Slashdot Mirror

An anonymous reader writes: Twitter will stop counting photos and links as part of its 140-character limit for tweets in as soon as two weeks, according to a source familiar with the matter. Right now, links take up 23 characters, even after Twitter automatically shortens them. In January, the Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey said the company was looking for new ways to display text on Twitter, and would experiment based on how people use the service. The company considered raising the limit of characters to as many as 10,000. The reason it abides by a 140-character limit is because it allows for tweets to be sent within a mobile text message, which was a common form of sending tweets back in 2006 when the site debuted. Earlier this month, it was reported Twitter blocked U.S. intelligence agencies from having access to a widely used data mining service it partly owns.

An anonymous reader writes: According to Yahoo News, the CIA inspector general's office "mistakenly" destroyed its only copy of a mammoth Senate torture report at the same time lawyers for the Justice Department were assuring a federal judge that copies of the document were being preserved. Agency officials described the deletion of the document to Senate investigators as an "inadvertent" foul-up by the inspector general. "CIA inspector general officials deleted an uploaded computer file with the report and then accidentally destroyed a disk that also contained the document, filled with thousands of secret files about the CIA's use of 'enhanced' interrogation methods," reports Yahoo News. The Senate Intelligence Committee and Justice Department knew about the incident last summer, sources said. However, the destruction of a copy of the sensitive report was never made public, nor was it reported to the federal judge at the time who was overseeing a lawsuit seeking access to the still classified document under the Freedom of Information Act. Despite this incident, a CIA spokesperson has said another unopened computer disk with the full report is still locked in a vault at agency headquarters. "I can assure you that the CIA has retained a copy," wrote Dean Boyd, the agency's chief of public affairs, in an email. Feinstein is calling for the CIA inspector general to obtain a new copy of the report to replace the one that disappeared. A 500-page summary was released in 2014, and concluded that the CIA misled Americans on the effectiveness of "enhanced interrogation." Specifically, the interrogations were poorly managed and unreliable.

MojoKid shares an interesting article from Tom's Hardware. While the new Battlefield 1 trailer may be the most-liked trailer in the history of YouTube, it's also historically inaccurate, according to a popular YouTube channel about World War I. "Some of the scenes feature some unusual or experimental gear," reports Indy Neidell, the voice of the video series The Great War, "and some weapons are carried by soldiers from the other side."

Thousands of people joined the YouTube channel after the release of the game's new trailer, prompting this special video review of the historical accuracy of the Battlefield 1 trailer. "Some of the most spectacular moments in the trailer, such as the tanks bursting into trenches or giant, ominous zeppelins hovering, are actually historically accurate," reports Tom's Hardware, adding that the YouTube commentator "ultimately applauds Battlefield 1 for incorporating so many different elements of WWI. Many people often forget that much of WWI was fought through hand-to-hand combat or that battles took place throughout Eurasian landmass."

itwbennett writes: Researchers at BAE Systems have found a long chain of coding coincidences linking attempted fraud over the SWIFT network to the 2014 Sony Pictures hack. "The overlaps between these samples provide strong links for the same coder being behind the recent bank heist cases and a wider known campaign stretching back almost a decade," the researchers concluded. But it's still anybody's guess who's behind all these attacks: in Bangladesh, government officials are pointing the finger at SWIFT technicians who worked on the central bank's network last year, while the FBI says that attack was an inside job -- but blames the North Koreans for the Sony hack.
Sunday a bank in Vietnam revealed that it had also identified and blocked a $1.13 million fraud attempt, saying that a third-party service it used to connect to SWIFT's global money transfers system may have been attacked by hackers.

itwbennett writes: Researchers at BAE Systems have found a long chain of coding coincidences linking attempted fraud over the SWIFT network to the 2014 Sony Pictures hack. "The overlaps between these samples provide strong links for the same coder being behind the recent bank heist cases and a wider known campaign stretching back almost a decade," the researchers concluded. But it's still anybody's guess who's behind all these attacks: in Bangladesh, government officials are pointing the finger at SWIFT technicians who worked on the central bank's network last year, while the FBI says that attack was an inside job -- but blames the North Koreans for the Sony hack.
Sunday a bank in Vietnam revealed that it had also identified and blocked a $1.13 million fraud attempt, saying that a third-party service it used to connect to SWIFT's global money transfers system may have been attacked by hackers.

I remember loading Doom for the first time from a 3.5-inch disk back in 1994. In 1997 the source code for Doom's Linux version was released just before Christmas. A hidden Doom level appeared in Microsoft Excel, and a Doom video was also used to promote Windows 95. By 2004 a drummer from Nine Inch Nails was recording the theme song for Doom 3...

There was that weird movie with The Rock and Karl Urban. Last year Doom was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. This January John Romero created a new level, and this weekend's release of a new Doom also featured a mod with one of the the original Doom II levels from 1994.

After a storied history, millions of frags, and thousands of hours of in-world gameplay, Doom holds a unique place in both the history of gaming and geeks. So share your favorite stories in the comments. What's your personal best-loved story about Doom?

