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According to new research published Thursday, conservatives on Facebook during the 2020 presidential election were more isolated and saw more misinformation than the platform's liberal users -- though Facebook widely affected users' political content in different ways. Slashdot reader RUs1729 shared one of the four peer-reviewed studies, appearing in the journals Science and Nature. Forbes reports: The study, led by two researchers from the University of Texas and New York University, had hundreds of thousands of participants and analyzed mass amounts of Facebook user data. One of the study's papers, which used aggregated data for 208 million U.S. Facebook users, found that most misinformation on Facebook existed within conservative echo chambers, which did not have an equivalent on the liberal side of the platform. The paper found that news outlets on the right post a higher fraction of news stories rated false by Meta's third-party fact-checking program, meaning conservative audiences are more exposed to unreliable news. In a separate paper that assigned users to Facebook and Instagram feeds chronologically instead of algorithm-based feeds, which are the platforms' default feed types, researchers found users on chronological feeds were less engaged and saw more political content compared to those viewing algorithm-based feeds, along with more content from untrustworthy sources and more content from ideologically moderate friends and sources with mixed audiences. However, the feed analysis noted replacing algorithmic feeds with chronological ones did not create any detectable changes in political attitudes, knowledge or offline behavior. Another paper assigned nearly 9,000 U.S.-based Facebook users feeds with no reshares, later concluding that the removal of reshared content "substantially" lessened the amount of political news, and content from all untrustworthy sources decreased overall. The two lead researchers and 15 other academics, who had control rights for the study's papers, declined compensation from Meta to ensure an ethical study was completed.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has implemented new rules requiring publicly traded companies to disclose any cyberattacks considered material incidents within four business days of discovery. BleepingComputer reports: According to the Wall Street watchdog, material incidents are those that a public company's shareholders would consider important "in making an investment decision." The SEC also adopted new regulations mandating foreign private issuers to provide equivalent disclosures following cybersecurity breaches. Listed companies must now include details about the cyberattack (including the incident's nature, scope, and timing) in periodic report filings, specifically on 8-K forms. These new cybersecurity incident reporting rules are set to take effect in December or 30 days after being published in the Federal Register. However, smaller companies will be granted an additional 180 days before they are required to provide Form 8-K disclosures. In some instances, the disclosure timeline may also be postponed if the U.S. Attorney General determines that an immediate disclosure would pose a significant risk to national security or public safety. "Whether a company loses a factory in a fire -- or millions of files in a cybersecurity incident -- it may be material to investors. Currently, many public companies provide cybersecurity disclosure to investors," said SEC Chair Gary Gensler today. "I think companies and investors alike, however, would benefit if this disclosure were made in a more consistent, comparable, and decision-useful way. Through helping to ensure that companies disclose material cybersecurity information, today's rules will benefit investors, companies, and the markets connecting them."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Following a rash of deadly fires, consumer advocates and fire departments, particularly in New York City, want the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to confiscate lithium-ion electric bikes that don't comply with regulations at the border. The ultimate goal is for unsafe e-bikes and poorly manufactured batteries to be taken off the streets and out of homes. The Associated Press reports: "We've been sounding the alarm for months," New York City Mayor Eric Adams said a day after an exploding battery ignited the Chinatown e-bike shop fire last month. "We need real action, not only on the state level, but on the federal level." With some 65,000 e-bikes zipping through its streets -- more than any other place in the U.S. -- New York City is the epicenter of battery-related fires. There have been 100 such blazes so far this year, resulting in 13 deaths, already more than double the six fatalities last year. Nationally, there were more than 200 battery-related fires reported to the commission -- an obvious undercount -- from 39 states over the past two years, including 19 deaths blamed on so-called micromobility devices that include battery-powered scooters, bicycles and hoverboards. New York's two U.S. Senators, Democrats Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, introduced legislation last month that would set mandatory safety standards for e-bikes and the batteries that power them. Because mandatory standards don't exist, Schumer said, poorly made batteries have flooded the U.S., increasing the risk of fires. Earlier this year, New