Dominique Luchart's Blog, page 717
February 5, 2021
NASA picks Firefly Aerospace to deliver science payloads to the moon in 2023, ,
[#item_full_content]The post NASA picks Firefly Aerospace to deliver science payloads to the moon in 2023, , appeared first on NEWDAWN Blog.
[#item_full_content]Read a free issue of All About Space magazine!, ,
[#item_full_content]The post Read a free issue of All About Space magazine!, , appeared first on NEWDAWN Blog.
On This Day in Space! Feb. 5, 1971: Apollo 14 lands on the moon, ,
[#item_full_content]The post On This Day in Space! Feb. 5, 1971: Apollo 14 lands on the moon, , appeared first on NEWDAWN Blog.
GoldenEye’s canceled Xbox 360 remake leaks online, and it’s playable, Jon Porter
[#item_full_content]The post GoldenEye’s canceled Xbox 360 remake leaks online, and it’s playable, Jon Porter appeared first on NEWDAWN Blog.
Facebook’s claims about the size of losses small businesses will suffer due to iOS 14 privacy changes don’t hold up under scrutiny and are likely exaggerated (HBR.org)
The post Facebook’s claims about the size of losses small businesses will suffer due to iOS 14 privacy changes don’t hold up under scrutiny and are likely exaggerated (HBR.org) appeared first on NEWDAWN Blog.
December 17, 2020
Microsoft removes GitHub’s annoying cookie banners,
Cookie banners are one of the most annoying parts of browsing the web, forcing you to click accept or deny on multiple sites. Microsoft is starting to address this aggravation by removing cookie banners from GitHub this week. “At GitHub, we want to protect developer privacy, and we find cookie banners quite irritating, so we decided to look for a solution,” explains GitHub CEO Nat Friedman. “After a brief search, we found one: just don’t use any non-essential cookies. Pretty simple, really.”
Microsoft has removed all nonessential cookies from GitHub, meaning the site doesn’t send any information to third-party analytics services. This is a change that’s turned into a commitment, so GitHub will only ever use cookies that are required and none to track, display ads, or send information elsewhere.
The EU’s cookie consent policy, introduced in 2018 as part of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), has been central to sites implementing cookie banners. It’s a policy that has been implemented in many different ways across sites, with some particularly poor results on mobile versions of sites.
The EU has been trying to fix its abysmal cookie consent policy this year, but it’s going to take more drastic changes to reverse how often these prompts are displayed across the web. GitHub is a good example for a web service to set, and combined with browser vendors phasing out third-party cookies, we could see less annoying cookie walls and banners eventually. Realistically, we’re still going to be living with these annoying prompts for years to come.
The post Microsoft removes GitHub’s annoying cookie banners, appeared first on NEWDAWN Blog.
A Space Force member reportedly skipped class to get a PS5 but got demoted instead,
The Space Force, it seems, is not sympathetic to the mission that seems to have captured many across the US: getting a PS5. One of its members has reportedly been reprimanded and demoted for being 30 minutes late to physical training because he was trying to get one of the consoles, according to a post on the Air Force amn/nco/snco Facebook page (via Task and Purpose).
According to the letter, the unnamed airman texted his superior officer that he was going to be 30 minutes late to his fitness improvement program as he had been driving around to multiple Targets (the store, not the military terminology) trying to buy a PS5. The airman then added “Yolo, PS5 > letters of discipline,” according to the letter of discipline.
The letter of reprimand that was posted to the Facebook group.Photo: Air Force amn/nco/snco Facebook pagePerhaps his senior officer didn’t appreciate the flippancy. Perhaps showing up late was somewhat of a habit for the airman, which the second part of the letter seems to imply. Whatever it was, the move earned the airman a demotion from E-4 Senior Airman to E-3 Airman First Class.
The second part of the letter detailing the demotion and possible track record of showing up late.Photo: Air Force amn/nco/snco Facebook pageIn terms of dollars and cents, that’s a pay cut from around $2,262 a month to $2,042 a month, according to the Air Force website. Unfortunately for our (now less senior) airman, that means it’s going to be even harder to afford a scalped PS5, assuming he wasn’t able to find one during his Target runs. The letters of reprimand frustratingly leave that detail a mystery.
A spokesperson for the airman’s unit could neither confirm nor deny that the letters were real, though they did say the document’s formatting was correct for a letter of reprimand, according to Task and Purpose.
The post A Space Force member reportedly skipped class to get a PS5 but got demoted instead, appeared first on NEWDAWN Blog.
Google and Qualcomm are working together for faster Android updates,
Qualcomm and Google have announced they’ll be working to expand Project Treble, Google’s ambitious multiyear project that aims to simplify OS updates so it’s easier for device manufacturers to upgrade phones and tablets to new Android versions without worrying about Qualcomm’s chipset-specific software.
The goal is to make it even easier for users to get the latest version of Android on their phones (something that isn’t always guaranteed) and to ensure that new Qualcomm chips will support four Android OS updates and four years of security updates — a huge leap forward from what most Android phones usually offer. Such a feat, if actually accomplished, would put Android smartphones closer to Apple’s iPhones in terms of long-term software support.
What Qualcomm and Google are doing here is a bit technical, but essentially, it boils down to a similar application of the existing strategy for Project Treble, which itself breaks Android down into different pieces. Thanks to Project Treble, OEMs can (in theory) just use the updated piece of Google’s software without having to worry about waiting for updated components from silicon companies, like Qualcomm.
The new approach with Qualcomm makes it easier for the chipmaker by cutting down on the added combinations of software that it was forced to support (thanks to earlier Treble efforts), allowing for faster updates — at least, in theory.
The catch is that it’ll take a few years until we can see what, if any, benefits this program creates for accelerating the Android update cycle or extending device longevity. That’s because Qualcomm is only making this commitment for future devices, starting with the upcoming Snapdragon 888 (set to arrive in phones in early 2021).
The post Google and Qualcomm are working together for faster Android updates, appeared first on NEWDAWN Blog.
