Slashdot Mirror

AmiMoJo shares a report from the BBC: Speed limiting technology looks set to become mandatory for all vehicles sold in Europe from 2022, after new rules were provisionally agreed by the EU. Road safety charity Brake called it a "landmark day," but the AA said "a little speed" helped with overtaking or joining motorways. Safety measures approved by the European Commission included intelligent speed assistance (ISA), advanced emergency braking and lane-keeping technology. The EU says the plan could help avoid 140,000 serious injuries by 2038 and aims ultimately to cut road deaths to zero by 2050. Under the ISA system, cars receive information via GPS and a digital map, telling the vehicle what the speed limit is. This can be combined with a video camera capable of recognizing road signs. The system can be overridden temporarily. If a car is overtaking a lorry on a motorway and enters a lower speed-limit area, the driver can push down hard on the accelerator to complete the maneuver. According to the report, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, Peugeot-Citroen, Renault and Volvo already have models available with some of the ISA technology fitted.

In "Hated and hunted," a BBC reporter describes visiting a ransomware expert "who has devoted himself, at huge personal cost, to helping victims of ransomware around the world." They hate him so much that they leave him angry threats buried deep inside the code of their own viruses... "I was shocked but I also felt a real sense of pride," says Fabian. "Almost like, a little bit cocky. I'm not going to lie, yeah, it was nice...." He works remotely for a cyber security company, often sitting for hours at a time working with colleagues in different countries. When he's "in the zone", the outside world becomes even less important and his entire existence focuses on the code on his screen. He once woke up with keyboard imprints all over his face after falling asleep during a 35-hour session.

All of this to create anti-ransomware programs that he and his company usually give away free. Victims simply download the tools he makes for each virus, follow the instructions and get their files back... According to research from Emsisoft, the cyber security company Fabian works for, a computer is attacked every two seconds. Their network has managed to prevent 2,584,105 infections in the past 60 days -- and that's just one anti-virus firm of dozens around the world.... "It's pretty much an arms race," says Fabian. "They release a new ransomware virus, I find a flaw in its code and build the decryption tool to reverse it so people can get their files back. Then the criminals release a new version which they hope I can't break... It escalates with them getting more and more angry with me...."

Fabian accepts that moving around and restricting his life and circle of friends is just a part of the sacrifice for his hobby-turned-profession... He earns a very good salary but looking around his home and at his life it's hard to see how he spends it.
He estimates that he's "upset or angered" 100 different ransomware gangs (based on his analysis of the Bitcoin wallets where they collect their ransoms.) One group had collected about $250,000 (£191,000) in three months -- until Fabian created a countering anti-ransomware program -- which is one reason he carefully hids his identity.

"I know how much money they make and it would be literally nothing for them to drop 10 or 20,000 for like some Russian dude to turn up to my house and beat the living hell out of me."

"The BBC, the UK's national broadcaster, and ITV, the biggest private player in the UK market, are in the 'concluding phase of talks' to create a rival to Netflix," writes Slashdot reader AmiMoJo. The BBC's director general Tony Hall said the aim was to launch the "BritBox" rival to Netflix in the UK the second half of 2019. Neither organisation would say how the services would be priced, but Lord Hall said it would be "competitive". There are reports it could cost £5 a month.

A similar service, also called BritBox, is already available in the US and has amassed 500,000 subscribers.
Their announcement promises "an unrivalled collection of British boxsets and original series, on demand, all in one place." Diginomica writes that "the more cynical among us" might call it "a knee-jerk reaction to Netflix," adding "the BBC has a bad case of Netflix envy."

They ask where this would leave future BBC-Netflix joint productions -- and whether BBC content would be removed from both Netflix and Amazon. But they also believe that if there is a threat to Netflix, it's the upcoming Disney+ streaming service with original Star Wars content scheduled to launch in late 2019.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Pause. Stop. Rewind! The cassette, long consigned to the bargain bin of musical history, is staging a humble comeback. Sales have soared in the last year -- up 125% in 2018 on the year before -- amounting to more than 50,000 cassette albums bought in the UK, the highest volume in 15 years. It's quite a fall from the format's peak in 1989 when 83 million cassettes were bought by British music fans, but when everyone from pop superstar Ariana Grande to punk duo Sleaford Mods are taking to tape, a mini revival seems afoot. But why?

"It's the tangibility of having this collectible format and a way to play music that isn't just a stream or download," says techno DJ Phin, who has just released her first EP on cassette as label boss of Theory of Yesterday. "I find them much more attractive than CDs. Tapes have a lifespan, and unlike digital music, there is decay and death. It's like a living thing and that appeals to me." Phin left the bulk of her own 100-strong cassette collection in Turkey, carefully stored at her parents' home, but bought "20 or 25 really special ones" when she moved to London. "I'm from that generation," she says. "It's a nostalgia thing -- I like the hiss." "Vinyl has got so expensive to manufacture these days, especially if it's only a seven-inch you're putting out. You'll only lose money on a seven-inch release," says Tallulah Webb, who runs cassette-only label Sad Club Records. "Cassettes are an exciting way to put music out, in the same way that seven-inch singles were exciting for punk. They have always been a crucial part of the DIY scene."

On the flip side, Peter Robinson, founder and editor of Popjustice, believes the trend for tapes is a gimmick gone too far. "Cassettes are the worst-ever music format, and I say that as someone who owns a Keane single on a USB stick," he says. "I can understand the romance and the tactile appeal of the vinyl revival, but I'm actually quite amused by the audacity of anyone attempting to drum up some sense of nostalgia for a format that was barely tolerated in its supposed heyday. It's like someone looked at the vinyl revival and said: what this needs is lower sound quality and even less convenience."

