Month: August 2019

Enlarge / Forest being cleared for palm oil cultivation. (credit: CIFOR / Flickr)

During the negotiations leading up to the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But they also gave climate scientists some extra homework. In addition to the periodic IPCC reports assessing the latest in climate science, nations wanted some specific reports focused on topics that hadn’t really been covered before. As some nations demanded a new and more stringent goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C rather than 2°C, they needed a report on what that would take—and how much risk it could avoid.

Today saw the release of another report, this one focused on land use. The report is the result of volunteered efforts of 107 scientists from 52 countries, referencing research from some 7,000 studies. It covers the ways that human agriculture, forestry, and land use contributes to climate change, the way climate change is impacting these activities, and what we can do about both of those things.

Human land use contributes almost a quarter of our current greenhouse gas emissions. Clearing forests takes the carbon in the vegetation and adds it to the atmosphere as CO₂. Farming can also result in a release of carbon as CO₂, nitrous oxide from fertilizer, and methane from (primarily) livestock and rice paddies.

Long-press the Action button to bring up Cortana. (credit: Valentina Palladino)

Here we go again. It's Microsoft's turn in the spotlight thanks to a new report about the company's practices for reviewing and improving its AI. With today's news, nearly every company operating a major voice assistant has now been hit with revelations that employees or contractors are hearing recordings made by the AI's users.

The Microsoft news takes a slightly different spin than the recent allegations faced by Apple, Google, and Amazon. A whistleblower informed Motherboard that contractors are reviewing recordings not just with the company's Cortana assistant but also conversations conducted on its Skype service.

At least some of the audio files the contractor shared with Motherboard were made by the Translator feature in the Skype Android app. Translator, which Microsoft launched in 2015, uses conversation snippets to improve its understanding of language and natural speech. The FAQ for Translator notes that audio recorded by Microsoft is used in this way, but it doesn't explicitly state that people are the ones listening to and reviewing the audio.

Enlarge / Headquarters of ride-sharing technology company Uber in the South of Market (SoMa) neighborhood of San Francisco on October 13, 2017. (credit: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)

Uber lost more than $5 billion dollars in the second quarter of the year. This is the latest in a long series of bad quarters for the ride-hailing company, which also lost over a billion dollars during the first three months of this year. That brings 2019's losses to over $6.2 billion, for those keeping score.

Despite losing so much money between April and June, Uber's investor report is upbeat about an increase in bookings (up 31%), active users (up 30%), trips (up 35%), and revenue (up 14%). These figures do make one wonder if an uptick in business will just exacerbate the bleeding, however. There's yet to be any real evidence that Uber's business model will ever do anything other than burn investors' money to make traffic worse.

Uber says that its cash and cash equivalents for Q2 were a healthy $13.7 billion, $8 billion of which came from its IPO in May.

Enlarge / Mark Zuckerberg. (credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Facebook has approached several prominent news organizations to license its content for a new news-oriented section of the Facebook site, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. Some outlets could get as much as $3 million per year. It's a significant change in strategy for the social media giant, which previously explored an ad-sharing model under Facebook's Instant Articles program.

The Journal reports that Facebook has approached a number of news outlets, including ABC News, Dow Jones (parent of the WSJ), The Washington Post, and Bloomberg.

Deals would last for three years, according to sources who talked to the Journal. The new initiative could launch as early as this year, though it's not clear if any news outlets have actually agreed to Facebook's terms.

Enlarge / A Verizon booth at Mobile World Congress Americas in Los Angeles in September 2018. (credit: Verizon)

5G won't be much different from 4G outside dense urban areas, a Verizon executive said yesterday.

The massive hype around 5G has focused on speed improvements expected on millimeter-wave spectrum, which wasn't previously used on mobile broadband networks. But 5G on lower-spectrum bands will be like "good 4G," Verizon Consumer Group CEO Ronan Dunne said at Oppenheimer's annual Technology, Internet & Communications Conference (webcast link).

"While we can deploy and we will deploy a 5G nationwide offering, the lower down the spectrum tiers you go, the more that will approximate to a good 4G service," Dunne said. "The truth is, we have a very good 4G LTE service in parts of the US where our competitors don't. So if someone else is rushing to bring out 5G nationwide, it may be because they don't have credible 4G LTE coverage in those areas to start with."

Enlarge / Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) (credit: Talk Radio News Service / Flickr)

Twitter is locked in an escalating feud with the Republican Party after locking the campaign Twitter account of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Republicans accused Twitter of anti-conservative bias and vowed to stop spending ad money on Twitter until the company relented and restored the @team_mitch Twitter account.

The controversy began after the McConnell campaign posted a video on Twitter showing protestors shouting violent threats at a Monday rally outside the McConnell family home.

"Just stab the motherfucker in the heart please," shouted one woman in a video that was also aired on Fox News. Another protestor mocked McConnell's recent shoulder surgery, saying that the senator "should have broken his little, raggedy, wrinkled-ass neck."

Enlarge (credit: Ars Technica)

Greetings, Arsians! The Dealmaster is back with another round of deals to share. Today's list is headlined by a deal on LG's 55-inch B8 OLED TV—it's down to $1,047 at Dell, and the PC maker is throwing in a $250 digital gift card with the purchase.

While the straight discount isn't the biggest we've seen—this model has briefly fallen to $999 a couple of times in recent months—it's not far off, and the overall value here is much better if you make full use of the gift card. Just note that Dell typically issues that gift card 10 to 20 days after the purchase, that it expires 90 days after it's first issued, and that it's only good for items in Dell's online store. Still, it's worth noting that Dell's store sells various gadgets besides the company's own PCs and PC accessories, including fitness trackers, video games, speakers, and the like.

As for the TV itself, the B8 is technically over a year old, and its system-on-a-chip (SoC) is slightly weaker than higher-end LG OLEDs like the C8 or the recently released C9. But as we've explained before, the difference in image quality between the B8 and pricier LG OLEDs should only be apparent to the most hardcore of TV aficionados. For close to $1,000, the colors, contrast, viewing angles, and response time here still make the B8 a superb value. As with all OLED TVs, there is a risk of "burn-in" if you constantly leave static images onscreen, but actual instances of that should only appear in extreme circumstances. For what it's worth, Dell is an authorized seller for these TVs, and this exact model has been the Dealmaster's personal TV for a year now, with no image-retention issues to report to date.