All you need to know: June solstice 2020

The June solstice is June 20. Longest day for the Northern Hemisphere. Shortest day for the Southern Hemisphere. Details here. Source: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/everything-you-need-to-know-june-solstice…

Can AI Design Games? How Nick Walton Created ‘AI Dungeon’

shirappu writes: Nick Walton created AI Dungeon as an experiment to build an AI dungeon master for D&D games. Since then, it’s grown into a text adventure game in which players can type in anything they want, with the game’s AI responding dynamically [and with over 1.5 million players and multiplayer adventures.] In this interview about the year since its release,…

Some States Have Embraced Online Voting. It’s a Huge Risk.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Politico: On Sunday, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Michigan revealed numerous security flaws in the product that West Virginia and Delaware are using, saying it “represents a severe risk to election security and could allow attackers to alter election results without detection.” In fact, it may be a…

California To Allow Movie Theaters To Reopen In Most Counties

California counties, including Los Angeles County, could decide to reopen movie theaters as early as Friday. The Los Angeles Times reports: Each local health officer has the authority to decide whether to move forward with relaxing restrictions on reopening theaters. While the state provides guidance on how businesses can reopen, counties decide when they occur. The new rules would limit the…

And That’s Really It For Google+

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Last year, Google launched the beta of Currents, which was essentially a rebrand of Google+ for G Suite users, since Google+ for consumers went to meet its maker in April 2019. While Google+ was meant to be an all-purpose social network, the idea behind Currents is more akin to what Microsoft is doing…

Game Publisher Cancels Contract With Developer, Then Tries To Poach Its Entire Team

Three months after losing a deal with Take-Two, Star Theory Games was out of business. From a report: One Friday evening last December, employees of game designer Star Theory Games each received the same unusual recruitment message over LinkedIn. It struck them as bizarre for two reasons. One, it came from an executive producer at the publishing company funding their next…

Hot stars are plagued by giant magnetic spots

Astronomers using European Southern Observatory (ESO) telescopes have discovered giant spots on the surface of extremely hot stars hidden in stellar clusters. Not only are these stars plagued by magnetic spots, some also experience superflare events, explosions of energy several million times more energetic than similar eruptions on the Sun. The findings, published today in Nature Astronomy, help astronomers better understand…

House Leaders Strike Deal To Protect US Web Browsing Data From Warrantless Surveillance

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: After three days of negotiations, House lawmakers have struck a deal on an amendment to protect innocent Americans from being spied on by their own government online. Discussions were carried out behind closed doors over Memorial Day weekend after news broke Friday that House leaders had agreed to allow a vote on an…

Chrome: 70% of All Security Bugs Are Memory Safety Issues

Roughly 70% of all serious security bugs in the Chrome codebase are memory management and safety bugs, Google engineers said. From a report: Half of the 70% are use-after-free vulnerabilities, a type of security issue that arises from incorrect management of memory pointers (addresses), leaving doors open for attackers to attack Chrome’s inner components. The percentage was compiled after Google engineers…

How are zoo animals handling the coronavirus shutdown?

How captive animals are coping with the sudden emptiness of the world’s zoos and aquariums Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/zoo-aquarium-animals-coronavirus-shutdown…