Innholdsfortegnelse for #493 i Techlife News

Preliminary results from two experiments suggest something could be wrong with the basic way physicists think the universe works, a prospect that has the field of particle physics both baffled and thrilled. The tiniest particles aren’t quite doing what is expected of them when spun around two different long-running experiments in the United States and Europe. The confounding results — if proven right — reveal major problems with the rulebook physicists use to describe and understand how the universe works at the subatomic level. Theoretical physicist Matthew McCullough of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, said untangling the mysteries could “take us beyond our current understanding of nature.” The rulebook, called the Standard Model, was developed about 50 years ago. Experiments performed over decades affirmed over and again that…

The president and auto industry maintain the nation is on the cusp of a gigantic shift to electric vehicles and away from liquid-fueled cars, but biofuels producers and some of their supporters in Congress aren’t buying it. They argue that now is the time to increase sales of ethanol and biodiesel, not abandon them. To help address climate change, President Joe Biden has proposed an infrastructure plan that includes billions of dollars to pay for 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations, electrify public vehicles and enhance the nation’s power grid. These moves follow initiatives in California and other states to mandate electric vehicle sales and a goal by General Motors to shift production fully to electric vehicles by 2035. Yet any shift from liquid-fueled cars to electric would be gradual, given…

The foundation of the case against the former Minneapolis police officer charged with killing George Floyd is a mountain of video evidence, but presenting that to jurors isn’t as easy as pushing play. Over and over, prosecutors have shown video from surveillance cameras, bystanders’ cellphones and police body and dash cameras, and have asked witnesses to annotate footage or photographs and narrate the action on screen. Large screens or projectors are fixtures of modern courtrooms, alongside software similar to PowerPoint designed for courtroom presentation of videos, photos and other evidence. But the quality of that technology and attorneys’ use of it varies. WHAT’S IN THE COURTROOM? The courtroom being used for Derek Chauvin ’s trial is the largest and only one in the Hennepin County courthouse equipped with the tools…

The executive who steered the transformation of Google’s self-driving car project into a separate company worth billions of dollars is stepping down after more than five years on the job. John Krafcik announced his departure as CEO of Waymo, a company spun out from Google, in a blog post that cited his desire to enjoy life as the world emerges from the pandemic. “I’m looking forward to a refresh period, reconnecting with old friends and family, and discovering new parts of the world,” Krafcik, 59, wrote. Two of Krafcik’s top lieutenants will replace him as co-CEOs. Dmitri Dolgov, who has been working on self-driving cars since Waymo began within Google in 2009, will focus on the technology for the autonomous vehicles. Tekedra Mawakana, a lawyer who had been Waymo’s chief…

The problems with U.S. broadband networks have been obvious for years. Service costs more than in many other rich nations, it still doesn’t reach tens of millions of Americans and the companies that provide it don’t face much competition. Now the Biden administration is promising to do something about all of those issues as part of its proposed $2.3 trillion infrastructure package. The plan, which would devote $100 billion to get all Americans connected, is more idea than policy and lacks a lot of important detail. But it sketches out a striking new vision of activist government measures intended to improve high-speed internet service, following decades in which the government has largely left the job to private companies. WHAT IS BIDEN’S PROPOSAL? It would spend $100 billion to “future-proof” broadband…

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s first Netflix series will center on the Invictus Games, which gives sick and injured military personnel and veterans the opportunity to compete in sports. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s Archewell Productions announced this week its first series to hit the streaming service. The multi-episode docuseries, titled “Heart of Invictus,” is in partnership with the Invictus Games Foundation, of which Prince Harry is a patron. Prince Harry will appear on camera and serve as executive producer on the series. In a statement, producers said the series “will follow a group of extraordinary competitors from around the globe, all service members who have suffered life-changing injuries or illnesses on their road to the Invictus Games The Hague 2020, now set to take place in 2022.” It…

Technology companies sighed with relief after the Supreme Court sided with Google in a copyright dispute with Oracle. The high court said Google did nothing wrong in copying code to develop the Android operating system now used on most smartphones. To create Android, which was released in 2007, Google wrote millions of lines of new computer code. It also used about 11,500 lines of code copyrighted as part of Oracle’s Java platform. Oracle had sued seeking billions. But the Supreme Court sided 6-2 with Google, describing the copying as “fair use.” The outcome is what most tech companies -- both large and small -- had been rooting for. Both Microsoft and IBM were among the industry heavyweights that had filed briefs backing Google in the case. They and others warned…

