Innholdsfortegnelse for #511 i Techlife News

Although SUVs dominate automotive sales, midsize sedans are still a practical choice given their roomy seating, respectable fuel economy and value. They’re also better able to provide sporty performance than a comparably priced SUV. A handful of automakers have recently come out with new performance-tuned sedans that have upgraded engines and more responsive handling to make driving fun. Experts have selected their five favorite models under $35,000. The vehicles are sorted by manufacturer’s suggested retail price, including destination and handling fees. 2021 MAZDA 6 The Mazda 6 doesn’t have a dedicated sport trim level; rather, it’s got a sporty demeanor in nearly every trim level. The responsive steering and stable handling make it fun to drive around turns. And even at a standstill, the 6 is attractive and sleek. Upper…

GENEVA (AP) — Human rights experts working with the United Nations on Thursday called on countries to pause the sale and transfer of spyware and other surveillance technology until they set rules governing its use, to ensure it won’t impinge upon human rights. The experts, speaking out in the wake of new Pegasus spyware revelations, expressed concern that “highly sophisticated intrusive tools are being used to monitor, intimidate and silence human rights defenders, journalists and political opponents” in some places, the U.N. human rights office said. “U.N. human rights experts today called on all states to impose a global moratorium on the sale and transfer of surveillance technology until they have put in place robust regulations that guarantee its use in compliance with international human rights standards,” it said in…

Going to the gym was always part of Kari Hamra’s routine until last year’s government-ordered shutdowns forced her to replace the workouts with daily rides on her Peloton stationary bike. That’s when she discovered something surprising — she did not miss the gym. At least not the driving back and forth, filling water bottles, changing clothes and most of all, taking time away from her husband and two boys. Now that her gym in Springfield, Missouri, is open again, she’s slowly returning. But finding a more convenient exercise schedule at home and seeing a surge of COVID-19 cases in her hometown this summer have her questioning how much she needs the gym. She figures that if there never had been a coronavirus outbreak “I would still be a gym rat.”…

The Senate’s $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan includes a $65 billion investment in broadband that the White House says will “deliver reliable, affordable, high-speed internet to every household.” It may not actually achieve that, but it’s a major step in that direction. The broadband funding is a “great down payment” on the Biden administration’s far-reaching goals of connecting all Americans and making internet more affordable, said Matt Wood, a broadband policy expert at the consumer advocacy group Free Press. Critically important is $14 billion aimed at helping low-income Americans pay for service. The “digital divide” — the persistent U.S. gap between the broadband haves and have-nots — became glaringly obvious during the pandemic as school, work and health care shifted online. Tens of millions either don’t have internet access or,…

Samsung is hoping cheaper but more durable versions of its foldable phones will broaden the appeal of a high-concept design that’s so far fizzled with consumers. The electronics giant launched its effort to turn things around with two new products designed to function as both a phone and, when unfolded outward on a hinge, a tablet. The larger Galaxy Fold3 boasts a 7.6-inch display when unfolded and will sell for $1,800, a 10% drop from last year’s model. The other device, the Galaxy Flip3, looks more like a flip phone, but can still be opened from its clamshell position into a 6.7-inch display. It will sell for $1,000, more than 25% below the price for last year’s original model. Besides the new phones, Samsung also unveiled its first smartwatches powered…

Want to find your inner Matt Damon and spend a year pretending you are isolated on Mars? NASA has a job for you. To prepare for eventually sending astronauts to Mars, NASA began taking applications for four people to live for a year in Mars Dune Alpha. That’s a 1,700-square-foot Martian habitat, created by a 3D-printer, and inside a building at Johnson Space Center in Houston. The paid volunteers will work a simulated Martian exploration mission complete with spacewalks, limited communications back home, restricted food and resources and equipment failures. NASA is planning three of these experiments with the first one starting in the fall next year. Food will all be ready-to-eat space food and at the moment there are no windows planned. Some plants will be grown, but not…

