Apple Reports Strong Third-Quarter Results Slashdotby BeauHD on business at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at July 31, 2018, 11:35 pm)

Apple reported strong third-quarter results Tuesday, posting big beats on earnings per share and average iPhone selling price. CNBC highlights how Apple did compared with Wall Street projections: EPS: $2.34 vs. $2.18, according to Thomson Reuters consensus estimates Revenue: $53.3 billion vs. $52.34 billion, according to Thomson Reuters consensus estimates iPhone sales: 41.3 million vs. 41.79 million, according to StreetAccount Apple reportedly sold 41.3 million iPhones in the last quarter and 11.55 million iPads, both beating estimates. The average selling price of iPhones last quarter was $724, versus the expected $693.59. Apple also sold 3.7 million Mac computers. Apple's services revenue accounted for just 15 percent of Apple's total revenue for the second quarter, but CNBC notes that it's "been outpacing iPhone revenue growth for several quarters." The company hopes to double services revenue to more than $14 billion a quarter by 2020. Looking forward, all eyes will be on the next iPhone. Apple is expected to launch new iPhone models at the end of the quarter, in mid-September.

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UNICEF: 78 million newborns at risk when breastfeeding is delayed AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at July 31, 2018, 11:30 pm)

Babies should be breasfted within an hour of being born, according to UN and WHO recommendations.
HP Will Give You $10,000 To Hack Your Printer Slashdotby msmash on printer at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at July 31, 2018, 11:05 pm)

hyperclocker shares a report: HP hopes to entice researchers with a $10,000 reward for finding vulnerabilities in printers. The tech giant revealed the new bug bounty program on Tuesday. The scheme, which is launching as a private bug bounty, is tailored specifically for HP printer hardware. While many of us use home printers simply for printing the occasional document or photo, in the enterprise, these devices are often found in a network. If there is a weak link in business networks, a single device -- whether it be a printer or smart air conditioning system -- can be exploited to compromise a wider network system. Printers, especially if they are overlooked when it comes to firmware updates or upgrades, can become such avenues to exploit. According to research undertaken by Bugcrowd, "2018 State of Bug Bounty Report," endpoint devices are becoming a tantalizing target for threat actors, with a 21 percent increase in total endpoint bugs reported over the past 12 months. In partnership with bug bounty platform Bugcrowd, HP says it is the "only vendor" to launch a printer-only vulnerability disclosure scheme. Under the terms of the program, researchers can earn between $500 and $10,000 per legitimate find.

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DHS Forms New Cyber Hub To Protect Critical US Infrastructure Slashdotby msmash on usa at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at July 31, 2018, 10:34 pm)

The Department of Homeland Security announced on Tuesday the creation of a new center aimed at guarding the nation's banks, energy companies and other industries from major cyberattacks that could cripple critical infrastructure. From a report: The launch of the National Risk Management Center was unveiled by DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen at a government-hosted cyber summit in New York City, at which Vice President Mike Pence and several other cabinet secretaries are expected to speak. In prepared remarks, Ms. Nielsen said that cyber threats now posed a greater threat to the country than physical attacks. DHS was founded 15 years ago to prevent another Sept. 11, 2001, Ms. Nielsen said, but "today I believe the next major attack is more likely to reach us online than on an airplane." The center's creation was motivated by a growing recognition in government that sophisticated cyberattacks, particularly those deployed by foreign adversaries, can not only harm a company or industry but can cause systemic failure across society, Chris Krebs, DHS's top cyber official, said in an interview.

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[no title] Scripting News(cached at July 31, 2018, 10:33 pm)

Braintrust query: Looking for icons for Hoist and Dehoist. For a refresher on what hoisting is, watch this short video. The range of possible icons is what's in Font-Awesome. Here's the cheatsheet. I started an issue on the Scripting News repo, please post any suggestions you have.
Report Reveals Numerous Cases of Amazon Workers Being Treated in Ways That Leave The Slashdotby msmash on business at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at July 31, 2018, 9:35 pm)

Several readers have shared a report: Vickie Shannon Allen, 49, started working at Amazon as a counter in a fulfillment warehouse at Haslet, Texas, in May 2017. At first, like many employees, Allen was excited by the idea of working for one of the fastest growing corporations in the world. That feeling dissipated quickly after a few months. [...] Nor is Allen alone. A Guardian investigation has revealed numerous cases of Amazon workers suffering from workplace accidents or injuries in its gigantic warehouse system and being treated in ways that leave them homeless, unable to work or bereft of income. Allen's story began on 24 October last year when she injured her back counting goods on a workstation that was missing a brush guard, a piece of safety equipment meant to prevent products from falling onto the floor. She used a tote bin to try to compensate for the missing brush guard, and hurt her back while counting in an awkward position. The injury was the beginning of an ongoing ordeal she is still working to amend at Amazon. Over the course of a few weeks, Amazon's medical triage area gave her use of a heating pad to use on her back, while Amazon management sent her home each day without pay until Allen pushed for workers compensation. "I tried to work again, but I couldn't stretch my right arm out and I'm right-handed. So I was having a hard time keeping up. This went on for about three weeks," Allen said. Despite not getting paid, Allen was spending her own money to drive 60 miles one way to the warehouse each day just to be sent home. Once on workers compensation, Allen started going to physical therapy. In January 2018, she returned to work and injured herself again on the same workstation that still was not fixed.