I remember loading Doom for the first time from a 3.5-inch disk back in 1994. In 1997 the source code for Doom's Linux version was released just before Christmas. A hidden Doom level appeared in Microsoft Excel, and a Doom video was also used to promote Windows 95. By 2004 a drummer from Nine Inch Nails was recording the theme song for Doom 3...

There was that weird movie with The Rock and Karl Urban. Last year Doom was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. This January John Romero created a new level, and this weekend's release of a new Doom also featured a mod with one of the the original Doom II levels from 1994.

After a storied history, millions of frags, and thousands of hours of in-world gameplay, Doom holds a unique place in both the history of gaming and geeks. So share your favorite stories in the comments. What's your personal best-loved story about Doom?

I remember loading Doom for the first time from a 3.5-inch disk back in 1994. In 1997 the source code for Doom's Linux version was released just before Christmas. A hidden Doom level appeared in Microsoft Excel, and a Doom video was also used to promote Windows 95. By 2004 a drummer from Nine Inch Nails was recording the theme song for Doom 3...

There was that weird movie with The Rock and Karl Urban. Last year Doom was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. This January John Romero created a new level, and this weekend's release of a new Doom also featured a mod with one of the the original Doom II levels from 1994.

After a storied history, millions of frags, and thousands of hours of in-world gameplay, Doom holds a unique place in both the history of gaming and geeks. So share your favorite stories in the comments. What's your personal best-loved story about Doom?

I remember loading Doom for the first time from a 3.5-inch disk back in 1994. In 1997 the source code for Doom's Linux version was released just before Christmas. A hidden Doom level appeared in Microsoft Excel, and a Doom video was also used to promote Windows 95. By 2004 a drummer from Nine Inch Nails was recording the theme song for Doom 3...

There was that weird movie with The Rock and Karl Urban. Last year Doom was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. This January John Romero created a new level, and this weekend's release of a new Doom also featured a mod with one of the the original Doom II levels from 1994.

After a storied history, millions of frags, and thousands of hours of in-world gameplay, Doom holds a unique place in both the history of gaming and geeks. So share your favorite stories in the comments. What's your personal best-loved story about Doom?

An anonymous reader writes: Four days after launching a bug bounty program, Pornhub is said to be compromised. The person responsible used a vulnerability in the user profile script that handles images (not ImageMagick) and is selling shell access on one of their servers for $1,000 USD. This is the second major website the hacker has shelled. Prior to Pornhub, they compromised the LA Times website.
CSO's security columnist notes that Pornhub "announced their bounty program on May 9, but it's a private, invite-only program managed by HackerOne. As such, it isn't clear if there would've been a way to report this flaw and collect a reward to begin with." In addition, on Twitter the attacker reportedly posted "I don't report vulnerabilities anymore, go underground or go home."

Earlier this month, an Apple Music user James Pinkstone claimed that the online music streaming service deleted 122GB of music from his library for no apparent reason. Several Slashdot readers noted they had also faced a similar issue or knew someone who had. The iPhone maker has now acknowledged a bug in iTunes that is apparently causing the glitch, however, it adds that it doesn't really know why "some" users are facing this issue. The Verge reports: The company confirmed that "in an extremely small number of cases, users have reported that music files saved on their computer were removed without their permission." However, Apple was unable to reproduce the bug, indicating it doesn't really know what's going on here. The company adds: We're taking these reports seriously as we know how important music is to our customers and our teams are focused on identifying the cause. We have not been able to reproduce this issue, however, we're releasing an update to iTunes early next week which includes additional safeguards. If a user experiences this issue they should contact AppleCare.

DeviceGuru writes: A team of Brazilian developers has just launched an open-source microcontroller board called the "One Dollar Board," that's so simple and inexpensive that it can be distributed as standard teaching materials to kids in schools all over the world. The tiny board appears to contain a single 8-pin microcontroller chip, along with a handful of passive components, making it considerably more simple and affordable than the similar STEM-oriented and open-sourced BBC Micro:bit board. More details about the One Dollar Board are on its Indiegogo campaign page, where you can get one for a contribution of $1 (duh!), plus unspecified shipping and import duties.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: South Korean automaker Hyundai has unveiled what is apparently a new robotic exoskeleton. In a blog post the company compares its "wearable robot" prototype to an Iron Man suit, saying it gives the wearer extra strength, allowing them to lift objects "hundreds of kilograms" in weight. The company says that in the future the exoskeleton could be used in factories, by the military, or to help with physical rehabilitation. The suit appears to be a development of Hyundai's H-LEX platform. Hyundai isn't the only one working on robotic exoskeletons. The FDA recently approved a powered lower-limb exoskeleton for clinical and personal use, which allows people paralyzed below the waist to stand up and walk. Panasonic on the other hand is developing exoskeletons for factory workers.

