McLaren F1 team will begin 3D printing parts trackside to speed up development

The McLaren Honda F1 team is ramping up its 3D printing techniques for the 2017 Formula 1 season. The team has patterned up with Stratasys for its 3D printing efforts, and will be taking one of the company’s uPrint SE Plus 3D printers to races, to develop and produce new parts on demand.

• How to watch F1 2017 in 4K Ultra HD

3D printing has been used in Formula 1 for some time, but more often than not, it’s used to create moulds for parts, which are then produced using traditional methods. Several parts of the MCL32 2017 F1 car however, are completely 3D printed. 

Parts including a hydraulic line bracket (pictured), carbon fibre brake cooling ducts and a rear wing flap to help improve downforce, were all made using 3D printing techniques in hours, compared to days and weeks required for traditional methods.

Neil Oatley, Design and Development Director, McLaren Racing Limited said: “We are consistently modifying and improving our Formula 1 car designs, so the ability to test new designs quickly is critical to making the car lighter and more importantly increasing the number of tangible iterations in improved car performance”.

“If we can bring new developments to the car one race earlier – going from new idea to new part in only a few days – this will be a key factor in making the McLaren MCL32 more competitive.”

“By expanding the use of Stratasys 3D printing in our manufacturing processes, including producing final car components, composite lay-up and sacrificial tools, cutting jigs, and more, we are decreasing our lead times while increasing part complexity”.

The Formula 1 season continues this weekend in China, with reigning champions Mercedes already sitting below Ferrari in the constructor’s championship. You can follow all the action on Sky in 4K Ultra HD from Friday practice through to the live race on Sunday. 

FCC prepares for net neutrality reversal

Reuters and the Wall Street Journal are reporting that Ajit Pai is preparing the ground for his rollback of Net Neutrality. The FCC chief reportedly sat down with telecoms groups to hash out his plan to end the regulations he has previously called a “mistake.”

It’s believed that the plan will see Net Neutrality wiped away, with the FCC handing its enforcement power to the FTC. One interesting twist is that Pai has, apparently, asked ISPs to sign an agreement not to artificially throttle internet traffic. Instead, those companies will be asked to add a promise to their terms of service not to force low-paying users into slow lanes.

Of course, it’s much harder to enforce a promise than a rule, so any agreement may not have much weight if these companies do misbehave. In addition, the FTC’s current head, Maureen Ohlhausen, is a vocal critic of Net Neutrality and believes in a light touch approach. That could give ISPs carte blanche to do whatever they want to gouge people and companies for access to the internet.

Both publications believe that Pai is likely to present his plans for killing off Net Neutrality to the FCC in the next couple of months.

Source: WSJ, Reuters

Mastodon’s sudden popularity should serve as Twitter’s wakeup call

There’s a hot new social network these days and it’s called Mastodon. Well, it’s not that new — it’s been around since September 2016 — but it’s gained tens of thousands of users in the last few days. The reason for the growth? According to its founder, Eugen Rochko, it has a lot to do with people getting increasingly fed up with Twitter, especially the recent decision to nix @usernames from Replies. Mastodon — named after an American heavy metal band — is mopping up users seeking an alternative. Sure, Mastodon is still small and relatively unheard of, but the very fact that it spurred this much interest is a sign that the established social networks like Twitter are fundamentally failing at one thing: keeping its users happy.

Before we go on, it would help to know what Mastodon is. Some would say it’s a Twitter clone, but there are enough differences that it’s really quite a bit more than that. Yes, the interface looks very much like Tweetdeck: there’s a vertical timeline, you can retweet (known in Mastodon as a “boost”), favorite (stars instead of hearts) and posts have a funny nickname (they’re “toots” instead of “tweets”). But a few features really set itself apart.

There are the obvious ones. It has a 500-character limit instead of 140, you can set content warnings per post by hiding sensitive content behind a “show more” button (some users have taken to using it as a joke setup mechanism) and you have way more privacy options. Posts can be totally public, private (only your followers can see it) or unlisted — which means it’s still viewable to the anyone who goes to your profile page, but it won’t show up in the public timeline.

