Your photos of Venus, as it descends into the dawn

Have you seen bright Venus recently, in the east before dawn? It’s getting very near the sunrise glare. As January progresses, watch for Venus to sink deeper and deeper into the morning twilight. Your photos, as we say farewell to Venus, here. Source: https://earthsky.org/todays-image/photos-venus-disappear-into-dawn-jan-feb-2021…

Nintendo Conducted Invasive Surveillance Operation Against Homebrew Hacker

Leaked Nintendo documents have revealed a frightening surveillance operation carried out against a hacker who was researching exploits for the 3DS handheld. TorrentFreak reports: During the past 24 hours, various Twitter accounts (1,2) have been posting snippets from documents that were recently leaked from Nintendo. While there are numerous items of interest, the most shocking revelations involve Neimod, a hacker who…

Signal Says Cellebrite Cannot Break Its Encryption

Signal, in a blog post: Yesterday, the BBC ran a story with the factually untrue headline, “Cellebrite claimed to have cracked chat app’s encryption.” This is false. Not only can Cellebrite not break Signal encryption, but Cellebrite never even claimed to be able to. Since we weren’t actually given the opportunity to comment in that story, we’re posting this to help…

Is that a UFO?! There’s probably an explanation

Most Unidentified Flying Objects aren’t actually unidentified. Here’s a list of phenomena, either natural or human-made, that people often mistake for UFOs. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/if-its-not-a-ufo-what-is-it…

GameStop Employees Surprised By New Shipment of PS5, Xbox Series X Consoles

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: GameStop employees across the country were caught by surprise on Saturday when the video-game chain suddenly announced new shipments of the highly coveted PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles, sending customers flocking to stores. Workers at the U.S. retailer, speaking to Bloomberg and posting on social media, said they had received little…

YouTube Will Remind Users To ‘Keep Comments Respectful’ Before Posting

YouTube is taking new steps to weed out bullying, hate speech and other kinds of nasty comments. From a report: The company introduced a new feature that will remind users to “keep comments respectful,” when its automated systems detect a comment may be offensive. The change is rolling out now on Android, and will eventually move to other platforms, though it’s…

Australia Demands Apology From China After Fake Image of Soldier Posted On Social Media

hackingbear writes: Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison demanded an apology after a senior Chinese official posted a “fake image” of an Australian soldier holding a knife with blood on it to the throat of an Afghan child, calling it “truly repugnant” and demanding it be taken down. The Australian government has asked Twitter to remove the image, posted on Monday by…

Jupiter and Saturn are drawing closer!

Photos of Jupiter and Saturn, from the EarthSky community around the world, as the planets head for their once-in-20-years great conjunction on December 21, 2020. Source: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/jupiter-saturn-photos-drawing-closer-conjunction-dec21-2020…

Tesla Tequila Sells Out Within Hours, Triggers Bidding Wars on eBay

Thursday Tesla’s web site began selling $250 bottles of Tesla-branded tequila, describing it as a “small-batch premium 100% de agave tequila anejo made from sustainably sourced highland and lowland agaves.” Electrek explores the frenzy that followed: The product sold out in hours after it appears on Tesla’s website and even before Elon Musk could tweet a link to the Tesla Tequila…

Starlink Beta Testers Are Impressed With Its Speed

One beta tester of SpaceX’s new Starlink satellite internet service is a Reddit user named “wandering-coder”. This week they shared their experience online, testing the equpiment in a national forest which gets no cell service from any carrier — and using it to upload this report: Works beautifully. I did a realtime video call and some tests. My power supply is…