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"A software company that provides services for insurance groups disclosed this week that about 27.7 million Texas driver's license records were exposed in a data breach earlier this year," reports The Hill: The company, Vertafore, said in a statement posted on a website set up to address the breach that the data was exposed between March and August and affected licenses issued before February 2019. Exposed data included driver's license numbers, addresses, dates of birth and vehicle registration history, according to the company. The group said that no Social Security numbers or financial account information were compromised. The breach happened after three files were accessed by an unauthorized user after the files were "inadvertently stored in an unsecured external storage service," Vertafore said in its statement.... Vertafore said that it is providing a year of free credit monitoring and identity restoration services to all Texas residents whose driver's license data was exposed... Vertafore emphasized in disclosing the breach that it was taking steps to enhance employee cybersecurity and privacy training, reinforcing security procedures and policies, and further enhancing the security of its systems.

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For seekers of a right-leaning free-speech utopia, "Parler may turn out to be, in the end, a false refuge," warns Marc Ambinder at MSNBC: First — sorry, folks — Parler does censor. It removes users, regularly. It does not actually seem to tolerate hate speech, and because it's a much smaller platform, it might even be more efficient in finding and exorcising it than the social giants. Oh, and the founders really, really don't like trolling. This includes the sort of trolling that feeds the outrage cycles on Twitter, the trolling that includes scatology and expletives and "unrelated comments." [Parler also says they'll enforce their rules against obscene user names, any kind of pornography, and even the spamming of "people trying to speak" with "unrelated comments"] Also, dog poop. Parler doesn't like dog poop... On Wednesday, [Parler CEO Dan Bongino], of all people, had to knock down what might have been Parler's first piece of conservative-on-conservative viral misinformation: a screenshot of a Fox News chyron alleging that George Soros was actually the owner of Parler. "Friends," Bongino wrote on Twitter (!), "This is a photoshopped image. THIS IS NOT REAL. There are people who are desperate to take down Parler who are spreading BS hoping you'll buy it. I OWN PARLER. This is the 4th or 5th time I've had to fight back against this stuff." Sorry, Dan. It won't be the last.

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Tim McNerney is the project leader at 4004.com, a site commemorating Intel's original 4004 microprocessor. He's also long-time Slashdot reader mcpublic, and shares news of a new open source adapter — plus a great moment chip history: Even though Intel debuted its groundbreaking 4004 on November 15th, 1971, 49 years ago today, in the pages of Electronics News, there is something about Intel's very first microprocessor that keeps inspiring engineers to pay tribute to this historic chip. Turkish iPhone engineer, Erturk Kocalar, (now at Google) and the force behind 8bitforce.com, just added this 4-bit granddaddy to his open-source lineup of 8-bit "Retroshields." These elegant little adapters let you score your favorite, vintage microprocessor on eBay and actually play around with it without having to wire up a multi-chip memory and the peripherals needed to make your little "engine" jolly fun. An Arduino emulates the rest of the system for you in software and lets you program and poke at your relic via USB from the comfort of a modern laptop. Before FPGAs and yes, even before electronic CAD, there was a tradition of emulating hardware using software. In fact, it is central to the 4004 Genesis story. Busicom, a Japanese maker of mechanical adding machines, had designed its own electronic calculator chip-set and eagerly approached the now-famous Silicon Valley chip-maker to manufacture it. Back in 1969 Intel was just a tiny startup hoping to obsolete core memory with commodity semiconductors, and they didn't have extra logic designers on-staff. But Intel did have a prescient counter-proposal: we'll build you a general purpose computer-on-a-chip and emulate your custom calculator architecture using a ROM-conserving byte-code interpreter. Busicom agreed, and Intel managed to hire Italian superstar Federico Faggin away from Fairchild to craft a novel, customer-programmable microprocessor, which later, in 1975, German mechanical taxi meter maker Argo Kienzle would go on to launch the world's first electronic taxi meter. Starting to see a pattern of progress in everyday automation? For photos, schematics, mask artwork, code, graphical simulators, more history, and the findings of a dedicated team of "digital archeologists," visit 4004.com

