John Gordon Ross

Anyone who works as a freelancer these days has to be at least a bit familiar with techie things. But it isn’t just that. When I was a kid and those vaguely SF puppet shows were on the television and all the other kids wanted to be Greg Gogetem or Steve Savetheuniverse, I wanted to be the guy in a white coat and glasses called Doc or Brains. Here are some technology-related feeds I find useful and/or entertaining.

Slashdot » Who's Responsible For IoT Security?

Saturday 26 August 23:26:00 UTC 2017

"It is much too easy to connect devices and industrial equipment to the internet," writes an anonymous Slashdot reader. But what's the solution — and who's to blame for the abundance of insecure IoT devices? Network World examined the conclusions in a paper titled "The Internet of Hackable Things" [PDF]. The authors say the IoT security problem is not a … [Link]

Mashable » Incredibly pragmatic dog braves Hurricane Harvey with, yes, an entire bag of dog food

Saturday 26 August 22:47:04 UTC 2017

A dog named Otis wasn't about to go hungry during Hurricane Harvey.  As the hurricane made landfall, a dog was spotted wandering around Sinton, Texas carrying a full bag of dog food.  The German shepherd mix wasn't a stray—he just got loose from a screen porch.  "I kept yelling his name and yelling his name and he wasn't around," his caretaker … [Link]

Slashdot » Microsoft Claims PowerShell Now More Secure

Saturday 26 August 22:22:00 UTC 2017

An anonymous reader quotes Wired: Last year, well over a third of the incidents assessed by security firm Carbon Black and its partners involved some sort of PowerShell component. But as network defenders catch on to Microsoft's recent release of additional PowerShell protections, the attack sequences that exploit PowerShell are finding some long-overdue resistance… PowerShell 5.0, released last year, added … [Link]

Mashable » The first look at how you’ll sculpt in augmented reality using Apple Pencil and ARKit is here, and awesome

Saturday 26 August 22:13:26 UTC 2017

By now you've seen a good number of impressive augmented reality demos using Apple's ARKit, but you haven't seen anything like this—sculpting in AR with the Apple Pencil.  The demo was shown off on Friday on YouTube by India-based developer Fabin Rasheed.  Although Rasheed doesn't go into great detail on all the things the app can do, he did post … [Link]

Mashable » 'Look What You Made Me Do' director denies Taylor Swift's new video looks anything like 'Formation'

Saturday 26 August 21:40:32 UTC 2017

Everyone’s pumped for the music video for Taylor Swift's new single, "Look What You Made Me Do," to arrive.  Especially everyone on the internet who…has already noticed how much the teaser shots look like the video for Beyonce's "Formation":  "My daddy Pennsylvania,momma from Pennsylvania,You mix that Pennsyl with a Vania I am from Pennylvaniaaaa" pic.twitter.com/uJZ2K9fJX7 — Marcia Belsky (@MarciaBelsky) August 25, … [Link]

Mashable » 'Stranger Things' gets world hyped for Season 2 with these awesome retro posters

Saturday 26 August 21:32:40 UTC 2017

Part of the fun of Stranger Things is looking for how many retro takes the show gets spot-on. Now the show's exercise in pop culture symbology offers yet another take—this time, on old-school movie posters that used to adorn the bedrooms of the '80s kids the show depicts.  SEE ALSO: The 5 most expensive TV shows Netflix has made (so far) … [Link]

Slashdot » New Kind of Gravitational Wave Source Detected?

Saturday 26 August 21:17:00 UTC 2017

"Scientists possibly detected an entirely different type of gravitational wave [source]," writes schwit1. "Gossip over potential detection of colliding neutron stars has astronomers in a tizzy," reports Nature: Astrophysicists may have detected gravitational waves last week from the collision of two neutron stars in a distant galaxy — and telescopes trained on the same region might also have spotted the … [Link]

Mashable » Hero Texan delivers six-pack to TV reporter mid-Hurricane Harvey coverage, on air

Saturday 26 August 21:14:51 UTC 2017

Please enjoy the best thing to ever happen on Fox News. Reporter Casey Stegall received a surprise treat during his extremely wet coverage of Hurricane Harvey on Friday—a six-pack of local beer from a scene-stealing local. SEE ALSO: Astronauts flew right over monster storm Hurricane Harvey In the clip, which was later tweeted by Fox News, Stegall is mid-sentence when a … [Link]

