Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Amazon launches EC2 Mac instances bringing the Intel-based Mac mini to its cloud for $1.083 per hour billed by the second  —  AWS today opened its re:Invent conference with a surprise announcement: the company is bringing the Mac mini to its cloud.  These new EC2 Mac instances, as AWS calls them, are now available in preview.

Is 2020 the year you start investing? Try it out with one of the best robo-advisors available right now. The best robo-advisors of December 2020 – CNET
Source: CNet

Nickie Louise / TechStartups.com:

Totum Labs, which is developing low earth orbit nanosatellites for global IoT connectivity, raises $13M Series A led by Heroic Ventures and Space Capital  —  Totum Labs, a San Diego, CA-based tech startup that is revolutionalizing wireless technology by enabling low-cost, global …

Refining precious metals is not as simple as polishing rocks that have been dug out of the ground. Often, complex chemical processes are needed to process the materials properly or in high quantities, but these processes leave behind considerable waste. Often, there are valuable metals left over in these wastes, and [NerdRage] has gathered his chemistry equipment to demonstrate how it’s possible to recover these metals.

The process involved looks to recover copper and nitric acid from copper nitrate, a common waste byproduct of processing metal. While a process called thermal decomposition exists to accomplish this, it’s not particularly efficient, so this alternative looks to improve the yields you could otherwise expect. The first step is to react the copper nitrate with sulfuric acid, which results in nitric acid and copper sulfate. From there, the copper sulfate is placed in an electrolysis cell using a platinum cathode and copper anodes to pass current through it. After the process is complete, all of the copper will have deposited itself on the copper electrodes.

The other interesting thing about this process, besides the amount of copper that is recoverable, is that the sulfuric acid and the nitric acid are recoverable, and able to be used again in other processes. The process is much more efficient than thermal decomposition and also doesn’t involve any toxic gasses either. Of course, if collecting valuable metals from waste is up your alley, you can also take a look at recovering some gold as well.

Thanks to [Keith] for the tip!

Recovering Metal From Waste
Source: HackADay

Lee Clifford / Fortune:

Mursion, which offers VR training to practice human skills, such as emotional intelligence, in the workplace, announces $20M Series B led by Leeds Illuminate  —  Hugo is furious.  —  He’s sitting across from me, arms crossed, face scowling, exuding bad energy.  Sitting next to him is Maia.

Vietnamese state hackers imitate Chinese groups and start making money on the side while spying for their government. Microsoft links Vietnamese state hackers to crypto-mining malware campaign
Source: ZDNet Microsoft

Can’t tell you how many contain aliens, sorry. One million new galaxies found in fastest radio survey of the sky yet – CNET
Source: CNet

Nintendo has released a new firmware update for the Switch, and for once it actually adds some features to the console’s barebones OS.

The biggest one is a new way to share screenshots and videos directly to your smartphone by scanning a QR code. The process is a little awkward, but it definitely beats the previous method of uploading everything to Twitter or Facebook first.

Here’s how it works:

You can also now copy screenshots and videos to your PC over USB.

O…

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Nintendo Switch update lets you share screenshots to your phone or PC
Source: New feed

Wall Street Journal:

S&P Global has agreed to acquire IHS Markit for about $44B in an all-stock deal, which would merge two of the largest providers of financial data and analysis  —  Landmark deal would combine two of the largest providers of data to Wall Street  —  S&P Global Inc. agreed to acquire IHS Markit Ltd …

Star Wars concept designer explains why the look of the animated version of Ahsoka Tano was altered for Rosario Dawson’s more realistic portrayal on The Mandalorian. Why Ahsoka Tano's appearance was changed in The Mandalorian – CNET
Source: CNet

The retro-styled crossover is based on the current generation of Toyota’s RAV4. Mitsuoka Buddy SUV sold out for two years in just four days – Roadshow
Source: CNet

Who killed Elena Alves, and why, in the HBO miniseries? And why did so many viewers miss the clues? Plus, some of the internet’s best reactions to the final episode. The Undoing finale: The ending explained and more questions answered – CNET
Source: CNet

Bitcoin prices have surged in 2020, and on Monday the cryptocurrency reached an all-time high price just short of $20,000. Bitcoin is back, hitting record high price – CNET
Source: CNet

Ari Levy / CNBC:

Sources: GitLab is letting employees sell equity in a secondary share sale that values the company over $6B, up from a valuation of $2.7B in September 2019  —  – GitLab competes with GitHub, which Microsoft acquired in 2018 for $7.5 billion.  — The company had originally aimed to go public …

Jim Waterson / The Guardian:

Facebook to launch Facebook News in the UK in Jan. 2021, says it will pay publishers for news not already on its platform; most big UK publishers have signed up  —  Facebook is to pay mainstream UK news outlets millions of pounds a year to license their articles, as the social network faces …

A solar eclipse is coming up in just a few weeks, and although with its path of totality near the southern tip of South America means that not many people will be able to see it first-hand, there is an opportunity to get involved with it even at an extreme distance. PhD candidate [Kristina] and the organization HamSCI are trying to learn a little bit more about the effects of an eclipse on radio communications, and all that is required to help is a receiver capable of listening in the 10 MHz range during the time of the eclipse.

