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Animals This isn’t creepy animal behavior at all A large, brown moth uses it's long, sucking tongue to drink tears from the eye of a little sleeping bird. Apparently, moths do this all the time, just not to birds. via Popular Science "https://ift.tt/2OjqmhQ"

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Yesterday, Facebook announced that it found -- and fixed -- a stunning security breach that put 50 million people's accounts at risk. In the words of Facebook executives, the attack was "sophisticated" and its reach was "broad." And, more chillingly, we don't know who was behind it or what they intended to do with that account data. "While I'm glad we found this, fixed the vulnerability, and secured the accounts that may be at risk," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said , "the reality is we need to continue developing new tools to prevent this from happening in the first place." His sentiment is correct: Facebook needs to prevent these sorts of breaches before they happen. But is that even possible? Can Facebook pre-emptively stamp out every potentially disastrous vulnerability before it's discovered? Almost cert...

We've all had that brief moment of panic when our ( probably expensive ) smartphones plunge onto solid ground, so Apple's claim that the glass on Apple's latest iPhones is the toughest on any smartphone might be welcome news for the clumsiest among us. To see if Apple's proclamation held weight, Tom's Guide put the iPhone XS and XS Max through their paces with a drop test onto concrete from varying heights on the edge, face and rear of the devices. The phones endured an 11-foot drop with nary a scratch, but raising the bar to 20 feet all but destroyed the XS Max. While the phones survived most of the drops attempted in the video, other tests indicated that a six-foot fall could be enough to shatter the glass. So, even though the iPhone XS and XS Max seem to be sturdier overall, investing in a good case and a screen protector is probably ...

DIY Protect your pets and your pelt. When the leaves start to turn, fleas suddenly seem to show up everywhere. Here’s how to keep the biting bugs off your turf. via Popular Science "https://ift.tt/2xTFqcD"

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous. Welcome to your weekend! We'll look into Facebook's unfortunate exposure, Photokina , Oculus Connect and other big events from this week like Google's 20th birthday . Happy birthday! Facebook hack exposed info on up to 50 million users Early Friday, a white-hat hacker briefly promised to live stream a bid to access and delete Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook account . He later canceled the stream and said he reported the bug, however, Facebook did not confirm if this was related to the attack it said had exposed the information of 50 million users. A flaw in the combination of features that allow a user to view their profile as someone else, and the Happy Birthday videos it can generate, could allow hackers to create an access token for someone else's account. As a result, it logged out about 90 mill...

While the patent lawsuit battle between Qualcomm and Apple is far from over -- remember how long it took for things to get settled with Samsung? -- we do have an update. On Friday, U.S. International Trade Commission judge Thomas Pender found ( PDF ) that the iPhones violate one of Qualcomm's patents, but still refused to block imports of the devices. Their squabble is focused on Apple's use of Intel chips instead of those made or licensed by Qualcomm, and how they're being used in some iPhones. According to Pender, "statutory public interest factors" weighed into his decision against issuing a ban. Other judges will review the decision, but as Bloomberg explained, if this holds up it removes a tool Qualcomm could use as leverage for a possible settlement from Apple. Reuters quoted Qualcomm lawyer Don Rosenberg saying "It makes no sense to then a...

55 Nights with Saturn For 55 consecutive nights Mediterranean skies were at least partly clear this summer, from the 1st of July to the 24th of August 2018. An exposure from each night was incorporated in this composited telephoto and telescopic image to follow bright planet Saturn as it wandered through the generous evening skies. Through August , the outer planet's seasonal apparent retrograde motion slowed and drifted to the right, framed by a starry background. That brought it near the line-of-sight to the central Milky Way, and the beautiful Lagoon (M8) and Trifid (20) nebulae. Of course Saturn's largest moon Titan was also along for the ride. Swinging around the gas giant in a 16 day long orbit, Titan's resulting wave-like motion is easier to spot when the almost-too-bright Saturn is digitally edited from the scene . September 29, 2018 via NASA https://ift.tt...

When Google finally launched its dedicated Podcasts app for Android (an iOS version hasn't been released yet), we found it "pretty, but basic." The only way to turn around that reputation is to actually flesh out its list of features, and now that includes Google Cast support. With the button it's easier to tie in with Chromecast devices, Google Home or anything else supporting the protocol, and it's weird the app ever launched without it. 9to5Google notes that while it was available for some users earlier, it's widely available starting today, which Google confirmed to Engadget. It still might not match feature for feature with favorites like Pocket Casts, Stitcher or even Spotify, but for a free app it's in a better position to get the job done. Source: 9to5Google , Google Play via Engadget RSS Feed h...

In an open letter, interim Intel CEO Bob Swan admitted the company's supply of CPUs for the "entry level" PC market is "undoubtedly tight," so if you have trouble finding a cheap laptop for the holiday season then you know why. Between consumers upgrading their PCs, gaming and commercial systems he said Intel expects "modest" growth in PC shipments, while it will focus on delivering higher-end Xeon and Core CPUs. We'll see if this creates an opportunity for competitors like AMD and Qualcomm, especially as they bring laptops to market with longer-than-ever battery life . To help improve supply, Intel is investing $1 billion on current 14nm production lines in in Oregon, Arizona, Ireland and Israel. As far as its repeatedly-delayed "Cannon Lake" 10nm CPU technology that saw a limited debut earlier this year, the CEO said ...

As part of a case involving members of the MS-13 gang, the US Department of Justice has been pushing to get access to Facebook Messenger voice calls. It even attempted to hold Facebook in contempt of court last month when the company pushed back on a wiretap order. Now, Reuters reports that a US District Court judge ruled in favor of the social media giant, according to sources familiar with the matter, but because the proceedings are sealed, the reason why isn't yet clear. Court filings have shown that the government was able to intercept phone calls and Messenger texts during its investigation, but three Messenger voice calls of interest were inaccessible. And while federal law requires telecommunications companies to provide law enforcement with access to phone calls when presented with a wiretap order, internet-based services aren't covered under that law....