Miscellaneous Tech News
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@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@black3dynamite said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2020/11/vivaldi-browser-integrated-email-client
Neat, but pretty late to this game. Who uses IMAP to access email any longer? The idea of pulling email down to a client is pretty antiquated.
There are still those old school Opera fans that miss the built-in email client. I think Mozilla SeaMonkey is the only one that includes a mail client builtin.
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Your data and how it is used to gain your vote
How much do political parties know about you - and how is it used to try to sway your vote?
The Cambridge Analytica scandal threw light on how the Facebook data of millions was harvested and turned into a messaging tool. The revelations were criticised far and wide by politicians of all stripes. But now, a report from the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) puts the spotlight on the relationship between data brokers and the politicians here. Even limited information can be used in surprising ways, the ICO report found. For example, buying someone's name can lead to making guesses about their income, number of children and ethnicity - which is then used to tailor a political message for them. The report suggests that the Conservative Party is doing just that, using so-called "onomastic data": information derived from the study of people's names which could identify their ethnic origin or religion. -
Linus Torvalds doubts Linux will get ported to Apple M1 hardware
"I'd absolutely love to have [an M1 laptop] if it just ran Linux," Torvalds said.
In a recent post on the Real World Technologies forum—one of the few public internet venues Linux founder Linus Torvalds is known to regularly visit—a user named Paul asked Torvalds, "What do you think of the new Apple laptop?" "I'd absolutely love to have one, if it just ran Linux," Torvalds replied. "I've been waiting for an ARM laptop that can run Linux for a long time. The new [Macbook] Air would be almost perfect, except for the OS." Torvalds, of course, can already have an ARM based Linux laptop if he wants one—for example, the Pinebook Pro. The unspoken part here is that he'd like a high-performance ARM based laptop, rather than a budget-friendly but extremely performance constrained design such as one finds in the Pinebook Pro, the Raspberry Pi, or a legion of other inexpensive gadgets. -
Facebook News will pay UK outlets for content in 2021
Facebook will begin paying UK news publishers for some articles with the launch of Facebook News in January.
The feature adds a dedicated news tab to the Facebook app, and has already launched in the United States. Facebook said it will "pay publishers for content that is not already on the platform" and prioritise original reporting. It comes after years of tension between Facebook and news publishers, who have often accused it of "stealing" content. But hundreds of UK news outlets are already signed up to deals for the new feature, Facebook said. They include publishers such as Hearst (Cosmopolitan, Elle, Esquire); the Guardian Media group; regional newspaper giant JPI Media; and the Midland News Association. Facebook said it expects more publishers to join after the launch. -
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Facebook Oversight Board reveals its first cases
Facebook's Oversight Board has chosen its first batch of cases to review.
All involve decisions originally made by the platform to remove user content. They include images of female breasts in a post about breast cancer, and an image of a dead child alongside text about whether retaliation was justified against China for its treatment of Uighur Muslims. The board said Facebook users had submitted 20,000 suggested incidents for review since October 2020. The arbitration body is inviting the public to comment on the cases - which have all been anonymised - over the next seven days. -
Amazon's Panorama box lets firms check if staff follow coronavirus rules
Amazon plans to sell companies a way to detect when staff are not wearing face masks or socially distancing.
Beyond the pandemic, the system could also be used to track compliance of other workplace rules or to monitor the public - for example, to check the number of customers queuing in a store. It involves retrofitting a box to existing security cameras that can then draw on off-the-shelf AI apps. But privacy campaigners have raised concerns.Remote working has already led to an increase in the use of software that checks up on employees, but Amazon's new solution is focused on tracking people and products in factories, shops and other traditional workplaces. -
Future Zoom users will be able to smell the virtual coffee
People in video meetings will, in future, be able to feel their hands being shaken and smell coffee in their virtual space, the founder and CEO of Zoom has predicted.
Eric Yuan was speaking at the Web Summit tech conference. Mr Yuan said he believed artificial intelligence would bring a physical aspect to virtual meetings. He also said he thought many workers would not return full-time to the office after the pandemic. Unsurprisingly perhaps, he argued that video meetings were here to stay, stating that the pandemic had demonstrated that "it works" - despite Zoom's share value plunging following the first announcement about Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine. He said that for office-based staff, coming in for maybe two days a week could become the norm. "The world will become a hybrid [workplace], and I think that's a world we have to embrace," he said. -
@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Future Zoom users will be able to smell the virtual coffee
People in video meetings will, in future, be able to feel their hands being shaken and smell coffee in their virtual space, the founder and CEO of Zoom has predicted.
Eric Yuan was speaking at the Web Summit tech conference. Mr Yuan said he believed artificial intelligence would bring a physical aspect to virtual meetings. He also said he thought many workers would not return full-time to the office after the pandemic. Unsurprisingly perhaps, he argued that video meetings were here to stay, stating that the pandemic had demonstrated that "it works" - despite Zoom's share value plunging following the first announcement about Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine. He said that for office-based staff, coming in for maybe two days a week could become the norm. "The world will become a hybrid [workplace], and I think that's a world we have to embrace," he said.this tech was offered a good 15 years ago. Didn't catch on.
