fidzu : Nerd news

A South Korean court sentenced Samsung Electronics heir Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong, otherwise known as Jay Y. Lee, to two-and-a-half years in prison on a bribery charge on Monday, a ruling which is likely to have ramifications for his leadership of the tech giant as well as South Korea's views toward big business. From a report: With this, Lee will be sidelined for the time being from major decision making at the company as it strives to overtake competitors. He will also be unable to oversee the process of inheritance from his father, who died in October, crucial to keeping control of Samsung. Lee, 52, was convicted of bribing an associate of former president Park Geun-hye and jailed for five years in 2017. He denied wrongdoing, the sentence was reduced and suspended on appeal, and he was released after serving a year.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

18 Jan 2021 4:05pm GMT

Last year Korg announced a limited edition remake of the ARP 2600. It's about as iconic as synths get. But, the 2600 is a beast of an instrument. The whole package, including the keyboard, weighs about 68 pounds and would basically demand it's own ta...

18 Jan 2021 3:45pm GMT

Hike, the messaging app backed by SoftBank Group that aimed to compete against WhatsApp in the world's second-most populous country, shut down and vanished from app stores Monday. From a report: The startup valued at $1.4 billion in a 2016 funding round announced its app was going off the air earlier this month without explanation. The app started by billionaire-family scion Kavin Bharti Mittal has failed over several years to displace Facebook's rival app as India's go-to venue for social media and mobile communications. The country remains WhatsApp's largest market globally. Hike, backed also by Chinese WeChat-operator Tencent Holdings, has in recent years ventured into adjacent areas such as no-frills phones and expanded even into spheres such as mobile entertainment. On Jan. 6, Mittal -- son of Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of India's No. 2 telecom carrier, Bharti Airtel Ltd. -- announced the closure of Hike StickerChat.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

18 Jan 2021 3:28pm GMT

Smartwatches and fitness wearables may be able to play a valuable role in the early detection of COVID-19, according to recent studies. Researchers from Mount Sinai have found that the Apple Watch can detect small changes to a user's heartbeat that m...

18 Jan 2021 3:01pm GMT

Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo reached a major milestone in its 12-year-old history last week when it recorded on Monday its first-ever day with more than 100 million user search queries. From a report: The achievement comes after a period of sustained growth the company has been seeing for the past two years, and especially since August 2020, when the search engine began seeing more than 2 billion search queries a month on a regular basis. The numbers are small in comparison to Google's 5 billion daily search queries but it's a positive sign that users are looking for alternatives. DuckDuckGo's popularity comes after the search engine has expanded beyond its own site and now currently offers mobile apps for Android and iOS, but also a dedicated Chrome extension. More than 4 million users installed these apps and extension, the company said in a tweet in September 2020.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

18 Jan 2021 2:50pm GMT

GitHub is admitting that a Jewish employee was fired in error and is offering him his job back. The news comes after the company hired an independent law firm to investigate the termination, and found that "significant mistakes were made." The company's head of HR, Carrie Olesen, is also resigning. From a report: "Yesterday evening, the investigation reached the conclusion that significant mistakes were made that are not consistent with our internal practices or the judgement we expect from our leaders," wrote GitHub CEO Nat Friedman in an internal message to employees on January 16th. He said the company would be issuing a public apology on its blog this weekend. In the post, GitHub COO Erica Brescia said: "To the employee we wish to say publicly: we sincerely apologize." The controversial firing came just two days after the employee warned colleagues in Washington DC to stay safe from Nazis -- news first reported by Business Insider. He posted the message on January 6th, the day of the insurrection in Washington DC, as rioters associated with neo-Nazi organizations stormed the Capitol. The warning sparked criticism from a colleague who took offense at the use of the word "Nazi" and prompted GitHub's HR team to reprimand the Jewish employee. Two days later, he was fired.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

18 Jan 2021 2:03pm GMT

I'm not sure how to describe how much my son spits up, but no one else in this household is getting five outfit changes in a day, so let's just say it's a lot. While he still seems to be gaining weight, I'd like a more accurate picture of how much he...

18 Jan 2021 1:30pm GMT

Exercise makes you happier, huh? Prove it.Asics tried to, using a portable EEG to measure the effects of running on the brains of both pro athletes and mere (but fit) humans. The sample size is small, but the numbers show an 18 percent increase in pa...