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"Earlier this week Apple announced their new, ARM-based 'Apple Silicon' machines to the world in a slick marketing event that had many of us reaching for our credit cards," writes Mike Croucher, technical evangelist at The Numerical Algorithms Group. "Simultaneously, The Numerical Algorithms Group announced that they had ported their Fortran Compiler to the new platform. At the time of writing this is the only Fortran compiler publicly available for Apple Silicon although that will likely change soon as open source Fortran compilers get updated." An anonymous Slashdot reader offers this analysis: Apple Silicon currently has no open source Fortran compiler and Apple themselves are one of the few silicon manufacturers who don't have their own Fortran compiler. You could be forgiven for thinking that this doesn't matter to most users... if it wasn't for the fact that sizeable percentages of foundational data science platforms such as R and SciPy are written in Fortran. Croucher argues that "More modern systems, such as R, make direct use of a lot of this code because it is highly performant and, perhaps more importantly, has been battle tested in production for decades. Numerical computing is hard (even when all of your instincts suggest otherwise) and when someone demonstrably does it right, it makes good sense to reuse rather than reinvent..." "The community needs and will demand open source (or at least free) Fortran compilers if data scientists are ever going to realise the full potential of Apple's new hardware and I have no doubt that these are on the way. Other major silicon providers (e.g. Intel, AMD, NEC and NVIDIA/PGI) have their own Fortran compiler that co-exist with the open ones. Perhaps Apple should join the club..."

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"A widely used hotel reservation platform has exposed 10 million files related to guests at various hotels around the world, thanks to a misconfigured Amazon Web Services S3 bucket," reports Threatpost. "The records include sensitive data, including credit-card details." Prestige Software's "Cloud Hospitality" is used by hotels to integrate their reservation systems with online booking websites like Expedia and Booking.com. The incident has affected 24.4 GB worth of data in total, according to the security team at Website Planet, which uncovered the bucket. Many of the records contain data for multiple hotel guests that were grouped together on a single reservation; thus, the number of people exposed is likely well over the 10 million, researchers said. Some of the records go back to 2013, the team determined — but the bucket was still "live" and in use when it was discovered this month. "The company was storing years of credit-card data from hotel guests and travel agents without any protection in place, putting millions of people at risk of fraud and online attacks," according to the firm, in a recent notice on the issue. "The S3 bucket contained over 180,000 records from August 2020 alone...." The records contain a raft of information, Website Planet said, including full names, email addresses, national ID numbers and phone numbers of hotel guests; card numbers, cardholder names, CVVs and expiration dates; and reservation details, such as the total cost of hotel reservations, reservation number, dates of a stay, special requests made by guests, number of people, guest names and more. The exposure affects a wide number of platforms, with data related to reservations made through Amadeus, Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com, Hotelbeds, Omnibees, Sabre and more.... A too-large percentage of cloud databases containing highly sensitive information are publicly available, an analysis in September found. The study from Comparitch showed that 6 percent of all Google Cloud buckets are misconfigured and left open to the public internet, for anyone to access their contents.

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Wednesday Twitch warned its users to delete any videos containing copyrighted music. PC Gamer reports on what happened next: Since October, Twitch has been deleting significant quantities of videos over copyright claims, leaving the affected streamers with no way to respond or issue counter-claims. Twitch eventually explained that the number of DMCA notifications it receives from major record labels has surged, going from "fewer than 50" each year to "thousands" beginning in May. The recommendation offered to streamers was to play games with the music muted, which obviously isn't great advice when it comes to rhythm games, or games that don't have the option to mute music separately from other audio. Meanwhile, some streamers have had videos muted due to sound effects, with claims coming via automated content recognition software Audible Magic. These claims can be contested, but it's still frustrating for those affected by content ID software that can't tell the difference between copyrighted audio and the noise of a grandfather clock chiming in a horror game. In response, streamers have been protesting by playing games with the sound off completely to highlight the absurdity of the situation, some using the hashtag #DMCAsoundoff. Watching Rocksmith players grunt or silently nod along to songs nobody can hear highlights the problem while still entertaining their viewers, as does hearing them improvise their own the sound effects for games like Resident Evil 2. Polygon argues it's "alarming that these are the lengths players are going to in order to try and protest Twitch's policy..." But they also applauded the creativity of the protesters It's a surprising look at the transformative nature of streaming. When players are forced to play in dead silence, people still tune in and watch. Even while complying with copyright law to the absolute letter, each stream is different, and each act of protest feels wholly unique. Twitch recently posted a long statement in response to the controversy, writing: "Your frustration and confusion with recent music-related copyright issues is completely justified. Things can — and should — be better for creators than they have been recently. We should have developed more sophisticated and user-friendly tools long ago. To all the creators who lost their community's best moments, we're sorry. This shouldn't have happened." Despite the statement, Twitch has yet to provide concrete solutions for the ongoing problem, and the platform has yet to address the issue of in-game audio triggering the DMCA process (besides a suggestion to mute in-game audio.)