An anonymous reader cites an article on The Guardian: Swift, the global financial messaging network that banks use to move billions of dollars every day, warned of a second malware attack similar to the one that led to February's $81 million cyberheist at the Bangladesh central bank. The second case targeted a commercial bank, Swift spokeswoman Natasha de Teran said, without naming it. It was not immediately clear how much money, if any, was stolen in the second attack. Swift said in a statement that the attackers exhibited a "deep and sophisticated knowledge of specific operational controls" at targeted banks and may have been aided by "malicious insiders or cyber attacks, or a combination of both." The organization, a Belgian co-operative owned by member banks, said that forensic experts believe the second case showed that the Bangladesh heist was not a single occurrence, "but part of a wider and highly adaptive campaign targeting banks."

The FCC requires all manufacturers to prevent users from having any direct ability to change RF parameters (frequency limits, output power, country codes, etc). The easiest way for a router manufacturer to comply with FCC's guideline is to block the open source router firmware -- which is what TP-Link has been doing. But thankfully, at least one router manufacturer doesn't think blocking the firmware is the right way to go about it. Ars Technica reports: Linksys has been collaborating with chipmaker Marvell and the makers of OpenWrt to make sure its latest WRT routers can comply with the new rules without blocking open source firmware, company officials told Ars. Linksys' effort stands in contrast with TP-Link, which said it would entirely prevent loading of open source firmware on its routers to satisfy the new Federal Communications Commission requirements. "They're named WRT... it's almost our responsibility to the open source community," Linksys router product manager Vince La Duca told Ars. Cybersecurity experts have urged the router manufacturers to not block open source firmware.

The FCC requires all manufacturers to prevent users from having any direct ability to change RF parameters (frequency limits, output power, country codes, etc). The easiest way for a router manufacturer to comply with FCC's guideline is to block the open source router firmware -- which is what TP-Link has been doing. But thankfully, at least one router manufacturer doesn't think blocking the firmware is the right way to go about it. Ars Technica reports: Linksys has been collaborating with chipmaker Marvell and the makers of OpenWrt to make sure its latest WRT routers can comply with the new rules without blocking open source firmware, company officials told Ars. Linksys' effort stands in contrast with TP-Link, which said it would entirely prevent loading of open source firmware on its routers to satisfy the new Federal Communications Commission requirements. "They're named WRT... it's almost our responsibility to the open source community," Linksys router product manager Vince La Duca told Ars. Cybersecurity experts have urged the router manufacturers to not block open source firmware.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from WTOP: The National Microbiome Initiative being announced by White House science officials Friday aims to bring together scientists who study the microbes that live in the human gut and in the oceans, in farm soil and in hospitals -- to speed discoveries that could bring big payoffs. Consider: Taking antibiotics alters the diversity of your gut bacteria, which eventually settle into a new normal. The 2010 oil spill altered microbes in the Gulf of Mexico, which likewise settled into a new normal, said Dr. Jo Handelsman, associate director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Despite the parallels, "we have no idea if that's a healthier norm or a less healthy norm than before, and no idea how to fix it," said Handelsman, who led development of the initiative. The U.S. government spends about $300 million a year on microbiome research, until now mostly an effort to catalog different communities of bacteria, viruses and other microbes, Handelsman said. The National Microbiome Initiative will add $121 million this year and next for ecosystem-crossing federal research. And in partnership with the government, dozens of universities, foundations and other organizations are announcing more than $400 million in additional microbiome research investments, she said. The ultimate goal is to control and alter microbes to improve either human or environmental health. One of the most recent discoveries was of a gut microbe that completely lacks mitochondria.

An anonymous reader writes: In response to the rising minimum wage, the fast-food chain Wendy's plans to start automating all of its restaurants. The company said it will have self-service ordering kiosks available to its 6,000-plus restaurants in the second half of the year. Wendy's President Todd Penegor said it will be up to franchisees to decide whether or not to adopt the kiosks in their stores, noting that many franchise locations have had to raise prices to offset wage increases. California's decision to gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2022 will impact Wendy's 258 restaurants, all of which are franchise-operated. About 75% of 200-plus Wendy's restaurants are run by franchisees in New York, a state that is also on its way to $15. Penegor said, wage pressures have been manageable both because of falling commodity prices and better operating leverage due to an increase in customer counts. The company is still "working so hard to find efficiencies" so it can deliver "a new QSR experience but at traditional QSR prices." The CEO of Carl's Jr., Andy Puzder, is also looking into replacing many of its workers with machines to save money.

