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Microsoft Allows Users To Remove Some System Applications in Windows 10 Insider Preview 14936

Until now, Microsoft restricted users from deleting many of the system applications on Windows 10. But it is finally giving users that option in the latest Windows 10 Insider Preview — 14936. From an article on Ghacks:If you open the Mail and Calendar application for instance, you will notice that the uninstall button is active now. This means that you can remove the system app from the machine without having to resort to Powershell or third-party programs to do so. Users who are on the stable version of Windows 10 cannot uninstall system apps using the apps & features menu currently. It seems likely that Microsoft will introduce the feature with the next feature update, codename Redstone 2, which will be out in 2017. Before you start jumping up and down in joy, note that some system applications cannot be removed. While you can uninstall Mail and Calendar, Calculator, Groove Music, Maps, and Weather, you cannot remove Alarm & Clock, Camera, Cortana, Messaging, and others. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Microsoft Allows Users To Remove Some System Applications in Windows 10 Insider Preview 14936

Amazon Bans Incentivized Reviews Tied To Free Or Discounted Products

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Amazon is making a significant change to its Community Guidelines, announced today, which will eliminate any incentivized reviews, except for those that emerge from within its own Amazon Vine program. This program allows Amazon — not the seller or vendor — to identify trusted reviewers, and has a number of controls in place in order to keep bias out of the review process. Amazon has historically prohibited compensation for reviews — even going so far as to sue those businesses who pay for fake reviews, as well as the individuals who write them, in an effort to make its review and rating system fairer and more helpful to online shoppers. However, it has allowed businesses to offer products to customers in exchange for their “honest” review. The only condition was that those reviewers would have to disclose their affiliation with the business in question in the text of their review. Reviewers were generally offered the product for free or at a discounted price, in exchange for their review. Although, in theory, these reviewers could write their true opinion on the product — positive or negative — these incentivized reviews have tended to be overwhelmingly biased in favor of the product being rated. Amazon says that, going forward, the only incentivized reviews will be those from Amazon Vine. These don’t work the same way, however. For starters, Amazon selects who will be allowed to review products, and it does so mainly to boost the review count on new or pre-release products that haven’t yet generated enough sales to have a large number of organic reviews. Vine reviewers are invited to join the program only after having written a number of reviews voted as “helpful” by other customers, and tend to have expertise in a specific product category. In addition, vendors don’t have any contact with Vine reviewers, nor do they get to influence which reviewers will receive their products, which are submitted directly to Amazon for distribution. These changes will apply to all product categories other than books, as Amazon has always allowed advance copies of books to be distributed, the retailer notes. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Amazon Bans Incentivized Reviews Tied To Free Or Discounted Products

Ubuntu 16.04 Available in Latest Insider Update To Windows 10

The latest Windows 10 Insider preview — build 14936 — features Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. When a user enables the ‘Bash on Ubuntu on Windows’ feature for the first time, OMGUbuntu reports, Windows 10 now installs an Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus) image instead of Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr). From the report: The updated version of Ubuntu in the WSL only affects new instances, i.e., those created by running lxrun.exe /install or on the very first run of the bash.exe setup. It is possible to upgrade WSL instances from Ubuntu 14.04 to Ubuntu 16.04 manually by running the do-release-upgrade command. Other changes in the WSL in Build 14936 include support for chroot system call, epoll support for /dev/null and the ability for bash -c to redirect to a file. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Ubuntu 16.04 Available in Latest Insider Update To Windows 10

Multiple Linux Distributions Affected By Crippling Bug In Systemd

An anonymous reader writes: System administrator Andrew Ayer has discovered a potentially critical bug in systemd which can bring a vulnerable Linux server to its knees with one command. “After running this command, PID 1 is hung in the pause system call. You can no longer start and stop daemons. inetd-style services no longer accept connections. You cannot cleanly reboot the system.” According to the bug report, Debian, Ubuntu, and CentOS are among the distros susceptible to various levels of resource exhaustion. The bug, which has existed for more than two years, does not require root access to exploit. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Multiple Linux Distributions Affected By Crippling Bug In Systemd