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Timnit Gebru: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher
Hundreds of Google staff have signed a letter backing a leading AI ethics researcher who was sacked by Google.
Timnit Gebru says she was fired after sending an internal email that accused Google of "silencing marginalised voices". Hundreds of colleagues have signed a letter accusing the search giant of racism and censorship, while Twitter users have rallied around Dr Gebru using the hashtag #BelieveBlackWomen. Google disputes her version of events. Dr Gebru is a well-respected researcher in the field of ethics and the use of artificial intelligence. She is well-known for her work on racial bias in technology such as facial recognition, and has criticised systems that fail to recognise black faces. -
@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Timnit Gebru: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher
Hundreds of Google staff have signed a letter backing a leading AI ethics researcher who was sacked by Google.
Timnit Gebru says she was fired after sending an internal email that accused Google of "silencing marginalised voices". Hundreds of colleagues have signed a letter accusing the search giant of racism and censorship, while Twitter users have rallied around Dr Gebru using the hashtag #BelieveBlackWomen. Google disputes her version of events. Dr Gebru is a well-respected researcher in the field of ethics and the use of artificial intelligence. She is well-known for her work on racial bias in technology such as facial recognition, and has criticised systems that fail to recognise black faces.Honestly, I read what she wrote and while, all by itself, it might not be enough to get someone fired, she didn't come across as someone you'd be happy having employed and didn't seem to like being there. Personally I think it's absolutely insane to be willing to work at Google ever, given what we know about their hiring processes, so she's already someone I'd not be willing to hire as she voluntarily wanted to be in a toxic culture (Google makes good stuff, but it's one shit show of a place to work and quite the black mark on your resume culturally speaking), so I'm not surprised that she hated the culture. But like... this goes both ways. Something drove her to seek that environment (the hiring process is itself toxic) and stay there, and want to stay there and just seemingly add to the toxicity.
Basically, it seems like BS.
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School photo is viral internet meme, Adrian Smith finds
Adrian Smith was shocked to find that a photo of him as an eight-year-old had become an internet meme.
He stumbled upon the picture on Instagram, but it had come from a Tumblr blog in which his image was being used as the stepson of a fictional "teenage stepdad". He said he was amused by it, but admitted that as a child he would have found it "confusing and sad". Mr Smith's discovery has now gone more viral than the original meme. He has been in touch with its original creator, and said he was happy that the image has not been used in a "mean spirit". "Teenage Stepdad" offered to kill the character off, but Mr Smith is happy for him to carry on with it if he wishes, he said. -
@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
School photo is viral internet meme, Adrian Smith finds
Adrian Smith was shocked to find that a photo of him as an eight-year-old had become an internet meme.
He stumbled upon the picture on Instagram, but it had come from a Tumblr blog in which his image was being used as the stepson of a fictional "teenage stepdad". He said he was amused by it, but admitted that as a child he would have found it "confusing and sad". Mr Smith's discovery has now gone more viral than the original meme. He has been in touch with its original creator, and said he was happy that the image has not been used in a "mean spirit". "Teenage Stepdad" offered to kill the character off, but Mr Smith is happy for him to carry on with it if he wishes, he said.Good stuff.
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https://blog.centos.org/2020/12/future-is-centos-stream/
The future of the CentOS Project is CentOS Stream, and over the next year we’ll be shifting focus from CentOS Linux, the rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), to CentOS Stream, which tracks just ahead of a current RHEL release. CentOS Linux 8, as a rebuild of RHEL 8, will end at the end of 2021. CentOS Stream continues after that date, serving as the upstream (development) branch of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Was just reading about this. Lots of upset folks!
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SpaceX gets almost $900 million in federal subsidies to deliver broadband to rural America
The US government plans to give SpaceX nearly a billion dollars to beam internet from space to people across rural America, where three out of five people say access to broadband is still a pressing issue.
The company will receive a total of $856 million, one of the largest subsidies handed out by the Federal Communications Commission under a new program designed to encourage companies to extend broadband access into the United States' most underserved areas over the next 10 years. SpaceX's win is notable because the company competed against more established internet service providers, such as Charter Communications and CenturyLink, which rely on traditional fiber optic cables to deliver high-speed internet to customers. SpaceX's Starlink internet service, which is currently in beta testing and is not yet fully operational, relies on an experimental swarm of nearly 1,000 satellites whizzing around Earth at more than 17,000 miles per hour as they beam the internet to high-tech antennas mounted on people's homes. -
@Danp said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
https://blog.centos.org/2020/12/future-is-centos-stream/
The future of the CentOS Project is CentOS Stream, and over the next year we’ll be shifting focus from CentOS Linux, the rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), to CentOS Stream, which tracks just ahead of a current RHEL release. CentOS Linux 8, as a rebuild of RHEL 8, will end at the end of 2021. CentOS Stream continues after that date, serving as the upstream (development) branch of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Was just reading about this. Lots of upset folks!
I bet. But really, I bet one of two things happens. Either IBM makes RHEL available for free as its own path. Or people stop targeting RHEL for releases.
I have only used CentOS Streams for a while, and that very little. I think that this is a danger step, though, of potentially putting the nails in RHEL's coffin.
