A team of battery researchers from Halifax, Nova Scotia's Dalhousie University believes it has come up with a recipe that can make electric car batteries last for a million miles. Gizmodo reports: In a paper published in the The Journal of the Electrochemical Society earlier this month, battery researchers describe a new lithium-ion battery that could potentially power an electric vehicle for over one million miles and over 4,000 charging cycles while only losing about 10 percent of its charging capacity (and vehicle range) as it reaches the end of its lifespan. Most drivers upgrade their rides well before the odometer rolls over to one million, but the new battery tech could be especially useful in vehicles that are on the road around the clock like taxis, shuttles, and even delivery trucks.

Since 2016, the Dalhousie team has actually been conducting its research on improving lithium-ion batteries exclusively for Tesla, but this paper divulges exactly how they came up with a recipe for a million-mile electric car battery by optimizing all of the ingredients, which includes artificial graphite, and then improving the nanostructure of the lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide to create a crystal structure that's less likely to crack and degrade performance. According to Wired, who spoke to former researchers who worked in the Dalhousie lab, by publishing the most important details of this research, it provides a new performance benchmark for all of the other R&D labs working on improving battery tech, so, ideally, a million miles of battery life is just the beginning. Wired points out that just days after this paper was published, Tesla was awarded a patent for a new electric vehicle battery featuring nearly the exact same chemical makeup as the ones detailed in the research paper.

dryriver writes: For the benefit of those who are not much into 3D technologies, as far back as the year 2000 and even earlier, there was excitement about "Web3D" -- interactive 3D content embedded in HTML webpages, using technologies like VRML and ShockWave 3D. 2D vector-based Flash and Flash animation was a big deal back then. Very popular with internet users. The more powerful but less installed ShockWave browser plugin -- also made by Macromedia -- got a fairly capable DirectX 7/OpenGL-based realtime 3D engine developed by Intel Labs around 2001 that could put 3D games, 3D product configurators and VR-style building/environment walkthroughs into an HTML page, and also go full-screen on demand. There were significant problems on the hardware side -- 20 years ago, not every PC or Mac connected to the internet had a decently capable 3D GPU by a long shot. But the 3D software technology was there, it was promising even then, and somehow it died -- ShockWave3D was neglected and killed off by Adobe shortly after they bought Macromedia, and VRML died pretty much on its own.

Now we are in 2019. Mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, PCs/Macs as well as Game Consoles have powerful 3D GPUs in them that could render great interactive 3D experiences in a web browser. The hardware is there, but 99% of the internet today is in flat 2D. Why is this? Why do tens of millions of gamers spend hours in 3D game worlds every day, and even the websites that cater to this "3D loving" demographic use nothing but text, 2D JPEGs and 2D YouTube videos on their webpages? Everything 3D -- 3D software, 3D hardware, 3D programming and scripting languages -- is far more evolved than it was around 2000. And yet there appears to be very little interest in putting interactive 3D anything into webpages. What causes this? Do people want to go into the 2020s with a 2D-based internet? Is the future of the internet text, 2D images, and streaming 2D videos?

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: The government of one of China's top technology hubs is dispatching officials to 100 local corporations including e-commerce giant Alibaba, the latest effort to exert greater influence over the country's massive private sector. Hangzhou, in the eastern province of Zhejiang, is assigning government affairs representatives to facilitate communication and expedite projects, the city government said on its website. Chinese beverage giant Hangzhou Wahaha and automaker Zhejiang Geely are among the other companies based in the prosperous region that have been singled out, according to reports in state media.

The Hangzhou government said the initiative was aimed at smoothing work flow between officials and China's high-tech companies and manufacturers. But the move could be perceived also as an effort to keep tabs on a non state-owned sector that's gaining clout as a prime driver of the world's No. 2 economy. Representatives of the country's public security system are already embedded within China's largest internet companies, responsible for crime prevention and stamping out false rumors. Government agencies may also be heightening their monitoring of the vast private sector at a time China's economy is decelerating -- raising the prospect of destabilizing job cuts as enterprises try to protect bottom lines. Alibaba is hosting its annual investors' conference this week in Hangzhou against the backdrop of a worsening outlook for the country.

