Innholdsfortegnelse for #309 i Techlife News

An energy entrepreneur wants to set up a commuter rail system to further his vision of weaning Vermont from fossil fuels and getting cars off the highways, and he has taken the first step toward moving it beyond the theoretical by buying a dozen rail cars. David Blittersdorf spent $5 million of his own money to buy the fully functional, 1950s-era cars, and he has hired one of the state’s most experienced rail experts to get those cars carrying passengers once again. “Part of the vision is you’ve got to show the pictures, you’ve got to show the real stuff,” Blittersdorf said recently inside one of the new cars. “If we were to buy the new hardware or worked the way the folks have been working on rail it would…

The federal government on Friday told election officials in 21 states that hackers targeted their systems before last year’s presidential election. The notification came roughly a year after U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials first said states were targeted by hacking efforts possibly connected to Russia. The states that told The Associated Press they had been targeted included some key political battlegrounds, such as Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. The AP contacted every state election office to determine which ones had been informed that their election systems had been targeted. The others confirming were Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas and Washington. Being targeted does not mean that sensitive voter data was manipulated or results were changed. A hacker…

Satya Nadella, the Microsoft CEO who kept the company relevant as its primary PC software business faded, could write a book about the challenges he faced. And he has ... but it’s not a tell-all memoir. Instead, Nadella, who has worked at the company since the early 1990s, has positioned himself as the embodiment of the story Microsoft wants to tell about its transformation into a forward-thinking outfit focused on artificial intelligence, cloud software, virtual worlds and quantum computing. “Microsoft is known for rallying the troops with competitive fire,” Nadella writes in “Hit Refresh,” his new autobiography. “The press loves that, but it’s not me.” Nadella isn’t brash or outspoken in the manner of his predecessors or many of his Silicon Valley peers. His thoughtfulness stands out in an industry…

General Motors’ Cadillac luxury brand is embarking on a cross-country drive to show off its version of a car that almost drives itself on the freeway. A dozen Cadillac CT6 sedans will leave the brand’s New York headquarters Monday and head for Los Angeles as cars with the “Super Cruise” system start arriving at dealerships. Cadillac calls Super Cruise the first hands-free driver-assist system for freeways. The system was delayed a year as GM worked out the kinks and refined it after a fatal crash last year involving a Tesla Model S in which the driver was using the electric car maker’s Autopilot system. Unlike Tesla’s system, Super Cruise will operate only on limited-access freeways. It will keep the car centered in its lane and a safe distance from vehicles…

Twitter cited President Donald Trump’s “newsworthiness” and the public interest as reasons why it declined to remove a tweet that added to the fiery rhetoric between the United States and North Korea. Trump tweeted: “Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won’t be around much longer!” On Monday, North Korea’s top diplomat called the tweet a declaration of war. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded by calling the suggestion of such a declaration “absurd.” Twitter’s rules state users “may not make threats of violence or promote violence, including threatening or promoting terrorism.”This includes direct as well as indirect threats. The company responded to questions about why Trump’s tweet wasn’t removed Monday by posting in a series…

Embattled Equifax CEO Richard Smith stepped down Tuesday, less than three weeks after the credit reporting agency disclosed a disastrous hack to its computer system that exposed the sensitive personal information of 143 million Americans. His departure follows those of two other high-ranking executives who left in the wake of the hack, which exploited a software flaw that the company did not fix to expose Social Security numbers, birthdates and other personal data that provide the keys to identify theft. Smith, who had been CEO since 2005, will also leave the chairman post. Equifax called his departure a retirement, but he will not receive his annual bonus and other potential retirement-related benefits until the company’s board concludes an independent review of the data breach. Even if the review does find…

“Kingsman: The Golden Circle” came in a little shy of expectations but still managed to move New Line’s horror hit “It” off the top spot at the North American box office. Fox’s spy comedy sequel to 2015’s “Kingsman” debuted with $39 million, according to final figures Monday. The film cost $104 million to make, but improved little on the original’s $36 million opening two years ago. After two weeks atop the box office, New Line’s “It” slid to second with $29.8 million in its third weekend of release. Ticket sales were disappointing for Warner Bros. “The Lego Ninjago Movie,” which opened with $20.4 million. The release was the second “Lego Movie” spinoff of the year, following “The Lego Batman Movie,” possibly hurting the performance of “Ninjago.” The top 20 movies…

