Month: May 2022

Enlarge / Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies via video conference during a House antitrust subcommittee hearing on online platforms and market power on July 29, 2020. (credit: Getty Images)

Mark Zuckerberg was sued Monday by District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine, who says the Facebook founder should be held financially responsible for the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. The lawsuit was filed in DC Superior Court and demands that Zuckerberg pay civil penalties and restitution or damages.

“We’re suing Mark Zuckerberg for his role in Facebook’s misleading privacy practices and failure to protect millions of users’ data,” Racine wrote on Twitter. “Our investigation shows extensive evidence that Zuckerberg was personally involved in failures that led to the Cambridge Analytica incident. This lawsuit is not only warranted, but necessary. Misleading consumers, exposing their data, and violating the law come with consequences, not only for companies that breach that trust, but also corporate executives.”

Racine’s lawsuit says that “Facebook’s 2010 decision to open up the Facebook Platform to third parties” was “the brainchild of Zuckerberg.” This change let developers “access the massive trove of user data that Facebook had collected through the ‘side door’ of applications,” the lawsuit said, continuing:

Enlarge / Planetary scientist Paul Byrne created this compilation of NASA images showing the InSight spacecraft on its 10th day on Mars, and the lander 1,201 days later. (credit: Paul Byrne/Twitter/NASA)

Anyone planning to move to Mars should probably account for dust. Lots of dust.

Earlier this month NASA announced that it would soon have to cease science operations on its Mars InSight lander due to diminishing power levels from the vehicle’s dust-cloaked solar panels. The spacecraft, which landed on the red planet in November 2018 to study seismic activity, simply cannot produce enough power to operate normally.

InSight has detected more than 1,300 marsquakes, NASA scientists say, including a relatively powerful magnitude 5 quake on May 4. This was the largest marsquake detected to date, and at the upper limit of what scientists hoped to observe. This seismic activity has allowed scientists to tease out details about the inner structure of the red planet.

Enlarge / Jony Ive speaks onstage during the 2017 New Yorker TechFest in New York City. (credit: Brian Ach/Getty Images)

A series of reports in The Information paint a detailed picture of progression, politics, and problems facing Apple’s plan to develop a virtual, augmented, or mixed reality headset since the initiative picked up steam back in 2015.

Citing several people familiar with the product, including some who worked on it directly, the reports describe a contest of wills over the direction of the device. The standoff was between Apple’s mixed reality product team (called the “Technology Development Group”) and famed Apple designer Jony Ive and his industrial design team. The report sheds light on Apple’s direction for the device, which Bloomberg recently reported is nearing launch.

They also claim that Apple CEO Tim Cook has been relatively hands-off from the product compared to others like the iPhone, and that the Technology Development Group’s location in a separate office from the main Apple headquarters has been a source of problems and frustration.

Enlarge (credit: Corsair )

Apple ditched capacitive touch strips along the top of its MacBook Pro decks last year, giving Corsair the opportunity to offer a similar input bar. Corsair seems to think it has found a fitting use for the design, incorporating it into its first laptop, which it built with a heavy focus on streaming.

Corsair made a name for itself in gaming desktops, but the Corsair Voyager a1600 AMD Advantage Edition announced Monday marks the first foray for the gaming brand, also known for PC peripherals and DIY components, into Corsair-brand laptops. The move comes about two years after it acquired boutique PC-maker Origin.

Corsair’s Voyager a1600 laptop will start at $2,700. (credit: Corsair )

In its announcement, Corsair said the 16-inch clamshell is made for the “aspiring content creator, avid gamer, or a full-time streamer.” Thus, it’s equipped with a 1080p resolution webcam with a physical shutter flanked by four microphones with ambient noise cancellation and a colorful “macro bar with center LCD display” as well as a colorful, programmable soft-touch keyboard.