Google says it doesn't make money from Australian news, kind of

It also claims news-seeking queries make up only a tiny percentage of searches.

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GoDaddy reports data breach involving SSH access on hosting accounts

October activity did not impact 'main customer accounts'.

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Reliance Jio gets ₹5,656 crore from private equity firm Silver Lake

Telco says latest investment at a 12.5% premium to the equity Facebook gained last month.

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Australia's National Intelligence Office seeks 'smart' satellites

Looking to demonstrate the application of miniaturised satellite systems with on-board machine learning and artificial intelligence applications.

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Coronavirus tech conference cancellations list: Apple WWDC, Salesforce Dreamforce, Microsoft Build and Ignite, VMworld, HPE Discover, Gartner, Dell World and more

As the COVID-19 outbreak spreads, tech conferences are being canceled, postponed, or turned into virtual events.

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Tumblr will now remove all reblogs of posts that violate its hate speech policy

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Tumblr on Monday announced an update to its hate speech policy, announcing on its blog that it would start cutting down on the reach of posts considered hate speech by removing all reblogs of terminated content. Tumblr says it’s specifically targeting speech from Nazis and other white supremacist groups, which it says still be amplified on its platform through reblogs even after the original post was removed for violating its hate speech policies.

“Many of you have called on us to further reevaluate how we deal with hate speech, particularly hate speech from Nazis or other white supremacist groups. Today we’re letting you know that we heard you, and we are taking further action,” Tumblr, which is now owned by WordPress creator...

Continue reading…

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The best cameras for YouTube in 2020

YouTube creators need a camera that's easy to use but captures outstanding video. Here's our top pick.

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Inside NASA’s race to build a ventilator in 37 days

How a team of space engineers created a lifesaving medical device

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Steam dropping MacOS VR support was always going to happen

If someone at Valve ever actually cared about this project, they got bored a while ago.

The timing for Apple's announcement that SteamVR would be coming to what was then called OSX was perfect. It happened on stage, not terribly long after Oculus founder Palmer Luckey very publicly snubbed Mac users. Like so many others, I was cautiously optimistic when Apple and Valve together announced SteamVR support for Macs. There weren't many things in Apple's lineup with GPUs capable of running the HTC Vive hardware at the time, but Apple had a plan to address this and it made a lot of people very happy.

Three years later, it's not surprising to see Valve pulling the plug on MacOS support. After all, nothing about this experience was what anyone had hoped it would be.

Even now, three years after the announcement, there isn't much you can buy off the shelf in an Apple store capable of supporting SteamVR. Certainly more options than previously, but in many cases if you have a MacBook and you want to run SteamVR you needed an external GPU enclosure with a high-end GPU. That increased the cost of deployment in some cases by nearly $700, a price tag that only increased as Bitcoin mining became popular and GPUs became scarce. It's also worth pointing out that Apple's support of VR-ready GPUs was sketch at best in the beginning, not supporting NVidia at all for quite a while.

The saddest thing about this story is how avoidable it was.

Not long after the hardware support was there, Apple threw another wrench into the machine with the deprecation of OpenGL in support of Metal. Unless you were already familiar with developing for Metal, this introduced a new layer of difficulty in supporting MacOS. The added difficulty and expense was too much for many game developers, especially at a time when it wasn't clear there would be that many people using MacOS compared to Windows 10. Fewer games and apps on SteamVR for Mac meant many MacOS users needed to Bootcamp with Windows 10 to get the full SteamVR experience anyway, defeating the point of this exercise entirely.

By the end of 2018, it became clear SteamVR was losing ground to Oculus. The significantly less expensive Oculus Rift was available just about everywhere, and the number of polished "AAA" exclusives for the platform made it much more appealing to people who wanted to just fire up a headset and play. This only got worse in 2019, when the Oculus Quest introduced a quality way for people to play games without a computer at all. Now, in 2020, you can connect an Oculus Quest to a Windows PC and get the whole Oculus Rift S experience without needing a separate headset. Currently, SteamVR has nothing to compete with this.

The challenges for MacOS support in SteamVR are many, but it also seems like Valve lost interest in supporting the platform some time ago. The epic Valve Index headset launched with no mention of macOS support anywhere, and Valve's immensely popular Half-Life: Alyx launched with no mention of macOS support anyone on the Steam sales page. Even Valve's announcement of its intention to remove support was halfhearted, a short forum page where it first called the platform OSX and later had to be edited to correctly refer to it as MacOS.

