chinese – Tech Today w/ Ken May

Tesla To Construct ‘Virtual Solar Power Plant’ Using 50,000 Homes

Long-time Slashdot readers denbesten, haruchai, and Kant all submitted this story. CleanTechnica reports: Tesla and the government of South Australia have announced a stunning new project that could change how electricity is generated not only in Australia but in every country in the world. They plan to install rooftop solar system on 50, 000 homes in the next four years and link them them together with grid storage facilities to create the largest virtual solar power plant in history. And here’s the kicker: The rooftop solar systems will be free. The cost of the project will be recouped over time by selling the electricity generated to those who consume it. “We will use people’s homes as a way to generate energy for the South Australian grid, with participating households benefiting with significant savings in their energy bills, ” says South Australia’s premier Jay Weatherill. “More renewable energy means cheaper power for all South Australians…” Price predicts utility bills for participating households will be slashed by 30%. Electrek reports that the project will result in at least 650 MWh of additional energy storage capacity, and Tesla points out that “At key moments, the virtual power plant could provide as much capacity as a large gas turbine or coal power plant.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Tesla To Construct ‘Virtual Solar Power Plant’ Using 50,000 Homes

Microsoft’s new Windows 10 Spectre patch disables Intel’s ‘fix’

Intel recently admitted that its latest patch for “Spectre” was essentially worse than the bug it was supposed to fix, as it was causing computers to spontaneously reboot. Now, Microsoft has taken action by issuing an out-of-band patch for Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 that disables that fix for Spectre variant 2. If you’re experiencing the problem you’ll need to download the update, as it won’t yet install automatically. Microsoft said that its internal testing shows the patch will stop the rebooting until Intel gets a new update together. Intel had already recommended that customers stop deploying the original patch, but that’s obviously impossible for individual Windows users, as the fixes come bundled in Microsoft’s own security updates. Intel dodged a bullet when its latest earnings report showed minimal financial impact from Spectre and Meltdown. However, it has been criticized by security experts over its lack of forthrightness about the scope of the problem. At one point, the chip maker had said the faulty patches only affect older CPUs, but later admitted that it can cause newer computers to reboot for no good reasons, too. Intel took another knock over the weekend for reportedly disclosing Meltdown and Spectre to Chinese customers like Lenovo and Alibaba before it even told the US government. The concern was that the Chinese government could have found out about the vulnerability and exploited it. Meanwhile, Intel has promised to release new patches for Spectre and Meltdown soon, and said chips invulnerable to the problem are coming later this year. Via: The Verge Source: Microsoft

Elon Musk’s Boring Company Delivers $600 Flamethrower

Last December, Boring Company CEO Elon Musk promised to sell a Boring Company-branded flamethrower after selling 50, 000 Boring Company hats. Well, sure enough, 50, 000 hats were sold and Musk is delivering on his promise. The Verge reports: Mark this down as one of the promises Elon delivers on, apparently, because it looks like the Boring Company flamethrower is here. Redditors in a few SpaceX, Boring Company, and Musk-related subreddits noticed earlier this week that the URL “boringcompany.com/flamethrower” started redirecting to a page with a password box. And at least one user was able to guess the original password, too: “flame.” (It’s since been changed.) Behind that password was a shop page that looks just like the one for The Boring Company’s hat. But instead of a $20 cap, they found a preorder prompt for a $600 flamethrower. “Prototype pictured above, ” the listing reads. “Final production flamethrower will be better.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Elon Musk’s Boring Company Delivers $600 Flamethrower

These baby monkeys are first cloned primates created using the Dolly method

Enlarge / Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua (credit: Qiang Sun, Mu-ming Poo, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences) More than 20 years after Dolly comes Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua. The twin long-tailed macaque monkeys are the first primates cloned using the same method that created the world’s most famous sheep in 1996—a method called somatic cell nuclear transfer, or SCNT. The twins’ genetic blueprints were swiped from fetal cells of another monkey. Researchers then popped the DNA into egg cells that they had also cleared of their DNA-containing nuclei. With a dash of compounds that spur embryo development, the reprogrammed cells developed into healthy baby monkeys in surrogate mother monkeys. The two were born about seven weeks ago in China and are developing normally so far, researchers reported Wednesday in the journal Cell . Though the overall SCNT method is the same as what was used for Dolly, researchers struggled for years to tweak it to work in primates. The procedure is delicate and required a lot of optimization—not to mention DNA-swaps. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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These baby monkeys are first cloned primates created using the Dolly method

