iOS 11’s Camera app now automatically recognizes QR codes, those square sets of black rectangles that contain URLs, Wi-Fi connection details, contacts, and much more. Here’s how to create and deploy QR codes in practical and useful ways.

 

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Although authorities have not ascribed political motive, far-right websites blamed Antifa for a mass shooting in Texas.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source): The Justice Department has called on AT&T and Time Warner to sell Turner Broadcasting, the group of cable channels that includes CNN, as a potential requirement for approving the companies' pending $85.4 billion deal, people briefed on the matter said on Wednesday. The other potential way the merger could win approval would be for AT&T to sell its DirecTV division, two of these people added. As originally envisioned, combining AT&T and Time Warner would yield a giant company offering wireless and broadband internet service, DirecTV, the Warner Brothers movie studio and cable channels like HBO and CNN. If the Justice Department formally makes either demand a requisite for approval, AT&T and Time Warner would almost certainly take the matter to court to challenge the government's legal basis for blocking their deal.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Long time far from home, with great views... the International Space Station is not your typical holiday spot.

Starting next year, Google's Chrome browser will stamp out some shenanigans that send you to a website you didn't expect. From a report: You probably don't like it when you navigate to a particular web page and then your browser unexpectedly jumps to another page -- an action called a redirect and something the website publisher didn't even want to happen. With Chrome 64, in testing now and due to ship early next year, Chrome will block that kind of bait and switch, Google said. "We've found that this redirect often comes from third-party content embedded in the page, and the page author didn't intend the redirect to happen at all," Google product manager Ryan Schoen said in a blog post. Chrome 64 will block the redirect action and instead show an information bar telling you what happened. That's not all. Chrome 65, due a few weeks later, will squelch another unwelcome action that can happen when you click a link and the website opens in a new tab while switching the existing tab to a page you didn't request.

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I’m the host of a new podcast: The Omni Show. Here’s the announcement on the Omni blog with all the details. There’s a Twitter account, @theomnishow, you can follow.

I’m super-excited to be doing this, partly because my co-workers at Omni are interesting, and partly because some of it may actually be useful — that is, learning how we think about UX, testing, engineering, support, and so on might be helpful for other people. That’s my hope.

Our first episode is with Kristina Sontag, Software Test Manager, and the second episode is with Curt Clifton, OmniFocus engineer. The next two episodes will feature support and UX. We’re covering all the bases. :)

I’ve done podcasts before (see Identical Cousins and The Record), so I’m not completely new to this. It’s produced by Mark Boszko, also a podcast veteran, who does The Optical, which is a must-listen for everybody who likes movies. The music is by Aaron Cherof, composer extraordinaire, and the look of the site is by Kaitlin Reiss. My favorite touch is the big “THE OMNI SHOW” title at the top — watch it as the gradient slowly changes. It’s mesmerizing.

And, of course, there are more people working on the show. Like everything else, it’s a team effort, but it goes to the theme of the show (“The Omni Show is people!”) to mention some specific individuals — and to thank them. Thank you to everyone who works on The Omni Show.

mirandakatz writes: The Xfund started with a bold idea and ended with one of its founders banished from the country. At Backchannel, Jessi Hempel has the definitive story of what really happened after Patrick Chung and Hugo Van Vuuren went into business together, and how a promising venture went so wrong. It's an incredibly complex story, and no one agrees on the basic facts: As Hempel writes, 'What's clear is that from the start, they had clashing visions for what they were building. The tale of Van Vuuren and Chung's partnership and its demise offers a window into how power really works in Silicon Valley, where personal relationships are the most important currency and, in order to protect capital, investors are more likely to place their bets on people they know and trust.'

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Mojo::Base + lexical "has"

Catalin Cimpanu, reporting for BleepingComputer: USB drivers included in the Linux kernel are rife with security flaws that in some cases can be exploited to run untrusted code and take over users' computers. The vast majority of these vulnerabilities came to light on Monday, when Google security expert Andrey Konovalov informed the Linux community of 14 vulnerabilities he found in the Linux kernel USB subsystem. "All of them can be triggered with a crafted malicious USB device in case an attacker has physical access to the machine," Konovalov said. The 14 flaws are actually part of a larger list of 79 flaws Konovalov found in Linux kernel USB drivers during the past months. Not all of these 79 vulnerabilities have been reported, let alone patched. Most are simple DoS (Denial of Service) bugs that freeze or restart the OS, but some allow attackers to elevate privileges and execute malicious code.

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Astronomers discover the celestial equivalent of a horror film villain: a star that wouldn't stay dead.