An anonymous reader writes: In response to the rising minimum wage, the fast-food chain Wendy's plans to start automating all of its restaurants. The company said it will have self-service ordering kiosks available to its 6,000-plus restaurants in the second half of the year. Wendy's President Todd Penegor said it will be up to franchisees to decide whether or not to adopt the kiosks in their stores, noting that many franchise locations have had to raise prices to offset wage increases. California's decision to gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2022 will impact Wendy's 258 restaurants, all of which are franchise-operated. About 75% of 200-plus Wendy's restaurants are run by franchisees in New York, a state that is also on its way to $15. Penegor said, wage pressures have been manageable both because of falling commodity prices and better operating leverage due to an increase in customer counts. The company is still "working so hard to find efficiencies" so it can deliver "a new QSR experience but at traditional QSR prices." The CEO of Carl's Jr., Andy Puzder, is also looking into replacing many of its workers with machines to save money.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Apple Inc. invested $1 billion in Chinese ride-sharing service Didi, making one of its biggest bets on software and services and dealing a blow to Uber Technologies Inc.'s ambitions in the country. The iPhone maker will help Uber's largest rival build up a ride-sharing platform that handles more than 11 million rides a day and serves about 300 million users across China, Didi said in a statement on Friday. Executive Officer Tim Cook has highlighted higher-margin services as a growth area and suggested he would use some of its $200 billion-plus cash hoard for investments. The investment in one of China's largest online companies will allow Apple to forge alliances in its single largest market outside of the United States. Didi, incorporated as Xiaoju Kuaizhi Inc., is in the process of raising more than $2 billion at a valuation of about $25 billion, people familiar with the matter have said. It operates in 400 Chinese cities and works with more than 14 million Chinese car owners. The company is Uber's most potent rival and has formed an international coalition with Lyft Inc. in the U.S., India's Ola and Southeast Asia's Grab to fight the globally expanding San Francisco firm. Apple is hoping to reinvigorate lackluster iPhone sales in China with its $1 billion investment in Didi. The last big investment the company made was when it acquired Beats for $3 billion in 2014.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Mark Zuckerberg has issued a statement in response to the controversy alleging that Facebook staff intentionally prevented stories with a conservative viewpoint from appearing in the site's Trending Topics section. "We take this report very seriously and are conducting a full investigation to ensure our teams upheld the integrity of this product," Zuckerberg writes on Facebook. "We have found no evidence that this report is true. If we find anything against our principles, you have my commitment that we will take additional steps to address it." Zuckerberg says he will invite "leading conservatives and people from across the political spectrum" to discuss the matter in the coming weeks, with the aim of having a "direct conversation about what Facebook stands for and how we can be sure our platform stays as open as possible." Earlier today, more evidence surfaced to support Gawker's two recent reports that claimed editors manipulate the trending news. Facebook published a blog post explaining how Trending Topics on its platform works, insisting there's no discrimination against sources of any political origin.

An anonymous reader writes: Opera Software has added a power-saving mode to its desktop web browser that "can increase the battery life by as much as 50 percent." The company claims optimizations are what has made the battery life increase possible, including "reducing activity from background tabs, adapting page-redrawing frequency, and tuning video-playback parameters." Opera claimed that a laptop running Windows 10 64-bit with the power-saving feature enabled lasts 49 percent longer than one with Chrome put under equal stress. Ad blocking was turned on during the test as well. The feature is not enabled by default, but a blue battery icon will appear next to the browser's address bar whenever the power cable is unplugged from your computer. When the laptop's battery is running low, the browser will suggest turning on power-saving mode, too. Earlier this week, Opera launched a new VPN app for iOS that is free to use and includes unlimited data.

More evidence has surfaced to support Gawker's two recent reports that claimed editors manipulate the trending news and a few other aspects on Facebook. The Guardian, citing leaked documents it obtained, reports that the topics one sees on Facebook are determined on a number of factors including "engagement, timeliness, Pages you've liked and your location." From the report: But the documents show that the company relies heavily on the intervention of a small editorial team to determine what makes its "trending module" headlines -- the list of news topics that shows up on the side of the browser window on Facebook's desktop version. The company backed away from a pure-algorithm approach in 2014 after criticism that it had not included enough coverage of unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, in users' feeds. The guidelines show human intervention -- and therefore editorial decisions -- at almost every stage of Facebook's trending news operation, a team that at one time was as few as 12 people.Sam Biddle of Gawker, wrote: Never trust what a company tells you, on/off record -- FB straight up lied to Recode last year. He adds: unless they're under oath a company like Facebook has every incentive to lie about how it operates. It's not illegal to lie to a reporter!"

Update: 05/12 20:49 GMT by M : Facebook has published a blog post in which it explains how Trending Topics on its platform works. The company insists that there is no discrimination against sources of any political origin.

More evidence has surfaced to support Gawker's two recent reports that claimed editors manipulate the trending news and a few other aspects on Facebook. The Guardian, citing leaked documents it obtained, reports that the topics one sees on Facebook are determined on a number of factors including "engagement, timeliness, Pages you've liked and your location." From the report: But the documents show that the company relies heavily on the intervention of a small editorial team to determine what makes its "trending module" headlines -- the list of news topics that shows up on the side of the browser window on Facebook's desktop version. The company backed away from a pure-algorithm approach in 2014 after criticism that it had not included enough coverage of unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, in users' feeds. The guidelines show human intervention -- and therefore editorial decisions -- at almost every stage of Facebook's trending news operation, a team that at one time was as few as 12 people.Sam Biddle of Gawker, wrote: Never trust what a company tells you, on/off record -- FB straight up lied to Recode last year. He adds: unless they're under oath a company like Facebook has every incentive to lie about how it operates. It's not illegal to lie to a reporter!"