18 Jan 2021 12:20pm GMT

Here's some news from CNN for the 30 million tourists visiting Venice, Italy each year: They're watching you, wherever you walk. They know exactly where you pause, when you slow down and speed up, and they count you in and out of the city. What's more, they're tracking your phone, so they can tell exactly how many people from your country or region are in which area, at which time. And they're doing it in a bid to change tourism for the better. Welcome to Venice in a post-Covid world.... Before Covid-19 struck, tourists were arriving in often unmanageable numbers, choking the main streets and filling up the waterbuses... Enter the Venice Control Room. On the island of Tronchetto, next to the two-mile bridge separating Venice from the Italian mainland, the Control Room opened in September 2020. A former warehouse that had been abandoned since the 1960s, it's part of a new headquarters for the city's police and government - a self-described "control tower" for the city. The building has offices for the mayor, other dignitaries, and a large CCTV room, with cameras feeding in images from around the city, watched over by the police. So far so normal. But then, across the corridor, there's the Smart Control Room - another bank of screens with images and information coming live from around the lagoon. They're not being monitored for crime, though; they're feeding information to the authorities that will create a profile of the hordes of people visiting Venice. The hope is that gathering the information will not only track footfall now, enabling the authorities to activate turnstiles and start charging for entrance on busy days. Eventually, they hope that the data will help create a more sustainable tourism plan for the future.... At 10am, the arrivals reached a peak of 2,411: most likely the daytrippers. The authorities can see where these new arrivals are from by analyzing their phone data (the information is all aggregated automatically, so no personal details can be gleaned).... The system took three years to build, at a cost of €3m ($3.5m). And although some might baulk at the privacy implications (although no personal data is recorded, you and your provenance is essentially being logged as you move around the city), the authorities are very proud.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

18 Jan 2021 11:34am GMT

"I increasingly suspect that the days of large-scale public distribution of unmoderated user generated content on the Internet may shortly begin drawing to a close in significant ways..." writes long-time Slashdot reader Lauren Weinstein. And then he shares "a bit of history": Back in 1985 when I launched my "Stargate" experiment to broadcast Usenet Netnews over the broadcast television vertical blanking interval of national "Superstation WTBS," I decided that the project would only carry moderated Usenet newsgroups. Even more than 35 years ago, I was concerned about some of the behavior and content already beginning to become common on Usenet... My determination for Stargate to only carry moderated groups triggered cries of "censorship," but I did not feel that responsible moderation equated with censorship - and that is still my view today. And now, all these many years later, it's clear that we've made no real progress in these regards... But as it stands now, Weinstein believes were probably headed to "a combination of steps taken independently by social media firms and future legislative mandates." [M]y extremely strong preference is that we deal with these issues together as firms, organizations, customers, and users - rather than depend on government actions that, if history is any guide, will likely do enormous negative collateral damage. Time is of the essence. Weinstein suggests one possibility: that moderation at scale "may follow the model of AI-based first-level filtering, followed by layers of human moderators." But what's the alternative? Throngs of human moderators? Leaving it all to individual users? Limiting the amount of user-generated content? No moderation whatsoever? Share your own thoughts and ideas in the comments. How should user-generated content be moderated?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

18 Jan 2021 8:34am GMT

Samsung heir Jay Y. Lee has been sentenced to two and a half years of prison over bribery charges, wrapping up a court battle that started four years ago, Bloomberg has reported. Lee was originally jailed for five years back in 2017, but walked free...

18 Jan 2021 7:14am GMT

CNN reports: According to Johns Hopkins University's tally of cases in the United States, there have been at least 23,754,315 cases of coronavirus in the U.S., and at least 395,785 deaths. On Saturday, Johns Hopkins reported 198,218 new cases and 3,286 new deaths... On Friday, the CDC said new more contagious variants of the coronavirus will likely accelerate the spread of the virus and that means the US must double down on efforts to protect people. The U.S. Census Bureau calculates the country's entire population is 330,827,996 people. These figures suggest 7.18% of the American population has now experienced the disease - more than 1 out of every 14 Americans.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

