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Comment Re: Second Life didn't work the first time (Score 1) 89

by psone (#62984075) Attached to: Does the "metaverse" appeal to you at all?
At least you could build and script (almost) however you wanted, and there was some fun in that. But Metaâ(TM)s proposal is just yet another way to f*** up with your private life and monetize the details. Be sure anything you say or do WILL be used in their financial interest. Plus PG Yiffy! (just fur fun)

Submission + - 40,000 Chromebooks and 9,600 iPads Go Missing at Chicago Public Schools

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "When the school system [Chicago Public Schools] shifted to having students learn remotely in the spring of 2020 near the beginning of the pandemic, it lent students iPads, MacBooks and Windows computer devices so they could do school work and attend virtual classes from home," reports Frank Main in the Chicago Sun-Times. "CPS then spent about $165 million to buy Chromebook desktop computers so that every student from kindergarten through senior year in high school who needed a computer could have one. Students borrowed 161,100 Chromebooks in September 2020. By June 2021, more than 210,000 of those devices had been given out. Of them, nearly 40,000 Chromebooks have been reported lost — nearly a fifth of those that were lent. 'Schools have made repeated efforts to recover the lost devices from families without success,' according to a written statement from CPS officials in response to questions about the missing school property. Also missing are more than 9,600 iPads, 114 televisions, 1,680 printers and 1,127 audiovisual projectors, among many other items. Officials say CPS has bought new computer devices to replace the missing ones."

There were 340,658 students enrolled in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) at the start of the 2020-2021 school year.

Comment Induction (Score 2) 242

From data collected by a sensor at th edge of its specs we make a handful of inductive inferences: it travels, by flight, fast, at a low altitude, with little to no observable turbulence. Thatâ(TM)s still far from solid proof that itâ(TM)s actually an aircraft with unseen capabilities. It might be a UFO, at best it may be a UAP.

Submission + - DOJ: If we can track one American, we can track all Americans (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Seven months after his conviction, Basaaly Moalin’s defense attorney moved for a new trial (PDF), arguing that evidence collected about him under the government’s recently disclosed dragnet telephone surveillance program violated his constitutional and statutory rights. Moalin’s is the only thwarted "terrorist plot" against America that the government says also "critically" relied on the National Security Agency phone surveillance program, conducted under Section 215 of the Patriot Act.

The government’s response (PDF), filed on September 30th, is a heavily redacted opposition arguing that when law enforcement can monitor one person’s information without a warrant, it can monitor everyone’s information, “regardless of the collection’s expanse.” Notably, the government is also arguing that no one other than the company that provided the information—including the defendant in this case—has the right to challenge this disclosure in court.

Submission + - Imagination Tech Announces MIPS-based 'Warrior P-Class' CPU Core (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Imagination Technologies has announced the first CPU based on its new version of the MIPS architecture. The new P5600 chip (codenamed Warrior) is a 32-bit CPU based on the MIPS Series 5 architecture and is designed to challenge companies like ARM in the embedded and mobile markets. Major features of the new chip include: support for 40-bit memory extensions, or up to 1TB of RAM, a 128-bit SIMD engine (Single Instruction, Multiple Data), and Hardware virtualization (MIPS R5 can virtualize other machines in hardware). The P5600 core is being touted as supporting up to six cores in a cache-coherent link, most likely similar to ARM's CCI-400. According to IT, the chip is capable of executing 3.5 DMIPs/MHz in CoreMark, which theoretically puts the P5600 on par with the Cortex-A15.

Submission + - Lessons from the Healthcare.gov Fiasco (slashdot.org)

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: In theory, the federal government’s Health Insurance Marketplace was supposed to make things easy for anyone in the market for health insurance. But fourteen days after the Website made its debut, the online initiative—an integral part of the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act—has metastasized into a disaster. Despite costing $400 million (so far) and employing an army of experienced IT contractors (such as Booz Allen Hamilton and CGI Group), the Website is prone to glitches and frequent crashes, frustrating many of those seeking to sign up for a health-insurance policy. Unless you’re the head of a major federal agency or a huge company launching an online initiative targeted at millions of users, it’s unlikely you’ll be the one responsible for a project (and problems) on the scale of the Health Insurance Marketplace. Nonetheless, the debacle offers some handy lessons in project management for Websites and portals of any size: know your IT specifications (federal contractors reportedly didn't receive theirs until a few months ago), choose management capable of recognizing the problems that arise (management of Healthcare.gov was entrusted to the Medicare and Medicaid agency, which didn't have the technical chops), roll out small if possible, and test, test, test. The Health Insurance Marketplace fiasco speaks to an unfortunate truth about Web development: even when an entity (whether public or private, corporation or federal government) has keen minds and millions of dollars at its disposal, forgetting or mishandling the basics of successful Web construction can lead to embarrassing problems.