Hugh Hefner turned silk pajamas into a work uniform, women into centerfolds and sexual desire into a worldwide multimedia empire that spanned several generations of American life. With Playboy, he helped slip sex out of the confines of plain brown wrappers and into mainstream conversation. In 1953, a time when states could legally ban contraceptives and the word “pregnant” was not allowed on “I Love Lucy,” Hefner published the first issue of Playboy, featuring naked photos of Marilyn Monroe and an editorial promise of “humor, sophistication and spice.” The Great Depression and World War II were over and Playboy soon became forbidden fruit for teens and a bible for men with time and money, primed for the magazine’s prescribed evenings of dimmed lights, hard drinks, soft jazz, deep thoughts and…

A future cup of coffee in California could give you jitters before you even take a sip. A nonprofit group wants coffee manufacturers, distributors and retailers to post ominous warnings about a cancer-causing chemical stewing in every brew and has been presenting evidence in a Los Angeles courtroom to make its case. The long-running lawsuit that resumed this week claims Starbucks and about 90 other companies, including grocery stores and retail shops, failed to follow a state law requiring warning signs about hazardous chemicals found everywhere from household products to workplaces to the environment. At the center of the dispute is acrylamide, a carcinogen found in cooked foods such as French fries that is also a natural byproduct of the coffee roasting process. The coffee industry has acknowledged the presence…

Drones will help deliver toothbrushes, deodorant and smartphones to Swiss homes this fall as part of a pilot project, the first of its kind over a densely populated area. Drone firm Matternet, based in Menlo Park, California, said Thursday it’s partnering on the Zurich project with Mercedes-Benz’s vans division and Swiss e-commerce startup Siroop. It’s been approved by Switzerland’s aviation authority. Matternet CEO Andreas Raptopoulos says the drones will take items from a distribution center and transport them between 8 to 16 kilometers to awaiting delivery vans. The van drivers then bring the packages to homes. Raptopoulos says drones will speed up deliveries, buzzing over congested urban streets or natural barriers like Lake Zurich. The pilot comes as Amazon, Google and Uber have also been investing in drone delivery research.…

The House and Senate intelligence committees have invited tech giants Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet — the parent company of Google — to appear for public hearings as part of their investigations into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, The Associated Press has learned. The companies have been invited to appear before the House intelligence committee in October and before the Senate intelligence committee on Nov. 1. Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, confirmed the House invitation in an interview with the AP, though he noted a date had not yet been set. The details of the invitation from the Senate intelligence committee were confirmed by two people familiar with the panel’s interactions with the companies. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss…

Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook is withdrawing plans to create a new class of stock that would have let him keep tight reins on the social media company even as he sold down his stake to fund his philanthropy. Zuckerberg had said in April 2016 that the plan for the new shares would let him fund his philanthropy goals while keeping control of Facebook. But shareholders sued, arguing the move would give an unfair economic advantage to the company’s founder. A class-action trial on the matter was due to start next week in Delaware but was called off with Zuckerberg’s announcement. He had been slated to testify during the trial. The billionaire CEO said in a Facebook post that because the value of Facebook’s stock has grown, he can fully…

In mid-September, Apple unveiled its new Face ID facial recognition system, which is due to debut with the iPhone X on Nov. 3. The system lets users unlock their phones just by glancing at them, but has also raised privacy questions and some anxieties over whether someone could force you to unlock your phone by pointing it at your face. On Wednesday, Apple offered some in-depth explanations about the pains it’s taking to protect your privacy in an update to its website. Here’s what you need to know about how Face ID works and the precautions Apple has taken for privacy and security. HOW DOES FACE ID WORK? Face ID captures both a 3-D and 2-D image of your face using infrared light while you’re looking straight at the camera.…

Video-game voice actors have agreed to end a nearly yearlong strike against several major gaming publishers. The actors union SAG-AFTRA and a representative for the publishers said Monday they reached a tentative agreement on Saturday to end the strike. It calls for actors who work multiple sessions on games to receive additional payments and contains a requirement that companies disclose to actors what game they will be working on. The actors began a strike against several video game companies, including Activision Productions Inc., Electronic Arts Productions Inc., Take 2 Productions Inc. and WB Games. The work stoppage focused on payments to the actors, as well as complaints that actors were not being told which projects they were being considered for until after they were hired. The companies are responsible for…

