The Nintendo Switch Can Now Run Android 10, Unofficially

Thanks to the hard work of the SwitchRoot team, it’s now possible to enjoy an Android 10-based LineageOS 17.1 port on your Nintendo Switch console. XDA Developers reports: The Android 10 release is based on the LineageOS 17.1 build for the NVIDIA SHIELD TV and brings many improvements over the previous release, including a much-needed deep sleep mode so the OS…

Apple Should Create Crypto Exchange and Buy Bitcoin, Says RBC

RBC Capital Markets says Apple should follow in Tesla’s footsteps by getting into cryptocurrencies. Bloomberg reports: The iPhone maker could create a sizable new market for growth if it were to develop its Apple Wallet into a crypto exchange, said analyst Mitch Steves. “The wallet initiative appears to be a clear multi-billion dollar opportunity for the firm (potential for well over…

Astronomers offer possible explanation for elusive dark-matter-free galaxies

A team led by astronomers at the University of California, Riverside, has found that some dwarf galaxies may today appear to be dark-matter free even though they formed as galaxies dominated by dark matter in the past. Source: https://phys.org/news/2021-02-astronomers-explanation-elusive-dark-matter-free-galaxies.html…

Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids offer surprises

A new study out this month suggests that Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids may be more peculiar than previously thought. The Trojan asteroids are rocky objects which orbit the sun just ahead of and just behind the gas giant, in gravitational sweet spots known as Lagrange points. The swarm ahead of Jupiter, known as the L4 (Greek) group, is slightly larger than the…

Terraria Port To Google Stadia Cancelled After Creator’s Google Account Locked

New submitter Pibroch(CiH) writes: Andrew Spinks, the creator of Terraria and lead developer for Re-Logic, has been trying to find out why his Google account (which encompasses YouTube, Gmail, and many other important services) was suddenly banned and locked with no warning. According to Ars Technica: “Spinks says his entire Google account has been down for three weeks now, and Google…

Twitter Considers Subscription Fee for Tweetdeck, Unique Content

Twitter is building a subscription product as a way to ease its dependence on advertising — a plan the social network has considered for years, and one that has taken on a heightened priority given the pandemic and pressure from activist investors to accelerate growth. From a report: The majority of Twitter’s revenue comes from targeted advertising, which serves up promoted…

Decoding the age of the ice at Mars’ north pole

Mars’ north pole contains a large ice cap made up of many layers of frozen water. Like ice cores on Earth, those layers offer a tantalizing record of climate on Mars over the past several million years. The first step in decoding that climate record is to figure out how those layers form and how old each one might be—a difficult…

How the NSA’s Hubris Left America Vulnerable

A new book promises “the untold story of the cyberweapons market — the most secretive, invisible, government-backed market on earth — and a terrifying first look at a new kind of global warfare.” Its author — a New York Times cybersecurity reporter — shares the book’s story about David Evenden, a former National Security Agency analyst who later worked in Abu…

They Stormed the Capitol. Their Apps Tracked Them

In 2019 two New York Times opinion writers obtained cellphone app data “containing the precise locations of more than 12 million individual smartphones for several months in 2016 and 2017.” (It’s data that they say is “supposed to be anonymous, but it isn’t. We found celebrities, Pentagon officials and average Americans.”) Now they’ve obtained a remarkable new trove of data, “this…

Microsoft Launches Viva, Its New Take on the Old Intranet

Microsoft today launched Viva, a new “employee experience platform,” or, in non-marketing terms, its new take on the intranet sites most large companies tend to offer their employees. From a report: This includes standard features like access to internal communications built on integrations with SharePoint, Yammer and other Microsoft tools. In addition, Viva also offers access to team analytics and an…