by Anonymous Coward on (#6K9TG)
DHS, the estranged megadepartment for which has suffered a series of setbacks in the last year, has once again made headlines for all the wrong reasons recently when private information about a welfare recipient's financial affairs was released by the department in an attempt to counter the claims made about the debt recovery process used by DHS.The release of this information in this context is deemed to be legally debatable by welfare advocates. When George Brandis was questioned about Centrelink's activities on the Q&A program he responded that people should just contact Centrelink, which caused the audience to break out laughing as the current wait times and contact problems surrounding resolving debts issued by the Centrelink automated debt recovery system as seen by the public as being a farce.
|
Pipedot
Link | https://pipedot.org/ |
Feed | http://pipedot.org/atom |
Updated | 2024-05-06 02:15 |
by Anonymous Coward on (#2FWPC)
DHS, the estranged megadepartment for which has suffered a series of setbacks in the last year, has once again made headlines for all the wrong reasons recently when private information about a welfare recipient's financial affairs was released by the department in an attempt to counter the claims made about the debt recovery process used by DHS.The release of this information in this context is deemed to be legally debatable by welfare advocates. When George Brandis was questioned about Centrelink's activities on the Q&A program he responded that people should just contact Centrelink, which caused the audience to break out laughing as the current wait times and contact problems surrounding resolving debts issued by the Centrelink automated debt recovery system as seen by the public as being a farce.
|
by evilviper@pipedot.org on (#6K9TH)
If you've never driven a Tweel, it might be time to try one (or four). It is basically an airless tire held up with rubber spokes. Michelin says the spokes provide a unique energy transfer that reduces bounce associated with pneumatic tires while offering two to three times the wear life. And because the tires have no air, you never have to adjust the air pressure or risk getting a flat. Tweels are best suited for low-speed vehicles that don't have suspensions and are prone to flats, such as lawnmowers and skid-steer loaders used on construction sites, but Michelin isn't ruling out their use on other vehicles in the future.
|
by evilviper@pipedot.org on (#23VZH)
If you've never driven a Tweel, it might be time to try one (or four). It is basically an airless tire held up with rubber spokes. Michelin says the spokes provide a unique energy transfer that reduces bounce associated with pneumatic tires while offering two to three times the wear life. And because the tires have no air, you never have to adjust the air pressure or risk getting a flat. Tweels are best suited for low-speed vehicles that don't have suspensions and are prone to flats, such as lawnmowers and skid-steer loaders used on construction sites, but Michelin isn't ruling out their use on other vehicles in the future.
|
by evilviper@pipedot.org on (#6K9TJ)
An ultrafast broadband installation that technicians have jokingly dubbed "fibre to the throne" has left New Zealand networking company Chorus red-faced. An optical network terminal (ONT) - where optical-fibre transitions to home wiring - was installed on the back wall of a toilet in a Lower Hutt home with leads draped over the lid of the cistern. It shared a power socket with a washing machine and had to be plugged when that was in use.
|
by evilviper@pipedot.org on (#236H6)
An ultrafast broadband installation that technicians have jokingly dubbed "fibre to the throne" has left New Zealand networking company Chorus red-faced. An optical network terminal (ONT) - where optical-fibre transitions to home wiring - was installed on the back wall of a toilet in a Lower Hutt home with leads draped over the lid of the cistern. It shared a power socket with a washing machine and had to be plugged when that was in use.
|
by evilviper@pipedot.org on (#6K9TK)
Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and others have created very favorable conditions for themselves, but in the fight for better broadband, more cities, towns, counties, and municipalities are building their own high speed networks. And many have been hugely successful. Sandy, Oregon became one of the first towns to start offering fiber internet without the help of a local power utility, and Madison, Wisconsin may become one of the first cities to build its own network and lease it to other operators.
|
by evilviper@pipedot.org on (#22SQ6)
Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and others have created very favorable conditions for themselves, but in the fight for better broadband, more cities, towns, counties, and municipalities are building their own high speed networks. And many have been hugely successful. Sandy, Oregon became one of the first towns to start offering fiber internet without the help of a local power utility, and Madison, Wisconsin may become one of the first cities to build its own network and lease it to other operators.
