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Submission + - Ask Slashdot: What Would Computing Look Like Today If The Amiga Had Survived?

Submitted by dryriver
dryriver writes: The Amiga was a remarkable machine at the time it was released — 1985. It had a multitasking capable GUI-driven OS and a mouse. It had a number of cleverly designed custom-chips that gave the Amiga amazing graphics and sound capabilities far beyond the typical IBM/DOS PCs of its time. The Amiga was the multimedia beast of its time — you could create animated and still 2D or 3D graphics on it, compose sophisticated electronic music, develop 2D or 3D 16-Bit games, edit and process digital video (using Video Toaster), and of course play some amazing games. And after the Amiga — as well as the Atari ST, Archimedes and so on — died, everybody pretty much had to migrate to either the PC or Mac platforms. If Commodore and the Amiga had survived and thrived, there might have been 4 major desktop platforms in use today — Windows, OSX, AmigaOS and Linux. And who knows what the custom-chips (ASICs? FPGAs?) of an Amiga in 2019 might have been capable of — Amiga could possibly have been the platform that makes nearly life-like games and VR/AR a reality, and given Nvidia and AMD's GPUs a run for their money. What do you think the computing landscape in 2019 would have looked like if the Amiga and AmigaOS as a platform had survived? Would Macs be as popular with digital content creators as they are today? Would AAA games target Windows 7/8/10 by default or tilt more towards the Amiga? Could there have been an Amiga hardware based game console? Might AmigaOS and Linux have had a symbiotic existence of sorts, with AmigOS co-existing with Linux on many enthusiast's Amigas, or even becoming compatible with each other over time?

Submission + - Hong Kong Protesters Using Mesh Messaging App China Can't Block: Usage Up 3685% (forbes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: How do you communicate when the government censors the internet? With a peer-to-peer mesh broadcasting network that doesn't use the internet.

That's exactly what Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters are doing now, thanks to San Fransisco startup Bridgefy's Bluetooth-based messaging app. The protesters can communicate with each other — and the public — using no persistent managed network.

While you can chat privately with contacts, you can also broadcast to anyone within range, even if they are not a contact.

That's clearly an ideal scenario for protesters who are trying to reach people but cannot use traditional SMS texting, email, or the undisputed uber-app of China: WeChat. All of them are monitored by the state.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: What lightweight alternative to Chrome / Firefox do you use?

Submitted by thegarbz
thegarbz writes: It seems not a day goes by without yet another story reflecting poorly on major browsers. Not uncommon are stories that are mixed with a degree of bloat, either discussing rarely used features or directly criticising memory consumption of major browsers. Unfortunately memory consumption is quite often the result of complete feature implementation of technologies used on the web, including DRM for streaming services and WebRTC. Other times it's the result of security measures, feature creep, or poor coding.

So in 2019 for those of us with slower tablets, what browser do you use as an alternative to the big two? How well does it work with the modern HTML5 internet? Are websites frequently broken does the simplicity of other browsers largely go unnoticed?

Submission + - TSA bans Star Wars Coke bottles that resemble grenades (sfgate.com)

Submitted by Tablizer
Tablizer writes: SFGate: "Visitors to Disney's new Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge attraction, can choose from more than 1,000 unique items to take home as souvenirs.

But if they plan on flying home, they'll have to leave at least one behind — a specially designed "thermal detonator" Coca-Cola bottle the company made especially for the new attraction.

TSA has told fans that the bottle, which retails for $5, looks too much like a replica explosive and therefore won't be allowed in carry-on or checked baggage. Fans, not surprisingly are not pleased with the decision."

I hope they don't take away my lightsaber.

Submission + - Microsoft making exFAT patents available via OIN (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: According to ZDNet (note to editors, I can't find a primary source in the article or on Google), Microsoft has announced that they intend to make their exFAT patents available for inclusion in software like the Linux kernel by way of the Open Invention Network (OIN), an organization dedicated to patent non-aggression. exFAT would still be patented by Microsoft, but it seems they would be committing not to exercise their patent rights against the Linux community and potentially other free software projects.