Given everything that has happened in the last three years, it really shouldn't surprise anyone that Apple is not a priority for Steam. Apple has been rumored to be making its own headset for what feels like forever now, with a significant lean towards Augmented Reality instead of the Virtual Reality we're seen from SteamVR and Oculus. Apple believes AR ir something more people will use in more places, and has been leaning in that direction for a long time now. Also, at last count, SteamVR is nearly 85% Windows and the rest is almost entirely Linux.

The saddest thing about this story is how avoidable it was. Apple and Valve could have used this partnership to court VR developers to build AAA experiences on Metal and demo them on stage during WWDC or a Mac launch event or created a Vive demo area in Apple stores so people could walk in and try the headset out for themselves. With the right energy, this could have been a great thing. But this partnership was probably not much more than a PR stunt to combat Oculus.

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Apple is reopening all but one of its Apple Stores in Australia on May 7th

Customers in Australia will get to go to the Apple Store soon.

What you need to know

• Apple is reopening its retail stores in Australia on May 7th.
• Twenty-one of the company's twenty-two stores will reopen.
• Apple Sydney will remain closed for renovations.

After being closed for more than a month due to the pandemic, Apple is planning on reopening almost all of its retail stores in Australia. Reported by 9to5Mac, twenty-one of the company's twenty-two Apple Stores in the country will reopen on May 7, 2020, at 10:00 AM.

The only store to not reopen is Apple Sydney, which has been closed since January for renovations. The remodel is expected to bring the store up to the company's modern design, with the inclusion of a Forum for Today at Apple creative sessions. It is currently unclear when Apple Sydney's grand reopening will occur.

Apple announced the reopenings in the Apple Store app. The announcement included a list of what customers can expect when visiting the stores such as the need for temperature checks and masks to enter the store and that no Today at Apple sessions will be held for the immediate future.

• Initial focus on service and support
• Customers encouraged to shop online
• Walk-in customers may experience delays
• Customer limits to maintain distancing
• Reduced opening hours
• Masks must be worn inside
• Temperature checks required
• Display devices cleaned regularly
• Today at Apple sessions paused

The company also recommends that customers use the Apple Store app as opposed to visiting the store if possible. If they do need to visit the store for service, Apple asks that customers use the Apple Support app to schedule an appointment.

Apple is also reopening its only store in Austria tomorrow, May 5th. Tim Cook announced the reopenings for both countries in an interview last week after the company released their Q2 earnings.

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Tom Cruise and Elon Musk's SpaceX are making a movie in space, report says - CNET

Ground control to Major Tom Cruise.

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The FDA Tightens the Rules for Covid-19 Antibody Blood Tests

In a reversal, agency officials raised the bar for validation and accuracy standards, citing concerns about flawed tests and fraudulent marketing.

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What is Roblox?

If you're a parent, you've probably heard of Roblox. In this guide, we'll explain the basics of what it is.

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How to Navigate the May Day Maze in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Finding the end of the maze in Animal Crossing: New Horizons can be tricky. Collect everything before leaving.

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These are our favorite gifts for grads in 2020 - CNET

Everything a recent grad needs to weather the lockdown -- and flourish in the future beyond it.

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John Krasinski holds perfect virtual graduation featuring Oprah Winfrey - CNET

The big cameos keep on coming for the positive news show. Episode 6 sees Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson and the one and only Oprah Winfrey.

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Rick and Morty: How to watch Promortyus, the new Alien-themed episode - CNET

Season four has returned, and it's time to fight face-hugging Aliens who also have an M&Ms store.

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These are our favorite gifts for grads in 2020 - CNET

Everything a recent grad needs to weather the lockdown -- and flourish in the future beyond it.

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Chris Hemsworth would be 'pretty stoked' to make Extraction sequel or prequel - CNET

As mercenary Tyler Rake, the Thor actor is tearing up the planet for Netflix.

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Spotify playlist brings New York noise to a world silenced by coronavirus - CNET

Honking, cabs, subway musicians, baseball games. These lively audio clips replay the urban soundtrack that's gone missing with so many New Yorkers staying at home.

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Save $70 on a Eufy vacuum cleaner or $20 on a smart scale for Mother's Day - CNET

Eufy has dropped prices by as much as 33% on vacuums and other gadgets, matching the lowest prices we've ever seen.

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NASA astronaut shares Star Wars fan video filmed on the ISS - CNET

May the 4th is with NASA astronaut Drew Morgan.

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When will I get my stimulus check in the mail? Check your payment arrival with the postal service - CNET

If the IRS is mailing your stimulus payment to you, here's how to check on the check's arrival through the US Postal Service.

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