An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: This weekend, Intel released preliminary information on its newest laptop part -- the Xe Max discrete GPU, which functions alongside and in tandem with Tiger Lake's integrated Iris Xe GPU. We first heard about Xe Max at Acer's Next 2020 launch event, where it was listed as a part of the upcoming Swift 3x laptop -- which will only be available in China. The new GPU will also be available in the Asus VivoBook Flip TP470 and the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 2-in-1. During an extended product briefing, Intel stressed to us that the Xe Max beats Nvidia's entry-level MX 350 chipset in just about every conceivable metric. In another year, this would have been exciting -- but the Xe Max is only slated to appear in systems that feature Tiger Lake processors, whose Iris Xe integrated GPUs already handily outperform the Nvidia MX 350 in both Intel's tests and our own. The confusion here largely springs from mainstream consumer expectations of a GPU versus what Intel's doing with the Xe Max. Our GPU tests largely revolve around gaming, using 3DMark's well-known benchmark suite, which includes gaming, fps-focused tests such as Time Spy and Night Raid. Intel's expectations for the Xe Max instead revolve, almost entirely, around content creation with a side of machine learning and video encoding. Xe Max is, roughly speaking, the same 96 Execution Unit (EU) GPU to be found in the Tiger Lake i7-1185G7 CPU we've tested already this year -- the major difference, beyond not being on-die with the CPU, is a higher clock rate, dedicated RAM, and separate TDP budget. Tiger Lake's Iris Xe has a peak clock rate of 1.35GHz, and it shares the CPU's TDP constraints. Iris Xe Max has its own 25W TDP and a higher peak clock rate of 1.65GHz. It also has its own 4GiB of dedicated RAM -- though that RAM is the same LPDDR4X-4266 that Tiger Lake itself uses, which is something of a first for discrete graphics and might lead to better power efficiency.

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California voters approved on Tuesday a ballot measure designed to beef up consumer privacy protections, according to unofficial returns published by the state's secretary of state. From a report: Proponents of the measure, known as Proposition 24, say the initiative would close a loophole in the state's current privacy law that lets major tech companies continue to target ads with user data, even when users opt out. The proposition is the brainchild of Alastair Mactaggart and Californians for Consumer Privacy, his advocacy group. "We are at the beginning of a journey that will profoundly shape the fabric of our society by redefining who is in control of our most personal information and putting consumers back in charge of their own data," Mactaggart said in a statement Wednesday. The proposition's success will let consumers opt out of data collection in a powerful way, Mactaggart said in an interview, supporting companies with business models that don't require data collection to turn a profit. Those businesses will "feast on the companies whose model is pervasive tracking," Mactaggart said.

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Massachusetts overwhelmingly voted to extend its automobile right to repair law, in a huge win for consumers. From a report: Question 1 was the most expensive measure battle in Massachusetts history with the auto industry (and independent repair companies) spending tens of millions of dollars lobbying, according to the Boston Globe. The measure is an essential win for independent mechanics, auto-repair shops, and consumers, as it will require car manufacturers to continue to make diagnostic tools available for years to come. Under the law, car manufacturers will be required to use an open-data system in cars using telematics. This means mechanics will have access to wirelessly sent repair data -- whether they are associated with an official car dealership or an independent shop. While cars currently use a wired connection for diagnostics, there was concern among independent repair professionals that car manufacturers would switch to a wireless system in order to circumvent a 2012 right to repair law that required car dealers make wired repair codes universal. As new car models are produced in coming years, the thought is many will ditch physical diagnostic ports and instead, cars will wirelessly send repair information. Tuesday's ballot measure closes a loophole in the 2012 law that would have exempted wireless diagnostics from the law. Right to repair advocates have hailed the measure. iFixit's Kevin Purdy wrote of the significance of the vote, "that means that independent repair shops will have a level playing field with car makers and dealerships, which have turned increasingly to locked-down wirelessly collected repair data, or telematics. Car owners, too, will be able to see their cars' maintenance information through a smartphone app. And it opens the door for innovations, like wireless diagnostic apps for iOS and Android."

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Nikon has at last released software that turns your fancy DSLR or mirrorless camera into a high-end webcam. From a report: Other major camera makers have rolled out similar tools in the last several months, as video calls became much more prevalent amid stay-at-home measures to combat COVID-19. The free Webcam Utility Software is available in beta for both Windows 10 and macOS. Along with video conference calls, Nikon suggests you can use a mirrorless camera or DLSR for livestreaming as well, just in case you've had designs on becoming a Twitch superstar.

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schwit1 writes: The coronavirus was first reported to have originated at an animal market in Wuhan, China, however numerous observers have already questioned this account of the virus's origins. Among other issues, the original host animal -- a species of bat -- was not sold at the particular animal market, and the city of Wuhan is home to virology labs where coronaviruses were studied. While an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus could help prevent future pandemics, China is not allowing the W.H.O. to conduct an independent probe of the matter, according to internal documents and interviews by the New York Times. "It was an absolute whitewash," Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University, told the Times regarding the agency's investigation. "But the answer was, that was the best they could negotiate with Xi Jinping." The Trump administration has reacted furiously to China's failure to prevent the coronavirus from spreading. President Trump has moved to cut U.S. funding to the W.H.O., blaming the organization for parroting Chinese propaganda regarding the country's response.

