By BeauHD from
Slashdot's new-and-improved department:
Toyota is actively working to make vehicles powered by alternative energy sources. Last year, the Japanese automaker unveiled Project Portal, a novel hydrogen fuel-cell system designed for heavy-duty truck use at the Port of Los Angeles. Today, Toyota announced that it built a second hydrogen fuel cell-powered heavy-duty truck with 50 percent more range. CNET reports: Project Portal gets its power from a pair of hydrogen fuel-cell stacks borrowed from the Mirai sedan. Combined with a 12-kWh battery, the truck put out an impressive 670-plus horsepower and 1,325 pound-feet of torque. Its total combined weight rating is a hefty 80,000 pounds. The first version's range was about 200 miles, but this second version pushes that range north of 300 miles. The new Project Portal also packs a sleeper cab and a revised powertrain that boosts cab space without requiring a longer wheelbase. Project Portal 2.0 will begin its drayage work this fall. The pioneering variant has already clocked more than 10,000 miles as it transported goods over short distances in and around the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. As with every other hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle, the only emissions byproduct is pure potable water, although I don't blame you if you're not comfortable enough to pour a glass and take a sip of tailpipe juice.
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By BeauHD from
Slashdot's blast-from-the-past department:
MojoKid writes from a report via Hot Hardware: Although it has been over three decades since the first Commodore Amigas were originally released, a fan base for the beloved systems is still going strong. In fact, today's Amiga community seems to be more active now that it has been in years, and a number of exciting new hardware projects have cropped up in recent weeks. Two relatively new projects, led by popular members of the Amiga community Paul Rezendes and John "Chucky" Hertell, are designed to breathe new life into the Amiga 4000 and Amiga 1200. Both men set out to reverse engineer the motherboards for these systems, not only to continue the possibility of repairing existing machines that are prone to serious damage from leaky batteries and electrolytic capacitors, but to potentially spur additional customizations for the platform in the future. Though Paul and John have only made minor modifications to the Amiga 4000 and Amiga 1200 motherboard PCBs to this point, the possibility now also exists for all new variants to arrive at some point in the future for these machines as well. The first actual working motherboards populated with components based on the Amiga 4000 Replica project or Re-Amiga 1200 haven't been shown off just yet, and they may require additional revisions to work out any kinks. However, both projects are good examples of the passion that still remains for the beloved Amiga from computing glory days gone by.
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By msmash from
Slashdot's tracing-the-moves department:
The SamSam ransomware, which if you remember was at play in an attack in Atlanta city earlier this year, has earned its creator(s) more than $5.9 million in ransom payments since late 2015, BleepingComputer reported Tuesday, citing what it called the most comprehensive report ever published on SamSam's activity. The report, it said, contains information since the ransomware's launch in late 2015 and up to attacks that have happened earlier this month. BleepingComputer: Compiled by UK cyber-security firm Sophos, the 47-page report is a result of researchers collecting data from past attacks, talking to victims, and data-mining public and private sources for SamSam samples that might have slipped through the cracks. In addition, Sophos researchers also partnered with blockchain & cryptocurrency monitoring firm Neutrino to track down transfers and relations between the different Bitcoin addresses the SamSam crew has used until now. By tracking all the Bitcoin addresses researchers were able to find, Sophos says it identified at least 233 victims who paid a ransom to the SamSam crew, of which, 86 went public with the fact that they paid the ransom, allowing Sophos to create profiles about each of these victims. Researchers say that based on the data of these 86 victims, they were able to determine that around three-quarters of those who paid were located in the US, with some scattered victims located in the UK, Belgium, and Canada.
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By BeauHD from
Slashdot's uphill-climb department:
Apple reported strong third-quarter results Tuesday, posting big beats on earnings per share and average iPhone selling price. CNBC highlights how Apple did compared with Wall Street projections:
EPS: $2.34 vs. $2.18, according to Thomson Reuters consensus estimates
Revenue: $53.3 billion vs. $52.34 billion, according to Thomson Reuters consensus estimates
iPhone sales: 41.3 million vs. 41.79 million, according to StreetAccount Apple reportedly sold 41.3 million iPhones in the last quarter and 11.55 million iPads, both beating estimates. The average selling price of iPhones last quarter was $724, versus the expected $693.59. Apple also sold 3.7 million Mac computers.