But the key differentiator from Twitter is that Mastodon is a free, open-source protocol that’s distributed across multiple “instances,” so there’s no centralized server. It’s not really a traditional social network in that sense. Each instance has its own set of users, but you can still follow and interact with users from others. A “local timeline” only shows posts from your, but a “federated timeline” shows posts from yours as well as the instance of the people you follow (There’s a more succinct explanation of it here).

One of the benefits of having these multiple instances is that each can set its own rules. For example, the main instance, mastodon.social, has a strict policy of no Nazis, no racism, no sexism, no xenophobia and no discrimination, which can be seen as a direct result of Twitter’s inability to handle harassment and abuse. The one that I’m on, mastodon.cloud, just has one rule for now, which is to not be a jerk. Other instances could very well set their own rules too; it’s entirely up to the admins of that instance.

“I was a heavy Twitter user since 2008,” says Rochko. But Twitter kept making bad decisions, he says, like changing Tweetdeck, closing down a third party app ecosystem, adding ads and even introducing algorithmic timelines. “Twitter was really trying hard to be not-Twitter,” he says.

The idea of social media companies straying too far from what makes them unique is a problem that seems to be endemic across all the big networks right now. The algorithmic timeline, for example, is a feature that Twitter took from Facebook. Changing up its Direct Messaging service to add read receipts and customer service chatbots are other ways Twitter has attempted to match its social networking rival.

Facebook has been trying to make itself more Twitter-like too. Instead of being just a tool for friends and family, Facebook has become a place for news, which is a characteristic that used to be Twitter’s forte. Combine this with Facebook becoming more and more like Snapchat with the introduction of Stories, and it’s easy to see why some people seem to think that all social media are just copycats of each other.

Mastodon is not the first to come along as an alternative to the social media malaise either. Ello, Peach, and app.net (basically a paid version of Twitter) have all pitched themselves as substitutes. And, for awhile, each of them generated a small amount of buzz. But because they were much too similar to the services they were trying to dethrone, they offered essentially just more of the same.

“I believe the important part [with Mastodon] is the ideological shift. Open web. Federation / decentralization. Free software,” says Rochko. Mastodon isn’t the first network with this ideology. Diaspora promised a similar idea as a Facebook replacement, though it never quite took off due to buggy software, a poor interface and terrible communications. It still exists, but there’s not much adoption. The question is, can Mastodon do things right?

Well, there are a few issues. For one thing, there could be duplicate usernames in different instances. So if you’re @johnsmith on mastodon.social for example, there very well could be a completely different @johnsmith on mastodon.cloud, which is a problem if you don’t want people impersonating you. Also as I’ve mentioned before, Mastodon doesn’t work the same way as other social networks — your post can’t be seen by everybody on all instances, only to the ones that its users have federated with (Rochko delves into this a little deeper here). And, yes, for now, you can’t easily delete a Mastodon account after you’ve created it, which is a big deal for those who value data privacy.

Someone, ANYONE, could set up adrienne@mastodon.cloud, adrienne@mastodon.xyz, whatever, & impersonate me. Different people, even!

— ǝuuǝıɹpɐ (@adrienneleigh) April 6, 2017

Yet, for the past few days, Mastodon has been on an upward trajectory. There are already hundreds of different instances, and several have tens of thousands of users. Rochko even had to shut down the main mastodon.social instance to alleviate server stress and to encourage users to get on other instances to distribute the load.

Of course, the numbers don’t really compare to the millions of users on Twitter and Facebook. With all of its complexity, it’s unlikely Mastodon will become the new social media giant. But it really doesn’t need to be. Rochko has no desire to make money from this endeavor. He’s happy with the modest $2,157 he’s getting a month from his Patreon, which is enough to pay for his living expenses. There’s no telling how long the funds will continue, but since Mastodon is open source, it could very well live on with or without Rochko at the helm.

Even if Mastodon doesn’t make it to the big leagues, however, it still sends an important message that the big networks need to stop copying each other and start listening to its users. Instead of doing what investors and advertisers want, perhaps Twitter and Facebook should do what its community wants.

“The time is simply right,” says Rochko. “People haven’t been happy with commercial platforms for awhile, especially Twitter, but until now they didn’t see any viable alternative. Now finally there is one.”

