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Slashdot reader RockDoctor writes: The project to actually construct Babbage's Analytical Engine, the first design for a general purpose computing machine, continues with the documentation phase of the programme. Since Babbage continued to refine his design almost until the day of his death, working out what he actually wanted to build is quite a task. The last year's work is reported to includes work on a batch of previously unknown and uncatalogued materials discovered since the project's inception in 2011.

These decades, people don't think much of producing a new programming language to suit particular tasks — to "scratch an itch" in the vernacular. As with so many things, Babbage was a pioneer, according to the Plan 28 blog: :

There have already been significant finds. The Notations for Difference Engine 1, dating from 1834, thought to exist, had never come to light. These have now been found and represent a crucial piece in the puzzle of the developmental trajectory of the symbolic language Babbage developed as a design aid, to describe and specify his engine, and used extensively in the development of the Analytical Engine.

RockDoctor adds, "Anyone who has been tasked with taking over a project from someone else (retired, sacked, beheaded, whatever) will recognise this feeling..."

The survey so far has identified mis-titled drawings, single drawings that have two unrelated catalogue entries, and drawings known to exist from earlier scholarly work but not located.

"The hope of the project is to have a working machine in time for Babbages sesquicentenary in 2021."

On Friday the Ocean Cleanup project posted a status update after their giant U-shaped plastic trap lost a 60-foot section in January and had to be towed back to land: During the first four months that the system was offshore, we were able to confirm many of the key features of the cleanup system. We also encountered some unscheduled learning opportunities; notably 1) the system hasn't been able to retain the plastic it caught, and 2) the floater suffered from a structural failure, causing an 18-meter end section to disconnect from the rest of the system, just before the end of 2018.
Its four months in the Pacific ocean validated much of their proposed solution, including the device's U-shaped configuration and its ability to orient with the wind. No harmful environmental impacts were observed, and in fact "Plastic concentrations in and around the system were much higher than in any other location in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch; and, although the periods the plastic was retained in the system were not yet of sufficient length, the system did capture and concentrate plastic."

The bottom line: they're going to try again: The engineering team is using these conclusions and results to update the design and prepare for relaunch. Using this thorough understanding, we hope to resolve the issues that are known to us and prove our technology, but we do realize that there may still be more unidentified challenges ahead. Only further proving the importance of returning to the patch as soon as possible, so we can continue to learn from and optimize the technology.... We now have all hands on deck and we aim to be ready for relaunch within a matter of months.

An anonymous reader quotes the Associated Press: Gov. Andrew Cuomo and fellow Democrats who control the Legislature have reached a deal to make New York the third state with a ban on single-use plastic grocery bags as they worked to finalize budget agreements, officials said Friday. The ban would prohibit grocery stores from providing plastic bags for most purchases, something California has been doing since a statewide ban was approved in 2016. Hawaii has an effective statewide ban, with all its counties imposing their own restrictions....

New York's ban wouldn't take effect until next March. The plan also calls for allowing local governments the option to impose a 5-cent fee on paper bags, with 3 cents going to the state's Environmental Protection Fund and 2 cents kept by local governments.
Meanwhile, Tennessee's state House and Senate have passed a different kind of bill -- one that bans local Tennessee governments from regulating plastic bags, according to local channel WMC.

One Memphis councilman had proposed allowing the use of plastic bags, but with a seven-cent tax to support clean water initiatives. "But that won't happen if the governor signs the bill to 'ban the bans.'"

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: Florida Power & Light has joined the race to build the world's largest solar battery storage system, announcing plans for its massive Manatee Energy Storage Center. The utility plans to build a 409 MW/900 MWh battery, to be powered by an existing FPL solar plant in Manatee County, Florida. It will begin serving customers in 2021. FPL says the battery system will be able to power 329,000 homes for two hours. For comparison, FPL notes the battery system is equivalent to 100 million iPhone batteries, or 300 million AA batteries. The system will be used in periods of high demand. The utility company also said that it will accelerate the retirement of two natural gas facilities at a nearby power plant. "FPL says the project will save customers more than $100 million while eliminating more than 1 million tons of carbon emissions, though no cost estimates for the project were disclosed," reports Electrek.

And while the Manatee Energy Storage Center is projected to be the "world's largest solar-powered battery storage system," it will have some competition from Texas where there are plans to build a 495 MW battery storage system that would be paired with an equivalent 495 MW solar farm in Borden County, Texas. It too is due to come online in 2021.