"I think labels know full well that almost every cassette they sell is going straight on a shelf as some sort of dreadful plastic ornament," he says. "I don't think it's much different to the recent trend for pop stars adding pairs of socks to their merchandise lines, the crucial difference being that, for better or worse, socks don't count towards the album chart."

It's been nearly two years since news blog MusicBusinessWorld kicked off a global conversation over 'fake artists' on Spotify. That debate is about to roar back into life. From a report: Multiple Spotify users have been complaining that their official listening history on Spotify appears to have been infiltrated by acts that they don't simply recognize. The trend was spotted by the BBC, which reported on Friday that plays of 'mystery' tracks from artists such as Bergenulo Five, Bratte Night, DJ Bruej and Doublin Night were being credited within individual Spotify user accounts -- despite these same users knowing nothing about this music.

"Apart from being musically unremarkable, they generally have a few things in common: short songs with few or no lyrics, illustrated with generic cover art, and short, non-descriptive song titles," said the Beeb of these acts -- some of whom had managed to rack up tens of thousands of plays. Albums from these artists contained more than 40 songs apiece, with each track just a minute or two in duration. After the BBC alerted Spotify to the trend, all of these artists disappeared from its platform entirely.

A fifth of Earth's geologic history might have vanished because planet-wide glaciers buried the evidence. From a report: The Grand Canyon is a gigantic geological library, with rocky layers that tell much of the story of Earth's history. Curiously though, a sizeable layer representing anywhere from 250 million years to 1.2 billion years is missing. Known as the Great Unconformity, this massive temporal gap can be found not just in this famous crevasse, but in places all over the world. In one layer, you have the Cambrian period, which started roughly 540 million years ago and left behind sedimentary rocks packed with the fossils of complex, multicellular life. Directly below, you have fossil-free crystalline basement rock, which formed about a billion or more years ago.

So where did all the rock that belongs in between these time periods go? Using multiple lines of evidence, an international team of geoscientists reckons that the thief was Snowball Earth, a hypothesized time when much, if not all, of the planet was covered in ice. According to the team, at intervals within those billion or so years, up to a third of Earth's crust was sawn off by Snowball Earth's roaming glaciers and their erosive capabilities. The resulting sediment was dumped into the slush-covered oceans, where it was then sucked into the mantle by subducting tectonic plates.

Effectively, in many locations, Earth buried the evidence of about a fifth of its geological history, the team argued this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The notion is elegant but provocative, and the authors themselves predict that some geoscientists will express skepticism. "I think, though, we have extraordinary evidence to support that extraordinary claim," says study leader C. Brenhin Keller, a postdoctoral fellow at the Berkeley Geochronology Center.

AmiMoJo shares a report from the BBC: Instagram has placed more hashtags which could promote eating disorders on an "unsearchable" list after a BBC investigation found that users were finding ways around the platform's filters. The photo-sharing network has also added health warnings to several alternative spellings or terms which reference eating disorders, some of which are popular hashtags on the platform. BBC Trending found that certain terms promoting bulimia were still searchable - and that the Instagram search bar was suggesting alternative spellings and phrasings for known terms which some see as glamorizing or encouraging eating disorders In one case, the search box offered 38 alternative spellings of a popular term.

Starting in 2012, the photo-sharing site started to make some terms unsearchable, to avoid users being able to navigate directly to often shocking images, and posts that promote the idea that eating disorders are a lifestyle choice rather than a mental illness. If someone enters the unsearchable terms into the platform's search box, no results will come up. An Instagram spokesperson said in a statement: "We do not tolerate content that encourages eating disorders and we use powerful tools and technologies -- including in-app reporting and machine learning -- to help identify and remove it. However, we recognize this is a complex issue and we want people struggling with their mental health to be able to access support on Instagram when and where they need it."

An anonymous reader shares a World Economic Forum report: A lot of us spend long stretches in the office, but outdated design could be damaging our wellbeing and mental health. What's more, it's killing our productivity. One study found that office workers spend more time sitting than pensioners, which increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, type II diabetes and even cancer.

That's why forward-looking designers are finding ways to build spaces that heal rather than hurt us. Going beyond the already ubiquitous standing desks and social "breakout sofas," the office of the future is healthy, harmonious and happy. Here's how it's beginning to take shape.

The Voyager 2 probe, which left Earth in 1977, has become the second human-made object to leave our Solar System. From a report: It was launched 16 days before its twin craft, Voyager 1, but that probe's faster trajectory meant that it was in "the space between the stars" six years before Voyager 2. The news was revealed at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in Washington. And chief scientist on the mission, Prof Edward Stone, confirmed it.

He said both probes had now "made it into interstellar space" and that Voyager 2's date of departure from the Solar System was 5 November 2018. On that date, the steady stream of particles emitted from the Sun that were being detected by the probe suddenly dipped. This indicated that it had crossed the "heliopause" -- the term for the outer edge of the Sun's protective bubble of particles and magnetic field. And while its twin craft beat it to this boundary, the US space agency says that Voyager 2 has a working instrument aboard that will provide "first-of-its-kind observations of the nature of this gateway into interstellar space".

