Longtime Slashdot reader dbart writes: With the near ubiquitous use of smartphones in America, it's sensible to seize upon this resource to help with the coronavirus pandemic. Here's my take on a way to use smartphones to deal with the pandemic:

America does not currently have a good coronavirus test -- but they are in development. Once a test is available there should be a smartphone app ready to deploy immediately. The app should work like this: A person would be tested for the virus at a testing station and the results of the test would be entered into the app's database. The person could then go about their business, such as going back to work. Upon arriving at the place of work, the person would bring up the app on their smartphone. The app would display some information to identify the subject that was tested along with a barcode. The employer would then scan in the barcode with the app on the employer's phone which will check with the central database and report back the results of their coronavirus test and the recency of the test. The employer would decide whether to allow the person into the workplace. This could similarly be used to safely allow entry to a restaurant, airplane, theater, sporting event, etc. -- thus getting the economy functioning again.

I've only presented a rough sketch of my idea about this above and there's many nuances to how this should work. It's obvious that everyone should be tested frequently for this to be effective. This would require testing on a massive scale, but considering the damage happening to the American economy, such massive testing could easily be justified. A capability as described above would get the American economy restarted at the soonest possible time and would allow society to function until a vaccine is available. It would also be a very valuable asset to epidemiological investigators. If an app was designed with enough forethought it could be deployed internationally. I'm hoping to get not just a Slashdot conversation but a larger conversation started about the use of technology to defeat this virus. Perhaps there's a Slashdotter with the skillsets to make this happen who would like to take this on. If anyone has a contact at the CDC please forward this post to them to insure that technological solutions such as this are being considered.

A team of scientists led by Yi Cui, a materials scientist at Stanford, have created a new "fireproof" solid-state electrolyte for use in lithium-ion batteries. IEEE Spectrum reports: They used a flame-retardant material called decabromodiphenyl ethane, or DBDPE for short. To make their new solid-state electrolyte, the team first created a thin film by combining DBDPE with polyimide, a mechanical enforcer. Using polyimide has many advantages, says Wan. Apart from being "mechanically really strong," it boasts a high melting point (making it less likely that a short circuit will occur), a solutions-based manufacturing process (that's compatible with how batteries are made today), and it's inexpensive (3M even has film tapes made from it). The hitch, however, is that polyimide can't conduct ions. To get around this snag, Wan and his colleagues added two different polymers, polyethylene oxide (PEO) and lithium bistrifluoromethanesulfonylimide (LiTFSI), to the mix. "It's innovative -- they've smartly used co-polymers, which is a new way to solve the flammable polymer electrolyte battery problem," says Chunsheng Wang, a researcher who studies new battery technologies at the University of Maryland. The paper has been published in the journal Nano Letters.

An anonymous reader quotes ZDNet: In a press release Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice charged a former Acting Inspector General for the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with the theft of proprietary software and confidential government databases.

The indictment named Charles K. Edwards, a former DHS Acting Inspector General between 2011 to 2013, but also his former aid, 54-year-old Murali Yamazula Venkata. DOJ officials claim that between October 2014 and April 2017 -- after Edwards left office -- Edwards, Venkata, and others were part of a scheme that stole confidential and proprietary software from DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG). Edwards and others also stole sensitive government databases containing the personal identifying information (PII) of DHS and United States Postal Service (USPS) employees, the DOJ claims.

U.S. officials claim Edwards had set up his own company, named Delta Business Solutions, through which he wanted to sell an enhanced version of stolen DHS-OIG software to the OIG for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, at a profit... "Although Edwards had left DHS-OIG in December 2013, he continued to leverage his relationship with Venkata and other DHS-OIG employees to steal the software and the sensitive government databases," the DOJ said Friday in an announcement. According to court documents, Venkata, Edwards' former aid, along with others, assisted the former DHS AIG by reconfiguring his laptop so that he could properly upload the stolen software and databases.

In addition, the DOJ claims they also provided Edwards with technical and troubleshooting support and even helped the former DHS AIG build a testing server at his residence where he could test the stolen software and stolen government databases.

