Новости за 10.07.2018

Last week word broke the J.J. Abrams had cast The Americans’ Keri Russell in his upcoming Star Wars: Episode IX. According to The Hollywood Reporter, another actor has joined the project, as well: Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian.

In just 30 minutes at the end of June, four-and-a-half miles of icebergs fractured off of Greenland’s Helheim glacier in an icy churn. Researchers managed to catch it on camera, and they’ve released a sped-up video that condenses the violence of the ice-shattering event into a little over 90 seconds.

YouTube is adding “authoritative” context to search results about conspiracy-prone topics like the Moon landing and the Oklahoma City Bombing, as well as putting $25 million toward news outlets producing videos. Today, the company announced a new step in its Google News Initiative, a program it launched in March. The update is focused on reducing misinformation on YouTube, including the conspiracy theories that have flourished after events like the Parkland shooting.

Apple released iOS 11.4.1 this morning, and with it came a new software mechanism that blocks passcode cracking tools favored by law enforcement. Called USB Restricted Mode, the tool renders the iPhone unaccessible to third-party software of any kind after its screen has been locked for one hour. That way, malicious third parties or law enforcement agencies can’t break into the phone using passcode cracking tools like GrayKey.

A private chat thread released this weekend reveals that banning hate speech on Reddit is apparently too difficult a job to even attempt.

Last week, reports surfaced confirming that third-party app developers were capable of reading emails belonging to millions of Gmail accounts. Today, Congress is demanding Google supply answers to a variety of privacy-related questions following the scandal.

The Aquila drone isn’t the only aerial internet project Facebook abandoned in the last year. The Tether-tenna, a small helicopter drone that could temporarily replace cellular service in emergency situations, was discontinued a few months after being shown off at the F8 developer conference in May of 2017, the company has confirmed to The Verge.

This afternoon, Russia is launching an otherwise routine cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station — except this vehicle’s trip is meant to be the speediest trip to the ISS ever. Following its launch, the spacecraft, known as Progress, is supposed to rendezvous with the ISS within just a little under four hours. That’s a speedy jaunt compared to other cargo and crew spacecraft, which can take between six hours and two days to reach the ISS after launch.