Slashdot » Employers Want More Open Source Workers, Says Linux Foundation Study

Saturday 26 August 20:12:00 UTC 2017

As in past years, "Open source is professionalizing, and employers are seeking staff with demonstrable skills," says the executive director of the Linux Foundation, describing the results of a new study with Dice.com. An anonymous reader quotes ZDNet: According to the two groups' 2017 Open Source Jobs Survey and Report, "Not only do 89 percent of hiring managers report difficulty … [Link]

Mashable » Fly across the water with this motorized body board

Saturday 26 August 20:00:00 UTC 2017

The Kymera Body Board doesn't need waves to jet across the water. It has an electric lithium-ion battery pack to do all the work for you.  To steer, tilt your body left or right. The board can last up to two hours on a single charge. Prices start at $3,495 with the option to rent it too. Splash off! Read more…More … [Link]

Slashdot » Tasers Implicated In Far More Deaths Than We Previously Thought

Saturday 26 August 19:59:00 UTC 2017

tedlistens writes: Independent studies have showed that when deployed correctly — according to "guidelines" manufacturer Axon offers to police — Tasers reduce injuries among both officers and the people they subdue. But amid a lack of official data about their use and effects, a new report by Reuters found 1,005 incidents in the U.S. in which people died after police … [Link]

Mashable » Happy National Dog Day from these celebrities and their very good pups

Saturday 26 August 19:41:19 UTC 2017

It’s National Dog Day, a fake holiday we accept without question because it allows us to talk about our own dogs just a little bit more.  And as it turns out, not even celebrities (gasp!) are immune from the impulse to talk about their own furry friends, which is why they're posting cute odes to them online, just like the rest … [Link]

Slashdot » China Plans To Launch the World's First 'Unhackable' Quantum Communication Network

Saturday 26 August 18:54:00 UTC 2017

An anonymous reader quotes Phys.org: China is about to launch the Jinan Project, the world's first unhackable computer network, and a major milestone in the development of quantum technology… the network is planned to be fully operational by the end of August 2017… By launching the network, China will become the first country worldwide to implement quantum technology for a … [Link]

Mashable » Ryan Reynolds's birthday message to Blake Lively is Hall-of-Fame level trolling

Saturday 26 August 18:19:24 UTC 2017

Friday was Blake Lively's thirtieth birthday, so her husband, Ryan Reynolds, tweeted a lovely photo in her honor. Yes: Blake Lively looks so good here. Stunning, really. And there's about a 30% chance Facebook would recognize her as a human. SEE ALSO: Ryan Reynolds invited Salma Hayek over for dinner, and somehow she got stuck doing all the work Happy Birthday … [Link]

Mashable » Finally, we know why Beyoncé and Jay-Z chose the names Sir and Rumi

Saturday 26 August 18:12:06 UTC 2017

We knew Beyoncé and Jay-Z had named their twins Sir and Rumi—when they trademarked the names.  And now, we know why they chose them. In an interview on the Rap Radar podcast Friday, as highlighted by Vulture, Jay-Z finally revealed the reasons behind the choice.  “Rumi is our favorite poet, so it was for our daughter,” Jay-Z said. That would be … [Link]

Slashdot » Amazon Tests Two-Hour Booze Delivery In 12 US Cities

Saturday 26 August 17:49:00 UTC 2017

An anonymous reader quotes SFGate: Thanks to the Prime Now service, Amazon will now deliver booze to the home, failing house party, mundane family brunch, or other occasion of Prime members in the Bay Area. While Prime Now (a delivery service that comes with a $99 annual Prime membership) is available in 30 different cities across the U.S., the alcohol … [Link]

Mashable » Robot performing Japanese funeral rites shows no one's job is safe

Saturday 26 August 17:35:36 UTC 2017

When the robot apocalypse comes, robots will be there to say a prayer over your frail human remains, thanks to Japan's Softbank.  SEE ALSO: Elon Musk and 115 other experts ask the UN to ban killer robots in open letter That's the message from this week's Tokyo Int'l Funeral & Cemetery Show, where Softbank's Pepper robot demonstrated its ability to perform … [Link]

