Ars Technica quotes the CEO of a fraudulent-review tracking company who says that fake reviews online have now reached ‘epidemic proportions”. But two U.S. regulators say that’s just the beginning: Commissioners Rohit Chopra and Rebecca Slaughter of the Federal Trade Commission say it’s about to get a lot worse, and they know who to blame:…

An anonymous reader quotes Bloomberg News: A Russia-linked group is believed to have utilized Iranian tools to conduct cyber attacks against dozens of countries, in an apparent effort to mask their identities, according to joint advisories by the U.S. and the U.K. The group, known as Turla, used tools from suspected Iran-based hacking groups and…

Proprietary components are the bane of anyone who dares to try and repair their own hardware. Nonstandard sizes, lack of labeling or documentation, and unavailable spare parts are all par for the course. [Jason] was unlucky enough to have an older Dell computer with a broken, and proprietary, cooling fan on it and had to…

Today the Ocean Cleanup unveiled its new “Interceptor” solar-powered robot to collect waste plastic from rivers before it can enter the ocean, Fast Company reports: The system was designed by the nonprofit The Ocean Cleanup, which spent the past four years secretly developing and testing the technology while it continued to work on its main…

“Whereas the fossil fuel industry employs about 900,000 people in the U.S., green economy jobs — those associated with non-oil energy — number about 9.5 million,” writes long-time Slashdot reader DavidHumus, citing a new study by two researchers at University College London. On Ars Technica the study’s authors shared their analysis of America’s emerging green…

Smithsonian magazine reports on a new study that concluded it may be possible to grow agricultural crops right in the soil of Mars — and on the moon. For their paper in the journal Open Agriculture, researchers from Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands planted ten different earthly crops in three types of soil….

It serves as the basis for a pilot autonomous ride-hailing service. …read more Source:: CNet

Decades of post-apocalyptic Hollywood movies have taught us that once all the trappings of our civilisation have been stripped away, it’s going to be kinda cool. We’re all going to wear slightly dusty looking 1980s motorcycling gear, and we’re going to drive really cool cars. Except of course Mad Max is fantasy, and the reality…

An anonymous reader quotes CNN: Amazon said Thursday that its profit for the three months ending in September fell to $2.1 billion from $2.9 billion in the same period a year ago, a decline of nearly 28%, as the company invests heavily to expedite deliveries… The company announced in April that it would spend $800…

Exposed data primarily includes emails, but not passwords or financial information. …read more Source:: ZDNet