Innholdsfortegnelse for #513 i Techlife News

Some of the country’s leading technology companies have committed to investing billions of dollars to strengthen cybersecurity defenses and to train skilled workers, the White House announced Wednesday following President Joe Biden’s private meeting with top executives. The Washington gathering was held during a relentless stretch of ransomware attacks that have targeted critical infrastructure and major corporations, as well as other illicit cyber operations that U.S. authorities have linked to foreign hackers. The Biden administration has been urging the private sector to do its part to protect against those increasingly sophisticated attacks. In public remarks before the meeting, Biden referred to cybersecurity as a“core national security challenge”for the U.S. “The reality is most of our critical infrastructure is owned and operated by the private sector, and the federal government can’t…

A COVID-19 resurgence this summer has caused consumers to turn cautious, while investors trim their investments in a travel sector still struggling to recover. Retail sales dipped a surprising 1.1% in July as consumers spent less on clothing, furniture and sporting goods. At the same time investors have been retreating from cruise lines, airlines and other travel-related stocks as those companies face another potential stall in activity as cases of COVID-19 surged because of the highly contagious delta variant. The pullback in spending and investments in the travel sector mark an unwelcome reversal from growth through much of the year. Vaccinations seemed to be knocking down the virus, giving people more freedom to to shop at stores, eat out and plan trips after more than a year of hunkering down…

Walmart said it will start farming out its delivery service, using contract workers, autonomous vehicles and other means to transport rival retailers’ products directly to their customers’ homes as fast as just a few hours. The nation’s largest retailer said it will dispatch contract workers from its Spark delivery network, which was launched in 2018, to merchants’ stores to pick up items and then bring them to shoppers. Over the past year, Walmart has doubled Spark’s coverage to more than 500 cities nationwide, providing access to more than 20 million households. Walmart, which is based in Bentonville, Arkansas, aims to tap into its ties with local communities, particularly businesses in rural areas that have struggled to provide their own delivery services. The strategy will pit Walmart against delivery services run…

Drone pilots beware. Authorities at one of the nation’s top nuclear weapons laboratories issued a warning that airspace over Los Alamos National Laboratory is off limits. The birthplace of the atomic bomb, Los Alamos lab reported that recent unauthorized drone flights have been detected in restricted airspace in the area. Officials said if you fly a drone over the lab, you likely will lose it. “We can detect and track a UAS (unmanned aircraft system), and if it poses a threat, we have the ability to disrupt control of the system, seize or exercise control, confiscate or use reasonable force to disable, damage or destroy the UAS,”said Unica Viramontes, senior director of lab security. The lab would not release any specifics about how the system works, citing security protocols. They…

The only time Californians voted to recall a governor, they replaced him with a Hollywood megastar. This time, could it be a 29-year-old YouTube star who ends up leading the nation’s most populous state? It’s a very long shot, but Kevin Paffrath could conceivably win simply because he has some name recognition by virtue of the nearly 1.7 million followers of his video channel, where he dispenses financial advice. The other eight Democrats running are essentially unknowns. The Democratic field is filled with anonymous political neophytes because of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s successful strategy of discouraging any prominent Democrats from running in the Sept. 14 election. His goal was to make it an all-or-nothing proposition for voters — keep Newsom, or live with the consequences of picking a replacement with a…

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer proposed spending more than $1.5 billion in federal pandemic rescue funding to help boost the business climate, redevelop polluted sites and take steps such as accelerating the development of electric vehicle charging infrastructure. The proposals are the latest offered by the Democratic governor since Congress and President Joe Biden approved an unprecedented $6.5 billion in discretionary aid for the state, half of which can be allocated now. She and the Republican-led Legislature have not allotted any of the funds. Some could be negotiated as they work to finalize the next state budget before October, though much of it may not be approved until later. Under Whitmer’s plan, about $700 million would be used to redevelop brownfield properties, rehabilitate vacant buildings, prepare sites for business development, create more…