Federal Prosecutors Actually Prosecute H1-B Fraud

Slashdot reader McGruber reports that federal prosecutors “have filed conspiracy charges against a part-owner of two information technology firms and an employee for fraudulently using the H-1B program”. Both were reportedly recruiting foreign IT workers, according to the AP: Prosecutors said the conspirators falsely represented that the foreign workers had full-time positions and were paid an annual salary [when] the workers were only paid when placed at a third-party client, and the defendants sometimes generated false payroll records… The defendants are charged with conspiracy to commit visa fraud and obstruct justice and conspiracy to harbor aliens. They’re now facing up to 15 years in prison for an “alien-harboring conspiracy” charge — with a maximum penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a $250, 000 fine — and a separate visa fraud and obstruction of justice charge with a maximum 5-year penalty and a $250, 000 fine. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Federal Prosecutors Actually Prosecute H1-B Fraud

Print-On-Demand Bone Could Quickly Mend Major Injuries

sciencehabit quotes a report from Science Magazine: If you shatter a bone in the future, a 3D printer and some special ink could be your best medicine. Researchers have created what they call “hyperelastic bone” that can be manufactured on demand and works almost as well as the real thing, at least in monkeys and rats. Though not ready to be implanted in humans, bioengineers are optimistic that the material could be a much-needed leap forward in quickly mending injuries ranging from bones wracked by cancer to broken skulls. Researchers at Northwestern University, Evanston, in Illinois are working on a hyperelastic bone, which is a type of scaffold made up of hydroxyapatite, a naturally occurring mineral that exists in our bones and teeth, and a biocompatible polymer called polycaprolactone, and a solvent. Hydroxyapatite provides strength and offers chemical cues to stem cells to create bone. The polycaprolactone polymer adds flexibility, and the solvent sticks the 3D-printed layers together as it evaporates during printing. The mixture is blended into an ink that is dispensed by the printer, layer by layer, into exact shapes matching the bone that needs to be replaced. The idea is, a patient would come in with a nasty broken bone — say, a shattered jaw — and instead of going through painful autograft surgeries or waiting for a custom scaffold to be manufactured, he or she could be x-rayed and a 3D-printed hyperelastic bone scaffold could be printed that same day. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Print-On-Demand Bone Could Quickly Mend Major Injuries

New California Law Allows Test of Autonomous Shuttle With No Driver

If you live in California, you may soon start to see self-driving cars on the road with no operators to be seen. California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law on Thursday a bill that allows a self-driving vehicle with no operator inside to test on a public road. Currently, companies are legally able to test self-driving cars in California as long as the operators are located inside the vehicles when they are being tested. Fortune reports: The bill introduced by Democratic Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla allows testing in Contra Costa County northeast of San Francisco of the first full-autonomous vehicle without a steering wheel, brakes, accelerator or operator. New legislation was necessary because although driverless vehicles can be tested on private land like the office park, the shuttle will cross a public road on its loop through the campus. The new law means that two cube-like Easymile shuttles that travel no faster than 25 mph (40 kph) will be tested for a period of up to six months before being deployed and used by people. In an interview with Reuters in March, Bonilla said the “natural tension” between regulators concerned about safety and lawmakers trying to encourage innovation in their state necessitated a new bill. “They’re risk averse and we’re saying we need to open the door here and take steps (to innovate), ” Bonilla said, calling the driverless shuttle project “a very wise first out-of-the-gate opportunity” to show how the technology could work safely. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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New California Law Allows Test of Autonomous Shuttle With No Driver

