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World’s Largest Aircraft Completes Its First Flight

The world’s largest aircraft has finally completed its first flight after months of preparation and years of searching for funding. The Airlander 10 as it’s called spent 20 minutes in the air on Wednesday, landing safely at Cardington Airfield north of London. CNNMoney reports: “Part airship, part helicopter, part plane, the 300-foot long aircraft is about 50 feet longer than the world’s biggest passenger planes. The Airlander, made by British company Hybrid Air Vehicles, has four engines and no internal structure. It maintains its shape thanks to the pressure of the 38, 000 cubic meters of helium inside its hull, which is made from ultralight carbon fiber. The aircraft was originally designed for U.S. military surveillance. But the project was grounded in 2013 because of defense spending cuts. [The team behind the giant blimp-like aircraft] said the aircraft could carry communications equipment or other cargo, undertake search and rescue operations, or do military and commercial survey work. The Airlander can stay airborne for up to five days at a time if manned, and for more than two weeks if unmanned. It can carry up to 10 tons of cargo at a maximum speed of 91 miles per hour. The aircraft doesn’t need a runway to take off, meaning it can operate from land, snow, ice, desert and even open water.” You can view the historic flight for yourself here (Warning: headphone users beware of loud sound). Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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World’s Largest Aircraft Completes Its First Flight

Shipwreck Hunters Bag an Amazing Discovery At the Bottom of Lake Ontario

A group of retirees-turned-shipwreck hunters have discovered the remains of the Washington , an 18th century trading vessel that sank to the bottom of Lake Ontario in 1803. The 53-foot sloop is the second largest shipwreck to ever be found in the Great Lakes. Read more…

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Shipwreck Hunters Bag an Amazing Discovery At the Bottom of Lake Ontario

Uber will offer free rides in its self-driving cars this month

After months of testing , Uber’s self-driving cars are ready to pick up their first passengers. Bloomberg reports that the ride-hailing company will allow customers in Pittsburgh to request one of its autonomous Volvo XC90 sport-utility vehicles via their smartphone in the coming weeks, pushing it into territory that other major developers of self-driving cars have yet to fully explore. According to the report, Uber won’t be sending its cars out alone. A human supervisor will sit in the driving seat, as required by law, “with their fingertips on the wheel.” A second person will be sat in the front passenger seat, taking notes on a laptop while cameras inside and outside the vehicle record everything that happens during the ride. Customers won’t be expected to pay for their journey in Uber’s XC90s, at least to begin with, which may help put nervous riders at ease. Pittsburgh serves as the ideal environment for Uber’s autonomous trials. The city is home to its Advanced Technologies Center (ATC) and local authorities have already approved the testing of its self-driving fleet. When the do hit the road, only a handful of cars will be available right away, but Uber has struck a deal with Volvo to take delivery of 100 vehicles by the end of the year. With Ford announcing yesterday that it intends to have fully autonomous cars on the road within five years , Uber is moving swiftly. It wants to be out ahead of its rivals with its own tried-and-tested solution, not a ready-made one from a car manufacturer that could one day eat its lunch. Source: Bloomberg

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Uber will offer free rides in its self-driving cars this month

Automatic’s new car adapter uses 3G without a subscription

Automatic makes devices that track your driving style and trips, quantifying that information for you in a companion app. These gadgets also do thing like tell you why your check engine light is on before you pay a few hundred dollars to a mechanic. Today the company announced its latest-gen adapter, the Automatic Pro . The $130 dongle has an unlimited, no subscription 3G connection — a departure from previous models that used your phone’s Bluetooth connection to talk to the company’s servers. The new always-connected adapter also comes with a new companion app. In addition to fancy new animations while a car is driving, it also has customizable notifications, deeper integration with online scripting service IFTTT (If This Then That). The new application only works with the Automatic Pro. Owners of the first and second generation adapters will continue to use the legacy app. Getting the company’s adapters on a cellular network without charging customers a subscription has been part of Automatic’s plan since day one. “People don’t want another subscription, ” Automatic Co-Founder Ljuba Miljkovic said. “We knew we always wanted to go cellular because of all the benefits of cellular. Now it’s an exciting time because we’re finally able to do that.” So whether you want to track your trips, quantify your driving style, or just be able to figure out why your check engine light is on, the new Automatic Pro now does it even when you’re not in the car. Source: Automatic

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Automatic’s new car adapter uses 3G without a subscription