Personal information from students at a California college who requested a religious exemption from the COVID-19 vaccine has been posted online after an apparent data breach. The records from about 130 students at California State University, Chico were dumped on an anonymous internet message board, the Sacramento Bee reported. A commenter on the site linked to a spreadsheet with detailed explanations from students who had asked to be exempted from receiving the vaccine in order to attend the college. Student names and phone numbers were included in many of the entries. The original post provided tips on how to file a religious exemption to a COVID-19 vaccine mandate, according to the Bee. “State purely religious reasons only,” the anonymous tip read. “Do not mention anything else.” The CSU system requires…

Richard Barclay opens a metal drawer in archives of the Smithsonian Natural History Museum containing fossils that are nearly 100 million years old. Despite their age, these rocks aren’t fragile. The geologist and botanist handles them with casual ease, placing one in his palm for closer examination. Embedded in the ancient rock is a triangular leaf with rounded upper lobes. This leaf fell off a tree around the time that T-rex and triceratops roamed prehistoric forests, but the plant is instantly recognizable. “You can tell this is ginkgo, it’s a unique shape,” said Barclay. “It hasn’t changed much in many millions of years.” What’s also special about ginkgo trees is that their fossils often preserve actual plant material, not simply a leaf’s impression. And that thin sheet of organic matter…

At nearly every community meeting on firefighting efforts in the U.S. West, residents want to know why crews don’t simply put out the flames to save their homes and the valuable forests surrounding them. It’s not that simple, wildfire managers say, and the reasons are many, some of them decades in the making and tied to climate change. The cumulative result has been an increase in gigantic wildfires with extreme and unpredictable behavior threatening communities that in some instances didn’t exist a few decades ago. “How do we balance that risk to allow firefighters to be successful without transferring too much of that risk to the public?” said Evans Kuo, a “Type 1” incident commander assigned to the nation’s biggest and most dangerous wildfires. “I wish it wasn’t the case,…

Best Buy raised its sales outlook for the year after breezing past Wall Street expectations in the second quarter. The nation’s largest consumer electronics chain joined other major retailers including Walmart, Target and Macy’s in putting up banner numbers, suggesting that Americans have continued to be spend even as the delta variant spreads. Department store chain Nordstrom also upgraded its annual revenue outlook Tuesday after reporting fiscal second-quarter results that beat expectations. But shares of Seattle-based Nordstrom fell nearly 8%, or $2.86, to $34.95 in extended trading after it issued its quarterly report. Investors appeared disappointed with Nordstrom saying that its quarterly sales were still below the pre-pandemic 2019 period. There have been concerns that consumer spending, which drives 70% of U.S. economic activity, would begin to slow again as…

What is a COVID-19 vaccine passport, and do I need one? “Vaccine passports” are digital or paper documents that show you were vaccinated against COVID-19, and could help you get into a growing number of places. What they look like and why you might want one depend on where you live, but more private venues, workplaces and governments are requiring proof of vaccination in public settings. Europe and U.S. states like California and New York created official digital credentials that let you verify your COVID-19 immunization record and convert it into a scannable QR code you can pull up on your cellphone. Most places that require vaccination proof also accept simpler options, such as the paper card noting the dates of your shots from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control…

Waymo, the Google self-driving vehicle spinoff, is expanding its autonomous ride-hailing service to San Francisco. Selected “trusted tester” customers in the city by the bay will be able to hail a ride in self-driving Jaguar I-Pace electric vehicles, the company said. For now the vehicles will have human backup drivers on board. But at some point the company plans to run the vehicles without them like it now does in the Phoenix area. Waymo began the program last week with a few testers and is now expanding it, the company said. It would not say how many vehicles are involved or when it plans to pull the human backups. The approach is similar to what Waymo did in Phoenix when it started a limited ride-hailing service in 2017. The company…