Microsoft will retire MCSA, MCSD and MCSE certifications on June 30, 2020, according to a new post by Alex Payne, GM, Global Technical Learning at Microsoft Worldwide Learning, on the Microsoft Learning Blog. twocows shares a report: Microsoft shifted its focus to role-based training and certifications in September 2018 and has added 34 different certifications since then to its portfolio "across Azure, Modern Workplace, and Business Applications". Since Microsoft is now focusing on role-based training and certifications, it will retire all remaining Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate (MCSA), Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer (MCSD) and Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE) certifications on June 30, 2020.

Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG), a committee that maintains various JPEG image-related standards, has started exploring a way to involve AI to build a new compression standard. From a report: In a recent meeting held in Sydney, the group released a call for evidence to explore AI-based methods to find a new image compression codec. The program, aptly named JPEG AI, was launched last year; with a special group to study neural-network-based image codecs. Under the program, it aims to find possible solutions towards finding a new standard. To do that, it has partnered with IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) to call for papers under the Learning-based Image Coding Challenge. These papers will be presented at the International Conference of Image Processing (ICIP) scheduled to be held at Abu Dhabi in October.

The Wall Street Journal remembers how five years ago, Uber's co-founder "was so confident that Uber's rides would prompt people to leave their cars at home that he told a tech conference: 'If every car in San Francisco was Ubered there would be no traffic.'"

He was wrong. Rather than the apps becoming a model of algorithm-driven efficiency, drivers in major cities cruise for fares without passengers an estimated 40% of the time. Multiple studies show that Uber and Lyft have pulled people away from buses, subways and walking, and that the apps add to the overall amount of driving in the U.S. A study published last year by San Francisco County officials and University of Kentucky researchers in the journal Science Advances found that over 60% of the slowdown of traffic speeds in San Francisco between 2010 and 2016 was due to the introduction of the ride-hail companies...

The reversal of ride-hailing from would-be traffic hero to congestion villain is the sort of unintended consequence that has become a recurring feature of Silicon Valley disruption. Companies seeking rapid growth by reinventing the way we do things are delivering solutions that sometimes create their own problems... Silicon Valley is particularly prone to focusing on positive potential effects of new technologies given a decadeslong culture of utopian ideals, said Fred Turner, a Stanford University communications professor who has written a book on the topic... Tech companies tend to have an engineering-like, narrow focus on solving specific problems, often missing the broader picture as a result. "You're not rewarded for seeing the landscape within which your device will be deployed," he said... [I]n hindsight, some of the pitfalls -- such as cars cruising empty between passengers -- seem obvious...

Riders also take car trips that wouldn't have happened before Uber and Lyft. Bruce Schaller, a transportation consultant and former New York City official who has studied the topic, said in his paper that surveys in numerous cities found roughly 60% of riders in Ubers and Lyfts would have walked, biked, taken public transit or stayed home if a ride-hail car hadn't been available.

Facebook said Friday that political candidates, campaigns and groups can use paid branded content across its platforms, a clarification prompted by a move from Michael Bloomberg's campaign to pay top Instagram influencers to post memes on its behalf. Axios reports: Its policy didn't explicitly state that it was OK for candidates to use branded content posts, but after hearing from various campaigns about the issue, Facebook moved to clarify its stance. Facebook has agreed that branded content should be allowed to be used by candidates, as long as the candidates are authorized and the creators disclose paid partnerships through branded content tools, according to a spokesperson.

Facebook previously prohibited political candidates and campaigns from running branded content by default because it wanted to avoid any risk that such actions could be viewed as accounts giving monetary contributions to campaigns. It's tweaking its approach now -- only in the U.S. -- because it believes that this is no longer a concern, given that it doesn't provide payments as a feature of its branded content tools. If a campaign were to buy ads to boost its branded content, then it would be subject to Facebook's advertising policies. That paid promotion would then need to be included in Facebook public, searchable political ad library for seven years.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The retailpocalypse started in 2010. It followed the 2008 global recession, with the parallel birth and rise of social media adding fuel to the growth of online shopping. Suburban and rural malls sat empty, underutilized or poorly maintained as the most affected brands lost their customer base in the squeezed middle class. Meanwhile, online retailers thrived without the overhead costs of a physical space. Nearly a decade later, the online-only platforms that disrupted retail are choosing to pay rent as an additional, unnecessary expense. There are items available for purchase in each space, but the stores' ultimate goal is to offer a tangible experience offline to their users or consumers.