York City urgently enacted a sweeping package of local laws intended to crack down on defective batteries, including a ban on the sale or rental of e-bikes and batteries that aren't certified as meeting safety standards by an independent product testing lab. The new rules also outlaw tampering with batteries or selling refurbished batteries made with lithium-ion cells scavenged from used units. [...] Tighter regulations, safety standards and compliance testing drastically reduced the risk of fires in such devices, according to Robert Slone, the senior vice president and chief scientist for UL Solutions. The same can happen with e-bike batteries, he said, if they are made to comply with established safety standards. "We just need to make them safe, and there is a way to make them safe through testing and certification," Slone said, "given the history that we've seen in terms of fires and injuries and unfortunately, deaths as well -- not just in New York, but across the country and around the world."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Congress is closer than ever to passing a pair of bills to childproof the internet after lawmakers voted to send them to the floor Thursday. The bills -- the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and COPPA 2.0 -- were approved by the Senate Commerce Committee Thursday by a unanimous voice vote. Both pieces of legislation aim to address an ongoing mental health crisis amongst young people that some lawmakers blame social media for intensifying. But critics of the bills have long argued that they have the potential to cause more harm than good, like forcing social media platforms to collect more user information to properly enforce Congress' rules. KOSA is supposed to establish a new legal standard for the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general, allowing them to police companies that fail to prevent kids from seeing harmful content on their platforms. The authors of the bills, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), have said the bill keeps kids from seeing content that glamorizes eating disorders, suicidal thoughts, substance abuse, and gambling. It would also ban kids 13 and under from using social media and require companies to acquire parental consent before allowing children under 17 to use their platforms. At Thursday's markup, Blackburn proposed an amendment to remedy some of the concerns raised by digital rights groups, mainly language requiring platforms to verify the age of their users. Lawmakers approved those changes along with the bill, but the groups fear that platforms would still need to collect more data on all users to live up to the bill's other rules. [...] The other bill lawmakers approved, COPPA 2.0, raises the age of protection under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act from 13 to 16 years of age, along with similar age-gating restrictions. It also bans platforms from targeting ads to kids. "When it comes to determining the best way to help kids and teens use the internet, parents and guardians should be making those decisions, not the government," Carl Szabo, NetChoice vice president and general counsel, said. "Rather than violating free speech rights and handing parenting over to bureaucrats, we should empower law enforcement with the resources necessary to do its job to arrest and convict bad actors committing online crimes against children."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple's increasing use of "serialization," which pairs hardware components with the logic board using proprietary software locks, is making simple repairs on devices like iPads and iPhones harder and more expensive. In a recent Forbes article, a repair expert claims the Apple Pencil won't work properly on the iPad Pro if the display is replaced with a non-genuine Apple part, or even a screen from another iPad. From the report: This has now been extended to the displays of fifth and sixth generations of the iPad Pro 12.9-inch and third and fourth generation 11-inch tablets, repair expert Ricky Panesar, founder of iCorrect.co.uk, told me. While repairing a customer's device, Panesar found that the Apple Pencil wasn't delivering straight lines when the iPad display was replaced with a screen from another Apple iPad. "We found with the newer versions of the iPad that when you put a new screen on, even if it's taken from another iPad, the pencil strokes don't work perfectly." Panesar explained to me. "They have a memory chip that sits on the screen that's programmed to only allow the Pencil functionality to work if the screen is connected to the original logic board." He continued. In practice, Panesar found that lines drawn on the replaced display (Panesar says he doesn't use aftermarket parts for repairs) with the Apple Pencil aren't completely straight. He demoed this in the video [here]. Panesar isn't the only person to discover this, a Reddit post from May complained about the same issue. The poster claimed to have bought a sixth generation iPad Mini from a reseller, which is having the same squiggly line problem. Commenters pointed out that the issue is likely related to serialization and linked to Panesar's video.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