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Slashdot reader DevNull127 writes: SpaceX founder Elon Musk now says, in a new tweet on Saturday, "that he 'most likely' has a moderate case of Covid-19," according to Bloomberg. Though their article then also reports that Musk characteristically "continued to cast doubt on the accuracy of the tests, citing the 'wildly different results from different labs.'" By late Thursday Musk had taken four different coronavirus tests, tweeting that he'd received two negative and two positive results. [The Washington Post reported that Thursday Musk then also announced he was turning to the more reliable polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, and he tweeted that he was getting "PCR tests" — plural -- "from separate labs," for which he'd need to wait 24 more hours to get the results.] But then he'd stopped sharing his results altogether, until pressed Saturday by one of his followers on Twitter, who had bluntly asked the SpaceX founder, "u got covid or nah." After confirming that yes he "most likely" had Covid-19, Musk quickly added in the same tweet that "My symptoms are that of a minor cold, which is no surprise, since a coronavirus is a type of cold." The fact that he'd even responded at all drew a surprised reaction from the follower who'd asked the original question. ("holy shit no way.") But the original positive/negative results had also drawn a surprisingly harsh reaction from former government official/current University of California Berkeley public policy professor Robert Reich, who couldn't resist tweeting a reminder that Musk "reportedly fired Tesla workers who were afraid of returning to work out of fear of contracting COVID. But when Musk thinks he might have the virus he takes 4 tests just to make sure. Billionaires aren't the answer." Get well soon, Elon.

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"Several hundred thousand Ring doorbells have been recalled," reports People, "following reports of the devices catching fire." According to a notice posted on Tuesday by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), about 350,000 2nd generation Ring doorbells — 8,700 of which were sold in Canada — have been recalled over fire and burn concerns. Ring, an Amazon smart home brand, has received 85 incident reports of incorrect doorbell screws installed, with 23 of those igniting and resulting in minor property damage. The company has also received eight reports of minor burns. "The video doorbell's battery can overheat when the incorrect screws are used for installation, posing fire and burn hazards," the CPSC's notice said. The $100 Rings being recalled were sold online at amazon.com and ring.com from June 2020 to October 2020 with the model number 5UM5E5. On Ring's company support website, consumers can enter their model and serial number printed on the back of their Ring and see if their doorbell is part of the recall.

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"EFF is launching How to Fix the Internet, a new podcast mini-series to examine potential solutions to six ills facing the modern digital landscape," announces EFF.org: Over the course of 6 episodes, we'll consider how current tech policy isn't working well for users and invite experts to join us in imagining a better future... It's easy to see all the things wrong with the modern Internet, and how the reality of most peoples' experience online doesn't align with the dreams of its early creators. How did we go astray and what should we do now? And what would our world look like if we got it right...? In each episode, we are joined by a guest to examine how the current system is failing, consider different possibilities for solutions, and imagine a better future. After all, we can't build a better world unless we can imagine it. We are launching the podcast with two episodes: The Secret Court Approving Secret Surveillance, featuring the Cato Institute's specialist in surveillance legal policy Julian Sanchez; and Why Does My Internet Suck?, featuring Gigi Sohn, one of the nation's leading advocates for open, affordable, and democratic communications networks. Future episodes will be released on Tuesdays. Other topics to be covered by the podcast mini-series: The third-party doctrine [which asserts "no reasonable expectation of privacy"]Barriers to interoperable technologyLaw enforcement's use of face recognition technology Digital first sale and the resale of intellectual property

