Month: January 2018

(credit: Jhaymesisviphotography)

An open letter to Apple from some investors sparked the tech giant to respond by promising new software tools for parents to restrict and monitor their kids' smartphone use. In a report by The Wall Street Journal, Apple states it has plans to create new software features that will make its current parental controls on iPhone and other devices "even more robust."

"We think deeply about how our products are used and the impact they have on users and the people around them,” Apple said in its statement to The Wall Street Journal. "We take this responsibility very seriously and we are committed to meeting and exceeding our customers’ expectations, especially when it comes to protecting kids."

Apple didn't provide details on its planned, improved parental control features, but it did point back to the controls its software has had in place since 2008. The Settings app on every iPhone has a parental control section that allows adults to restrict website access, control in-app purchases, and install or delete apps, among other things.

SpaceX

On Sunday night, SpaceX launched a classified payload known only as "Zuma" for the US government. But once in space, something went wrong. Here's what we know so far.

What is Zuma?

It was a government satellite or spacecraft built by Northrop Grumman, which contracted with SpaceX to launch it into low-Earth orbit. By various accounts, this was a hugely valuable asset, potentially worth a billion dollars or more. (SpaceX founder Elon Musk reportedly told some of his employees it was the most important thing the company had ever launched). There has also been a huge amount of secrecy around the launch, even more so than with typical national security payloads, to the point that the government agency paying for and using it have not been disclosed.

Enlarge / Google CEO Sundar Pichai. (credit: Nguyen Hung Vu)

Google engineer James Damore was fired last August after he wrote a controversial memo arguing that Google had gone overboard in its efforts to promote diversity. He generated widespread outrage by suggesting that the under-representation of women at Google was a result of women's lesser aptitude for software engineering—rather than discrimination within the technology sector.

On Monday, Damore filed a lawsuit accusing the Mountain View search giant of systematic, illegal discrimination against conservatives and white men. He was joined in the lawsuit by David Gudeman, another Googler fired under similar circumstances.

"Damore, Gudeman, and other class members were ostracized, belittled, and punished for their heterodox political views, and for the added sin of their birth circumstances of being Caucasians and/or males," their lawsuit charges. Damore and Gudeman are seeking to represent all conservatives and white men who have allegedly faced discrimination at Google in a class-action lawsuit.

Enlarge (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

A new study is hinting that a common over-the-counter painkiller, ibuprofen, may be linked to a male reproductive disorder. While the study uses a pretty small sample of male subjects, it's backed up by a set of consistent experiments from isolated cells, and earlier studies had hinted there might be something strange here.

The good news is that the problems required multiple weeks of constant ibuprofen use, so there's no indication that handling the odd muscle ache or hangover with ibuprofen will cause problems. The bad news is the ibuprofen is one of a large class of related drugs that includes aspirin, and the likelihood that other drugs will have similar effects is high.

NSAIDs

Ibuprofen belongs to a group of drugs called non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, or NSAIDs. This group includes aspirin, and it generally works by blocking the production of hormone-like signaling molecules called prostaglandins, thereby cutting down on pain and inflammation.