It’s well-known that certain radio waves can propagate further depending on the time of day due to changes in many factors such as the state of the ionosphere and the amount of solar activity. What is not known is specifically how the paths can vary over the course of the day. During the eclipse the sun’s interference is minimized, and its impact can be more directly measured in a more controlled experiment. By tuning into particular time stations and recording data during the eclipse, it’s possible to see how exactly the eclipse impacts propagation of these signals. [Kristina] hopes to take all of the data gathered during the event to observe the doppler effect that is expected to occur.

The project requires a large amount of volunteers to listen in to the time stations during the eclipse (even if it is not visible to them) and there are only a few more days before this eclipse happens. If you have the required hardware, which is essentially just a receiver capable of receiving upper-sideband signals in 10 MHz range, it may be worthwhile to give this a shot. If not, there may be some time to cobble together an SDR that can listen in (even an RTL-SDR set up for 10 MHz will work) provided you can use it to record the required samples. It’s definitely a time that ham radio could embrace the hacker community.

Gathering Eclipse Data Via Ham Radio
Source: HackADay

Many of Amazon’s Cyber Monday deals are just as good as Black Friday, and products are selling out fast. Amazon Cyber Monday 2020 best deals: 0 self-emptying Roomba, Nintendo Switch upgrade, 9 Sonos Move and more – CNET
Source: CNet

Not sure what to watch on Amazon tonight? Let’s round up some of its best gems. The 18 best movies to watch on Amazon Prime Video – CNET
Source: CNet

You can save big on a multicooker with these lingering Black Friday and new Cyber Monday Instant Pot deals from around the web. Cyber Monday Instant Pot deals: Great discounts on multicookers and more – CNET
Source: CNet

Looking to save on a new pair of sports headphones for working out at the gym or running? You can pick up some sweet deals this Cyber Monday. Cyber Monday 2020: The best wireless workout headphones deals – CNET
Source: CNet

Balance to the Force has been restored. Other Star Wars memorabilia was also returned, and the suspect was apprehended. Darth Vader's original helmet reportedly recovered after burglary – CNET
Source: CNet

Developers have now made it possible to emulate PS2 games on the Xbox Series X and S using the RetroArch emulator — something that the PlayStation 5, a successor to the PS2, can’t.

Thanks to the Xbox Series X / S consoles’ “Developer Mode,” the emulation software can be added as a Universal Windows Application (UWA), allowing users to download a retail version of the emulation software directly to their console without tricky workarounds, so players don’t have to wait for a re-release to play an older favorite.

While RetroArch is able to emulate several different consoles, the compatibility for running PS2 games using the PCSX2 core is particularly notable because of how limited Sony’s PlayStation 5 is when it comes to backwards…

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Enterprising developers are emulating PS2 games on the Xbox Series S and X
Source: New feed

Engineers are racing to fix a failed piece of equipment on NASA’s future deep-space crew capsule Orion ahead of its first flight to space. It may require months of work to replace and fix. Right now, engineers at NASA and Orion’s primary contractor, Lockheed Martin, are trying to figure out the best way to fix the component and how much time the repairs are going to take.

In early November, engineers at Lockheed Martin working on Orion noticed that a power component inside the vehicle had failed, according to an internal email and an internal PowerPoint presentation seen by The Verge. The component is within one of the spacecraft’s eight power and data units, or PDUs. The PDUs are the “main power/data boxes,” for Orion according to the…

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Component failure in NASA’s deep-space crew capsule could take months to fix
Source: New feed

Eric Geller / Politico:

SCOTUS worries about CFAA’s sweeping nature, with Justice Gorsuch saying that the US government’s view of the law risks “making a federal criminal of us all”  —  The Supreme Court on Monday indicated serious reservations about the ambiguity and scope of the nation’s only major cybercrime law …

Foot traffic was down considerably and internet sales surged during a holiday weekend altered by the coronavirus. ‘Bleak Friday’ for Stores as Pandemic Pushes Holiday Shopping Online
Source: NY Times Tech