An anonymous reader quotes ScienceAlert: Earlier this year, scientists published a paper describing how they pieced together segments of DNA in order to bring back a previously eradicated virus called horsepox. The paper, written by two University of Alberta researchers and the co-founder of a New York pharmaceutical company, was controversial because, as various experts told the magazine Science, someone could use a very similar process to bring back a related virus: smallpox. Smallpox, you'll recall, killed hundreds of millions of people before the World Health Organization declared it eradicated in 1980. That was the result of a long vaccination campaign — so the idea of piecing the virus back together from bits of DNA raises the specter of a horrifying pandemic.

Two journals rejected the paper before PLOS One, an open access peer-reviewed journal, published it. Critics argue that the paper not only demonstrates that you can synthesize a deadly pathogen for what Science reported was about US$100,000 in lab expenses, but even provides a slightly-too-detailed-for-comfort overview of how to do it. Some of the horsepox scientists' coworkers are still pretty upset about this. PLOS One's sister Journal, PLOS Pathogens, just published three opinion pieces about the whole flap, as well as a rebuttal by the Canadian professors. Overall, everyone's pretty polite. But you get the sense that microbiologists are really, really worried about someone reviving smallpox. MIT biochemist Kevin Esvelt, for instance, wrote on Thursday that the threat is so grim that we shouldn't even talk about it.

An anonymous reader writes: Thursday the humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research held their 28th annual ceremony recognizing the real (but unusual) scientific research papers "that make people laugh, then think." And winning this year's coveted Literature prize was a paper titled "Life Is Too Short to RTFM: How Users Relate to Documentation and Excess Features in Consumer Products," which concluded that most people really, truly don't read the manual, "and most do not use all the features of the products that they own and use regularly..."

"Over-featuring and being forced to consult manuals also appears to cause negative emotional experiences."

Another team measured "the frequency, motivation, and effects of shouting and cursing while driving an automobile," which won them the Ig Nobel Peace Prize. Other topics of research included self-colonoscopies, removing kidney stones with roller coasters, and (theoretical) cannibalism. "Acceptance speeches are limited to 60 seconds," reports Ars Technica, "strictly enforced by an eight-year-old girl nicknamed 'Miss Sweetie-Poo,' who will interrupt those who exceed the time limit by repeating, 'Please stop. I'm bored.' Until they stop."
You can watch the whole wacky ceremony on YouTube. The awards are presented by actual Nobel Prize laureates -- and at least one past winner of an Ig Nobel Prize later went on to win an actual Nobel Prize.

Facebook is planning to open a new data center in Singapore in 2022. The more than $1 billion facility will be located in the west of the country, according to the BBC. From the report: It has been designed as an 11-floor structure, in an attempt to conserve space in the crowded nation, according to Facebook. One analyst told the BBC it was another sign of the country's popularity with large technology companies. The new, 170,000-sq-m (1.8-million-sq-ft) data centre will support "hundreds" of local jobs. Facebook said it expected the building to be powered by 100% renewable energy and noted that it would feature a liquid cooling system that minimized water and power use.

Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare announced for the first time that a man employed at the Fukushima nuclear power plant died of lung cancer linked to radiation exposure. "The man, who was in his 50s, died from lung cancer that was diagnosed in 2016," reports the BBC. "Japan's government had previously agreed that radiation caused illness in four workers but this is the first acknowledged death." From the report: The Fukushima reactor suffered meltdowns after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and a tsunami in March 2011. Cooling systems were wrecked at the plant on Japan's north-east coast and radioactive material leaked out. The employee who died had worked at atomic power stations since 1980 and was in charge of measuring radiation at the Fukushima No 1 plant shortly after its meltdown. He worked there at least twice after it was damaged, and had worn a face mask and protective suit, Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare said. After hearing opinions from a panel of radiologists and other experts, the ministry ruled that the man's family should be paid compensation.

Uber is to block customers in Australia and New Zealand from its ride service if they have a low passenger rating. Riders rated four-out-of-five stars or lower will be banned for six months. Ratings are based on feedback left by drivers after each journey. BBC: The move is aimed at improving passenger behaviour, the company said. Uber told the BBC that Australia and New Zealand had been identified as a place to bring in the rule after feedback from drivers. The same policy was introduced in Brazil earlier this this year, Uber said, but it's the first time the control has been rolled out in an English-speaking market. An Uber spokeswoman declined to be drawn on exactly how many of its 2.8 million users in Australia and New Zealand currently had ratings of below 4.0 -- but conceded it was only "a few thousand." The "vast majority" -- believed to be more than 90% -- had ratings of at least 4.5, the company said. The policy will kick in on 19 September and passengers will receive several warnings before they are banned.

Sony has decided to end its repair service for the PlayStation 2, more than 18 years after it first went on sale. The best-selling gaming console ever produced was first released in Japan in March of 2000. Sony stopped manufacturing the device in 2012, roughly six years after the PlayStation 4 was released. The BBC reports: Sony said it was no longer able to offer repairs because it was running out of replacement parts for the aging console. In a statement, the company thanked customers for their "continued patronage." Gamers seeking repairs will now have to try their luck with unofficial services. More than 150 million PlayStation 2 consoles have been sold.

A man suspected of murdering a teenager in England has been arrested for failing to hand over his Facebook password to authorities. The BBC reports: Lucy McHugh, 13, was found stabbed to death in woodland last month, a day after she disappeared. Stephen-Alan Nicholson, 24, pleaded guilty to failing to comply with an order under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, requiring him to disclose the Facebook password. He was sentenced to 14 months in jail.

