Not long ago, the idea of walking up to a clerk behind a counter and getting a baggie of weed seemed ludicrous. Now, in states where recreational or medical marijuana is approved and regulated, it’s a routine, mundane part of life. Are psychedelics next? Read more…
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When Are You Going to Get Your Prescription MDMA?
An anonymous reader writes with a report from The Stack that researchers have discovered a crucial security problem in the latest version of iOS 9: it breaks VPN connections to corporate servers. According to the linked piece, “The flaw was first detected in the iOS 9 beta, and has not been fixed in the released version. Neither has the bug been removed in the current iOS 9.1 beta.” The workaround might not be what you want to hear, either, if you’ve happily upgraded to the latest version: it’s to downgrade to iOS 8.4.1. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Apple’s iOS 9 Breaks VPNs
If you know your internet message board history, you know that Chris Poole’s legendary 4chan was inspired by 2channel, a board dedicated to anime and other aspects of Japanese culture. Well, things are about to come full circle: Poole (aka Moot) just sold 4chan to Hiroyuki Nishimura, 2channel’s founder and the current editor in chief for Variety Japan . The terms of the deal aren’t public, but Poole notes to the New York Times that there’s a “lot of opportunity” to grow his site with the “right resources.” That wouldn’t be hard. Unlike some other community mainstays, such as Reddit, 4chan has never really been run as a full-fledged business. If you’re a loyal 4chan user, the handover might be worrying. Part of its appeal is that homebrew, almost-anything-goes vibe that has frequently made it both the launching point for internet memes and a bastion of open, anonymous expression. However, Poole believes that he’s putting his creation in good hands. Nishimura is the “only person in the world” with as much experience running a message board like this — if anyone can understand what makes 4chan popular, it’s him. The real question is whether or not he can (or wants to) make it a profitable venture without compromising its spirit. Reddit has already taken some flak for cleaning up some of its hate communities in its bid for mainstream success. While 4chan already has experience with this kind of backlash (the notorious 8chan board exists partly to house 4chan exiles), it’s still considered more laissez-faire than its commercial cousin. It risks losing that image if it goes too far in sanitizing the experience for the sake of advertisers. [Image credit: Johannes Simon/Getty Images] Source: New York Times
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4chan sells to the founder of the site that inspired it
Electrons are quick, but they’re not quick enough — in fact they’re holding back the speed of modern computing. Now, a team has developed the world’s first ever light-based memory chip that can store data permanently, and it could help usher in a new era of computing Read more…
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A New Light-Based Memory Chip Could Change the Fundamentals of Computing
Dropbox for Business is an increasingly important part of the company’s revenue stream — there are more than 130, 000 businesses using the service — but there are many more people out there using the company’s more consumer-focused free service and its $9.99 monthly subscription plan. Millions of those users are in fact using their personal Dropbox accounts to get work done, as well — so now Dropbox is going to offer a set of tools to make it a lot easier for individuals and smaller businesses to use Dropbox with a team of co-workers. In fact, that’s the name of the new service that launches tomorrow: Dropbox Teams. Anyone using Dropbox will now have the opportunity to create a team. When you start the process, Dropbox will even suggest users it thinks you should invite based on what documents you share with what people or whether you’re all using the same email address domain. Once your team is set up, everyone will have access to the same shared folder, which Dropbox expects teams will use to share documents that the whole group will need access to. Fortunately, you can also set up sub-groups (like a marketing team, or the specific people involved with a specific project) — that’ll keep everyone on the team from having files they don’t need taking up space in their Dropbox. Dropbox Teams will also give administrators granular control over what different users will have access to — you can limit what files and folders they can see, and you can also decide whether files can be shared or not. Another sharing option is the ability to determine whether folders and files can be shared with people who aren’t on your team. If files are confidential, you can keep them only within your team, but other files will be able to be freely shared with anyone using Dropbox. (Of course, that won’t stop anyone from downloading the file and sharing it via email, but there’s only so much you can expect from a free offering.) The last major feature here is pulled directly from Dropbox for Business. If you happen to have created Dropbox accounts for separate work and personal accounts, Dropbox will let you link them together so you can see them both while logged in, rather than have to log in and out to jump between them. All in all, it’s a pretty generous set of free features: it lets the many people out there already using the popular Dropbox Basic and Pro services for work have more control over how they do that. And it just might help the company sell more Dropbox for Business subscriptions as those small companies start growing up. Source: Dropbox