Google is making some changes to its audio data retention policies in the coming months. "Most importantly for those concerned about humans reviewers listening to you, it plans on asking every user to re-affirm their choice to opt-in to that program -- which is 'paused globally' pending an EU investigation," reports The Verge. "The company is also making other changes, including a new sensitivity option for 'Hey Google' hotword detection, so that users who want to can make it less likely that their smart speakers will pick up unintended audio." From the report: Google says that having your voice recordings stored and reviewed was always opt-in and that voice recordings that humans reviewed were also always disassociated with user accounts. However, the so-called "Voice & Audio Activity (VAA)" setting wasn't very clear about what was happening when you agreed. Going forward, Google will explicitly mention human review for the VAA setting and, just as importantly, present that new, clearer screen to all Google Assistant users so they can choose if they want to opt-in or not. The company also says that it's going to "vastly reduce the amount of audio data we store," promising to "delete the vast majority of audio data associated with your account that's older than a few months" for people who have opted in to VAA.

Google also made a vague promise to add "an extra layer of privacy filters" to the audio transcription process, which we are told involves filtering out certain classes of audio data. It's not entirely clear what that means, however Google does say it intends on being more aggressive at automatically deleting accidental recordings. Google has a penchant for solving all problems with more settings -- especially with the Google Assistant -- and it's doing it yet again now. Soon it will add a hotword sensitivity option, which means you'll be able to choose how clearly you have to enunciate "Hey Google" in order to turn on the smart speaker. If you are worried about accidental recordings, you'll be able to turn it up, if you're not, you can set it to be a little more forgiving.

sharkbiter shares a report from ZDNet: Over the course of the last year and a half, Apple has effectively neutered ad blockers in Safari, something that Google has been heavily criticized all this year. But unlike Google, Apple never received any flak, and came out of the whole process with a reputation of caring about users' privacy, rather than attempting to "neuter ad blockers." The reasons may be Apple's smaller userbase, the fact that changes rolled out across years instead of months, and the fact that Apple doesn't rely on ads for its profits, meaning there was no ulterior motive behind its ecosystem changes.

The reason may have to do with the fact that Apple is known to have a heavy hand in enforcing rules on its App Store, and that developers who generally speak out are usually kicked out. It's either obey or get out. Unlike in Google's case, where Chrome is based on an open-source browser named Chromium and where everyone gets a voice, everything at Apple is a walled garden, with strict rules. Apple was never criticized for effectively "neutering" or "killing ad blockers" in the same way Google has been all this year. In Google's case, the pressure started with extension developers, but it then extended to the public. There was no public pressure on Apple mainly because there aren't really that many Safari users to begin with. With a market share of 3.5%, Safari users aren't even in the same galaxy as Chrome and its 65% market lead.

Furthermore, there is also the problem of public perception. When Apple rolled out a new content blocking feature to replace the old Safari extensions and said it was for everyone's privacy -- as extensions won't be able to access browsing history -- everyone believed it. On the other hand, ads are Google's life blood, and when Google announced updates that limited ad blockers, everyone saw it a secret plan for a big corp to keep its profits intact, rather than an actual security measure, as Google said it was.

Apple has confirmed Monday that it will manufacture the redesigned Mac Pro in Texas. The company said it will assemble the workstation at the same Austin, Texas plant that has produced the cylindrical Mac Pro since 2013. The reason for the move: exemptions from Trump's China tariffs for "certain necessary components" in the system. Engadget reports: Apple had received 10 out of its 15 requested exemptions for components like partial circuit boards. While Apple has a network of U.S. suppliers for its products, many of the parts for computers (and those of rivals) are still made in China -- the company wouldn't have seen much benefit from U.S. assembly if it had to pay a premium for some of the Mac Pro's key ingredients.