schwit1 shares a report from CNBC: Meta reported second-quarter earnings on Wednesday and said that its Reality Labs unit, which develops virtual reality and augmented reality technologies needed to power the metaverse, logged a $3.7 billion operating loss. Last year, Meta's Reality Labs unit lost a total of $13.7 billion while bringing in $2.16 billion in revenue, which is driven in part by the company's sales of Quest-branded VR headsets. Reality Labs lost $3.99 billion during the first quarter. That puts its total losses at about $21.3 billion since the beginning of last year. Meta said in its earnings report that it expects operating losses in its Reality Labs unit "to increase meaningfully year-over-year due to our ongoing product development efforts in augmented reality/virtual reality and investments to further scale our ecosystem." Despite Reality Labs' operating loss, Meta reported revenue of $32 billion for its quarter ending in June, an 11% increase compared to the same period last year. "The company reported profits of $7.79 billion for the quarter, a 16% increase compared to last year, also beating analysts' estimates," adds CNN.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: When Google announced that trackers would be able to tie in to its 3 billion-device Bluetooth tracking network at its Google I/O 2023 conference, it also said that it would make it easier for people to avoid being tracked by trackers they don't know about, like Apple AirTags. Now Android users will soon get these "Unknown Tracker Alerts." Based on the joint specification developed by Google and Apple, and incorporating feedback from tracker-makers like Tile and Chipolo, the alerts currently work only with AirTags, but Google says it will work with tag manufacturers to expand its coverage. For now, if an AirTag you don't own "is separated from its owner and determined to be traveling with you," a notification will tell you this and that "the owner of the tracker can see its location." Tapping the notification brings up a map tracing back to where it was first seen traveling with you. Google notes that this location data "is always encrypted and never shared with Google." Further into the prompts, you can make the tracker play a sound, "without the owner of the tracker knowing," Google says. If you bring the tracker to the back of your phone (presumably within NFC range), some trackers may provide their serial number and information about their owner, "like the last four digits of their phone number." Google indicates it will also link to information about how to physically disable a tracker. Finally, Google is offering a manual scan feature, if you're suspicious that your Android phone isn't catching a tracker or want to see what's nearby. The alerts are rolling out through a Google Play services update to devices on Android 6.0 and above over the coming weeks. Google is working to finish the joint tracking specification "by the end of this year." The company added: "At this time, we've made the decision to hold the rollout of the Find My Device network until Apple has implemented protections for iOS."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

LinkedIn appears to be developing a new AI tool that can help ease the effectively robotic task of looking for and applying to jobs. From a report: According to a new leak, the Microsoft-owned company seems to have a new "LinkedIn Coach" assistant in testing that could support you through the application processes, teach you new skills, and help you network on your LinkedIn network. The news comes from app researcher Nima Owji, who uncovers features from various developers that haven't been deployed yet. In an email, LinkedIn spokesperson Amanda Purvis tells The Verge the company is "always exploring" new ways to improve user experience on the platform. Purvis adds that the company "will have more to share soon."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Four years from now, if all goes well, a nuclear-powered rocket engine will launch into space for the first time. The rocket itself will be conventional, but the payload boosted into orbit will be a different matter. From a report: NASA announced Wednesday that it is partnering with the US Department of Defense to launch a nuclear-powered rocket engine into space as early as 2027. The US space agency will invest about $300 million in the project to develop a next-generation propulsion system for in-space transportation. "NASA is looking to go to Mars with this system," said Anthony Calomino, an engineer at NASA who is leading the agency's space nuclear propulsion technology program. "And this test is really going to give us that foundation."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hackers are infecting players of an old Call of Duty game with a worm that spreads automatically in online lobbies, according to two analyses of the malware. From a report: On June 26, a user on a Steam forum alerted other players of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 that hackers "attack using hacked lobbies," and suggested running an antivirus. The malware mentioned in the thread appears to be on the malware online repository VirusTotal. Another player claimed to have analyzed the malware and wrote in the same forum thread that the malware appears to be a worm, based on a series of text strings inside the malware. A game industry insider, who asked to remain anonymous because they were not allowed to speak to the press, confirmed that the malware contains those strings, indicating a worm.