He was first arrested on July 27 on suspicion of murder and sexual activity with a child and subsequently bailed. But he was also charged under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. The court heard the charge related to a court order that Nicholson disclose his Facebook password protecting any private communications with Lucy McHugh. Passing sentence, Judge Christopher Parker did not accept Nicholson's "wholly inadequate" excuse that providing his password would expose information relating to cannabis.

An anonymous reader quotes the BBC: Ordinary wi-fi could be used to detect weapons and explosives in public places, according to a study led by the Rutgers University in New Jersey. Wireless signals can penetrate bags to measure the dimensions of metal objects or estimate the volume of liquids, researchers claim. Initial tests appeared to show that the system was at least 95% accurate.

It could provide a low-cost alternative to airport-style security, researchers said. The system works by analysing what happens when wireless signals penetrate and bounce off objects and materials.

Smartphone brand Motorola has been criticised for revealing a "shameless" copy of the iPhone X as its new model. BBC: Many phone-makers have copied the look of the iPhone X, which has a smaller bezel around the screen and a "notch" at the top that houses a camera. However, reviewers said the new Motorola P30 was a "brazen" and "egregious" rip-off of Apple's flagship device. Lenovo, which owns the Motorola brand, has not yet responded to the criticism.

[...] Commenting on the similarity between the Motorola P30 and the iPhone X, technology blogger Marques Brownlee called it the "most shameless rip yet." News site Mashable said Motorola "even went so far as to adorn the screen with a wallpaper that's a dead ringer for Apple's default wallpaper." News and reviews site Technobuffalo said the design was an "egregious clone" that was "nearly impossible to distinguish" from the iPhone X. Tech news site The Verge pointed out that Google's image recognition algorithms described photos of the P30 as "iPhone."

An anonymous reader shares a report: Forget peer pressure, future generations are more likely to be influenced by robots, a study suggests. The research, conducted at the University of Plymouth, found that while adults were not swayed by robots, children were. The fact that children tended to trust robots without question raised ethical issues as the machines became more pervasive, said researchers. They called for the robotics community to build in safeguards for children. Those taking part in the study completed a simple test, known as the Asch paradigm, which involved finding two lines that matched in length. Known as the conformity experiment, the test has historically found that people tend to agree with their peers even if individually they have given a different answer. In this case, the peers were robots. When children aged seven to nine were alone in the room, they scored an average of 87% on the test. But when the robots joined them, their scores dropped to 75% on average. Of the wrong answers, 74% matched those of the robots.

Vaping can damage vital immune system cells and may be more harmful than previously thought, a study suggests. Researchers found e-cigarette vapour disabled important immune cells in the lung and boosted inflammation. From a report: The researchers "caution against the widely held opinion that e-cigarettes are safe." However, Public Health England advises they are much less harmful than smoking and people should not hesitate to use them as an aid to giving up cigarettes. The small experimental study, led by Prof David Thickett, at the University of Birmingham, is published online in the journal Thorax. Previous studies have focused on the chemical composition of e-cigarette liquid before it is vaped. In this study, the researchers devised a mechanical procedure to mimic vaping in the laboratory, using lung tissue samples provided by eight non-smokers. They found vapour caused inflammation and impaired the activity of alveolar macrophages, cells that remove potentially damaging dust particles, bacteria and allergens.

An anonymous reader quotes the BBC: Elon Musk's bombshell announcement that he is thinking of taking the electric car company Tesla private has landed him a lawsuit from unhappy investors.... His comments caused the share price to shoot up 11% to nearly $380, though it has since fallen back. Short-sellers, who bet on share price falls, allege he misled the market....

Short-sellers, who make a profit by borrowing shares, selling them and then buying them back at an expected lower price, claim to have lost millions thanks to Mr Musk's comments. Plaintiff Kalman Isaacs alleges the announcement was aimed at "completely decimating" short-sellers. His lawsuit, and another filed by William Chamberlain, accuse Mr Musk and Tesla of violating federal securities laws and artificially inflating Tesla's share price. Neither Mr Musk nor Tesla have commented on the lawsuit, which was filed in a federal court in San Francisco.
Tesla "is holding early discussions with banks about the feasibility and structure of a possible deal," Bloomberg reported yesterday -- and Ars Technica points out that if Mr. Isaacs had simply kept his short positions open through Friday, "he would be at least $60,000 richer."

But Isaacs' hopes to be the lead plaintiff for a class-action lawsuit "representing all Tesla shareholders who traded after Musk's tweet on Tuesday or at any time on Wednesday."

The volume of disinformation on the internet is growing so big that it is starting to crowd out real news, the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee chairman has said. From a report: Tory MP Damian Collins said people struggle to identify "fake news." MPs in their committee report [PDF] said the issue threatens democracy and called for tougher social network regulation. The government said it plans to introduce a requirement for electoral adverts to have a "digital imprint". This would mean that all political communications carried online would need to clearly identify who they were published by. Labour said the government "needs to wake up to the new challenges we face and finally update electoral laws". The report follows the Cambridge Analytica data scandal earlier this year. The London-based data analytics firms and tech giant Facebook were at the centre of a dispute over the harvesting and use of personal data - and whether it was used to influence the outcome of the US 2016 presidential election or the UK Brexit referendum.

Skywatchers are being treated to the longest "blood moon" eclipse of the 21st Century. From a report: As it rises, during this total eclipse, Earth's natural satellite turns a striking shade of red or ruddy brown. The "totality" period, when light from the Moon is totally obscured, will last for one hour, 43 minutes. At least part of the eclipse is visible from Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australia, most of Asia and South America. On the same night and over the coming days, Mars will be at its closest point to Earth since 2003 - visible as a "bright red star" where skies are clear. Here's a live feed, provided by NASA.

