Twitch Says It’s In Talks To License Music, Tells Users To Delete Videos With Unauthorized Tracks

In a lengthy blog post, Twitch told streamers that they must stop playing recorded music on their streams (unless it’s officially licensed) and that “if you haven’t already, you should review your historical VODs and Clips that may have music in them and delete any archives that might.” Variety reports: The Amazon-owned live-streaming platform also claimed that it is “actively speaking…

Is There A Google-Free Future For Firefox?

Forbes reports:
Firefox is exploring subscriptions and other “value exchange” services to ease its financial dependence on rival Google, according to the browser’s lead developer. Firefox maker, Mozilla, is in the uneasy position of being financially dependent on its search deal with Google, which accounts for the majority of the organization’s revenue. Although Mozilla only last month renewed the search deal, ensuring…

Facebook Moderators Join Criticism of Zuckerberg Over Trump Stance

Pressure from Facebook staff is continuing to mount on Mark Zuckerberg over his policies towards posts by Donald Trump, with moderators joining those criticizing their boss for his stance. From a report: The moderators penned an open letter to their colleagues in support of virtual walkouts that have broken out at the company, after Zuckerberg refused to take down posts by…

WD Sets the Record Straight: Lists All Drives That Use Slower SMR Tech

News emerged last week that WD, Seagate and Toshiba are all shipping hard drives using Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR), a slower form of HDD technology that can result in reduced performance in some types of workloads, but without disclosing that critical bit of information in marketing materials or specification sheets. The backlash has been swift, and now WD is striking a…

Amazon, Owned by World’s Richest Man, Soliciting Public Donations To Pay Workers’ Sick Leave

While much of the economy grinds to a halt, Amazon is doing more business than ever. The company has announced it is hiring 100,000 workers to try to meet surging demand. In 2019, Amazon had over $280 billion in revenue and $11.9 billion in profits. As more Americans shift their shopping online, it will likely do better this year. But, as…

Elon Musk’s Battery Farm Is an Undeniable Success

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Popular Mechanics: More than two years after winning an electricity bet, Elon Musk’s resulting Australian solar and wind farm is an almost total success. The facility powers rural South Australia, whose population density falls between Wyoming and Alaska, the two least dense U.S. states. In 2016, South Australia experienced a near total blackout after…

Slickwraps Data Breach Exposing Financial and Customer Info

Slickwraps, a mobile device case retailer, has suffered a major data breach exposing employee resumes, personal customer information, API credentials, and more. Bleeping Computer reports: In a post to Medium, a security researcher named Lynx states that in January 2020 he was able to gain full access to the Slickwraps web site using a path traversal vulnerability in an upload script…

Dark Mode vs. Light Mode: Which Is Better?

Recently a well-respected UI consulting firm (the Nielsen Norman Group) published their analysis of academic studies on the question of whether Dark Mode or Light Mode was better for reading? Cosima Piepenbrock and her colleagues at the Institut für Experimentelle Psychologie in Düsseldorf, Germany studied two groups of adults with normal (or corrected-to-normal) vision: young adults (18 to 33 years old)…

The Spine of San Francisco Is Now Car-Free

The plan to ban private cars from Market Street — one of the city’s busiest and most dangerous downtown thoroughfares — enjoys a remarkable level of local support. From a report: In a city known for stunning vistas, San Francisco’s Market Street offers a notoriously ugly tangle of traffic. Cars and delivery trucks vie with bikes and pedestrians along this downtown…

Identify stars in the Winter Circle

Go outside, and look for the waxing gibbous moon tonight. Then notice the stars nearby. Tonight’s moon is within the Winter Circle stars. Source: https://earthsky.org/tonight/identify-the-stars-of-the-winter-circle…