Hunker describes itself as an editorial website to help "first-timers improve their homes -- with inspiring tours, practical solutions and design advice for real people." Shopify is an all-in-one commerce platform where users can start and run an online business, facilitating 820,000 online stores since June 2019. Depop calls itself "the creative community's marketplace" and projects that its existing user base will increase threefold over the next three years, from 5 million to 15 million users. In the last two years, each company has added a physical space that isn't exactly a store and isn't really an office, though they definitely borrow aspects of each. Hunker's space, known as Hunker House, is a three-story loft in the Abbot-Kinney neighborhood of Venice, CA. Shopify opened a 1,600 square foot location in downtown Los Angeles' The Row, and Depop's two community spots are in Little Italy, Manhattan, and Silver Lake, LA.

The Wi-Fi Alliance announced the new Wi-Fi 6E terminology for 802.11ax operation in the 6 GHz band last month. At CES 2020, Broadcom announced a number of Wi-Fi 6E access point solutions. Today, Broadcom is announcing the BCM4389 client Wi-Fi 6E chipset. From a report: Consumers can expect to see the chipset in the next generation of high-end smartphones. We have already covered the advantages of Wi-Fi 6E in terms of lower latency, higher throughput, and the availability of more number of 160 MHz channels in our coverage of the Wi-Fi Alliance announcement at CES. The BCM4389 builds upon Broadcom's success with the BCM4375, which happens to be the currently leading client Wi-Fi 6 chipset in the smartphone market. In addition to the new 6 GHz support with tri-band simultaneous operation and 160 MHz channel support, the BCM4389 also brings in additional power efficiency, thanks to its 16nm process technology and architectural improvements.

The BCM4375 is a 28nm chipset with 2x2 2.4 GHz and 2x2 5 GHz support, while the new BCM4389 adds 2x2 6 GHz to the mix. The scanning radio accounts for the additional radio chain. The Bluetooth 5.0 functionality has also received a boost with MIMO support. Broadcom claims that the new implementation can reduce pairing time by a factor of 2 and also alleviate glitching issues when connected to Wi-Fi at the same time (compared to the BCM4375). The icing on the cake is that the MIMO support works with implicit beamforming ensuring that legacy Bluetooth devices stand to benefit too.

MojoKid writes: In January at CES 2020 in Las Vegas, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su took to the stage during a press conference and revealed the company's forthcoming Ryzen Threadripper 3990X 64-core processor. Dr. Su disclosed the 3990X's speeds and feeds and showed the beastly chip taking down a pair of 28-core Xeons worth about $20K, in a 3D rendering benchmark, despite its much smaller price tag. Today, however, the company has lifted the veil on full details of the chip as well as its complete performance profile across a myriad of benchmarks, fresh off embargo lift. Thought it's packing 64 cores capable of processing 128 threads in SMT, the 3990X's TDP is still rated at 280W when it's configured at stock frequencies (2.9GHz base / 4.3GHz boost). As you might expect, Ryzen Threadripper 3990X was an absolute beast all of the multi-threaded tests that scale properly to leverage all of its cores. In fact, Threadripper 3990X stands head and shoulders above every other desktop processor on the market currently, besting competing many-core Intel solutions by more than 2X in some cases. However, because Threadripper 3990X has relatively high clocks for such a high core count chip, it also offers relatively strong performance for day-to-day use cases in lightly threaded workloads and gaming as well. There's no question, at $3990 MSRP, AMD's Threadripper 3990X isn't a mainstream desktop chip, but for those who need serious workstation performance and throughput, nothing on the desktop even comes close right now.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from New Atlas: New research led by Wen-Sung Chung and Justin Marshall of the University of Queensland is shedding new light on the complexity of squid brains. Using MRI scanning to examine the brain of the of the reef squid Sepioteuthis lessoniana, the researchers have produced a new map of neural connections that improves our understanding of their behavior. The cephalopods are widely recognized as the most intelligent of mollusks, but how do they rate when they are competing against something other than clams? Cephalopods show all sorts of complex behavior, like being able to recognize patterns, solve problems, communicate through signals, and camouflage themselves in different textures and colors, despite being colorblind.