ProgrammableWeb.com » Daily API RoundUp: Overstock, EveryAction, Packet

Saturday 26 August 17:23:42 UTC 2017

Every day, the ProgrammableWeb team is busy, updating its three primary directories for APIs, clients (language-specific libraries or SDKs for consuming or providing APIs), and source code samples. [Link]

Mashable » How to get banned from everything

Saturday 26 August 17:15:00 UTC 2017

You’ve been kicked out of parties, thrown out of concerts, and you are never — NEVER — welcome back to Buffalo Wild Wings. It seems like the internet should be a refuge from that kind of IRL judgement, but, no, it's not. There's a way to get banned from pretty much everything.  SEE ALSO: Tinder couple awkwardly meet for the first … [Link]

Mashable » Download this: Hypno Cam gives your videos a psychedelic makeover

Saturday 26 August 17:00:00 UTC 2017

It’s time to get trippy.  Hypno Cam, free for both iPhone and Android users,  uses pop music and animated filters for a psychedelic take on your original videos. SEE ALSO: Pikachu has invaded Snapchat with a face lens that's too awesome for words Hypno Cam had the potential to be super cheesy, but it's actually incredibly cool. Give the app access … [Link]

Mashable » Inside the glorious and lucrative world of Instagram's famous pups

Saturday 26 August 17:00:00 UTC 2017

Manny has achieved a lot for a six year old. He's a philanthropist and social media influencer with more than a million followers on Instagram, including Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart. He’s appeared on Good Morning America and had his own booth at a music festival. He has numerous licensing and sponsorship deals with brands like Turtle Wax and Dremel. Oh, … [Link]

Mashable » Uber faces another twist in its legal battles

Saturday 26 August 16:59:21 UTC 2017

The war between Uber and one of its major investors just got a new twist.  Two Uber stockholders are trying to prove that Benchmark Capital, the investor that pushed for the ouster of founder Travis Kalanick as CEO and is now suing him for fraud, leaked information about Uber before all that started in a bid to take control of the … [Link]

Slashdot » Science Fiction Author Brian Aldiss Dies Aged 92

Saturday 26 August 16:44:00 UTC 2017

Long-time Slashdot reader Freshly Exhumed writes: Acclaimed Science Fiction author Brian Aldiss, first published in the 1950s, has died at the age of 92. Aldiss wrote such science fiction classics as Non-Stop, Hothouse and Greybeard, as well as the Helliconia trilogy, winning the Hugo and Nebula prizes for science fiction and fantasy, an honorary doctorate from the University of Reading, … [Link]

Mashable » Walmart is getting hip, but it's keeping it a bit of a secret

Saturday 26 August 16:16:23 UTC 2017

ModCloth knit tops and vibrant Bonobos pants aren't the sort of items you'd expect to find in the sales racks of a Walmart Supercenter. Both brands cater to urban millennials with hip fashion sensibilities and steep price tags that suggest a style tier above your average big-box store. Yet their loyal customers must now begrudgingly count themselves as Walmart shoppers, thanks … [Link]

Mashable » Thousands of people lined up for a deal on prosecco and it's honestly inspiring

Saturday 26 August 16:01:13 UTC 2017

Thousands of people lined up outside the British supermarket Lidl Saturday morning to take advantage of a bank holiday discount on prosecco. Each of them is now my personal hero. The deal, which sold out in minutes at multiple locations, offered a case of Allini prosecco — six bottles — for £20 ($25.81 USD). Each bottle usually sells for £5.79 ($7.47), … [Link]

Slashdot » How Open Source Advocates Celebrated The 26th Anniversary of Linux

Saturday 26 August 15:39:00 UTC 2017

To celebrate Linux's 26th anniversary, the Linux Foundation tweeted a picture of Tux on a birthday cake, and linked to an essay on OpenSource.com by FreeDOS founder Jim Hall: My first Linux distribution was Softlanding Linux System (SLS) 1.03, with Linux kernel 0.99 alpha patch level 11. That required a whopping 2MB of RAM, or 4MB if you wanted to … [Link]

Mashable » Chelsea Manning wants no part of being compared to 'crooked cop' Joe Arpaio

