Very long-time Slashdot reader Andy Smith writes: Yesterday I received an email from my ISP telling me that I had illegally downloaded an animated film called Cubo and the Two Strings. I’d never heard of the film and hadn’t downloaded…

Local Police Departments Are Building Their Own DNA Databases
Slashdot reader schwit1 quotes the Associated Press: Dozens of police departments around the U.S. are amassing their own DNA databases to track criminals, a move critics say is a way around regulations governing state and national databases that restrict who…

Streaming TV Sites Now Have More Subscribers Than Cable TV
Nielsen reported this week that millennials “spend about 27% less time watching traditional TV than viewers over the age of 35,” possibly threatening the dominance of cable TV. An anonymous reader quotes Axios: Streaming service subscribers (free or paid) increased…

More Fast Food Restaurants Are Now Automating
An anonymous reader writes: Wendy’s is adding self-service ordering kiosks “to at least 1,000 restaurants, or about 15% of its stores,” reports the Los Angeles Times, while McDonald’s and Panera Bread are now planning to add kiosks to every restaurant….

Third-Party Vendor Issues Temporary Patch For Windows Vulnerability
An anonymous reader writes: “A vulnerability discovered by Google Project Zero security researchers and left without a patch by Microsoft received a temporary fix from third-party security vendor ACROS Security,” according to Bleeping Computer. Microsoft is set to officially patch…

Curated Advertising Is Coming To Highway Billboards
Curated advertising may be coming to a highway near you. “A startup called Synaps Labs has brought it to the physical world by combining high-speed cameras set up a distance ahead of the billboard (about 180 meters) to capture images…

FCC Chair Wants Carriers To Block Robocalls From Spoofed Numbers
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The FCC in 2015 made it clear that voice service providers can offer call blocking tools to customers, but commissioners said at the time that more needed to be done about…

Free Software Foundation Challenges Tim Berners-Lee On DRM
Slashdot reader Atticus Rex writes: On Monday, W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) director Tim Berners-Lee released a post defending his decision to allow Netflix, Microsoft, Apple and Google to enshrine DRM in Web standards, arguing that blocking it would be…

Google Open Sources Encrypted Email Extension For Chrome
Last week Google released E2EMail, “a Gmail client that exchanges OpenPGP mail.” Google’s documentation promises that “Any email sent from the app is also automatically signed and encrypted… The target is a simple user experience — install app, approve permissions,…

Microsoft Finally Releases A Beta Version of Skype For Linux
“We want to create a Linux version of Skype that is as feature rich as the existing Skype on desktop and mobile platforms,” read Thursday’s announcement from Microsoft’s Skype team. “Today, we’re pleased to announce that we are ready to…