CEO Tim Cook (who hinted at this possibility in July) touted this as part of Apple's existing commitment to American jobs, including its recent investment into Corning. However, it's not necessarily the coup it sounds like at first blush. Apple can produce the Mac Pro stateside due to both its low volume (few people will buy a $6,000 tower for home use) and the high levels of automation at the Austin plant. This won't lead to an abundance of new jobs, and it may still be more practical to make high-volume products like iPhones and MacBooks in China even if future tariffs cut into Apple's profit margins.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Sexual harassment, gaslighting, broken promises of promotion, gender-based discrimination, and racism. Motherboard has obtained a document written by 45 different Google employees alleging they've experienced of all the above. The document lays bare how working at Google -- a company whose motto was once "don't be evil" -- has become really hard for a lot of people. The document is a collection of stories submitted by Googlers as part of an internal campaign to highlight cases of retaliation. The stories in the document were collected after the organizers of the Google Walkout, Meredith Whittaker and Claire Stapleton, published an open letter about being retaliated against after speaking out, according to a current Google employee.

"I identify as a LatinX female and I experienced blatant racist and sexist things from my coworker. I reported it up to where my manager knew, my director knew, the coworker's manager knew and our HR representative knew. Nothing happened. I was warned that things will get very serious if continued," one Googler wrote. "I definitely felt the theme of 'protect the man' as we so often hear about. No one protected me, the victim. I thought Google was different." You can read the full document here. Below are just some of the quotes shared by Google employees in the document. Each story goes under a heading. Some examples include: "Punished for reporting sexual jokes"; "Fearful of physical retaliation," "My 10+ years of experience and trajectory was sabotaged for reporting unethical behavior," "I reported my abuser and found I wasn't the first one," and "Ethics & Compliance aren't always so ethical." Eileen Naughton, Google's vicepresident of People Operations, the company's name for the human resources department, said: "Reporting misconduct takes courage and we want to provide care and support to people who raise concerns. All instances of inappropriate conduct reported to us are investigated rigorously, and over the past year we have simplified how employees can raise concerns and provided more transparency into the investigations process at Google. We work to be extremely transparent about how we handle complaints and the action we take."

After releasing it in South Korea and the UK, Samsung is finally ready to say when the Galaxy Fold will go back on sale in the US: September 27th. Samsung says it will be available both in an AT&T version and a standard unlocked version. It's a smaller launch than the first time around, as it will only be available in "select" AT&T and Best Buy stores -- plus Samsung Experience stores (it should also be available to order online). The Verge adds: Unfortunately, it seems that the "fixed" version of the Fold is still extremely fragile. And based on a new video Samsung released begging owners to treat their new phones with a "special level of care," Samsung knows it. A new durability test from popular YouTube channel JerryRigEverything proves it. With the first iteration of the Fold, there were multiple issues that reviewers encountered, like dust getting into the hinge and damaging the display, nicks and dings on the soft plastic, and the accidental removal of a thin display layer that looked like (but was not) a screen protector. Samsung reportedly fixed most of these issues with the 2.0 Fold by extending the top screen layer beneath the bezels so it would be impossible to peel it off, shrinking down the gaps by the hinge, and adding plastic caps to prevent dust or debris from getting in.

Despite all that, Samsung's video exhorts owners to handle their $1,000-plus phones with kid gloves. Some of Samsung's requests are more logical: the company advises against adding any additional screen protectors (which could interfere with the folding display). Others, though, like not applying "excessive pressure" to the touchscreen when tapping it, are a bit more unusual for a phone. Samsung also cautions that the Fold isn't water or dust-proof and that the magnets that hold it shut can interfere with other magnetic products, like credit credits, hotel room keys, or medical devices. Unfortunately, despite all those warnings, it looks like the new Fold is still almost absurdly easy to break.

People who had Yahoo accounts between 2012 and 2016 can now apply for a cash payment of $100, but the final amount you receive could be more or less than $100 depending on how many people file claims. From a report: It's also possible to file claims for up to $25,000 if you can document actual out-of-pocket losses and lost time due to the breach. However, actual payouts for all claims could be much lower if the total amount claimed exceeds what's available from the $117.5 million settlement. The settlement class potentially includes up to 194 million people, so these amounts would be paid in full only if the vast majority of eligible people don't ask for money. The settlement website lets all class members choose from at least two years of free credit monitoring services or the $100 cash payment. While that amount isn't guaranteed, just like in the Equifax settlement, at least the Yahoo settlement website makes that clear up front.