18 Jan 2021 4:59am GMT

CNN reports: A 70-foot rocket, riding beneath the wing of a retrofitted Boeing 747 aircraft, detached from the plane and fired itself into Earth's orbit on Sunday - marking the first successful launch for the California-based rocket startup Virgin Orbit. Virgin Orbit's 747, nicknamed Cosmic Girl, took off from California around 10:30 am PT with the rocket, called LauncherOne, nestled beneath the plane's left wing. The aircraft flew out over the Pacific Ocean before the rocket was released, freeing LauncherOne and allowing it to power up its rocket motor and propel itself to more than 17,000 miles per hour, fast enough to begin orbiting the Earth... The rocket flew a group of tiny satellites on behalf of NASA's Educational Launch of Nanosatellites, or ELaNa, program, which allows high school and college students to design and assemble small satellites that NASA then pays to launch into space... About four hours after takeoff on Saturday, Virgin Orbit confirmed in a tweet that all the satellites were "successfully deployed into our target orbit." The successful mission makes Virgin Orbit only the third so-called "New Space" company - startups hoping to overhaul the traditional industry with innovative technologies - to reach orbit, after SpaceX and Rocket Lab. The success also paves the way for Virgin Orbit to begin launching satellites for a host of customers that it already has lined up, including NASA, the military and private-sector companies that use satellites for commercial purposes. Virgin Orbit shared a 57-second video on Twitter showing the moment their rocket was released and then launched, saying the event went exactly as planned. "To say we're thrilled would be a massive understatement, but 240 characters couldn't do it justice anyway."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

18 Jan 2021 2:59am GMT

Long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo quotes the Washington Post: Amazon said it will remove merchandise related to QAnon, a discredited conspiracy theory that the FBI has identified as a potential domestic terrorist threat, just a day after the e-commerce giant suspended the pro-Trump social media site Parler from using its cloud computing technology. Amazon is beginning to remove QAnon products from its site, a process that could take a few days, spokeswoman Cecilia Fan said Monday afternoon following inquiries from The Washington Post and other media outlets. Third-party merchants that attempt to evade Amazon's systems to list QAnon goods may find their selling privileges revoked, Fan added.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

18 Jan 2021 1:59am GMT

Joel Kinnaman reprises his role as astronaut Ed Baldwin in this Apple TV+ series.

18 Jan 2021 1:23am GMT

CNN reports: Twitter on Sunday temporarily suspended the account of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for repeated violations of new rules the social media platform put in place following the violent U.S. Capitol riot earlier this month, a company spokesperson told CNN. "The account referenced has been temporarily locked out for multiple violations of our civic integrity policy," the spokesperson said. As a result, the congresswoman will be locked out of her account for 12 hours. CNN also notes that Greene is a QAnon supporter, and that during her 12-hour suspension she'd complained that conservative Americans "shouldn't have to fear being cancelled by American corporations where they work, do business, and use services. "They shouldn't be scared into submission by Socialists who want to end their way of life."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

18 Jan 2021 12:59am GMT

"The Trump administration notified Huawei suppliers, including chipmaker Intel, that it is revoking certain licenses to sell to the Chinese company and intends to reject dozens of other applications," Reuters reports, citing sources familiar with the matter: One of the sources said eight licenses were yanked from four companies. Japanese flash memory chip maker Kioxia Corp had at least one license revoked, two of the sources said. The company, formerly known as Toshiba Memory Corp, could not immediately be reached for comment... Companies that received the "intent to deny" notices have 20 days to respond, and the Commerce Department has 45 days to advise the companies of any change in a decision or it then becomes final. Companies would then have another 45 days to appeal... Before the latest action, some 150 licenses were pending for $120 billion worth of goods and technology, which had been held up because various U.S. agencies could not agree on whether they should be granted, a person familiar with the matter said. Another $280 billion of licenses for goods and technology for Huawei still have not been dealt with, the source said, but now face a higher likelihood of denial... The United States made the latest decisions during a half dozen meetings starting on Jan. 4 with senior officials from the departments of Commerce, State, Defense and Energy, the source said. The officials developed detailed guidance with regard to which technologies were capable of 5G, and then applied that standard, the person said. By doing that, the officials denied the vast majority of the roughly 150 disputed applications, and revoked the eight licenses to make those consistent with the new denials, the source said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

