Tech News Feed

After a nearly year-long hiatus, Arrested Development will be back on Netflix with new episodes on March 15th. The streaming service announced the return of the Bluths for the second and final part of season five. The run will include eight episodes...

An anonymous reader shares a report: Everyone in Silicon Valley knows the story of Xerox inventing the modern personal computer in the 1970s and then failing to commercialize it effectively. Yet one of Silicon Valley's most successful companies, Google's Alphabet, appears to be repeating Xerox's mistake with its self-driving car program. Xerox launched its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1970. By 1975, its researchers had invented a personal computer with a graphical user interface that was almost a decade ahead of its time. Unfortunately, the commercial version of this technology wasn't released until 1981 and proved to be an expensive flop. Two much younger companies -- Apple and Microsoft -- co-opted many of Xerox's ideas and wound up dominating the industry. Google's self-driving car program, created in 2009, appears to be on a similar trajectory. By October 2015, Google was confident enough in its technology to put a blind man into one of its cars for a solo ride in Austin, Texas. But much like Xerox 40 years earlier, Google has struggled to bring its technology to market. The project was rechristened Waymo in 2016, and Waymo was supposed to launch a commercial driverless service by the end of 2018. But the service Waymo launched in December was not driverless and barely commercial. It had a safety driver in every vehicle, and it has only been made available to a few hundred customers.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The team of scientist showed that solar storms can accelerate particles simultaneously in several locations by combining data from the Low Frequency Array, LOFAR, with images from NASA, NOAA and ESA spacecraft.

The hunt for Earth-like planets, and perhaps extraterrestrial life, just got more precise, thanks to record-setting starlight measurements made possible by the 'astrocomb.'

The oldest and coldest known white dwarf -- an Earth-sized remnant of a sun-like star that has died -- could be the first known white dwarf with multiple dust rings. The discovery forces researchers to reconsider models of planetary systems.

Long-time PC gamers have fond memories of the MX518 for a reason: the 2005-era mouse combined a comfortable shape, convenient buttons and brisk performance at a fairly reasonable price. Even its 2011 replacement was ultimately a spin on a successful...

Microsoft has released an official Timeline extension for Google Chrome called "Web Activities" that brings Timeline integration to Google's web browser. From a report: Just like with Microsoft Edge, this new extension syncs web browsing activities with the Timeline feature on Windows 10, making it easier to pick up old activities and search through webpages you've visited recently. The extension is available now in the Chrome Web Store, and ties with your Microsoft Account.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The UK isn't the only country skeptical of American hostility toward Huawei over spying fears. German officials talking to the Wall Street Journal say the country has made a "preliminary decision" to let Huawei bid on contracts for 5G networking desp...

An anonymous reader writes: Apple's new Mac products might have a serious audio glitch for professional users. The company's newest Mac products with its T2 security chip suffer from a software-related bug that leads to issues with audio performance. The issue seemingly affects devices with the T2 chip -- that includes the iMac Pro, Mac Mini 2018, MacBook Air 2018, and MacBook Pro 2018. Although Apple's T2 chip is designed to offer improved security, it's affecting users in the pro audio industry. As CDM reports, there is a bug in macOS that leads to dropouts and glitches in audio whenever a Mac automatically updates its system clock through the system time daemon. Users have been reporting the issue across a bunch of different pro audio forums for months, and it seems like the issue has never been acknowledged by Cupertino. The issue here is pretty simple to understand, as explained by a DJ software developer on Reddit: whenever the system time daemon automatically updates the system time, it somehow sends a 'pause-audio-engine' message to the kernel, leading to dropouts and glitches in audio.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes: Apple's new Mac products might have a serious audio glitch for professional users. The company's newest Mac products with its T2 security chip suffer from a software-related bug that leads to issues with audio performance. The issue seemingly affects devices with the T2 chip -- that includes the iMac Pro, Mac Mini 2018, MacBook Air 2018, and MacBook Pro 2018. Although Apple's T2 chip is designed to offer improved security, it's affecting users in the pro audio industry. As CDM reports, there is a bug in macOS that leads to dropouts and glitches in audio whenever a Mac automatically updates its system clock through the system time daemon. Users have been reporting the issue across a bunch of different pro audio forums for months, and it seems like the issue has never been acknowledged by Cupertino. The issue here is pretty simple to understand, as explained by a DJ software developer on Reddit: whenever the system time daemon automatically updates the system time, it somehow sends a 'pause-audio-engine' message to the kernel, leading to dropouts and glitches in audio.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

With all the leaks in advance of Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked event tomorrow, we can practically forecast the whole launch. The company started taking S10 reservations in the US earlier this month, and it seemed all but certain earbuds and a smartwatch...

