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The image of Dr. Katie Bouman clasping her hands in glee next to her MacBook Pro as data from space downloads is almost as famous as the image she helped create. Dr. Bouman wrote the algorithm that helped produce the first-ever image of a black hole. The Telegraph published a biography of the acclaimed computer scientist and electrical engineer.

Dr Bouman’s CV reveals an impressive academic record in electrical engineering and computer science. She has studied at some of the best institutions in the world, getting an undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan, and a Masters and PhD at MIT, winning prizes and scholarships along the way. In 2017, as a graduate student, she took up her role leading the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) team – which made the black hole picture possible – based out of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, in Massachusetts

People in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin may have initially been happy when they heard Foxconn was coming. The company promised  13,000 jobs would be created. But, according to the Verge, things have all got a little confusing.

Mount Pleasant residents engage in Kremlinology based on overheard conversations at local bars and which contractors are seen coming and going from the site, which is heavily patrolled by private security. Even then, appearances can be misleading. Most of the construction that was visible from the roads in Mount Pleasant this winter wasn’t being done by Foxconn, but by government contractors building roads and utilities. As for the innovation centers announced across the state, Foxconn has bought property, but beyond that, much is unclear, including what an “innovation center” actually is.

Gaming is one of the most exciting, and tangible, applications of VR. Wired spoke Tsubasa Sakaguchi, who leads software development for Nintendo Labo, the company’s DIY VR kit. He revealed that Nintendo focused on the physical sensations associated with VR, not the screen.

Though Labo is designed primarily for entertainment, says Sakaguchi, he notes that this creative element and the company’s focus on involving young children has led to the game being introduced in schools and museums. “It’s a joy for us,” he says, “but we secretly expected it.” Sakaguchi hopes that Labo will provide players with a compelling introduction to VR.

Beth Galetti is not one of the most famous names in tech. But she’s one of the most influential. Fast Company‘s Harry McCraken spoke to Amazon’s HR chief, the only woman in Amazon’s Senior Team, on her role and the firm’s massive recruitment drive.

Like most–okay, all–HR executives, the 46-year-old Galetti isn’t exactly famous. But in her nearly six years at Amazon, three as a division leader, she has quietly become one of its most influential figures. Galetti is the highest-ranking woman at the company, and the only woman on the 18-person “S-Team” (short for “Senior Team”) that reports directly to founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. And she has presided over a hiring spree of historic proportions.

The first-ever image of a black hole has been published. It was taken in a galaxy called M87, BBC News reported. The picture was taken by the Event Horizon Telescope. It will give researchers information to further study the phenomen.

The image shows an intensely bright “ring of fire”, as Prof Falcke describes it, surrounding a perfectly circular dark hole. The bright halo is caused by superheated gas falling into the hole. The light is brighter than all the billions of other stars in the galaxy combined – which is why it can be seen at such distance from Earth. The edge of the dark circle at the centre is the point at which the gas enters the black hole, which is an object that has such a large gravitational pull, not even light can escape.

You might think that deactivating your Facebook account would stop it tracking you around the internet. You’d be wrong. CNET’s Alfred NG tried deactivating his account and found it still collected vasts amounts of data on him. The data only goes if you actually completely delete your account.

Even when your account is deactivated, the social network continues collecting data about your online activities. All that data gets sent back to Facebook and is tied to your account while it’s in this state of limbo. It’s as if you’d changed nothing. Facebook says it only removes all of your data if you permanently delete your account. Deactivating isn’t as extreme, the company says, and the social network continues collecting your data in case you change your mind and want to return to your profile.

J.J. Abrams spoke to Fast Company about what it is like to be stepping into the unknown and working with Apple. It comes alongside the news that Julianne Moore will star in ‘Lisey’s Story’ which he is producing for Apple’s new TV+ Service.

While you could say six or eight (episodes), what does it even look like when it comes out? I have faith in (Apple), but, again, it’s not like there’s complete clarity on how it presents in the world, how it’s perceived. What’s the interface, exactly? And what do people feel when they use it? Who knows. So it’s the Wild West.

AppleInsider ran an experiment to test the effect of a T2 chip on video encoding. It found that a Mac Mini with a T2 chip encoded video in nearly half the time an iMac without one did.

Considering the possibility that the slow hard drive was the problem, we re-ran the test to both a USB 3.1 type C SSD on the iMac 4K with identical results. Additionally, running the test on an i7 Mac mini with an external 4200RPM laptop hard drive connected by USB 3.1 type A provided identical results with a higher speed encode, effectively eliminating the slow drive on the entry-level iMac 4K as a bottleneck. So, 100 percent of the difference between the iMac 4K and i3 Mac mini with the basic Video Toolkit is because of the T2.

China is moving to ban mining cryptocurrency. Bloomberg News reports that having banned coin offerings in 2017, as well as asking local exchanges to stop trading, Chinse officials are preparing to go a step further.

The National Development Reform Commission, the country’s powerful economic planner, this week listed crypto-mining among a plethora of industries it intends to eliminate because they “seriously wasted resources” or polluted the environment. The agency is seeking public feedback on the guidelines and indicated that the crypto-mining ban could take effect as soon as they’re formally issued… While China was once home to about 70 percent of Bitcoin mining and 90 percent of trades, authorities have waged a nearly two-year campaign to shrink the crypto industry amid concerns over speculative bubbles, fraud and wasteful energy consumption.

When a Chinese national was arrested at President Trump’s Florida Mar-a-Lago resort in March, the Secret Service confiscated a variety of devices from her. These included a thumb drive. Now, you might think the one thing you would not do in such circumstances is plug that thumb drive into a Secret Service computer. According to Miami Herald, you’d be wrong.

Secret Service agent Samuel Ivanovich, who interviewed Zhang on the day of her arrest, testified at the hearing. He stated that when another agent put Zhang’s thumb drive into his computer, it immediately began to install files, a “very out-of-the-ordinary” event that he had never seen happen before during this kind of analysis. The agent had to immediately stop the analysis to halt any further corruption of his computer, Ivanovich testified.

A viewer writes the TV Answer Man:

… I bought a new 4K TV so my question is: Will the March Madness final on Monday night be in 4K? If so, which channel?

The answer is no. ::grumble::