Seven o'clock in the evening is a global sweet spot for wanting to order take-away food, says an international study of internet traffic. From a report: Academics have examined patterns of looking for food online, such as pizza or Chinese meals, across the UK, US, Canada, Australia and India. They found that a similar "twin peaks" pattern appeared in all countries - at 7pm in the evening and then at 2am. The study suggests ancient "foraging" behaviour has now switched online. This big data research from biologists at the University of Aberdeen, to be published by the Royal Society, has tracked how the search for food takes place online. You can find the study here.

The British government broke the law by allowing spy agencies to amass data on UK citizens without proper oversight from the Foreign Office, an independent tribunal has ruled. From a report: GCHQ, the UK's electronic surveillance agency, was given vastly increased powers to obtain and analyze citizens' data after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, on the condition that it agreed to strict oversight from the foreign secretary. But according to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, an independent court that was set up by the government to investigate unlawful intrusion by public bodies in the UK, the Foreign Office on several occasions gave GCHQ an effective "carte blanche" to demand data from telecoms and internet companies [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source], which could include visited websites, location information and email contacts. In a judgment published on Monday, the tribunal said: "In cases in which ... the foreign secretary made a general direction which applied to all communications through the networks operated by the [communications service provider], there had been an unlawful delegation of the power. "The lack of legal control on the discretion of [GCHQ] is compounded in those cases where the specific requirement was not communicated in writing."

An anonymous reader shares a report: The National Audit Office (NAO) says over half of the packaging reported as recycled is actually being sent abroad to be processed. As a result, it says, the government has little idea of whether the recyclables are getting turned into new products, buried in landfill or burned. While an illusion of success has been created by the UK's system for recycling packaging, the NAO says, the reality may be quite different. Its report finds that: The government has turned a blind eye to underlying problems with the waste system. Firms may be over-stating the amount they are recycling. The Environment Agency has only carried out 40% of the recycling checks it planned to.

The UK government has set out a plan to roll out full fibre networks across all of the UK within 15 years by introducing laws to speed up the installation of fibre and subsidizing investment in very rural areas. From a report: The proposal comes as part of a new national telecoms strategy drawn up by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). Under its targets, all of the UK will have full-fibre broadband coverage by 2033, replacing the copper wire network that currently delivers the service. It proposes legislation to encourage more private infrastructure investment. Earlier this month, research was published indicating that the UK has slipped from 31st to 35th place in the global broadband league tables, behind 25 other European countries. The data was collected by M-Lab, a partnership between Google Open Source Research and Princeton University's PlantLab, and the results compiled by UK broadband comparison site Cable.

Netflix shares plunged by more than 14% on Monday, after the firm reported disappointing subscriber growth. While the entertainment service added 5.2 million subscribers last quarter, it forecasted a growth of 6.2 million. BBC reports: Investors are worried about Netflix's growth potential in the face of increased competition from tech giants such as Apple, YouTube and Amazon, as well as traditional firms, which have started to invest more in online streaming. Disney, for example, plans to launch its own streaming service and stop licensing some of its material to Netflix.

In a letter to investors, Netflix called it a "strong but not stellar quarter," ending with about 130 million subscribers globally. The firm added just 670,000 subscribers in the U.S. -- far short of the more than one million it added in the second quarter of 2017. It added 4.5 million subscribers internationally, fewer than the two most recent quarters but up 8% year-on-year. However, it said its finances were strong. The company reported $3.9 billion in quarterly revenue, up 40% compared to the second quarter of 2017. Profits totaled $384.3 million, almost six times the figure during the same period a year ago.

Shoppers taking part in internet giant Amazon's Prime Day are being told that the deals on offer may not be the cheapest available. From a report: Amazon said it has never claimed that Prime Day is necessarily the cheapest time to shop on its site. It comes after consumer group Which? warned customers that apparent bargains are not always as good as they seem. It said some goods can actually be cheaper at other times of the year, and advised shoppers to do their research. The 36 hour sale -- aimed at subscribers to the Prime shopping service -- offers discounts on a range of goods. The deals are time-limited, with shoppers being told that some items are only available while stocks last.

Facebook says it will not remove fake news from its platform because it does not violate its community standards. According to the BBC, Facebook said publishers often had "very different points of view" and removing fabricated posts would be "contrary to the basic principles of free speech." Instead, it is choosing to demote posts in the news feed that it deems to be fake news. From the report: Facebook has been scrutinized for its role in spreading fake news after evidence emerged that Russia tried to influence U.S. voters using the social network. On Wednesday, the company held an event in New York where it sought to convince journalists it was tackling the problem. The company said it would not remove fake news that did not break its rules but would down-rank content that had been marked as false. "We allow people to post it as a form of expression, but we're not going to show it at the top of News Feed," a spokeswoman told CNN.

The much maligned rat is not a creature many would associate with coral reefs. But scientists studying reefs on tropical islands say the animals directly threaten the survival of these ecosystems. From a report: A team working on the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean found that invasive rats on the islands are a "big problem" for coral reefs. Rats decimate seabird populations, in turn decimating the volume of bird droppings -- a natural coral fertiliser. The findings are published in Nature. Scientists now advocate eradicating rats from all of the islands to protect these delicate marine habitats.

