Month: September 2018

Enlarge / Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2017. (credit: Mark Zuckerberg)

A Facebook content moderator named Selena Scola has sued the social media giant, claiming that repeated exposure to graphic and disturbing images has given her post-traumatic stress disorder.

"From her cubicle in Facebook's Silicon Valley offices, Ms. Scola witnessed thousands of acts of extreme and graphic violence," her lawsuit says.

The lawsuit quotes another Facebook moderator who told the Guardian last year, "You’d go into work at 9am every morning, turn on your computer and watch someone have their head cut off." Some Facebook moderators are also exposed to child pornography.

Enlarge / All this time! (credit: Getty | Anna Bizon)

After more than a century of slicing tiny, inflamed organs from people’s guts, doctors have found that surgery may not be necessary after all—a simple course of antibiotics can be just as effective at treating appendicitis as going under the knife.

The revelation comes from a large, randomized trial out of Finland, published Tuesday, September 25, in JAMA.

Despite upending a long-held standard of care, the study’s finding is not entirely surprising; it follows several other randomized trials over the years that had carved out evidence that antibiotics alone can treat an acute appendicitis. Those studies, however, left some dangling questions, including if the antibiotics just improved the situation temporarily and if initial drug treatments left patients worse off later if they did need surgery.

Enlarge (credit: JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images)

California authorities announced Wednesday morning that Uber has agreed to pay $148 million to settle legal claims surrounding its 2016 massive data breach and subsequent coverup.

The breach—where 57 million customers’ and drivers’ names, email addresses, and phone numbers were compromised—wasn’t disclosed until November 2017.

As Ars reported previously, Uber paid hackers $100,000 to delete the data they had taken and not publicize the breach. At the time of the breach, Uber was negotiating with federal regulators over different privacy concerns.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Jeffrey Coolidge)

The Federal Communications Commission today finalized an order that will prevent city and town governments from charging wireless carriers about $2 billion dollars' worth of fees related to deployment of wireless equipment such as small cells.

The decision has angered both large and small municipalities, as we reported last week.

The FCC's Republican majority says that limiting local fees will cause carriers to build 5G networks in rural and sparsely populated areas where it would otherwise be financially unfeasible. But the order doesn't require carriers to deploy any more broadband than they otherwise would have, and carriers already promised nationwide 5G networks before the FCC made its proposal.

Kyle Orland

SAN JOSE, California—Facebook used its latest virtual reality conference, the fifth annual Oculus Connect, to finally confirm retail plans for its most ambitious standalone VR product yet: the Oculus Quest. Originally known by its prototype name, Oculus Santa Cruz, the Quest will ship in spring 2019 for $399.

In terms of the sales pitch, this is the Oculus holy grail: a wireless, hand-tracked, "six degrees of freedom" VR system with apparently legitimate 3D power and no required PC or phone.