Here's why your AirPods battery life is getting worse, and what you can do about it

Found on Apple Insider on Saturday, 23 March 2019
Browse Hardware

It's impossible to be completely statistically accurate about how long AirPod batteries last because it depends on too many things. If you make or receive phone calls via your AirPods, for instance, you will of course drain the battery faster. If you take them out and leave them on your desk without playing anything, they will drain anyway.

Those 2016 AirPods first gave us that baleful low battery sound after one hour and 19 minutes. We got a second at one hour and 59 minutes. Then at two hours, 6 minutes, they died.

"If you've got a dead or dying battery in an AirPod," said the same source inside Apple, "bring it in to the Apple Store with your proof of purchase if you didn't buy it directly from us, and store-stock depending, you'll walk out for a replacement single bud with a new battery for $49."

First they remove the cables for the headphones and replace it with quickly dying batteries, then they charge you for fixing that failures. You can think what you want about Apple, but they have good marketing to steal your money out of your pockets.

Boeing takes $5 billion hit as Indonesian airline cancels 737 MAX order

Found on Ars Technica on Friday, 22 March 2019
Browse Various

The Garuda cancellation would only put a small dent in the number of total 737 MAX aircraft on order. Based on data from Boeing, as of February there were 4,636 unfilled orders, so the outstanding order from Garuda would account for a little more than one percent of Boeing's backlog. Still, Garuda's exit could signal bigger long-term problems for Boeing as other carriers with mixed fleets of aircraft re-evaluate their positions.

Other major customers such as FlyDubai and the leasing company GECAS (formerly GE Capital Aviation Services) may be less reluctant to pull the plug if they see the aircraft as a potential liability.

If you try to save money by not adding security extras, you get what you deserve.

Facebook Stored Hundreds of Millions of User Passwords in Plain Text for Years

Found on Krebs on Security on Thursday, 21 March 2019
Browse Internet

The Facebook source said the investigation so far indicates between 200 million and 600 million Facebook users may have had their account passwords stored in plain text and searchable by more than 20,000 Facebook employees.

A written statement from Facebook provided to KrebsOnSecurity says the company expects to notify “hundreds of millions of Facebook Lite users, tens of millions of other Facebook users, and tens of thousands of Instagram users.”

How that company is still in business gets harder and harder to understand every day. It's been well known for years know what Zuckerberg thinks about its users.

Britain (Yes, Rainy Britain) Could Run Short of Water by 2050, Official Says

Found on New York Times on Wednesday, 20 March 2019
Browse Nature

If preventive steps are not taken, in less than three decades, Britain might run out of water, the chief executive of the Environment Agency, a public body responsible for conservation in England, said on Tuesday.

The reasons, he said, were climate change and population growth. And he called for a change of attitude toward water conservation to help tackle the problem.

It probably won't take long until some politician calls that a result of the Brexit.

Hacked tornado sirens taken offline in two Texas cities ahead of major storm

Found on ZD Net on Tuesday, 19 March 2019
Browse Various

Following the unauthorized intrusion, city authorities had to shut down their emergency warning system a day before major storms and potential tornados were set to hit the area.

According to CBS Dallas, DeSoto and Lancaster officials who investigated the incident confirmed the two emergency alarm systems had been hacked and set off "intentionally," excluding the possibility of a freak technical accident in the two cities at the same time.

It quickly gets obvious when someone found a way to mess with sirens.

From MySpace to MyFreeDiskSpace: 12 years of music – 50m songs – blackholed amid mystery server move

Found on The Register on Monday, 18 March 2019
Browse Internet

MySpace, the Norma Desmond of social networking platforms, appears to have lost all the music uploaded to the site since its founding in 2003 through 2015, a blunder the company reportedly attributes to a failed server migration.

The lost files – said to amount to 50 million songs from 14 million artists – appear to be unrecoverable. Videos, photos, and other posted content may have vanished too.

Either it's a massive incompetence (no working backups) or a cheap excuse for getting rid of old data. The former is possible, but the latter more realistic.

Texas is trying to block Tesla from even servicing its cars in direct sale battle with car dealers

Found on Electrek on Sunday, 17 March 2019
Browse Technology

The local car dealer lobby is using old laws meant to stop automakers to compete with their own franchise dealers to block Tesla from selling their own cars directly to consumers even though Tesla never had any franchise dealers.

Texas’s use of direct-sale laws was already ridiculously abused but they are now pushing it to a whole new level of stupidity.

It should not matter who repairs a car; as long as it is done right.

How a wireless keyboard lets hackers take full control of connected computers

Found on Ars Technica on Saturday, 16 March 2019
Browse Hardware

While the keyboard and mouse send input that’s protected with the time-tested Advanced Encryption Standard, the USB dongle that accepts the input accepts unencrypted packets as well, as long as they’re in the proper format.

Matthias Deeg, a SySS researcher, said there is no reliable way keyboard users can protect themselves against the vulnerabilities other than to ensure they are completely isolated from all other radio-based devices.

That wouldn't happen if people would not want everything to be wireless.

Tumblr porn ban: One-fifth of users have deserted site

Found on Independent on Friday, 15 March 2019
Browse Internet

Visits to the Tumblr website fell from 521 million in December to 437 million in January, according to data from web analytics firm SimilarWeb.

The decision to ban adult content on Tumblr proved controversial among many users and prompted a movement known as the “log off” protest to encourage people to leave the site.

Numbers will probably go down even more and soon Tumblr can say hello to Myspace and Geocities.

Axel Voss Says Maybe YouTube Shouldn't Exist

Found on Techdirt on Thursday, 14 March 2019
Browse Politics

Last week, we pointed out that he was making provably false statements about Article 13, and wondered why he'd be doing that. But the more he talks, the more I'm wondering if he simply doesn't understand the basics of either copyright law or the internet.

So how is it that Axel Voss is considered an authority on this? He doesn't seem to understand that every new work is covered by copyright, so any website that hosts user-uploaded content -- audio, video, text, images, etc. -- is subject to this law.

Stupid people say stupid things. It's always been like that. The problem today is that stupid people can get jobs other than being the village idiot.