Geek News

The Last Days of Venus as the Evening Star That's not a young crescent Moon poised above the hills along the western horizon at sunset. It's Venus in a crescent phase . About 54 million kilometers away and less than 20 percent illuminated, it was captured by telescope and camera on September 30 near Bacau, Romania. The bright celestial beacon is now languishing in the evening twilight, its days as the Evening Star in 2018 coming to a close. But it also grows larger in apparent size and becomes an ever thinner crescent in telescopic views . Heading toward an inferior conjunction (non-judgmental), the inner planet will be positioned between Earth and Sun on October 26 and lost from view in the solar glare. At month's end a crescent Venus will reappear in the east though, rising just before the Sun as the brilliant Morning Star . October 05, 2018 via NASA https://ift.tt/2O8...

Science Your LaCroix can’t kill cockroaches. Or you. A new lawsuit argues LaCroix is lying about what goes in its bubbly flavored water. It’s far from an airtight case. via Popular Science "https://ift.tt/2O3KHs2"

Technology We should take a lesson from it. MIT is working on an AI that can evaluate how biased websites are, and how factually accurate they are. via Popular Science "https://ift.tt/2zRRfkS"

Netherlands expels four of the suspects trying to break into an organization investigating a chemical used in the recent attack on a former Russian spy in Britain. via Dark Reading: https://ift.tt/2y2HSgL If New feed item from http://www.darkreading.com/rss/all.xml , then send Unsubscribe from these notifications or sign in to manage your Email Applets.

Risk assessment can be complex, but it's vital for making good decisions about IT security. Here are steps to start you down the path toward a meaningful risk assessment process. via Dark Reading: https://ift.tt/2y2SbRU If New feed item from http://www.darkreading.com/rss/all.xml , then send Unsubscribe from these notifications or sign in to manage your Email Applets.

Technology Here's the new stuff your computer can do. Your computer will finally wait until you're not working to force a restart and update. via Popular Science "https://ift.tt/2yg0KZ6"

If true, the attack using Supermicro motherboards could be the most comprehensive cyber breach in history. via Dark Reading: https://ift.tt/2Pa03HP If New feed item from http://www.darkreading.com/rss/all.xml , then send Unsubscribe from these notifications or sign in to manage your Email Applets.

Space It's having memory issues. The past few months have been pretty rough on NASA’s Mars rovers. Opportunity is still not responding to NASA’s frequent missives. via Popular Science "https://ift.tt/2ydXyxa"

In celebration of the upcoming Total War: WARHAMMER II - Curse of the Vampire Coast , save 25% to 75% off the Total War: WARHAMMER Franchise as part of this week's Weekend Deal*! *Offer ends Monday at 10AM Pacific Time via Steam RSS News Feed "https://ift.tt/2RlFAl3"

Fitbit may have helped police solve the murder of one of its users, after investigators used heart rate data to determine the identity of the alleged killer. On September 8th, Anthony Aiello visited his 67-year-old stepdaughter Karen Navarra in San Jose. He claims he brought homemade pizza and biscotti for her, and she walked him to the door and gave him a couple of roses as a thank you. But data from Navarra's Fitbit Alta showed a different story, according to investigators. The data indicated that Navarra's heart rate "spiked significantly," then rapidly slowed and stopped -- all during the 15 minutes or so that Aiello, 90, was in her home, the New York Times reports . One of Navarra's coworkers found her body five days after Aiello's visit. Investigators used surveillance footage to determine that Aiello's car was parked in Navarra...

Nexus Media News Storms cause flooding, but green infrastructure can help homeowners stay afloat. Green infrastructure protects public health and helps the environment in the face of extreme weather events. via Popular Science "https://ift.tt/2PbCBds"

For a while, it looked like Rethink Robotics would shake up the world with its collaborative robots : rather than having to write code, workers could teach bots to perform tasks by guiding them through the process. However, the market doesn't appear to have shared its vision. Rethink has suddenly shut down after a potential buyer backed out of a deal. Sales of Baxter and Sawyer robots weren't meeting expectations, Rethink chief Scott Eckert said, leaving the company low on cash. It really needed this acquisition to go through, in other words. The move will leave 91 people without jobs, although they may find positions quickly given the thriving robotics industry . While Eckert didn't go into detail as to why sales were low, the Boston Globe attributes it to one main rival: Universal Robots. While many credit Rethink with breakthroughs in accessi...

It's been over a month since Fitbit first announced the Charge 3 , seemingly a major improvement over the two-year-old Charge 2 that it'll replace. If you've been wanting to replace an aging fitness tracker with Fitbit's latest, we now know the Charge 3 will arrive in just a few days -- October 7th, to be specific. As with the previous Charge models, the new one will set you back $150, which still feels a little bit pricy compared to the $200 Versa watch, but there are a number of notable improvements here over the old model. Unlike its predecessor, the Charge 3 is properly water-resistant, which makes it the first Charge that swimmers can use to track workouts. Perhaps even more significantly, the Charge 3 has a proper touchscreen for the first time, as well. In our initial testing, this made for a huge usability improvement over previous models, which ...

Instagram has yet another answer to Snapchat , but this time it's covering one of the basics: namely, adding friends. Months after it started testing , the social network has introduced "nametags" that make friend additions as simple as pointing your camera at a code, much like Snapcodes . Once you've created a nametag (complete with colors, emojis and selfies), your soon-to-be pal just has to launch the camera and hold down on the screen when the tag is in view. From there, they'll receive options to eithe r follow straight away or view the profile. You can share nametags with others through text messages or other social platforms if you're trying to build as wide an audience as possible. Nametags are available now on Android and iOS. That's not the only expansion taking place. Instagram is also testing a school communities fea...