Technology
Technology
Richard Stallman, legendary programmer and activist for free software, resigns from positions at MIT and Free Software Foundation after making controversial comments about Jeffrey Epstein on mailing list
Toyota aims for future Prius to be self-sufficient via solar panels, prototype covered with panels adds 56 km to car's range
Security researcher decides on "NULL" for personalized number plate, hoping to be invisible to DMV ticketing system, instead every ticket without a real plate is sent to him once NULL was associated with his address, earning him a total of USD 12,049 worth of tickets
Huawei unveils HarmonyOS, microkernel-based distributed operating system, claims system more powerful and secure than Android and with IPC performance five times that of Google’s Fuchsia, continues using Android with HarmonyOS as official backup plan
Tesla launches Megapack, a modular system for large-scale energy storage, units with storage capacity of 3 MWh each can be built together for energy storage facilities up to 1 GWh and 250 MW output on 3 acres of land and be delivered ready for operation in three months
Elon Musk's Neuralink develops robot-assisted method for implanting flexible electrode threads with a total of 3072 electrodes into rat brains and register data from all of them, the company sees potential to implant several units into human brains
Peter Thiel says FBI and CIA should investigate if Google has been infiltrated by Chinese intelligence, as Alphabet chooses to work with Chinese and not US military, comparing Google's AI program to the Manhattan Project
Instagram uses AI to curb bullying, asks users to think again before posting unkind comments, first introduced to English-speaking Instagram users, company also tests feature allowing users to control who sees their comments without them knowing
30% of world's VPN services secretly owned by six Chinese companies, according to study by cyber security group VPNpro
Two pistols made from 4.5 billion-year-old Muonionalusta Meteorite auctioned, could fetch USD 1.5 million, modeled after famous Colt 1911 they have been test-fired to make sure they actually work
Jony Ive leaves Apple to start own firm, has been Apple's design chief for more than 20 years and designed all its major products including the iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch as well as Mac and MacBook computers
Hackers have stolen call records from over 10 cell providers worldwide as part of espionage attempt, believed to be state-backed, attacks were first discovered a year ago, but go back seven years and are still operational
Apple patents Apple Watch camera integrated into part of the band, can have cameras on both sides and be angled by pulling out the band, could replace the smartphone in some situations
Hypersonic missiles United States' new arms race with Russia and China, unstoppable with current technology and could upend the psychology of Mutual Assured Destruction, US prototype meant to fly at speeds between Mach 15 and Mach 20, challenges include protecting missiles from intense heating and accumulating test data given the speed
Uber Eats plans drone delivery in San Diego this summer, initially not to bring orders directly to customers' homes but to traditional drivers who complete delivery, tested carrying McDonald's burgers, fries and ice cream
California Supreme Court rules San Francisco can reject 5G wireless equipment that doesn’t meet local aesthetic standards, some Upper Cole Valley residents deem equipment ugly, they are also concerned exposure to 5G RF radiation might be dangerous
Facebook owned WhatsApp admits vulnerability enabling installation of surveillance software on phones and other devices using the app's voice calling function, calls don't need to be picked up and disappears from call log, software linked to Israeli firm NSO Group, known for its flagship software Pegasus with the ability to collect intimate data from target device
Microsoft Word introduces artificial intelligence to recommend edits that are politically correct and gender inclusive, suggestions include changing "policeman" to "police officer", software will also recommend ways to shorten sentences to ensure brevity
Windows 10 version 1903 gets rid of password expiration policy, admits it doesn't improve online security as too often users make small and predictable alteration or forget their new passwords, when password has been stolen most people will quickly realize and do something about it straight away
Joe Armstrong dead at 68, legendary computer scientist most known for creating programming language Erlang
Non-profit Archive.org hit with more than 550 takedown notices from EU asking them to remove archives including all books, TV footage and cartoons, falsely citing terrorist content, EU currently drafting legislation with fines of 4% of global revenue if takedown notices are not honoured within an hour
Google Wing launches first home delivery drone service in Australia, will deliver takeaway food, coffee and medicines in small packages lowered into customer's garden on a length of string, trials have attracted complaints drones are noisy and intrusive
Security research duo hacks Tesla Model 3 using JIT bug in its browser at Pwn2Own 2019 hacking contest in Vancouver, gets to keep the car and receives USD 35,000 reward
New toilet seat detects early signs of heart failure before symptoms are noticed by picking up blood pressure, oxygen levels and heart rate, could save the lives of potential heart disease victims, developers say
