Firefox To Warn When Saved Logins are Found in Data Breaches Slashdotby msmash on firefox at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at July 17, 2019, 11:55 pm)

Starting in Firefox 70, Mozilla aims to have the browser report when any of your saved logins were found in data breaches. This will be done through their partnership with the Have I Been Pwned data breach site. From a report: Mozilla is slowly integrating their independent Firefox Monitor service and the new Firefox Lockwise password manager directly into Firefox. Mozilla is also considering premium services based around these features in the future. As part of this integration, Firefox will scan the saved login names and passwords and see if they were exposed in a data breach listed on Have I been Pwned. If one is found, Firefox will alert the user and prompt them to change their password. This new feature will only work, though, for data breaches that exposed passwords and when the password was saved prior to an associated data breach.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

US: Prosecutors drop sex assault case against actor Kevin Spacey AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at July 17, 2019, 11:33 pm)

Prosecutors say they are dropping the criminal case 'due to an unavailability of the complaining witness'
US: Prosecutors drop sex assault case against actor Kevin Spacey AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at July 17, 2019, 11:33 pm)

Prosecutors say they are dropping the criminal case 'due to an unavailability of the complaining witness'
Delta, Alaska, and American Airlines Have All Been Sued Over Their Uniforms. Slashdotby msmash on medicine at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at July 17, 2019, 10:51 pm)

Rashes, blisters, and hair loss have all been reported. So has vomiting, migraines, and shortness of breath. All of these -- and more -- are symptoms reported by flight attendants after their airlines got new uniforms. But no one knows why. From a report: Delta is the latest airline to have flight attendants report health issues possibly related to their uniforms, and employees at the airline filed a lawsuit in May against the manufacturer, Lands' End. But flight attendants have been battling health issues that have appeared after an airline instituted new uniforms for years. And for years, airlines have said their uniforms are safe. Meanwhile, flight attendants and others are working to discover the cause of their symptoms and the identity and total number of chemicals present in their uniforms, all of which can be difficult to ascertain. Until the cause can be identified -- or until airlines start listening to employees and moving quickly after their complaints -- it's likely employees will continue to face symptoms. And it's likely that flight attendants will keep heading to court, where they've historically needed to go to get policy changed by their employers. The problem was first reported after employees at Alaska Airlines got new uniforms toward the end of 2010 and beginning of 2011. Flight attendants began to report rashes and eye irritation, and documented hives, blisters, and scaly patches, according to a 2012 National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) report looking into the issue. In 2013, flight attendants at Alaska Airlines filed a lawsuit against the manufacturer of the uniforms, Twin Hill, and the airline recalled the uniforms in 2014. In October 2016, Twin Hill won the lawsuit, with the court claiming there was no reliable evidence the injuries were caused by the uniforms.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

US kicks Turkey out of F-35 fighter jet programme AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at July 17, 2019, 10:38 pm)

The move comes after Ankara began accepting delivery of Russia's S-400 air defence system last week.
US House to vote on measures blocking Trump's Saudi arms sale AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at July 17, 2019, 10:37 pm)

House to join Senate in rejecting Trump's plan to bypass Congress to complete $8bn arms sale to Saudi Arabia and UAE.
Canada's failed populist: A cautionary tale AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at July 17, 2019, 10:36 pm)

The downfall of Ontario's provincial premier, Doug Ford, is a prime example of what happens when populism takes power.
The $20B Plan To Power Singapore With Australian Solar Slashdotby msmash on earth at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at July 17, 2019, 10:19 pm)

