Tesla is closing the year by filing a patent on a new chemistry for better, longer-lasting and cheaper batteries. The new patent is related to the new battery cell that Tesla’s battery research partner, Jeff Dahn, and his team at Dalhousie University unveiled earlier this year. The new cell “should be able to power an electric vehicle for over [1 million…
Tag: disclosure
New Jersey’s Largest Hospital System Pays Up In Ransomware Attack
New Jersey’s largest hospital system said that it has paid hackers a ransom after a ransomware attack disrupted its services earlier this month. Threatpost reports: Hackensack Meridian Health, a $6 billion non-profit health provider system based in Edison, N.J., operates 17 hospitals, nursing homes and outpatient centers, as well as psychiatric facility Carrier Clinic. The hospital system told media outlets on…
White House Unveils Rules Requiring Online Disclosure of Hospital Prices
schwit1 shares a report from The Hill: The Trump administration on Friday unveiled new rules to require increased disclosure of health care prices, in a move officials said would drive down costs by increasing competition. One regulation would require hospitals to provide a consumer-friendly online page where prices are listed for 300 common procedures like X-rays and lab tests. A second…
Facebook Says Government Demands For User Data Are at a Record High
Facebook’s latest transparency report is out. The social media giant said the number of government demands for user data increased by 16% to 128,617 demands during the first-half of this year compared to the second-half of last year. From a report: That’s the highest number of government demands its received in any reporting period since it published its first transparency report…
EPA To Limit Science Used To Write Public Health Rules
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: The Trump administration is preparing to significantly limit the scientific and medical research that the government can use to determine public health regulations, overriding protests from scientists and physicians who say the new rule would undermine the scientific underpinnings of government policymaking. A new draft of the Environmental Protection Agency…
Uber Allegedly Paid $100K Ransom and Had Hackers Sign NDAs After Data Breach
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: New details about how Uber responded to a massive hack attack in 2016 raise questions about the way it handled sensitive customer information. Instead of reporting the hackers to police, the company allegedly paid $100,000 in exchange for a promise to delete 57 million user files the men stole off a third…
Security Researcher Gets Access To Thousands of Automatic Pet Feeders By Xiaomi
New submitter arkamax writes: A security researcher based in Russia discovered that her research (article in Russian, Google Translate) into API for a new automatic pet feeder manufactured by Xiaomi resulted in obtaining full control of approximately 10,950 of similar devices across the world. She found ways to access logs of those pet feeders, change their settings, invoke manual feeding or…
Company Offers To Pay You $130,000 To Put Your Face On a Robot
A British engineering and manufacturing firm called Geomiq has put out a call for people interested in being the face of a new “state-of-the-art humanoid” it’s developing with an unnamed company. The lucky winner with the “kind and friendly” face that the company is looking for will receive $130,000. CNET reports: “The company is searching for a ‘kind and friendly’ face…
IRS Programmer Stole Identities, Funded A Two-Year Shopping Spree
A computer programmer at America’s tax-collecting agency “stole multiple people’s identities, and used them to open illicit credit cards to fund vacations and shop for shoes and other goods,” write Quartz, citing a complaint unsealed last week in federal court. An anonymous reader quotes their report:
The complaint accuses the 35-year-old federal worker of racking up almost $70,000 in charges over the…
Dog-Walking Startup Wag Raised $300 Million To Unleash Growth. Then Things Got Messy
At the start of 2018, Wag looked like tech’s next Big Thing. From a report: In January, the founders of the dog-walking startup announced they had landed a $300 million investment from SoftBank’s Vision Fund. The world’s largest tech investor, SoftBank had $93 billion at its disposal and a network of global connections second to none. Unlike almost any other venture…