Computers & Linux News

Scientists have uncovered a glitch in a piece of code that could have yielded incorrect results in over 100 published studies that cited the original paper. From a report: The glitch caused results of a common chemistry computation to vary depending on the operating system used, causing discrepancies among Mac, Windows, and Linux systems. The researchers published the revelation and a debugged version of the script, which amounts to roughly 1,000 lines of code, last week in the journal Organic Letters. "This simple glitch in the original script calls into question the conclusions of a significant number of papers on a wide range of topics in a way that cannot be easily resolved from published information because the operating system is rarely mentioned," the new paper reads. "Authors who used these scripts should certainly double-check their results and any relevant conclusions using the modified scripts in the [supplementary information]." Yuheng Luo, a graduate student at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, discovered the glitch this summer when he was verifying the results of research conducted by chemistry professor Philip Williams on cyanobacteria. The aim of the project was to "try to find compounds that are effective against cancer," Williams said.

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These gifts are sure to please your fitness-minded friends and family.

NHTSA opened an investigation into the matter this past August, and now, the automaker will fix the issue at hand.

Security analysts and journalists over the weekend expressed concern Apple was being cavalier with users' privacy.

Before Google moves to bring its human-sounding robot calling service Duplex to help users automate their interactions with businesses to international markets, an Indian giant is deploying its own solution to get a jumpstart on the local market. From a report: Reliance Jio today unveiled AI-powered Video Call Assistant service that will allow businesses to automate their customer support and other communications. The service, built in collaboration with Radisys, a U.S.-based subsidiary of Reliance Industries, can be accessed via a 4G phone call and does not require installation of any additional app, Jio said. Executives of Reliance Jio demonstrated the technology on Monday at the third installment of Indian Mobile Congress, similar to but not affiliated with the trade show Mobile World Congress. They said they have already courted a number of customers for this service, including HDFC Bank. In the demo, a user dials a regular phone number and sees a video chat option. Once tapped, the user is greeted by a pre-recorded video message from a human. To demonstrate the AI's capabilities, an executive of Reliance Jio asked the bot what was the interest rate on personal loans. The human-looking bot was able to answer the question without any delay. The company, which became the largest telecom operator in India in three years, is also offering audio and text bot options to brands, executives said. "It may be a large business or small, our bot service is built for all," one of the two executives said.

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Bay Area commuters will be able to use Google Pay instead of their Clipper Cards.

Knowledge is power when it comes to buying car insurance, and understanding the legal terms can help guarantee you get the coverage you need.

An old Hubble Space Telescope image revealed a new cosmic treasure.

Uber has just laid off around 350 employees across a variety of teams within the organization, marking what the company says is its third and final phase of layoffs of the process it began earlier this year, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said to employees today in an email. From a report: Those affected include employees from Eats, performance marketing, Advanced Technologies Group, recruiting, as well as various teams within the global rides and platform departments. Some employees have also been asked to relocate. "Days like today are tough for us all, and the ELT and I will do everything we can to make certain that we won't need or have another day like this ahead of us," Khosrowshahi wrote in the email. "We all have to play a part by establishing a new normal in how we work: identifying and eliminating duplicate work, upholding high standards for performance, giving direct feedback and taking action when expectations aren't being met, and eliminating the bureaucracy that tends to creep as companies grow." In total, the layoffs represent about 1% of the company, an Uber spokesperson told TechCrunch. Further reading: Uber Posts $5.2 Billion Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate (August 2019).

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Electric GT is developing the V8-sized and -shaped all-in-one system for a Toyota Land Cruiser conversion.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been hosting informal talks and small, off-the-record dinners with conservative journalists, commentators and at least one Republican lawmaker in recent months to discuss issues like free speech and discuss partnerships, Politico reported on Monday. From the report: The dinners, which began in July, are part of Zuckerberg's broader effort to cultivate friends on the right amid outrage by President Donald Trump and his allies over alleged "bias" against conservatives at Facebook and other major social media companies. "I'm under no illusions that he's a conservative but I think he does care about some of our concerns," said one person familiar with the gatherings, which multiple sources have confirmed. News of the outreach is likely to further fuel suspicions on the left that Zuckerberg is trying to appease the White House and stay out of Trump's crosshairs. The president threatened to sue Facebook and Google in June and has in the past pressured the Justice Department to take action against his perceived foes. "The discussion in Silicon Valley is that Zuckerberg is very concerned about the Justice Department, under Bill Barr, bringing an enforcement action to break up the company," said one cybersecurity researcher and former government official based in Silicon Valley. "So the fear is that Zuckerberg is trying to appease the Trump administration by not cracking down on right-wing propaganda."

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Private equity firm Thoma Bravo said today it plans to buy UK-based cyber-security giant Sophos for $7.40 per share, for a total value of $3.9 billion, both companies announced today. From a report: The sale price represents a 37% premium on the Sophos market trading price, as recorded on Friday, at the end of the trading. The Sophos board of directors said they plan to "unanimously recommend" the acquisition offer to their shareholders. Before today's announcement, Thoma Bravo acquired a minority stake in McAfee last year and was rumored to be interested in buying the whole company. It is unclear how today's Sophos acquisition will impact plans to buy McAfee, but the two companies -- Sophos and McAfee -- are classic rivals on the cyber-security market and share a product portfolio, so the door seems to have closed on the McAfee deal.

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A great way to start the week.

Over the weekend, reports emerged that claimed that Apple was sending users' browsing details to Tencent to run it against Chinese company's safe browsing feature. In a statement on Monday, an Apple spokesperson has offered a clarification: Apple protects user privacy and safeguards your data with Safari Fraudulent Website Warning, a security feature that flags websites known to be malicious in nature. When the feature is enabled, Safari checks the website URL against lists of known websites and displays a warning if the URL the user is visiting is suspected of fraudulent conduct like phishing. To accomplish this task, Safari receives a list of websites known to be malicious from Google, and for devices with their region code set to mainland China, it receives a list from Tencent. The actual URL of website you visit is never shared with a safe browsing provider and the feature can be turned off.

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First the RS6 Avant, and now the A6 Allroad -- it's a good time to love wagons in America.

Netgear's new mesh router system promises to blanket your home in Wi-Fi without breaking the bank.

Sports car prices range from affordable to astronomical. Here’s how Roadshow’s editors would spend their money.

Pixel 4 retail boxes appeared in a live broadcast before Tuesday's formal announcement

Booking Holdings, an online travel company that operates Kayak.com and Priceline.com among other websites, said it's withdrawing from participation in the Libra Association, an ambitious and controversial Facebook-led project to create a new cryptocurrency. From a report: The Norwalk, Connecticut-based company joins PayPal, Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, MercadoLibre and EBay in leaving the project in the past two weeks. The plan has came under intense scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators who feared that Libra could be used for criminal purposes and undercut countries' monetary policy, among myriad other concerns.

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This is not a cheap sports car, but you get what you pay for.