"Don a headset which places a sensor on the back of your head, and it'll detect your brainwaves which can then be translated into digital actions," writes Engadget. VentureBeat reports that NextMind "has started shipping its real-time brain computer interface Dev Kit for $399." The device translates brain signals into digital commands, allowing you to control computers, AR/VR headsets, and IoT devices (lights, TVs, music, games, and so on) with your visual attention. Paris-based NextMind is part of a growing number of startups building neural interfaces that rely on machine learning algorithms. There are invasive devices like the one from Elon Musk's Neuralink, which in August revealed a prototype showing readings from a pig's brain using a coin-shaped device implanted under the skull. There are also noninvasive devices like the electromyography wristband that translates neuromuscular signals into machine-interpretable commands from Ctrl-labs, which Facebook acquired in September 2019. NextMind is developing a noninvasive device — an electroencephalogram (EEG) worn on the back of your head, where your brain's visual cortex is located. When we spoke with NextMind CEO Sid Kouider last year, he promised the kits would begin shipping in Q2 2020. Then the pandemic hit. "We had about three, four months of delays due to COVID-19, but not more than that in terms of production," Kouider told VentureBeat. The company shipped "hundreds" of Dev Kits in November after producing its first thousand units. Another thousand units are set to be produced next month.

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Programming columnist Mike Melanson writes: As part of its involvement in the recently announced Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF), Google has penned a blog post outlining one of the first steps it will take as part of this group, with an attempt at finding critical open source projects. "Open source software (OSS) has long suffered from a 'tragedy of the commons' problem," they write. "Most organizations, large and small, make use of open source software every day to build modern products, but many OSS projects are struggling for the time, resources and attention they need." So as a way to address this problem, and help fund those projects that need funding, Google is releasing the Criticality Score project. The project gives projects a criticality score (a number between 0 and 1) that is "is derived from various project usage metrics" such as "a project's age, number of individual contributors and organizations involved, user involvement (in terms of new issue requests and updates), and a rough estimate of its dependencies using commit mentions." From there, you can also add your own metrics, if you see fit... Abhishek Arya, one of the project's creators, points out that the project is still in its initial phases and welcoming feedback on "any ideas on metrics we can use." Arya also notes that the project is currently limited to ranking open source projects hosted on GitHub, but "will be expanding to our source control system in the near future." "Though we have made some progress on this problem, we have not solved it and are eager for the community's help in refining these metrics to identify critical open source projects," the blog post announcing the project concludes.

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The nice thing about YouTube TV is its UI is sensible and powerful. You can see what's on all your top networks in realtime.

CNN reports: Virgin Galactic's supersonic rocket plane was scheduled to fire into the upper atmosphere Saturday, but after climbing more than 40,000 feet over New Mexico attached to its mothership, the space plane made an unexpected turn toward home rather than shooting skyward. The company confirmed that the space plane, which was carrying test pilots CJ Sturckow and Dave Mackay, safely landed. "The ignition sequence for the rocket motor did not complete," the company said via Twitter. "Vehicle and crew are in great shape. We have several motors ready at Spaceport America. We will check the vehicle and be back to flight soon." The root cause of the issue was not immediately clear... This mission was meant to be the third test flight of VSS Unity to exceed the 50-mile mark, which the US government considers to be the beginning outer space. CNN also reports that Virgin Galactic now has 600 customers "who so far have forked over between $200,000 to $250,000 each to reserve seats [for] their brief journey to the edge of space."

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Long-time Slashdot reader zoobab shares this update about the long-standing Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure, a Munich-based non-profit opposing ratification of a "Unified Patent Court" by Germany: The FFII is crowdfunding a constitutional complaint in Germany against the third attempt to impose software patents in Europe, calling on all software companies, independent software developers and FLOSS authors to donate. The Unitary Patent and its Court will promote patent trolls, without any appeal possible to the European Court of Justice, which won't be able to rule on patent law, and software patents in particular. The FFII also says that the proposed court system will be more expensive for small companies then the current national court system. The stakes are high — so the FFII writes that they're anticipating some tricky counter-maneuvering: Stopping the UPC in Germany will be enough to kill the UPC for the whole Europe... German government believe that they can ratify before the end of the year, as they consider the UK still a member of the EU till 31st December. The agenda of next votes have been designed on purpose to ratify the UPC before the end of the year. FFII expects dirty agenda and political hacks to declare the treaty "into force", dismiss "constitutional complaints", while the presence of UK is still problematic.

