The Planet (on, and off)
The Dirty Secret Behind China’s Rising Emission Levels: Pollution from State-Run Companies
“The world’s top five polluters were responsible for 60% of global emissions in 2019,” reports Bloomberg — but China alone “generated about the same amount of CO2 as the next four countries combined.” That’s despite having a smaller population than those four countries combined — and even then, China’s carbon Read more…
Leben (Life aka misc)
Astronomers Find Nascent Exploding Star, ‘Rosetta Stone’ of All Supernovas
“A star located 60 million light years away went supernova last year, and astronomers managed to capture all stages of the stellar explosion using telescopes both on the ground and in space,” reports Gizmodo. Long-time Slashdot reader spaceman375 shared Gizmodo’s report: This awesome display of astronomical power has yielded a Read more…
Technology
Aggressive US Marketers are Bringing Police Surveillance Tools to the Masses
“License plate readers are rapidly reshaping private security in American neighborhoods,” reports the Washington Post, as aggressively-marketed $2,500-a-year “safety-as-a-service” packages “spread to cover practically everywhere anyone chooses to live in the United States” and “bringing police surveillance tools to the masses with an automated watchdog that records 24 hours a Read more…
Technology
Should the US Fund a ‘National Cloud’ for AI Research to Compete With China?
A steady drumbeat from some of the most influential executives in the technology industry has emerged in recent months to push the idea that the U.S. government should invest in a “national research cloud” — a hub for U.S. research into artificial intelligence where researchers from academia and smaller tech Read more…
Technology
Traffic-Redirecting Rootkit Somehow Got a Microsoft-issued Digital Signature
Cybersecurity researchers at Bitdefender say cyber criminals have been using a rootkit named FiveSys “that somehow made its way through the driver certification process to be digitally signed by Microsoft,” reports ZDNet: The valid signature enables the rootkit — malicious software that allows cyber criminals to access and control infected Read more…