Update: 05/12 20:49 GMT by M : Facebook has published a blog post in which it explains how Trending Topics on its platform works. The company insists that there is no discrimination against sources of any political origin.

A week after we learned that the House of Represantives had banned its members from using Google's appshot.com, more details about the blockage have surfaced. Reader Big Hairy Ian writes: A series of ransomware attacks on the House of Representatives has led U.S. Congress to ban members from using Yahoo Mail, according to a leaked email. Both Yahoo Mail and Gmail are named in the 30 April email, published on Thursday by Gizmodo, saying the attacks had increased "in the past 48 hours". Yahoo Mail will be blocked "until further notice" it adds. Ransomware encrypts victims' files and demands a ransom be paid for unlocking. In this particular instance, I think it isn't all of Yahoo Mail's fault. People need to be wary of the links they click on.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Business Insider: A new report from PwC finds that drones could replace $127 billion worth of human labor and services across several industries. Infrastructure and agriculture make up the largest chunks of the potential value -- some $77.6 billion between them -- including services like completing the last mile of delivery routes and spraying crops with laser-like precision. Economists seem to agree that robot automation poses real threats to human labour within the next few decades. Drones are a cheap, versatile first step toward that future. According to the new PwC report, they're also a solid cost-cutting measure. Along with infrastructure and agriculture, drones will help tech giants like Amazon deliver packages, allow security companies to better monitor their sites, help producers and advertisers to film projects, allow telecommunication firms to easily check on their towers, and give mining companies a new way to plan their digs.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Business Insider: A new report from PwC finds that drones could replace $127 billion worth of human labor and services across several industries. Infrastructure and agriculture make up the largest chunks of the potential value -- some $77.6 billion between them -- including services like completing the last mile of delivery routes and spraying crops with laser-like precision. Economists seem to agree that robot automation poses real threats to human labour within the next few decades. Drones are a cheap, versatile first step toward that future. According to the new PwC report, they're also a solid cost-cutting measure. Along with infrastructure and agriculture, drones will help tech giants like Amazon deliver packages, allow security companies to better monitor their sites, help producers and advertisers to film projects, allow telecommunication firms to easily check on their towers, and give mining companies a new way to plan their digs.

An anonymous reader writes from a report via Bloomberg: FBI Director James Comey said the FBI is exploring how to make broader use of the hack, used to access a San Bernardino terrorist's encrypted iPhone, while bracing for a larger battle involving encrypted text messages, e-mails and other data. The tool could "in theory be used in any case where there's a court order" to access data on an iPhone 5c running Apple's iOS 9 OS, Comey told reporters in Washington on Wednesday. However, accessing content on a phone, known as "data at rest," is only part of the challenge that encryption poses for U.S. investigators. Software applications and other services that encrypts texts, e-mails and other information in transit over the Internet, known as "data in motion," are "hugely significant," especially for national security investigations, Comey said. He said criminals are increasingly using services that encrypt data in motion, and he didn't rule out litigation against companies such as WhatsApp. "WhatsApp has over a billion customers, overwhelmingly good people," Comey said. "But in that billion customers are terrorists and criminals, and so that now ubiquitous feature of all WhatsApp products will affect both sides of the house." As for whether or not there will be litigation against WhatsApp down the road, Comey says, "I don't know." The FBI is trying to figure out how to allow "law enforcement around the country with court orders to be able to use our tool," Comey said. It's "tricky," he said, because using the tool to help state and local criminal investigations could mean that it would have to be revealed in a court preceding if there isn't a procedure in place to prohibit testimony about how it works.

An anonymous reader writes from a report via Bloomberg: FBI Director James Comey said the FBI is exploring how to make broader use of the hack, used to access a San Bernardino terrorist's encrypted iPhone, while bracing for a larger battle involving encrypted text messages, e-mails and other data. The tool could "in theory be used in any case where there's a court order" to access data on an iPhone 5c running Apple's iOS 9 OS, Comey told reporters in Washington on Wednesday. However, accessing content on a phone, known as "data at rest," is only part of the challenge that encryption poses for U.S. investigators. Software applications and other services that encrypts texts, e-mails and other information in transit over the Internet, known as "data in motion," are "hugely significant," especially for national security investigations, Comey said. He said criminals are increasingly using services that encrypt data in motion, and he didn't rule out litigation against companies such as WhatsApp. "WhatsApp has over a billion customers, overwhelmingly good people," Comey said. "But in that billion customers are terrorists and criminals, and so that now ubiquitous feature of all WhatsApp products will affect both sides of the house." As for whether or not there will be litigation against WhatsApp down the road, Comey says, "I don't know." The FBI is trying to figure out how to allow "law enforcement around the country with court orders to be able to use our tool," Comey said. It's "tricky," he said, because using the tool to help state and local criminal investigations could mean that it would have to be revealed in a court preceding if there isn't a procedure in place to prohibit testimony about how it works.