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[no title] inessential.com(cached at July 31, 2018, 9:32 pm)

Nick Heer on The Bullshit Web:

The vast majority of these resources are not directly related to the information on the page, and I’m including advertising. Many of the scripts that were loaded are purely for surveillance purposes: self-hosted analytics, of which there are several examples; various third-party analytics firms like Salesforce, Chartbeat, and Optimizely; and social network sharing widgets. They churn through CPU cycles and cause my six-year-old computer to cry out in pain and fury. I’m not asking much of it; I have opened a text-based document on the web.

[no title] inessential.com(cached at July 31, 2018, 9:32 pm)

The Old Reader blog — Thanks, Google!:

It’s now clear that the demise of the Google Reader was first really loud warning that you can’t rely on a publicly traded, profit-driven Silicon Valley tech company to deliver content. There is no way that story ends well. They will feed you sponsored crap, undermine your democracy, or pull the rug out from under your feet entirely.

'Unreliable' Trump's talks offer worthless, Iranian officials say AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at July 31, 2018, 9:30 pm)

Politicians in Tehran express scepticism after US president offers to meet Iranian counterpart without 'preconditions'.
A lot at stake as Trump set for rally in Florida AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at July 31, 2018, 9:30 pm)

Political analysts say unlike recent rallies, often seen as victory tours, this one could prove vital to the US president and his party.
How an Ex-Cop Rigged McDonald's Monopoly Game and Stole Millions Slashdotby msmash on crime at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at July 31, 2018, 9:05 pm)

An anonymous reader shares a report: In August 22, 2001, Jerome Jacobson, director of security for a subcontracting company called Simon Marketing, was arrested along with eight co-conspirators for orchestrating a massive scheme to defraud McDonald's Monopoly promotion out of more than $24 million. Jeff Maysh of The Daily Beast tells the inside story in 8,800 words. Between 1989 and 2001, "Uncle Jerry" used his position as the head of the McDonald's Monopoly account to steal winning "pieces" worth between $10,000 and $1 million. He proceeded to gift the pieces to family members and a growing network of associates -- which included "mobsters, psychics, strip club owners, convicts, drug traffickers, and even a family of Mormons" -- in exchange for a cut of the laundered winnings. A former police officer known for his attention to detail, Jacobson was personally responsible for overseeing the printing of paper game pieces, cutting out the winning tickets, and transporting them to McDonald's packaging factories throughout the country. Read the full story here.

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Chromebooks Don't Suffer From Bad User Experiences Found on Windows and Mac Computer Slashdotby msmash on google at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at July 31, 2018, 8:35 pm)

Kevin C. Tofel, writing for About Chromebooks: Having worked for a Google Chrome Marketing team over an 18 month period, I never saw a project that aggressively goes after Windows and Mac computers like the one that was published today [Editor's note: the video is unlisted, but accessible]. [...] As someone who has used (and often still does use) other platforms, I can't really disagree with the point of this video. For too long, computer users have had to deal with cryptic errors, updates that can take hours to install and the dreaded blue screen of death / spinning beach ball. Granted, some of my personal experience with those issues was when I was in corporate IT for 15 years; that career ended for me (by choice) back in 2007. And clearly, all desktop / laptop platforms have improved since then. Even so, Google is highlighting the modern approach of Chromebooks with this short video and that's an important point.

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23,000 flee unrest-hit Nicaragua to seek asylum in Costa Rica AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at July 31, 2018, 8:30 pm)

UN's refugee agency says 200 asylum applications are being lodged daily by Nicaraguans in neighbouring Costa Rica.
Facebook Has Identified Ongoing Political Influence Campaign Slashdotby msmash on facebook at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at July 31, 2018, 7:35 pm)

Facebook is preparing to announce that it has identified a coordinated political influence campaign, with dozens of inauthentic accounts and pages that are believed to be engaging in political activity ahead of November's midterm elections, The New York Times reported Tuesday, citing three people briefed on the matter. From the report: In a series of briefings on Capitol Hill this week, the company told lawmakers that it detected the influence campaign as part of its investigations into election interference. It has been unable to tie the accounts to Russia, whose Internet Research Agency was at the center of an indictment earlier this year for interfering in the 2016 election, but company officials told Capitol Hill that Russia was possibly involved, according to two of the officials. Facebook is expected to announce its findings on Tuesday afternoon. The company has been working with the F.B.I. to investigate the activity. Like the Russian interference campaign in 2016, the recently detected campaign dealt with divisive social issues. Update: Facebook has confirmed the story, adding: Today we removed 32 Pages and accounts from Facebook and Instagram because they were involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior. This kind of behavior is not allowed on Facebook because we don't want people or organizations creating networks of accounts to mislead others about who they are, or what they're doing. We're still in the very early stages of our investigation and don't have all the facts -- including who may be behind this. But we are sharing what we know today given the connection between these bad actors and protests that are planned in Washington next week. We will update this post with more details when we have them, or if the facts we have change. It's clear that whoever set up these accounts went to much greater lengths to obscure their true identities than the Russian-based Internet Research Agency (IRA) has in the past. We believe this could be partly due to changes we've made over the last year to make this kind of abuse much harder.

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Google Bans Android Phones From Having Three or More Notches Slashdotby msmash on android at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at July 31, 2018, 7:35 pm)

Google is building official notch support into Android P, but it's laying out some ground rules first: two notches is the limit. From a report: In a blog post for developers yesterday, Android UI product manager Megan Potoski wrote that Google is working with device partners "to mandate a few requirements" for app compatibility purposes. Among those are limits on notches. The mandate says that Android P phones can't have "more than two cutouts on a device." Only one notch is allowed per side, and notches are only allowed on the top and bottom edges -- not the left and right.

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