“Quarantine amid coronavirus could boost the nascent practice of seeking romance and friendship from artificial intelligence,” writes the Wall Street Journal. Long-time Slashdot reader Strudelkugel quotes their report: Relationships were once built face to face. Now dating happens online. In the coming decades, romance and friendship might take a human partner out of the loop…

A liquid-oxygen tank, 65 volts across a 28-volt thermostat, and a two-inch tumble all led to this ‘successful failure’ Part one Apollo 13 was launched 50 years ago today. Now regarded as a “successful failure,” the story of the aborted Moon landing began years earlier, with the design of mankind’s then most advanced spacecraft.… …read…

Good news! SNL is back in remote form with a new filmed-at-home episode, including an all-new Weekend Update. …read more Source:: CNet

Get your taxes done faster — and at the best price — with these online DIY tax options. …read more Source:: CNet

RadioShack’s former CEO tells Canada’s National Post newspaper the surprising story of what happened after he left the company in 2004: When it came, rather than being crestfallen, he felt liberated, and free to pursue an “itch” that he had always felt the need to scratch. So he applied to medical school at McMaster University…

This super inexpensive keyboard has RGB backlighting, anti-ghosting and dedicated media controls. …read more Source:: CNet

Long-time Slashdot reader robbyyy writes: Facebook has been accused of violating its users rights by tracking users internet activity even after they have logged out of the platform. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said that users could now pursue them under various privacy and wiretapping laws. Facebook is still dealing…

Moore’s law may have reached its physical limit for transistor density, but plenty of other technologies are still on that familiar path of getting smaller and smaller as time passes. It looks like LIDAR is no exception to this trend either. This project from [Owen] shows a fully-functional LIDAR system for about $20 and built…

Plus: Global fatalities surpass 100,000. …read more Source:: CNet

The New York Post reports that a COVID-19 vaccine “may be six months away, according to a researcher leading a team of scientists in England.” “I think there’s a high chance that it will work based on other things that we have done with this type of vaccine,” Sarah Gilbert, a professor of virology at…