Why, for starters, is the Green Knight green? It’s a question that’s long vexed scholars of the 14th century chivalric romance “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.”The movie, like the epic poem, is full of mysteries, most of them unspoken. But the knight’s unlikely color — Why isn’t he a more typical knightly blue? — is a question voiced by the characters of David Lowery’s adaptation, “The Green Knight.” He’s green, answers Dev Patel’s Sir Gawain, because it’s the shade of rot. The Green Knight, as seen in Lowery’s enchanting Arthurian dream, is an imposing tree of a man, with a wispy beard of twigs and a wooden mane whose movements rustle with the sound of bended, creaking branches. (He’s played by a much-costumed Ralph Ineson.) Early in “The Green…

Before last year, a one-credit technology course for students pursuing master’s degrees in education at the University of Washington wasn’t seen as the program’s most relevant. Then COVID-19 hit, schools plunged into remote learning, and suddenly material from that course was being infused into others. “It’s become so relevant, and it’s staying that way,” said Anne Beitlers, who directs Washington’s master’s program for secondary education. “And nobody’s going to question that now.” Changes to standards and curricula happen slowly, but the pandemic is already leaving its fingerprints on the education of future teachers. Many U.S. educator preparation programs are incorporating more about digital tools, online instruction and mental and emotional wellness in their courses to reflect takeaways from the pandemic. While school system leaders are hoping to offer in-person instruction…

The U.N.-appointed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a new report Monday summarizing the latest authoritative scientific information about global warming. Here are five important takeaways. BLAMING HUMANS The report says almost all of the warming that has occurred since pre-industrial times was caused by the release of heat-trapping gases such as carbon dioxide and methane. Much of that is the result of humans burning fossil fuels — coal, oil, wood and natural gas. The authors say global temperatures have already risen by 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since the 19th century, reaching their highest in over 100,000 years, and only a fraction of that increase can have come from natural forces. PARIS GOALS Almost all countries have signed up to the 2015 Paris climate accord, which aims to…

Cybercriminals have breached Accenture in an apparent ransomware attack but the global consulting giant says the incident was immediately contained with no impact on it or its systems. The LockBit ransomware gang announced the attack Tuesday night on its dark web leak site, setting a deadline of Thursday evening for payment. Accenture said in a statement Wednesday that it had “identified irregular activity in one of our environments” and ”immediately contained the matter and isolated the affected servers.” It did not specify when the incident occurred — or acknowledge that it was ransomware. But the description of its response was consistent with ransomware. It said it had “fully restored our affected systems from back up. There was no impact on Accenture’s operations, or on our clients’ systems.” The Dublin-based company…

Declaring “victory” over Instagram after a controversial poster for his upcoming film was censored and then reinstated, Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar said Thursday that society must be alert to the power of algorithms in deciding what humans are permitted to see. “We have to be vigilant before the machines decide what we can and cannot do,” Almodóvar said after a poster for “Parallel Mothers” displaying a lactating nipple was removed by Instagram’s algorithm due to its ban on nudity. The social network has since apologized and backtracked after recognizing the “artistic context” of the image. Almodóvar, in an emailed statement, thanked thousands of Instagram users who kept re-uploading the image after it was removed. “You have succeeded in getting the minds behind the algorithm that decides what is or is…

Feta cheese was scarce in some stores earlier this year. The culprit? TikTok, where videos that showed an easy-to-make baked feta pasta recipe went viral. TikTok, launched in the U.S. in 2018, has become a force in the shopping world, influencing people to buy things they’ve seen on the app, from cheese to leggings. Now TikTok wants to capitalize on that power. It hired Sandie Hawkins last year, whose job as general manager is to make money for the company in North America. She works with brands directly, getting them to buy ads on the app, create TikTok videos and explain how they can use it to boost sales. In an interview, Hawkins talks about the difference between an influencer and a creator and why she ended up buying feta…

