An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: We seem to be on the cusp of a revolution in storage. Various technologies have been demonstrated that have speed approaching that of current RAM chips but can hold on to the memory when the power shuts off -- all without the long-term degradation that flash experiences. Some of these, like phase-change memory and Intel's Optane, have even made it to market. But, so far at least, issues with price and capacity have kept them from widespread adoption. But that hasn't discouraged researchers from continuing to look for the next greatest thing. In this week's edition, a joint NIST-Purdue University team has used a material that can form atomically thin sheets to make a new form of resistance-based memory. This material can be written in nanoseconds and hold on to that memory without power. The memory appears to work via a fundamentally different mechanism from previous resistance-RAM technologies, but there's a small hitch: we're not actually sure how it works. The two mechanisms used to change the resistance have been reported in the journal Nature Materials.

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New header image, focuses on Donna Reed from It's a Wonderful Life, replaces a picture of a burning log in a fireplace.

The consensus choice for crash reporters is PLCrashReporter. It’s solid work.

So I went to add it to NetNewsWire, and here’s what happened:

Because of Apple’s new app notarization service, I needed to have PLCrashReporter get built along with the rest of the app — this way I could turn on the required “hardened runtime” setting. (Correct me if I’m wrong about this!)

But when I tried to build it there were a bunch of deprecation warnings (OSSpinLock, for instance) — and, since I treat all warnings as errors, it wouldn’t build. (I could turn that off, but I won’t.)

So I forked PLCrashReporter with the idea of fixing those errors myself, but then ran into territory I’m not familiar with and not confident about, so I stopped and deleted my fork.

So…

I thought some more about it, and did some research, and I learned that crash logs are still written to disk. This means I could use the crash log catcher I used to use in NetNewsWire 3 and NetNewsWire Lite 4.

The way it works: at launch time it looks for a crash log in the appropriate folder, and if the most recent crash log has not been seen before, then it prompts the user to send it it in. (A window appears with the text of the crash log, a place to add more info, and some buttons — send or don’t-send.)

This isn’t as slick as an in-process crash catcher — but this system worked for me for years. And it means one less dependency, and it means code I fully understand and control.

It’s a few dozen lines of code compared to adding an entire framework. So that’s what I’m doing.

The code

The code isn’t complete yet, but here’s the start. (And here’s the code from NetNewsWire Lite 4.)

I think this is the first time that I’ve looked back to old NetNewsWire code. I’m rewriting it in Swift, but using the same logic.

Important note: this code will not be part of the Mac App Store build. For that build, for better or worse, I’ll rely on Apple collecting and reporting crash logs. This crash reporter is just for the non-MAS build.

PS The crash catcher that appeared in earlier versions of NetNewsWire itself had a crashing bug (briefly): it would crash if there were no crash logs found! Which was self-healing — because once there was a crash log it wouldn’t crash any more. This remains my favorite bug ever. :)

PPS Shoutout to Uli Kusterer — my code was originally based on his UKCrashReporter.

How the West's dealing with perceived threats of a post-9/11 world affects young people vulnerable to radicalisation.

An anonymous reader shares a report: If you often find yourself needing to remove the backgrounds from photos but don't have the time to manually do it, you might want to bookmark Remove.bg. It's a simple free website that automatically removes the backgrounds from photos in just 5 seconds with a single click. Simply use the button on the homepage to select a photo from your computer (or you can also enter a photo's URL on the Web). The website then processes the photo and shows the result in moments. Under the result is a button that lets you download it as a PNG image with a transparent background.

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Announcement comes weeks after Riyadh sought to block the piracy case, citing 'national security concerns'.

Individuals who own the devices will have 90 days from the date the rule is published to surrender or destroy them.

Even if you explicitly tell Facebook to not track your location, it says it will still use your IP address to track your location. Kashmir Hill, reporting for Gizmodo: Aleksandra Korolova has turned off Facebook's access to her location in every way that she can. She has turned off location history in the Facebook app and told her iPhone that she "Never" wants the app to get her location. She doesn't "check-in" to places and doesn't list her current city on her profile. Despite all this, she constantly sees location-based ads on Facebook. She sees ads targeted at "people who live near Santa Monica" (where she lives) and at "people who live or were recently near Los Angeles" (where she works as an assistant professor at the University of Southern California). When she traveled to Glacier National Park, she saw an ad for activities in Montana, and when she went on a work trip to Cambridge, Massachusetts, she saw an ad for a ceramics school there. Facebook was continuing to track Korolova's location for ads despite her signaling in all the ways that she could that she didn't want Facebook doing that. [...] "There is no way for people to opt out of using location for ads entirely," said a Facebook spokesperson by email. "We use city and zip level location which we collect from IP addresses and other information such as check-ins and current city from your profile to ensure we are providing people with a good service -- from ensuring they see Facebook in the right language, to making sure that they are shown nearby events and ads for businesses that are local to them."

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But the trio and UN fail to agree on the makeup of a Syrian constitutional committee amid calls to convene next year.

Google has listened to user feedback and is currently testing a feature that will let G Suite users invite non-Google account holders to view, comment, suggest edits, and even directly edit Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides files. From a report: This wasn't possible until now, and G Suite users could only share documents and request feedback from users that owned a Google account. The way this new feature will work is via PINs (Personal Identification Numbers). Google said that G Suite users would be able to invite a non-Google user to view or edit a document via email. The said email would contain a link to the shared document. Non-Google users will be able to access the link and request an PIN that it would be delivered via a second email. Once they enter the PIN code, users can then view or edit the shared file -based on the assigned permissions.

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London's Metropolitan Police is testing its facial recognition technology in the capital this week. From a report: It's the seventh time the Metropolitan Police, the UK capital's police force, has trialled facial recognition in public. The technology has previously been used at large events, including Notting Hill Carnival in 2016 and 2017, and Remembrance Day services last year. This year, the technology is being used Monday and Tuesday of this week in Soho, Piccadilly Circus, and Leicester Square -- all major shopping areas in the heart of the city. Cameras are fixed to lampposts or deployed on vans, and use software developed by Japanese firm NEC to measure the structure of passing faces. This scan is then compared to a database of police mugshots. The Met says a match via the software will prompt officers to examine the individual and decide whether or not to stop them. Posters will inform the public they're liable to be scanned while walking in certain areas, and the Met says anyone declining to be scanned "will not be viewed as suspicious."

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Judge delay sentencing of Trump's former national security adviser to ensure he cooperates fully with Mueller.

UN-brokered ceasefire begins in the besieged port city of Hodeidah, but what are the chances of a lasting settlement?

In a courtroom, the pros play an important role. But the jury and the defendant are the principals. Never forget that. If journalism is a civic act, it must involve the people in a similar way. As the principals.

The thing that I like about Facebook is that it theoretically gives me equal voice to Walt Mossberg. And to his credit, he often read things I wrote on Facebook. OTOH, when he quits FB it merits an article in the NYT. So he lives in a different media world than the rest of us.