|
by evilviper@pipedot.org on (#6K9TM)
Seattle-based KIRO 7 news team recently took a pile of brand-new computers to six Office Depot locations around Portland, Ore. Technicians at four shops claimed the PCs showed "symptoms of malware," and offered to sell repair and protection services for up to $180.
|
by evilviper@pipedot.org on (#22MHD)
Seattle-based KIRO 7 news team recently took a pile of brand-new computers to six Office Depot locations around Portland, Ore. Technicians at four shops claimed the PCs showed "symptoms of malware," and offered to sell repair and protection services for up to $180.
|
by evilviper@pipedot.org on (#6K9TN)
A New York University (NYU) student research team pushed the envelope for millimeter wave network range in a recently conducted field test in rural southwest Virginia. Setting up a millimeter wave transmitter on the porch of the country home of their professor Ted Rappaport, the students found that they could receive signals at distances of over 10 km (6.2 mi) even when line of sight was obstructed by a hill or a stand of trees. Equally significant, the millimeter wave transmitter needed less than 1 watt (W) of power operating at 73 GHz.
|
by evilviper@pipedot.org on (#21FVV)
A New York University (NYU) student research team pushed the envelope for millimeter wave network range in a recently conducted field test in rural southwest Virginia. Setting up a millimeter wave transmitter on the porch of the country home of their professor Ted Rappaport, the students found that they could receive signals at distances of over 10 km (6.2 mi) even when line of sight was obstructed by a hill or a stand of trees. Equally significant, the millimeter wave transmitter needed less than 1 watt (W) of power operating at 73 GHz.
|
by evilviper@pipedot.org on (#6K9TP)
Google isn't a fan of non-standard approaches to fast-charging Android phones over USB-C, like Qualcomm's Quick Charge 3.0, and it wants manufacturers to fall in line. The newest Android Compatibility Definition document says it's "strongly recommended" that device makers don't support proprietary charging technology that modifies voltages beyond standard levels, or otherwise creates "interoperability issues" with standard USB charging. The company warns that later versions of Android might even require full interoperability with standard chargers.
|
by evilviper@pipedot.org on (#20ZMF)
Google isn't a fan of non-standard approaches to fast-charging Android phones over USB-C, like Qualcomm's Quick Charge 3.0, and it wants manufacturers to fall in line. The newest Android Compatibility Definition document says it's "strongly recommended" that device makers don't support proprietary charging technology that modifies voltages beyond standard levels, or otherwise creates "interoperability issues" with standard USB charging. The company warns that later versions of Android might even require full interoperability with standard chargers.
|
by Anonymous Coward on (#6K9TQ)
In the latest attempt to remove the need to use passwords Google is planning on using body location and environmental cues to log a person into their phone or lock a person out. How much power and storage this requires is not currently available.
|
by Anonymous Coward on (#20ZJ5)
In the latest attempt to remove the need to use passwords Google is planning on using body location and environmental cues to log a person into their phone or lock a person out. How much power and storage this requires is not currently available.
by evilviper@pipedot.org on (#1ZMNH)
Scientists have generated the fastest electric current that has ever been measured inside a solid material. They made electrons in silicon dioxide oscillate with ultrafast laser pulses. The detected electric currents are approximately one million times faster than those widely used in a modern computer processor.
|
by evilviper@pipedot.org on (#1ZF3P)
Large-screen smartphones, a.k.a. phablets, are bigger than ever—especially in terms of popularity. Industry analyst IDC says more smartphones with 5.5-inch or larger displays are being sold than ever before, accounting for 33 percent of the phones sold in the U.S. this year. And the people who buy phablets use their phones more than consumers with smaller-screened models. The following phablets are among the best large-screen models in Consumer Reports' ratings.
|
by evilviper@pipedot.org on (#1YWYS)
At least two successive waves of online attacks blocked multiple major websites Friday, at times making it impossible for many users on the East Coast to access Twitter, Spotify, Netflix, Amazon, Tumblr, Reddit and other sites. The first attacks appear to have begun around 7:10 a.m. (ET) Friday, then resolved towards 9:30 a.m., but then a fresh wave began.