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The era of global warming has ended and "the era of global boiling has arrived," the UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, has said after scientists confirmed July was on track to be the world's hottest month on record. From a report: "Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning," Guterres said. "It is still possible to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C [above pre-industrial levels], and avoid the very worst of climate change. But only with dramatic, immediate climate action." Guterres's comments came after scientists confirmed on Thursday that the past three weeks have been the hottest since records began and July is on track to be the hottest month ever recorded. Global temperatures this month have shattered records, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the EU's Copernicus Earth observation programme, stoked by the burning of fossil fuels and spurring violent weather. The steady rise in global average temperatures, driven by pollution that traps sunlight and acts like a greenhouse around the Earth, has made weather extremes worse. "Humanity is in the hot seat," Guterres told a press conference on Thursday. "For vast parts of North America, Asia, Africa and Europe, it is a cruel summer. For the entire planet, it is a disaster. And for scientists, it is unequivocal -- humans are to blame. All this is entirely consistent with predictions and repeated warnings. The only surprise is the speed of the change. Climate change is here, it is terrifying, and it is just the beginning. The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An hours-long discussion on Capitol Hill captured the intensifying public interest in the unexplained and how authorities investigate such reports. From a report: A small group of House lawmakers called Wednesday for greater transparency in the government's reporting on encounters with unidentified phenomena, in an unusual congressional hearing featuring the testimony of UFO witnesses. But the hearing, which one freshman Democrat remarked was the most bipartisan discussion he'd seen in his seven months on Capitol Hill, oscillated between statements of concern about the potential national security threat posed by unknown objects flying close to U.S. military aircraft and more extreme allusions to government conspiracies to hide the existence of alien lifeforms. Convened by a House Oversight subcommittee, the hours-long discussion captured the intensifying public interest in the unexplained and what federal authorities are doing to document and investigate such reports. "We're not bringing little green men or flying saucers into the hearing -- sorry to disappoint about half y'all," Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) said. "We're just going to get to the facts. We're going to uncover the cover up." In response to reported encounters by Navy pilots, the U.S. military and the intelligence community have sought to more closely analyze such incidents. The sightings, including some that are believed to be drones or unmanned craft -- like the Chinese surveillance airship shot down in U.S. airspace earlier this year -- have fueled concerns that American adversaries could have developed new technologies that pose a threat to U.S. security. The Pentagon has implemented new policies meant to encourage military personnel to come forward if they see something unusual so it can be investigated and accounted for, and last year established what it calls the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office to further study such reports. NASA has undertaken a similar independent initiative.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sony announced it has sold over 40 million PlayStation 5 consoles despite the "unprecedented challenges of COVID" and supply chain issues. From a report: Unlike the press release shared when the PS5 crossed 10 million units sold as of July 2021, Sony didn't call its flagship console out as the "fastest-selling console in the history of Sony Interactive Entertainment," reflecting a slower pace of sales even as supply issues ebbed. PlayStation 5 shipments have begun to ramp up this year. Sony nearly hit 40 million consoles sold earlier this year and tripled the number of consoles it shipped from January to March 2023 at 6.3 million units. At the same time last year, it shipped just 2 million PlayStation 5 consoles.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: In 2004, Congress passed a law that established a moratorium on federal safety regulations for commercial astronauts and space tourists riding to space on new privately owned rockets and spacecraft. The idea was to allow time for new space companies to establish themselves before falling under the burden of regulations, an eventuality that spaceflight startups argued could impede the industry's development. The moratorium is also known as a "learning period," a term that describes the purpose of the provision. It's supposed to give companies and the Federal Aviation Administration -- the agency tasked with overseeing commercial human spaceflight, launch, and re-entry operations -- time to learn how to safely fly in space and develop smart regulations, those that make spaceflight safer but don't restrict innovation. Without action from Congress, by the end of September, the moratorium on human spaceflight regulations will expire. That has many in the commercial space industry concerned. The House Science Committee is considering a commercial space bill that might extend the learning period, but the content of the bill hasn't been released yet. Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), chair of the House Science Committee, said one of his priorities in developing the space bill is ensuring a "thoughtful regulatory environment that supports innovation." Given the hotly partisan tenor of Capitol Hill and a range of other priorities, it's not clear if the bill -- whatever it says -- can be passed before October 1. "Things are sort of moving, but... how do you deal with the moratorium? Can you get that by October 1 and get something passed? Is that something everyone can agree to, or is that going to get bogged down? You just don't know right now, and that's just a bad place to be," said Allen Cutler, president of the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration, in a panel discussion at the John Glenn Memorial Symposium earlier this month.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lindsey Graham and Elizabeth Warren, writing at The New York Times: Enough is enough. It's time to rein in Big Tech. And we can't do it with a law that only nibbles around the edges of the problem. Piecemeal efforts to stop abusive and dangerous practices have failed. Congress is too slow, it lacks the tech expertise, and the army of Big Tech lobbyists can pick off individual efforts easier than shooting fish in a barrel. Meaningful change -- the change worth engaging every member of Congress to fight for -- is structural. For more than a century, Congress has established regulatory agencies to preserve innovation while minimizing harm presented by emerging industries. In 1887 the Interstate Commerce Commission took on railroads. In 1914 the Federal Trade Commission took on unfair methods of competition and later unfair and deceptive acts and practices. In 1934 the Federal Communications Commission took on radio (and then television). In 1975 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission took on nuclear power, and in 1977 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission took on electric generation and transmission. We need a nimble, adaptable, new agency with expertise, resources and authority to do the same for Big Tech. Our Digital Consumer Protection Commission Act would create an independent, bipartisan regulator charged with licensing and policing the nation's biggest tech companies -- like Meta, Google and Amazon -- to prevent online harm, promote free speech and competition, guard Americans' privacy and protect national security. The new watchdog would focus on the unique threats posed by tech giants while strengthening the tools available to the federal agencies and state attorneys general who have authority to regulate Big Tech. Our legislation would guarantee common-sense safeguards for everyone who uses tech platforms. Families would have the right to protect their children from sexual exploitation, cyberbullying and deadly drugs. Certain digital platforms have promoted the sexual abuse and exploitation of children, suicidal ideation and eating disorders or done precious little to combat these evils; our bill would require Big Tech to mitigate such harms and allow families to seek redress if they do not.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

European Union regulators on Thursday opened an antitrust investigation into Microsoft's bundling of its video and chat app Teams with other Office products. From a report: The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, said that these practices may constitute anti-competitive behavior. It is the first antitrust investigation by the EU into Microsoft in over a decade. "The Commission is concerned that Microsoft may grant Teams a distribution advantage by not giving customers the choice on whether or not to include access to that product when they subscribe to their productivity suites and may have limited the interoperability between its productivity suites and competing offerings," the EU regulators said on Thursday in a press release. In other words, the EU is concerned Microsoft is not giving customers the choice to not buy Teams when they subscribe to the company's Office 365 product. In doing so, Microsoft might be stopping other companies from competing in the workplace messaging and video app space.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Record youth unemployment after Beijing clampdown on private sector, FDI slump. From a report: New graduate Glonee Zhang had high hopes when he landed a job at a lithium battery company in Shenzhen last summer. Now, like more than one in five young people in China, he's out of work. An English major entering a post-COVID working world, Zhang thought "the end of the pandemic would bring a bright future." Six months later, he and half of the firm's intake of 400 new grads were laid off when the company's sales slumped by 10% year-on-year. "Sometimes I feel my soul is being torn apart," said a downbeat Zhang, getting by in the meantime doing odd jobs. Caught between a long-running regulatory crackdown by Beijing on private enterprise, and a slide in hiring by foreign firms in the country, young people now face a record jobless rate of 21.3%. Since the official number only includes people actively seeking work, some economists say the percentage of young people not in employment, education or training could be significantly higher. While the pandemic may have gone, its departure has unmasked a growing structural problem for President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The world's second-biggest economy