Microsoft Will Switch Off Recall by Default After Security Backlash
June 7th, 2024Via: Wired:
When Microsoft named its new Windows feature Recall, the company intended the word to refer to a kind of perfect, AI-enabled memory for your device. Today, the other, unintended definition of “recall”—a company’s admission that a product is too dangerous or defective to be left on the market in its current form—seems more appropriate.
On Friday, Microsoft announced that it would be making multiple dramatic changes to its rollout of its Recall feature, making it an opt-in feature in the Copilot+ compatible versions of Windows where it had previously been turned on by default, and introducing new security measures designed to better keep data encrypted and require authentication to access Recall’s stored data.
“We are updating the set-up experience of Copilot+ PCs to give people a clearer choice to opt-in to saving snapshots using Recall,” reads a blog post from Pavan Davuluri, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for Windows and devices. “If you don’t proactively choose to turn it on, it will be off by default.”
Israeli Government Funded Covert Influence Campaign Targeting U.S. Lawmakers
June 7th, 2024Via: Common Dreams:
Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs organized and paid for a digital campaign to influence U.S. lawmakers, especially Democrats who are Black, The New York Timesreported on Wednesday.
The ministry allotted $2 million to the operation in October and hired Stoic, a Tel Aviv-based political marketing firm, to carry it out. Stoic established fake news websites and hundreds of fake accounts on X, Instagram, and Facebook that posted pro-Israeli messages, trying to push lawmakers such as Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), the House minority leader, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), and Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) to fund Israel’s military and support its war efforts, the Times reported.
South Carolina: Another Container Ship Disaster Narrowly Averted, Engines “Were Stuck Nearly Full-Ahead”
June 6th, 2024Via: The Hill:
An investigation is underway after a large container ship lost the ability to control its engines in Charleston Harbor, prompting a temporary closure of the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge.
U.S. Coast Guard Sector Command Center in Charleston, South Carolina, received a report from the harbor’s pilot dispatch around 12:17 p.m. of an out-of-control vessel in the Cooper River.
Deputy Commander Randy Preston said the vessel was identified as the MSC Michigan 7, a 997-foot, 74,000-ton container ship outbound from the North Charleston container terminal headed to Savannah, Georgia.
“The pilot on board indicated the vessel lost ability to control the engines and they were stuck nearly full-ahead with the vessel making between 14 to 17 knots,” said Preston. Throttles were near-full forward and could not be moved out of that position.
Want to Pay Cash? That’ll Cost You Extra
June 6th, 2024Via: Wall Street Journal:
Paying with cash used to be a way to get a discount. These days it can often cost an extra $1 to $6—the sort of transaction fees once limited to swiping a credit card or using an out-of-network ATM.
Reverse ATMs like those at Yankee Stadium are now common at cashless venues and restaurants across the country as a way to cater to those who prefer paying in cash. People who want to pay their parking tickets, tolls, taxes or phone bills in cash, meanwhile, often learn that government agencies and businesses have outsourced that option to companies that usually charge a fee.
BlackRock, Citadel Securities-Backed TXSE Group to Launch Texas Stock Exchange
June 5th, 2024Hmm…
Via: Reuters:
TXSE Group, backed by BlackRock and Citadel Securities, plans to launch Texas Stock Exchange in Dallas, going up against established New York-centric exchanges in a bid to attract global companies.
The exchange, which has raised about $120 million, plans to file registration documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to start operating as a national securities exchange later this year, TXSE said on Wednesday.
“Tech is dead. I’m done.”
June 5th, 2024I’m not sure if this is satire or not, but it contains a lot of truth and his deadpan delivery is hilarious.
Via: TechLead:
Kevin Knuth, Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Albany: Handheld Nuclear Fission Reactor to “Lure” UFOs
June 4th, 2024Keep in mind, long time CIA contractor, Garry Nolan, is listed as, “Executive Director of the Board,” on the Sol Foundation’s website.
Via: The Sol Foundation:
Netherlands Joins Denmark In Saying Ukraine Can Use F-16s To Strike Inside Russia
June 4th, 2024Via: ZeroHedge:
The Netherlands is the latest NATO country to announce that it backs allowing Ukraine to attack inside Russian territory using its weapons. More importantly, it has joined Denmark in saying it does not object to Kiev using F-16s to attack Russia.
“If you have the right to self-defense, there are no borders for the use of weapons. This is a general principle,” Dutch Foreign Minister Hanke Bruins Slot said days ago. Kiev could receive its first F-16s in a matter of weeks.
This came immediately after Denmark’s foreign minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen was the first to proclaim such a policy, saying it would be “within the rules of war”.
“We made it clear from the very beginning… that this is part of self-defense so that it would also be possible to attack military targets on the aggressor’s territory,” Rasmussen had said from Brussels late last week.
The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and Belgium are part of a US-approved ‘fighter jet coalition’ which will oversee dozens of American-made F-16 fighter jets transferred to Ukraine’s armed forces. The Netherlands alone has pledged 24 jets, and initial deliveries are expected this summer.
Moscow views this ‘greenlight’ as a huge new provocation and escalation given F-16s are capable of carrying tactical nuclear weapons. Russia previously said it will have no choice but to assume each F-16 could be armed with nukes.
President Putin has warned of “serious consequences” after the Kremlin previously warned that NATO bases from which these jets are deployed could come under attack.
But on Friday NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg shrugged off Moscow’s warnings by saying:
“This is nothing new. It has … been the case for a long time that every time NATO allies are providing support to Ukraine, President Putin is trying to threaten us to not do that.”
“And an escalation – well, Russia has escalated by invading another country.”
Fusion Tech Finds Geothermal Energy Application
June 4th, 2024Via: IEEE:
The upper 10 kilometers of the Earth’s crust contains vast geothermal reserves, essentially awaiting human energy consumption to begin to tap into its unstinting power output—which itself yields no greenhouse gasses. And yet, geothermal sources currently produce only three-tenths of one percent of the world’s electricity. This promising energy source has long been limited by the extraordinary challenges of drilling holes that are deep enough to access the intense heat below the Earth’s surface.
Now, an MIT spin-off says it has found a solution in an innovative technology that could dramatically reduce the costs and timelines of drilling to fantastic depths. Quaise Energy, based in Cambridge, Mass., plans to deploy what are called gyrotron drills to vaporize rock using powerful microwaves.
A gyrotron uses high-power, linear-beam vacuum tubes to generate millimeter-length electromagnetic waves. Invented by Soviet scientists in the 1960s, gyrotrons are used in nuclear fusion research experiments to heat and control plasma. Quaise has raised $95 million from investors, including Japan’s Mitsubishi, to develop technology that would enable it to quickly and efficiently drill up to 20 km deep, closer to the Earth’s core than ever before.
Actual Headline: “Covid Vaccines May Have Helped Fuel Rise in Excess Deaths”
June 4th, 2024What do it mean that this is in the mainstream media now?
Via: Telegraph:
Covid vaccines could be partly to blame for the rise in excess deaths since the pandemic, scientists have suggested.
Researchers from The Netherlands analysed data from 47 Western countries and discovered there had been more than three million excess deaths since 2020, with the trend continuing despite the rollout of vaccines and containment measures.
They said the “unprecedented” figures “raised serious concerns” and called on governments to fully investigate the underlying causes, including possible vaccine harms.
Writing in the BMJ Public Health, the authors from Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, said: “Although Covid-19 vaccines were provided to guard civilians from suffering morbidity and mortality by the Covid-19 virus, suspected adverse events have been documented as well.
“Both medical professionals and citizens have reported serious injuries and deaths following vaccination to various official databases in the Western World.”