|
by evilviper@pipedot.org on (#1Y720)
An internet outage expert at US internet monitor Dyn, along with several bloggers, believe that a Russian Navy spy ship may be tapping and disrupting underwater cables in the Mediterranean Sea that feed internet to Syria. While telecommunications experts argue that this isn’t likely, several factors have aligned that seem to support this theory.
|
by Anonymous Coward on (#1XX3G)
Friday, March 04, 2016 Swati Khandelwal
|
by evilviper@pipedot.org on (#1XDTW)
The first Android flip phone to be sold in the US is here. TracFone's ZTE Cymbal T is now available to order, today, from Best Buy at the early adopter price of $100. Other than having a flip phone form factor, the Cymbal is a typical entry-level Android phone with a nameless quad-core processor, 3.5 inch 320×480px screen, 8GB (3GB usable) of internal memory, 1GB of RAM and Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. There's a memory card slot, a 5MP camera and a removable battery. The Cymbal runs on the Verizon network and includes 4G LTE support.
|
by evilviper@pipedot.org on (#1XDRM)
Globalstar Inc., operator of a low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation for phones, plans to open up another Wi-Fi channel, but only for those who can pay. Globalstar's petition seeks to expand its use of the 2483.5-2495 MHz (Channel 14) band. Unlike all other Wi-Fi channels, which are open to any FCC-approved device and don’t require permission, this one would be under Globalstar’s control. A carrier that makes a deal with Globalstar might be able to set that channel aside for its own subscribers.
by fishybell@pipedot.org on (#1WH1B)
IBM has developed a prototype PCM — Phase Change Memomory — chip capable of storing three different values per cell instead of the normal 2. They also developed a new control mechanism capable of dealing with drift (which they say the new type of PCM chip does not experience).
|
by Anonymous Coward on (#1VKQR)
Paramount has added 175 movies to their library for free online streaming. This collection can only be viewed in America. Due to current draconian copyright restrictions movies can be locked out of public consumption for over a century.
|
by evilviper@pipedot.org on (#1VERQ)
California's Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation Monday to reduce a variety of pollutants, from hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) used in aerosol and air conditioning refrigerants, black carbon from diesel trucks, to methane from cows. Livestock contribute about 14.5 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions, methane accounts for about 44 percent of that, of which cows contribute the lion’s share. Cows release most of their methane directly by belching and flatulence, but approximately one third comes from their manure.
|
by evilviper@pipedot.org on (#1VEPS)
New York City’s cutting edge public Wi-Fi project, LinkNYC has hit some stumbling blocks. After continued complaints about people viewing pornography and other inappropriate content, on September 14 LinkNYC completely turned off browsing capabilities for the tablets installed in each kiosk. Their main functionality—free public Wi-Fi, phone calls, map functions, and USB charging ports has not changed. LinkNYC notes that “The kiosks were never intended for anyone’s extended, personal use.â€
|
by evilviper@pipedot.org on (#1TY7P)
The company that operates the for-profit vocational school chain ITT Technical Institute, with more than 130 campuses in 38 states (one of the country’s largest) announced that it was permanently closing all its campuses nationwide. It blamed the shutdown on the recent move by the U.S. Education Department to ban ITT from enrolling new students who use federal financial aid. Like many other for-profit college operators, ITT has faced federal and state investigations of its predatory recruiting and shady accounting practices, with up to 60% of students defaulting on loans.
|
by evilviper@pipedot.org on (#1T0XH)
With a lot of phones having small internal storage and no means with which to expand it (SD cards are still uncommon), there is a constant battle to make space. There is cloud storage but WiFi internet access isn’t always available. There are USB OTG (On The Go) adapters that can provide storage but it's not natively supported on many devices either.
|
by Anonymous Coward on (#1T0VT)
Media is covering why people disable cameras by covering up the camera with tape on their laptops and mobile devices. Is this paranoia? Does the NSA or hackers really get into your phone or PC just to take pictures of you in the nuddy? Pipedot, I ask you: Do you cover up the camera on your devices, and if so, why?