is producing twice the number of graduates it did 10 years ago, with nearly 12 million this year - but not the jobs they're qualified to do. "Over the years, China has expanded universities, but China is still a largely manufacturing [and services] based economy," Robin Xing, chief China economist at Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong, told Nikkei Asia. "This is structural, because the economy itself is big, it's gradually changing. But it takes time for China to become a more advanced economy like Japan, South Korea and the U.S., which have more professional services dominating job creation." In December 2019, before COVID struck, the youth jobless rate was 12.2%. Graduates like Zhang are now forced to consider continuing in higher education or trying for highly competitive but stable government jobs for which they are overqualified. Studying or working overseas is also an option for some.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A key congressional committee on Wednesday advanced a bipartisan bill that aims to develop a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies, a milestone for Capitol Hill in its efforts to codify federal oversight for the digital asset industry. From a report: The bill passed by the House Financial Services Committee would define when a cryptocurrency is a security or a commodity and expand the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's (CFTC) oversight of the crypto industry, while clarifying the Securities and Exchange Commission's jurisdiction, as many crypto advocates complain of the agency's perceived overreach. A handful of Democrats, including Reps. Jim Himes and Ritchie Torres, joined committee Republicans in voting for the bill. The House Agriculture Committee is scheduled to consider the same bill Thursday. "As other jurisdictions like the UK, the [European Union], Singapore and Australia have moved forward with clear regulatory frameworks for digital assets, the United States is at risk of falling behind. We intend to change that today," said Representative Patrick McHenry, the Republican chair of the House Financial Services Committee, at the markup.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: As Hollywood executives insist it is "just not realistic" to pay actors -- 87 percent of whom earn less than $26,000 -- more, they are spending lavishly on AI programs. While entertainment firms like Disney have declined to go into specifics about the nature of their investments in artificial intelligence, job postings and financial disclosures reviewed by The Intercept reveal new details about the extent of these companies' embrace of the technology. In one case, Netflix is offering as much as $900,000 for a single AI product manager. [...] Netflix's posting for a $900,000-a-year AI product manager job makes clear that the AI goes beyond just the algorithms that determine what shows are recommended to users. The listing points to AI's uses for content creation: "Artificial Intelligence is powering innovation in all areas of the business," including by helping them to "create great content." Netflix's AI product manager posting alludes to a sprawling effort by the business to embrace AI, referring to its "Machine Learning Platform" involving AI specialists "across Netflix." A research section on Netflix's website describes its machine learning platform, noting that while it was historically used for things like recommendations, it is now being applied to content creation. "Historically, personalization has been the most well-known area, where machine learning powers our recommendation algorithms. We're also using machine learning to help shape our catalog of movies and TV shows by learning characteristics that make content successful. We use it to optimize the production of original movies and TV shows in Netflix's rapidly growing studio."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Waymo, the self-driving unit owned by Alphabet, is slowing the development of autonomous trucking that's being done by its Via subsidiary. From a report: "With our decision to focus on ride-hailing, we'll push back the timeline on our commercial and operational efforts on trucking, as well as most of our technical development on that business unit," the company said in a statement. "We'll continue our collaboration with our strategic partner, Daimler Truck North America, to advance technical development of an autonomous truck platform." The move comes as Alphabet is prioritizing financial discipline. The company said on Tuesday that it promoted Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat to president and chief investment officer, saying that it will stick to the more thrifty culture she has instilled. Self-driving technology has taken a step back in the past several years. Autonomous ventures like Waymo have spent billions of dollars in capital only to bring in little, if any revenue. Waymo has made more progress monetizing its robotaxi business than it has in trucking.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