Toyota and JAXA join hands to develop first lunar vehicle that can be used without wearing spacesuits, plan to send the pressurized fuel cell-powered vehicle to the moon for five explorations between 2029 and 2034, will be able to travel more than 10,000 kilometers on the moon’s rough surface
Mozilla launches Firefox Send, a free encrypted file-transfer service, anonymous users can send up to 1GB files while Firefox account owners get 2.5GB, an Android app is released this week
Mozilla release latest version of Common Voice, its open source collection of transcribed voice data that comprises over 1,400 hours of voice samples across 18 languages, says goal is to provide more and better data to those who seek to build and use voice technology
Phone-hacking device law enforcement officials use to extract data from phones pops up on eBay for USD 100, personal data including photos, contacts and messages could still be found on the units, the devices use vulnerabilities unknown at the time to the likes of Apple or Google to access the phones, producer's terms don't permit clients to resell the products
Microsoft announces Hololens 2, promises larger screen area, improved weight balance and hand tracking, priced at USD 3,500
AI-powered website designed by Uber engineer generates endless stream of "fake faces", ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com uses generative adversarial network technology to synthesize unreal human visages from image dataset
Google Chrome prepares Scroll-To-Text feature which let users share link that takes the recipient to the exact word the sender has selected, equivalent of sharing link to a YouTube video that jumps to a preselected time, proposes adjustments to HTML standards so the feature is supported on all browsers
Metropolitan Police stop people covering their faces from facial recognition camera, man who protested fined GBP 90, technology compares live footage of people’s faces to photos from police database, deployment of cameras in Romford last of 10 trials of controversial technology
Apple hints at lower iPhone prices in attempt to boost falling sales, revenue fell 15% in latest financial quarter, Tim Cook says a strong dollar has hurt its sales in emerging markets, sales are up by 5% in in the Americas but dropped by 25% in Greater China region
Apple lays off over 200 employees working on electric car Project Titan, while reassigning some employees to other departments, still believes there is a huge opportunity with autonomous systems
Facebook funds ethics research center for artificial intelligence with the Technical University of Munich, aims to ensure AI treats people fairly, protects their safety, respects their privacy and works for them, Germany said to be "at the forefront of the conversation"
Blind man wins appeal case against Domino's Pizza over accessibility issues with phone app, Guillermo Robles sued the company for violation of 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act, judges ruled that the company failed to provide "full and equal enjoyment" of their pizza ordering services for persons with disabilities
Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa goes down in the UK on Christmas Day morning, likely caused by all new Echo speakers people have bought for Christmas
Discord raises 150 million USD on 2 billion valuation, makes chat app for gamers and has 200 million users, recently launched marketplace for games to compete with Steam
Facebook gave more than 150 companies access to users' personal data without consent, the deals all still active in 2017, allowed Spotify, Netflix and the Royal Bank of Canada to read, write and delete users' private messages
Computer designer Evelyn Berezin dies aged 93, launched the Data Secretary in 1971, recognised as the world's first word processor
Car thieves steal a Tesla Model S by hacking key fob signals, PIN-to-drive and Faraday pouch security features were not enabled by the owner and would've prevented the theft
China to launch artificial moon within two years in order to light up night skies in urban areas, project in Chengdu expected in place by 2022 projected to save USD 170 million a year in electricity costs
New Zealand fan-film "Fanimatrix" oldest extent BitTorrent file at 15 years old, the file share is a relic of a bygone Internet era but still has several "seeders" keeping it active
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt predicts Internet will bifurcate between China and world, current CEO Pichai has initiated "Project Dragonfly" to build a censored search engine for Chinese market
South Korean police raid Seoul offices of BMW investigating potential vehicle defect coverup, over 40 BMW diesel models have caught fire in Korea this year, BMW Korea chief Kim Hyo Joon has blamed a faulty fuel circulation mechanism for the conflagrations
Over 1.1 billion Indians' biometric and demographic info registered in Aadhaar ID government database raising privacy concerns, the system was recently defended by Bill Gates who extolled its ability to reduce corruption in government payrolls, government whistleblower Edward Snowden has come out against the system claiming it is so insecure you can find private ID info on the web merely by searching for a user's 12-digit string
EU Commissioner of Competition threatens Apple with imposition of uniform USB cable charging standard as the company clings to its proprietary Lightning technology, the EU arch-bureaucrat recently meddled with Google to the tune of a USD 5 billion fine, Apple's proprietary cable technology is a lucrative source of licensing fees