An anonymous reader writes: Doctors have warned that the upcoming 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro could spark a "full-blown public health disaster" with the spread of the Zika virus. The World Health Organization has declared a health emergency in response to the disease's spread through Latin America. Rio has the highest number of cases of any state in the country. Dr Amir Attaran said in the Harvard Public Health Review the Olympic Games could increase the spread of the virus, suggesting the Games should be hosted by a different city in Brazil. "While Brazil's Zika inevitably will spread globally, given enough time, viruses always do -- it helps nobody to speed that up," he said. "In particular, it cannot possibly help when an estimated 500,000 foreign tourists flock into Rio for the Games, potentially becoming infected, and returning to their homes where both local Aedes mosquitoes and sexual transmission can establish new outbreaks." It's highly unlikely the virus will cause officials to take drastic action since the Games start on August 5th. With economic and political issues in the country, the Zika virus is just one more thing undermining confidence in the country's ability to host the Olympics. It was reported earlier this year that Rio has given up on its promise to eliminate 80 percent of the sewage found in the city's notoriously filthy water.

Mike Masnick, reporting for TechDirt: Oh boy. Remember Shiva Ayyadurai? The guy who has gone to great lengths to claim that he "invented email," when the reality is that he appears to have (likely independently) written an early implementation of email long after others had actually "invented email." In the past we've called out examples where gullible press have fallen for his easily debunked claims, but he keeps popping back up. The mainstream press repeated his bogus claims about inventing email after he married a TV star. And, most recently, he decided to scream at the press for memorializing Ray Tomlinson -- someone who actually did have a hand in creating email -- upon his death. [...] We, of course, have not been alone in debunking his claims. Back in 2012, a few weeks after we first debunked them, Gawker's Sam Biddle did a long and thorough takedown of Ayyadurai's claims. Apparently that story really angers Ayyadurai, and I'm guessing that seeing Hulk Hogan win his crazy lawsuit against Gawker helped Ayyadurai to decide to sue Gawker as well.

Reader szczys writes (edited): Peachy Printer made it big on Kickstarter, raising over half a million dollars on the promise to build the first 3D printer and scanner costing $100. The company has now collapsed due to embezzlement (Editor's note: BBC's coverage is better) of those funds. The original investor stole around $350,000 of backer's money and funneled it into a new home. This was discovered about 18 months ago but became public only now as the company is unable to meet their already delayed delivery dates. Peachy Printer has posted a video admitting the screw-up. Sounds familiar?

Reader szczys writes (edited): Peachy Printer made it big on Kickstarter, raising over half a million dollars on the promise to build the first 3D printer and scanner costing $100. The company has now collapsed due to embezzlement (Editor's note: BBC's coverage is better) of those funds. The original investor stole around $350,000 of backer's money and funneled it into a new home. This was discovered about 18 months ago but became public only now as the company is unable to meet their already delayed delivery dates. Peachy Printer has posted a video admitting the screw-up. Sounds familiar?

Here's the thing, regardless of one's stand on self-driving cars, they are no longer a futuristic idea. Major car companies such as Tesla, BMW, and Mercedes have already released an autonomous vehicle or plan to release one soon. Sergio Marchionne, an Italian-Canadian executive who is currently the CEO of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, recently said: It isn't pie in the sky. People are talking about 20 years. I think we will have it in five years. ZDNet has published its interview of Jim McBride, technical leader in Ford's autonomous vehicles team, who thinks self-driving cars are five years away from changing the world. At the same time, we must acknowledge the talks about these smart vehicles killing many jobs, and the security vulnerabilities we read every once in a while. What's your take on this?

Here's the thing, regardless of one's stand on self-driving cars, they are no longer a futuristic idea. Major car companies such as Tesla, BMW, and Mercedes have already released an autonomous vehicle or plan to release one soon. Sergio Marchionne, an Italian-Canadian executive who is currently the CEO of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, recently said: It isn't pie in the sky. People are talking about 20 years. I think we will have it in five years. ZDNet has published its interview of Jim McBride, technical leader in Ford's autonomous vehicles team, who thinks self-driving cars are five years away from changing the world. At the same time, we must acknowledge the talks about these smart vehicles killing many jobs, and the security vulnerabilities we read every once in a while. What's your take on this?

Reader prisoninmate writes: Following on last year's bold announcement that they will attempt to migrate from proprietary Microsoft Office products to an open-source alternative like LibreOffice, Italy's Ministry of Defense now expects to save up to 29 million Euro with this move. We said it before, and we'll say it again, this is the smartest choice a government institution can do. And to back up this statement, the Italian Ministry of Defense announced that they expect to save between 26 and 29 million Euro over the next few years by migrating to the LibreOffice open-source software for productivity and adopting the Open Document Format (ODF).

WhatsApp is now also available as a native desktop app on Windows and OS X, the Facebook-owned instant messaging and voice calling company announced. The app supports desktop notifications, keyboard shortcuts and a range of other features. For the desktop app to function, users still need to have their phone connected to the Internet.

WhatsApp isn't very popular in the United States and European countries, but it has a large user base of active users in the emerging markets such as India and Brazil. In fact, earlier this year, the company announced that it has hit one billion monthly active users. For those interested, you can download the app for your desktop (or any other device) from the company's website.

