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NASA scientists are controlling the Curiosity Mars Rover from their homes

TechSpot News | April 19, 2020, 6:34 a.m. | Original

In brief: The ongoing Covid-19 outbreak has forced millions of people to shelter in place and work from home. The same holds true for the team monitoring and controlling NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover as the space agency has sent many of its employees home to help combat the spread of the virus.

NASA saw the move coming in advance and planned for it accordingly. Before the first remote mission on March 20, the Curiosity team was given headsets, monitors and other equipment to more effectively work from home

Instagram founders launch website to track the spread of Covid-19

TechSpot News | April 19, 2020, 4:16 a.m. | Original

In brief: Instagram founders Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom have developed a Covid-19 tracker that measures how fast the virus is spreading in each state. Systrom believes Rt will be key to getting us through the next few months. "Without knowing Rt, we are simply flying blind," he said.

As Systrom highlights , epidemiologists have argued that one of the only true ways to combat Covid-19 is to understand and manage the Rt – the effective reproduction number. In the simplest of terms, Rt

TechSpot News | April 19, 2020, 2:44 a.m. | Original |

In context: In 2014, Twitter sued the US Department of Justice for forcing them to conceal everything the government asks them about. On Friday, District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers dismissed their lawsuit on the ground that all information relates directly to national security.

Seven years ago, NSA contractor and CIA employee Edward Snowden exposed the US government’s extensive surveillance programs, which involve information taken from social media sites. Requests for information are known to involve things like private conversations and location data but could reasonably extend to

Nintendo Switch shortage is being worsened by auto-purchase bots

TechSpot News | April 18, 2020, 11:46 a.m. | Original

In context: When Nintendo's ever-popular Switch console first hit the market, the company struggled to keep units on store shelves. Now, during the Covid-19 epidemic, it seems Nintendo is facing a second wave of demand. Over the course of March and April, Switch stock seems to have plummeted.

This has made it incredibly difficult to grab one of the consoles for your family to enjoy during the long hours of isolation that many of us now face. According to a report from Motherboard,

Nvidia's 'RTX Voice' app uses AI to improve noise canceling on RTX-powered systems

TechSpot News | April 18, 2020, 8:56 a.m. | Original

What just happened? Nvidia's GeForce RTX GPUs have been out for quite some time now, and though more and more games have begun to support the real-time ray tracing tech they enable, their value proposition is still a bit shaky. Nvidia wants to sweeten the pot a bit now, though, with its new "RTX Voice" plugin.

This plugin is available for download now, and it aims to remove "distracting background noise" from your recording device. Now that everybody who can is working from

Stephen Wolfram needs your help to find the fundamental theory of physics

TechSpot News | April 18, 2020, 6:14 a.m. | Original

In a nutshell: Launching the project in the midst of a global pandemic may seem almost “disrespectful” (his words, not mine), but according to Wolfram, he also thought it could serve as an “intellectual distraction.” And remember, Newton conducted some of his best work while under quarantine during the bubonic plague. Perhaps today’s modern minds – and by proxy, physics – can also benefit from a bit of isolation?

Renowned physicist Stephen Wolfram has launched a crowdsourced project to help identify the fundamental

A first: Repair spacecraft brings aging satellite back to life

TechSpot News | April 18, 2020, 4:46 a.m. | Original

In brief: The Northrop Grumman Mission Extension Vehicle One (MEV-1) has docked with the Intelsat 901 satellite, restored it, and pushed it into the right orbit. The formerly retired communications satellite is now fully operational and in use.

Northrop Grumman’s recent mission introduced a lot of firsts: the MEV-1 is the first spacecraft designed with repair functionality in mind, its docking to the IS-901 was the first between commercial equipment in geostationary orbit, and the IS-9

Intel

AMD reportedly working on Zen 2-based Ryzen 3 CPUs to rival Intel's Core i3 Comet Lake

TechSpot News | April 18, 2020, 3:02 a.m. | Original

In brief: AMD is said to be working on Zen 2-based quad-core CPUs to compete with Intel’s upcoming 10th generation Comet Lake-S Core i3 processors in the entry-level segment. Both chips will reportedly feature four cores / eight threads, a single CCX with 16MB of L3 cache, 2MB of L2 cache and clocks of 3.9GHz and 4.3GHz, respectively, although these are likely boost clocks, not base clocks.

The

Intel

20 Programs to Analyze and Benchmark Your Hardware

TechSpot News | April 18, 2020, 1:36 a.m. | Original

You've just bought a new gaming desktop, or a laptop for the office. Maybe you've upgraded your PC with a new CPU and motherboard. You might be into overclocking. But do you know exactly what you've got? How well is that PC actually working? We've compiled a list of 20...

Israeli researchers show you can steal data from a PC using fan vibrations and a smartphone

TechSpot News | April 17, 2020, 11:22 a.m. | Original

In brief: Most security researchers focus on finding low level vulnerabilities and fixing them before they're exploited by hackers, but a team of Israeli academics have taken the task of finding the most peculiar methods of eavesdropping on a PC that wouldn't typically cross your mind.

Hackers who want to steal sensitive data from computers can sometimes get very creative with their methods, but most of the time they exploit bad security practices and software vulnerabilities to achieve their goals. Sometimes, hackers use popular tools of the trade to hack

In brief: The ongoing Covid-19 outbreak has forced millions of people to shelter in place and work from home. The same holds true for the team monitoring and controlling NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover as the space agency has sent many of its employees home to help combat the spread of the virus.

In brief: Instagram founders Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom have developed a Covid-19 tracker that measures how fast the virus is spreading in each state. Systrom believes Rt will be key to getting us through the next few months. "Without knowing Rt, we are simply flying blind," he said.

In context: In 2014, Twitter sued the US Department of Justice for forcing them to conceal everything the government asks them about. On Friday, District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers dismissed their lawsuit on the ground that all information relates directly to national security.

In context: When Nintendo's ever-popular Switch console first hit the market, the company struggled to keep units on store shelves. Now, during the Covid-19 epidemic, it seems Nintendo is facing a second wave of demand. Over the course of March and April, Switch stock seems to have plummeted.

In brief: The Northrop Grumman Mission Extension Vehicle One (MEV-1) has docked with the Intelsat 901 satellite, restored it, and pushed it into the right orbit. The formerly retired communications satellite is now fully operational and in use.

In brief: Most security researchers focus on finding low level vulnerabilities and fixing them before they're exploited by hackers, but a team of Israeli academics have taken the task of finding the most peculiar methods of eavesdropping on a PC that wouldn't typically cross your mind.

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