An anonymous reader quotes Computerworld: Revenue generated by Microsoft’s Surface hardware during the March quarter was down 26% from the same period the year before, the company said yesterday as it briefed Wall Street. For the quarter, Surface produced $831…
NASA Launches Super Balloon To Detect Cosmic Particles From Near Space
“After seven unsuccessful attempts NASA has launched a stadium-sized balloon in Wanaka,” reports the New Zealand Herald, adding that the super-pressure balloon will collect data from “near space” over the next 100 days. Reuters reports: The balloon, designed by NASA…
Developer Shares A Recoverable Container Format That's File System Agnostic
Long-time Slashdot reader MarcoPon writes: I created a thing: SeqBox. It’s an archive/container format (and corresponding suite of tools) with some interesting and unique features. Basically an SBX file is composed of a series of sector-sized blocks with a small…
Ask Slashdot: Could We Build A Global Wireless Mesh Network?
An anonymous reader wants to start a grassroots effort to build a self-organizing global radio mesh network where every device can communicate with every other device — and without any central authority. There is nothing in the rules of mathematics…
Wired Founding Editor Now Challenges 'The Myth of A Superhuman AI'
Wired’s founding executive editor Kevin Kelly wrote a 5,000-word takedown on “the myth of a superhuman AI,” challenging dire warnings from Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking, and Elon Musk about the potential extinction of humanity at the hands of a superintelligent…
Facebook admits it is being used as propaganda tool by ‘malicious actors’
Facebook’s soul-searching report sets itself the challenge of knowing itself
News in brief: Kashmir blocks social media; ‘whaling’ victims revealed; TalkTalk GDPR fine ‘would be £59m’
Your daily round-up of some of the other stories in the news
Apple, Tesla Ask California To Change Its Proposed Policies On Self-Driving Car Testing
Tesla and Apple have asked the state of California to change its proposed policies on self-driving cars to allow companies to test vehicles without traditional steering wheels and controls or human back-up drivers, among other things. Reuters reports: In a…
Washington State Orchard Owners Look To Robots As Labor Shortage Worsens
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Seattle Times: Harvesting Washington state’s vast fruit orchards each year requires thousands of farmworkers, and many of them work illegally in the United States. That system eventually could change dramatically as at least…
Airbnb Gives In To Regulator's Demand To Test For Racial Discrimination By Hosts
As part of an agreement with California regulators, Airbnb will allow the government to test for racial discrimination by hosts. The Guardian reports: The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) announced Thursday that it had resolved a complaint…