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Podcast. Spoilers, so beware. Two of my favorite movies: Amadeus and As Good As It Gets. Why? Because I identify with almost all the characters in some way. Such incredible story-telling. So much truth about our failure to understand our own struggles and beauty, try as hard as we can, and to accept the beauty in others. Also a short interruption as I got a spam call that I answered. I leave this kind of stuff in my podcasts.

Podcast. Spoilers, so beware. Two of my favorite movies: Amadeus and As Good As It Gets. Why? Because I identify with almost all the characters in some way. Such incredible story-telling. So much truth about our failure to understand our own struggles and beauty, try as hard as we can, and to accept the beauty in others. Also a short interruption as I got a spam call that I answered. I leave this kind of stuff in my podcasts.

Nick Arnett: "Conspiracy theories are driven by fear of accepting the idea that nobody is in control."

Nick Arnett: "Conspiracy theories are driven by fear of accepting the idea that nobody is in control."

CNN reports: If it wasn't abundantly clear that content is king, especially in the Covid-19 era, Disney hammered that point home Thursday when it previewed dozens of new series and movies for its Disney+ streaming service. And investors are loving it. Shares of Disney jumped 13% Friday to a new all-time high. The stock is now up more than 20% this year, an impressive feat given that the pandemic has wreaked havoc on Disney's theme park business and forced its movie studios to delay big releases in theaters. Investors are clearly betting that the streaming strength will offset any lingering weakness in other areas of the House of Mouse empire: Disney raised its forecast for subscriber growth and is upping prices for Disney+. Wall Street analysts rushed to upgrade Disney following Thursday's event. At least 13 analysts boosted their price targets on the stock Friday morning. While Disney initially predicted it would have 60-90 million subscribers by 2024, they're now predicting 230-260 million, CNN reported earlier this week. "The sheer scale of content announced on Thursday was a loud reminder to the rest of the streaming world that Disney+ had an amazing year, acting as a lifeboat to a company ravaged by coronavirus, and that Disney is fully committed to the future of streaming." Besides the two new Star Wars series announced this week, Disney also announced several new series based on Marvel comic book characters: "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" and "WandaVision" Samuel L. Jackson (as Nick Fury) in "Secret Invasion" Don Cheadle as War Machine in "Armor Wars" More Marvel-based shows about Hawkeye, Moon Knight, "Ironheart" Riri Williams, She Hulk, and Ms. Marvel A series of shorts titled "I Am Groot" and a "Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" Other newly-announced Disney+ shows include: A live action Pinocchio starring Tom Hanks A reboot of "The Mighty Ducks" starring Emilio Estevez

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The conventional wisdom that schools are safe may no longer be true because the concentration of virus in the environment now is much higher than it was.

The conventional wisdom that schools are safe may no longer be true because the concentration of virus in the environment now is much higher than it was.

Two of my favorite movies: Amadeus and As Good As It Gets. Why? Because I identify with almost all the characters in some way. Such incredible story-telling. So much truth about our failure to understand our own struggles and beauty, try as hard as we can, and to accept the beauty in others.

Three things your report must include:

1. What you did.
2. What you expected to happen.
3. What actually happened.

It may help to include a screen shot if it reveals something that is hard to communicate in words.

If you can access the JavaScript console, take pictures of any messages in red, or anothing else that sounds like an error message.

If you're using free software rememeber that any person who helps you is doing the work for free. Make it easy for them and they're more likely to help. And when it works, say thank you. For good karma.

Three things your report must include:

1. What you did.
2. What you expected to happen.
3. What actually happened.

It may help to include a screen shot if it reveals something that is hard to communicate in words.

If you can access the JavaScript console, take pictures of any messages in red, or anothing else that sounds like an error message.

If you're using free software rememeber that any person who helps you is doing the work for free. Make it easy for them and they're more likely to help. And when it works, say thank you. For good karma.