After someone leaked an incomplete scene featuring Jodie Whittaker's Thirteenth Doctor, the BBC headed to court to track down the perpetrator. Gizmodo reports: In fact, the corporation has filed an application in a California court this week in an effort to expose the person who put the leaked footage online -- hoping California's Federal Court would put pressure on Tapatalk, whose messaging service was used to upload and disseminate a non-final, 53-second clip of Whittaker's Doctor in action. The BBC isn't accusing Tapatalk of any wrongdoing; rather, it just wants details on the user that uploaded the clip, so it can attempt to isolate just where in Doctor Who's long line of production the clip got leaked.

In a statement provided to, well, itself sort of, the BBC said that it was taking court action so that fans could "enjoy the final and fully completed version of the episode when it premieres," but it's about more than the integrity of the fan experience here, given that the clip was allegedly pretty clearly unfinished. And while the BBC would prefer that no sneaky footage of one of the most highly anticipated seasons of Doctor Who in a while is out there before it says so, it especially doesn't want it out there if it's footage that's not been edited into the version fans will eventually see on TV.

Uber has been granted a short-term license to operate in London following a court hearing. BBC reports: Transport for London (TfL) refused to renew the license when it expired last September, saying the U.S. taxi app was not a "fit and proper" operator. Uber has now been awarded a license but it has been put on probation for 15 months. The company had been seeking a five-year license when it was refused last year. Following a two-day hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court, Chief Magistrate Emma Arbuthnot said Uber was now considered "fit and proper." She ordered the company to pay TfL's legal costs of [approximately $562,000].

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea off Orkney to investigate whether it can boost energy efficiency. The data centre, a white cylinder containing computers, could sit on the sea floor for up to five years. An undersea cable brings the data centre power and takes its data to the shore and the wider internet -- but if the computers onboard break, they cannot be repaired. The operation to sink the Orkney data centre has been an expensive multinational affair. The cylinder was built in France by a shipbuilding company, Naval, loaded with its servers and then sailed from Brittany to Stromness in Orkney. There, another partner, the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), provided help including the undersea cable linking the centre to the shore. "This is a crazy experiment that I hope will turn into reality" said Ben Cutler, who is in charge of what Microsoft has dubbed Project Natick. "But this is a research project right now -- and one reason we do different types of research into data centres is to learn what makes sense before we decide to take it to a larger scale."

Organisers of Prof Stephen Hawking's memorial service have seemingly left the door open for time travellers to attend. From a report: Those wishing to honour the theoretical physicist, who died in March aged 76, can apply via a public ballot. Applicants need to give their birth date - which can be any day up to 31 December 2038. Prof Hawking's foundation said the possibility of time travel had not been disproven and could not be excluded. It was London travel blogger IanVisits who noticed that those born from 2019 to 2038 were theoretically permitted to attend the service at Westminster Abbey. He said: "Professor Hawking once threw a party for time travellers, to see if any would turn up if he posted the invite after the party. None did, but it seems perfect that the memorial website allows people born in the future to attend the service. Look out for time travellers at the Abbey."

New submitter Badger Nadgers quotes a report from the BBC: Rick Dickinson, the designer of Sinclair computers, has died in the U.S. while receiving treatment for cancer. The British designer, thought to be in his 60s, worked in-house for Sinclair Research and oversaw the creation of its home computers in the 1980s. He was responsible for the boxy look of the ZX80 and ZX81 and the Bauhaus-inspired appearance of the Spectrum. Mr Dickinson also helped to develop the technologies for the UK company's touch-sensitive and rubber keyboards. He was recently linked to a crowd-funded project by Retro Computers to turn the Spectrum into a handheld computer. Some of the early reference designs for the machine were drawn up by him.

Jonathan M. Gitlin reports via Ars Technica: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy deserves a special place in the geek pantheon. It's the story of hapless BBC radio editor Arthur Dent, his best friend Ford Prefect, and the adventures that result when Prefect saves Dent when the Earth is unexpectedly destroyed to make way for a galactic bypass. Written by the late, great Douglas Adams, THGTTG first appeared as a radio series in the UK back in 1978. On Thursday -- exactly 40 years to the day from that first broadcast -- it made its return home with the start of Hexagonal Phase, a radio dramatization of the sixth and final book of an increasingly misnamed trilogy.

Although Adams died suddenly and unexpectedly in 2001, the universe he gave birth to lived on. Beginning in 2004, the original radio cast was reunited to dramatize the third, fourth, and fifth books. In 2005, a film adaptation was released, and then in 2009 came a final novel in the "trilogy," And Another Thing..., written by the novelist Eoin Colfer. It's this story that the BBC is now dramatizing, again using many of the original cast, along with newcomers like Jim Broadbent, Lenny Henry, and Stephen Hawking. Yes, that Stephen Hawking.

Venezuela has launched a cryptocurrency backed by oil in an attempt to bypass tough economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. government. "The 'Petro' is intended to bolster the country's crumbling economy, which has been suffering from hyperinflation and devaluation for years," reports the BBC. "Venezuela claims it is the world's first sovereign cryptocurrency." From the report: Critics say the move is a desperate attempt by Caracas to raise cash at a time when Venezuela lacks the ability to repay its $150 billion of foreign debt. Opposition leaders said the sale constitutes an illegal issuing of debt, while the US Treasury Department warned it may violate sanctions imposed last year. The government says the currency aims to circumvent US sanctions on the economy. President Nicolas Maduro has said each tokens will be backed by a barrel of Venezuelan crude. The Latin American country has the world's largest proven oil reserves. A total of 100 million Petros will be sold, with an initial value set at $60, based on the price of a barrel of Venezuelan crude in mid-January. The official website published a guide to setting up a virtual wallet in which to hold the cryptocurrency, but did not provide a link for actually doing so on Tuesday.