White House officials are clearly instructed: Don’t use your personal phones for official business. But some aides appear to have done it anyway, and it’s getting fresh scrutiny along with questions about the use of personal email accounts. The inquiries into private communication could prove uncomfortable for President Donald Trump, who relentlessly attacked Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email account and server during her time as secretary of state. Multiple current and former Trump White House officials have used private email accounts and texts from personal phones for private conversations, sometimes using encrypted messaging apps. That’s despite clear directives not to use personal devices for administration business and to save the records if they do. House lawmakers have requested more information about the use of…

The Little Hours In the Middle Ages, a young servant fleeing from his master (Dave Franco) takes refuge in a convent that is full of emotionally unstable nuns (Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza). When he is introduced as a deaf-mute man, he must hold his cover while the nuns try to resist temptation. FIVE FACTS: 1. Dave Franco and Alison Brie are married in real life. 2. The screenplay is based on the first tale of the third day from The Decameron (1971). Writer and director Jeff Baena only wrote a detailed outline for the film, the cast improvised their dialogue. 3. Dave Franco, Kate Micucci and Molly Shannon have all appeared on Scrubs (2001) 4. After release, the promotional posters and preview trailers for the film included that Catholic League’s…

For seven seasons, AMC’s “The Walking Dead” has explored a world where the dead roam the earth while the living seek safety — from other humans as much as from the zombies trying to tear into their flesh. There are characters whose faith is tested but find their grit and fierceness. There are those who are kissups and latch themselves onto leaders, their will to survive stronger than their pride. Then there are those who seize a newfound power to terrorize and bully. Through it all, it’s often difficult to discern the difference between who’s good and who’s evil, something that evolves and can change from moment to moment. And now, as the show approaches its 100th episode — the kickoff to Season 8 that launches on Oct. 22 —…

Amazon says it is cutting the price of its Echo smart speaker to $100 from $180, improving the sound quality and upgrading its appearance with six new “shells.” The announcement is the first of several Amazon is making at an event for journalists in Seattle. The next generation speaker, which is powered by Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant, will have a dedicated woofer and a tweeter for the first time, as well as Dolby sound. “We want to make sure we are building a product that everyone can use,” said David Limp, Amazon’s senior vice president of devices and services. The online retailer also announced a premium version of the device called the Echo Plus, which has improved sound and can act as the hub of a smart home and sell…

The power’s back on in Florida. So why is the internet still out for some people, more than two weeks after Hurricane Irma struck? When power fails, so do home and business internet connections. When Hurricane Irma hit Florida on Sept. 10, 6.7 million customers lost electricity, or nearly two-thirds of the state. Nine days later, all but 1 percent of the state — 100,000 — had the power back on. With internet service, it’s less clear where things stand. The Federal Communications Commission, which tracks home phone, internet and TV outages, published its last update more than a week ago, on Sept. 18, when there were still close to 900,000 customers without service from cable providers. Major internet providers such as Comcast, Charter and Cox now say 98 percent…

Need more room to type those deep thoughts? Twitter is testing a 280-character limit for tweets, doubling the current length restriction that’s been in place since the company’s founding 11 years ago. The test is being made available to a small subset of users and applies to languages other than Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. That’s because in those languages, Twitter notes, you can convey about double the amount of information in one character as you can in others. The original 140-character limit was created so tweets would fit in a single text message back when people used Twitter that way. But most people now use Twitter through its mobile app, where there isn’t the same technical constraint. Twitter has already eased the restrictions, and doesn’t count photos, videos, polls and…

U.S. senators from both parties on Tuesday grilled the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission — the agency responsible for policing Wall Street — on its handling of a 2016 data breach that was disclosed only last week. The hack breached the SEC’s system for handling corporate filings intended for investors, known as EDGAR. That has raised concerns that the hackers may have gained advance looks at filings and engaged in insider trading. The SEC’s disclosure also followed a much larger breach at credit reporting firm Equifax that exposed sensitive personal information belonging to 143 million Americans. Lawmakers also blasted Equifax executives for their delay in disclosing the hack, even as some executives sold shares in the company. Equifax’s CEO stepped down Tuesday. “I was disturbed to learn that…

