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Submission + - Canada's Disastrous ArriveCan App Received a Procurement Award

Submitted by belmolis
belmolis writes: During Covid, the Canada Border Services Agency created ArriveCan, an app that allows travelers entering Canada to electronically submit travel documents and customs declarations. The app was so buggy that many could not use it, and erroneously ordered thousands of travelers to quarantine. At C$59.5 (US$48.4) million it was far more expensive than the initial C$80,0000 estimate.The procurement process was recently severely criticized by Auditor General Karen Hogan in a scathing report. It has now been reported that the team responsible for ArriveCan received an Unsung Heroes award from the Canadian Institute for Procurement and Material Management for its work.

Submission + - The legendary Zilog Z80 CPU is being discontinued after nearly 50 years (techspot.com)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: Zilog is retiring the Z80 after 48 years on the market. Originally developed as a project stemming from the Intel 8080, it eventually rose to become one of the most popular and widely used 8-bit CPUs in both gaming and general computing devices.

The iconic IC device, developed by Federico Faggin, will soon be phased out, and interested parties only have a few months left to place their orders before Zilog's manufacturing partner ends support for the technology. Federico Faggin, an Intel engineer, founded Zilog in 1974 after his work on the Intel 4004, the first 4-bit CPU. The Zilog Z80 was then released in July 1976, conceived as a software-compatible "extension" and enhancement of the Intel 8080 processor.

Submission + - Propellantless propulsion drive just produced enough thrust to counter gravity (thedebrief.org)

Submitted by garyisabusyguy
garyisabusyguy writes: Dr. Charles Buhler, a NASA engineer and the co-founder of Exodus Propulsion Technologies, has revealed that his company’s propellantless propulsion drive, which appears to defy the known laws of physics, has produced enough thrust to counteract Earth’s gravity.

“The most important message to convey to the public is that a major discovery occurred,” Buhler told The Debrief. “This discovery of a New Force is fundamental in that electric fields alone can generate a sustainable force onto an object and allow center-of-mass translation of said object without expelling mass.”

“There are rules that include conservation of energy, but if done correctly, one can generate forces unlike anything humankind has done before,” Buhler added. “It will be this force that we will use to propel objects for the next 1,000 years until the next thing comes.”

Submission + - Cops Can Force Suspect To Unlock Phone With Thumbprint, US Court Rules (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The US Constitution's Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination does not prohibit police officers from forcing a suspect to unlock a phone with a thumbprint scan, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday. The ruling does not apply to all cases in which biometrics are used to unlock an electronic device but is a significant decision in an unsettled area of the law. The US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit had to grapple with the question of "whether the compelled use of Payne's thumb to unlock his phone was testimonial," the ruling (PDF) in United States v. Jeremy Travis Payne said. "To date, neither the Supreme Court nor any of our sister circuits have addressed whether the compelled use of a biometric to unlock an electronic device is testimonial."

A three-judge panel at the 9th Circuit ruled unanimously against Payne, affirming a US District Court's denial of Payne's motion to suppress evidence. Payne was a California parolee who was arrested by California Highway Patrol (CHP) after a 2021 traffic stop and charged with possession with intent to distribute fentanyl, fluorofentanyl, and cocaine. There was a dispute in District Court over whether a CHP officer "forcibly used Payne's thumb to unlock the phone." But for the purposes of Payne's appeal, the government "accepted the defendant's version of the facts, i.e., 'that defendant's thumbprint was compelled.'"

Payne's Fifth Amendment claim "rests entirely on whether the use of his thumb implicitly related certain facts to officers such that he can avail himself of the privilege against self-incrimination," the ruling said. Judges rejected his claim, holding "that the compelled use of Payne's thumb to unlock his phone (which he had already identified for the officers) required no cognitive exertion, placing it firmly in the same category as a blood draw or fingerprint taken at booking." "When Officer Coddington used Payne's thumb to unlock his phone—which he could have accomplished even if Payne had been unconscious—he did not intrude on the contents of Payne's mind," the court also said.

Submission + - Light-pole installation blamed for 3-state 911 outage (cnn.com)

Submitted by davidwr
davidwr writes: CNN reports:

The outage of 911 systems in [Nevada, South Dakota, and Nebraska] Wednesday [April 18] evening was caused by the installation of a light pole, according to Lumen, a company that supports some of those systems.

The article goes on to say:

Molzen declined to elaborate on exactly how the light pole installation resulted in the 911 outage, or where the pole was located. The 911 director in Douglas County, Nebraska, which encompasses Omaha, said in a statement Lumen informed the county the outage was related to a “fiber cut.”

My questions is: If a city/locality contracts out its 911 system, shouldn't it have a reliable backup in place?



The outage in Del Rio, Texas at about the same time is not related.

Comment Fixed RAM is planned obsolescence. (Score 2) 455

by couchslug (#64404486) Attached to: Is 8GB of RAM Enough For a Mac?