Google Rebrands ‘Apps for Work’ To ‘G Suite,’ Adds New Features

Google has renamed “Apps for Work” to “G Suite” to “help people everywhere work and innovate together, so businesses can move faster and go bigger.” They have also added a bunch of new features, such as a “Quick Access” section for Google Drive for Android that uses machine learning to predict what files you’re going to need when you open up the app, based off your previous behavior. Calendar will automatically pick times to set up meetings through the use of machine intelligence. Sheets is also using AI “to turn your layman English requests into formulas through its ‘Explore’ feature, ” reports The Next Web. “In Slides, Explore uses machine learning to dynamically suggest and apply design ideas, while in Docs, it will suggest backup research and images you can use in your musings, as well as help you insert files from your Drive account. Throughout Docs, Sheets, and Slides, you can now recover deleted files on Android from a new ‘Trash’ option in the side/hamburger menu.” Google’s cloud services will now fall under a new “Google Cloud” brand, which includes G Suite, Google Cloud Platform, new machine learning tools and APIs, and Google’s various devices that access the cloud. Slashdot reader wjcofkc adds: I just received the following email from Google. When I saw the title, my first thought was that there was malware lying at the end — further inspection proved it to be real. Is this the dumbest name change in the history of name changes? Google of all companies does not have to try so hard. “Hello Google Apps Customer, We created Google Apps to help people everywhere work and innovate together, so that your organization can move faster and achieve more. Today, we’re introducing a new name that better reflects this mission: G Suite. Over the coming weeks, you’ll see our new name and logo appear in familiar places, including the Admin console, Help Center, and on your invoice. G Suite is still the same all-in-one solution that you use every day, with the same powerful tools — Gmail, Docs, Drive, and Calendar. Thanks for being part of the journey that led us to G Suite. We’re always improving our technology so it learns and grows with your team. Visit our official blog post to learn more.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Google Rebrands ‘Apps for Work’ To ‘G Suite,’ Adds New Features

IEEE Sets New Ethernet Standard That Brings 5X the Speed Without Cable Ripping

Reader coondoggie writes: As expected the IEEE has ratified a new Ethernet specification — IEEE P802.3bz — that defines 2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T, boosting the current top speed of traditional Ethernet five-times without requiring the tearing out of current cabling. The Ethernet Alliance wrote that the IEEE 802.3bz Standard for Ethernet Amendment sets Media Access Control Parameters, Physical Layers and Management Parameters for 2.5G and 5Gbps Operation lets access layer bandwidth evolve incrementally beyond 1Gbps, it will help address emerging needs in a variety of settings and applications, including enterprise, wireless networks. Indeed, the wireless component may be the most significant implication of the standard as 2.5G and 5G Ethernet will allow connectivity to 802.11ac Wave 2 Access Points, considered by many to be the real driving force behind bringing up the speed of traditional NBase-T products. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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IEEE Sets New Ethernet Standard That Brings 5X the Speed Without Cable Ripping

Windows 10 Now On 400 Million Active Devices, Says Microsoft

Microsoft announced today that Windows 10 is now running on over 400 million active devices. This is up from 300 million as of May, and 207 million as of end of the March. The company says that it deems devices that have been active in the past 28 days as “active.” Microsoft added that this 400 million active devices figure include tablets and phones as well as Xbox One consoles, HoloLens, and Surface Hubs running Windows 10. Paul Thurrott adds:Microsoft last provided a Windows 10 usage milestone on June 29, when it said that there were 350 million active Windows 10 devices. At that time, I noted that the Windows 10 adoption had accelerated from the previous milestone, hitting an average of almost 29 million new devices per month. But 50 million additional devices over three months is a much slower pace of about 17 million per month. This is the slowest rate since Windows 10 was first announced. Again, no surprise there: Windows 10 was free for its first year, and over that time period it averaged roughly 31.25 million new devices per month (if you assume a figure of 375 million after one year, as I do). Does this mean that Windows 10 will see fewer than 20 million new devices each month, on average, going forward? No, of course not. There’s no way to accurately gauge how things will go, given that most future devices will be new PCs purchased by businesses or consumers, or business PCs upgraded to Windows 10. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Windows 10 Now On 400 Million Active Devices, Says Microsoft