YouTube says it is "very sorry" after more disturbing videos were found on the YouTube Kids app. From a report: BBC's Newsround found several videos not suitable for children, including one showing how to sharpen knives. Another had characters from children's cartoon Paw Patrol on a burning plane. YouTube has been criticised for using algorithms rather than human curators to decide what appears on YouTube Kids. In 2015, two child safety groups complained after disturbing videos were found on the YouTube Kids app. YouTube said it needed to "do more" to tackle inappropriate videos being seen by children. Newsround had arranged for five children to meet Google's Katie O'Donovan. They spoke about distressing videos they had seen on the main YouTube website and app. The videos included images of clowns with blood on them, scary advertisements and messages telling them someone was at their door.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Kim Dotcom, the founder of file-sharing site Megaupload, is suing the New Zealand government for billions of dollars in damages over his arrest in 2012. The internet entrepreneur is fighting extradition to the U.S. to stand trial for copyright infringement and fraud. Mr Dotcom says an invalid arrest warrant negated all charges against him. He is seeking damages for destruction to his business and loss of reputation. Accountants calculate that the Megaupload group of companies would be worth $10 billion today, had it not been shut down during the raid. As he was a 68% shareholder in the business, Mr Dotcom has asked for damages going up to $6.8 billion. He is also considering taking similar action against the Hong Kong government. As stated in documents filed with the High Court, Mr Dotcom is also seeking damages for: all lost business opportunities since 2012, his legal costs, loss of investments he made to the mansion he was renting, his lost opportunity to purchase the mansion, and loss of reputation.

dryriver writes: The BBC has posted a very interesting article that investigates whether people claiming all over the internet that "pop music just isn't what it used to be" are simply growing old, or if there actually is objective science capable of backing up this claim of a "steady decline in music quality." The findings from five different studies are quoted; the findings from the fourth study is especially striking:


1. Pop music has become slower -- in tempo -- in recent years and also "sadder" and less "fun" to listen to.
2. Pop music has become melodically less complex, using fewer chord changes, and pop recordings are mastered to sound consistently louder (and therefore less dynamic) at a rate of around one decibel every eight years.
3. There has been a significant increase in the use of the first-person word "I" in pop song lyrics, and a decline in words that emphasize society or community. Lyrics also contain more words that can be associated with anger or anti-social sentiments.
4. 42% of people polled on which decade has produced the worst pop music since the 1970s voted for the 2010s. These people were not from a particular aging demographic at all -- all age groups polled, including 18-29 year olds, appear to feel unanimously that the 2010s are when pop music became worst. This may explain a rising trend of young millennials, for example, digging around for now 15-30 year-old music on YouTube frequently. It's not just the older people who listen to the 1980s and 1990s on YouTube and other streaming services it seems -- much younger people do it too.
5. A researcher put 15,000 Billboard Hot 100 song lyrics through the well-known Lev-Zimpel-Vogt (LZV1) data compression algorithm, which is good at finding repetitions in data. He found that songs have steadily become more repetitive over the years, and that song lyrics from today compress 22% better on average than less repetitive song lyrics from the 1960s. The most repetitive year in song lyrics was 2014 in this study.

Conclusion: There is some scientific evidence backing the widely voiced complaint -- on the internet in particular -- that pop music is getting worse and worse in the 2000s and the 2010s. The music is slower, melodically simpler, louder, more repetitive, more "I" (first-person) focused, and more angry with anti-social sentiments. The 2010s got by far the most music quality down votes with 42% from people polled on which decade has produced the worst music since the 1970s.

Zorro shares a report from The Register: The fourth and finest Doctor, Tom Baker, has reprised the role to finish a Who serial scuppered in 1979 by strike action at the BBC. Shada, penned by Hitchhiker's Guide author Douglas Adams, was supposed to close Doctor Who's 17th season. Location filming in Cambridge and a studio session were completed but the strike nixed further work and the project was later shelved entirely for fear it might affect the Beeb's Christmas-time productions. The remaining parts have been filled in with animation and the voice of 83-year-old Baker, although he also filmed a scene. BBC Worldwide has now released the episodes, which interweave the 1979 footage with the new material to complete the story. "I loved doing Doctor Who, it was life to me," Baker told the BBC of his tenure as the much-loved Time Lord. "I used to dread the end of rehearsal because then real life would impinge on me. Doctor Who... when I was in full flight, then I was happy."

Big Hairy Ian shares a report from BBC: Google has stopped its Home Mini speakers responding when users touch them. It permanently turned off the touch activation feature after it found that sensors primed to spot a finger tap were too sensitive. Early users found that the touch sensors were registering "phantom" touches that turned them on. This meant the speakers were recording everything around them thousands of times a day. Google said it disabled the feature to give users "peace of mind." Google's Home Mini gadgets were unveiled on October 4th as part of a revamp of its line of smart speakers. The intelligent assistant feature on it could be activated two ways -- by either saying "OK, Google" or by tapping the surface. About 4,000 Google Home Mini units were distributed to early reviewers and those who attended Google's most recent launch event. Artem Russakovskii from Android Police first discovered the issue with his unit, ultimately causing Google to "permanently [nerf] all Home Minis" because his spied on everything he said 24/7.