As software and other technologies get infused in more and more products, manufacturers are increasingly making those products difficult to repair, potentially costing business owners time and money. Makers of products ranging from smartphones to farm equipment can withhold repair tools and create software-based locks that prevent even simple updates, unless they’re done by a repair shop authorized by the company. That can cost independent repair shops valuable business and countless labor hours sourcing high quality parts from other vendors. Farmers can lose thousands waiting for authorized dealers to fix malfunctioning equipment. And consumers end up paying more for repairs -- or replacing items altogether that could have been fixed. “If we don’t address these problems, and let manufacturers dictate terms of what they allow for repairs, we really are…

In March 2017, Bill Spence got suddenly, catastrophically sick. A part of his pancreas died. His gall bladder failed. When he got to the emergency room, the doctors found kidney cancer. “Let’s see if you can make it 48 hours,” his doctor told him. Just a few weeks earlier, Mr. Spence, a cheerful tower of a man whose signature ponytail had been updated to a gray man bun, had walked into the Scrubgrass waste coal plant that he had just bought and hung a black pirate flag in the office. The coal plant was a pirate ship, he announced. “We sink or profit together.” The power plant and the mountains of waste coal that it burns were now in the hands of this group, not the large corporations and hedge…

Two spacecraft are set to swoop past Venus within hours of each other this week, using the maneuver to do a little bit of bonus science on the way to their main missions at the center of our solar system. The European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter probe, a cooperation with NASA, will swing around Venus early Monday, using the planet’s gravity to help put it on a course to observe the Sun’s poles. About 33 hours later, the European-Japanese spacecraft BepiColombo will get even closer to Venus in a maneuver designed to help it slow down sharply and safely steer into the orbit of Mercury in 2025. “Without the flyby, we would not be able to reach our target planet,” said Elsa Montagnon, the spacecraft operations manager for BepiColombo. “The…

Prices for U.S. consumers rose last month but at the slowest pace since February, a sign that Americans may gain some relief after four months of sharp increases that have imposed a financial burden on the nation’s households. Wednesday’s report from the Labor Department showed that consumer prices jumped 0.5% from June to July, down from the previous monthly increase of 0.9%. They have increased a substantial 5.4%, though, compared with a year earlier. Excluding volatile energy and food prices, so-called core inflation rose 4.3% in the past year, down slightly from 4.5% in June — the fastest pace since 1991. Americans continue to face higher costs, with the year-over-year inflation rate matching June’s increase as the largest annual jump since 2008. At the same time, some recent drivers of…

Google co-founder Larry Page has gained New Zealand residency, officials confirmed, stoking debate over whether extremely wealthy people can essentially buy access to the South Pacific country. Immigration New Zealand said Page first applied for residency in November under a special visa open to people with at least 10 million New Zealand dollars ($7 million) to invest. “As he was offshore at the time, his application was not able to be processed because of COVID-19 restrictions,” the agency said in a statement. “Once Mr. Page entered New Zealand, his application was able to be processed and it was approved on 4 February 2021.” Gaining New Zealand residency would not necessarily affect Page’s residency status in the U.S. or any other nations. New Zealand lawmakers confirmed that Page and his son…

Pre-pandemic, working from home was often considered a perk rather than a requirement. But once COVID-19 struck, many companies shifted to a remote-first work environment — a change that’s now permanent in some cases. Recent Gallup research data shows that, on average, 52% of all workers, including 72% of those in white-collar occupations and 14% in blue-collar occupations, performed their job remotely for all or part of the time from October 2020 to April 2021. And 83% of employers believe that going remote has been positive for their company, according to a January 2021 report by professional services firm PwC. While a remote-first structure can present some unique challenges, workplace performance experts encourage business owners to anticipate common pitfalls. “Focus on overcommunicating, and find ways to encourage people to work…

Facebook’s ownership of Giphy will hurt competition for animated images, U.K. regulators said Thursday, meaning the social network could ultimately be forced to unwind the deal if the provisional findings are confirmed. The Competition and Markets Authority said its investigation found the acquisition would hurt competition among social media platforms because there’s only one other big provider of GIFs, Google’s Tenor. Giphy’s library of short looping videos, or GIFs, are a popular tool for internet users sending messages or posting on social media. The deal will also reduce digital advertising competition by removing a potential rival from the market, the watchdog said. It started looking into the acquisition last year, shortly after Facebook announced its plan to acquire Giphy in a deal reportedly worth $400 million. The acquisition also faces…