The desert outside Tennant Creek, deep in the Northern Territory, is not the most obvious place to build and transmit Singapore's future electricity supply. Though few in the southern states are yet to take notice, a group of Australian developers are betting that will change. From a report: If they are right, it could have far-reaching consequences for Australia's energy industry and what the country sells to the world. Known as Sun Cable, it is promised to be the world's largest solar farm. If developed as planned, a 10-gigawatt-capacity array of panels will be spread across 15,000 hectares and be backed by battery storage to ensure it can supply power around the clock. Overhead transmission lines will send electricity to Darwin and plug into the NT grid. But the bulk would be exported via a high-voltage direct-current submarine cable snaking through the Indonesian archipelago to Singapore. The developers say it will be able to provide one-fifth of the island city-state's electricity needs, replacing its increasingly expensive gas-fired power. After 18 months in development, the $20bn Sun Cable development had a quiet coming out party in the Top End three weeks ago at a series of events held to highlight the NT's solar potential. The idea has been embraced by the NT government and attracted the attention of the software billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes, who is considering involvement through his Grok Ventures private investment firm. The NT plan follows a similarly ambitious proposal for the Pilbara, where another group of developers are working on an even bigger wind and solar hybrid plant to power local industry and develop a green hydrogen manufacturing hub. On Friday, project developer Andrew Dickson announced the scale of the proposed Asian Renewable Energy Hub had grown by more than a third, from 11GW to 15GW. "To our knowledge, it's the largest wind-solar hybrid in the world," he says.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Brazil: Rio governor brands rise in police killings as 'normal' AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at July 17, 2019, 9:38 pm)

Surge in police killings in Rio de Janeiro state a consequence of 'confronting terrorists', Wilson Witzel says.
Brazil: Rio governor brands rise in police killings as 'normal' AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at July 17, 2019, 9:38 pm)

Surge in police killings in Rio de Janeiro state a consequence of 'confronting terrorists', Wilson Witzel says.
40 Years Later, Lessons From the Rise and Quick Decline of the First 'Killer App' Slashdotby msmash on software at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at July 17, 2019, 9:31 pm)

It was the first killer app, the spark for Apple's early success and a trigger for the broader PC boom that vaulted Microsoft to its central position in business computing. And within a few years, it was tech-industry roadkill. From a report: The story of VisiCalc, a humble spreadsheet program that set the tech world ablaze 40 years ago, has reverberated through the industry and still influences the decisions of executives, engineers and investors. Its lessons include the power of simplicity and the difficulty of building a hypergrowth company in a hypergrowth industry. Indeed, its lessons have been so internalized by today's tech titans that they have significantly inoculated themselves against that sort of tumultuous, competitive dynamism -- aka disruption. VisiCalc was unveiled on June 4, 1979, and shipped that October. Dan Bricklin first dreamed it up in a classroom at Harvard Business School -- the room now bears a plaque commemorating his idea -- and partnered with Bob Frankston, who coded VisiCalc and collaborated in its design. When users opened VisiCalc, they would see a character-based grid where numbers or text could be manipulated. It was handy for budgeting, financial projections, bookkeeping and making lists. Today it's instantly recognizable as a spreadsheet, as familiar to us as a blinking cursor, but at the time it was a novel idea that had to be experienced to be understood. Initially VisiCalc ran only on the Apple II, a then-revolutionary new personal computer and Apple's first major consumer product. While some Apple II models had just 4 kilobytes of RAM, VisiCalc demanded a whopping 32KB. (Even the cheapest of today's iPhones have tens of thousands of times as much RAM.) Further reading: VisiCalc Turns 25, Creators Interviewed (June, 2004).

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

40 Years Later, Lessons From the Rise and Quick Decline of the First 'Killer App' Slashdotby msmash on software at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at July 17, 2019, 9:31 pm)

It was the first killer app, the spark for Apple's early success and a trigger for the broader PC boom that vaulted Microsoft to its central position in business computing. And within a few years, it was tech-industry roadkill. From a report: The story of VisiCalc, a humble spreadsheet program that set the tech world ablaze 40 years ago, has reverberated through the industry and still influences the decisions of executives, engineers and investors. Its lessons include the power of simplicity and the difficulty of building a hypergrowth company in a hypergrowth industry. Indeed, its lessons have been so internalized by today's tech titans that they have significantly inoculated themselves against that sort of tumultuous, competitive dynamism -- aka disruption. VisiCalc was unveiled on June 4, 1979, and shipped that October. Dan Bricklin first dreamed it up in a classroom at Harvard Business School -- the room now bears a plaque commemorating his idea -- and partnered with Bob Frankston, who coded VisiCalc and collaborated in its design. When users opened VisiCalc, they would see a character-based grid where numbers or text could be manipulated. It was handy for budgeting, financial projections, bookkeeping and making lists. Today it's instantly recognizable as a spreadsheet, as familiar to us as a blinking cursor, but at the time it was a novel idea that had to be experienced to be understood. Initially VisiCalc ran only on the Apple II, a then-revolutionary new personal computer and Apple's first major consumer product. While some Apple II models had just 4 kilobytes of RAM, VisiCalc demanded a whopping 32KB. (Even the cheapest of today's iPhones have tens of thousands of times as much RAM.) Further reading: VisiCalc Turns 25, Creators Interviewed (June, 2004).

