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Last updated 22 Oct, 10:40 PM
BBC News - Home
Alec Baldwin 'heartbroken' over fatal film set shooting - Director of photography Halyna Hutchins was killed by a prop gun fired by the actor in New Mexico.
Working from home best way to curb Covid - scientists - Tougher measures to stop the spread of coronavirus could be avoided with early action, advisers say.
Manchester Arena attack: Man arrested on suspicion of terror offence - The 24-year-old is detained at Manchester Airport on suspicion of a terrorism offence.
Ex-MP Frank Field reveals he is close to death - A statement from the veteran politician was read out in the Lords, backing a new assisted dying bill.
Fisherman's Friend tycoon leaves £41m to hometown Fleetwood - Doreen Lofthouse donates her fortune to a charity that strives to develop her hometown Fleetwood.
The Register
Microsoft under fire again from open-source .NET devs: Hot Reload feature pulled for sake of Visual Studio sales - Windows giant has a funny way of 'loving' Free software Microsoft has enraged the open-source .NET community by removing flagship functionality from open-source .NET to bolster the appeal of Visual Studio, not least against its cross-platform cousin Visual Studio Code.…
It's 'near-impossible to escape persistent surveillance' by American ISPs, says FTC - Watchdog finds dubious data gathering, illusory solicitations for consent The US Federal Trade Commission on Thursday said many internet service providers are sharing data about their customers, in defiance of expectations, and are failing to give subscribers adequate choices about whether or how their data is shared.…
While the iPhone's repairability is in the toilet, at least the Apple Watch 7 is as fixable as the previous model - Component swaps still a thing – for now Apple's seventh-gen Watch has managed to maintain its iFixit repairability rating on a par with the last model – unlike its smartphone sibling.…
AI isn’t just about disruption. Integration is essential, too - Learn how to take the broad view by tuning into this webcast early next month Sponsored We’re used to talking about the disruption AI will inevitably cause. But that disruption is predicated on AI moving into production, and that requires integration into the broader corporate infrastructure.…
Better late than never: Microsoft rolls out a public preview of E2EE in Teams calls - Only for one-to-one voice and video, mind Microsoft has finally kicked off the rollout of end-to-end-encryption (E2EE) in its Teams collaboration platform with a public preview of E2EE for one-to-one calls.…
New Scientist - News
AI can change a fashion model’s pose and alter their clothes to match - The technology used to create deepfake videos has been applied to fashion models, and can put them in a pose they never actually stood in
Gun violence rose 30 per cent in the US during the covid-19 pandemic - Gun violence rose overall in the US during the covid-19 pandemic. The highest increase was seen in Minnesota, while Alaska had a dip in gun violence cases
Covid-19 news: Pfizer trial finds booster vaccine over 95% effective - The latest coronavirus news updated every day including coronavirus cases, the latest news, features and interviews from New Scientist and essential information about the covid-19 pandemic
Astronomers left puzzled by the dimmest supernova ever seen - The dimmest supernova ever spotted is at least 100 times fainter than a normal explosion of its type, and astronomers aren’t sure why
Saturn’s moon Titan may be doomed to fly away or smash into the planet - Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, is slowly migrating away from the planet, which is tilting Saturn onto its side and may eventually doom the moon to orbital chaos
Hacker News
Kina Knowledge, using Common Lisp extensively in their document processing stack - Comments
Fake shutters make me angry - Comments
Ask HN: Best way to host a website for 500 years? - Comments
An Introduction to Probabilistic Programming - Comments
John Carmack pushes out unlocked OS for defunct Oculus Go headset - Comments
Slashdot
John Carmack Pushes Out Unlocked OS For Defunct Oculus Go Headset - An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Oculus may have officially discontinued its low-end Oculus Go headset last year, but the company has one more "official" update to help future-proof the hardware. On Thursday, Oculus released an unlocked build of the Oculus Go operating system, allowing for "full root access" on more than 2 million existing units. Oculus "Consulting CTO" (and former id Software co-founder) John Carmack announced his plans for this update last month, saying it was something he had "been pushing on for years." In part, the unlocking is an attempt to guarantee that Go hardware will continue to be fully functional well into the future, allowing for "a randomly discovered shrink wrapped headset twenty years from now [to] be able to update to the final software version, long after over-the-air update servers have been shut down," Carmack wrote. Before that, though, the update will allow tinkerers to "repurpose the hardware for more things today," as Carmack puts it. Go hardware running the unlocked OS will no longer check for a Facebook signature at the kernel level, meaning developers can create new versions of low-level system software for the entire Android-based OS. That could allow for custom versions of low-level features like the app launcher and the removal of otherwise locked system apps. The update also allows for easy sideloading of apps outside of Go's store interface, though this was already possible on older OS versions. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