‘Orcs Must Die! Unchained’ arrives April 19 with competitive mode

Robot Entertainment is finally ready to launch its latest PC game, Orcs Must Die: Unchained. The title, which has been in an open beta since last year, arrives on April 19th with a new head-to-head mode called “Sabotage.” The veteran team of ex-Halo Wars developers foreshadowed the feature last year, after first trialing a MOBA concept with tower-defense elements. “One of the things that’s important to me is to maintain our humor and our feel,” designer Jerome Jones said at the time.

As such, it returned to the formula that first brought the game success, namely map questing and Orc murder via combat and traps. The Sabotage mode, meanwhile, introduces head-to-head play, letting two teams of three players fight in a multiplayer battle (see a video explaining the mode, below).

In brief, both teams fight off hordes of computer-spawned orcs, but your teams’ actions can impact your rivals. You can also send bosses, spells and other weapons to mess with their defenses more directly. Whichever team is still standing at the end wins.

Robot’s aim with the new mode is not just to get back to the game’s roots, but introduce a way to make it more eSports ready. The two-team, head-to-head mode should accomplish that, and possibly bring tower defense games onto the mainstream circuit, provided that the developer can work out a deal with leagues and teams.

Orcs Must Die! Unchained comes to PC on April 19th for free off of Steam, as mentioned. In the meantime, Robot is running an Orc Week sale, letting you get other Orcs Must Die! games and DLC for up to 90 percent off. If you’d rather play Unchained on a console, a PS4 game is in the works with a release coming later this year.

IRS says thousands of taxpayers affected by financial aid breach

Tax day is rapidly approaching in the US, but according to the IRS, there could be additional headaches for up to 100,000 people this year. Hackers posing as students applying for financial aid possibly swiped taxpayer details through the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) online tool. According to The New York Times, the breach has the potential of being the most extensive since the 2015 tax return incident when info on over 300,000 taxpayers was used to file false claims. The IRS later increased that estimate to potentially affect 700,000 people.

Tax-related data breaches are becoming an annual occurrence in the United States. Following the massive 2015 hack, thieves nabbed 100,000 e-file PINs last year. Those numbers could be used to file fraudulent returns in an attempt to collect any potential refunds.

The Department of Education and the IRS shutdown the Data Retrieval Tool for the FAFSA in early March when the two learned the system was compromised. That tool helps import tax info to the lengthy financial aid forms. Late last month, both sides announced the feature would remain offline for the rest of this application season. Of course, that means families applying for federal aid have to find those old tax return details manually.

The New York Times reports the IRS became aware of a possible security flaw that would allow attackers to use the FAFSA tool to swipe tax info last fall. The concern is the same as the e-file PIN issue last year: those details could be used to file fraudulent claims to try and collect refunds. IRS commissioner John Koskinen told a Senate Finance Committee Thursday that the agency has already contacted 35,000 taxpayers and was planning to send notice to 100,000 total to warn them of a potential issue. Right now, the IRS believes fewer than 8,000 fake returns were filed and processed, but Koskinen admitted the full scope of the breach has yet to be determined.

Source: New York Times

O2 is bringing free 1 Gbps WiFi to the City of London

Workers and residents in London’s “Square Mile” will enjoy free 1 Gbps WiFi connections, thanks to a new deal between the City of London Corporation and mobile carrier O2. The multi-million pound deal will see Cornerstone Telecommunications Infrastructure Ltd (CTIL) — a joint venture between Vodafone and O2 owner Telefónica — place “small cell” 4G mobile hotspots on lampposts, street signs, buildings and CCTV arrays in order to provide blanket superfast internet coverage across the city.

Free WiFi in the City of London isn’t a new development. Since 2006, Sky-owned provider has served internet via a similar setup. However, the Corporation says O2’s network will be faster and “more technically advanced than those found in other leading global financial centres, including New York.” This is because CTIL will install equipment capable of supporting 5G technology, ready for whenever it’s officially rolled out.

The announcement will likely be welcomed by the City’s 8,000-plus residents and major corporations, who have bemoaned the lack of affordable superfast broadband across the Square Mile. O2’s 400-strong cell network will also provide connectivity to the tens of millions of tourists who travel to London’s financial district every year when it’s fully activated in the autumn.