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"Forget all the rules about uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols; your password just needs to be at least 12 characters, and it needs to pass a real-time strength test" developed by the passwords research group in Carnegie Mellon's CyLab Security and Privacy Institute (according to the Lab's web site). CNET reports: After a user has created a password of at least 10 characters, the meter will start giving suggestions, such as breaking up common words with slashes or random letters, to make your password stronger... One of the problems with many passwords is that they tick all the security checks but are still easy to guess because most of us follow the same patterns, the lab found. Numbers? You'll likely add a "1" at the end. Capital letters? You'll probably make it the first one in the password. And special characters? Frequently exclamation marks... In an experiment, users created passwords on a system that simply required them to enter 10 characters. Then the system rated the passwords with the lab's password strength meter and gave tailored suggestions for stronger passwords. Test subjects were able to come up with secure passwords that they could recall up to five days later. It worked better than showing users preset lists of rules or simply banning known bad passwords (I'm looking at you "StarWars")... Lorrie Cranor, director of the CyLab Usable Security and Privacy Laboratory at CMU, says the best way to create and remember secure passwords is to use a password manager. Those aren't widely adopted, and they come with some trade-offs. Nonetheless, they allow you to create a random, unique password for each account, and they remember your passwords for you.

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"YouTube is facing growing criticism for allowing election misinformation after it decided not to remove or individually fact-check videos that spread unfounded conspiracy theories alleging voter fraud," reports NBC News: While all internet platforms are struggling to contain the volume of misinformation since voting ended last week — and all have been criticized to some degree by researchers for their handling of the situation — YouTube has staked out a position that is less aggressive than its social media competitors, most notably Facebook and Twitter. YouTube said before the election that it wouldn't allow videos that encourage "interference in the democratic process," but now, as state officials are working to certify vote tallies, the company said it wants to give users room for "discussion of election results," even when that discussion is based on debunked information. Somewhere in between those two policies it has decided to leave up videos challenging Joe Biden's election, and some have received millions of views. "Is YouTube unable to contend with this material, meaning they lack resources? Or is it a lack of will?" asked Sarah Roberts, co-director of UCLA's Center for Critical Internet Inquiry and an associate professor of information studies. "I think one of those is probably more damning than the other, but they both have the same outcome of allowing propaganda material masquerading as news being distributed on their platform at a critical juncture for the American political cycle," Roberts said... "There's a good chance YouTube's handling of this goes in the first sentence of every story about how social networks handled the 2020 election for the next several years," Casey Newton, a journalist who writes the technology newsletter Platformer, said in a tweet.

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A new article summarizes research from the University of Oxford and NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre. Slashdot reader AleRunner writes: Nearly one in five people who have had Covid-19 are diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder such as anxiety, depression or insomnia within three months of testing positive for the virus," Natalie Grover writes. Although "people with a pre-existing mental health diagnosis" are 65% more likely to get COVID, so it may be that this is partly explained by doctors diagnosing illness that would otherwise be missed, the article suggests that the rate is double the rate for influenza and unexpectedly high so other explanations are needed. From the article: Paul Harrison, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Oxford, said more research was needed to establish whether a diagnosis of a psychiatric disorder could be directly linked to getting coronavirus. General factors that influence physical health were not captured in the records analysed, such as socio-economic background, smoking, or use of drugs. There was also potential that the general stressful environment of the pandemic is playing a role, he noted. Research suggests that people from poorer socio-economic backgrounds are more likely to suffer mental ill-health. Poverty also increases exposure to coronavirus, owing to factors like crowded housing and unsafe working conditions. "Equally, it's not at all implausible that Covid-19 might have some direct effect on your brain and your mental health. But I think that, again, remains to be positively demonstrated," said Mr. Harrison... The calculations were made on the basis of roughly 70 million US health records, including more than 62,000 cases of Covid-19 that did not require a hospital stay or an emergency department visit.