Remember MegaBots? The Kickstarter success story that was raising money last year to pilot fighting robot named Mk II. Labeling it as a contest for world supremacy, the co-founders challenged a Japanese team Suidobashi Industries to a duel with its Kuratas bot. (Which it accepted very gracefully). The idea was to utilize this octane-packed event to sell merchandise products. Here's an update: it worked. TechCrunch reports: Oakland, Calif. startup MegaBots Inc. has raised $2.4 million in seed funding to bring the robot-fighting stuff of manga and anime to a venue near you. According to MegaBots cofounders, Gui Cavalcanti, Matt Oehrlein, and Brinkley Warren, the startup aspires to follow in the footsteps of major sports associations like Formula 1 or UFC. With the seed funding, Warren said, MegaBots will be partnering with a law firm called Latham Watkins to help set up and roll out its league internationally, taking an approach similar to the Olympics. Specifically, MegaBots will be working with Latham Watkins Partner Christopher D. Brearton, who represents the International Olympic Committee, and has helped organized leagues and governing bodies in sports including the NBA, MLB, NFL and others.

Remember MegaBots? The Kickstarter success story that was raising money last year to pilot fighting robot named Mk II. Labeling it as a contest for world supremacy, the co-founders challenged a Japanese team Suidobashi Industries to a duel with its Kuratas bot. (Which it accepted very gracefully). The idea was to utilize this octane-packed event to sell merchandise products. Here's an update: it worked. TechCrunch reports: Oakland, Calif. startup MegaBots Inc. has raised $2.4 million in seed funding to bring the robot-fighting stuff of manga and anime to a venue near you. According to MegaBots cofounders, Gui Cavalcanti, Matt Oehrlein, and Brinkley Warren, the startup aspires to follow in the footsteps of major sports associations like Formula 1 or UFC. With the seed funding, Warren said, MegaBots will be partnering with a law firm called Latham Watkins to help set up and roll out its league internationally, taking an approach similar to the Olympics. Specifically, MegaBots will be working with Latham Watkins Partner Christopher D. Brearton, who represents the International Olympic Committee, and has helped organized leagues and governing bodies in sports including the NBA, MLB, NFL and others.

An anonymous reader writes: Eleven years after Linus Torvalds developed Git after a falling out with BitKeeper for managing the Linux kernel source code, BitMover Inc has finally decided to open-source the BitKeeper VCS. The latest BitKeeper release has made the code open-source under the terms of the Apache 2.0 license. The community edition code is available from BitKeeper.org. Does BitKeeper now stand a chance against free software systems like Git and SVN?To offer some context, Larry McVoy, the CEO of BitMover -- the company that makes BitKeeper -- offered free BitKeeper licenses to various open source projects -- Linux kernel utilized it as well. However, later, Australian computer programmer Andrew Tridgell reverse engineered BitKeeper protocol in an attempt to make his own client. Torvalds didn't like this practice, and accused Tridgell of "playing dirty tricks with his proprietary source code tool of choice," and as a result, he wrote Git.

Michael Nunez, reporting for Gizmodo: The US Senate Commerce Committee -- which has jurisdiction over media issues, consumer protection issues, and internet communication -- has sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg requesting answers to questions it has on its trending topics section. The letter comes after Gizmodo on Monday reported on allegations by one former news curator, who worked for Facebook as a contractor, that the curation team routinely suppressed or blacklisted topics of interest to conservatives. That report also included allegations from several former curators that they used an "injection tool" to add or bump stories onto the trending module. The letter asks that Facebook "arrange for your staff including employees responsible for trending topics to brief committee staff on this issue." The letter was signed by Chairman for the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Senator John Thune (R) from South Dakota.

In late April, it was reported there would be a huge new 'Panama Papers' data dump on May 9th. The report did not disappoint as today the Panama Papers affair has widened, with a huge database of documents relating to more than 200,000 offshore accounts posted online. The database can be accessed at offshoreleaks.icij.org. The papers were leaked by a source known as "Jony Doe," and the papers belonged to the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) decided to make the database public despite a "cease and desist" order issued by the law firm.

Michael Nunez, reporting for Gizmodo: Facebook workers routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers from the social network's influential "trending" news section, according to a former journalist who worked on the project. This individual says that workers prevented stories about the right-wing CPAC gathering, Mitt Romney, Rand Paul, and other conservative topics from appearing in the highly-influential section, even though they were organically trending among the site's users. In other words, Facebook's news section operates like a traditional newsroom, reflecting the biases of its workers and the institutional imperatives of the corporation. Imposing human editorial values onto the lists of topics an algorithm spits out is by no means a bad thing -- but it is in stark contrast to the company's claims that the trending module simply lists "topics that have recently become popular on Facebook." The revelation comes amid a report on the same publication which claimed that a small group of journalists controlled and decided what should trend on Facebook. Also recently, a leaked screenshot revealed Facebook employees asking whether they should do something to prevent Donald Trump from becoming the president.