Google isn't normally the sort to break news at big video game events, but it's making an exception to that rule this year. The company plans to unveil a mysterious gaming project at a Game Developers Conference presentation on March 19th at 1PM East...

Google Registry today announced .dev, a brand new top-level domain (TLD) that's dedicated to developers and technology. From a report: The new .dev TLD comes after the company launched .app and .page, all are protected by HTTPS. Google has already used the TLD for a few of its own projects, such as web.dev and opensource.dev, but now it is being opened up to a wider audience. If you are interested in securing yourself a .dev domain, you can register through the Early Access Program.

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Netflix would really like for you to try some Green Eggs and Ham. The company has secured the rights to the classic Dr. Seuss tale and is turning it into a star-studded animated series that will be packed with familiar voices. The show, which is bein...

SoundCloud is helping artists distribute uploaded music to other services, including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, Instagram, Pandora and even Napster. The Premier distribution tool will be available in open beta at no ext...

Android's back button might be going away entirely, replaced with a quick swipe to the left from the home button. From a report: XDA Developers has been digging into a leaked, early set of code from the next version of Android, codenamed Q, and the latest discovery from those forays is this potential demise of the back button, as well as a quicker app-changing animation when you swipe to the right. The way that gestures and buttons work in Android 9 Pie (the current iteration, at least if you're lucky enough to own a phone that runs it) is a little bit split. Google's Pixel has just a home "pill" and then a back button appears only when it's needed. Here's a quick video XDA made showing the gesture system Google is experimenting with in Android Q. It is, as anybody could have predicted, a little messy. For something as core to a phone as "going home" or "going back," the fact that different phones have different methods could be a problem.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

YouTube has faced criticism for its strike system over the years, and not without merit. You wouldn't always know what you'd done wrong, and the punishment could vary from a slap on the wrist to a crippling blow. Now, though, the service is trying...

When a Russian nation-state actor attacks a government or a private organization, they have about 20 minutes to detect and contain the attack. From a report: New statistics published today by US cyber-security firm Crowdstrike ranked threat groups based on their "breakout time." "Breakout time" refers to the time a hacker group takes from gaining initial access to a victim's computer to moving laterally through its network. This includes the time the attacker spends scanning the local network and deploying exploits in order to escalate his access to other nearby computers. [...] According to data gathered from 2018 hack investigations, CrowdStrike says Russian hackers (which the company calls internally "Bears") have been the most prolific and efficient hacker groups last year, with an average breakout time of 18 minutes and 49 seconds.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If you think you knew everything there’s to know about the Samsung Galaxy S10, the company’s Norwegian ad has now leaked on YouTube. The Verge first spotted the ad — a Verge reader was watching TV and it accidentally aired on commercial TV. It matches up with devices that have already leaked over the past couple of months. But there are some additional features that haven’t been discussed yet.

The most glaring change is that Samsung is opting for a pinhole cutout in the corner of the screen instead of an iPhone-style notch. The S10 will have a rounded hole while the S10+ will get an oblong hole punch with a couple of front-facing camera sensors.

As you can see in the ad, Samsung has integrated the fingerprint sensor in the display. It’s still unclear whether you’ll be able to touch any part of the screen, but the ad shows that you’ll be able to put your finger right above the USB-C connector to unlock your phone.

The photo gallery app will get a new tab for stories. It sounds like you’ll be able to create stories using the default camera app without having to use Instagram or Snapchat.

In addition to wireless charging, the S10 will be able to act as a wireless charger. For instance, you’ll be able to recharge the company’s AirPods-like earbuds using your phone.

Rumor has it that Samsung will also release a third device this year. In addition to the usual S10 (6.1-inch display) and the S10+ (6.4-inch display), there could be a cheaper 5.8-inch phone. This variant could feature an LCD display, and two cameras on the back instead of three.

And yet, the ad only shows two phones. It’s unclear whether Samsung will run separate advertising campaigns or launch that cheaper phone at a later date.

Update: Original video has been removed from YouTube. I replaced it with a re-upload.

The future of hydrogen fuel cell cars is still in doubt. It all comes down to infrastructure and there aren't enough stations for most to even consider purchasing a vehicle that emits water instead of pollutants. Still, that hasn't stopped Hyunda...