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Popular Mechanics writes: In a new study, researchers found the traditional psychoactive drug ayahuasca stimulates the growth of new brain cells in the hippocampi of research mice. The hippocampus is responsible for many memory functions, and the mice dosed with ayahuasca also performed better in a battery of memory tests. While ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic and often purgative tea brewed from leaves of a shrub that grows in South America, contains the psychoactive compound N, N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), it also packs harmine and tetrahydoharmine, two compounds that form new neurons from stem cells in a petri dish, per IFL Science. "The study, published in Translational Psychiatry, a Nature Research journal, reports the results of four years of in vitro and in vivo experimentation on mice..." according to one medical news site. José Ángel Morales, a researcher in the UCM and CIBERNED Department of Cellular Biology, tells them "This capacity to modulate brain plasticity suggests that it has great therapeutic potential for a wide range of psychiatric and neurological disorders, including neurodegenerative diseases." In neurodegenerative diseases, it is the death of certain types of neurons that causes the symptoms of pathologies such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Although humans have the capacity to generate new neuronal cells, this depends on several factors and is not always possible. "The challenge is to activate our dormant capacity to form neurons and thus replace the neurons that die as a result of the disease. This study shows that DMT is capable of activating neural stem cells and forming new neurons," concluded Morales.

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Programming columnist Mike Melanson assesses the news that Guido Van Rossum, the creator of the Python programming language, has come out of retirement to join Microsoft's developer division: The news brought a flurry of congratulations and feature requests, though a few of the suggested features indeed, already exist. Others still were met with informative responses that make the resulting threads worth a perusal, especially if you're looking for a quick "who's who" on Twitter for the world of programming languages. Microsoft's Miguel de Icaza pointed out that this addition adds to the company's now growing list of language designers and contributors: "The developer division at Microsoft now employs the language designers and contributors to Python, Java, JavaScript, Typescript, F# C#, C++. We just need some PHP, Rust and Swift magic to complete the picture." [Microsoft senior software engineer Kat Marchán added "We actually have some early ex-moz Rust people too!"] So, what can we expect from all of this? Is it a corporate takeover of open source, as some further down in the long list of replies always seem to suggest? Or is Microsoft planning the Frankenstein of all languages, with a little bit of this, a little bit of that? In all likelihood, you Python developers using Microsoft products probably have some good features to look forward to in the near future, and that's that, but there's always lingering fears...especially when it comes to Microsoft. As van Rossum suggests, stay tuned. After Slashdot's earlier story, long-time reader alexgieg posted his own theory: "Several months ago the Excel folk within Microsoft asked users whether they'd like to have Python as an alternative scripting language in Office. Support for that was overwhelming, but nothing more was said on the matter since then. I guess this is Microsoft's answer."

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Slashdot reader Iwastheone shared this report from the Register: Google on Thursday was sued for allegedly stealing Android users' cellular data allowances though unapproved, undisclosed transmissions to the web giant's servers... The complaint contends that Google is using Android users' limited cellular data allowances without permission to transmit information about those individuals that's unrelated to their use of Google services... What concerns the plaintiffs is data sent to Google's servers that isn't the result of deliberate interaction with a mobile device — we're talking passive or background data transfers via cell network, here. "Google designed and implemented its Android operating system and apps to extract and transmit large volumes of information between Plaintiffs' cellular devices and Google using Plaintiffs' cellular data allowances," the complaint claims... Android users have to accept four agreements to participate in the Google ecosystem: Terms of Service; the Privacy Policy; the Managed Google Play Agreement; and the Google Play Terms of Service. None of these, the court filing contends, disclose that Google spends users' cellular data allowances for these background transfers. To support the allegations, the plaintiff's counsel tested a new Samsung Galaxy S7 phone running Android, with a signed-in Google Account and default setting, and found that when left idle, without a Wi-Fi connection, the phone "sent and received 8.88 MB/day of data, with 94 per cent of those communications occurring between Google and the device." The device, stationary, with all apps closed, transferred data to Google about 16 times an hour, or about 389 times in 24 hours. Assuming even half of that data is outgoing, Google would receive about 4.4MB per day or 130MB per month in this manner per device subject to the same test conditions... An iPhone with Apple's Safari browser open in the background transmits only about a tenth of that amount to Apple, according to the complaint... Vanderbilt University Professor Douglas C. Schmidt performed a similar study in 2018 — except that the Chrome browser was open — and found that Android devices made 900 passive transfers in 24 hours... The complaint charges that Google conducts these undisclosed data transfers for further its advertising business, sending "tokens" that identify users for targeted advertising and preload ads that generate revenue even if they're never displayed.

