Torvalds Blows Stack Over Buggy New Kernel

Linux creator Linus Torvalds this week apologized for including in the just-released Linux 4.8 kernel a bug fix that crashed it. The bug the dev was trying to fix has existed since Linux 3.15, "but the fix is clearly worse than the bug ... since that original bug has never killed my machine," Torvalds wrote. "This type of situation, while rare, is common enough in smaller and less visible projects, where testing processes and protocol are typically less sophisticated than those used by Linus and his team," noted tech analyst Al Hilwa.

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Nevada Issues Historic License to Paralyzed Race Car Driver

The state of Nevada last week issued paralyzed former Indy driver Sam Schmidt a license to drive a specially made autonomous vehicle, equipped with a series of high-tech sensors and other equipment that will allow him to operate it with head motions, voice commands and breathing techniques. The license allows Schmidt to operate the Arrow SAM car, a modified Corvette Z06 developed by Arrow Electronics, alongside regular passenger traffic -- an important development in the history of the burgeoning autonomous vehicle industry.

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Insulin Pump Susceptible to Hacking

Medical device manufacturer Animas on Tuesday warned that its OneTouch Ping insulin pump system was susceptible to hacking. "We have been notified of a cybersecurity issue with the OneTouch Ping, specifically that a person could potentially gain unauthorized access to the pump through its unencrypted radio frequency communication system," reads the company's letter to users of the device. The probability of anyone accessing the pump without authorization was "extremely low," the letter notes. Animas is owned by Johnson & Johnson.

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Galaxy Note 7 Snaps, Crackles and Pops, Spurring Evacuation of Plane

Southwest Airlines on Wednesday evacuated a plane in Louisville, Kentucky, after a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 began popping and issuing thick smoke. Samsung last month began replacing Galaxy Note 7s globally, following reports of several of the devices catching fire or exploding. It blamed the problem on an "isolated" faulty battery cell issue. The device involved in the Southwest Airline incident reportedly was a replacement phone, according to owner Brian Green. Samsung has said it will verify whether the phone actually was a replacement.

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Google: There's No Hub Like Home

No longer willing to let Amazon have the space to itself, Google on Tuesday officially launched Google Home, its long-awaited wireless hub. Google Home is an interactive personal assistant and entertainment center that takes full advantage of the company's deep advantages in Web search, AI and machine learning. Google's vision is to place a customized version of its Google Assistant technology into the hands of every customer, said CEO Sundar Pichai, so it can be wherever they are.

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IoT Could Become Playground for Botnets Gone Wild

The source code for Mirai, the malware behind the botnet that launched a massive attack on the Krebs on Security website -- the largest DDoS attack on record -- has been released in the wild, according to Brian Krebs, author of the blog. A hacker who goes by the handle "Anna-senpai," apparently because of increased scrutiny from the cybersec industry, last week announced the release on Hackforums, Krebs said. The code release has heightened fears that the Internet of Things will be flooded with attacks from new botnets.

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Apricity: Slip Into Something More Comfortable

Apricity OS is a great, two-pronged Linux distro that recently reached a milestone that will ensure its continued success. Apricity's first public beta, which was GNOME-only, was released more than a year ago. A choice of either the GNOME or Cinnamon desktops later became available in the monthly development snapshot releases. This rolling release delivery method already provided a pleasant computing experience. Both desktop versions performed well. Each monthly build brought more functionality.

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