Submission + - Small-scale biomass energy projects are not a solution to climate change (thebulletin.org) 1

Submitted by Lasrick
Lasrick writes: Roberto Bissio has an excellent piece in a roundtable on biomass energy, pointing out that small scale biomass energy projects designed for people in poor countries aren't really a solution to climate change. After pointing out that patent protections could impede wide-spread adoption, Bissio adds that the people in these countries aren't really contributing to climate change in the first place: 'Why? Because poor people, whose carbon emissions these technologies would reduce, produce very little carbon in the first place. As I mentioned in Round One, the planet's poorest 1 billion people are responsible for only 3 percent of global carbon emissions. The 1.26 billion people whose countries belong to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development account for 42 percent of emissions. The rich, if they reduced their emissions by just 8 percent, could achieve more climate mitigation than the poor could achieve by reducing their emissions to zero. The rich could manage this 8 percent reduction by altering their lifestyles in barely noticeable ways. For the poor, a reduction of 100 percent would imply permanent misery.'

Submission + - Massachusetts bans Google Apps (theregister.co.uk) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: "Any person who provides a cloud computing service to an educational institution operating within the State shall process data of a student enrolled in kindergarten through twelfth grade for the sole purpose of providing the cloud computing service to the educational institution and shall not process such data for any commercial purpose, including but not limited to advertising purposes that benefit the cloud computing service provider,

"Schools must ensure that they place appropriate limits on data collection and use best practices for cloud service providers,"

"Protecting the privacy of our students is common sense and shouldn't be sold to the highest bidder. Student privacy should not be for sale. Period." Cameron Evans, Microsoft
Google

Submission + - Developers Begin Hunt for A Killer App for Google Glass (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by
holy_calamity
holy_calamity writes: "Companies large and small are working to create the first "killer app" for Google Glass, the wearable display to go on sale later this year, reports MIT Technology Review. Evernote is among large companies that got early access to prototypes and has been testing ideas for some time, but is staying quiet about its plans. Meanwhile new startups with apps for Glass are being created and funded, although uncertainty about whether consumers will embrace the technology has steered them towards commercial and industrial ideas, such as apps for for doctors and maintenance technicians."
Image

Russian Scholar Warns Of US Climate Change Weapon 415

Posted by samzenpus from the hurricane-cannon dept.
According to Russian political scientist, and conspiracy aficionado Andrei Areshev the high heat, and poor crop yields of Russia, and other Central Asian countries may be the result of a climate weapon created by the US military. From the article: "... Areshev voiced suspicions about the High-Frequency Active Aural Research Program (HAARP), funded by the US Defense Department and the University of Alaska. HAARP, which has long been the target of conspiracy theorists, analyzes the ionosphere and seeks to develop technologies to improve radio communications, surveillance, and missile detection. Areshev writes, however, that its true aim is to create new weapons of mass destruction 'in order to destabilize environmental and agricultural systems in local countries.'"
Security

Employees Would Steal Data When Leaving a Job 457

Posted by CmdrTaco from the what-about-business-cards dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Employees openly admit they would take company data, including customer data and product plans, when leaving a job. In response to a recent survey, 49% of US workers and 52% of British workers admitted they would take some form of company property with them when leaving a position: 29% (US) and 23% (UK) would take customer data, including contact information; 23% (US) and 22% (UK) would take electronic files; 15% (US) and 17% (UK) would take product information, including designs and plans; and 13% (US) and 22% (UK) would take small office supplies."
Biotech

Ray Kurzweil Does Not Understand the Brain 830

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-want-futurist-business-cards dept.
jamie writes "There he goes again, making up nonsense and making ridiculous claims that have no relationship to reality. Ray Kurzweil must be able to spin out a good line of bafflegab, because he seems to have the tech media convinced..."

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