Miscellaneous Tech News
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Facebook Oversight Board reveals its first cases
Facebook's Oversight Board has chosen its first batch of cases to review.
All involve decisions originally made by the platform to remove user content. They include images of female breasts in a post about breast cancer, and an image of a dead child alongside text about whether retaliation was justified against China for its treatment of Uighur Muslims. The board said Facebook users had submitted 20,000 suggested incidents for review since October 2020. The arbitration body is inviting the public to comment on the cases - which have all been anonymised - over the next seven days. -
Amazon's Panorama box lets firms check if staff follow coronavirus rules
Amazon plans to sell companies a way to detect when staff are not wearing face masks or socially distancing.
Beyond the pandemic, the system could also be used to track compliance of other workplace rules or to monitor the public - for example, to check the number of customers queuing in a store. It involves retrofitting a box to existing security cameras that can then draw on off-the-shelf AI apps. But privacy campaigners have raised concerns.Remote working has already led to an increase in the use of software that checks up on employees, but Amazon's new solution is focused on tracking people and products in factories, shops and other traditional workplaces. -
Future Zoom users will be able to smell the virtual coffee
People in video meetings will, in future, be able to feel their hands being shaken and smell coffee in their virtual space, the founder and CEO of Zoom has predicted.
Eric Yuan was speaking at the Web Summit tech conference. Mr Yuan said he believed artificial intelligence would bring a physical aspect to virtual meetings. He also said he thought many workers would not return full-time to the office after the pandemic. Unsurprisingly perhaps, he argued that video meetings were here to stay, stating that the pandemic had demonstrated that "it works" - despite Zoom's share value plunging following the first announcement about Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine. He said that for office-based staff, coming in for maybe two days a week could become the norm. "The world will become a hybrid [workplace], and I think that's a world we have to embrace," he said. -
@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Future Zoom users will be able to smell the virtual coffee
People in video meetings will, in future, be able to feel their hands being shaken and smell coffee in their virtual space, the founder and CEO of Zoom has predicted.
Eric Yuan was speaking at the Web Summit tech conference. Mr Yuan said he believed artificial intelligence would bring a physical aspect to virtual meetings. He also said he thought many workers would not return full-time to the office after the pandemic. Unsurprisingly perhaps, he argued that video meetings were here to stay, stating that the pandemic had demonstrated that "it works" - despite Zoom's share value plunging following the first announcement about Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine. He said that for office-based staff, coming in for maybe two days a week could become the norm. "The world will become a hybrid [workplace], and I think that's a world we have to embrace," he said.this tech was offered a good 15 years ago. Didn't catch on.
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Timnit Gebru: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher
Hundreds of Google staff have signed a letter backing a leading AI ethics researcher who was sacked by Google.
Timnit Gebru says she was fired after sending an internal email that accused Google of "silencing marginalised voices". Hundreds of colleagues have signed a letter accusing the search giant of racism and censorship, while Twitter users have rallied around Dr Gebru using the hashtag #BelieveBlackWomen. Google disputes her version of events. Dr Gebru is a well-respected researcher in the field of ethics and the use of artificial intelligence. She is well-known for her work on racial bias in technology such as facial recognition, and has criticised systems that fail to recognise black faces. -
@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Timnit Gebru: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher
Hundreds of Google staff have signed a letter backing a leading AI ethics researcher who was sacked by Google.
Timnit Gebru says she was fired after sending an internal email that accused Google of "silencing marginalised voices". Hundreds of colleagues have signed a letter accusing the search giant of racism and censorship, while Twitter users have rallied around Dr Gebru using the hashtag #BelieveBlackWomen. Google disputes her version of events. Dr Gebru is a well-respected researcher in the field of ethics and the use of artificial intelligence. She is well-known for her work on racial bias in technology such as facial recognition, and has criticised systems that fail to recognise black faces.Honestly, I read what she wrote and while, all by itself, it might not be enough to get someone fired, she didn't come across as someone you'd be happy having employed and didn't seem to like being there. Personally I think it's absolutely insane to be willing to work at Google ever, given what we know about their hiring processes, so she's already someone I'd not be willing to hire as she voluntarily wanted to be in a toxic culture (Google makes good stuff, but it's one shit show of a place to work and quite the black mark on your resume culturally speaking), so I'm not surprised that she hated the culture. But like... this goes both ways. Something drove her to seek that environment (the hiring process is itself toxic) and stay there, and want to stay there and just seemingly add to the toxicity.
Basically, it seems like BS.
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School photo is viral internet meme, Adrian Smith finds
Adrian Smith was shocked to find that a photo of him as an eight-year-old had become an internet meme.
He stumbled upon the picture on Instagram, but it had come from a Tumblr blog in which his image was being used as the stepson of a fictional "teenage stepdad". He said he was amused by it, but admitted that as a child he would have found it "confusing and sad". Mr Smith's discovery has now gone more viral than the original meme. He has been in touch with its original creator, and said he was happy that the image has not been used in a "mean spirit". "Teenage Stepdad" offered to kill the character off, but Mr Smith is happy for him to carry on with it if he wishes, he said. -
@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
School photo is viral internet meme, Adrian Smith finds
Adrian Smith was shocked to find that a photo of him as an eight-year-old had become an internet meme.
He stumbled upon the picture on Instagram, but it had come from a Tumblr blog in which his image was being used as the stepson of a fictional "teenage stepdad". He said he was amused by it, but admitted that as a child he would have found it "confusing and sad". Mr Smith's discovery has now gone more viral than the original meme. He has been in touch with its original creator, and said he was happy that the image has not been used in a "mean spirit". "Teenage Stepdad" offered to kill the character off, but Mr Smith is happy for him to carry on with it if he wishes, he said.Good stuff.