|
by evilviper@pipedot.org on (#1SJWM)
The case for Planet Nine's existence keeps getting stronger. Astronomers have discovered several more objects in the extreme outer solar system whose orbital characteristics hint at the existence of an unseen "perturber" in the dark depths far from the sun — a hypothetical world larger than Earth that scientists are calling Planet Nine. "If you want to put a number on it, I'd be somewhere like 80 percent sure that there's a Planet [Nine] out there," said Scott Sheppard.
|
by Anonymous Coward on (#1S1H8)
Ask most people what happens when they boot their PC and they will respond with a range of answers from I don't know to The BIOS starts the boot process etc. Very few people realize that modern PCs have a hidden subsystem that lurks behind the main OS with full access to the computer even when it is in sleep mode. This system is called the Intel Management Engine. Given that it can access any part of the OS, memory or storage and has a range of capabilities which includes communication via ethernet the FSF has nominated the Intel ME system should be ditched. Given that the owner of the hardware has no control over the ME and can't even see it, and that the ME is a viable attack vector for completely taking over a PC "It is a threat to freedom, security, and privacy that can't be ignored." The only question we have is: Can we get rid of it?
|
by evilviper@pipedot.org on (#1S16C)
Cloud management provider and co-founder of OpenStack, Rackspace says it will be going private in a deal that will pay shareholders $4.3bn. Investment house Apollo Global Management will be paying $32 per share to buy out stakeholders and run Rackspace as a privately held company. Rackspace stock closed yesterday (prior to the announcement) at $30.19 per share.
|
by evilviper@pipedot.org on (#1RQW9)
After 20-month search period, a key dark matter detection experiment has officially come up empty-handed, casting doubt on the existence of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPS), which have been far and away the leading explanation for one of the biggest mysteries in astrophysics.
|
by genericuser@pipedot.org on (#1QYT7)
It looks like the end of the road for Win 7 & 8 users may be at hand. Microsoft’s Senior Product Marketing Manager Nathan Mercer just announced that, “From October 2016 onwards, Windows will release a single Monthly Rollup that addresses both security issues and reliability issues in a single update. The Monthly Rollup will be published to Windows Update (WU), WSUS, SCCM, and the Microsoft Update Catalog. Each month’s rollup will supersede the previous month’s rollup, so there will always be only one update required for your Windows PCs to get current."
|
by Anonymous Coward on (#1QKXD)
Rob Rhinehart, developer of the meal replacement milkshake known as Soylent, has been criminally charged over his off-grid “experiment in sustainable livingâ€. He installed an off-grid shipping container home, without obtaining city permits, and he allegedly refused city orders in January and April to remove the container. He could face up to two years in prison and a $4,000 fine.
|
by genericuser@pipedot.org on (#1Q78X)
More people than ever have drones, but flying them also comes with risks such as losing your drone, damaging it, or worse, causing damage with it. As more of them take to the sky it's not unlikely that some form of insurance will eventually become required to be held by drone operators. A recently-launched company named Verifly is getting an early start in that market by offering short-term "on-demand" insurance for recreational and commercial drone users. The insurance service starts at an $10 an hour and offers liability insurance for up to a quarter mile around the user. The system works through a downloadable app where the drone operator selects a flight area and receives hourly insurance, subject to some limitations. Right now the service is not offered in all states, but is available in 40 of the 50 states. The insurance currently covers drones with a maximum weight of up to 15 pounds and has a maximum liability limit of $1,000,000 of coverage per incident.
|
by genericuser@pipedot.org on (#1PWJX)
Since 2012, neuropathologist Daniel Perl has advocated for this theory: specifically that blast waves caused physical damage at the intersection of the brain's gray matter and white matter , where microscopic analysis of the brains of former soldiers who suffered from PTSD reveals a "brown dust" of scarring, in regions that are neuroanatomically associated with sleep and cognition.
|
by genericuser@pipedot.org on (#1PWJY)
In a new paper uploaded to the ArXiv pre-print server, researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Saarbrücken, Germany demonstrate a method of identifying individuals even when most of their photos are un-tagged or obscured. The researchers' system, which they call the “Faceless Recognition System,†trains a neural network on a set of photos containing both obscured and visible faces, then uses that knowledge to predict the identity of obscured faces by looking for similarities in the area around a person's head and body.