Apple Gives Employees $2,500 Bonuses After New Tax Law

Apple told employees that it’s issuing a bonus of $2, 500 of restricted stock units, following the introduction of the new U.S. tax law. “The iPhone maker will begin issuing grants to most employees worldwide in the coming months, ” reports Bloomberg. Apple also announced today that it would bring back most of its cash from overseas and spend $30 billion in the U.S. over the next five years. From the report: Apple confirmed the bonuses in response to a Bloomberg inquiry Wednesday. The Cupertino, California-based company joins a growing list of American businesses that have celebrated the introduction of corporate-friendly tax law with one-time bonuses for staff. AT&T, Comcast, JetBlue, and Wal-Mart also said they were giving bonuses. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Apple Gives Employees $2,500 Bonuses After New Tax Law

Lenovo Discovers and Removes Backdoor In Networking Switches

An anonymous reader writes: Lenovo engineers have discovered a backdoor in the firmware of RackSwitch and BladeCenter networking switches. The company released firmware updates last week. The Chinese company said it found the backdoor after an internal security audit of firmware for products added to its portfolio following the acquisitions of other companies. Lenovo says the backdoor affects only RackSwitch and BladeCenter switches running ENOS (Enterprise Network Operating System). The backdoor was added to ENOS in 2004 when ENOS was maintained by Nortel’s Blade Server Switch Business Unit (BSSBU). Lenovo claims Nortel appears to have authorized the addition of the backdoor “at the request of a BSSBU OEM customer.” In a security advisory regarding this issue, Lenovo refers to the backdoor under the name of “HP backdoor.” The backdoor code appears to have remained in the firmware even after Nortel spun BSSBU off in 2006 as BLADE Network Technologies (BNT). The backdoor also remained in the code even after IBM acquired BNT in 2010. Lenovo bought IBM’s BNT portfolio in 2014. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Lenovo Discovers and Removes Backdoor In Networking Switches

56,000 Layoffs and Counting: India’s IT Bloodbath This Year May Just Be the Start

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: For Indian techies, 2017 was the stuff of nightmares. One of the top employment generators until a few years ago, India’s $160 billion IT industry laid off more than 56, 000 employees this year. Some analysts believe this spree was worse than the one during the 2008 financial crisis. Meanwhile, hiring plummeted, with entry-level openings having more than halved in 2017, according to experts. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Infosys, two of India’s largest IT companies and once leaders in job creation, reduced their headcounts for the first time ever. Even mid-sized players like Tech Mahindra retrenched several employees. Compared to the normal rate of forced attrition (i.e. asking non-performers to leave) of around 1% in earlier years, 2017 saw Indian IT companies letting go of between 2% and 6% of their employees, said Alka Dhingra, general manager of IT staffing at TeamLease Services. Infosys cut 9, 000 jobs in January. “Instead of 10 people, what if we have three people to work on (a project). If we don’t have the software, then some others will take the advantage (away from us), ” Vishal Sikka, the former CEO of the Bengaluru-based company, said in February. Meanwhile, around 6, 000 Indian employees at Cognizant reportedly lost their jobs to automation. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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56,000 Layoffs and Counting: India’s IT Bloodbath This Year May Just Be the Start