While major credit card issuers tightened lending standards and slashed credit limits amid COVID-19, some financial technology startups took a different tack. In 2020, young companies like Grow Credit, TomoCredit and Chime launched or expanded credit cards that are available to those with less-than-ideal credit — because they don’t run a credit check at all. Instead of relying on the traditional FICO credit scoring model, these “fintech” products can evaluate alternative factors like bank accounts and money management to determine eligibility. What’s more, these cards don’t feature annual fees or even APRs. It’s literally not possible to carry a balance on them. Here’s how this new breed of credit cards differs from traditional cards and why they’re easier to get, even in tough times. HOW STARTUPS CAN EVALUATE APPLICANTS DIFFERENTLY…

The findings reinforce concerns that differential privacy will lower the quality of the data used for redrawing congressional and legislative districts. They also suggest that the census figures won’t support efforts to protect the power of minority voters and comply with court rulings requiring districts to have equal population numbers. “Our preliminary findings reveal serious concerns about the impact of differential privacy as currently envisioned by the Bureau on our communities’ ability to attain our fair share of political power,” said the report by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, also known as MALDEF, and Asian Americans Advancing Justice’ AAJC. The report is the latest warning about the Census Bureau’s introduction of deliberate errors to protect privacy into the 2020 census data that will be used for redistricting…

Vote counting in the union push at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, is expected to start as early as Thursday, but hundreds of contested ballots could muddy the outcome if it’s a close race. The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which is organizing the Bessemer workers, said that 3,215 votes were sent in — about 55% of the nearly 6,000 workers who were eligible to vote. The union said hundreds of those votes were contested, mostly by Amazon, for various reasons such as the voter didn’t work there or doesn’t qualify to vote. The union would not specify how many votes were being contested. The National Labor Relations Board is conducting the vote count in Birmingham, Alabama. In order to determine a winner, the margin of victory must…

Americans are traveling in the greatest numbers in more than a year, and soon they will have two new leisure-oriented airlines to consider for those trips. Both hope to draw passengers by filling in smaller strands on the spider web of airline routes crisscrossing the United States. Avelo Airlines said Thursday that it will begin flying later this month to 11 destinations from Burbank, California. The startup plans to add other routes in the West as soon as it grows its fleet of three Boeing 737 jets. Avelo was started by a longtime airline executive who thinks there is room for another low-fare carrier besides the several budget airlines already in the market. “There are too few seats in the United States being offered by low-cost carriers. That’s why we…

After a year of spending more time at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many homeowners are looking for ways to make their homes fit their new realities. Open floor plans are out; dedicated spaces for remote work and learning are in. Yards are being transformed into entertainment spaces and walls are being repainted. At the same time, increased demand and safety concerns can make the remodeling process much longer than before. Here are five trends to watch for this 2021 home-remodeling season. A FOCUS ON DEDICATED SPACES At the start of 2020, “the most requested design concept was open space,” says Jimmy Dollman, principal of Dollman Construction in Roanoke, Virginia. “But now, we face a different set of design implications because everyone’s living conditions have changed.” Dollman notes that…

According to a new study from WhistleOut, the average consumer spends an eye-watering nine years of their lives looking at their smartphones, and that’s without mentioning the use of computers, televisions, and other devices that increasingly control our lives. As innovators look to the future, we could be headed for a world where “The Human Interface” takes over, replacing the screens, apps, and keyboards we’re used to with new, immersive experiences. INTRODUCING THE HUMAN INTERFACE Though we may have embraced a digital revolution over the past couple of years, the truth is that tech has a dark side, leading to stress, anxiety, the fear of missing out, and addiction, and as the past year, engulfed in health anxiety over the coronavirus pandemic and being forced to spend more time at…

Ever imagined what would have happened had the Cold War space race never ended? What would have happened if the Soviets had been the first power to have a successful landing on the Moon? Well, you needn’t trouble yourselves anymore, as Apple TV+’s For All Mankind tells you exactly that. The show, created by Ronald D. Moore, Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi, was a hit for Apple when its first season debuted in November 2019. Today, we are discussing the show’s ongoing second season and the information we know about the announced third season. The review site Rotten Tomatoes summarized the show in these words: “‘For All Mankind’ presents an aspirational world where NASA astronauts, engineers and their families find themselves in the center of extraordinary events seen through the…