17 Jan 2021 11:59pm GMT

The state of Florida's former Covid-19 data manager was arrested today. After her firing in May of 2020, Rebekah Jones had become a critic of the state's publicly-available information, even setting up her own online dashboard of Covid-19 case data. The state suspected her of being the person who'd illegally accessed the state's emergency alert health system in December to urge Health Department employees to speak up about the coronavirus, and state police obtained a warrant for a raid on her home during which they'd seized her computers and cellphones. Jones later called the raid a "sham" to retaliate against her for not altering the state's COVID-19 data. This weekend on Twitter, Jones emphasized that the police found zero evidence during their raid to connect her to that message. She also argues that the newer allegation "was issued the day after a Tallahassee judge told police that if they're not investigating a crime, they had to return my equipment." During that raid "police did find documents I received/downloaded from sources in the state, or something of that nature..." Jones posted Saturday. "[I]t isn't clear at this point what exactly they're saying I had that I shouldn't have had, but an agent confirmed it has nothing to do with the subject of the warrant." The Tampa Bay Times reports: Jones announced Saturday on Twitter that she learned of the warrant and plans to turn herself in on Sunday. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement confirmed there is a warrant for Jones' arrest but said it cannot disclose what charges she faces until she is in custody. Agency spokesman Gretl Plessinger said in an email to the Tampa Bay Times that "agents have been working with her attorney to have her turn herself in..." Jones said she and her attorney were not told what she's being prosecuted for, just that she faces one criminal charge... "The agent told my lawyer there would be only one charge," Jones tweeted on Saturday, "but emphasized that speaking out or going to the media may result in police 'stacking' additional charges." UPDATE (1/18/2021): Monday in court prosecutors asked that Jones be banned from the internet, and be required to wear a GPS monitor - but a judge rejected the request (according to a local news report cited by the Orlando Sentinel). The warrant alleges that on Nov. 10, Jones downloaded a file equivalent to between 600 and 700 sheets of paper, containing contact information for about 19,182 Floridians. The file contained names, organizations, titles, home counties as well as personal phone numbers and emails, the warrant states. On her Twitter account, Jones said the charge was retaliation for her criticisms of the state's COVID-19 response and claimed the charge had nothing to do with the original search warrant at her home last month... The agency said the message was sent from an IP address that matched Jones' address, according to the warrant. Agents seized a desktop computer from Jones' home during the search, and a forensic analysis revealed she downloaded the file containing the information, the warrant reads. The charge is a third-degree felony.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

17 Jan 2021 10:59pm GMT

Do you feel like your body is going to waste when you play Mario Kart on your Switch? Mike Choi might have a way to keep you in shape. The self-professed "hardware hacker" has built a concept Labo Fit Adventure Kart Kit that gives you a full workout...

17 Jan 2021 9:57pm GMT

The New York Times reports on an "exodus" of tech workers from the San Francisco Bay Area, where "Rent was astronomical. Taxes were high. Your neighbors didn't like you" - and your commute could be over an hour. The biggest tech companies aren't going anywhere, and tech stocks are still soaring... But the migration from the Bay Area appears real. Residential rents in San Francisco are down 27% from a year ago, and the office vacancy rate has spiked to 16.7%, a number not seen in a decade. Though prices had dropped only slightly, Zillow reported more homes for sale in San Francisco than a year ago. For more than a month last year, 90% of the searches involving San Francisco on moveBuddha were for people moving out... There are 33,000 members in the Facebook group Leaving California and 51,000 in its sister group, Life After California. People post pictures of moving trucks and links to Zillow listings in new cities. They've apparently scattered across the country - even to tropical islands like Puerto Rico and Costa Rica They fled to more affordable places like Georgia. They fled to states without income taxes like Texas and Florida... The No. 1 pick for people leaving San Francisco is Austin, Texas, with other winners including Seattle, New York and Chicago, according to moveBuddha, a site that compiles data on moving. Some cities have set up recruiting programs to lure them to new homes. The Times also notes "there is a very vocal Miami faction, led by a few venture capital influencers, trying to tweet the city's startup world into existence," as other cities begin to realize that "the talent and money of newly remote tech workers are up for grabs." Topeka, Kansas, started Choose Topeka, which will reimburse new workers $10,000 for the first year of rent or $15,000 if they buy a home. Tulsa, Oklahoma, will pay you $10,000 to move there. The nation of Estonia has a new residency program just for digital nomads. A program in Savannah, Georgia, will reimburse remote workers $2,000 for the move there, and the city has created various social activities to introduce the newcomers to one another and to locals... But the article also points out that "More money was made faster in the Bay Area by fewer people than at any other time in American history," and speculates on what long-time residents may be thinking: People who distrusted the young newcomers from the start will say this change is a good thing. Hasn't this steep growth in wealth and population in a tiny geography always seemed unsustainable? These tech workers came like a whirlwind. Virtually every community from San Jose in the south to Marin County in the north has fought the rise of new housing for the arrivals of the last decade. Maybe spreading the tech talent around America is smart. Locals have also seen this play before. Moving trucks come to take a generation of tech ambition away, and a few years later moving trucks return with new dreamers and new ambitions.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

17 Jan 2021 9:35pm GMT

IO Interactive's plans to let Hitman 3 players use earlier games' locations might not have panned out as planned, but that doesn't mean you'll have to re-buy those first two titles. The developer has promised that PC gamers who own Hitman or Hitman 2...