Some members of the WeWork board are said to be unhappy with its leadership and plan to push WeWork CEO Adam Neumann to step down, according to several media reports. From a report: The reports say the board members are connected to Japan's SoftBank Group, WeWork's biggest investor. The Wall Street Journal and other outlets cited anonymous sources familiar with the matter. WeWork parent the We Company declined to comment and SoftBank did not respond to a request for comment. Concerns about Neumann's management style has roiled the company, with a recent report in the Journal alleging that the CEO had reportedly smoked marijuana on a Gulfstream G650 private jet while traveling across the Atlantic. The jet's owner, said to be worried about transporting marijuana across borders, reportedly recalled the aircraft, according to the Journal.

Google today launched a new service called "Google Play Pass," which for $4.99 per month gives Android users access to over 350 games and apps which will be served ad free and without any in-app purchases. From a report: Google will give users 10 days free and is also planning on offering the first year at $1.99 per month. It will be available in the US this week and other countries "soon." Google's take on the app subscription model is a little different from Apple, which just last week launched Apple Arcade, its $4.99 games subscription service. Firstly, Google Play pass includes apps as well as games. Secondly, Google isn't directly funding development their development nor demanding exclusivity. At launch, all of the apps and games included in Google Play Pass were already available on the Play Store and will continue to be available as standalone purchases (or ad-supported). If you've previously installed any app that's included in the service and sign up, your current app should automatically have its ads removed and its in-app purchases unlocked.

Facebook for most of the past decade was Silicon Valley's 800-pound gorilla, squashing rivals, ripping off their best ideas or buying them outright as it cemented its dominance of social media. Now the knives are coming out [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source]. From a report: A number of Facebook's current and former competitors are talking about the company's hardball tactics to investigators from the Federal Trade Commission, as part of its broader antitrust investigation into the social-media giant's business practices, according to people familiar with the matter. One of them is Snap, where the legal team for years kept a dossier of ways that the company felt Facebook was trying to thwart competition from the buzzy upstart, according to people familiar with the matter. The title of the documents: Project Voldemort.

The files in Voldemort, a reference to the fictional antagonist in the popular Harry Potter children's books, chronicled Facebook's moves that threatened to undermine Snap's business, including discouraging popular account holders, or influencers, from referencing Snap on their Instagram accounts, according to people familiar with the project. Executives also suspected Instagram was preventing Snap content from trending on its app, the people said.

Cloudflare is ratcheting up its fight against bots with a new "fight mode," which it says will frustrate and disincentivize bot operators from their malicious activity. From a report: Bots are notorious for scraping websites and abusing developer access to download gobs of user data. All too often bots try to game the system by scraping concert or airline ticket prices to buy in bulk at their lowest price and sell them off for higher. Worse, some imitate real users and brute-force their way into websites with lists of stolen passwords. Cloudflare gets three billion bot requests each day. Now the company said it's "decided to fight back."

Its new "bot fight mode," which Cloudflare today enabled as a free opt-in feature for all accounts, will detect and serve bots with deliberately computationally intensive challenges. As the bot tries to crunch the impossible puzzle -- effectively a small bit of code only visible to the bot -- the bot's server will max out its processing power, churning up cloud resources and driving up costs for the bot operator. While the company says its efforts will dissuade bot activities in the long run, it recognizes its efforts in the short term will result in cloud servers working overtime, thus consuming more electricity and requiring more cooling -- all of which contribute to greater energy consumption.

An anonymous reader quotes Forbes: Apple's updated operating system will now show you how often your location has been recorded and by which apps. It will do this proactively via a pop up, which shows a map of where you have been tracked, including the option to allow or limit it. Previously, many apps were able to track you in the background without your knowledge. They were able to collect vast amounts of data on you, which they could use to target you with advertising.

