Blocking

Microsoft is rolling back a planned change to block Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macros by default in a variety of Office apps. Announced earlier this year, Microsoft had been planning to prevent Office users from easily enabling certain content in files downloaded from the internet that include macros, in a move to improve security against malicious files. Microsoft had been testing this change ahead of a planned rollout to all Microsoft 365 users in June, but suddenly reverted the block on June 30th.…

A group of driverless Cruise robotaxis blocked traffic in San Francisco for hours on Tuesday evening after the cars stopped working without explanation. Details of the incident were shared on Reddit (and spotted by TechCrunch) and illustrate how driverless vehicles are still experiencing teething problems in real-life settings. Cruise, which is backed by General Motors and Honda, has been testing its technology in San Francisco since February, but only launched a commercial robotaxi service last week. The cars have…

The government has issued a notice to Twitter to comply with all its past orders by July 4, an official source said on Wednesday. The Ministry of Electronics and IT has set a deadline of July 4, failing which Twitter may lose intermediary status, which means it will be liable for all the comments posted on its platform."A notice was issued on June 27 to Twitter to comply with all government orders issued till date. Twitter was issued notices earlier this month but it did not comply with it. This is the final notice," a…

If you post about being able to mail abortion pills to those who need it on Facebook, don't be surprised if you get a warning — or even get your account restricted. A tipster told Motherboard that they were notified a minute after posting "I will mail abortion pills to any one of you" that their status update had been removed. When they tried to post about it again later, they were banned for it. Motherboard was able to replicate the scenario, and we were able to confirm it, as well. We tried posting "abortion pills can…

The U.S. has no clear vision of how to reach a postpandemic world. Over the past two years, we have developed extraordinary scientific tools for the mitigation, treatment and prevention of COVID. But we’ve stumbled badly in implementing them. Many of these failures happened because our public health messages were not clear about how to use those tools, which include vaccines, masks, tests, antiviral drugs and temporary activity restrictions. The result is confusion among the public that has left us vulnerable to the…

Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., speaks during a news conference announcing the State and Local Taxes (SALT) Caucus outside the U.S. Capitol on April 15, 2021.Sarah Silbiger | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesThree House Democrats are still pushing for relief on the $10,000 limit on the federal deduction for state and local taxes, known as SALT. Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J.; Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y.; and Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., on Friday sent a joint letter to U.S. Department of the Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and IRS Commissioner Charles…

How a psychological effect is blocking the progress of MLOver the last few years, I have watched hundreds of students and engineers building machine learning models. I have had many opportunities to be part of the jury in project competitions of Engineering Colleges. Similarly, I have served as a judge in a number of hackathons where I saw the contestants building models and systems in 36 or 48 hours, working day and night. As part of my responsibilities, I have reviewed the work of many interns and also interviewed…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain What are the barriers to the adoption of electric cars? Although the main financial and technological obstacles have been removed, their market share still needs to increase. In a recent study, a team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) investigated the cognitive factors that still dissuade many people from switching to electric cars. They found that car owners systematically underestimate…

It’s a very promising world first! Scientists at the University of Louvain (UCLouvain) have managed to identify the key that allows the Covid virus to attack cells. Better still, they have also managed to close the lock to block the virus and prevent its interaction with the cell, in other words, to prevent infection. This discovery, published in the journal Nature Communications, raises a huge hope: that of developing an antiviral, in the form of an aerosol, which would help to eradicate the virus in case of infection or…

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has directed the blocking of 22 YouTube-based news channels, of which four are from Pakistan, for allegedly spreading fake news to mislead viewers. This is the first time that action has been taken against the Indian YouTube-based news publishers since the notification of the IT Rules, 2021 in February last year, it said.In an official statement, the ministry said that it issued an order on Monday to block 22 YouTube channels, three Twitter accounts, one Facebook account and…