Cast your vote to help name the next Mars rover, scheduled to launch in July or August 2020. The names were drawn from 9 finalist essays written by K-12 students. The voting will remain open through January 27. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/vote-name-new-nasa-mars-rover…
Tag: voting
Google Parent Company Alphabet Hits $1 Trillion Market Cap
Google parent-company Alphabet has hit $1 trillion in market capitalization, making it the fourth U.S. company to hit the milestone. CNBC reports: Apple was the first to hit the market cap milestone in 2018. Then, Microsoft and Amazon followed. Apple and Microsoft are still valued at more than a trillion dollars while Amazon has since fallen below the mark. Analysts are…
Brookline Votes To Ban Face Surveillance
The town of Brookline, Massachusetts, became the fifth municipality in the nation to ban its government agencies from using face surveillance. The passage of Article 25 comes as a new study from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) found that many of the world’s top facial recognition algorithms are biased along lines of age, race, and ethnicity. The Electronic…
Debian Begins Vote On Supporting Non-Systemd Init Options
“It’s been five years already since the vote to transition to systemd in Debian over Upstart,” reports Phoronix, noting that the Debian developer community has now begun a 20-day ranked-choice vote on eight different proposals for “‘init system diversity’ and just how much Debian developers care (or not) in supporting alternatives to systemd.” The eight options they’re voting on: Choice 1:…
Most of the Largest US Voting Districts Are Vulnerable To Email Spoofing
Researchers at Valimail found that only 5% of the largest voting counties in the U.S. are protected against email impersonation and phishing attacks. TechCrunch reports: Researchers at Valimail, which has a commercial stake in the email security space, looked at the largest three electoral districts in each U.S. state, and found only 10 out of 187 domains were protected with DMARC,…
Strategic voting helps yellow-eyed penguin win bird of the year
Social media campaigning and a strategic voting alliance have helped the yellow-eyed penguin beat fierce competition to become New Zealand’s bird of the year Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2222984-strategic-voting-helps-yellow-eyed-penguin-win-bird-of-the-year/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Tactical voting helps yellow-eyed penguin seize bird of the year crown
Social media campaigning and a strategic voting alliance have helped the yellow-eyed penguin beat fierce competition to become New Zealand’s bird of the year Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2222984-tactical-voting-helps-yellow-eyed-penguin-seize-bird-of-the-year-crown/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
YouTube’s Moderation Questioned After Banning Accounts For Too Many Emojis
“YouTube has a huge problem right now,” argues videogame streamer Markiplier. “People’s accounts are being suspended without reason, without provocation, and their appeals to get it back are being denied without explanation.” Engadget revisits “YouTube’s occasionally questionable moderation” — in this case, people being banned simply for using too many emojis (or “emotes”) in their comments to videogame-streamer Markiplier during a…
Mozilla Hits Google, Facebook For ‘Microtargeting’ Political Ads
Mozilla is calling on Google and Facebook to stop “microtargeting” political ads. “Political speech is critical to democratic discourse, but against the very real circumstances of organized disinformation and organic misinformation today, microtargeting keeps ideas from being debated in the open, and fiction parades as fact,” Ashley Boyd, Mozilla’s advocacy vice president, said in a statement. “Online platforms can take the…
Tactical voting campaign says maths can solve the UK’s political mess
A site designed to help voters who want to stop Brexit has come under fire for its recommendations, but the group behind it say it is backed by statistics Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2222106-tactical-voting-campaign-says-maths-can-solve-the-uks-political-mess/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…