Along the same theme, another blow to apps such as Facebook and WhatsApp is a change in Apple's iOS 13 that will not allow messaging and calling apps to run in the background when the programs are not actively in use. Before, apps such as these were able to collect information on what you were doing on your device.

People are certainly becoming more aware of the way their data is used, following incidents such as the Cambridge Analytica scandal. In this context, many of the changes could be seen as a direct blow to Apple's rivals Google and Facebook: iOS 13 highlights their data collection practices and gives iPhone users the opportunity to stop them. In this way, it's an attack on Facebook and Google's business models. It's true: There are many apps that track you and collect data on you, and iOS 13 will affect all of these. But it is also worth considering the position that Apple holds in the market. When Apple speaks, people listen.
Forbes concludes that these features in iOS 13 "could encourage even the most apathetic Apple users to care more about their privacy."

NPR explains why a man "applied to borrow a 360-degree camera through Google's Street View camera loan program." Kanhema, who works as a product manager in Silicon Valley and is a freelance photographer in his spare time, volunteered to carry Google's Street View gear to map what amounted to 2,000 miles of his home country. The Berkeley, California, resident has filled in the map of other areas in Africa and Canada as well.... Google says it has "largely mapped" only 87 of nearly 200 countries on the platform, which launched in 2007. Many other countries on the planet have at least some Street View coverage, Google says. But there are sizable gaps in regions like Africa, Antarctica and Central Asia, while areas such as the U.S. and Europe are mostly filled in.

While users can see almost every street corner in places such as Paris or New York, they can't do the same for Algiers, Algeria, or Kabul, Afghanistan. "We start in the large metropolitan areas where we know we have users, where it's easy for us to drive and we can execute quickly," says Stafford Marquardt, a product manager for Street View. He says the team is working to expand the service's reach. To do that, Google often relies on volunteers who can either borrow the company's camera equipment or take photos using their own. Most images on Street View are collected by drivers, and most of these drivers are employed by third parties that work with Google. But when it comes to the places Google hasn't prioritized, people like Kanhema can fill in the gaps...

All this is a lot of work, but for Kanhema, it's a hobby. Google doesn't pay him or the other volunteers -- whom the company calls "contributors" -- for the content they upload. Kanhema, for example, spent around $5,000 of his own money to travel across Zimbabwe for the project. "What motivates me is just being that constant nudge on these companies and this system to pay attention to those parts of the world," he says.

Craig Dalton, an assistant professor of global studies and geography at Hofstra University, says Google's business model plays a big role in which places are added to Street View first. "Google Maps is not a public service. Google Maps is a product from a company, and things are included and excluded based on the company's needs," Dalton says. "Sometimes that means that things are excluded that have a lot of merit but that don't fit the business plan..." Although the company's end goal is to make a global street map, Kanhema is unsure when places like his hometown would be visible on the platform without volunteered images. "There's not always going to be a business case to tell the story of how people live across the world," he says.
The volunteer contributors to Street View can sometimes receive funding from tourism boards or travel agencies, according to the article, but Street View's product manager adds that Google currently has no plans to compensate its volunteers. He says instead that Google compensates its volunteer contributors "in a lot of other ways" by offering "a platform to host gigabytes and terabytes of imagery and publish it to the entire world, absolutely for free."

"The US military has been forced to apologise for tweeting that it would use stealth-bombers on 'millenials' who try to storm Area 51," reports Yahoo News UK: More than two million people signed up to a Facebook event recently which encouraged atendees to visit the top secret base in Nevada. But only a few thousand UFO enthusiasts turned up on Friday to the facility, which is rumoured to contain secrets about aliens. As hordes of enthusiasts turned up the PR arm of the US military, called the Defence Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS), tweeted: "The last thing #Millennials will see if they attempt the #area51raid today" with a picture of military officers in front of a stealth bomber.

Shortly afterwards the tweet was deleted and the unit apologised saying it "in no way" reflects their stance... "It was inappropriate and we apologize for this mistake."