Cisco Systems To Lay Off About 14,000 Employees, Representing 20% of Global Workforce

schwit1 writes from a report via CRN: Cisco Systems is laying off about 14, 000 employees, representing nearly 20 percent of the network equipment maker’s global workforce. San Jose, California-based Cisco is expected to announce the cuts within the next few weeks, the report said, as the company transitions from its hardware roots into a software-centric organization. Cisco increasingly requires “different skill sets” for the “software-defined future” than it did in the past, as it pushes to capture a higher share of the addressable market and aims to boost its margins, the CRN report said citing a source familiar with the situation. “The company’s headcount as of April 20, 2016, was 73, 104, ” reports CRN. “Cutting 14, 000 employees would be the single largest layoff in Cisco’s 32-year history.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Cisco Systems To Lay Off About 14,000 Employees, Representing 20% of Global Workforce

Malware That Fakes Bank Login Screens Found In Google Ads

tedlistens quotes a report from Fast Company: For years, security firms have warned of keystroke logging malware that surreptitiously steals usernames and passwords on desktop and laptop computers. In the past year, a similar threat has begun to emerge on mobile devices: So-called overlay malware that impersonates login pages from popular apps and websites as users launch the apps, enticing them to enter their credentials to banking, social networking, and other services, which are then sent on to attackers. Such malware has even found its way onto Google’s AdSense network, according to a report on Monday from Kaspersky Lab. The weapon would automatically download when users visited certain Russian news sites, without requiring users to click on the malicious advertisements. It then prompts users for administrative rights, which makes it harder for antivirus software or the user to remove it, and proceeds to steal credentials through fake login screens, and by intercepting, deleting, and sending text messages. The Kaspersky researchers call it “a gratuitous act of violence against Android users.” “By simply viewing their favorite news sites over their morning coffee users can end up downloading last-browser-update.apk, a banking Trojan detected by Kaspersky Lab solutions as Trojan-Banker.AndroidOS.Svpeng.q, ” according to the company. “There you are, minding your own business, reading the news and BOOM! — no additional clicks or following links required.” The good news is that the issue has since been resolved, according to a Google spokeswoman. Fast Company provides more details about these types of attacks and how to stay safe in its report. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Malware That Fakes Bank Login Screens Found In Google Ads

Univision to buy Gawker for $135m

Univision won the auction for Gawker Media with a $135m bid , reports Peter Kafka. … the auction is a disappointing conclusion for Gawker Media owner Nick Denton, who founded the company in 2002. Last year, as rival media companies like Vice, BuzzFeed and Vox Media (which owns this site) were raising money at increasingly high valuations, Denton was arguing that his company was worth $250 million or more. The price was depressed by the circumstances of the sale: a $140m award against it after publishing a Hulk Hogan sex tape and losing the subsequent lawsuit, which was secretly funded by vengeful billionaire Peter Thiel. Though experts generally expect Gawker to prevail on appeal, it was forced into bankruptcy by the penalty and the only other bidder was Ziff Davis, at $90m. This weds Gawker to The Onion and Fusion in the Univision website stable; The Onion is very much its own thing, but Fusion’s web presence is quite similar to Gawker itself and one wonders will it blend?

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Univision to buy Gawker for $135m

Cable Expands Broadband Domination as AT&T and Verizon Lose Customers

The cable industry’s grip on the U.S. broadband space increased last quarter, with Comcast and Charter gaining nearly 500, 000 subscribers, combined. Phone companies AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink, and Frontier, however, all lost Internet customers. ArsTechnica reports:The 14 largest ISPs, accounting for 95 percent of the US market, gained 192, 510 Internet customers in Q2 2016, bringing the total to 91.9 million, Leichtman Research Group reported today. Cable companies accounted for all of the gains, adding 553, 293 subscribers for a new total of 57 million. The phone companies lost 360, 783 subscribers, bringing them down to 34.9 million. Phone companies’ losses more than doubled since Q2 2015, when they lost about 150, 000 subscribers. Comcast and Charter, the two biggest ISPs, led the way in subscriber gains. Comcast added 220, 000 broadband subscribers to boost its total to 24 million, while Charter (the new owner of Time Warner Cable) added 277, 000 subscribers for a new total of 21.8 million. AT&T lost 123, 000 subscribers, lowering its total to 15.6 million. Verizon lost 83, 000, leaving it with 7 million Internet customers. CenturyLink and Frontier lost 66, 000 and 77, 000, respectively. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Cable Expands Broadband Domination as AT&T and Verizon Lose Customers

Here’s How A Tesla Taxi Held Up After 100,000 Miles

Christian Roy of Quebec City has been using his Tesla Model S as a taxi for over two-and-a-half years, accumulating over 100, 000 treacherous taxi miles. How did this high-tech electric car stand up to that much cab abuse? Read more…

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Here’s How A Tesla Taxi Held Up After 100,000 Miles