After partnering with HTC to launch the Vive in 2016, Valve has moved ahead with plans to launch its own headset, called the Valve Index, in May 2019. Ars Technica reports: The news came on Friday in the form of a single teaser image, shown above, of a headset with the phrase "Valve Index" written on its front. The front of the headset is flanked by at least two sensors. This shadow-covered hardware matches the leaked headset reported by UploadVR in November of last year. That report hinted to Valve's headset supporting a wider, 135-degree field-of-view (FOV), as opposed to the roughly 110-degree FOV of the original HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.

Valve's dedicated website for the new device includes no other information than the above image and the date "May 2019." It does not include any mention of the new SteamVR Knuckles controllers, which Valve has advertised pretty heavily via developer outreach since their 2016 reveal and a later series of improved prototypes in 2018. This page also doesn't mention a series of three Valve-produced VR games that have been repeatedly advertised by Valve co-founder Gabe Newell since 2017. There's very little information about the headset, but after cranking up the brightness and contrast of the teaser image, Ars Technica's Sam Machkovech was able to find "a series of six dots on one of the headset's surfaces, [...] which may hint to this headset's use of an outside tracking sensor, a la the HTC Vive's infrared trackers." He adds: "Even so, those two giant lenses imply that 'inside-out' tracking, managed entirely by the headset without any extra webcams or sensors, may also be in the cards. Additionally, we can see a giant physical slider, which is likely linked to interpupillary distance (IPD), a precise measurement needed to ensure maximum VR comfort."

Tesla vehicles sent to the junk yard after a crash carry much more data than you'd think. According to CNBC, citing two security researchers, "Computers on Tesla vehicles keep everything that drivers have voluntarily stored on their cars, plus tons of other information generated by the vehicles including video, location and navigational data showing exactly what happened leading up to a crash." From the report: One researcher, who calls himself GreenTheOnly, describes himself as a "white hat hacker" and a Tesla enthusiast who drives a Model X. He has extracted this kind of data from the computers in a salvaged Tesla Model S, Model X and two Model 3 vehicles, while also making tens of thousands of dollars cashing in on Tesla bug bounties in recent years. Many other cars download and store data from users, particularly information from paired cellphones, such as contact information.

But the researchers' findings highlight how Tesla is full of contradictions on privacy and cybersecurity. On one hand, Tesla holds car-generated data closely, and has fought customers in court to refrain from giving up vehicle data. Owners must purchase $995 cables and download a software kit from Tesla to get limited information out of their cars via "event data recorders" there, should they need this for legal, insurance or other reasons. At the same time, crashed Teslas that are sent to salvage can yield unencrypted and personally revealing data to anyone who takes possession of the car's computer and knows how to extract it. The contrast raises questions about whether Tesla has clearly defined goals for data security, and who its existing rules are meant to protect. A Tesla spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC: "Tesla already offers options that customers can use to protect personal data stored on their car, including a factory reset option for deleting personal data and restoring customized settings to factory defaults, and a Valet Mode for hiding personal data (among other functions) when giving their keys to a valet. That said, we are always committed to finding and improving upon the right balance between technical vehicle needs and the privacy of our customers."

The report serves as a reminder for Tesla owners to factory reset their cars before handing them off to a junk yard or other reseller because that other party may not reset your car for you. "Tesla sometimes uses an automotive auction company called Manheim to inspect, recondition and sell used cars," reports CNBC. "A former Manheim employee, who asked to remain anonymous, confirmed that employees do not wipe the cars' computers with a factory reset."

The researchers were able to obtain phonebooks "worth of contact information from drivers or passengers who had paired their devices, and calendar entries with descriptions of planned appointments, and e-mail addresses of those invited." The data also showed the drivers' last 73 navigation locations, as well as crash-related information. The Model 3 that one of the researchers bought for research purposes contained a video showing the car speeding out of the right lane into the trees off the left side of a dark two-lane route. "GPS and other vehicle data reveals that the accident happened in Orleans, Massachusetts, on Namequoit Road, at 11:15 pm on Aug 11, and was severe enough that airbags deployed," the report adds.

The company behind "Fortnite" wants to become the next Facebook or Google, said Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney. The idea isn't much of a stretch. From a report: While "Fortnite" began life as a relatively mundane game it continues to evolve, first by adding a battle royale mode, and then by leaning on the game's massive install base to turn the title into something more akin to a social platform that can host concerts, tell stories, and inspire creativity. Sweeney points to the game's popularity as a "mass-market streaming phenomenon," the moment when "Fortnite" player teamed up with musician Drake in-game, and when the game played host to about 10 million people in a live, in-game Marshmello concert. "We feel the game industry is changing in some major ways," he said. "'Fortnite' is a harbinger of things to come. It's a massive number of people all playing together, interacting together, not just playing but socializing."

