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 The best headphones of 2020 - CNET
With many different headphones to choose from, which ones are the best of the best? Here's a look at CNET's top picks -- from full-size models to tiny wireless earbuds.
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 The World's Largest Concentrations of Java Programmers are in Asia and Germany
"To celebrate Java's 25th anniversary this year and the latest release of Java 15, JetBrains has compiled data from multiple sources to look at what the current state of the language," reports
SD Times:
The largest concentration of Java developers is in Asia, where 2.5 million developers use it as their primary language. JetBrains believes this may be due to the fact that it is common to hire offshore developers in countries like China and India to build Android apps. "We might have expected
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NASA Launches New $23 Million Toilet to International Space Station
First, PetaPixel reminds us that Estee Lauder's products will be launching into space this week:
The cosmetics giant Estee Lauder is paying NASA $128,000 for a product photography shoot onboard the International Space Station. Bloomberg reports that the company will be paying the space agency to fly 10 bottles of its Advanced Night Repair skin serum to the orbiting space station on a cargo run that will launch from Virginia on Tuesday and dock on Saturday. Once the product is on board, astronau
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Microsoft Updates Edge With New Features To Challenge Chrome
Forbes looks at new features Microsoft added to Edge "as it looks to beat Chrome in the browser wars."
It's now going to be possible to search for work files directly inside the Edge browser directly from the address bar. To use this you need Microsoft Search configured, then type "work" and press the Tab key to search your company's network for your work files. Another work-related Microsoft Edge update is also about to launch to let IT admins manage specific work related apps on user devices
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Tesla's Elon Musk Promises Full Self-Driving Autopilot Beta In 'A Month Or So'
"I think we'll hopefully release a private beta of Autopilot — the full self-driving version of autopilot — in, I think a month or so?" CEO Elon Musk said this week at Tesla's annual shareholder meeting/Battery Day event. "And then people will really understand the magnitude of the change," said Musk adding, "It's profound. You'll see what it's like, it's amazing."
CNET reports that attendees then showed their approval "by honking the horns of their safety bubbles."
"It's kind o
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Python Developer Builds a Raspberry Pi That Alerts Drone Pilots
"A Raspberry Pi, a USB SDR dongle, an LCD a buzzer and a little bit of coding in Python and C has created a very useful alarm for drone and RC model aircraft operators," explains long-time Slashdot reader NewtonsLaw .
The device allows users to set an "alarm" perimeter around their operating area and automatically alert them whenever a manned aircraft with ADSB fitted intrudes into that area. While there are apps like FlightRadar24 that allow you to monitor ADSB-equipped air traffic, this is th
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Firefox 81 Released, Can Now Be Your Default Browser in iOS
Engadget reports:
One big benefit of iOS 14 is that you can set non-Apple-made apps as your default, including for email and web browsing. Hot on the heels of you being able to set Chrome and Gmail as your clients of choice, Firefox is enabling you to make its browser the default on iPhones and iPads. Naturally, you'll need to have both the latest version of the operating system and the apps, and then just make the switch inside settings.
Meanwhile, Bleeping Computer profiles some of the ne
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Bug Allowed Hijacking Other Firefox Mobile Browsers on the Same Wi-Fi Network
"Mozilla has fixed a bug that can be abused to hijack all the Firefox for Android browsers on the same Wi-Fi network and force users to access malicious sites, such as phishing pages," reports ZDNet:
The bug was discovered by Chris Moberly, an Australian security researcher working for GitLab. The actual vulnerability resides in the Firefox SSDP component. SSDP stands for Simple Service Discovery Protocol and is the mechanism through which Firefox finds other devices on the same network in or
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Bored Developer Creates 'DOS Subsystem For Linux'
Long-time Slashdot reader Bismillah quotes iTnews:
A software engineer in Melbourne is whiling away the city's lockdown by creating a tool that DOS users so far have lacked: an integrated Linux environment similar to what Windows 10 users enjoy...
"I first started out just seeing if I could get Linux booting from the DOS command line, and that turned out to be straightforward enough so I thought it'd be fun to see if I could continue executing DOS once Linux was running," Charlie Somerville
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While Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube Announce Hate Speech Action, Some Advertisers Remain Skeptical
"Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter have agreed on first steps to curb harmful content online, big advertisers announced on Wednesday, following boycotts of social media platforms accused of tolerating hate speech," Reuters reports:
Under the deal, announced by the World Federation of Advertisers, common definitions would be adopted for forms of harmful content such as hate speech and bullying, and platforms would adopt harmonized reporting standards... The platforms agreed to have some practices
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Imprisoned 'Anonymous' Hacktivist Martin Gottesfeld Files His First Appeal
In early 2019, Martin Gottesfeld of Anonymous was sentenced under America's "Computer Fraud and Abuse Act" to 10 years in federal prison for his alleged role in the 2014 DDoS attacks on healthcare and treatment facilities around Boston. (Gottesfeld was sentenced by the same judge who oversaw the Aaron Swartz case.)
Gottesfeld has just filed his first appeal, and Slashdot reader Danngggg shares this new interview with Gottesfeld's attorney Brandon Sample. The upshot?
Brandon Sample: If the
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Johnson & Johnson's Covid-19 Vaccine Produces Strong Immune Response in Early Trial
Newsweek reports:
Pharmaceutical manufacturer Johnson & Johnson announced Friday that early trials of a COVID-19 vaccine showed a 98 percent success rate in showing a boost in the immune system. According to research from Johnson & Johnson, the vaccine enabled 98 percent of those who took it to create antibodies that fight off the coronavirus infection. Those neutralizing antibodies were present 29 days after receiving the vaccination...