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https://blog.centos.org/2020/12/future-is-centos-stream/
The future of the CentOS Project is CentOS Stream, and over the next year we’ll be shifting focus from CentOS Linux, the rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), to CentOS Stream, which tracks just ahead of a current RHEL release. CentOS Linux 8, as a rebuild of RHEL 8, will end at the end of 2021. CentOS Stream continues after that date, serving as the upstream (development) branch of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Was just reading about this. Lots of upset folks!
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SpaceX gets almost $900 million in federal subsidies to deliver broadband to rural America
The US government plans to give SpaceX nearly a billion dollars to beam internet from space to people across rural America, where three out of five people say access to broadband is still a pressing issue.
The company will receive a total of $856 million, one of the largest subsidies handed out by the Federal Communications Commission under a new program designed to encourage companies to extend broadband access into the United States' most underserved areas over the next 10 years. SpaceX's win is notable because the company competed against more established internet service providers, such as Charter Communications and CenturyLink, which rely on traditional fiber optic cables to deliver high-speed internet to customers. SpaceX's Starlink internet service, which is currently in beta testing and is not yet fully operational, relies on an experimental swarm of nearly 1,000 satellites whizzing around Earth at more than 17,000 miles per hour as they beam the internet to high-tech antennas mounted on people's homes. -
@Danp said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
https://blog.centos.org/2020/12/future-is-centos-stream/
The future of the CentOS Project is CentOS Stream, and over the next year we’ll be shifting focus from CentOS Linux, the rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), to CentOS Stream, which tracks just ahead of a current RHEL release. CentOS Linux 8, as a rebuild of RHEL 8, will end at the end of 2021. CentOS Stream continues after that date, serving as the upstream (development) branch of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Was just reading about this. Lots of upset folks!
I bet. But really, I bet one of two things happens. Either IBM makes RHEL available for free as its own path. Or people stop targeting RHEL for releases.
I have only used CentOS Streams for a while, and that very little. I think that this is a danger step, though, of potentially putting the nails in RHEL's coffin.
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@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@Danp said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
https://blog.centos.org/2020/12/future-is-centos-stream/
The future of the CentOS Project is CentOS Stream, and over the next year we’ll be shifting focus from CentOS Linux, the rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), to CentOS Stream, which tracks just ahead of a current RHEL release. CentOS Linux 8, as a rebuild of RHEL 8, will end at the end of 2021. CentOS Stream continues after that date, serving as the upstream (development) branch of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Was just reading about this. Lots of upset folks!
I bet. But really, I bet one of two things happens. Either IBM makes RHEL available for free as its own path. Or people stop targeting RHEL for releases.
I have only used CentOS Streams for a while, and that very little. I think that this is a danger step, though, of potentially putting the nails in RHEL's coffin.
I thought you told me before that RHEL was free - it's support that's not free, and well RHEL isn't posted on their website for you to download.. so you have to get it somehow on your own... but once you have it, it's free to use?
no?? -
@Dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@Danp said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
https://blog.centos.org/2020/12/future-is-centos-stream/
The future of the CentOS Project is CentOS Stream, and over the next year we’ll be shifting focus from CentOS Linux, the rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), to CentOS Stream, which tracks just ahead of a current RHEL release. CentOS Linux 8, as a rebuild of RHEL 8, will end at the end of 2021. CentOS Stream continues after that date, serving as the upstream (development) branch of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Was just reading about this. Lots of upset folks!
I bet. But really, I bet one of two things happens. Either IBM makes RHEL available for free as its own path. Or people stop targeting RHEL for releases.
I have only used CentOS Streams for a while, and that very little. I think that this is a danger step, though, of potentially putting the nails in RHEL's coffin.
I thought you told me before that RHEL was free - it's support that's not free, and well RHEL isn't posted on their website for you to download.. so you have to get it somehow on your own... but once you have it, it's free to use?
no??Sure. But you have to compile it. Which is what CentOS was originally. Someone taking RHEL and compiling so you didn't have to to make it easier.
The point is without a CentOS version, who would care to use it in the age of Ubuntu dominance?
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@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
OK, so you get privacy by sending ALL your DNS requests directly to Cloudflare.
Got it.
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GE puts default password in radiology devices, leaving healthcare networks exposed
Of course they used a default password, how are would they reasonably tune the machines, the failure is they don't have a mechanism to change the password after the device leaves the factory floor.
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@DustinB3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
GE puts default password in radiology devices, leaving healthcare networks exposed
Of course they used a default password, how are would they reasonably tune the machines, the failure is they don't have a mechanism to change the password after the device leaves the factory floor.
huh? Many device manufactures set different default passwords on consumer devices nowadays. I didn't read the article.. but if they are talking about a single default password used everywhere - that is just ridiculous today!
That said, I'm not sure of any commercial vendors doing that - thinking UBNT/HPE/Cisco - I'm pretty sure they all use the same default username/password on everything. Time for all of these types to make a change, make the password part of the label. I know HPE does this with their iLo, and has for ages. -
@Dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
That said, I'm not sure of any commercial vendors doing that - thinking UBNT/HPE/Cisco - I'm pretty sure they all use the same default username/password on everything.
How the fuck would that work. That is the fucking dumbest thing I have heard you say in a while. A default password is not a bad thing. An unchangable default password is.
@Dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Time for all of these types to make a change, make the password part of the label. I know HPE does this with their iLo, and has for ages.
And how exactly does that make it secure? It is printed right on the label for the patient to look at while they wait an hour for the doctor to come in the room?