"In many ways 'Fortnite' is like a social network. People are just in the game with strangers, they're playing with friends and using 'Fortnite' as a foundation to communicate." Flush with a relatively recent $1.25 billion investment from a half-dozen investment firms and the steady flow of cash from both "Fortnite" and Epic Game's Unreal game engine, Sweeney has big plans for the company.

McGruber writes: SAP, Oracle America, PayPal, Instacart, Thin Film Electronics and other technology companies will cut about 1,200 jobs in the Bay Area between now and Memorial Day. According to WARN notices filed with California state labor officials, SAP will eliminate 446 jobs: 179 in Palo Alto, 173 in San Ramon and 94 in South San Francisco; while Oracle intends to cut 352 positions: 255 in Redwood City and 97 in Santa Clara. PayPal plans to reduce staffing levels by 183 jobs: 160 in San Jose and 23 in San Francisco. The South Bay job cuts are slated to occur at the e-commerce titan's offices on North First Street in San Jose. Thin Film Electronics has issued an alert of 54 upcoming job cuts in San Jose. Instacart, an e-commerce unicorn that offers a web-based same-day grocery delivery service, intends to eliminate 162 jobs: 86 positions in San Francisco, 41 in San Mateo, 15 in Oakland, 13 in Berkeley and seven in Campbell. For SAP, Oracle and PayPal, the majority of the employment reductions will be in software jobs.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Moolah Mobile is teaming up with SurgePhone Wireless to offer people a new way to pay their cell phone bills -- by putting ads on their homescreens. Moolah CEO Vernell Woods (pictured above) said the startup has already been offering gift cards and other rewards to users who view its homescreen ads. So this is a similar model, except instead of earning gift cards, the ads are subsidizing cell phone service from Surge. The ads show up on users' homescreens during interstitial moments between using apps, so the goal is to offer free service without consumers having to change their behavior. Woods said all that ad time adds up, with "the average person who's using their phone on a consistent basis" viewing "easily between two to three hours" of homescreen ads each day. And that's enough to pay for the "equivalent" of Surge's $10 monthly plan. On the other hand, if for some reason a subscriber isn't hitting the necessary total, Woods said they can also earn more points by accepting offers or taking surveys. The subsidized wireless service will roll out in Florida, Virginia, Georgia and Texas initially, with an aim of reaching 40,000 locations by the end of the year.

An anonymous reader shares a report: What better way to replace New York City's thousands of aging pay phones than with 9.5-foot-tall kiosks outfitted with 55-inch HD displays, gigabit internet, and Android tablets preloaded with informational apps? So went the thinking back in 2014, when then-mayor Michael Bloomberg launched a competition -- the Reinvent Payphones initiative -- calling on private enterprises, residents, and nonprofits to submit designs for spruced-up, publicly accessible hubs that would provide advertising-subsidized services to the public. CityBridge's LinkNYC beat out piezoelectric pressure plates, EV charging stations, and other competing proposals for a contract, and the consortium wasted no time in getting to work.

Intersection -- which with Qualcomm and CIVIQ Smartscapes manages the kiosks -- said it plans to spend $200 million laying down 400 miles of new communication cables and installing as many as 10,000 Links that supply free Wi-Fi to passersby within a 150-foot radius. The first kiosk went online in January, though the project has quite a ways to go -- 1,780 Links are active currently, short of the initial goal of 4,500 kiosks by July of this year. [...] And the initial kiosks have really taken off. According to Intersection, the LinkNYC network now has more than 6 million unique users who have used 8.597 terabytes of data collectively -- equivalent to about 1.3 billion songs or 292 billion WhatsApp messages. And the project facilitates 600,000 phone calls every month, up from 500,000 in September of last year. Further reading: Free Municipal Wi-Fi May Be the Next Front In the War Against Privacy.

The European Union has decided to ban plastic consumer items including plates, cutlery and straws as of 2021 to help clean up oceans. The prohibition on single-use plastics approved by the European Parliament this week in Strasbourg, France, also applies to beverage cups, food containers and cotton bud sticks. A report adds: The new legislation also states that by 2025, plastic bottles should be made of 25 percent recycled content. The new legislation also sets an admirable target of recycling 90 percent of plastic bottles by 2029 -- as well as a goal of making them out of 30 percent recycled material by 2030. Parliament originally rolled out its plan at the end of 2018 and have now made good on the ambition directive.

