymo, the self-driving car company under Alphabet, has been testing in the suburbs of Phoenix for several years now. And while the sunny metropolis might seem like the ideal and easiest location to test autonomous vehicle technology, there are times when the desert becomes a dangerous place for any driver — human or computer. The […]
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Amazon Has Ceded Control of Its Site. The Result: Thousands of Banned, Unsafe or Mislabeled Products
Just like tech companies that have struggled to tackle misinformation on their platforms, Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers on its site. The Wall Street Journal: Many of the millions of people who shop on Amazon.com see it as if it were an American big-box store, a retailer with goods deemed safe enough for customers. In practice, Amazon has increasingly evolved like a flea market. It exercises limited oversight over items listed by millions of third
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Members of Facebook's 'Crypto Mafia' Reportedly Getting Cold Feet About Libra Currency
At least three of the 28 entities that have signed on for Facebook's planned Libra currency are now getting nervous about the project, according to a new report from the Financial Times. And Facebook is just as worried about being the only company currently with its "neck out," as regulators push back against the plan to create a new digital currency from thin air. From a report: The companies, which some have dubbed the "crypto mafia," include heavy hitters from Silicon Valley and Wall Street,
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Oracle Directors Give Blessing To Shareholder Lawsuit Against Larry Ellison, Safra Catz
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Three years after closing a $9.3 billion deal to acquire NetSuite, several Oracle board members have written an extraordinary letter to the Delaware Court, approving a shareholder lawsuit against company executives Larry Ellison and Safra Catz over the 2016 deal. Reuters broke this story. According to Reuters' Alison Frankel, three board members, including former U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, sent a letter on August 15th to Sam Glasscoc
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