For months, Gabrielle Walker had been looking for a part-time job. She applied to restaurant chains and retailers like Nando’s and Primark, and she scoured the job search site Indeed. Nothing. Then one day, Walker, a 19-year-old student at University College London, was scrolling through TikTok and stumbled on a video about an app called Stint. A face on the screen explained that Stint could help students earn money by working brief temporary stints at places like restaurants and bars that require little training or experience. Walker downloaded the app, took a 15-minute intro course and days later snagged a job polishing cutlery at a Michelin-star restaurant in London — for one day. Between May and June, she took on several other gigs, squeezing them into her class schedule where…

A Democratic senator said the U.S. Justice Department needs to look into whether the algorithm-powered police technologies it funds contribute to racial bias in law enforcement and lead to wrongful arrests. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, was responding to an investigation published about the possibility of bias in courtroom evidence produced by an algorithm-powered gunshot detection technology called ShotSpotter. The system, which can be funded by Justice Department grants, is used by law enforcement in more than 110 U.S. communities to detect gunfire and respond to crime scenes faster. “While there continues to be a national debate on policing in America, it’s become increasingly clear that algorithms and technologies used during investigations, like ShotSpotter, can further racial biases and increase the potential for sending innocent people to prison,” Wyden…

Rebecca Hall occupies nearly every fame of the elegant psychological thriller “ The Night House ” and you still leave wanting more of her and her character, Beth. It’s quite a feat even for someone as inherently compelling as Hall. For one, Beth not exactly likable. At least not in the traditional Hollywood sense of what constitutes a “likable” human woman. She is deeply skeptical, sarcastic and occasionally even hostile, telling uncomfortable truths and drinking herself into oblivion every night with brandy, which she says she doesn’t even really like. Whether or not she has these tendencies normally is moot, however, since this is not a normal moment for this protagonist. The week before we meet Beth, her husband of almost 15 years, Owen (Evan Jonigkeit), a handsome and muscled…

A few weeks into the new school year, growing numbers of U.S. districts have halted in-person learning or switched to hybrid models because of rapidly mounting coronavirus infections. More than 80 school districts or charter networks have closed or delayed in-person classes for at least one entire school in more than a dozen states. Others have sent home whole grade levels or asked half their students to stay home on hybrid schedules. The setbacks in mostly small, rural districts that were among the first to return dampen hopes for a sustained, widespread return to classrooms after two years of schooling disrupted by the pandemic. In Georgia, where in-person classes are on hold in more than 20 districts that started the school year without mask requirements, some superintendents say the virus…

The operator of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant said this week it plans to build an undersea tunnel so that massive amounts of treated but still radioactive water can be released into the ocean about 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) away from the plant to avoid interference with local fishing. The operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, said it hopes to start releasing the water in spring 2023. TEPCO says hundreds of storage tanks at the plant need to be removed to make room for facilities necessary for the plant’s decommissioning. An official in charge of the water discharge project, Junichi Matsumoto, said TEPCO will construct the undersea tunnel by drilling through bedrock in the seabed near its No. 5 reactor, which survived the meltdowns at the plant, to minimize…

Not long ago, anticipation was high that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell might begin to sketch out a plan this week for the Fed to start pulling back on its support for an economy that has been steadily strengthening. That was before COVID-19 cases began accelerating across the country. Now, the decision of how and when the Fed should begin dialing back its help for the economy has become a more complicated one. Yet in outlining his view of the economy and the threats it faces in a high-profile speech Friday, Powell may provide important clues to the timing of changes in the Fed’s ultra-low-interest rate policies. The big question has been when the Fed will begin to slow its purchases of Treasury and mortgage bonds. The Fed has been…

A Spanish judge in a decision cheered by environmentalists has put a halt to backup plans for the construction of a giant telescope in the Canary Islands — eliminating at least for now the primary alternative location to the preferred spot in Hawaii, where there have been protests against the telescope. Construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope, or TMT, on Hawaii’s tallest mountain, Mauna Kea, has been stalled by opponents who say the project will desecrate land held sacred to some Native Hawaiians. Telescope officials had selected the alternate location near an existing scientific research facility on the highest mountain of La Palma, one of the Spanish islands off the western African coast, in the Atlantic Ocean. But an administrative court in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the capital of the…