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Today, researchers are announcing they've solved one of the questions that's been nagging them over the past decade: what exactly produces the weird phenomena known as fast radio bursts (FRBs)? From a report: As their name implies, FRBs involve a sudden blast of radio-frequency radiation that lasts just a few microseconds. We didn't even know that FRBs existed until 2007 but have since cataloged hundreds of them; some come from sources that repeatedly emit them, while others seem to burst once and go silent. Obviously, you can produce this sort of sudden surge of energy by destroying something. But the existence of repeating sources suggests that at least some of them are produced by an object that survives the event. That's led to a focus on compact objects, like neutron stars and black holes, with a class of neutron stars called magnetars being viewed very suspiciously. Those suspicions have now been borne out, as astronomers have watched a magnetar in our own galaxy sending out an FRB at the same time it emitted pulses of high-energy gamma rays. This doesn't answer all our questions, as we're still not sure how the FRBs are produced or why only some of the gamma-ray outbursts from this magnetar are associated with FRBs. But the confirmation will give us a chance to look more carefully at the extreme physics of magnetars as we try to understand what's going on.

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The Biden/Harris folks probably won't say this, but rallies make for better television if you don't mind killing hundreds of rally-goers, and making thousands sick. Bake that into the Republican numbers.

An anonymous reader shares a report: While the commercial airline industry has been largely grounded following various global lockdowns -- with outbound international travel from the UK set to be banned on Thursday -- private aviation has soared among new customers. Many of them are families. Once the preserve of millionaires and A-listers, business planes have been taken up by holidaying households looking to make quick, Covid-secure getaways. "We've flown more families than ever," explains Adam Twidell, CEO of jet booker PrivateFly. "Those who can afford have thought, 'This is the time to use wealth to travel safely.'" Despite aviation's ongoing gloom, Twidell says that PrivateFly is actually up over this time last year. Much of that has been driven by family bookings over the summer holidays, with 20 per cent of all passengers being children. The fresh influx of jet-setting customers has also included the 'pet set.' Recent animals on board PrivateFly planes have included dogs, parrots and snakes -- while one recent flight saw a family fly with 13 cats. "Those who might have gone on holiday with friends are now doing so with extended family," Twidell says. It was in March, as most of the planet went into lockdown, that private aviation boomed. As more and more commercial airliners ceased routes around the world, families began booking business planes to rush them home. Alain Leboursier, managing director of Swiss charter LunaJets, says that such repatriation missions meant business tripled. "Our best period of the last decade came in the final ten days of March. We had flights around the world taking people home." With the new lockdown imminent, and much of Europe effectively closing its borders, Leboursier believes there'll be a further spike in demand. "However, it won't be as dramatic as what we saw in spring because local lockdowns and restrictions aren't as strict." But any surge in numbers will be very welcome in business aviation. "Usually, between September and Christmas, it's just corporate flights," adds Leboursier. "Those clients aren't flying at all now."

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BTW, I accidentially typed the year as 2o2o, and I kind of like it. Another of my mottos. People think I'm creative but I'm just hard of hearing. Now the same goes for typos.

Funny thing, James Carville, who I love, has now been wrong about the last two elections. In 2018 he said it wouldn't result in Dem control of the House, and it did. And this time he predicted 2020 would be a landslide for the Dems, and unless some mistake has been made, not so.

Trump probably impressed the rest of the Republican Party by turning out so many voters, and keeping Congress competitive, even if he did have to spread a lot of virus to do it (please don't forget that, these votes cost a lot of human lives and health). They probably won't run away him so fast even if he doesn't win.

Video: Hitler learns he can't stop vote counting.

More than 23,000 hacked databases have been made available for download on several hacking forums and Telegram channels in what threat intel analysts are calling the biggest leak of its kind. From a report: The database collection is said to have originated from Cit0Day.in, a private service advertised on hacking forums to other cybercriminals. Cit0day operated by collecting hacked databases and then providing access to usernames, emails, addresses, and even cleartext passwords to other hackers for a daily or monthly fee. Cybercriminals would then use the site to identify possible passwords for targeted users and then attempt to breach their accounts at other, more high-profile sites. The idea behind the site isn't unique, and Cit0Day could be considered a reincarnation of similar "data breach index" services such as LeakedSource and WeLeakInfo, both taken down by authorities in 2018 and 2020, respectively.

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A new BingeWorthy feature.

Pull down the menu and choose Similar users. A window opens with a list of users who have tastes similar to yours, ranked by how close they are. From there, you can click on the names to see their ratings.

You may get ideas for new binges from this, or may find people you know who have similar tastes. At least you'll have something to talk about next time you get together. :-)

If you have questions or comments, please post them here. The number crunching code was written by my very generous friend Andrew Shell.

NASA has formally commented on a request by a US company to build a mega-constellation of satellites at an altitude of 720km above the Earth's surface, citing concerns about collisions. From a report: This appears to be the first time that NASA has publicly commented on such an application for market access, which is pending before the Federal Communications Commission. "NASA submits this letter during the public comment period for the purpose of providing a better understanding of NASA's concerns with respect to its assets on-orbit, to further mitigate the risks of collisions for the mutual benefit of all involved," wrote Samantha Fonder, an engineer for the space agency. At issue are plans put forth by AST & Science, which intends to build a constellation of more than 240 large satellites, essentially deploying "cell towers" in space to provide 4G and possibly 5G broadband connection directly to cell phones on Earth. The company, based in Midland, Texas, calls its constellation "SpaceMobile" and has raised an estimated $120 million.

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