Apple's services revenue accounted for just 15 percent of Apple's total revenue for the second quarter, but CNBC notes that it's "been outpacing iPhone revenue growth for several quarters." The company hopes to double services revenue to more than $14 billion a quarter by 2020. Looking forward, all eyes will be on the next iPhone. Apple is expected to launch new iPhone models at the end of the quarter, in mid-September.
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By msmash from
Slashdot's modest-proposal department:
hyperclocker shares a report: HP hopes to entice researchers with a $10,000 reward for finding vulnerabilities in printers. The tech giant revealed the new bug bounty program on Tuesday. The scheme, which is launching as a private bug bounty, is tailored specifically for HP printer hardware. While many of us use home printers simply for printing the occasional document or photo, in the enterprise, these devices are often found in a network. If there is a weak link in business networks, a single device -- whether it be a printer or smart air conditioning system -- can be exploited to compromise a wider network system. Printers, especially if they are overlooked when it comes to firmware updates or upgrades, can become such avenues to exploit. According to research undertaken by Bugcrowd, "2018 State of Bug Bounty Report," endpoint devices are becoming a tantalizing target for threat actors, with a 21 percent increase in total endpoint bugs reported over the past 12 months. In partnership with bug bounty platform Bugcrowd, HP says it is the "only vendor" to launch a printer-only vulnerability disclosure scheme. Under the terms of the program, researchers can earn between $500 and $10,000 per legitimate find.
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By msmash from
Slashdot's new-plan department:
The Department of Homeland Security announced on Tuesday the creation of a new center aimed at guarding the nation's banks, energy companies and other industries from major cyberattacks that could cripple critical infrastructure. From a report: The launch of the National Risk Management Center was unveiled by DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen at a government-hosted cyber summit in New York City, at which Vice President Mike Pence and several other cabinet secretaries are expected to speak. In prepared remarks, Ms. Nielsen said that cyber threats now posed a greater threat to the country than physical attacks. DHS was founded 15 years ago to prevent another Sept. 11, 2001, Ms. Nielsen said, but "today I believe the next major attack is more likely to reach us online than on an airplane." The center's creation was motivated by a growing recognition in government that sophisticated cyberattacks, particularly those deployed by foreign adversaries, can not only harm a company or industry but can cause systemic failure across society, Chris Krebs, DHS's top cyber official, said in an interview.
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By msmash from
Slashdot's tussle-continues department:
Several readers have shared a report: Vickie Shannon Allen, 49, started working at Amazon as a counter in a fulfillment warehouse at Haslet, Texas, in May 2017. At first, like many employees, Allen was excited by the idea of working for one of the fastest growing corporations in the world. That feeling dissipated quickly after a few months. [...] Nor is Allen alone. A Guardian investigation has revealed numerous cases of Amazon workers suffering from workplace accidents or injuries in its gigantic warehouse system and being treated in ways that leave them homeless, unable to work or bereft of income. Allen's story began on 24 October last year when she injured her back counting goods on a workstation that was missing a brush guard, a piece of safety equipment meant to prevent products from falling onto the floor. She used a tote bin to try to compensate for the missing brush guard, and hurt her back while counting in an awkward position. The injury was the beginning of an ongoing ordeal she is still working to amend at Amazon. Over the course of a few weeks, Amazon's medical triage area gave her use of a heating pad to use on her back, while Amazon management sent her home each day without pay until Allen pushed for workers compensation. "I tried to work again, but I couldn't stretch my right arm out and I'm right-handed. So I was having a hard time keeping up. This went on for about three weeks," Allen said. Despite not getting paid, Allen was spending her own money to drive 60 miles one way to the warehouse each day just to be sent home. Once on workers compensation, Allen started going to physical therapy. In January 2018, she returned to work and injured herself again on the same workstation that still was not fixed.
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By msmash from
Slashdot's closer-look department:
An anonymous reader shares a report: In August 22, 2001, Jerome Jacobson, director of security for a subcontracting company called Simon Marketing, was arrested along with eight co-conspirators for orchestrating a massive scheme to defraud McDonald's Monopoly promotion out of more than $24 million. Jeff Maysh of The Daily Beast tells the inside story in 8,800 words. Between 1989 and 2001, "Uncle Jerry" used his position as the head of the McDonald's Monopoly account to steal winning "pieces" worth between $10,000 and $1 million. He proceeded to gift the pieces to family members and a growing network of associates -- which included "mobsters, psychics, strip club owners, convicts, drug traffickers, and even a family of Mormons" -- in exchange for a cut of the laundered winnings. A former police officer known for his attention to detail, Jacobson was personally responsible for overseeing the printing of paper game pieces, cutting out the winning tickets, and transporting them to McDonald's packaging factories throughout the country. Read the full story here.