George Bradley used to love watching the Academy Awards. The 28-year-old Brit now living in San Diego would stay up late back home just to tune in. Though he’s now in the right time zone, he’s just not interested, and that’s due primarily to the pandemic. “The rising dominance of the streaming services has taken the gloss off the Oscars for me,” he said. “You just don’t get the same warm fuzzy feeling from when you recognize a movie from the silver screen.” Whether you watch out of love, because you love to hate or have given up like Bradley, awards shows have suffered since the coronavirus shuttered theaters and shut down live performances. But the ratings slide for awards nights began well before Covid-19 took over. For much of…

South Korean electronics maker LG said this week it is getting out of its loss-making mobile phone business to focus on electric vehicle components, robotics, artificial intelligence and other products and services. LG’s board approved the shift in strategy and the company expects to fully exit the mobile phone business by the end of July, it said in a statement. LG was once the third-largest mobile phone maker but has lost market share to Chinese and other competitors. It was still No. 3 in North America, with a 13% market share behind Apple’s 39% and Samsung’s 30% as of the third-quarter of 2020, according to Counterpoint Technology Market Research. LG earlier said it was assessing its strategy as it reported that its sales rose 5% from a year earlier in…

A House subcommittee is investigating YouTube Kids, saying the Google-owned video service feeds children inappropriate material in “a wasteland of vapid, consumerist content” so it can serve them ads. The inquiry comes despite Google agreeing to pay $170 million in 2019 to settle allegations that YouTube collected personal data on children without their parents’ consent. In a letter sent this week to YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, the U.S. House Oversight and Reform subcommittee on economic and consumer policy said YouTube does not do enough to protect kids from material that could harm them. Instead it relies on artificial intelligence and creators’ self-regulation to decide what videos make it on to the platform, according to the letter from the committee’s chairman, Illinois Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi. And despite changes in the wake…

A top official at the European Medicines Agency says there’s a causal link between AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine and rare blood clots, but that it’s unclear what the connection is and that the benefits of taking the shot still outweigh the risks of getting COVID-19. Marco Cavaleri, head of health threats and vaccine strategy at the Amsterdam-based agency, told Rome’s Il Messaggero newspaper that the European Union’s medicines regulator is preparing to make a more definitive statement on the topic this week. Asked about Cavaleri’s comments, the EMA press office said its evaluation “has not yet reached a conclusion and the review is currently ongoing.” Based on the evidence so far, Cavaleri said there’s a clear association between the AstraZeneca vaccine and the dozens of rare blood clots that have been…

Netflix further beefed up its film catalog on Thursday in a multi-year deal that will make it the new streaming home to Sony Pictures’ top releases in the U.S. Beginning next year, Sony’s new films will exclusively stream domestically on Netflix after their theatrical runs. That includes movies in popular franchises like “Spider-Man,”“Venom” and “Jumanji,” and 2022 releases including “Morbius,”“Where the Crawdads Sing,” “Uncharted” and “Bullet Train.” The agreement also gives Netflix a first-look option on any films the Culver City, California-based studio elects to send directly to streaming. In a world of quickly proliferating streaming services, the deal — once the kind that would have typically gone to premium cable networks — is an anomaly. Sony is the only traditional Hollywood studios without a streaming service of its own.…

Japan’s Toshiba Corp. says it is considering a preliminary acquisition proposal that would take the technology conglomerate private. Toshiba said that it asked for more details on the proposal it received this week, was giving it “careful consideration” and would make an announcement “in due course.” Trading in the company’s shares was suspended. The major Japanese financial newspaper Nikkei reported CVC Capital Partners was looking into acquiring the company for 2 trillion yen ($18 billion). CVC is an international private equity and credit company, which has committed nearly $162 billion in funds, managing more than 300 investors. It declined to comment. It’s headquartered in Luxembourg, and its main office is in London, according to the company. Toshiba, founded in 1875, was long revered as one of Japan’s most respected brands,…