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"Ubuntu developers have fixed a series of vulnerabilities that made it easy for standard users to gain coveted root privileges," reports Ars Technica: "This blog post is about an astonishingly straightforward way to escalate privileges on Ubuntu," Kevin Backhouse, a researcher at GitHub, wrote in a post published on Tuesday. "With a few simple commands in the terminal, and a few mouse clicks, a standard user can create an administrator account for themselves." The first series of commands triggered a denial-of-service bug in a daemon called accountsservice, which as its name suggests is used to manage user accounts on the computer... With the help of a few extra commands, Backhouse was able to set a timer that gave him just enough time to log out of the account before accountsservice crashed. When done correctly, Ubuntu would restart and open a window that allowed the user to create a new account that — you guessed it — had root privileges... The second bug involved in the hack resided in the GNOME display manager, which among other things manages user sessions and the login screen. The display manager, which is often abbreviated as gdm3, also triggers the initial setup of the OS when it detects no users currently exist. "How does gdm3 check how many users there are on the system?" Backhouse asked rhetorically. "You probably already guessed it: by asking accounts-daemon! So what happens if accounts-daemon is unresponsive....?" The vulnerabilities could be triggered only when someone had physical access to, and a valid account on, a vulnerable machine. It worked only on desktop versions of Ubuntu. "This bug is now tracked as CVE-2020-16125 and rated with a high severity score of 7.2 out of 10. It affects Ubuntu 20.10, Ubuntu 20.04, and Ubuntu 18.04..." reports Bleeping Computer. They add that the GitHub security research who discovered the bugs "reported them to Ubuntu and GNOME maintainers on October 17, and fixes are available in the latest code."

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"The rising popularity of alternative social media app Parler is raising concerns over the spread of misinformation and potential for radicalizing users on a platform that's taken a hands-off approach to regulating content," reports The Hill's reporter on technology policy: The app has been boosted by conservatives, surging since Election Day, as Republicans amp up allegations of anti-conservative bias from social media giants like Twitter and Facebook that have clamped down on pro-Trump election misinformation. Experts warn that a total lack of content moderation could prove harmful beyond creating political echo chambers and further spreading conspiracy theories. "Anytime you take a laissez faire approach to moderation — you say, 'anything goes' right up until actual threats of real world violence — that creates a huge space for some really problematic things to happen," said Bret Schafer, a fellow focusing on disinformation at the Alliance for Securing Democracy.... For those who have abandoned Twitter and Facebook in favor of Parler, it could create a new dynamic on the mainstream social media platforms. "The idea that these people are leaving those platforms and no longer trying to red pill individuals to see their conspiracy theories on large platforms like Facebook and Twitter, I think that's a good thing," said Jason Blazakis, director of the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute. He added that the shift to Parler could mean fewer people on Facebook and Twitter are "exposed to these ideas," and "migrating to more obscure platforms" may ultimately result in a smaller audience for misinformation.... Unchecked content also risks exploitation of misinformation by foreign actors, much like it did on U.S. social media platforms in 2016, said Saif Shahin, an assistant professor at American University's School of Communications. But he said Parler's success underscores that misinformation in the U.S. is now fundamentally a domestic problem. "We have people in this country divided so sharply along partisan lines that they actively are seeking what we consider to be disinformation, but what they consider just one type of information," Shahin said. "It is a domestic problem, a social problem, within American society." Long-time Slashdot reader shilly also shared a thread on Twitter from entrepreneur/activist Dave Troy (currently a TedX organizer) raising questions about Parler's funding, and asserting that "a preliminary analysis of the first several thousand accounts on Parler shows that it is the usual Russia-aligned operatives that we in this space have tracked for years. This is a large-scale op aligned with Russian interests." Within hours Russia's state-controlled media outlet "Russia Today" had published an article calling Troy an "unhinged conspiracy theorist."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from IEEE Spectrum: While setting fire to an iron ingot is probably more trouble than it's worth, fine iron powder mixed with air is highly combustible. When you burn this mixture, you're oxidizing the iron. Whereas a carbon fuel oxidizes into CO2, an iron fuel oxidizes into Fe2O3, which is just rust. The nice thing about rust is that it's a solid which can be captured post-combustion. And that's the only byproduct of the entire business -- in goes the iron powder, and out comes energy in the form of heat and rust powder. Iron has an energy density of about 11.3 kWh/L, which is better than gasoline. Although its specific energy is a relatively poor 1.4 kWh/kg, meaning that for a given amount of energy, iron powder will take up a little bit less space than gasoline but it'll be almost ten times heavier. It might not be suitable for powering your car, in other words. It probably won't heat your house either. But it could be ideal for industry, which is where it's being tested right now. Researchers from TU Eindhoven have been developing iron powder as a practical fuel for the past several years, and last month they installed an iron powder heating system at a brewery in the Netherlands, which is turning all that stored up energy into beer. Since electricity can't efficiently produce the kind of heat required for many industrial applications (brewing included), iron powder is a viable zero-carbon option, with only rust left over. So what happens to all that rust? This is where things get clever, because the iron isn't just a fuel that's consumed -- it's energy storage that can be recharged. And to recharge it, you take all that Fe2O3, strip out the oxygen, and turn it back into Fe, ready to be burned again. It's not easy to do this, but much of the energy and work that it takes to pry those Os away from the Fes get returned to you when you burn the Fe the next time. The idea is that you can use the same iron over and over again, discharging it and recharging it just like you would a battery. To maintain the zero-carbon nature of the iron fuel, the recharging process has to be zero-carbon as well. There are a variety of different ways of using electricity to turn rust back into iron, and the TU/e researchers are exploring three different technologies based on hot hydrogen reduction (which turns iron oxide and hydrogen into iron and water). [...] Both production of the hydrogen and the heat necessary to run the furnace or the reactors require energy, of course, but it's grid energy that can come from renewable sources. [...] Philip de Goey, a professor of combustion technology at TU/e, told us that he hopes to be able to deploy 10 MW iron powder high-temperature heat systems for industry within the next four years, with 10 years to the first coal power plant conversion.