Comment Mix (Score 1) 151

by RyanMcCoskrie (#58225602) Attached to: How do you listen to music?
In theory I'm a CD collector but in practise the bulk of what I like (mostly European Metal) is unavailable here in New Zealand or only at a %300 markup so I wind up streaming it.

Submission + - Google Open-Sources GPipe, a Library For Training Large Deep Neural Networks (venturebeat.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google’s AI research division today open-sourced GPipe, a library for “efficiently” training deep neural networks (layered functions modeled after neurons) under Lingvo, a TensorFlow framework for sequence modeling. It’s applicable to any network consisting of multiple sequential layers, Google AI software engineer Yanping Huang said in a blog post, and allows researchers to “easily” scale performance. As Huang and colleagues explain in an accompanying paper (“GPipe: Efficient Training of Giant Neural Networks using Pipeline Parallelism“), GPipe implements two nifty AI training techniques. One is synchronous stochastic gradient descent, an optimization algorithm used to update a given AI model’s parameters, and the other is pipeline parallelism, a task execution system in which one step’s output is streamed as input to the next step.

Most of GPipe’s performance gains come from better memory allocation for AI models. On second-generation Google Cloud tensor processing units (TPUs), each of which contains eight processor cores and 64 GB memory (8 GB per core), GPipe reduced intermediate memory usage from 6.26 GB to 3.46GB, enabling 318 million parameters on a single accelerator core. Without GPipe, Huang says, a single core can only train up to 82 million model parameters. That’s not GPipe’s only advantage. It partitions models across different accelerators and automatically splits miniature batches (i.e., “mini-batches”) of training examples into smaller “micro-batches,” and it pipelines execution across the micro-batches. This enables cores to operate in parallel, and furthermore accumulate gradients across the micro-batches, thereby preventing the partitions from affecting model quality.

Submission + - Researchers Uncover Ring of GitHub Accounts Promoting 300+ Backdoored Apps (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A security researcher has uncovered a ring of malicious GitHub accounts promoting over 300 backdoored Windows, Mac, and Linux applications and software libraries. The malicious apps contained code to gain boot persistence on infected systems and later download other malicious code --which appeared to be a "sneaker bot," a piece of malware that would add infected systems to a botnet that would later participate in online auctions for limited edition sneakers.

All the GitHub accounts that were hosting these files --backdoored versions of legitimate apps-- have now been taken down. One account, in particular, registered in the name of Andrew Dunkins, hosted 305 backdoored ELF binaries. Another 73 apps were hosted across 88 other accounts. The accounts that did not host backdoored apps were used to "star" or "watch" the malicious repositories and help boost their popularity in GitHub's search results. Some of the apps and libraries for which the hacker(s) created backdoored versions include MinGW, GCC, Ffmpeg, EasyModbus, and various Java-based games.

Submission + - Linux 5.0 Kernel Released (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Linus Torvalds released Linux 5.0 in kicking off the kernel's 28th year of development. Linux 5.0 features include AMD FreeSync support, open-source NVIDIA Turing GPU support, Intel Icelake graphics, Intel VT-d scalable mode, NXP PowerPC processors are now mitigated for Spectre Variant Two, and countless other additions.

Submission + - Nanotechnology Makes It Possible For Mice To See In Infrared (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Humans and other mammals are limited to seeing a range of wavelengths of light called visible light, which includes the wavelengths of the rainbow. But infrared radiation, which has a longer wavelength, is all around us. People, animals and objects emit infrared light as they give off heat, and objects can also reflect infrared light. A multidisciplinary group of scientists led by Xue and Jin Bao at the University of Science and Technology of China as well as Gang Han at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, developed the nanotechnology to work with the eye's existing structures.

In this study, the scientists made nanoparticles that can anchor tightly to photoreceptor cells and act as tiny infrared light transducers. When infrared light hits the retina, the nanoparticles capture the longer infrared wavelengths and emit shorter wavelengths within the visible light range. The nearby rod or cone then absorbs the shorter wavelength and sends a normal signal to the brain, as if visible light had hit the retina. "In our experiment, nanoparticles absorbed infrared light around 980 nm in wavelength and converted it into light peaked at 535 nm, which made the infrared light appear as the color green," said one of the researchers. The researchers tested the nanoparticles in mice, which, like humans, cannot see infrared naturally. Mice that received the injections showed unconscious physical signs that they were detecting infrared light, such as their pupils constricting, while mice injected with only the buffer solution didn't respond to infrared light.

