Internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee has said Australia’s plan to make tech giants pay for journalism could render the internet as we know it “unworkable.” From a report: The inventor of the World Wide Web claimed that proposed laws could disrupt the established order of the internet. “Specifically, I am concerned that that code risks breaching a fundamental principle of the web…
Tag: pioneer
Quantum collaboration gives new gravity to the mysteries of the universe
Scientists have used cutting-edge research in quantum computation and quantum technology to pioneer a radical new approach to determining how our Universe works at its most fundamental level. …
How Our Brutal Science System Almost Cost Us a Pioneer of mRNA Vaccines
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: As the first COVID-19 vaccines arrived at Penn Medicine last year, Penn Today reported with great pride, “It was mRNA research conducted at Penn—by Drew Weissman, a professor of Infectious Diseases, and Katalin Karikó, an adjunct associate professor—that helped pave the way for the development of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID vaccines.” While Weissman and Karikó…
Juno maps water ice across northern Ganymede
Jupiter’s moon Ganymede is the largest planetary satellite in the solar system. It’s also one of the most intriguing: Ganymede is the only moon with its own magnetic field, it is the most differentiated of all moons, and it likely possesses a subsurface ocean of liquid water. It was studied by the early Jupiter flybys made by the Pioneer and Voyager…
Joe Biden Promotes ‘Science Advisor’ to US Cabinet-Level Position
“President-elect Joe Biden announced Friday that he has chosen a pioneer in mapping the human genome — the so-called ‘book of life’ — to be his chief science adviser,” reports the Associated Press, “and is elevating the top science job to a Cabinet position.” Biden nominated Eric Lander, founding director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, who was the…
Intel Talks With TSMC, Samsung To Outsource Some Chip Production
Intel has talked with TSMC and Samsung about the Asian companies making some of its best chips, but the Silicon Valley pioneer is still holding out hope for last-minute improvements in its own production capabilities. Bloomberg reports: After successive delays in its chip fabrication processes, Santa Clara, California-based Intel has yet to make a final decision less than two weeks ahead…
IBM Apologizes For Firing Computer Pioneer For Being Transgender… 52 Years Later
On August 29, 1968, IBM’s CEO fired computer scientist and transgender pioneer Lynn Conway to avoid the public embarrassment of employing a transwoman. Nearly 52 years later, in an act that defines its present-day culture, IBM is apologizing and seeking forgiveness. Jeremy Alicandri writes via Forbes reports: On January 2, 1938, Lynn Conway’s life began in Mount Vernon, NY. With a…
Body Found In Canada Identified As Neo-Nazi Spam King
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Krebs On Security: The body of a man found shot inside a burned out vehicle in Canada three years ago has been identified as that of Davis Wolfgang Hawke, a prolific spammer and neo-Nazi who led a failed anti-government march on Washington, D.C. in 1999, according to news reports. Homicide detectives said they originally…
McDonald’s To Launch a Plant-Based Burger: The McPlant
According to USA Today, McDonald’s has developed a new plant-based platform dubbed McPlant that will debut in markets around the world early next year. From the report: “McPlant is crafted exclusively for McDonald’s, by McDonald’s,” Ian Borden, McDonald’s international president, said at the investor meeting. “In the future, McPlant could extend across a line of plant-based products including burgers, chicken substitutes…
Dan Kohn, Executive Director of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, Has Died
Dan Kohn, leader of the Linux Foundation’s Public Health (LFPH) initiative and former executive director at the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), has passed away of complications from colon cancer. Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin wrote yesterday (via LFPH): Dan played a special role at the Linux Foundation. He helped establish the organization that we are today and oversaw the…