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By msmash from
Slashdot's breaking-news department:
Facebook is preparing to announce that it has identified a coordinated political influence campaign, with dozens of inauthentic accounts and pages that are believed to be engaging in political activity ahead of November's midterm elections, The New York Times reported Tuesday, citing three people briefed on the matter. From the report: In a series of briefings on Capitol Hill this week, the company told lawmakers that it detected the influence campaign as part of its investigations into election interference. It has been unable to tie the accounts to Russia, whose Internet Research Agency was at the center of an indictment earlier this year for interfering in the 2016 election, but company officials told Capitol Hill that Russia was possibly involved, according to two of the officials. Facebook is expected to announce its findings on Tuesday afternoon. The company has been working with the F.B.I. to investigate the activity. Like the Russian interference campaign in 2016, the recently detected campaign dealt with divisive social issues. Update: Facebook has confirmed the story, adding: Today we removed 32 Pages and accounts from Facebook and Instagram because they were involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior. This kind of behavior is not allowed on Facebook because we don't want people or organizations creating networks of accounts to mislead others about who they are, or what they're doing. We're still in the very early stages of our investigation and don't have all the facts -- including who may be behind this. But we are sharing what we know today given the connection between these bad actors and protests that are planned in Washington next week. We will update this post with more details when we have them, or if the facts we have change. It's clear that whoever set up these accounts went to much greater lengths to obscure their true identities than the Russian-based Internet Research Agency (IRA) has in the past. We believe this could be partly due to changes we've made over the last year to make this kind of abuse much harder.
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By msmash from
Slashdot's day-light-robbery department:
AXS, a digital marketplace operated by Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), is the second largest presenter of live events in the world after Live Nation Entertainment (i.e. Ticketmaster). Paris Martineau of The Outline reports that the company forces customers to download a predatory app which goes on to snatch up a range of personally identifiable data and sells it to a range of companies, including Facebook and Google, without ever anonymizing or aggregating them. From the report: The company requires users to download an app to use any ticket for a concert, game, or show bought through AXS, and it doesn't come cheap. AXS uses a system called Flash Seats, which relies on a dynamically generated barcode system (read: screenshotting doesn't work) to fight off ticket scalping and reselling. [...] Here's a brief overview of all of the information that can be collected from just the mobile app alone, nearly all of which is shared with third parties without being anonymized or aggregated: first and last name, precise location (as determined by GPS, WiFi, and other means), how often the app is used, what content is viewed using the app, which ads are clicked, what purchases are made (and not made), a user's personal advertising identifier, IP address, operating system, device make and model, billing address, credit card number, security code, mailing address, phone number, and email address, among many others. [...] AXS also shares the personal data collected on its customers with event promoters and other clients, none of whom are bound even by this (extremely lax) privacy policy.
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By msmash from
Slashdot's closer-look department:
As students enter college this fall, many will hunger for more than knowledge. Up to half of college students in recent published studies say they either are not getting enough to eat or are worried about it. From a report: This food insecurity is most prevalent at community colleges, but it's common at public and private four-year schools as well. Student activists and advocates in the education community have drawn attention to the problem in recent years, and the food pantries that have sprung up at hundreds of schools are perhaps the most visible sign. Some schools nationally also have instituted the Swipe Out Hunger program, which allows students to donate their unused meal plan vouchers, or "swipes," to other students to use at campus dining halls or food pantries. That's a start, say analysts studying the problem of campus hunger, but more systemwide solutions are needed. "If I'm sending my kid to college, I want more than a food pantry," says Sara Goldrick-Rab, a professor of higher education policy and sociology at Temple University in Philadelphia, and founder of the Hope Center for College, Community and Justice. [...] According to a survey of UC Berkeley students, 38 percent of undergraduates and 23 percent of graduate students deal with food insecurity at some point during the academic year, Ruben Canedo, a university employee who chairs the campus's basic needs committee, says.
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