Facebook gave unlimited access to user data to at least four Chinese companies, including telecom giant Huawei with close ties to Chinese state
Portland woman says her Amazon Alexa recorded private conversation in her home and sent recording to random contact, was noticed when one of her husband's employees called and said he had heard conversation about hardwood floors
Shaun Nichols: Cambridge Analytica's shutdown more of a market exercise, official documents show new firm Emerdata Limited run by similar management and investors as former company's parent organization and headquartered at same offices
Project In Codice Ratio uses AI and OCR software to create digital transcripts of Vatican Secret Archives which is one world’s largest historical collections, lack of spaces between words has previously made transcription difficult
Russia launches floating 70MW nuclear power plant, two reactors will be used to power 100,000-person town of Pevek, desalination plant and oil rigs, towed from St Petersburg via Murmansk
Rick Dickinson dies while receiving treatment for cancer, famous for having designed iconic home computer ZX Spectrum for Sinclair Research
Joseph James DeAngelo who is suspected to be Golden State Killer was arrested after DNA found on crime scene partially matched genome of relative on open-source genealogy website
Spotify starts testing way of filtering out songs which have explicit lyrics, previously word "explicit" was displayed next to tracks
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies begins building two test tracks running 320 and 1,000 meters in length at facility in Toulouse in southern France, ready for testing later this year
Virgin Galactic makes its first engine powered test flight of the space craft SpaceShipTwo since the accident in October 2014 when the second pilot Michael Alsbury died but the first pilot, Peter Siebold survived, the craft is released from an airplane that reaches, at its highest, 25,600 meters altitude, and speed of Mach 1.87
Airline Qantas starts second longest direct route with flights between London and Perth in western Australia, only Qatar Airways line between Doha and Auckland, New Zeeland is longer, made posible by increasingly fuel efficient airplanes
Woman dead after being hit by self-driving Uber car in Tempe, Arizona, Uber pauses tests of autonomous vehicles in several cities
Lightning Network for Bitcoin relased in beta version, supported among others by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and former PayPal exec David Sacks who calls event an decisive moment in history of Bitcoin, means transaction capacity will be unlimited in theory and lower transaction costs
Elon Musk says SpaceX will be ready to fly its Big Falcon Rocket in 2019, rocket will land on Mars in 2022 according to earlier plan
Apple confirms use of Google cloud solution to store iCloud data, has previously used Microsoft Azure and still uses Amazon Web Services
Tesla to install solar panels and Powerwall 2 batteries in 50,000 South Australian homes in cooperation with local authorities, could save average family more than AUD 700 per year, customers will pay 27 cents per kWh compared to current average price of 42.4 cents per kWh
Unicode Consortium shows 157 new emojis coming later this year, mosquito, parrot, peacock, kangaroo and swan are some of the animals, super heroes and villains also among additions
Successful virgin launch of world's most powerful rocket Falcon Heavy toward Mars orbit, two out of three rocket stages land according to plan shortly thereafter near Cape Canaveral launch site
Apple removes Telegram from app store, says it enables dissemination of inappropriate content, app has previously ben criticized for blocking surveillance by end-to-end encryption
US class action lawsuit filed against Apple after it admitted to throttling older iPhones to maintain battery life, critics view it as way to make people switch to newer devices
70 meter electric cargo ship unveiled in China, 2.4 MWh battery capacity and 80 km reach used to ship coal
Trajectory thrusters on Voyager 1 fired for the first time since 1980 and work perfectly, could mean extended life span of three years for the probe 21 billion kilometers away
Holthausen Group modifies Tesla Model S with hydrogen fuel cell, doubles reach to nearly 1,000 km, plans to sell conversion kit for EUR 50,000
Pocket-sized ultrasound device connected to smartphone the first one based on semiconductor chip technology to reach the market, images not as detailed but costs considerably less than earlier generations
Microsoft introduces TruePlay in Windows, which prevents third-party applications from watching the game's memory, prevents cheating, Windows users wishing to play games with TruePlay must approve the terms
Billboard changes the way they calculate the charts, paid platforms will have bigger weights than channels funded by advertising, at present all platforms have the same weight
Big security flaw called KRACK detected in WPA2 that encrypts many Wi-Fi networks, Windows, iOS, Linux, Android and many routers are affected
Yahoo says 2013 data breach affected all three billion accounts, said in 2016 statement that only one billion accounts were compromised – passwords in clear text, payment card data and bank account information not among stolen information according to investigation