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Dropbox Teams will offer a host of business features to free users
Netflix has earned a reputation as a producer of high-quality TV shows and documentaries, and now it wants to do the same with feature films. Beasts of No Nation , a war drama featuring Idris Elba, will be available to stream on October 16th, but Brits will also have option to watch it in cinemas from October 9th . Netflix has struck a deal with Curzon Cinemas, a chain specialising in independent and art house films, to get its first major movie up on the big screen. It’s also set to premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on October 8th — with more mainstream exposure, there’s a greater chance it’ll pick up some awards and legitimise Netflix’s filmmaking efforts. Beasts of No Nation is based on a 2005 novel by Uzodinma Iweala, and stars Abraham Attah as a young boy swept up in the middle of an African civil war and forced to become a child soldier. The first trailer shows promise — it’s a cut above what we’re expecting from Adam Sandler’s The Ridiculous Six , anyway. Source: Vodzilla , Deadline
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Netflix’s first original feature film will be shown in UK cinemas
Public domain. Google’s informal appeal against a French order to apply the so-called “right to be forgotten” to all of its global Internet services and domains, not just those in Europe, has been rejected. The president of the Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL), France’s data protection authority, gave a number of reasons for the rejection , including the fact that European orders to de-list information from search results could be easily circumvented if links were still available on Google’s other domains. CNIL’s president also claimed that “this decision does not show any willingness on the part of the CNIL to apply French law extraterritorially. It simply requests full observance of European legislation by non European players offering their services in Europe.” As you’ve probably gathered, Google disagrees with CNIL’s stance. In a July blog post regarding the case, the company’s global privacy chief, Peter Fleischer, wrote: “If the CNIL’s proposed approach were to be embraced as the standard for Internet regulation, we would find ourselves in a race to the bottom. In the end, the Internet would only be as free as the world’s least free place. We believe that no one country should have the authority to control what content someone in a second country can access.” Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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France tells Google to remove search results globally, or face big fines
Slate dissects the strange circumstances that led the price of electricity in Texas to briefly dip not just to zero, but into negative territory, reaching at one point negative $8.52 per megawatt hour. Why? A combination of being an “electricity island” with only weak ties to the surrounding state’s grids; strong wind in a state that’s sprouted thousands of windmills; and infrastructure design that means the only real buyer for most electricity producers’ output is ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. (One of the comments attached to the story notes that Texas is not completely isolated from the national grid, but it’s still markedly isolated.) A slice: Demand fell—at 4 a.m., the amount of electricity needed in the state was about 45 percent lower than the evening peak. The wind was blowing consistently—much later in the day Texas would establish a new instantaneous wind generation record. At 3 a.m., wind was supplying about 30 percent of the state’s electricity, as this daily wind integration report shows. And because the state is an electricity island, all the power produced by the state’s wind farms could only be sold to ERCOT, not grids elsewhere in the country. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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How Wind and Politics Pushed the Price of Texas Electricity Below Zero
After getting caught cheating on emissions testing by means of software, Volkswagen could face up to $18 billion in fines, reports USA Today. That number is based on the company being assessed the maximum penalty of $37, 500 per affected vehicle. That’s not the only bad news for Volkswagen, which has halted sales of its 4-cylinder diesel cars; the linked article reports that the violations “could also invite charges of false marketing by regulators, a vehicle recall and payment to car owners, either voluntarily or through lawsuits. Volkswagen advertised the cars under the ‘Clean Diesel’ moniker. The state of California is also investigating the emissions violations.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Volkswagen Could Face $18 Billion Fine Over Emission-Cheating Software
Apple cleaned the App Store of apps containing malware today, having discovered a long con that saw developers using infected software tools, inadvertently turning their legit apps into data-collection tools for hackers. Read more…
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Apple is Cleaning The App Store Of its First Major Malware Attack