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

40 Years Later, Lessons From the Rise and Quick Decline of the First 'Killer App' Slashdotby msmash on software at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at July 17, 2019, 9:31 pm)

It was the first killer app, the spark for Apple's early success and a trigger for the broader PC boom that vaulted Microsoft to its central position in business computing. And within a few years, it was tech-industry roadkill. From a report: The story of VisiCalc, a humble spreadsheet program that set the tech world ablaze 40 years ago, has reverberated through the industry and still influences the decisions of executives, engineers and investors. Its lessons include the power of simplicity and the difficulty of building a hypergrowth company in a hypergrowth industry. Indeed, its lessons have been so internalized by today's tech titans that they have significantly inoculated themselves against that sort of tumultuous, competitive dynamism -- aka disruption. VisiCalc was unveiled on June 4, 1979, and shipped that October. Dan Bricklin first dreamed it up in a classroom at Harvard Business School -- the room now bears a plaque commemorating his idea -- and partnered with Bob Frankston, who coded VisiCalc and collaborated in its design. When users opened VisiCalc, they would see a character-based grid where numbers or text could be manipulated. It was handy for budgeting, financial projections, bookkeeping and making lists. Today it's instantly recognizable as a spreadsheet, as familiar to us as a blinking cursor, but at the time it was a novel idea that had to be experienced to be understood. Initially VisiCalc ran only on the Apple II, a then-revolutionary new personal computer and Apple's first major consumer product. While some Apple II models had just 4 kilobytes of RAM, VisiCalc demanded a whopping 32KB. (Even the cheapest of today's iPhones have tens of thousands of times as much RAM.) Further reading: VisiCalc Turns 25, Creators Interviewed (June, 2004).

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Egypt begins restoring King Tutankhamun's golden coffin AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at July 17, 2019, 9:06 pm)

Egyptian pharaoh's coffin and tomb's treasured collection to be displayed at the new Grand Egyptian Museum next year.
How Many Kinds of USB-C To USB-C Cables Are There? Slashdotby msmash on it at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at July 17, 2019, 8:55 pm)

From a blog post: Classic USB from the 1.1, 2.0, to 3.0 generations using USB-A and USB-B connectors have a really nice property in that cables were directional and plugs and receptacles were physically distinct to specify a different capability. A USB 3.0 capable USB-B plug was physically larger than a 2.0 plug and would not fit into a USB 2.0-only receptacle. For the end user, this meant that as long as they have a cable that would physically connect to both the host and the device, the system would function properly, as there is only ever one kind of cable that goes from one A plug to a particular flavor of B plug. Does the same hold for USB-C? Sadly, the answer is no. Cables with a USB-C plug on both ends (C-to-C), hitherto referred to as "USB-C cables", come in several varieties. Here they are, current as of the USB Type-C Specification 1.4 on June 2019: USB 2.0 rated at 3A, USB 2.0 rated at 5A, USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5gbps) rated at 3A, USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5gbps) rated at 5A, USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10gbps) rated at 3A, and USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10gpbs) rated at 5A. We have a matrix of 2 x 3, with 2 current rating levels (3A max current, or 5A max current), and 3 data speeds (480mbps, 5gbps, 10gpbs). Adding a bit more detail, cables 3-6, in fact, have 10 more wires that connect end-to-end compared to the USB 2.0 ones in order to handle SuperSpeed data rates. Cables 3-6 are called "Full-Featured Type-C Cables" in the spec, and the extra wires are actually required for more than just faster data speeds. "Full-Featured Type-C Cables" are required for the most common USB-C Alternate Mode used on PCs and many phones today, VESA DisplayPort Alternate Mode. VESA DP Alt mode requires most of the 10 extra wires present in a Full-Featured USB-C cable.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.