“Are you noticing your battery life is draining faster than normal?” tweeted Verizon Wireless customer support on Sunday, the Verge reports: Despite its relentless promotion of 5G phones and the fact that it spent more than $45 billion bidding on a new faster spectrum, Verizon support now is advising people on Twitter to turn off their phones’ 5G access to preserve…
Tag: relentless
Grizzlies Are Coming Back. But Can We Make Room For Them?
As grizzly bears expand their range in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming into places where they haven’t been seen in a century or more, they’re increasingly encountering humans. From a report: Things intensified last summer as trails and campgrounds across the region flooded with inexperienced tourists seeking refuge in the outdoors during the coronavirus pandemic. Grizzly attacks spiked. Bear managers were inundated…
Do Children Really Need To Learn To Code?
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: In India, parents are being aggressively sold the idea that their children must start coding at 4 or 5 or be future failures, prompting Neelesh Misra [a writer, audio storyteller, and founder of a media and organic products company] to ask Do Children Really Need to Learn to Code? [Alternate URL here] In a New York…
How Amazon Wins: By Steamrolling Rivals and Partners
The Wall Street Journal: To keep customers happy, which Mr. Bezos has long said is Amazon’s fixation and growth strategy, executives behind the scenes have methodically waged targeted campaigns against rivals and partners alike — an approach that has changed little through the years, from diapers to footwear. No competitor is too small to draw Amazon’s sights. It cloned a line…
Do Games Made Under Crunch Conditions Deserve ‘Best Direction’ Awards?
The annual Game Awards ceremony awarded this year’s “Best Direction” award to Naughty Dog studio’s The Last of Us Part II — provoking a strong reaction from Kotaku’s staff writer. “I think it’s pretty obvious that no game that required its developers to crunch, like The Last of Us Part II did, should be given a Best Direction award.” It’s no…
US Broadband Speeds Jumped 90% In 2020. But No, It Had Nothing To Do With Net Neutrality.
An anonymous reader shares a report from Techdirt: Last last week, a report out of the UK topped the trending news items at Hacker News. The report found that U.S. broadband speeds — historically the poster child for mediocrity — jumped roughly 90% during the COVID-19 lockdowns. The improvements weren’t consistent geographically, and the report was quick to note that by…
Does Europa glow in the dark?
The icy surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa may glow on its nightside, the side facing away from the sun. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/jupiter-moon-europa-glows-radiation…
Europa glows: Radiation does a bright number on Jupiter’s moon
As the icy, ocean-filled moon Europa orbits Jupiter, it withstands a relentless pummeling of radiation. Jupiter zaps Europa’s surface night and day with electrons and other particles, bathing it in high-energy radiation. But as these particles pound the moon’s surface, they may also be doing something otherworldly: making Europa glow in the dark. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-11-europa-bright-jupiter-moon.html…
What are white dwarf stars?
White dwarfs are dead stars. A single white dwarf contains roughly the mass of our sun in a volume no bigger than our planet. Our sun will become a white dwarf someday. Source: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/white-dwarfs-are-the-cores-of-dead-stars…
‘Apocalyptic’ skies across U.S. West this week
Video of the weirdly orange skies across the U.S. West this week, created by massive wildfires that incinerated several communities in Oregon in the past 2 days and blotted out the sun in San Francisco yesterday. Source: https://earthsky.org/todays-image/apocalyptic-red-skies-u-s-west-early-sept-2020…