Michael Nunez, reporting for Gizmodo: Facebook workers routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers from the social network's influential "trending" news section, according to a former journalist who worked on the project. This individual says that workers prevented stories about the right-wing CPAC gathering, Mitt Romney, Rand Paul, and other conservative topics from appearing in the highly-influential section, even though they were organically trending among the site's users. In other words, Facebook's news section operates like a traditional newsroom, reflecting the biases of its workers and the institutional imperatives of the corporation. Imposing human editorial values onto the lists of topics an algorithm spits out is by no means a bad thing -- but it is in stark contrast to the company's claims that the trending module simply lists "topics that have recently become popular on Facebook." The revelation comes amid a report on the same publication which claimed that a small group of journalists controlled and decided what should trend on Facebook. Also recently, a leaked screenshot revealed Facebook employees asking whether they should do something to prevent Donald Trump from becoming the president.

On Saturday voters in Austin, Texas refused to repeal a new regulation that requires fingerprinting drivers for ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft. In Austin's most expensive election ever, the ride-sharing services spent over $8.2 million pushing Proposition 1, apparently outspending their opponents by a 80:1 ratio. But on election day, the proposal to repeal ultimately received just 39,083 votes -- 44% of the total cast -- meaning the lobbyists spent $209 for each vote received. Both services have said they will cease operations in Austin rather than perform the fingerprint-based criminal background checks.

New submitter loren writes: It is with much sadness that I report that legendary sound designer Jory K. Prum, who worked on more than 120 video game titles, passed away April 22, 2016, at age 41, from injuries suffered in a March traffic accident. (Disclaimer: I am a long time friend of Jory and his family.) Here are some personal recollections from family, friends and colleagues... Also, a list of his game credits are on MobyGames. This post doesn't do him justice, but I found news of his loss conspicuously absent on Slashdot.
Back in 2006 a Slashdot article about the game Bone apparently drew a comment from Jory himself ("Funny, I'm recording the dialog for Bone 2 right as I read this!") and in 2004 the same account weighed in on an article about long hours at Electronic Arts. Wikipedia also reports that in 2001 Jory created a voice for Pixar's Oscar-winning short "For the Birds," and in 2014 recovered the aging audio for the classic point-and-click adventure game Grim Fandango.

New submitter loren writes: It is with much sadness that I report that legendary sound designer Jory K. Prum, who worked on more than 120 video game titles, passed away April 22, 2016, at age 41, from injuries suffered in a March traffic accident. (Disclaimer: I am a long time friend of Jory and his family.) Here are some personal recollections from family, friends and colleagues... Also, a list of his game credits are on MobyGames. This post doesn't do him justice, but I found news of his loss conspicuously absent on Slashdot.
Back in 2006 a Slashdot article about the game Bone apparently drew a comment from Jory himself ("Funny, I'm recording the dialog for Bone 2 right as I read this!") and in 2004 the same account weighed in on an article about long hours at Electronic Arts. Wikipedia also reports that in 2001 Jory created a voice for Pixar's Oscar-winning short "For the Birds," and in 2014 recovered the aging audio for the classic point-and-click adventure game Grim Fandango.

Hundreds of millions of email login credentials -- affecting Gmail, Yahoo, Mail.ru (Russia's most popular email service), and Hotmail among other websites -- were being traded earlier this week in Russia's criminal underground. According to a report on Ars Technica, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Mail.ru have now assured that the vast majority of leaked credentials are invalid. For instance, "More than 98% of the Google account credentials in this research turned out to be bogus," Google said. Dan Goodin reports: What has been clear all along to anyone paying attention is that the plaintext credentials recovered by Hold Security almost certainly didn't come from hacks on the e-mail providers. Instead, they most likely were collected by hackers who hit dozens, hundreds or thousands of third-party Web services over the years and dumped the account databases into a single list.

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft's user identity management systems, made up by Microsoft Account (formerly Live ID, for home users) and Azure Active Directory (for its cloud/corporate services), see over 13 billion user logins per day, with 1.3 billion for AAD. The company says that over 10 million (per day) of these login attempts are cyber-attacks, which the company is able to detect. This information comes via Microsoft's most recent Security Intelligence Report, which also reveals details about a new cyber-espionage group named Platinum and that hackers are still using the same vulnerability (CVE-2010-2568) even today, which was used in the Stuxnet attacks. According to Pew Research Center, there's an increasingly growing fear among Americans about cyberattacks. In fact, it's the second most feared entity to them, the first being ISIS.

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft has officially announced today it will end the annoying "Get Windows 10" notifications in July, when they end the free Windows 10 upgrade offer. In a statement to WinBeta, Microsoft said in a comment: "Details are still being finalized, but on July 29th the Get Windows 10 app that facilitates the easy upgrade to Windows 10 will be disabled and eventually removed from PCs worldwide. Just as it took time to ramp up and roll out the Get Windows 10 app, it will take time to ramp it down." This is great news for users who have decided to not install Windows 10 for whatever reason. Earlier this week, it was reported that the Windows 10 update has been ruining pro-graming streams. In April, the Windows 10 upgrade screen interrupted a meteorologist's live forecast.