Mark Graham / Internet Archive Blogs:

The Internet Archive starts adding banners on some Wayback Machine pages with links that provide contextual information from fact-checking organizations  —  Fact checking organizations and origin websites sometimes have information about pages archived in the Wayback Machine.

Nandita Mathur / Livemint:

Forty-six top US companies including Apple, Google, and Twitter have filed an amicus brief supporting a legal challenge to block Trump admin’s H-1B visa changes  —  – The move comes in the wake of the US administration’s proposal to scrap the computerized lottery system to grant H-1B work visas …

Though other notable actors have played Bond, many people consider Connery to be the definitive 007. Sean Connery, James Bond star, dies at 90: 'One of the true greats of cinema' – CNET
Source: CNet

You might think the probes in the picture are just funny looking alligator clips. But if you watch [tomtektest’s] recent video, you’ll learn they are really Kelvin probes. Kelvin probes are a special type of probe for making accurate resistance measurements using four wires and, in fact, the probe’s jaws are electrically isolated from each other.

We liked [Tom’s] advice from his old instructor: you aren’t really ever measuring a resistance. You are measuring a voltage and a current. With a four-wire measurement, one pair of wires carries current to the device under test and the other pair of wires measure the voltage drop.

If you wonder why that’s better than two probes, it all comes down to resistance in the test probes. Pulling supply current through the probe wires — which have some resistance — causes a voltage drop that affects the measurement. While the sense wire pair will also have resistance, the sensing current can be very small which means there will be correspondingly less error in the measurement.

We’ve seen these probes built from scratch, too. You do need a meter that will do the actual four-wire measurement, although a power supply and a voltmeter will do the job, too. If you don’t want to probe in real life, you can always do it in virtual reality. (Well, a circuit simulator, anyway.)

Kelvin Probes Review Shows How 4-Wire Resistance Measurement Works
Source: HackADay

Annie Musgrove / Tech.eu:

Odaseva, a France-based data protection services provider for large-scale Salesforce customers, raises $25M Series B led by Eight Roads Ventures  —  French SaaS company Odaseva has raised $25 million in Series B funding to continue growing its data governance platform for enterprise.

Elliott Ackerman / Wired:

Profile of Shield AI, which raised money from a16z and others to develop autonomous military drones that scan buildings to help soldiers clear them  —  On the battlefield, any doorway can be a death trap.  A special ops vet, and his businessman brother, have built an AI to solve that problem.

Exotic locales are a staple of any Bond film. When you can travel again, here’s where to find some amazing sights around the world as seen on screen. Iconic James Bond locations in real life: How to travel like 007 – CNET
Source: CNet

Vengeful witches, angry ghosts, killer cults, evil clowns and body-snatching aliens. Watch these unusual scary films and TV shows, screaming (er, streaming) now. Halloween's here: Weird horror films and TV shows you may have overlooked – CNET
Source: CNet

Throw on your Halloween costumes and get ready for family-friendly scares with these Disney movies and more. Halloween movies for kids on Netflix, Disney Plus and other streaming services – CNET
Source: CNet

RC cars are a fun pastime, but for many hackers, taking things to the next level involves making the cars drive themselves. For his Masters thesis, [Jon] did just that, building a self-driving robot truck that confidently cruises the floor of his laboratory.

The truck is based on a 1/14th scale Tamiya chassis, and had been fitted out by a prior group with an inductive charging system. On top of this platform, [Jon] added a Jetson TX2 to act as the brains of the system, hooking it up with a Slamtec RPLIDAR scanner to map its surrounding environment. There’s also a Teensy microcontroller onboard which handles synthesizing PWM signals for the radio control hardware that drives the truck, and a Logitech webcam up front for machine vision. The truck is capable of operating in a variety of modes, from full manual operation, to driving based on LIDAR mapping or with an AI controlling the truck based on camera data. The truck is programmed to drive a route including an inductive charging pad so it can keep its power levels up without human intervention.

It’s a great blueprint for a self-driving system, and [Jon]’s thesis goes into great detail on how everything works at the base level (available on this page as a 67 MB PDF). His Code is on Github for the curious. We’ve seen similar projects before too, like this robot that navigates its builder’s house using LIDAR. Video after the break.

Self-Driving RC Truck is a Master’s Thesis in Cybernetics and Robotics
Source: HackADay

Igor Bosilkovski / Forbes:

StrongDM, which grants and mediates user access to enterprise backend infrastructure and logs user actions in video replay, raises $17M Series A led by Sequoia  —  StrongDM, a single sign-on company for backend infrastructure, announced today that it has raised $17 million in Series A led by Sequoia Capital.

An open-source canine training research tool was just been released by [Walter Arce] and [Jeffrey Stevens] at the University of Nebraska — Lincoln’s Canine Cognition and Human Interaction Lab (C-CHIL).

We didn’t realize that dog training research techniques were so high-tech. Operant conditioning, as opposed to Pavlovian, gives a positive reward, in this case dog treats, to reinforce a desired behavior. Traditionally operant conditioning involved dispensing the treat manually and some devices do exist using wireless remote controls, but they are still manually operated and can give inconsistent results (too many or too few treats). There weren’t any existing methods available to automate this process, so this team decided to rectify the situation.

They took a commercial treat dispenser and retro-fitted it with an interface board that taps into the dispenser’s IR sensors to detect that the hopper is moving and treats were actually dispensed. The interface board connects to a Raspberry Pi which serves as a full-featured platform to run the tests. In this demonstration it connects to an HDMI monitor, detecting touches from the dog’s nose to correlate with events onscreen. Future researchers won’t have to reinvent the wheel, just redesign the test itself, because [Walter] and [Jeffrey] have released all the firmware and hardware as open-source on the lab’s GitHub repository.

In the short video clip below, watch the dog as he gets a treat when he taps the white dot with his snout. If you look closely, at one point the dog briefly moves the mouse pointer as well. We predict by next year the C-CHIL researchers will have this fellow drawing pictures and playing checkers.

This isn’t the first animal behavior hack we’ve seen this month. Check out [Hans’] feeder that trains birds to clean up bottlecaps.

Using Open Source to Train your Dog
Source: HackADay

Here are the best prices available now and coming soon for AirPods. Best pre-Black Friday AirPods deals: AirPods Pro are back to 0 at Amazon, AirPods coming to Walmart on Nov. 4 – CNET
Source: CNet

These gadgets will help keep you cozy in the colder seasons. Best home devices for fall 2020: Coffee makers, fire pits and other cozy tech – CNET
Source: CNet

From wine and cheese to beer and pork rinds, these go way beyond chocolate. Advent calendars 2020: The best food and drink ones we've seen so far – CNET
Source: CNet

With 80 horsepower, a dead-flat torque curve and a friendly curb weight, the Trident could be the most approachable sporty Triumph ever. 2021 Triumph Trident makes three cylinders affordable and approachable – Roadshow
Source: CNet

Monica Chin / The Verge:

Intel launches new Iris Xe Max discrete GPU, with first laptops now available from Acer, Dell, and Asus  —  Try out Intel’s new discrete GPU  —  Earlier this month, the public got its first glimpse of Iris Xe Max, Intel’s new discrete GPU for thin-and-light laptops, at an Acer press event.

Though other notable actors have played Bond, many people consider Connery to be the definitive 007. Sean Connery, first James Bond on the big screen, has died at 90 – CNET
Source: CNet

Chapter 9: The Marshal, streaming now on Disney Plus, hints at Star Wars connections — but not too much. Here’s our spoiler-free review. The Mandalorian season 2 review: Killer action and a major Star Wars tease – CNET
Source: CNet

Why wait around for November when you can get Black Friday pricing today? Early Black Friday deals on Amazon Echo devices are live now: Dot, Show 5 and more – CNET
Source: CNet

The live-action Star Wars show returns to Disney Plus with an epic season opener titled The Marshal. Let’s dive in. The Mandalorian season 2 episode 1 recap: Easter eggs, Baby Yoda moments – CNET
Source: CNet

Kaitlyn Tiffany / The Atlantic:

How Trump’s presidency has changed the internet, from fueling conspiracy theories to forcing social media platforms to reexamine their content policies  —  How the president changed life online—for better and for worse  —  Being online has changed Donald Trump.

With COP26, the UN’s climate change conference, on the horizon next year in Glasgow, all eyes are on securing the decarbonization of the global economy. What this will mean and how it will be achieved will be hotly debated before, during and after the conference. Thanks to COVID-19, the world has experienced an extraordinary simulation of what abrupt decarbonization might look like. At least in relation to transport, lockdown has revealed the enormous improvements in air quality and wildlife habitats, which result from curtailing fossil-fueled transport. But, at the same time, hastily implemented lockdown measures, including enforced confinement, have worsened…

This story continues at The Next Web

To reach net-zero carbon emissions, we must address social inequalities
Source: The Next Web

Many plastics are, in theory at least, highly recyclable. Unfortunately, in reality, most plastic ends up as waste instead, harming the environment and providing no ongoing value to society. Wanting to investigate possible ways to repurpose this material, [Rehaan33] built a rig to create bricks out of waste plastic for a school project.

The aim of the project is to take waste plastic, in this case high-impact polystyrene, and reform it into a brick that could be used as a low-cost building material. The material is shredded, before being packed into a steel mould and heated to 270 degrees in an oven. As polystyrene is a thermoplastic, it can readily be heated in this way for reforming without harming the material’s properties. Once heated, the mould is placed into the press rig, which uses parts of an old drill press to force down a steel plate, helping shape the final form of the brick.

While you’re unlikely to see old soda bottles used to build a skyscraper in New York any time soon, such techniques could be a good way to help eliminate plastic waste in impoverished areas and stem the flow of plastic into the world’s oceans. The project served as a useful learning experience, allowing [Rehaan33] to pick up skills in metalworking, machine design, and working with thermoplastics. Recycling plastics is a key area of interest for many, particularly in the 3D printing space, with many exploring ways to reuse thermoplastics in more efficient ways. If you’ve got your own project turning waste plastics into useful material, be sure to let us know!

School Project Turns Plastic Waste Into Bricks
Source: HackADay

Get a three-satellite mesh network for $132.50. This dual-band mesh Wi-Fi router delivers gigabit Ethernet from each node, now 26% off – CNET
Source: CNet