Submission + - Reddit Tests Tipping Users (cnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Reddit is experimenting with tipping users, starting with the shittymorph subreddit, a group dedicated to the man who has memorably bamboozled many a reader with sneaky comments ending in a reference to a famous pro-wrestling match called Hell in a Cell. A Reddit admin with the username "internetmallcop" posted a thread on Tuesday announcing the experiment, calling it a "new feature to support u/shittymorph." Anyone in the group can now tip shittymorph for content he posts in his own subreddit.

A "tip" option appears below shittymorph's content. Clicking on it opens a window with suggested $3, $5 or $10 tips, or the choice to select another amount. You can input your credit card number directly into the window. The payments are handled by processor Stripe. Shittymorph responded to the admin post by saying he is "super grateful and honored" to be picked for the launch and beta testing. As of this writing Wednesday morning, the comment shows a $75.00 tip total in green above it. Internetmallcop explained in a comment how the tipping breaks out: "If you were to tip $100, about $78.5 goes to u/shittymorph, $18.5 to Reddit, and $3 to Stripe." It's unclear if Reddit plans to expand tipping beyond this experiment, and if it might extend to all users, or just certain content creators.

Submission + - Geologists find where some Stonehenge rocks came from, debunking old research (cnn.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes:

A team of 12 geologists and archaeologists from across the United Kingdom unveiled research this month that traces some of the prehistoric monument’s smaller stones to two quarries in western Wales.

The team also found evidence of prehistoric tools, stone wedges and digging activity in those quarries, tracing them to around 3000 BC, the era when Stonehenge’s first stage was constructed.

It’s rock-solid evidence that humans were involved in moving these “bluestones” to where they sit today, a full 150 miles away, the researchers say.

“It finally puts to rest long-standing arguments over whether the bluestones were moved by human agency or by glacial action,” University of Southampton Archeology Professor Joshua Pollard said in an email.

This leaves the question of how.

Submission + - Scientists luck upon a new way to make a rainbow (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Chemists have stumbled across a new way to separate reflected light into the colors of the rainbow—a phenomenon known as iridescence. The surprisingly simple technique, which is something of a hybrid of previously known ones, could have applications both scientific and aesthetic. Engineers already use thin-films and refractive particles to create iridescence in video displays, paints, and decorative wall coverings. With its simplicity and adjustability, the new effect could open ways to color the world.

Submission + - 'Dissenter' Platform Adds Comments to Every Internet Page (cnet.com)

Submitted by Okian Warrior
Okian Warrior writes: Free speech social network Gab has launched a new comments platform, Dissenter, which allows users to make comments on every single website on the Internet without fear of censorship or banning.

The Dissenter platform, which integrates with Gab as either a website or a browser extension, allows users to comment on any web page in the world, with the ability to upvote, downvote, and reply to other comments.

“A free, open-source utility that allows people to dissent from orthodoxy and express what they are really thinking, without fear of reprisal, is essential in order to wrest control of the Internet and public discourse from Silicon Valley tech giants,” [Gab founder Andrew Torba] concluded. “Gab.com and dissenter.com lead the way in keeping the Internet free. All people are welcome to use our products to express themselves freely.”

One example of recent comment censorship was review website Rotten Tomatoes’ removal of comments for unreleased movies this week, which the review website claimed was due to “trolling.”

Despite Rotten Tomatoes removing the ability for users to comment on unreleased movies, like Captain Marvel, users can comment instead through Dissenter — either through Dissenter’s website, or directly from the Rotten Tomatoes movie page through a Dissenter browser extension.

Submission + - D-Wave Previews Quantum Computing Platform With Over 5,000 Qubits

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: D-Wave Systems today unveiled the roadmap for its 5,000-qubit quantum computer. Components of D-Wave’s next-generation quantum computing platform will come to market between now and mid-2020 via ongoing quantum processing unit (QPU) and cloud-delivered software updates. The complete system will be available through cloud access and for on-premise installation in mid-2020.

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Everything that can be invented has been invented. -- Charles Duell, Director of U.S. Patent Office, 1899

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