Saturday 26 August 15:18:21 UTC 2017

On Friday night, in the middle of a hurricane, President Donald Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio, the Arizona sheriff who profiled Latinos and ignored a court order to stop.  It's nothing like what happened to Chelsea Manning, who spent seven years in prison for leaking classified documents and had the rest of her 35-year sentence commuted by President Obama in January.  Some … [Link]

Mashable » Please let me move into this perfect 'Harry Potter' shop

Saturday 26 August 14:53:49 UTC 2017

Prepare to weep with joy and nostalgia, Muggles. There's a Harry Potter-themed shop in Edinburgh, Scotland — and it's on the cobblestone street that inspired Diagon Alley. Diagon House, which opened earlier this month, is already so popular with fans that it often has a line out the door. For good reason, too — the store is full of seemingly endless … [Link]

Mashable » Hurricane Harvey's deadliest threat is just beginning

Saturday 26 August 14:40:38 UTC 2017

Hurricane Harvey hit land on Friday night as the strongest storm to strike the U.S. since before the Twitter era — since Hurricane Wilma hit Florida in 2005. While its strongest winds are steadily weakening due to the interaction with land, the winds are not what meteorologists have been most worried about with this storm.  Instead, it's the water that will … [Link]

Slashdot » Burger King Now Has Its Own Cryptocurrency – the 'Whoppercoin' – in Russia

Saturday 26 August 14:34:00 UTC 2017

An anonymous reader quotes Fortune:According to New York Magazine (via local Russian news reports), the Russian subdivision of Burger King has launched its own cryptocurrency, aptly called "Whoppercoin"… For each Whopper burger customers purchase, they'll receive one Whoppercoin in a special cryptocurrency wallet. While the coins' wider use is unclear, some reports suggest that the Whoppercoin will be accepted as … [Link]

Mashable » Happy Saturday, Facebook and Instagram are down

Saturday 26 August 14:22:13 UTC 2017

Users began reporting problems accessing Facebook and Instagram on Saturday morning, and after several attempts to access Facebook from various locations by Mashable staff, the site appears to be inaccessible as of this writing.     SEE ALSO: Facebook's AR glasses take center stage in newly published patent The site disruptions are also affecting mobile users, with the following message appearing on … [Link]

Mashable » How to make sure your snap gets featured on a Live Story

Saturday 26 August 14:01:16 UTC 2017

Snapchat creates Live Stories during big events happening around the world. And you've probably seen the daily live stories in big cities you've traveled to. It seems like everyone else's snaps are getting picked up and added into the story. But how do you make sure yours makes a live debut?  SEE ALSO: Snapchat's newest feature is a game changer for … [Link]

Mashable » Summer 1954: Kids out of school wreak havoc on the streets of London

Saturday 26 August 14:00:00 UTC 2017

Image: Thurston Hopkins/Getty ImagesIn the summer of 1954, the streets of London were overrun with rambunctious kids enjoying their time off from school.Photographer Thurston Hopkins took note of the chaos and followed along with several gangs of hyperactive moppets, snapping shots as they turned grimy streets and alleyways into playgrounds.His photos were published in Picture Post as a photo essay entitled … [Link]

Mashable » Turn your iPhone photos into polaroids instantly with this printer

Saturday 26 August 14:00:00 UTC 2017

‘instax SHARE SP-2' is an instant photo printer that connects to your mobile device. It can customize pictures to your specifications and even split a wide photo into two separate photos. Read more…More about Iphone, Smartphone, Smartphones, Photos, and Mashable Video [Link]

Mashable » 10 characters most likely to bite it in the 'Game of Thrones' Season 7 finale

Saturday 26 August 14:00:00 UTC 2017

It’s the Game of Thrones Season finale, so you know someone has to die. We at Mashable don't think it's likely to be a main character, but that puts a lot of secondary ones in danger. We've already lost the great Olenna Tyrell and the less obviously great Dickon…who will be the next victim in the great war for the seven … [Link]

Mashable » Hurricane Harvey slams storm chasers: 'One of the worst hurricanes I've ever been in'