While most publicity about Apple’s September 12 event might have unsurprisingly focused on the upcoming iPhone X, among the various other new products announced at the keynote was the Apple Watch Series 3. The original Apple Watch was announced over three years ago now, and the timepiece has gone through various iterations since then. However, the Series 3 has a headline feature which could be particularly game-changing: built-in cellular connectivity. This has enabled Apple to completely untether the Watch from the iPhone at long last. So, does the Series 3 finally take the dreams we had about the first Apple Watch and turn them into reality? To find out for ourselves, we decided to thoroughly test the Series 3, which is now available to purchase in LTE and non-cellular versions.…

Shares of Roku, an early player in streaming-video gadgets, soared Thursday after its initial public offering of stock raised $219 million. The shares priced at $14 each, the top of the company’s expected range, suggesting strong demand from investors and valuing the company at $1.3 billion. The shares rocketed to more than $22 in Thursday afternoon trading, a gain of 60 percent. The Los Gatos, California, company is known for its boxes and sticks that let users watch Netflix, Hulu and the growing universe of streaming-video options on their TVs. It has the biggest share of the streaming-gadget market, but has deep-pocketed competitors in Amazon, Google and Apple. Most of Roku’s revenue comes from sales of its streaming players, but it’s seeking to capitalize on its “platform” by making money…

Iowa businesses could soon face higher fees for legal filings under a plan by Secretary of State Paul Pate to raise money for technology upgrades in his office. Pate’s office published a “notice of intended action” to create administrative rules that would set higher fees for services used by corporations large and small. The public has until Oct. 17 to comment on the rules, which are drawing some concerns from business groups. A legislative committee could also review the plan but appears unlikely to stop it. Lawmakers earlier this year gave Pate’s office the authority to raise up to $2 million through fee increases annually for the next five years to pay for modernizing and upgrading technology used “by the secretary of state to fulfill the duties of office.”The rules…

Wonderful Wonderful (Deluxe) The Killers Despite reported rifts between band members, The Killers’ fifth album is their most personal record to date. On “Rut” Brandon Flowers addresses his wife’s depression and how he tries to remain invincible in the eyes of his kids on “Tyson vs Douglas.” On the other hand, tracks like “The Man” includes spikes of disco whereas “Run for Cover” wouldn’t be out of place on an open-road drive. FIVE FACTS: 1. The band claim to have written their hit “Smile Like You Mean It” in only 8 minutes. 2. One of Flowers’ inspirations is Morrissey who he said shaped his fascination with death and murder. 3. Their biggest hit “Mr Brightside” was written about an ex-girlfriend of Flowers who cheated on him. This was the first…

Ikea is making moves so you don’t have to assemble a sofa or bookcase yourself. The furniture seller said Thursday that it is buying online on-demand services platform TaskRabbit, which lets users hire people to help them move, clean up the house or assemble furniture. Much of Ikea’s furniture requires customers to screw together table legs, bedframes and dining room chairs. Ikea said it tested TaskRabbit in its stores in London last year and plans to roll out the service in U.S. stores and more U.K. locations. More countries may be added later. Before the TaskRabbit deal, certain Ikea stores already provided some independent workers to assemble goods. As more people shift to shop online, brick-and-mortar stores are looking for ways to offer convenient services to win back customers. Best…

Toshiba and a consortium led by Bain Capital Private Equity signed a deal Thursday for the sale of the Japanese electronics company’s computer memory chip business, a move long opposed by Toshiba’s U.S. joint venture partner Western Digital. The consortium includes Apple Inc. and Dell Technologies Capital as U.S. investors, who will not acquire common stock or voting rights over the business. The sale of Toshiba Memory Corp. is priced at 2 trillion yen ($18 billion). The deal was widely expected as Tokyo-based Toshiba Corp., which also has railroad and nuclear energy units, had announced it earlier, and the board signed off on it last week. But Western Digital has repeatedly opposed the sale of the NAND flash-memory SanDisk joint venture, stressing it will continue with legal action. Toshiba reiterated…

Australia announced this week it will create its own space agency to increase its share of the $330 billion space economy. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the agency would be part of Australia’s development of an innovation and science economy. But the government has provided few specifics. “It’s a small agency to coordinate and lead,” Turnbull told reporters. “The space sector, of course, is one of enormous potential.” Acting Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science Michaelia Cash said the agency’s charter would be developed by the end of March. “The global space industry is growing rapidly and it’s crucial that Australia is part of this growth,” Cash said in a statement. “A national space agency will ensure we have a strategic long-term plan that supports the development and application of…