17 Jan 2021 9:16pm GMT

Nine days ago America set a record: nearly 290,000 new Covid-19 cases within 24 hours. according to figures from Johns Hopkins University. Four days later, anti-mask protesters in Oregon filmed their confrontation with employees at a Trader Joe's grocery store who wouldn't let them enter the store unless they were wearing a mask. Their 8-minute video has since been viewed over 325,000 times. The Oregonian newspaper reports: As other masked customers enter the store, the manager repeats that the protesters are welcome to shop too, as long as they wear masks. He says he is more than willing to talk to the group but isn't interested in debating policy. Trader Joe's nationwide policy requires customers to wear masks in stores. "We're not demonstrating, we're buying groceries," a protester says. "That's why I'm here." The manager says he is enforcing the store's mask mandate. "It's not a law. You cannot enforce non-law," a protester says. "You cannot deny somebody the right to commerce." The store manager appears to offer to shop for the protesters and bring out what they want. Amid growing shouting, a woman says: "I need to buy groceries. I don't know what I want until I go in and see it. The Civil Rights Act protects me to go in and shop like everybody else." Legal experts have told USA Today that the 1964 Civil Rights Act does not give people the right to shop without a mask. The manager patiently explains to the protesters that "The difference you guys are trying to make isn't going to made with us. It can made with your government." But soon one protester starts amplifying their voice with a bullhorn, while another continues filming the grocery store's employees - zooming in on their name tags - and threatening, "I'm sorry that you're not going to be able to let anyone else in, because we're standing here." Another protester says "Right, that's pretty much the only resolution. It's either we get to shop, like free American citizens, right? Without being forced into wearing this mask, right...?" They don't appear to follow through on their threat to blockade entry into the store, but the manager continues talking to them throughout the video. And at one point he says calmly that "It's disheartening that we can't have any conversations any more... It's really disheartening. "It's disheartening that people can't just talk to one another."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

17 Jan 2021 8:34pm GMT

Even the best episode of the series can't save S4 from a sloppy, muddled final season.

17 Jan 2021 8:01pm GMT

Virgin Orbit's second launch demonstration flight has been smoother than its first. The company has carried customer satellites into space for the first time after the Cosmic Girl host aircraft successfully deployed the LauncherOne rocket over the Pa...

17 Jan 2021 7:56pm GMT

More car subscription services are running into trouble. According to Autoblog, Automotive News has learned that Audi and BMW are respectively ending and pausing their services. Audi is winding down its Select program on January 31st with no mention...

17 Jan 2021 7:34pm GMT

"SpaceX's attempt to reduce the reflectivity of Starlink satellites is working, but not to the degree required by astronomers," reports Gizmodo: Starlink satellites with an anti-reflective coating are half as bright as the standard version, according to research published in The Astrophysical Journal. It's an improvement, but still not good enough, according to the team, led by astronomer Takashi Horiuchi from the National Astronomical Observatory in Japan. These "DarkSats," as they're called, also continue to cause problems at other wavelengths of light [and] were included in a batch of satellites launched by SpaceX on January 7, 2020. The new study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of that dark coating... The scientists found that the "albedo of DarkSat is about a half of that of STARLINK-1113," as they wrote in their paper. That's a decent improvement in the visual spectrum, but still not great. What's more, problems persist at other wavelengths. "The darkening paint on DarkSat certainly halves reflection of sunlight compared to the ordinary Starlink satellites, but [the constellation's] negative impact on astronomical observations still remains," Horiuchi told Physics World. He said the mitigating effect is "good in the UV/optical region" of the spectrum, but "the black coating raises the surface temperature of DarkSat and affects intermediate infrared observations." A third version of Starlink is supposed to be even dimmer. Called "VisorSats," they feature a sun visor that will "dim the satellites once they reach their operational altitude," according to Sky and Telescope. SpaceX launched some VisorSats last year, but the degree to which their albedo is lessened compared to the original version is still not known, or if these versions will exhibit elevated surface temperatures. Horiuchi told Physics World that SpaceX should seriously consider lifting the altitude of the Starlink constellation to further reduce the brightness of these objects. . The article ends with a quote from an astronomer at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and an expert on satellites. He'd told Gizmodo's reporter back in January of 2020 that "SpaceX is making a good-faith effort to fix the problem," and that he believes the company "can get the satellites fainter than what the naked eye can see."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

17 Jan 2021 7:34pm GMT

Signal has learned first-hand that there really can be too much of a good thing. As Android Police reports, Signal has recovered from an outage that plagued the secure chat service for over a day. Messaging and even sign-ins became unreliable as the...