|
by bryan@pipedot.org on (#1PQ0Q)
FossForce has an interesting video interview with Timothy Lord:
|
by genericuser@pipedot.org on (#1PPZH)
We already have smartphones, smart TVs and smart cars, so why not leverage technology to include smart stitches? Using tiny sensors and electronics layered into fibers like cotton or various synthetics, super-small-scale electronics called “nano-scale sensors†and “microfluidics†are inserted into the sutures to monitor things like pressure, stress, strain and body temperature — as well as pH and glucose levels. This data from the sutures can transmit wirelessly in real time to a cellphone or computer, giving doctors a better idea of how a patient is healing and whether an infection is starting. Although they’ve only been tested in vitro, on rats’ tissue, so further studies are needed, but researchers are confident with the results they’ve seen so far.
|
by genericuser@pipedot.org on (#1PMZN)
During the Olympic opening ceremonies, NBC may very well stand for "Nothing But Commercials". Viewers took to Twitter to slam the network’s frequent commercial breaks after six commercial breaks in under 40 minutes. Inserting commercials is probably the reason that NBC did a tape delay of the opening ceremony.
|
by genericuser@pipedot.org on (#1PAA2)
Most people remember the vote-counting debacle of the 2000 election, the dangling chads that resulted in the Supreme Court breaking a Bush-Gore deadlock. What people may not remember is the resulting Help America Vote Act (HAVA), passed in 2002, which among other objectives worked to phase out the use of the punchcard voting systems that had caused millions of ballots to be tossed.
|
by genericuser@pipedot.org on (#1P8FB)
Enterprise-targeting cyber enemies are deploying vast amounts of potent ransomware to generate revenue and huge profits – nearly $34 million annually according to Cisco’s Mid-Year Cybersecurity Report out this week.
|
by genericuser@pipedot.org on (#1P52M)
A vulnerability in inexpensive wireless keyboards lets hackers steal private data, security company Bastille reported this week. The vulnerability lets a hacker use a new attack the firm dubbed "KeySniffer" to eavesdrop on and capture every keystroke typed from up to 250 feet away.
|
by genericuser@pipedot.org on (#1NZKX)
Consumer Reports Labs tested Glow, a very popular menstrual cycle/fertility-tracking app, and found that the app's designers had made a number of fundamental errors in the security and privacy design of the app, which would make it easy for stalkers or griefers to take over the app, change users' passwords, spy on them, steal their identities, and access extremely intimate data about the millions of women and their partners who use the app.
|
by genericuser@pipedot.org on (#1NZJK)
AT&T announced on Friday that the company will be providing 1TB of data a month to U-Verse customers, at speeds up to 300 megabits per second starting August 21st. This should be enough data to stream more than 13 hours of HD video content per day.
|
by genericuser@pipedot.org on (#1NWXT)
A portable device may allow doctors to create single doses of biopharmaceutical medications on demand, potentially speeding the treatment of diseases that include diabetes and cancer. The system, described in the journal Nature Communications, can currently produce two biologic drugs from a single yeast strain in the device, creating near-single-dose production in less than 24 hours with limited infrastructure.
|
by genericuser@pipedot.org on (#1NS0Q)
The iris scanner in the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is a welcome step forward in device security, but according to Samsung it comes with a long list of caveats. The iris recognition system uses three lenses to capture the image signal, but iris scanner may not work if you wear glasses or contacts, use it in low light conditions, if you've had eye surgeries such as LASIK, LASEK, intraocular lens implants or if you've had iris scar treatment. The performance of the iris scanner may also be affected if the user has an eye disease that affects the irises. You also need to be able to position the phone "25 to 30 centimeters from your face" with your eyes in the on-screen circles so the front-facing scanner can register your iris, something that may be awkward to do in a moving vehicle or while walking.
|
by genericuser@pipedot.org on (#1NNTT)
Like many others, Bruce Schneier is sounding the alarm that the Internet of Things security nightmare isn't just about things like poor or non-existent security for thermostats: rather, that "software control" of an ever-widening pool of interconnected devices and systems designed to act without human intervention creates an urgent threat the likes of which we've never seen.
|