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New Temporary Moon in Earth OrbitJoeMerchant writes:On February 15th 2020 a magnitude 20 object designated 2020 CD3 was observed and projected to be in a 47 day elliptical orbit of the Earth. Projections do not all agree yet, but the orbit is believed to be unstable and should not last more than about 3 years. 2020 CD3 is estimated to be between 1 and 6 meters in diameter, though reportage varies wildly on the size estimates. Nobody seems to be commenting on perigee, though the simulation images suggest it is approximately at lunar orbit distance - of course with the 47 day period apogee is well beyond lunar orbit.This is only the second "captured asteroid" to be observed in Earth orbit, 2006 RH120 was observed to be in Earth orbit from September 2006 to June 2007 - although 1991 VG was weakly captured for a month in 1992 and is expected to return in the future.Many stories have already been published elsewhere - Wikipedia has already been updated; but, nobody seems to be asking the important questions like: if Pluto can be disqualified as a planet, how can 2020 CD3 be called a moon? ;-) EarthSky was unable to be consulted, perhaps due to the traffic spike, but other astronomers have referred to the object as a TCO - Temporarily Captured Object, while some question if 2020 CD3 is in fact an artificial object like a spent Apollo era booster stage.Earth has a new mini-moon -- but it's only temporaryGaaark writes:

An Anonymous Coward writes:Ghacks reports:

fliptop writes:Clearview AI, which contracts with law enforcement after reportedly scraping 3 billion images from the web, now says someone got "unauthorized access" to its list of customers:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Tesla Autopilot Crash Driver 'Was Playing Video Game'Phoenix666 writes:BBC:

Phoenix666 writes:Phys.org:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

There have been several significant developments in the battle against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, and the resulting illness COVID-19. This story gathers a selection of stories from across the web.WHO Director-General's Opening Remarks at the Media Briefing on COVID-19 - 24 February 2020upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19 - 24 February 2020:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow4275_:A new world record for the conversion of solar energy to electricity using quantum dots:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:Empathy can be detected in people whose brains are at rest:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

An Anonymous Coward writes:Music charts have them, Rotten Tomatoes is built on them, it's why we vote on polls, and now Netflix will show the top 10 shows for users to see and will badge shows with their top 10 number in the listings.

Car & Driver and other outlets report on the latest customization available (for a price) when you order a Porsche, https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a31082234/porsche-911-fingerprint-paint-customized/

takyon writes:China's Zhaoxin CPU Is in Its First Mini-PC

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

takyon writes:Samsung Starts Mass Production of Second-Gen 16GB LPDDR5 RAM for Future Premium Smartphones

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow4275_:Getting a grip: An innovative mechanical controller design for robot-assisted surgery:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

aristarchus writes:Found in The Local.de:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow4275_:Creating custom light using 2D materials:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow4275:10,000 times faster calculations of many-body quantum dynamics possible:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow4275_:Why fixing security vulnerabilities in medical devices, IoT is so hard:

takyon writes:Microsoft Drops More Xbox Series X Tech Specs: Zen 2 + RDNA 2, 12 TFLOPs GPU, HDMI 2.1, & a Custom SSD

takyon writes:Chemists develop safer hydrogenation processes

takyon writes:NASA Announces Next Round of Candidates for CubeSat Space Missions

DannyB writes:Here's what people in tech had to say about JavaScript when it debuted in 1995

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow4275:An optimized structure of memristive device for neuromorphic computing systems:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow4275:Get ready for price hikes up to 10% annually after sale of .org registry:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow4275_:Apple drops a bomb on long-life HTTPS certificates: Safari to snub new security certs valid for more than 13 months:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow4275_:Verizon is reportedly shelving further plans to sell Pixel phones:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for AzumaHazuki:Powerful antibiotic discovered using machine learning for first time:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow4275_:This app lets you see IoT devices around you and what data they're taking:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow4275_:SMS Attack Spreads Emotet, Steals Bank Credentials:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow4275_:Mathematicians propose new way of using neural networks to work with noisy, high-dimensional data:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for carny:Locust swarms arrive in South Sudan, threatening more misery:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for AnonymousCoward:Canadian Privacy Commissioners to Investigate Creepy Facial Recognition Firm Clearview AI:

Multiple Soylentils have written in to let us know about the death of Mike Hughes:"Mad" Mike Hughes Dies in Rocket CrashRandomFactor writes:Michael 'Mad Mike' Hughes, staunch flat Earth conspiracy theorist, launched himself into the skies above Barstow in San Bernardino county Saturday, February 22nd.He was attempting to reach an altitude of ~5000 feet (1,500 meters). Unfortunately his parachute did not open during descent causing him to plummet to his death.

RandomFactor writes:NASA engineers are preparing another tactic to get the troubled "mole" instrument on the Mars InSight lander burrowing into the regolith as intended.

takyon writes:2007 OR is now known as 225088 Gonggong, and its moon has been named Xiangliu:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:Elon Musk's Boring Company Finishes First Tunnel for 155mph Vegas Loop:

AnonTechie writes:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:How Does Starlink Work Anyway?:

The Mighty Buzzard writes:Bleh. Apparently not caring what you do on other sites or even requiring any personal information isn't good enough for the state of Confusion^WCalifornia, so we have a shiny, new, temporary Privacy Policy posted on every page and linked at the top of the nav bar.If you feel like prettying the language, layout, or whatever up before I get around to it, feel free to do so and submit a pull request.Read more of this story at SoylentNews.

takyon writes:Phobos sample return mission enters development for 2024 launch

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow1337:Pwns for sale: Scythe prepares a marketplace for sharing simulated hacks:

canopic jug submitted a story which was the inspiration for:Helsinki-based software developer, Henri Sivonen, has written a pair of blog posts about UTF-8; why it should be used and how to inform the user agent when it is used.The first blog post explains problems that can arise when UTF-8 is used without explicitly stating so. Here is a short selection from Why Supporting Unlabeled UTF-8 in HTML on the Web Would Be Problematic:

aristarchus writes:Quartz[Editor's Note: The page at the link doesn't work on some browsers, and all appear to require javascript to access.]

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow4275_:Cyber-attack hits US Department of Defence agency: