Interdasting NEWS
Physicists Have Identified a Metal That Conducts Electricity But Not Heat
https://science.slashdot.org/story/19/12/02/1536229/physicists-have-identified-a-metal-that-conducts-electricity-but-not-heat
Researchers have identified a metal that conducts electricity without conducting heat - an incredibly useful property that defies our current understanding of how conductors work. The metal, found in 2017, contradicts something called the Wiedemann-Franz Law, which basically states that good conductors of electricity will also be proportionally good conductors of heat, which is why things like motors and appliances get so hot when you use them regularly. But a team in the US showed this isn't the case for metallic vanadium dioxide (VO2) - a material that's already well known for its strange ability to switch from a see-through insulator to a conductive metal at the temperature of 67 degrees Celsius (152 degrees Fahrenheit). "This was a totally unexpected finding," said lead researcher Junqiao Wu from Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division back in January 2017. "It shows a drastic breakdown of a textbook law that has been known to be robust for conventional conductors. This discovery is of fundamental importance for understanding the basic electronic behaviour of novel conductors." Not only does this unexpected property change what we know about conductors, it could also be incredibly useful - the metal could one day be used to convert wasted heat from engines and appliances back into electricity, or even create better window coverings that keep buildings cool.
Millions of SMS Text Messages Exposed In Unencrypted Database (techcrunch.com)
https://it.slashdot.org/story/19/12/02/0210237/millions-of-sms-text-messages-exposed-in-unencrypted-database
"A massive database storing tens of millions of SMS text messages, most of which were sent by businesses to potential customers, has been found online," reports TechCrunch. The database belongs to a company that works with over 990 cell phone operators and reaches more than 5 billion subscribers around the world, according to the researchers.
The database is run by TrueDialog, a business SMS provider for businesses and higher education providers, which lets companies, colleges, and universities send bulk text messages to their customers and students. The Austin, Texas-based company says one of the advantages to its service is that recipients can also text back, allowing them to have two-way conversations with brands or businesses.
The database stored years of sent and received text messages from its customers and processed by TrueDialog. But because the database was left unprotected on the internet without a password, none of the data was encrypted and anyone could look inside. Security researchers Noam Rotem and Ran Locar found the exposed database earlier this month as part of their internet scanning efforts… Many of the messages we reviewed contained codes to access online medical services to obtain, and password reset and login codes for sites including Facebook and Google accounts…
One table alone had tens of millions of messages, many of which were message recipients trying to opt-out of receiving text messages.
Massive Issues Reported For Google's Indexing of JavaScript Content
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/12/02/043218/massive-issues-reported-for-googles-indexing-of-javascript-content
The way Google is indexing JavaScript content is "still a massive issue," reports Search Engine Journal:
As much as 60% of the JavaScript content is indexed within the first 24 hours after indexing HTML. But there is also bad news. As much as 32% of the tested pages have unindexed JavaScript content after one month, due to a variety of reasons…
Indexing delays can cause Google to take a lot more time in discovering newly added pages on your news website… If it takes ages for Google to index your JS-dependent product description, your competitors will be taking the top positions for prominent queries….
We also checked a random sample of URLs from popular ecommerce and news websites. On average, JavaScript content is not indexed in Google in 25% of these websites' pages. This is one of the results of the two waves of indexing. The second wave is not guaranteed. Indexing JavaScript can fail due to many reasons, or may not happen at all….
If you are using JavaScript for generating important content, you have to implement it wisely and keep it under control.