With just over a month to go until Apple’s next annual hardware announcement, where the company typically premieres new iPhone and Apple Watches, the rumor mill has gone into overdrive. After a couple of fallow years, with few changes for Apple’s wearable, this year could spark a new health and fitness revolution with the introduction of glucose monitoring. THE HEALTH DEVICE YOU NEED Though it’s usually the iPhone that’s at the front and center of rumors and leaks, this year paints a different picture, with all eyes on the next-generation Apple Watch to rejuvenate the way we monitor our health and make positive changes. In recent years, Apple achieved the unthinkable by offering ECG monitoring on the wrist, alongside a whole host of activity and sleep tracking capabilities, and this…

What does Bitcoin have to do with roads and bridges? A lot right now in the U.S. Congress. One way lawmakers propose to pay for the $1 trillion infrastructure bill the Senate approved this week is by imposing tax-reporting requirements for cryptocurrency brokers, the way stockbrokers report their customers’sales to the IRS. It could open the way for tighter regulation of cryptocurrency — something the Biden administration is moving toward as it also pushes for tax compliance. The plan could raise about $28 billion in revenue over 10 years, congressional accountants estimate. The $28 billion could get stretched very quickly. Take bridges, for example. It would cost an estimated $25.6 billion to replace all the bridges in the country that are classified as structurally deficient, according to the Federal Highway…

The good news is that scientists have a better handle on asteroid Bennu’s whereabouts for the next 200 years. The bad news is that the space rock has a slightly greater chance of clobbering Earth than previously thought. But don’t be alarmed: Scientists reported that the odds are still quite low that Bennu will hit us in the next century. “We shouldn’t be worried about it too much,” said Davide Farnocchia, a scientist with NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who served as the study’s lead author. While the odds of a strike have risen from 1-in-2,700 to 1-in-1,750 over the next century or two, scientists now have a much better idea of Bennu’s path thanks to NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft, according…

In upside-down simulations, time loops and videogames turned inside out, a growing body of movies trade on the feeling of living in a false reality — of being a glitch in the matrix. Virtual realities turn real (“Ready Player One”), television sets peel away (“The Truman Show”), dream states don’t wake (“Inception”), arcade characters break free (“Wreck-It Ralph”). But if anyone was ever living a lie, Free City resident and banker Guy (Ryan Reynolds) is. Every day he picks a blue shirt and khakis from a closet neatly ordered with them. He orders the same coffee. He even, like Truman, has a cheery goodbye: “Don’t have a good day. Have a great day.” It’s the same thing over and over. But from the start, it’s obvious something is very far…

Lawyers acting on behalf of the U.S. government this week challenged a British judge’s decision to block the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to face espionage charges in the United States, arguing that assessments of Assange’s mental health should be reviewed. The British judge ruled in January that Assange was likely to kill himself if held under harsh U.S. prison conditions. The U.S. government is appealing. Clair Dobbin, a British lawyer who represented U.S. authorities during a High Court preliminary hearing on Wednesday, said that District Judge Vanessa Baraitser based her decision not to extradite Assange on a “predicted risk of suicide” rather than the risk at the time the matter was before her. Dobbin said both the ruling and the evaluations of psychiatrists needed to be scrutinized given…

Ready to go out on the town before summer ends? In parts of the U.S., you might have to carry your COVID-19 vaccine card or a digital copy to get into restaurants, bars, nightclubs and outdoor music festivals. After resisting the divisive concept of vaccine passports through most of the pandemic, a fast-growing number of private venues and some local officials are now requiring proof of immunization in public settings to reduce the spread of the highly transmissible delta variant of the coronavirus — and to assuage wary customers. It’s unlikely the U.S. will adopt a national mandate like the one in France, which this week began requiring people to show a QR code proving they have a special virus pass before they can enjoy restaurants and cafes or travel…