Source: City of London

Google and Facebook Working to Fight the Spread of ‘Fake News’

Google and Facebook have announced new measures to fight “fake news,” a term recently popularized by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Google today said it will be making its “Fact Check” label in Google News available everywhere, rather than in the United States only, and expanding the feature to its traditional search results globally in all languages.

The “Fact Check” label identifies articles that include information fact checked by news publishers and fact-checking organizations.

For the first time, when you conduct a search on Google that returns an authoritative result containing fact checks for one or more public claims, you will see that information clearly on the search results page. The snippet will display information on the claim, who made the claim, and the fact check of that particular claim.

Google said the “Fact Check” label is presented so people “can make more informed judgements” about a particular news story or claim, although the information won’t be available for every search result, and there may be instances where different publishers checked the same claim and reached different conclusions.

Even though differing conclusions may be presented, we think it’s still helpful for people to understand the degree of consensus around a particular claim and have clear information on which sources agree. As we make fact checks more visible in Search results, we believe people will have an easier time reviewing and assessing these fact checks, and making their own informed opinions.

Google said “only publishers that are algorithmically determined to be an authoritative source of information will qualify for inclusion,” but it did not elaborate on how it makes this determination. Beyond that, publishers must be using the ClaimReview markup or the Share the Facts widget to be included.

Facebook for its part said it’s working to better identify false news through its community and third-party fact-checking organizations.

Earlier this week, Facebook said it’s rolling out an educational tool to help people spot false news, developed in consultation with non-profit organization First Draft. Facebook said it’s featuring this tool at the top of the News Feed “for a few days” to users in 14 countries, including the United States.

When people click on this educational tool at the top of their News Feed, they will see more information and resources in the Facebook Help Center, including tips on how to spot false news, such as checking the URL of the site, investigating the source and looking for other reports on the topic.

Facebook said it “cannot become arbiters of truth” itself given the size of its platform, but it’s committed to fighting the spread of misinformation.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Tags: Google, Facebook
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iPhone 8 Pre-Orders Still Expected in September, But Shipments Likely Delayed Until ‘Several Weeks Later’

Apple’s widely rumored trio of new iPhones, including traditional 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch models and an all-new 5.8-inch model with an OLED display, will likely be available to pre-order in September, but deliveries of the 5.8-inch model will not begin until “several weeks later,” says longtime Apple analyst Brian White.

An excerpt from White’s research note with investment banking firm Drexel Hamilton, obtained by MacRumors:

Our contact strongly believes the 5.8-inch iPhone 8 will be delayed by several weeks due to challenges around the 3D sensing technology, but still in time for the December holidays. This is not the first time that we’ve heard about a potential delay with a new iPhone; however, our contact was so emphatic about the delay that we are taking this data point more seriously. Since it is only April, this situation could improve. Essentially, our contact believes customers will be able to pre-order the new 5.8-inch iPhone 8 along with the new 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch iPhones in September; however, the 5.8-inch iPhone 8 will not be available for delivery until several weeks later.

White, who is currently in Taiwan to garner information from Apple’s supply chain, cited a “smartphone contact” who is “diligently following the supply chain data points” around the tentatively named “iPhone 8” as the source of his information, so it’s not a completely baseless prediction.

In fact, White’s prediction lines up exactly with recent supply chain information gathered by the research arm of Barclays. The bank similarly expects Apple’s first iPhone with an OLED display to launch in September, but it believes the majority of stock may not be available until later in the fourth quarter.

Together, the predictions suggest that shipping estimates for Apple’s tenth-anniversary iPhone, which has been variously dubbed the iPhone 8, iPhone X, iPhone Pro, or iPhone Edition, could slip to several weeks out just minutes after pre-orders begin, much like the iPhone 7 Plus in Jet Black last year.

In other words, it might be hard to get your hands on the highest-end iPhone prior to the holidays, but it likely won’t be impossible.

Chinese-language Economic Daily News recently said the “iPhone 8” might not launch whatsoever until October or November, as suppliers are supposedly encountering “technical issues” related to the display lamination process, while challenges exist in integrating the 3D sensing front camera system.