Apple products are not for the poor. Including more RAM should be considered a feature not a bug. Why should any machine have so pathetically little RAM excuses must be made for doing so? The only justification for fixed RAM is planned obsolescence in a supposedly premium machine (other makers are guilty too).

RAM minimalism without user upgrades is not an accomplishment, it's selling a car with the hood welded shut and I find it hilarious. Why shouldn't a premium computer have 32 or 64GB as a floor?

It's cheap as chips to do so. Many of us have more than that in our leftover pile but that's from notebooks and desktops which respect choice. Fixed RAM is planned obsolescence. Count the notebooks you've owned and had to retire or demote due to low maximum RAM.

Submission + - House Passes Bill Requiring Warrant To Purchase Data From Third Parties (thehill.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The House on Wednesday approved a bill that would limit how the government can purchase data from third parties — legislation that scored a vote after negotiations with a group of GOP colleagues who briefly tanked a vote on warrantless spy powers. Dubbed the Fourth Amendment is Not For Sale, the legislation passed 219-199. It requires law enforcement and other government entities to get a warrant before buying information from third-party data brokers who purchase information gleaned from apps. [...] Senior administration officials said the measure would blind U.S. intelligence outfits from getting information easily purchased by foreign intelligence operations.

“In practice, these standards make it impossible for the [intelligence community], law enforcement to acquire a whole host of readily available information that they currently rely on,” an administration official said. “Covered customer records as defined in the bill is very broad and includes records pertaining to any U.S. person or indeed any foreigner inside the United States. And as a practical matter, there’s often no way to establish whether a particular individual was in the U.S. at a particular time a piece of data was created. Unless you did one thing, which is paradoxically to intrude further into their privacy just to figure out whether you could obtain some data.” “It can be impossible to know what’s in a data set before one actually obtains a data set,” the official continued. “So you’d be barred from getting that which you don’t even know.”

Submission + - Section 702 reauthorization bill (RISAA) (eff.org)

Submitted by mockojumbie
mockojumbie writes: "any company or individual that provides ANY service whatsoever may be forced to assist in NSA surveillance, as long as they have access to equipment on which communications are transmitted or stored—such as routers, servers, cell towers, etc. That sweeps in an enormous range of U.S. businesses that provide wifi to their customers and therefore have access to equipment on which communications transit. Barber shops, laundromats, fitness centers, hardware stores, dentist’s offices"
https://www.zwillgen.com/law-e...

Comment Re:Take names (Score -1) 512

by roman_mir (#64400914) Attached to: Google Workers Protest Cloud Contract With Israel's Government

Google is one of the companies that built the tools that allow propaganda to be made much more efficiently, funny its own employees fell for it hook line and sinker.

In the age when males are beating females in sports by pretending to be females the structural inability to tell the truth, to provide negative feedback is not only hurting female sports. Musk will never land a star ship on the Moon or Mars or anything because he is a sharlatan and he hires former government officials who signed government checks, he is burning through billions of tax money with every flight, all of these star ship flights are pointless. Gaza residents and Hamas operatives not only indistinguishable, they share the same values. People protesting pro terrorism (against Israel) are wrong for the same reasons this male athlete is participating in female sports. USA denying help to Ukraine is literally murdering thousands of Ukrainians and promoting putinism, which is terrorism. USA federal reserve has created the inflation by monetizing government debt and so the economy is dying. The planet is going to become extremely hostile to people because we are still burning coal, oil and gas for power and heat production instead of building more nuclear power plants. There are more and more lies all over.

These Googlers are a sad reflection of the modern approach to reality - our game is ignorance, lies and denial and these protests are just a form of it.

Submission + - EU: Meta cannot rely on "Pay or Okay" (noyb.eu)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: Today, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has issued its first decision on "Pay or Okay" in relation to large online platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. Meta offers users a choice: "consent" to tracking, or pay over €250/year to use its sites without invasive monetization of personal data. The EDPB is quoted as saying "In most cases, it will not be possible for large online platforms to comply with the requirements for valid consent if they confront users only with a binary choice between consenting to processing of personal data for behavioral advertising purposes and paying a fee".

Comment Re:Hamas Fanboys (Score -1) 512

by roman_mir (#64400628) Attached to: Google Workers Protest Cloud Contract With Israel's Government

Terrorists are very good at pushing their messages, this is clear today. ruZia, hamas, Iran, north korea even, apparently they are very effective at this entire psyops thing. Israel needs to eliminate the threat, AFAIC this can entirely mean whiping out the entire Gaza population also I hope they take out Iran's rocket and drone manufacturing capabilities, this would help both, Israel and Ukraine.

Comment Pabulum for the moronic masses reliably pays off. (Score 1) 100

by couchslug (#64399782) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Are Movies Becoming More Derivative?

The purpose of cinema is profit, not "art" which is an excuse.
Most movies have always been derivative and formulaic.

If you want something better perfect AI so individuals can tailor their entertainment to their desires. Most works will be crap but that doesn't matter as they're all just trifles to amuse the bored.

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