17 Jan 2021 6:32pm GMT

It's taken as read that exercise can make you happier, healthier and more resilient, at least if you actually enjoy running. Asics, with an eye on selling you a new pair of sneakers, recruited a researcher from Kings College London to put some number...

17 Jan 2021 6:00pm GMT

The antitrust cases against Facebook and Google might have some additional fuel. The New York Times says it has obtained documents from Texas' antitrust lawsuit elaborating on a "sweetheart deal" (first mentioned by the Wall Street Journal) Google ga...

17 Jan 2021 4:56pm GMT

As tech journalists (as well as their laptop fans) begin to recover and recuperate from the first all-digital CES, let's take a quick look at some other headlights from this past week. chameleonseye via Getty Images NHTSA wants Tesla to recall 158,0...

17 Jan 2021 4:30pm GMT

You might not have to spend a small fortune if you crave a mechanical gaming keyboard. Best Buy is selling Razer's BlackWidow Elite wired keyboard with Green switchesfor just $70, well under the regular $130. Amazon is selling it for the same price,...

17 Jan 2021 2:00pm GMT

In which lasers do things that make absolutely no sense but give us great clocks.

17 Jan 2021 2:00pm GMT

Volunteers couldn't tell AI-generated comments from those penned by humans.

17 Jan 2021 11:55am GMT

"It's not everything we hoped it would be."

17 Jan 2021 3:57am GMT

Don't even think of using a Bird rental scooter for a wild ride. The company has revealed a Skid Detection feature that, as the name implies, watches for moments when an e-scooter goes sideways. If there's a pattern of skidding Bird can attribute to...

16 Jan 2021 9:45pm GMT

Facebook is continuing its crackdown on potential domestic terrorism at President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration. The social network told BuzzFeed News that it was temporarily banning US ads for gun accessories and military gear, such as holsters and...

16 Jan 2021 8:51pm GMT

New study suggests a desire to see society focus on men helps drive support.

16 Jan 2021 6:54pm GMT

Traumatized residents, city officials fear a repeat of January 6 insurrection.

16 Jan 2021 11:50am GMT

Post titled "Astonishing fraud! Evil Pfffizer! Fake vaccines!" found on the Dark Web.

15 Jan 2021 10:40pm GMT

"We will manage the hell out of this operation," Biden vowed.

15 Jan 2021 10:30pm GMT

Disney+ take on Marvel TV is a massive zag from Netflix's zig-and we're intrigued.

15 Jan 2021 10:00pm GMT

NRDC: Series S/X option will result in 3 million tons of CO2 in five years.

15 Jan 2021 9:00pm GMT

"Science will always be at the forefront of my administration."

15 Jan 2021 8:46pm GMT

It's "a full-frontal assault on public health," one official said.

15 Jan 2021 8:40pm GMT

Robocaller's fake caller ID numbers were allegedly chosen as neo-Nazi symbols.

15 Jan 2021 8:03pm GMT

It's a far cry from the maximum $35B Facebook might have owed, but not nothing.

15 Jan 2021 7:39pm GMT

Auto safety advocates blast the lack of new safety regulations.

15 Jan 2021 7:29pm GMT

It's Wednesday, which means another Deck of Cards workout, the fun yet challenging segment of our group exercise program, The Lifehacker Workout. More »

10 Nov 2011 1:15am GMT

Readers offer their best tips for previewing your iPad home screen from another app, troubleshooting your friends and family's computers from far away, and accessing Google Tasks in the new Gmail layout. More »

10 Nov 2011 1:00am GMT

Facebook recently changed its layout, no longer allowing you to choose between "top stories" and "most recent" stories. Due to user outcry, however, they announced today that they'll be changing it back, though you might not notice it at first. Here's how it works. More »

10 Nov 2011 12:30am GMT

Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet gets a full slate of dedicated apps for its launch next week, Adobe officially pulls the plug on mobile flash development, and Google continues to add the +1 button to its services. More »

10 Nov 2011 12:00am GMT

Lion's resume feature can be pretty handy, but other times it opens a bunch of old windows when you least expect it. If you're tired of apps opening up all the windows you had open last time, you can stop the app from remembering those windows next time with Command+Option+Q. More »