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.

hcs_$reboot shares a report from CNBC: Boeing previewed its software fix, cockpit alerts and additional pilot training for its 737 Max planes on Wednesday, saying the changes improve the safety of the aircraft which has been involved in two deadly crashes since October. By the end of this week, Boeing plans to send the software updates and plan for enhanced pilot training to the FAA for certification approval. After the FAA approves the fix, Boeing said it will send the software update to customers. Among the notable changes to the MAX flight controls:

• The plane's Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, automated flight control system, will now receive data from both "angle of attack" sensors, instead of just one.
• If those disagree by more than 5.5 degrees, the MCAS system will be disabled and will not push the nose of the plane lower.
• Boeing will be adding an indicator to the flight control display so pilots are aware of when the angle of attack sensors disagree.
• There will also be enhanced training required for all 737 pilots so they are more fully aware of how the MCAS system works and how to disable it if they encounter an issue.

GITAI is a robotics startup with offices in Japan and the United States that's developing tech to put humanoid telepresence robots in space to take over for astronauts. IEEE: This week, GITAI is announcing a joint research agreement with JAXA (the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency) to see what it takes for robots to be useful in orbit, with the goal of substantially reducing the amount of money spent sending food and air up to those demanding humans on the International Space Station. It's also worth noting that GITAI has some new hires, including folks from the famous (and somewhat mysterious) Japanese bipedal robot company SCHAFT.

[...] GITAI says that their robots will "reduce the cost of space work to 10 percent" of the cost of using a real astronaut, by instead relying on earthbound humans for immersive teleoperation. As you might expect, the trouble with immersive teleoperation between Earth and orbit is getting data back and forth over a restrictive network. Part of GITAI's secret sauce involves compressing "data of 360-degree camera with resolution of 2.7K from original data volume of 800 Mbps to average 2.5 Mbps." At the same time, they've managed to reduce latency to 60 ms, which is really quite good, for talking to space. The plan is to get all of this working in low Earth orbit by 2020.

Massachusetts Senator and Democratic Presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren has become the highest profile politician to support right to repair legislation in the United States. From a report: On Wednesday, Warren outlined a sweeping plan to support family farms and diminish the power of corporate agriculture. At the top of the list, she supports a national right-to-repair law for tractors and other agricultural equipment. That means she supports the simple idea that people who own a tractor should be able to repair it without permission from John Deere or any other manufacturer. "Farmers should be able to repair their own equipment or choose between multiple repair shops," Warren said in a Medium post outlining her proposal. "That's why I strongly support a national right-to-repair law that empowers farmers to repair their equipment without going to an authorized agent." For now, Warren's proposal would apply only to farm equipment, not consumer electronics.

[...] Farmers operating John Deere tractors have been fighting against John Deere's repair monopoly for years. Device manufacturers don't want people repairing their own stuff and they've taken pains to make it difficult to do so. Newer John Deere equipment comes loaded with software and firmware that make it impossible for farmers to fix their own equipment. Instead, they have to call an authorized dealer and wait for them to show up -- a fix that's too slow and too costly for a farmer. "The national right-to-repair law should require manufacturers of farm equipment to make diagnostic tools, manuals, and other repair-related resources available to any individual or business, not just their own dealerships and authorized agents," Warren said. "This will not only allow individuals to fix their own equipment -- reducing delays -- but it will also create competition among dealers and independent repair shops, bringing down prices overall." Further reading: Grandson of Legendary John Deere Inventor Calls Out Company On Right To Repair.

Airbnb says it's cracking down on hosts who record guests. But is it doing enough? From a report: Airbnb's rules allow cameras outdoors and in living rooms and common areas, but never in bathrooms or anywhere guests plan to sleep, including rooms with foldout beds. Starting in early 2018, Airbnb added another layer of disclosure: If hosts indicate they have cameras anywhere on their property, guests receive a pop-up informing them where the cameras are located and where they are aimed. To book the property, the guests must click "agree," indicating that they're aware of the cameras and consent to being filmed.

Of course, hosts have plenty of reason to train cameras on the homes they rent out to strangers. They can catch guests who attempt to steal, or who trash the place, or who initially say they're traveling alone, then show up to a property with five people. A representative for Airbnb's Trust & Safety communications department told me the company tries to filter out hosts who may attempt to surveil guests by matching them against sex-offender and felony databases. The company also uses risk scores to flag suspicious behavior, in addition to reviewing and booting hosts with consistently poor scores.