A Math Teacher is Putting Calculus Lessons on Pornhub - An anonymous reader shares a report: It's safe to assume that few Pornhub visitors are looking for hour-long calculus videos (by a fully-clothed instructor), but Taiwanese math teacher Changhsu puts them there anyway. His channel is filled with over 200 decidedly unsexy chalkboard lessons about topics like differential equations. The 34-year-old math tutor found the YouTube market for math explainers to be saturated, so he decided to expand his reach into Pornhub. He told Mel Magazine that he wants to reach a new market of mathematics learners. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Intel Open-sources AI-powered Tool To Spot Bugs in Code - Intel has open-sourced ControlFlag , a tool that uses machine learning to detect problems in computer code -- ideally to reduce the time required to debug apps and software. From a report: In tests, the company's machine programming research team says that ControlFlag has found hundreds of defects in proprietary, "production-quality" software, demonstrating its usefulness. "Last year, ControlFlag identified a code anomaly in Client URL (cURL), a computer software project transferring data using various network protocols over one billion times a day," Intel principal AI scientist Justin Gottschlich wrote in a blog post on LinkedIn. "Most recently, ControlFlag achieved state-of-the-art results by identifying hundreds of latent defects related to memory and potential system crash bugs in proprietary production-level software. In addition, ControlFlag found dozens of novel anomalies on several high-quality open-source software repositories." The demand for quality code draws an ever-growing number of aspiring programmers to the profession. After years of study, they learn to translate abstracts into concrete, executable programs -- but most spend the majority of their working hours not programming. A recent study found that the IT industry spent an estimated $2 trillion in 2020 in software development costs associated with debugging code, with an estimated 50% of IT budgets spent on debugging. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Memes About COVID-19 Helped Us Cope With Life in a Pandemic, a New Study Finds - Does a meme a day keep the doctor away? Not quite, but it looks like it might help, according to one recent study. From a report: Researchers with Pennsylvania State University and the University of California Santa Barbara found that memes helped people cope with life during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study published this week in the Psychology of Popular Media journal. Researchers found that those who viewed memes -- a type of humor they described as funny or cute pictures that reference pop culture -- reported "higher levels of humor" and more positive feelings, according to a news release from the American Psychological Association, which publishes the journal. They surveyed 748 people online last December: 72% of those who responded were white, 54% identified as women, 63% didn't hold a college degree, and their ages ranged from 18 to 88, the release states. They were shown a variety of meme types, with different kinds of photos and captions, and asked to rate the cuteness, humor and emotional responses prompted by the materials, as well as how much the memes in question made them think about COVID-19. Those who viewed memes that specifically referenced the pandemic felt less stress than those who viewed non-pandemic-related memes. They also felt more capable of coping with the COVID-19 crisis and were better at processing information, according to the study. And they were also less likely to be stressed about the pandemic than those who didn't view memes related to COVID-19 at all, researchers concluded. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
China Conducted Two Hypersonic Weapons Tests this Summer - The Chinese military conducted two hypersonic weapons tests over the summer, raising US concerns that Beijing is gaining ground in the race to develop a new generation of arms. Financial Times: On July 27 the Chinese military launched a rocket that used a "fractional orbital bombardment" system to propel a nuclear-capable "hypersonic glide vehicle" around the earth for the first time, according to four people familiar with US intelligence assessments. The Financial Times this week reported that the first test was in August, rather than at the end of July. China subsequently conducted a second hypersonic test on August 13, according to two people familiar with the matter. Three people familiar with the first test in July said it stunned the Pentagon and US intelligence because China managed to demonstrate a brand new weapons capability, although they declined to elaborate on the details. One person said government scientists were struggling to understand the capability, which the US does not currently possess, adding that China's achievement appeared "to defy the laws of physics." Space and missile experts have been debating the Chinese test since the FT revealed the event at the weekend. Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear weapons expert at Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, said China appeared to have developed a new innovation, but stressed the need to maintain a degree of scepticism. "We should be open to the reality that China is also capable of technological innovation," he said. Read more of this story at Slashdot.