09 Nov 2011 11:30pm GMT

Now that Gmail's rolled out its new look and you've learned your way around the changes, it's time to fix the little quirks and annoyances that remain. Here are a few of our favorite userstyles and userscripts for making the best of the Gmail redesign. More »

09 Nov 2011 11:00pm GMT

The Daily App Deals post is a round-up of the best app discounts of the day, as well as some notable mentions for ones that are on sale. More »

09 Nov 2011 10:30pm GMT

Flies are already annoying, but if you spend too much time chasing after them to no avail, they're that much more annoying. Fortunately, Wired Magazine found that the answer to your aggravation lies in our good old friend science. More »

09 Nov 2011 10:00pm GMT

Dear Lifehacker,
Can you tell me why in iTunes, under my iPhone summary, there is 1.1GB used by 'other'? I can understand app, music, photos but don't know what the 'other' option is and why it is using my precious 1.1GB of space. Can I do anything about that? I have only 16GB so I want to use it for something useful! More »

09 Nov 2011 9:30pm GMT

iOS: Need a little help cementing your new acquaintance's name in your brain so you won't need to embarrass yourself next time you meet? iPhone application Namerick uses tried-and-true techniques to help you remember the name of a person you've just met, creating memory mnemonics, sending you followup reminders, and more. More »

09 Nov 2011 9:00pm GMT

iOS 5 has been available for download and install for almost a month, but if you want to jailbreak, your only option is a tethered jailbreak. A full, untethered jailbreak is likely still a ways away. If you want to jailbreak now, however, tethered is your only option. Here's a look at what's really involved with a tethered jailbreak and whether it's worth it for you. More »

09 Nov 2011 8:30pm GMT

Instead of featuring one artist today, we're going to feature eight in this Work at a Different Speed Mix. The 99% says: More »

09 Nov 2011 8:00pm GMT

Every day we're on the lookout for ways to make your work easier and your life better, but Lifehacker readers are smart, insightful folks with all kinds of expertise to share, and we want to give everyone regular access to that exceptional hive mind. Help Yourself is a daily thread where readers can ask and answer questions about tech, productivity, life hacks, and whatever else you need help with. More »

09 Nov 2011 7:30pm GMT

Food can be beautiful, simple, and make for some great wallpapers. Today we're offering several options for your desktop to snack on, whether you like to stay healthy or...not. Enjoy some fruit, pancakes, french fries, and beer in to today's Wallpaper Wednesday pack. More »

09 Nov 2011 7:00pm GMT

Text messaging is pretty expensive, but fortunately there are a number of great alternatives for your iPhone that will provide the service for free. Of all the options, our favorite is Google Voice thanks to its cross-platform and web syncing plus full control over how you get your messages and who can send them. More »

09 Nov 2011 6:30pm GMT

Dear Lifehacker,
I love having a smartphone, and Wi-Fi's nearly everywhere these days, so I'd rather not pay $30 a month for data. Sadly, most of the cellphone carriers require that I purchase a data plan. Is there any way I can get out of it? More »

09 Nov 2011 6:00pm GMT

Many of you have commented that our NewsVac section hasn't been refreshed since the middle of last month. Others have noticed that our story volume has dropped off. Changes are coming to Linux.com, and until they arrive, you won't see any new stories on the site.

01 Jan 2009 2:00pm GMT

The free and open source software community has been waiting for the G1 cell phone since it was first announced in July. Source code for Google's Android mobile platform has been available, but the G1 marks its commercial debut. It's clearly a good device, but is it what Linux boosters and FOSS advocates have long been anticipating?

31 Dec 2008 2:00pm GMT

Many public administrations already use open source Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to let citizens look at public geographic data trough dedicated Web sites. Others use the same software to partially open the data gathering process: they let citizens directly add geographic information to the official, high-quality GIS databases by drawing or clicking on digital maps.

30 Dec 2008 2:00pm GMT

The Interclue extension is supposed to give you a preview of links in Firefox before you visit them, saving you mouse-clicks and, with a little luck, allowing you to move quickly between multiple links on the same page. Unfortunately, the determination to monetize the add-on and keep its source code closed results in elaborations that make the basic idea less effective, and its constant pleas for donations make Interclue into nagware. As much as the usefulness of the basic utility, Interclue serves as an object lesson of the difficulties that the decision to go proprietary can take.