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An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from a report via VICE: Like other gig work giants, DoorDash has admitted in its IPO documents that its own business model -- and the way it treats and pays workers -- are major "risks" to its business. In its S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchanges Commission, there's little to no evidence DoorDash can achieve let alone sustain profitability (in fact, that it may never be profitable is another "risk"), and lots of evidence that its business model is largely based on taking advantage of both restaurants and drivers. Included in "risks" are the two following statements, which are wonders to behold: "Our success, or perceived success, and increased visibility may also drive some businesses that perceive our business model negatively to raise their concerns to local policymakers and regulators. These businesses and their trade association groups or other organizations may take actions and employ significant resources to shape the legal and regulatory regimes in jurisdictions where we may have, or seek to have, a market presence in an effort to change such legal and regulatory regimes in ways intended to adversely affect or impede our business and the ability of merchants, consumers, and Dashers to use our platform." What this means is that restaurants might want DoorDash to take less of a cut from their commission, which is understandable. Even with cuts to DoorDash's commission rates during the pandemic, many restaurants are still struggling to scrape by. And then there's this, which explicitly says the company's own pay model for drivers is a risk to its further existence: "Our ability to provide a cost-effective local logistics platform is also dependent on Dasher pay, which is a significant cost and subject to a number of risks..." That's a mouthful, but says that DoorDash's pay model for delivery drivers is algorithmic, which leads to an "inconsistency in earnings" which is likely to piss off both its workforce and its customers to the point where it may be challenged both in court and by regulators, and reported on in the media. This problem is even worse when you consider the labor patterns of gig companies: they require a large reserve of idle labor to keep wait times low and to fight extremely high turnover rates, but they also rely on a core of full-time gig workers to do the vast majority of work. As a result, the workers hurt the most by this "inconsistency in earnings" are the most precarious and vulnerable workers who rely on DoorDash to make ends meet.

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Uber is reportedly in talks to sell its $7.25 billion self-driving car unit, Uber Advanced Technologies Group, to competing autonomous vehicle technology startup Aurora Innovation. TechCrunch reports: Aurora Innovation, the startup founded by three veterans of the autonomous vehicle industry who led programs at Google, Tesla and Uber, is in negotiations to buy Uber ATG. Terms of the deal are still unknown, but sources say the two companies have been in talks since October and it is far along in the process. The talks could falter. But if successful, they have the potential to triple Aurora's headcount and allow Uber to unload an expensive long-term play that has sustained several controversies in its short life.

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