Around 1,000 people visited the facility's gates on Friday and at least six were arrested by police.

The Storm Area 51 invitation spawned festivals in the tiny nearby towns of Rachel and Hiko, more than two hours' drive from Las Vegas. Lincoln County Sheriff Kerry Lee estimated late on Thursday that about 1,500 people had gathered at the festival sites, and more than 150 made the trip several additional miles on bone-rattling dirt roads to get within selfie distance of the gates.... "It's public land," the sheriff said. "They're allowed to go to the gate as long as they don't cross the boundary."
Most of the arrests were for "misdemeanor trespassing on base property," which carries a $1,000 fine, according to the article. "In the end, no one actually 'stormed' Area 51, although deputies in rural Nye County resorted to 'heated warnings' to disperse as many as 200 people," reports the Associated Press.

In another article the news service also quotes Lincoln County emergency services chief Eric Holt as saying resources had been mustered to handle up to 30,000 people and calling the low turnout a "best-case" scenario... Although there were two car crashes involving cows. "The cows died, but motorists weren't hurt."

The main festival apparently drew 3,000 attendees, while the rival "Area 51 Basecamp" festival sold just 500 tickets for their Friday concert, prompting them to cancel their Saturday concert altogether. Its promoter told the Associated Press, "It was a gamble financially. We lost."

"The best way to get oneself somewhere with the least impact on the climate is a lot more complex than it may seem at first glance," writes Slashdot reader Dan Drollette (who is also the deputy editor of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists).

Slashdot reader Lasrick also submitted their report. A few excerpts: - For a short distance taking a train may be better than flying, but there is some ambiguity for long-distance travel. But no matter what mode of travel we choose, the distance traveled strongly determines emissions.

- Trends suggest that ground transportation is increasingly being electrified (with the potential for using renewable sources). However, there is likely no such technological breakthrough on the horizon for planes. Thus, flying less is an important long-term commitment because it helps to make sure there are more alternative transportation options, and shows where we want government and industry to prioritize efforts toward efficiency and transit... [I]f you choose to drive because it is more climate-friendly than flying short-haul, you are adding an extra car on the road while the plane would have flown anyway. However, in the long run, if many people choose to drive (hopefully in a full car), it is likely there will be fewer short-haul flights.
Obviously, fewer passengers per vehicle will also increase the per-passenger carbon count, and right now short economy flights "generally have higher occupancy and lighter fuel loads," placing them just below a U.S. grid-powered electric car. And mode of transportation is still less important than distance traveled, though very short flights less than 1000 kilometres (621 miles) are more carbon intensive than longer flights "as they spend little time cruising, and are often not very direct."

Energy sources also matter, since trains in Europe are largely electrified, while North America's trains burn fossil fuels. "In Europe, trains are by far the best choice in terms of climate benefits, even if that's not as true elsewhere." Thus the three worst choices right now are a large car (getting 15 miles per gallon), followed by a long (non-economy) business flight, and a "medium" car (getting 25 miles per gallon), while the three best choices are a solar-powered electric car (#3), a crowded U.S. school bus, and Eurostar rail.

But it's important to remember that the majority of people don't fly, Dan Drollette reminds us, "And we should not be so focused on the carbon contributions of air travel (which only account for 2 percent of all carbon emissions) that we take our eyes off the causes of the other 98 percent of carbon emissions."

McGruber summarizes an article in the New York Times: A small committee of Boeing's board is expected to call for several meaningful changes to the way the company is structured. The commitee may recommend that Boeing change aspects of its organizational structure, call for the creation of new groups focused on safety and encourage the company to consider making changes to the cockpits of future airplanes to accommodate a new generation of pilots, some of whom may have less training.

Currently, Boeing's top engineers report primarily to the business leaders for each airplane model, and secondarily to the company's chief engineer. "Under this model, engineers who identify problems that might slow a jet's development could face resistance from executives whose jobs revolve around meeting production deadlines," reports the New York Times. "The committee recommends flipping the reporting lines, so that top engineers report primarily to Boeing's chief engineer, and secondarily to business unit leaders.

