Month: December 2020

Enlarge / Sunset, by the Google empire. (credit: 400tmax | Getty Images)

Google's actions amid workplace organizing efforts, including the high-profile firings of several employees, were illegal violations of the National Labor Relations Act, federal regulators said this week.

The National Labor Relations Board filed a formal complaint (PDF) against Google Wednesday, alleging that the company has been "interfering with, restraining, and coercing employees" to interfere with their protected concerted activity—workplace organization rights that are protected by law.

Google fired several different workers late last year amid apparent efforts to organize company employees. Four former employees who were let go last November—Laurence Berland, Paul Duke, Rebecca Rivers, and Sophie Waldman—filed complaints with the NLRB almost exactly a year ago alleging that Google's "draconian, pernicious, and unlawful conduct" was an unlawful attempt to prevent workplace organizing.

Enlarge / Wonder Woman is going to be extra shiny on modern TVs. (credit: Warner Bros.)

Wonder Woman 1984 will be the first film to stream in 4K HDR (UltraHD) on HBO Max when it premieres on the service in the US alongside a theatrical release on December 25. It will also stream with Dolby Atmos audio.

The news was announced in a tweet by Director Patty Jenkins:

Excited to announce that #WW84 will be the first film on HBO Max available in 4K Ultra HD, HDR 10, Dolby Vision AND Dolby Atmos! Can’t wait. IN THEATERS on Dec. 25th and exclusively streaming in the US on @hbomax. PLEASE find the biggest and highest quality screen you can!!

HBO Max is one of the most expensive streaming services at $14.99, but unlike the majority of its competitors, it has not previously included any 4K or HDR content.

Enlarge / The instrument platform and the cables that until recently supported it, as viewed from the suspended walkway that allowed researchers to service them. (credit: University of Central Florida)

Today, the National Science Foundation released video taken at the moment the Arecibo Radio Observatory's cables failed, allowing its massive instrument platform to crash into the dish below. In describing the videos, the NSF also talked a bit about the monitoring program that had put the cameras in place, ideas it had been pursuing for stabilizing the structure pre-collapse, and prospects for building something new at the site.

A quick recap of the collapse: the Arecibo dish was designed to reflect incoming radio radiation to collectors that hung from a massive, 900-ton instrument package that was suspended above it. The suspension system was supported by three reinforced concrete towers that held cables that were anchored farther from the dish, looped over the towers, and then continued on to the platform itself. Failure of these cables eventually led to the platform dropping into the dish below it.

Let’s go to the video

The video of that collapse comes from a monitoring system put in place in the wake of the cable failures. Due to the danger of further cable breaks, the NSF had instituted no-go zones around each of the three towers that supported the cables. With no personnel allowed to get close enough to inspect the cables, the staff started monitoring them using daily drone flights, one of which was in progress during the collapse. In addition, a video camera was installed on top of the visitor's center, which had a clear view of the instrument platform and one of the support towers.

Enlarge / A Verizon FiOS truck in Manhattan on September 15, 2017. (credit: Getty Images | Smith Collection | Gado)

Verizon is struggling to fix a glitch that has been leaking customers’ addresses, phone numbers, account numbers, and other personal information through a chat system that helps prospective subscribers figure out if Fios services are available in their location.

The personal details appear when people click on a link to chat with a Verizon representative. When the chat window opens, it contains transcripts of conversations that other customers, either prospective or current, have had. The transcripts include full names, addresses, phone numbers, account numbers (in the event they already have an account), and various other information. Some of the transcripts viewed by Ars date back to June. A separate Window included customers' addresses, although it wasn't clear who those addresses belonged to.

“Hi—I’m looking to get the teacher discount for Fios,” one person wrote on November 29. Below are redacted screenshots of some of what has been available.

• 

  When Audi revealed its FE07 race car last week, it didn't tell us it would be the company's last Formula E car. [credit: Audi ]

Formula E probably hoped that its preseason test would be the cause of many headlines this week. Ahead of the electric racing series' seventh season start in Chile in January, 12 teams gathered at a race track in Valencia, Spain, to run their new cars in earnest for the first time. Instead, it was the sudden announcement that both Audi and then BMW will make season seven their last that got most of the attention.

Predictably, the sport's detractors have been quick to seize on this as evidence that electricity and racing cars just don't go together. Here's why I think they're wrong.

Racing to make better road cars

When Audi unveiled its FE07 last week, the team held a virtual tech talk showing off its new Formula E powertrain. Called the MGU05, it's a compact package of carbon fiber and metal that makes the series-mandated 250kW (335hp) with 97 percent efficiency and an overall mass of just 77lbs (35kg). For the first time since Audi entered the sport officially in season four, it developed the powertrain completely in-house, an experience that Stefan Aicher, head of development e-Drive at Audi Sport, said was "one of the most intensive and challenging projects ever."

• 

  The Ravn X first stage and Aevum founder Jay Skylus. [credit: Aevum ]

An Alabama-based startup unveiled a launch system unlike any other on Thursday in Jacksonville, Florida.

The company is named Aevum, and until now it has largely operated in the background. But now, it's ready to show off some hardware, and it's starting with the "Ravn X" launch system's first stage. This autonomous aircraft and launch vehicle measures 24 meters long and has a wingspan of 18 meters. It has a gross takeoff mass of 25,000kg—massive for an uncrewed aerial vehicle.

Also, Ravn X looks really slick. Without a pilot on board, the drone can pull significantly higher g-loads and steeper ascent trajectories as it releases a rocket at altitudes between 10 and 20km.