At its August AI Day event, Tesla founder Elon Musk made the next leap forward for mankind, announcing the firm was working on a prototype humanoid robot that could revolutionize the way we live. Designed to replace manual workers in dangerous, repetitive, and boring roles, the bot sets a new standard for 21st-century living. The future is coming. INTRODUCING THE TESLA BOT Although many were expecting Tesla’s AI Day event to focus on the artificial intelligence element of its self-driving cars, the company took a slightly different approach. Of course, there was news on upgrades to the Tesla operating system that would make driving your Model X even better, the star of the show was undoubtedly the announcement that the firm was working on a humanoid robot that could change…

TikTok users will soon be able to buy stuff directly through the short videos on the app — something they had only been able to do through ads until now. Canadian e-commerce company Shopify said this week that businesses will be able to add a shopping tab to their TikTok profiles to create a “mini-storefront” that links directly to their online store for checkout. The shopping tool, which is still being tested, is available to merchants in the U.S., the U.K. and Canada, and will roll out to more regions in the coming months. Shopify already had a deal with TikTok that let merchants create “shoppable” video ads that drive customers to online stores. ByteDance, the Beijing-based company that owns TikTok, already runs a thriving social media marketplace on Douyin,…

The county with jurisdiction over the Las Vegas Strip has joined a legal fight to try to collect what attorneys maintain could be be hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid hotel room taxes owed by more than 20 online travel companies. A lawsuit by Clark County echoes claims raised last year by two Las Vegas communications executives against online hotel booking services including Orbitz, Hotwire, Expedia, Travelocity, Priceline and Hotels.com. At stake are “hundreds of millions of dollars in room tax revenue that have been avoided by online travel companies for years and years,” Michael Cristalli, an attorney handling both cases, said. “The county made the determination that it’s in their best interest and the interest of the taxpayers of Nevada to pursue the deficient and continuing tax liability,”…

Just as surely as climate change is scarring the land and warming the seas, it is also flooding our movies. The planet’s imperiled future has been in the DNA of disaster movies like “The Day After Tomorrow” for years, of course. But lately, climate has taken a more leading role in films proliferating as quickly as ice caps are melting. This summer has seen the parched, Australian thriller “The Dry” (good movie, by the way) and “The Tomorrow War,” a time-traveling war movie that leads to an apocalyptic threat unlocked by thawing permafrost. In Lisa Joy’s “Reminiscence,” which debuts in theaters and on HBO Max on Friday, the first thing we see is water. The movie is set in a mostly submerged Miami in the near future, with canals flowing…

China’s Zhurong Mars rover is soldiering on after completing its initial program to explore the red planet and search for frozen water that could provide clues as to whether it once supported life. China’s National Space Administration said on its website that Zhurong completed its 90-day program on Aug. 15 and was in excellent technical condition and fully charged. It said it would continue to explore the area known as Utopia Planitia where it landed on May 14. Zhurong has been consistently sending back photos and data via the Tianwen-1 orbiter that crosses over it once a day. After the United States, China is the second country to land and sustainably operate a spacecraft on Mars, where days are 40 minutes longer than on Earth. At 1.85 meters (6 feet)…

The U.S. Department of Energy announced a new kind of climate observatory near the headwaters of the Colorado River that will help scientists better predict rain and snowfall in the U.S. West and determine how much of it will flow through the region. The multimillion-dollar effort led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory launches next week. The team has set up radar systems, balloons, cameras and other equipment in an area of Colorado where much of the water in the river originates as snow. More than 40 million people depend on the Colorado River. Alejandro Flores, an associate professor of hydrology at Boise State University, said the weather in mountainous areas is notoriously difficult to model and the observatory will be a “game changer.” “We have to think about the land…