Reader Big Hairy Ian writes: Web hosting company GoDaddy has given a US neo-Nazi site 24 hours to find another provider after it disparaged a woman who died in protests in Virginia. The Daily Stormer published a piece denigrating Heather Heyer, who was killed on Saturday after a car rammed into a crowd protesting at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville. GoDaddy had faced calls to remove the white supremacist site as a result. The web host said the Daily Stormer had violated its terms of service. "We informed the Daily Stormer that they have 24 hours to move the domain to another provider, as they have violated our terms of service," GoDaddy said in a statement on Twitter. Previously, some web users had called on GoDaddy to remove the site -- including women's rights campaigner Amy Siskind. Violence broke out in Charlottesville, Virginia, after white supremacists organised a controversial far-right march called "Unite the Right".

An anonymous reader shares a report: The company behind games like World of Warcraft and Overwatch has started a drive to recruit more women and ethnic minorities. The information is in a leaked internal email from Blizzard's CEO, seen by the website Kotako. It claims 21 percent of Blizzard's employees are women, and although that's similar to the rest of the gaming industry, it says it wants to do better. The company claims the initiative will focus on finding more female employees and getting them to stay on longer. At the moment women are leaving at a higher rate than men but it says it'll fall short of setting "quotas."

AmiMoJo writes: The world's first full-scale floating wind farm has started to take shape off the north-east coast of Scotland. The revolutionary technology will allow wind power to be harvested in waters too deep for the current conventional bottom-standing turbines. The manufacturer hopes to cash in on a boom in the technology, especially in Japan and the west coast of the U.S., where waters are deep. The tower, including the blades, stretches to 175m and weighs 11,500 tons. The price of energy from bottom-standing offshore wind farms has plummeted 32% since 2012, and is now four years ahead of the government's expected target. Another big price drop is expected, taking offshore wind to a much lower price than new nuclear power.

Peter Capaldi, the 12th Doctor Who, had said that he wanted to see a woman replace him in the Tardis, and so did former Doctor Who stars Billie Piper and Karen Gillan. And today it's official: "the 13th incarnation of Doctor Who will be portrayed by an actress," writes Slashdot reader Coisiche -- specifically Jodie Whittaker, who American viewers may remember from her performance as CIA officer Sandra Grimes in the 2014 mini-series "The Assets." The BBC reports: She was revealed in a trailer that was broadcast on BBC One at the end of the Wimbledon men's singles final... She will make her debut on the sci-fi show when the Doctor regenerates in the Christmas Day show... Whittaker said: "I'm beyond excited to begin this epic journey...with every Whovian on this planet. It's more than an honour to play the Doctor. It means remembering everyone I used to be, while stepping forward to embrace everything the Doctor stands for: hope... Doctor Who represents everything that's exciting about change."
Doctor Who's new showrunner said the 13th Doctor was always going to be a woman -- and that Whittaker was their first choice. "Jodie is an in-demand, funny, inspiring, super-smart force of nature and will bring loads of wit, strength and warmth to the role." Doctor Who #12 added that Whittaker "has above all the huge heart to play this most special part. She's going to be a fantastic Doctor." And Will Howells, who writes for the Doctor Who magazine, said "I don't think it's a risky choice at all but if a show that can go anywhere and do anything can't take risks, what can?"

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bleeping Computer: An unknown hacker has hijacked the radio frequency of a UK radio station to play an obscene song eight times during the past month, according to the radio station's manager who recently revealed the hacks in an interview with BBC Radio 4. The hacks have been reported to Ofcom, the UK's communications regulator, who together with the radio station's staff have tried to track down the culprit at last three times, without success. Ofcom and radio station officials believe the hacker is using a mobile radio transmitter to broadcast a stronger signal on the radio station's normal frequency, overriding its normal program. In eight different occasions, the hacker has taken over broadcasts and has been heard talking, screaming, or singing, and then playing "The Winker's Song" (NSFW) by British comedian Ivor Biggun, a track about self-pleasure released in the 70s. Station manager Tony Delahunty told BBC Radio he received phone calls from distressed listeners complaining that their kids started humming the song. Fellow radio stations also called Delahunty to inquire about the hack, fearing similar hijacks.

Reader AmiMoJo writes: A sleep-tracking tech start-up founded by a Briton, which was one of Kickstarter's biggest success stories, has collapsed. Hello raised more than $2.4m (1.9m pound) for its Sense bedroom monitor via the crowdfunding site in 2014, and went on to attract a further $40.5m. Private backers included Singapore's sovereign wealth fund Temasek and Facebook Messenger chief David Marcus. Hello confirmed it would "soon be shutting down", via Medium's news site. The equipment produced a unique score for the previous night's sleep and aimed to wake the owner up at the best point in their sleep cycle.

dryriver shares an excerpt from a report via the BBC that shows what the impact of the Syrian war looks like from space: Six years of war in Syria have had a devastating effect on millions of its people. One of the most catastrophic impacts has been on the country's electricity network. Images from NASA, obtained by BBC Arabic, show clearly how the lights have gone out during the course of the conflict, leaving people to survive with little to no power. Each timelapse frame shows an average of the light emitted at night every month from 2012, one year after the war began. They show that the areas where Syrians can turn lights on at night, power their daily lives and get access to life-saving medical equipment, have shrunk dramatically. The city of Aleppo was Syria's powerhouse and home to over two million people. But the country's industrial hub became a battleground and remained so for more than four years. Russian airstrikes against Syrian rebels began in October 2015 and the timelapse shows the city in almost complete darkness at night throughout 2016, when the battle for Aleppo was at its peak. As mains power supplies dropped off, ordinary people had to be creative in finding alternative sources for light and power.