However, of the two scenarios, it seems more likely that at least some quantities of the “iPhone 8” will be available to pre-order in September alongside the tentatively named iPhone 7s and iPhone 7s Plus.

Related Roundup: iPhone 8 (2017)
Tag: Brian White
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IBM Watson offers tech support that never sleeps

If your company uses IBM’s helpdesk services, don’t be surprised if you find yourself talking to Watson next time you contact the IT department. IBM has added a Watson-powered concierge-like service to its helpdesk, and it can quickly solve your IT issues around the clock, wherever you are in the world and whatever device you’re using. Unlike automated bots, you can talk to Watson about your issues like you’re talking to another person. It can then customize its responses — for instance, it can use layman’s terms if you’re not that tech-savvy or use jargons if you are.

It’ll solve your problem on the spot if it’s something simple like adding storage to an email account, resetting a password or ordering a new company phone or computer. If it’s not trained to handle your problem, it’ll hand you over to a human IT personnel. However, Watson learns with every interaction and with every feedback it receives and doesn’t receive. (It notices if you’ve chosen not to answer the survey after each chat.) It draws from everything it learns, so after some time, transferring you to its human co-workers might become less and less frequent.

Richard Esposito, IBM’s general manager for GTS Mobility Services says:

“Today, governments and enterprises need to provide an effective set of capabilities to their workforce, so that their employees can deliver a superior interaction and experience for their citizens and consumers. We need a system that can understand and communicate in a natural language conversation, one that solves problems and continues to learn while engaging with employees. Our Workplace Support Services with Watson delivers this value.”

Source: IBM

Google will flag fake news stories in search results

Google is taking a stand against dubious and outright ‘fake news’ by introducing a Fact Check tag in search results. If you ask for information about a highly contested subject, Google will serve a page from a fact-checker site at the top of your results. It’s a small breakout box, similar to how Google shows recipes and band discographies. They’ll be pulled from publishers like PolitiFact and Snopes, and will show information about the claim, the person who made the claim, and whether they think it’s true.

“These fact checks are not Google’s and presented so people can make more informed judgements,” the company said in a blog post.

To be recognised as a fact checker, sites will need to meet a rather long set of criteria. That includes using the Schema.org ClaimReview markup on pages where they analyze public statements, or the Share the Facts widget created by Jigsaw and the Duke University Reporters Lab. The content itself must adhere to the Google News General Guidelines, which includes rules about structured data markup, fact-checking, and standards for accountability and transparency. Finally, Google’s algorithms need to determine that they are an authoritative source of information.

“If a publisher or fact check claim does not meet these standards or honor these policies, we may, at our discretion, ignore that site’s markup.”

To be clear, traditional news stories will be presented as usual. The fact-check box will appear at the top, but underneath you’ll find the same publishers and links as before. The new feature, then, won’t eliminate the distribution of false and offensive stories through Google. Instead, the company is trying to better educate users about individual sources and the validity of the claims they might be clicking on. Google admits that even the fact-checkers may take a different stance from one another.

“Even though differing conclusions may be presented, we think it’s still helpful for people to understand the degree of consensus around a particular claim and have clean information on which sources agree,” the blog post continues.

The roll-out follows a similar fact check system inside Google News. It was introduced at the height of the US presidential election so that readers could better understand when candidates and less-than-trustworthy news outlets were making false accusations. Deemed a success, it was then expanded to France and Germany, as well as the Google News and Weather app in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. As part of today’s announcement, Google said the fact-check tag, which usually appears in the expanded story box inside Google News, will now be available “everywhere.”

Google and Facebook have both been under fire for their role in the growth and distribution of fake news online. Google has taken steps to identify false and offensive content more efficiently, but the issue prevails. A recent report by The Outline, for instance, shows how often Google’s search results can provide misinformation. A parliamentary inquiry by the UK Culture, Media and Sport Committee is now investigating “fake news,” and British newspapers have called for a deeper examination of the issue.

Google’s new solution won’t eradicate the problem, but it will serve as a counterargument when critics claim that it’s failing to act. “As we make fact checks more visible in Search results, we believe people will have an easier time reviewing and assessing these fact checks, and making their own informed opinions,” the company said.

Source: Google (Blog Post)