November 13, 2020

The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule sits on the launch pad in Florida ready for Saturday’s flight (SpaceX)

SpaceX is set to send four astronauts into low-Earth orbit as part of its first operational crewed flight to the International Space Station (ISS).

The crew, consisting of one Japanese and three US astronauts, is scheduled for lift-off shortly after midnight on Sunday, on a rocket and capsule system built by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s aerospace company.

For Nasa, it marks the beginning of using private firms as a ‘taxi service’ to fly its crew to and from the space station.

The US space agency announced this week that it had certified SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket to carry astronauts, making it the first commercial human spaceflight system in history.

SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk said in a statement: ‘This is a great honour that inspires confidence in our endeavour … Read the rest

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Apple’s M1 Macs are coming with a bang.

What you need to know

  • The first benchmarks of Apple’s M1 Macs have arrived.
  • Scores posted to Geekbench today.
  • The new MacBook Air beats up even the current 16-inch MacBook Pro in raw CPU performance.

Reported by MacRumors, the first benchmark scores for an M1 powered Mac have landed on Geekbench. The chip reportedly belongs to one of the new MacBook Air models.

According to Geekbench, the new MacBook Air with M1 reached a single-core score of 1687 and a multi-core score of 7433. Per the benchmark, the M1 processor has a 3.2GHz base frequency and has beat out every iOS in performance.

When compared to existing devices, the M1 chip in the MacBook Air outperforms all iOS devices. For comparison’s sake, the iPhone 12 Pro earned a single-core score of 1584 and a multi-core score of 3898, while the highest

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  • Sony’s PlayStation 5 ($499) and PlayStation 5 Digital Edition ($399) launch on November 12th.
  • Sony has already confirmed that PS5 consoles won’t be available for in-store purchase on launch day, so if you didn’t preorder, you are going to have to search online.
  • Below, we have gathered links to all of the retailers that plan to sell PS5 and PS5 Digital Edition units on launch day, but your mileage may vary depending on the store.

Even more so than in previous years, finding a next-generation game console is going to be incredibly difficult this fall. Preorders for the PS5 and Xbox Series X sold out almost immediately, and all those who missed out are now crossing their fingers and hoping they can snag a unit before the end of the year. The good news is that multiple retailers have already confirmed that they will be selling additional consoles at launch, … Read the rest

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Last month Nature published a damning response written by 31 scientists to a study from Google Health that had appeared in the journal earlier this year. Google was describing successful trials of an AI that looked for signs of breast cancer in medical images. But according to its critics, the Google team provided so little information about its code and how it was tested that the study amounted to nothing more than a promotion of proprietary tech.

“We couldn’t take it anymore,” says Benjamin Haibe-Kains, the lead author of the response, who studies computational genomics at the University of Toronto. “It’s not about this study in particular—it’s a trend we’ve been witnessing for multiple years now that has started to really bother us.”

Haibe-Kains and his colleagues are among a growing number of scientists pushing back against a perceived lack of transparency in AI research. “When we saw that paper … Read the rest

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Activists protest a new Amazon warehouse in France in June 2020. | Pascal Guyot/AFP via Getty Images

The EU’s competition commission says the tech giant uses non-public data from its own merchants to compete against them unfairly.

The European Union announced antitrust charges against Amazon on Tuesday, alleging that the online retail giant has broken EU competition laws by using non-public data from the small-business merchants who stock its virtual shelves to compete against those same sellers.

Amazon’s use of seller data to compete against its own merchants has also been a focus of antitrust probes in the United States, both in Congress and at the Federal Trade Commission. Now the European Union has announced that it believes the tech giant’s data-mining practices in Germany and France have broken EU competition laws.

“We must ensure that dual role platforms with market power, such as Amazon, do not distort competition,” … Read the rest

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Apple CEO Tim Cook with his MacBook (Credits: EPA)

Apple has revealed its first ever MacBook products running on its own processors.

Like the iPhone and the iPad, Apple has now shifted to in-house production for the beating heart of the MacBook rather than outsource to Intel.

