RandomFactor writes:According to a letter to congress from Ajit V. Pai, chairman of the U.S. Federal Communication Commission (FCC), carriers broke federal law by selling customer location data. Pai intends to followup with "Notice(s) of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture."
RandomFactor writes:After going into Fault Protection Mode on January 28th, Voyager 2 will soon return to normal operation.On January 25th, Voyager 2 was instructed to perform a magnetometer calibration maneuver which would cause the spacecraft to rotate itself a full 360 degrees, however the maneuver was delayed causing two power hungry systems to be on simultaneously. The maneuver was not completed.
RandomFactor writes:A concept paper published in ACS Photonics, describes a photovoltaic cell that works at night.According Jeremy Munday, one of the paper's authors and a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC Davis
An Anonymous Coward writes:In the wake of the Coronavirus spreading across the world Australian airline Qantas has cancelled flights from China as the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced "new control measures" to prevent anyone traveling from China to Australia. The official advice is now that Australians "do not travel" to mainland China. This comes as the number of infected people rose to 12 on Saturday with three new cases across Victoria and South Australia.
RandomFactor writes:ScienceNews reports on a new study in the journal Science on using engineered gut bacteria to fight the Varroa Mite as well as deformed wing virus, two of the biggest threats to honeybees.
canopic jug writes:The European Parliament (EP) just voted 582 to 40 to require one standard for chargers for all mobile phones. The EP cited the goals of reducing both frustration and electronic waste. The next step would be for the European Commission to draft a law and vote on it in July. Currently most of the industry uses micro-USB and is slowly adopting USB-C, however there are also phones using other connectors.From the European Parliament resolution on a common charger for mobile radio equipment (2019/2983(RSP)):
canopic jug writes:DMA attacks have never really gone out of fashion and, contrary to popular belief, do not necessarily require physical access. DMA is a misfeature designed provide peripherals with direct, unconstrained, high-speed read-write access to the whole of a system's RAM. Firewire (IEEE-1394) and Thunderbolt are two of the more infamous avenues for attacks, but network cards and other peripherals can also have this capability. One example of abuse would for the peripheral to read and exfiltrate private encryption keys as they rest in memory.
Multiple Soylentils have submitted stories regarding the 2019-nCoV coronavirus which is believed to have originated in the city of Wuhan, China in December 2019. Rather than have a smattering of stories appear on the site, they have been gathered here in one story. Read on if you are interested; otherwise another story will be along presently.Read more of this story at SoylentNews.
canopic jug writes:MIDI, a standard for digital music since 1981, has been updated toMIDI 2.0. New MIDI 2.0 is not dependent on any particular hardware implementation such as USB or Ethernet. Some of the main goals of the new protocol are to provide higher resolution, more channels, and improved performance and expressiveness. Another change is a move from a byte stream to data packets.
An Anonymous Coward writes:Murphy's law has it that bad things will happen at the worst possible time. What could be worse than losing power at a hospital with patients on the tables? One Australian hospital now knows the answer after power was cut to the hospital leaving doctors to complete a surgery using a mobile phone for light. Medical staff had completed the minor surgery and were starting to put stitches in when the lights went out, just before 2:00pm. It goes to show what ingenuity can bring when a need calls for it.Original SubmissionRead more of this story at SoylentNews.
martyb writes:Who has noticed anything new at SoylentNews these past couple days?We have a new editor who has just come on board and has posted his first two stories to the site (one each for the previous two days).You may recall that I posted a request for help a little over two weeks ago. I am happy to report that we had a positive response to the request... and a new editor has been in training starting a few days later!Please join me in welcoming @spiraldancing: to his new role as an editor on staff. He is not new to the site as he created an account here a bit over 4 years ago. He worked his way through training on our development server. (Under the watchful eye and guidance of janrinok. JR not only walked SD through the mechanics of how to post a story, but also a goodly amount of what to be mindful of during the whole process. It is all too easy to make a mistake... which I can attest from personal experience!)I look forward to seeing him bring his perspective and input to our team.Welcome
upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:Solving a biological puzzle: How stress causes gray hair: Scientists uncover link between the nervous system and stem cells that regenerate pigment:
upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:Parkinson's disease may start before birth: Stem cell study finds malfunctioning brain cells in patients who were diagnosed before age 50; researchers test potential new treatment:
An Anonymous Coward writes:https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2020/01/30/severe-perfect-100-microsoft-flaw-confirmed-this-is-a-cloud-security-nightmare/#7b5493dfb4a4