Enlarge / Photo illustration by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images (credit: Getty Images) A US senator is calling on the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity arm to assess the threat posed by browser extensions made in countries known to conduct espionage against the US. “I am concerned that the use by millions of Americans of foreign-controlled browser extensions could threaten …
Dual-Flush Toilets ‘Wasting More Water Than They Save’
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Toilets specially designed to save water are wasting more than they conserve, the UK’s largest water firm has warned. Campaigners have warned for years that dual-flush toilets, introduced as more efficient alternatives that were expected to use less than half the amount of water per flush, are more prone to leaks. …
Intel, Heidelberg University team up to bring Radeon GPU support to AI
Enlarge / Machine learning doesn’t actually have a face. But if it ever does, we’d like that face to look something like this. (credit: Alex Knight) We’ve been following Intel’s oneAPI—an artificial intelligence development platform designed to abstract hardware away from the task of developing AI code—with great interest since its launch last November. This week, Intel and the Heidelberg …
‘I Monitor My Staff With Software That Takes Screenshots’
AmiMoJo shares a report from the BBC: Shibu Philip admits he knows what it’s like to “maybe waste a bit of time at work.” Shibu is the founder of Transcend — a small London-based firm that buys beauty products wholesale and re-sells them online. For the last year and a half he has used Hubstaff software to track his workers’ …
Great North Air Ambulance Trials Paramedic Jet Suit
A jet suit for paramedics which would see patients reached in minutes by a “flying” medic has been tested by the Great North Air Ambulance Service. The BBC reports: After a year of talks between GNAAS and Gravity Industries, a first test flight was carried out in the Lake District. Andy Mawson, director of operations at GNAAS, came up with …
Tesco, One of the World’s Largest Supermarket Operators, Sets 300% Sales Target For Plant-Based Alternatives To Meat
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Tesco is to become the first UK retailer to set a sales target for plant-based alternatives to meat as it steps up efforts to offer shoppers more sustainable options. The UK’s largest supermarket will on Tuesday commit to boosting sales of meat alternatives by 300% within five years, by 2025. Over …
Denmark: We Can Slash CO2 By 70% In a Decade And Still Have Welfare
Denmark said on Tuesday that it could reach its 2030 climate target of reducing emissions by 70%, one of the world’s most ambitious, without compromising its generous welfare benefits. Reuters reports: Last year, parties across the aisle passed a law committing Denmark to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70% from 1990 levels, or around 20 million tons of CO2 equivalent, …
The World’s First Foldable PC Is Now Available To Order From Lenovo
Last year at its Accelerate 2019 event in Orlando, Lenovo teased “the world’s first foldable PC.” They didn’t unveil the name, price tag, or ship date — just that it would be part of Lenovo’s flagship ThinkPad X1 line and that it would arrive in 2020. Today, the company formally unveiled the device it’s calling the ThinkPad X1 Fold, which …
Amsterdam and Helsinki Launch Algorithm Registries To Bring Transparency To Public Deployments of AI
Amsterdam and Helsinki this week launched AI registries to detail how each city government uses algorithms to deliver services, some of the first major cities in the world to do so. From a report: An AI Register for each city was introduced in beta today as part of the Next Generation Internet Policy Summit, organized in part by the European …
Compact Nuclear Fusion Reactor Is ‘Very Likely To Work,’ Studies Suggest
JoshuaZ writes: Recent research into the Sparc fusion reactor design make it seem likely to work. Unlike some other fusion reactor designs, Sparc uses high-temperature superconductors which are capable of much stronger magnetic fields in a more closely-confined location. Sparc will be much smaller than large-scale international project ITER, which after multiple delays is now not scheduled to even start …