But just how complex are these neural circuits? The answer may lie in the maps made by the new MRI scans. "This the first time modern technology has been used to explore the brain of this amazing animal, and we proposed 145 new connections and pathways, more than 60 percent of which are linked to the vision and motor systems," says Chung. "The modern cephalopods, a group including octopus, cuttlefish, and squid, have famously complex brains, approaching that of a dog and surpassing mice and rats, at least in neuronal number. For example, some cephalopods have more than 500 million neurons, compared to 200 million for a rat and 20,000 for a normal mollusk." "Chung says that this complexity may be an example of convergent evolution, where very distantly related animals, like dogs and squids, evolve similar solutions," the report adds. "It's why the eye of the squid is remarkably similar to that of the human eye, even though the two parted ways in evolutionary terms about 560 million years ago."

The research was published in the journal iScience.

Google is making it easier for developers to purchase the latest version of its smart glasses, with the company saying on Tuesday that the Glass Enterprise Edition 2 is now available from some hardware resellers. From a report: "We've seen strong demand from developers and businesses who are interested in building new, helpful enterprise solutions for Glass," Google said in a blog post, adding that the new headset was already being used by people with jobs in logistics, manufacturing and field services."

A group of online archivists have created an open-access directory of over 5,000 scientific studies about coronaviruses that anyone can browse and download without encountering a paywall . From a report: The directory is hosted on The-Eye, a massive online archiving project run by a Reddit user named "-Archivist." Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global health emergency amid the spread of the novel coronavirus beyond China, where it originated, into roughly two dozen countries so far. The organizers of the archive see their project as a resource for scientists and non-scientists alike to study the virus. "These articles were always written to be shared with as many people as possible," Reddit user "shrine," an organizer of the archive, said in a call. "From every angle that you look at it, [paywalled research] is an immoral situation, and it's an ongoing tragedy."

In 2015, Liberian public health officials co-authored a New York Times op-ed that lamented the amount of critical Ebola research that was unknown or inaccessible to scientists and health workers at the center of the 2014 epidemic. "Even today, downloading one of the papers would cost a physician here $45, about half a week's salary," the authors wrote. Shrine, who is in his late 20s, said he was inspired to assemble the archive when, last week, he clicked on a new research article about the coronavirus and encountered a $39.95 paywall. He and a few friends started to brainstorm solutions around paywalls like the one he had run into. They came up with the idea of searching for coronavirus-related papers on Sci-Hub, a free scientific research repository sometimes called "the Pirate Bay of science." Sci-Hub's site says it provides free access to over 78 million research articles by downloading HTML and PDF pages off the web, in some cases bypassing paywalls. Because of this, major scientific publishing companies -- most prominently Elsevier -- have repeatedly sued Sci-Hub for copyright infringement. Similarly, by disseminating PDFs from Sci-Hub, the coronavirus archive is in questionable legal territory.

An anonymous reader writes: The Google security team has indefinitely suspended the publishing or updating of any commercial Chrome extensions on the official Chrome Web Store following a spike in the number of paid extensions engaging in fraudulent transactions. Google said the wave of fraudulent transactions began earlier this month. Google engineers described the fraudulent transactions as happening "at scale."

"This is a temporary measure meant to stem this influx as we look for long-term solutions to address the broader pattern of abuse," said Simeon Vincent, Developer Advocate for Chrome Extensions at Google. The ban on publishing or updating impacts all paid extensions. This includes Chrome extensions that require paying a fee before installing, extensions that work based on monthly subscriptions, or Chrome extensions that use one-time in-app purchases to get access to various features. Existing commercial extensions are still available for download via the official Chrome Web Store, however, extension developers can't push new updates.