Currently, four U.S. vaccines are in the fina
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Vaccine Maker Novavax Enters Final Large-Scale Testing of Its Covid-19 Vaccine
The New York Times reports:
Vaccine maker Novavax said Thursday that it would begin the final stages of testing its coronavirus vaccine in the United Kingdom and that another large trial was scheduled to begin next month in the United States. It is the fifth late-stage trial from a company supported by Operation Warp Speed, the federal effort to speed a coronavirus vaccine to market, and one of 11 worldwide to reach this pivotal stage.
Novavax, a Maryland company that has never brought a va
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Emacs Developers (Including Richard Stallman) Discuss How to Build a More 'Modern' Emacs
LWN.net re-visits the emacs-devel mailing list, where the Emacs 28 development cycle has revived discussions about how to make the text editor more "modern" and attractive to new users:
A default dark theme may not be in the future, leading one to think that there may yet be hope for the world in general. But there does seem to be general agreement that Emacs could benefit from a better, more centralized approach to color themes, rather than having color names hard-coded throughout various El
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Rat That Sniffs Out Land Mines Receives Award For Bravery
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: The medal awarded on Friday lauded the "lifesaving bravery and devotion to duty" for work detecting land mines in Cambodia. Its recipient: a rat named Magawa.
Magawais the first rat to receive the award -- a gold medal bestowed by the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals, a British charity, that is often called the "animal's George Cross" after an honor usually given to civilians that recognizes acts of bravery and heroism. Not since
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Google Maps To Block Users From 'Virtual Visits' of Australian Uluru
misnohmer writes: In 2019, the Australian site of Uluru, formerly known as Ayers Rock, has been closed to tourists "after the Anangu people said it was being trashed by visitors eroding its surface, dropping rubbish and polluting nearby waterholes," according to CNN. Parks Australia has now has asked Google to remove all imagery of the site uploaded by the community, as per the wishes of the Uluru's owners -- the Anangu Aboriginal people. Google agreed. "Google is "supportive of this request and
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Cats Can Imitate Humans, Scientists Show For First Time
sciencehabit writes: A number of animals, from dogs to chimpanzees, can imitate human behavior. Now scientists have shown that cats can too. Under controlled conditions, a Japanese cat named Ebisu copied the movements of her owner when she touched a cardboard box and rubbed her face against it. Researchers say it's evidence of complex cognition, because the cat must be able to "map" the human's body parts onto her own. The finding may also suggest that the ability to imitate arose earlier in mam
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MS Treatment a Step Closer After Drug Shown To Repair Nerve Coating
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Doctors believe they are closer to a treatment for multiple sclerosis after discovering a drug that repairs the coatings around nerves that are damaged by the disease. A clinical trial of the cancer drug bexarotene showed that it repaired the protective myelin sheaths that MS destroys. The loss of myelin causes a range of neurological problems including balance, vision and muscle disorders, and ultimately, disability.
While bexarotene ca
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 Is your startup the next TikTok?
Editor's note: Get this free weekly recap of TechCrunch news that any startup can use by email every Saturday morning (7 a.m. PT). Subscribe here. And I don't mean building an app that gets the world addicted to short-form videos. I mean, where you build a huge company that spans the world and then get turned into […]
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Crows Possess Higher Intelligence Long Thought a Primarily Human Attribute, New Research Shows
Research unveiled on Thursday in Science finds that crows know what they know and can ponder the content of their own minds, a manifestation of higher intelligence and analytical thought long believed the sole province of humans and a few other higher mammals. STAT reports: "Together, the two papers show that intelligence/consciousness are grounded in connectivity and activity patterns of neurons" in the most neuron-dense part of the bird brain, called the pallium, neurobiologist Suzana Herculan
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Facebook's Oversight Board Won't Launch In Time To Oversee the Election
"On Friday, a coalition of academics and legal experts announced the formation of the 'Real Facebook Oversight Board,' an informal group that will publicly call out Facebook's slow action in advance of the election, including early Facebook investor Roger McNamee and Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff," reports The Verge. The only problem is that it won't launch in time to hear cases related to the U.S. election. From the report: The group plans to hold regular "board meetings" to discuss failure
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Amid the Pandemic's Urban Quiet, a Song That Makes Sense
"Every musician knows that when the performers can hear one another, the performance is always better than otherwise," writes Slashdot reader nightcats. "This principle applies in nature as well, and has been anecdotally witnessed amid the quiet imposed by COVID-19 on cities around the world. In San Francisco, behavioral ecologist Liz Derryberry has been able to deliver a dramatic scientific demonstration of the changes to the songs of the white-crowned sparrow amid the quiet of 2020." National
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The Best Chrome Extensions To Prevent Creepy Web Tracking
Wired has highlighted several browser extensions that "are a simple first step in improving your online privacy." Other steps to take include adding a privacy-first browser and VPN to further mask your web activity. An anonymous reader shares the report: Privacy Badger is one of the best options for blocking online tracking in your current browser. For a start, it's created by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a US-based non-profit digital rights group that's been fighting online privacy battl
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Apple Backs Down on Taking 30% Cut of Paid Online Events on Facebook
Facebook has temporarily shamed Apple out of taking a 30 percent cut of paid online events organized by small businesses and hosted on Facebook -- things like cooking classes, workout sessions, and happy hours. Demand for these kinds of online events has soared during the COVID-19 pandemic. From a report: Apple says that it has a longstanding policy that digital products must be purchased using Apple's in-app payments system -- and hence pay Apple's 30 percent tax. In contrast, companies selling
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