The company claims the change will have a ‘profound effect’.

New versions of the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and Mac mini were announced as the first to include the Apple M1 chip, as the company begins to transition away from Intel processors.

The move, which was first confirmed in the summer, will see Apple gradually introduce its own silicon to all its computers over the next few years, greatly improving performance, Apple claims.

During a virtual event to announce the new line-up, Apple boss Tim Cook said the change was a ‘huge leap forward’ for the Mac and that the M1 was ‘by … Read the rest

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amazonechosmall1506572904693.jpg What Is The IEEE? 1 min read

An operating system (abbreviated OS) is essentially the path through which a computer accesses files, games, the Internet, and all vital stored information. For many people, their day-to-day routines have a tendency to sap their energy and steal their motivation. To make matters worse, excessive sitting during a 9-to-5 job can lead to tightness in the hips and can ultimately cause hip or back pain. But foam rolling is a nice, gentle way to counteract that by helping reestablish flexibility in your muscles. Microsoft’s current virtual server product is handicapped by the fact that it has no Hypervisor. It could be several years, (some reports say up to ten years), before Microsoft has an integrated Hypervisor in it’s server operating systems. Until then, users are migrating to VMWare, or are ignoring Microsoft Virtual Server because of it’s lack of resilience, need for a host operating system, slowness, and short business … Read the rest

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Nanoleaf’s latest smart lights are colorful, affordable, and the first to support Thread wireless connectivity.

What you need to know

  • Nanoleaf has launched the Essentials A19 Light Bulb and Lightstrip.
  • Latest Nanoleaf lights support millions of colors, Circadian Lighting, and Thread wireless connectivity.
  • Essential lights are available now exclusively at Apple Stores worldwide.

Nanoleaf has announced the release of two new smart lighting products, the Essentials A19 Light Bulb and Essentials Lightstrip. The latest Nanoleaf accessories provide affordable, colorful lighting options with a simple setup process that works with Apple’s HomeKit.

“As we continue to push the boundaries of what smart lighting can do, Essentials was the natural next step to ensure we’re meeting all the smart lighting needs of consumers, especially for everyday lighting now that we’re spending more time at home than ever before,” said Gimmy Chu, CEO and co-founder of Nanoleaf. “With Essentials, we’re making smart

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  • Xbox Live went down for about two hours on Xbox Series X|S launch day.
  • Microsoft didn’t say what caused the problem, but in the middle of the day on Tuesday, people were having trouble signing into Xbox Live and playing games.
  • In addition to Xbox Live, a few games had their own connectivity issues as well, including Destiny 2 and Rogue Company, but it’s unclear if these are related.

Launch day is always chaotic in the world of video games. Whether it’s a new title with online multiplayer or next-gen console that connects to the internet, something inevitably goes wrong, and that appears to be the case for Microsoft as it launches the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S on Tuesday. Starting at around 1 p.m. ET, Xbox Live went down as the status page explained that an outage was affecting the core services of the platform.

“We’re … Read the rest

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How do organizations best ensure a resilient cyber ecosystem–from assessing risk to implementing and managing controls to ensuring compliance internally and with external partners? Is it possible for defensive technologies to catch up and move ahead of attackers?  

Join us at CyberSecure, our inaugural virtual event on the business of cyber risk, to hear how smart companies are striking preemptively, and what emerging technologies are proven to support smart security. 
 

  • Best Practices to Mitigate Cyber Risk from the Front Lines 
    This session presents a compilation of tactics designed to mitigate cyber risk across the public and private sectors–from implementing security best practices in the White House to establishing a network of intelligence for a leading financial institution. 
    Featuring: Alissa Abdullah (Dr. Jay), Deputy Chief Security Officer, Mastercard 
  • Phishing, Phones, and the New Social Engineering Threat 
    How does spear phishing gain access to mobile devices, what makes them so vulnerable to attack, and what can be done about it?   
    Featuring: Aaron
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