LA orders 25 of Proterra’s electric buses

Los Angeles wants to field a completely electric fleet of buses by 2030, and it just took a large step toward making that a reality. The city’s Department of Transportation (which runs the largest municipal transit in the county) has acquired 25 of Proterra’s smaller 35-foot Catalyst buses, all of which should arrive in 2019. That may not sound like much, but it’s a significant chunk of the DOT’s 359-bus fleet. The deal promises real savings, too — it should eliminate 7.8 million lbs. of greenhouse gas emissions per year and save $11.2 million in energy and maintenance over 12 years. This isn’t the first step toward electrifying mass transit in the LA area, but is one of the larger examples. The DOT unveiled just four buses at the start of 2017, for example, so this is certainly a much larger commitment. And notably, it’s not just from an American company — it’s from a company whose manufacturing is even located in the county. The region’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority bought 95 buses in July, but they were split between Chinese transportation giant BYD and the American division of Canada’s New Flyer. It’d represent a big order for Proterra as well. At the start of 2017, it had received 375 bus orders. This is a big deal for a firm that’s still hitting its stride, and shows that it’s earning the trust of some major cities. Don’t be surprised if its buses become more of a mainstay going forward. Source: Proterra

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LA orders 25 of Proterra’s electric buses

China’s most popular game is about to launch in the US

You might not have even heard of Arena of Valor (outside of a Twitch tourney ), but it’s all-consuming in its native China, with 200 million registered players and over 80 million daily active users. Tencent’s mobile-only MOBA game, known as Honor of Kings in its original form, is so popular in its homeland that tournaments are everywhere and the game has time limits to prevent kids from playing too long. And now, Tencent wants it to become a household name in the rest of the world. In a confirmation of some earlier rumors , the tech giant is formally launching Arena of Valor worldwide on December 19th, with users in North and South America getting their first crack at the Android and iOS hit. Watch Arena of Valor MAJOR Announcement & Giveaways! from ArenaofValor on www.twitch.tv Arena sticks to Honor’s core MOBA formula, where teams of five distinctive heroes clash in a bid to take over each other’s bases. The largest change is a cultural one: Arena drops Chinese legends in favor of Western fantasy tropes, and it switches to Facebook for connecting friends instead of WeChat. The game has been available in Europe since August, and has had at least some success with more than 2 million downloads. The problem, as The Verge notes, is that Chinese companies have historically had problems translating the success of their domestic games to an international audience. The titles rarely have any name recognition outside of China, and there are differences in gaming habits that make success difficult. Where limited access to games has led to MOBAs becoming wildly popular on phones in China, there’s a stigma against mobile gaming in North America. Tencent is creating an eSports league to boost competitive play and is partnering with livestreamers to drum up hype, but there’s no guarantee of success — certainly not when it has to take on established titles like Vainglory . However, it’s the attempt that matters. Chinese behemoths like Tencent know they’ll have to move beyond their home turf to keep growing, and that means doing more than acquiring foreign companies (Tencent owns League of Legends ‘ Riot Games and a piece of Activision Blizzard) to ride on their successes. Source: The Verge , Twitch

Microsoft built an AI-powered iOS app to help you learn Chinese

Language-learning apps are nothing new, with offerings from MIT and Duolingo ready to teach you a new way to communicate right on your phone. Now Microsoft is looking to teach you Chinese with a free new AI-powered iOS app. The idea here is to provide users with a way to practice the Chinese language in the absence of real-life communicative partners. “You think you know Chinese, but if you meet a Chinese person and you want to speak Chinese, there is no way you can do it if you have not practiced, ” said Microsoft’s Yan Xia in a blog post . “Our application addresses this issue by leveraging our speech and natural language processing technology.” There’s no word on plans to expand to other languages, but it’s not hard to see such an app helping you learn to converse in different tongues, too. The app uses various AI tools like deep neural networks that are able to figure out what you’re trying to say and then evaluate your pronunciation. The AI has been trained on data from native Chinese speakers as well as Microsoft’s text-to-speech technology. As you use the app, you’ll get scored on your speaking ability and highlighted words that you need to work on, plus sample audio to hear how the words are actually pronounced. So far, the app has separate systems for beginners and intermediate learners to better help you move forward from your level of expertise. “The app will work with you as a language learning partner, ” Xia said in the post. “It will chat with you and give you feedback based on what you are saying.” Source: Microsoft

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Microsoft built an AI-powered iOS app to help you learn Chinese