Good-paying jobs — many of them. That’s the seductive idea around which President Joe Biden is proposing a vast transformation of the energy sector, with the promise of making it far more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly. As Biden portrays it, his plan to invest in infrastructure — and accelerate a shift to renewable energy and electric vehicles, to more efficient homes and upgrades to the power grid — would produce jobs at least as good as the ones that might be lost in the process. His plans call for 100% renewable energy in the power sector by 2035. To people who have devoted careers to the the fossil fuel industries, those plans may look more like a dire threat. To the president, though, out-of-work oil workers could be shifted to…

Details from more than 500 million Facebook users have been found available on a website for hackers. The information appears to be several years old, but it is another example of the vast amount of information collected by Facebook and other social media sites, and the limits to how secure that information is. The availability of the data set was first reported by Business Insider. According to that publication, it has information from 106 countries including phone numbers, Facebook IDs, full names, locations, birthdates, and email addresses. Facebook has been grappling with data security issues for years. In 2018, the social media giant disabled a feature that allowed users to search for one another via phone number following revelations that the political firm Cambridge Analytica had accessed information on up…

It feels like a tale as old as time: Wayward teenage son meets up with estranged father, one needing some straightening out, the other some serious humanizing. Can they connect? But if that’s the familiar story at the heart of “Concrete Cowboy,” starring the appealing duo of Idris Elba and terrific newcomer Caleb McLaughlin, there’s much more here to contemplate. That’s because of the fascinating, very real-life world in which this predictable yet warm-hearted story takes place: the community of Black equestrians in North Philadelphia. Wait, what? Urban cowboys in the streets of Philly? That’s exactly the reaction 15-year-old Cole (McLaughlin) has after being transported from Detroit and dumped in the streets by his desperate Mom, who hopes Dad will set him right. Harp (Elba) is over at the stables,…

An electric version of the Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck will get an estimated 400 miles of range per charge, General Motors says. The company announced the range in a webcast this week and said the truck would be built at a factory straddling the border of Detroit and the enclave of Hamtramck. It also announced that the plant would build the new 2024 GMC Hummer SUV. The pickup announcement raises the level of competition for future buyers in the hot truck market. Ford already has announced plans to build an electric F-150 starting next year in Dearborn, Michigan, while Fiat Chrysler (now Stellantis) has said it plans to have an all-electric Ram pickup. GM would not say when the electric Silverado would arrive in dealerships, but the company plans to…

A piece of burning rocket debris seen streaking across the Pacific Northwest sky last week crashed on a farm in eastern Washington state, authorities said. After the March 25 event, a farmer discovered a nearly intact piece of rocket in a private field, The Tri-City Herald reported. The approximately 5-foot (1.5-meter) composite-overwrapped pressure vessel used for storing helium left a nearly 4-inch (10.16-centimeter) dent in the ground, Grant County sheriff’s spokesman Kyle Foreman said. No one was hurt, he said. The National Weather Service in Seattle has said the widely reported bright objects in the sky on March 25 were remnants of the second stage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket leaving comet-like trails as they burned up upon reentry to the Earth’s atmosphere. The farmer, who authorities said didn’t…

Sophia is a robot of many talents — she speaks, jokes, sings and even makes art. In March, she caused a stir in the art world when a digital work she created as part of a collaboration was sold at an auction for $688,888 in the form of a non-fungible token (NFT). The sale highlighted a growing frenzy in the NFT market, where people can buy ownership rights to digital content. NFTs each have a unique digital code saved on blockchain ledgers that allow anyone to verify the authenticity and ownership of items. David Hanson, CEO of Hong Kong-based Hanson Robotics and Sophia’s creator, has been developing robots for the past two and a half decades. He believes realistic-looking robots can connect with people and assist in industries such as…

Riders for the app-based meal delivery platform Deliveroo held a strike in London Wednesday over pay and working conditions, part of a broader backlash against one of the U.K.’s biggest gig economy companies. Scooter and bicycle delivery riders waving flags and red smoke flares rode through the streets of Central London. Socially distanced protests were also planned in York, Reading, Sheffield and Wolverhampton to demand fair pay, safety protections and basic workers’ rights. The Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain, which represents migrant and gig workers, expected hundreds of riders to take part. Deliveroo said that “this small self-appointed union does not represent the vast majority of riders who tell us they value the total flexibility they enjoy.” Rider surveys found most are happy with the company and flexibility was…