Month: March 2021

Enlarge / Victoria University of Wellington is in New Zealand. We offer no further defense of this image. (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

Last Friday, IT staff at the Victoria University of Wellington started a maintenance procedure aimed at reclaiming space on the university network—in theory, by removing the profiles of students who no longer attend the University. The real impact, unfortunately, was much larger—affecting students, faculty, and staff across the university.

The New Zealand university's student newspaper reported the issue pretty thoroughly this Wednesday, although from a non-IT perspective. It sounds like an over-zealous Active Directory policy went out of bounds—the university's Digital Solutions department (what most places would refer to as Information Technology, or IT) declared that files stored on the university network drives, or on Microsoft's OneDrive cloud storage, were "fully protected."

A grad student reported that "only files on the desktop were gone" but "my whole computer had been reset, too," which would be consistent with an AD operation removing her user profile from the machine entirely—in such a case, a user would be able to log in to the PC, but into a completely "clean" profile that looked factory new.

Enlarge / A Cricut maker in its natural habitat: a carefully staged table full of miscellaneous crafting bits. (credit: Cricut)

Crafting device-maker Cricut has completely abandoned a plan to start requiring all device owners to pay a monthly subscription fee following a week of sustained public blowback.

Cricut makes cutting machines for precise detail work used by millions of home crafters. The machines work much like printers, but in the inverse: you put a pattern into the software, send it to the device, and the machine slices your design into paper, vinyl, fabric, or a hundred other materials. Users who owned the machines have always been able to import as many of their own designs into the software, Design Maker, as they wish.

Last week, however, Cricut announced it was imposing a $7.99 monthly subscription fee for anyone who wished to upload more than a handful of patterns into Design Maker in a given calendar month. The subscription would apply not only to new users, but also to the millions of consumers who already laid out hundreds of dollars for a Cricut device and all its attendant accessories.

Enlarge / HOUSTON, TX - NOVEMBER 22: New England Patriots quarterback Cam Newton desperately throws an incomplete pass as Houston Texans Justin Reid tries to make the sack during fourth quarter NFL action. (credit: Getty Images / Boston Globe)

The NFL wrapped up its broadcast contract negotiations for the next eleven years, and a big winner was Amazon, which scored exclusive national rights to Thursday Night Football (TNF). Going forward, the NFL's weekly Thursday games will be exclusive to Amazon Prime Video, a big change for a package that was previously on terrestrial television or cable.

The deal runs from 2023 to 2033 and, according to a report from CNBC, will see Amazon pay $1 billion per year for the TNF package. Thursday Night Football is the NFL's newest and cheapest TV package, but the deal lets Amazon creep closer to parity with the NFL's other licensees, mainstream TV networks like Fox Sports, ABC/ESPN (Disney), CBS (Viacom), and NBC (Comcast). CNBC's report has the other four channels paying upward of $2 billion per year each, and unlike Amazon, the TV networks get to take turns airing the Super Bowl.

The NFL's new deal contains streaming provisions for the other providers, too. Each network can now simulcast their games on their streaming service, and some deals scored one or two streaming-exclusive games. Disney's ABC and ESPN games are also allowed on ESPN+, and ESPN+ will get one exclusive game per season, the London "International Series" game. NBC games can also appear on the streaming service Peacock, and Peacock is getting "an exclusive feed of a select number of NFL games." CBS can stream games on Paramount+. Fox Sports, which wasn't part of Disney's acquisition of Fox, apparently has a streaming service called "Tubi," which can now simulcast the Fox games.

Enlarge / Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), adjusts her protective mask during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing in Washington, DC. Susan Walsh/AP/Bloomberg via Getty Images (credit: Getty | Bloomberg)

With universal masking, just 3 feet of distancing is safe for students in many classrooms, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced in updated guidance released on Friday.

According to the new recommendations, elementary schools with universal masking policies are advised to maintain at least 3 feet of distancing between students in classrooms, regardless of the current level of community transmission of SARS-CoV-2.

Middle and high schools with universal masking are also advised to maintain at least 3 feet of distancing between students in classrooms if community transmission is currently low, moderate, or substantial. If the community transmission is high and student cohorting/podding is not possible, then distancing of at least 6 feet should be maintained in middle and high school classrooms.

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The Chinese government is restricting the use of Tesla vehicles at military bases, some state-owned enterprises, and other sensitive facilities, The Wall Street Journal reports. Tesla vehicles have eight cameras outside the vehicle and an internal camera facing the driver.

"The move follows a government security review of Tesla’s vehicles, which Chinese officials said raised concerns because the cars’ cameras can constantly record images, the people said, as well as obtain various data such as when, how and where the cars are being used," according to the Journal. "The government is concerned that some data could be sent back to the U.S."

Some Chinese government agencies have been asked not to drive their Teslas to work, according to the Journal. There are also restrictions on driving Teslas into housing compounds for personnel at agencies and companies doing sensitive national security work.