357 Amazon employees have now "violated the e-commerce giant's communications policy Sunday in an unprecedented public display of support for colleagues who were warned that they could be fired for speaking out to criticize the company's climate practices," reports the Washington Post: Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, a group of workers concerned about the company's business with the oil and gas industry as well as its carbon footprint, published quotes from the workers in a post on Medium. The comments, all of which are attributed to Amazon workers by name, are a mass defiance of company rules that bar workers from commenting publicly on its business without corporate justification and approval from executives... "Solidarity to the workers facing retaliation for standing up!" wrote Charlie LaBarge, a software engineer...

Amazon encourages workers to advocate for causes they believe in but wants them to pursue those convictions when related to the company's business internally, spokesman Drew Herdener said in a statement. Workers can submit questions to executives during all-hands meetings, and they can join internal interest groups, such as ones that focus on sustainability. Employees can also attend lunch sessions with Amazon leaders to discuss the issues, as long as they are willing to keep matters raised in those sessions confidential. "While all employees are welcome to engage constructively with any of the many teams inside Amazon that work on sustainability and other topics, we do enforce our external communications policy and will not allow employees to publicly disparage or misrepresent the company or the hard work of their colleagues who are developing solutions to these hard problems," Herdener said.
Ironically, the Washington Post...is owned by Amazon.

Monday Red Hat and IBM jointly filed their own amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in the "Google vs. Oracle" case, arguing that APIs cannot be copyrighted.

"That simple, yet powerful principle has been a cornerstone of technological and economic growth for over sixty years. When published (as has been common industry practice for over three decades) or lawfully reverse engineered, they have spurred innovation through competition, increased productivity and economic efficiency, and connected the world in a way that has benefited commercial enterprises and consumers alike."

An anonymous reader quotes Red Hat's announcement of the brief: "The Federal Circuit's unduly narrow construction of 17 U.S.C. 102(b) is harmful to progress, competition, and innovation in the field of software development," Red Hat stated in the brief. "IBM and Red Hat urge the Court to reverse the decision below on the basis that 17 U.S.C. 102(b) excludes software interfaces from copyright protection...."

The lower court incorrectly extended copyright protection to software interfaces. If left uncorrected, the lower court rulings could harm software compatibility and interoperability and have a chilling effect on the innovation represented by the open source community... Red Hat's significant involvement with Java development over the last 20 years has included extensive contributions to OpenJDK, an open source implementation of the Java platform, and the development of Red Hat Middleware, a suite of Java-based middleware solutions to build, integrate, automate and deploy enterprise applications. As an open source leader, Red Hat has a stake in the consistent and correct determination of the scope of copyright protection that applies to interfaces of computer programs, including the Java platform interface at stake in this case.

Open source software development relies on the availability of and unencumbered access to software interfaces, including products that are compatible with or interoperate with other computer products, platforms, and services...

As part of Microsoft's effort to reduce more atmospheric carbon than it emits, the company has announced a $1 billion "Climate Innovation Fund," reports GeekWire: Microsoft said the new fund will leverage its balance sheet to loan money and take equity stakes in ventures to encourage the development of new environmental innovations. The money will be invested over the next four years. The company cited four criteria for investments, including sustainability initiatives, market impact, technological advances, and climate equity, addressing the tendency of climate change to disproportionately hurt people in developing countries.

"We deeply understand this is just a fraction of what is needed to solve this problem," said Amy Hood, the company's chief financial officer, outlining the plan at the event Thursday morning.... Microsoft said it is signing the United Nations' 1.5-degree Business Ambition Pledge, and said it will publicly track its progress in an annual Environmental Sustainability Report.
The article notes that Bill Gates "reviewed Microsoft's new initiative but wasn't involved in its creation." Gates has his own $1 billion Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund and has meanwhile also invested in mini nuclear reactors to address climate change.

And this spring he'll release a book titled "How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need."

Tech columnist Chris Matyszczyk summarizes the argument of four researchers who are warning about the perils of pure engineer thought: They write, politely: "Engineers enter the workforce with important analysis skills, but may struggle to 'think outside the box' when it comes to creative problem-solving." The academics blame the way engineers are educated.