If a guest contacts Airbnb's Trust & Safety team with a complaint about a camera, employees offer new accommodations if necessary and open an investigation into the host. [...] But four guests who found cameras in their rentals told The Atlantic the company has inconsistently applied its own rules when investigating their claims, providing them with incorrect information and making recommendations that they say risked putting them in harm's way. "There have been super terrible examples of privacy violations by AirBnB hosts, e.g., people have found cameras hidden in alarm clocks in their bedrooms," wrote Jeff Bigham, a computer-science professor at Carnegie Mellon whose claim was initially denied after he reported cameras in his rental. "I feel like our experience is in some ways more insidious. If you find a truly hidden camera in your bedroom or bathroom, Airbnb will support you. If you find an undisclosed camera in the private living room, Airbnb will not support you."

UPS has partnered with autonomous drone company Matternet and hospital WakeMed in Raleigh, North Carolina, to test a new drone delivery service for transporting medical samples to nearby facilities. The FAA is overseeing the program. CNBC reports: UPS said the service will utilize Matternet's M2 "quadcopter" drone, which can carry medical samples of up to 5 pounds as far as 12.5 miles. The program will begin with "numerous planned daily revenue flights at the WakeMed Raleigh campus," UPS said. The drone delivery service aims to replace WakeMed's reliance on a fleet of courier cars, which currently transports most of the hospital's medical samples. Using a UPS "secure drone container," WakeMed employees can load medical specimens like blood samples and send them quickly to a nearby WakeMed facility.

Matternet has completed "more than 3,000 flights for healthcare systems in Switzerland," UPS added. The WakeMed program is also under the FAA's broader effort called the "Unmanned Aircraft System Integration Pilot Program," which "aims to test practical applications of drones by partnering local governments with private sector companies."

Dream Market, today's top dark web marketplace, today announced plans to shut down on April 30. From a report: The announcement came on the same day Europol, FBI, and DEA officials announced tens of arrests and a massive crackdown on dark web drug trafficking. The timing of the four announcements immediately sent most of Dream Market's users and dark web threat intel analysts into a frenzy of theories that law enforcement might have already seized the site and are now running a honeypot operation. Their fears are based on a similar event from June 2017 when Dutch police took over Hansa Market and ran the site for a month while collecting evidence on the portal's users. Law enforcement later used passwords collected from Hansa Market users to gain access to accounts on other dark web marketplaces.

HTC has debuted their new virtual-reality headset called the Vive Focus Plus. Starting at $799, the headset functions similarly to the Oculus Quest, which starts shipping this spring at half the cost, but has improved specifications and is geared towards the business market. HTC says the Vive Focus Plus would be available to developers on April 15. UploadVR reports: The Vive Focus Plus will ship in most markets with an enterprise license. The headset is said to launch with 250 Vive Wave applications while its Viveport Infinity subscription program claims to include "over 70 premium titles." [Some of the specifications include a 3K AMOLED (2880x1600) display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, 75Hz frame rate, 110-degree field of view, and inside-out tracking.]

HTC is a company that appears to be in technological transition -- with the Vive Focus Plus the latest example. HTC's first generation Vive headset debuted in 2016 for $$799, a full $200 more than the Rift with a wider feature set. That system relied on Valve's SteamVR Tracking technology to operate. All headsets HTC released since 2016, except for the Vive Pro, don't rely on this technology. It should still be possible for some HTC systems to interact with SteamVR content but we've yet to test that sort of of functionality in a home setting. While Vive Focus Plus is HTC's current standalone headset the company is also planning the convertible Vive Cosmos as well. It is hard to get a full picture right now of how different Vive Focus Plus and Oculus Quest are from another in actual real-world use. HTC is trying to gear the headset to the business market but it is not clear how the headset or its business license will outperform Oculus Quest for business use cases.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Philly: Comcast Spectacor, which owns the Flyers, is to announce Monday morning that it will construct the first arena for gaming fans in the U.S. for the Comcast-owned Fusion, company officials say. The $50 million project is a testament to the surging popularity of esports, in which players compete in video games before large crowds. The company plans to break ground this summer on part of the 47-acre stadium complex site that Comcast Spectacor leases in South Philadelphia. The 3,500-seat arena will rise on a parking lot, next to Xfinity Live! and within walking distance of the Linc, Citizens Bank Park, and the Wells Fargo Center.

Nate Nanzer, commissioner of the 20-team Overwatch League, said there has never been a special-purpose esports arena "built anywhere. This is a huge step for esports. This is something we will see pop up all over the world." Besides housing Comcast's Fusion, one of the Overwatch League's teams, the venue is planned to be a major east coast hub for gaming events, company executives said. Comcast Spectacor expects to hold about 120 events a year in the new arena, with other gigs ranging from TED Talks to electronic dance music and K-pop concerts. K-pop is a music genre from South Korea that is popular with Fusion fans, Comcast Spectacor officials said. The Fusion Arena is looking to sell naming rights to the venue.