Saturday 26 August 13:48:42 UTC 2017

Hurricane Harvey reserved its full ferocity for small towns along the Texas coast north of Corpus Christi, including Rockport, Texas, where storm chasers captured the scene.  Josh Morgerman, who chases tropical cyclones like Harvey around the world, described the storm as "One of the worst hurricanes I've ever been in." The hotel he was staying in for shelter was nearly blown … [Link]

Mashable » This interactive map will tell you when to look for peak fall foliage in your area

Saturday 26 August 13:30:00 UTC 2017

Friends— in the final days of August, it's time to talk about leaf peeping. While a person's outlook on holiday season rests heavily on her patience for family gatherings and excessive spending, fall foliage asks so little of us that we can't help but look forward to it. SEE ALSO: Why are they called the 'dog days' of summer? As for … [Link]

New Scientist – News » Low-ranked female monkeys band together against their leaders

Saturday 26 August 13:00:00 UTC 2017

Female rhesus macaques have a strict hierarchy, but the subordinates can buck authority and even climb the social ladder if they’re big enough and have enough friends [Link]

Slashdot » Elon Musk's Neuralink Gets $27 Million To Build Brain Computers

Saturday 26 August 13:00:00 UTC 2017

An anonymous reader writes: Neuralink, the startup co-founded by billionaire Elon Musk, has taken steps to sell as much as $100 million in stock to fund the development of technology that connects human brains with computers. The San Francisco-based company has already gotten $27 million in funding, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Musk said … [Link]

Popular Science » Why and how to erase your browsing history

Saturday 26 August 12:00:00 UTC 2017

DIY Cover your tracks in any web browser. You don't want your past internet searches hovering over you forever. Here's how to delete your history from any browser: Google, Mozilla, Apple, or Microsoft. [Link]

Mashable » 25 WTF moments caught on Google Street View

Saturday 26 August 12:00:00 UTC 2017

Watch what you do in the streets —you never know when a picture of you will end up on the internet. Thanks to Google Street View, cars are playing Candid Camera, and are constantly catching the funniest, most embarrassing, and sometimes glitchy pics of what's going on in the streets across the globe. SEE ALSO: The 20 Scariest Google Street View … [Link]

Slashdot » Ex-Valve Writer Reveals What Might Have Been Half-Life 2: Episode 3's Story

Saturday 26 August 10:00:00 UTC 2017

New submitter stikves shares a report from Eurogamer: Ex-Valve writer Marc Laidlaw, who worked on Half-Life, Half-Life 2 and its episodic expansions, has published a summary of the series' next chapter on his blog. Titled, "Epistle 3," it details Gordon Freeman's next adventure. Except, likely for copyright issues, the whole story has been genderswapped. So Laidlaw's tale speaks of Gertrude … [Link]

Mashable » 9 key predictions for how 'Game of Thrones' Season 7 will end

Saturday 26 August 8:00:00 UTC 2017

Warning: Contains plenty of spoilers for Game of Thrones Season 7 so far, plus some inevitably wonky predictions for Sunday's finale. After many long months of waiting for Game of Thrones to come back on, I now have to contend with the horrible, horrible reality that it's about to go away again. Old Nan thinks she knows all about Winter, but … [Link]

New Scientist – News » Thorium could power the next generation of nuclear reactors

Saturday 26 August 7:07:34 UTC 2017

The first thorium research project in 45 years has kicked off in the Netherlands with the goal of making thorium work in a molten salt reactor [Link]

Slashdot » Selling Alterable Versions of Star Wars Is Still Infringement, Says Court

Saturday 26 August 7:00:00 UTC 2017

A federal court ruled that video-on-demand streaming service, VidAngel, which enables the filtering of objectionable content to make it family friendly, is breaking U.S. copyright law. Ars Technica reports: VidAngel buys movie discs and decrypts and rips them. It then streams versions that allow customers to filter out nudity, profanity, and violence. In doing so, it breached the performance rights … [Link]

Slashdot » Alaska's Permafrost Is Thawing

Saturday 26 August 3:30:00 UTC 2017

Henry Fountain reports via The New York Times (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source): The Arctic is warming about twice as fast as other parts of the planet, and even here in sub-Arctic Alaska the rate of warming is high. Sea ice and wildlife habitat are disappearing; higher sea levels threaten coastal native villages. But to the scientists from … [Link]