They explain there are two sorts of thinking -- convergent and divergent. The former is the one with which engineers are most familiar. You make a list of steps to be taken to solve a problem and you take those steps. You expect a definite answer. Divergent thinking, however, requires many different ways of thinking about a problem and leads to many potential solutions. These academics declare emphatically: "Divergent thinking skills are largely ignored in engineering courses, which tend to focus on a linear progression of narrow, discipline-focused technical information."

Ah, that explains a lot, doesn't it? Indeed, these researchers insist that engineering students "become experts at working individually and applying a series of formulas and rules to structured problems with a 'right' answer."

Oddly, I know several people at Google just like that.
Fortunately, the researchers are also proposing this solution:

"While engineers need skills in analysis and judgment, they also need to cultivate an open, curious, and kind attitude, so they don't fixate on one particular approach and are able to consider new data."

Slashdot reader The8re still remembers the Y2K bug. Now he shares a New Scientist article explaining how it led directly to this year's Y2020 bug -- which affected more than just parking meters: WWE 2K20, a professional wrestling video game, also stopped working at midnight on 1 January 2020. Within 24 hours, the game's developers, 2K, issued a downloadable fix. Another piece of software, Splunk, which ironically looks for errors in computer systems, was found to be vulnerable to the Y2020 bug in November. The company rolled out a fix to users the same week -- which include 92 of the Fortune 100, the top 100 companies in the US....

The Y2020 bug, which has taken many payment and computer systems offline, is a long-lingering side effect of attempts to fix the Y2K, or millennium bug. Both stem from the way computers store dates. Many older systems express years using two numbers -- 98, for instance, for 1998 -- in an effort to save memory. The Y2K bug was a fear that computers would treat 00 as 1900, rather than 2000. Programmers wanting to avoid the Y2K bug had two broad options: entirely rewrite their code, or adopt a quick fix called "windowing", which would treat all dates from 00 to 20, as from the 2000s, rather than the 1900s. An estimated 80 percent of computers fixed in 1999 used the quicker, cheaper option. "Windowing, even during Y2K, was the worst of all possible solutions because it kicked the problem down the road," says Dylan Mulvin at the London School of Economics....

Another date storage problem also faces us in the year 2038. The issue again stems from Unix's epoch time: the data is stored as a 32-bit integer, which will run out of capacity at 3.14 am on 19 January 2038.

"The gigabytes of data we're using -- although invisible -- come at a significant cost to the environment," argues the CBC's senior technology reporter. "Some experts say it rivals that of the airline industry." And as more smart devices rely on data to operate (think internet-connected refrigerators or self-driving cars), their electricity demands are set to skyrocket. "We are using an immense amount of energy to drive this data revolution," said Jane Kearns, an environment and technology expert at MaRS Discovery District, an innovation hub in Toronto. "It has real implications for our climate." [Kearns is also the co-founder of the CanadaCleantech Alliance....]

It's not the gadgets themselves that are drawing so much power, it's the far-flung servers that act as their electronic brains... The data centres, often bigger than a football field, house endless stacks of servers handling many terabytes (thousands of gigabytes) of digital traffic. Just as laptops tend to warm during heavy usage, servers must be cooled to avoid overheating. And cooling so many machines requires plenty of power. Anders Andrae, a researcher at Huawei Technologies Sweden whose estimates are often cited, told CBC News in an email he expects the world's data centres alone will devour up to 651 terawatt-hours of electricity in the next year. That's nearly as much electricity as Canada's entire energy sector produces. And it's just the beginning.

Andrae's calculations, published in the International Journal of Green Technology, suggest data centres could more than double their power demands over the next decade. He projects computing will gobble up 11 per cent of global energy by 2030 and cloud-based services will represent a sizeable proportion of that. "This will become completely unsustainable by 2040," Andrae wrote...

The information and communications technology sector as a whole is thought to be responsible for two to three per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions -- roughly on par with the often-criticized airline sector.
The article also notes that by 2018 Amazon had already switched to renewable energy for at least 50% of its cloud computing servers. And it also adds that tech companies "in Canada and abroad...are coming up with innovative solutions to curb the growing problem."

Solutions being investigated include recovering the low-level heat generated by servers and increasing the speed and capacity of data transfers (including one approach involving a quantum dot multi-wavelength laser).