29 Dec 2008 2:00pm GMT

Shell programming is heavily dependent on string processing. The term string is used generically to refer to any sequence of characters; typical examples of strings might be a line of input or a single argument to a command. Users enter responses to prompts, file names are generated, and commands produce output. Recurring throughout this is the need to determine whether a given string conforms to a given pattern; this process is called pattern matching. The shell has a fair amount of built-in pattern matching functionality.

26 Dec 2008 2:00pm GMT

Many religions have some sort of holiday during this season, where we look back at the joyful moments of the year that's coming to a close, and look ahead with anticipation and hope to the year to come. We hope your year is filled with all you wish for.

25 Dec 2008 2:00pm GMT

Google Maps gives you a quick and easy way to add maps to your Web site, but when you're using Google's API, your ability to display other data is limited. If you have your own data you want to display, or data from sources other than Google, OpenLayers, an open source JavaScript library, can give you more options.

24 Dec 2008 2:00pm GMT

At a time when new and buggy features cloud basic computer functions, it's refreshing to see a new release of a distro like Slackware that stays true to its core philosophy. Slackware has an unfair reputation of being a distro only for experienced users. Granted it doesn't sport many graphical configuration tools, but it balances that with stability and speed.

23 Dec 2008 7:00pm GMT

Documentation is one area in which free/libre/open source software (FLOSS) is weakest. A project called FLOSS Manuals is trying to remedy this situation. The idea behind project is to create quality, free documentation for free software.

23 Dec 2008 2:00pm GMT

A next-generation package manager called Nix provides a simple distribution-independent method for deploying a binary or source package on different flavours of Linux, including Ubuntu, Debian, SUSE, Fedora, and Red Hat. Even better, Nix does not interfere with existing package managers. Unlike existing package managers, Nix allows different versions of software to live side by side, and permits sane rollbacks of software upgrades. Nix is a useful system administration tool for heterogeneous environments and developers who write software supported on different libraries, compilers, or interpreters.

22 Dec 2008 7:00pm GMT

Managing buddies on a few online social networks isn't too much of a hassle, but throw in your contact list from instant messaging platforms and online apps and services like Flickr, Digg, and Twitter, and you have a contact list that'd rival that of Kevin Bacon. Managing so many people can be a headache, but here are three browser plugins that can help you manage your online presence more efficiently.

22 Dec 2008 2:00pm GMT

As a regular browser of the Firefox Add-ons site, I'm troubled by the apparent proliferation of proprietary extensions in the last year. Maybe I've simply exhausted the free-licensed extensions that interest me, but recently every interesting-looking extension seems to be a proprietary one -- especially in the recommended list. Nothing, of course, in the Mozilla privacy or legal notice prohibits proprietary extensions simply because they are proprietary, but I find them not only contrary to the spirit of free and open source software (FOSS), but, often, annoying attempts to entangle me in some impossible startup.

19 Dec 2008 7:00pm GMT

The past couple of years have seen an explosion of open source programming languages and utilities that are geared toward children. Many of these efforts are based around the idea that, since the days of BASIC, programming environments have become far too complex for untrained minds to wrap themselves around. Some toolkits aim to create entirely new ways of envisioning and creating projects that appeal to younger minds, such as games and animations, while others aim to recreate the "basic"-ness of BASIC in a modern language and environment.

19 Dec 2008 2:00pm GMT

It's that time of the year again. No, not Christmas -- it's the time of the year we get the latest versions of our favorite Linux distributions. Version 11.1 of openSUSE is being released today. Designated as a point release, there are enough new goodies to warrant a new install or upgrade.

18 Dec 2008 7:00pm GMT

Let's take a look at three projects that are aimed at showing calendar information through a Web interface: WebCalendar, VCalendar, and CaLogic. These projects run on a LAMP server and provide a Web interface to calendar events.

18 Dec 2008 2:00pm GMT

For many years Spamhaus has been top dog in the anti-spam world of DNSBL (Domain Name System Block List; also known as Realtime Blackhole Lists or RBLs). But Spamhaus is no longer a 100% free service. Even small nonprofits are now expected to pay at least $250 per year for a subscription to the Spamhaus DNSBL Datafeed Service. Now a new, free alternative to Spamhaus has arrived: the Barracuda Reputation Block List (BRBL), provided by well-known, open source-based Barracuda Networks. And Barracuda CEO Dean Drako says the company has no plans to charge for the service in the future. He says that BRBL (pronounced "barbell") "does cost us a little bit of money to run, but we think that the goodwill, the reputation and the understanding that Barracuda is providing the service will do us well in the long run."

17 Dec 2008 7:00pm GMT