Mashable » The 4 craziest details from the Samsung heir bribery case

Saturday 26 August 2:20:03 UTC 2017

Lee Jae-yong is the billionaire heir who runs one of the most powerful companies in tech—and on Friday, he was convicted of corruption. The Samsung Group vice chairman is effectively the chairman of the company because his father (the chairman) is in a coma, but now Lee's been sentenced to five years behind bars.  SEE ALSO: Is Samsung's Galaxy Note 8 … [Link]

Slashdot » Ancient Tablet Reveals Babylonians Discovered Trigonometry

Saturday 26 August 2:05:00 UTC 2017

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Science Magazine: Trigonometry, the study of the lengths and angles of triangles, sends most modern high schoolers scurrying to their cellphones to look up angles, sines, and cosines. Now, a fresh look at a 3700-year-old clay tablet suggests that Babylonian mathematicians not only developed the first trig table, beating the Greeks to the … [Link]

Mashable » People are outraged Trump hid behind a hurricane to pardon Joe Arpaio

Saturday 26 August 1:28:05 UTC 2017

With a Category 4 hurricane bearing down on the Gulf Coast, Donald Trump decided it was the right time to pardon Joe Arpaio. The former sheriff of Arizona's Maricopa County was found guilty of criminal contempt for ignoring court orders to stop racially profiling drivers. (The ACLU has a good summary of why people are so critical of Arpaio.)  SEE ALSO: … [Link]

Slashdot » Your Personal Information Is Now the World's Most Valuable Commodity

Saturday 26 August 1:25:00 UTC 2017

"Data is clearly the new oil," says Jonathan Taplin, director emeritus of the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab and the author of Move Fast and Break Things: How Google, Facebook and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy. While oil was the world's most valuable resource, it has been surpassed by data, as evidenced by the five most valuable companies in the … [Link]

Slashdot » Samsung Chief Jailed For Five Years For Bribery and Perjury

Saturday 26 August 0:45:00 UTC 2017

A South Korean court on Friday sentenced Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Jay Y. Lee to five years in jail on charges connected to the corruption scandal that led to former President Park Geun-hye's ouster. The Korea Herald reports: The Seoul Central District Court convicted Samsung's de facto heir of bribing former President Park Geun-hye and her close friend Choi Soon-sil … [Link]

Mashable » Rescued baby tiger is the cuteness the internet needs right now

Saturday 26 August 0:33:04 UTC 2017

A baby tiger that was smuggled into the United States from Mexico by a teenager is now safe and doing well at the San Diego Zoo. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers seized a small male Bengal tiger cub early Wednesday morning when 18-year-old Luis Eudoro Valencia attempted to smuggle the animal into the country in his car. The teen … [Link]

Mashable » Man scooping up handfuls of mosquitoes is the stuff of nightmares

Saturday 26 August 0:15:28 UTC 2017

One mosquito inside your home is enough to drive anyone insane, never mind a handful. A clip filmed in the coastal town of Taganrog, Russia, on Monday shows a man scooping up what appears to be countless mosquitoes on a beach. At first, it appears as if the man is moving around sand, but when the camera gets closer, it's … [Link]

Slashdot » Waymo Built a Fake City In California To Test Self-Driving Cars

Saturday 26 August 0:05:00 UTC 2017

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In May, Waymo revealed key details of its latest self-driving car design to Bloomberg as part of the rollout of a new program that ferries ordinary passengers around in Phoenix. Now The Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal has a new piece revealing important details about Waymo's extensive infrastructure for testing self-driving cars. Madrigal … [Link]

Archive

19 Apr 2024  18 Apr 2024  17 Apr 2024  16 Apr 2024  15 Apr 2024  14 Apr 2024  13 Apr 2024  12 Apr 2024  11 Apr 2024  10 Apr 2024  09 Apr 2024  08 Apr 2024  07 Apr 2024  06 Apr 2024  05 Apr 2024  04 Apr 2024  03 Apr 2024  02 Apr 2024  01 Apr 2024  31 Mar 2024  30 Mar 2024  29 Mar 2024  28 Mar 2024  27 Mar 2024  26 Mar 2024  25 Mar 2024  24 Mar 2024  23 Mar 2024  22 Mar 2024  21 Mar 2024  20 Mar 2024  19 Mar 2024