"Another key recommendation calls for establishing a new safety group that will work across the company..."

"Though the committee did not investigate the two crashes of Boeing's 737 MAX jet, their findings represent the company's most direct effort yet to reform its internal processes after the accidents, which killed 346 people."
Meanwhile, a scathing article in the New Republic outlines the need for change, criticizing "pilot errorists" who have attempted to shift focus and blame from Boeing's own missteps in creating "a self-hijacking plane": In the now infamous debacle of the Boeing 737 MAX, the company produced a plane outfitted with a half-assed bit of software programmed to override all pilot input and nosedive when a little vane on the side of the fuselage told it the nose was pitching up. The vane was also not terribly reliable, possibly due to assembly line lapses reported by a whistle-blower, and when the plane processed the bad data it received, it promptly dove into the sea. It is understood, now more than ever, that capitalism does half-assed things like that, especially in concert with computer software and oblivious regulators...

[T]here was something unsettlingly familiar when the world first learned of MCAS in November, about two weeks after the system's unthinkable stupidity drove the two-month-old plane and all 189 people on it to a horrific death. It smacked of the sort of screwup a 23-year-old intern might have made -- and indeed, much of the software on the MAX had been engineered by recent grads of Indian software-coding academies making as little as $9 an hour, part of Boeing management's endless war on the unions that once represented more than half its employees. Down in South Carolina, a nonunion Boeing assembly line that opened in 2011 had for years churned out scores of whistle-blower complaints and wrongful termination lawsuits packed with scenes wherein quality-control documents were regularly forged, employees who enforced standards were sabotaged, and planes were routinely delivered to airlines with loose screws, scratched windows, and random debris everywhere. The MCAS crash was just the latest installment in a broader pattern...

An anonymous reader writes: Ubisoft plans to send cease & desist legal letters to operators of DDoS-for-hire services, also known as DDoS booters or DDoS stressors. The company said it plans on making this step as part of a global action plan to curb DDoS attacks aimed at Rainbox Six Siege multiplayer servers.

The French video game company has been under a wave of DDoS attacks ever since last week when it launched the Operation Ember Rise update for the Rainbow Six Siege game. Along with the update, Ubisoft also performed a reset of multiplayer rankings. Following the reset, multiple players are suspected to have started launching DDoS attacks at the company's servers.

The cheating players have been using the DDoS attacks to trigger server lag and slow down matches. The goal was to annoy opponents, who in many cases would end up disconnecting and receiving a penalty for leaving the match, allowing the player who launched the DDoS attack to gain rank points undeserved. The DDoS attacks have been widespread as several players got wind of the trick and started renting DDoS firepower from online DDoS for-hire sites.

"A former Google engineer who worked on the company's infamous military drone project has sounded a warning against the building of killer robots," reports Business Insider.

Long-time Slashdot reader sandbagger quotes their report: Laura Nolan had been working at Google four years when she was recruited to its collaboration with the US Department of Defense, known as Project Maven, in 2017, according to the Guardian. Project Maven was focused on using AI to enhance military drones, building AI systems which would be able to single out enemy targets and distinguish between people and objects. Google canned Project Maven after employee outrage, with thousands of employees signing a petition against the project and about a dozen quitting in protest. Google allowed the contract to lapse in March this year. Nolan herself resigned after she became "increasingly ethically concerned" about the project, she said...

Nolan fears that the next step beyond AI-enabled weapons like drones could be fully autonomous AI weapons. "What you are looking at are possible atrocities and unlawful killings even under laws of warfare, especially if hundreds or thousands of these machines are deployed," she said.... Although no country has yet come forward to say it's working on fully autonomous robot weapons, many are building more and more sophisticated AI to integrate into their militaries. The US navy has a self-piloting warship, capable of spending months at sea with no crew, and Israel boasts of having drones capable of identifying and attacking targets autonomously -- although at the moment they require a human middle-man to give the go-ahead.

Nolan is urging countries to declare an outright ban on autonomous killing robots, similar to conventions around the use of chemical weapons.