OpenSignal blog: While eSIM adoption in the mobile market has been arriving for some time, Apple's move to make eSIM the only option for iPhone 14 range in the U.S. is propelling the worldwide shift towards eSIM technology. Opensignal's latest analysis reveals a significant surge in the proportion of users switching their operator among those who use an eSIM across seven examined markets -- Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, the U.K. and the U.S. The switch from physical to embedded SIM cards threatens to alter how consumers switch operators and encourages operators to adopt new tactics to retain and acquire users, for example operators can offer network trials from within an app that provisions an eSIM immediately. eSIM also means the risks to operators of dual SIM devices that have long been common in many international markets are arriving in operator-controlled markets too, such as the U.S. and South Korea. Even on smartphones sold by operators, eSIM support is usually present in addition to a physical SIM, making them dual-SIM devices. Google added eSIM-support to the Pixel range in 2017, Samsung added eSIM support to 2019's Galaxy S20 flagship. While Apple first added eSIM to their phones in 2018 with the iPhone Xs, it switched to selling exclusively eSIM models in the U.S. with the iPhone 14 range in late 2022. South Korea is also a special case -- eSIM support for domestic customers only began in mid-2022, before this point it was only available to international travelers. Notably, Samsung responded by introducing eSIM to a selection of its flagship devices in the home market, which had not been previously available there.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Customers have asked to run OpenAI models on non-Microsoft cloud services or on their own local servers, but OpenAI has no immediate plans to offer such options, Semafor reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: That means there's one area where rivals of the ChatGPT creator have an edge: flexibility. To use OpenAI's technology, paying customers have two choices: They can go directly through OpenAI or through investment partner Microsoft, which has inked a deal to be the exclusive cloud service for OpenAI. Microsoft will not allow OpenAI's models to be available on other cloud providers, according to a person briefed on the matter. Companies that exclusively use rivals, such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud or Oracle, can't be OpenAI customers.But Microsoft would allow OpenAI models to be offered "on premises" in which customers build their own servers. Creating such solutions would pose some challenges, particularly around OpenAI's intellectual property. But it is technically feasible, this person said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A team of Korean scientists claims to have created a room-temperature superconductor that also works at standard, ambient pressure. The work, however, is yet to be peer-reviewed. You can read their paper on Arxiv. Its abstract: For the first time in the world, we succeeded in synthesizing the room-temperature superconductor working at ambient pressure with a modified lead-apatite (LK-99) structure. The superconductivity of LK-99 is proved with the Critical temperature (TC), Zero-resistivity, Critical current (IC), Critical magnetic field (HC), and the Meissner effect. The superconductivity of LK-99 originates from minute structural distortion by a slight volume shrinkage (0.48 %), not by external factors such as temperature and pressure. The shrinkage is caused by Cu2+ substitution of Pb2+(2) ions in the insulating network of Pb(2)-phosphate and it generates the stress. It concurrently transfers to Pb(1) of the cylindrical column resulting in distortion of the cylindrical column interface, which creates superconducting quantum wells (SQWs) in the interface. The heat capacity results indicated that the new model is suitable for explaining the superconductivity of LK-99. The unique structure of LK-99 that allows the minute distorted structure to be maintained in the interfaces is the most important factor that LK-99 maintains and exhibits superconductivity at room temperatures and ambient pressure.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The U.S. is concealing a longstanding program that retrieves and reverse engineers unidentified flying objects, a former Air Force intelligence officer testified Wednesday to Congress. The Pentagon has denied his claims. Associated Press: Retired Maj. David Grusch's highly anticipated testimony before a House Oversight subcommittee was Congress' latest foray into the world of UAPs -- or "unidentified aerial phenomena," which is the official term the U.S. government uses instead of UFOs. While the study of mysterious aircraft or objects often evokes talk of aliens and "little green men," Democrats and Republicans in recent years have pushed for more research as a national security matter due to concerns that sightings observed by pilots may be tied to U.S. adversaries. Grusch said he was asked in 2019 by the head of a government task force on UAPs to identify all highly classified programs relating to the task force's mission. At the time, Grusch was detailed to the National Reconnaissance Office, the agency that operates U.S. spy satellites. "I was informed in the course of my official duties of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program to which I was denied access," he said. Asked whether the U.S. government had information about extraterrestrial life, Grusch said the U.S. likely has been aware of aoenon-humana activity since the 1930s. The Pentagon has denied Grusch's claims of a coverup. In a statement, Defense Department spokeswoman said investigators have not discovered "any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently." The statement did not address UFOs that are not suspected of being extraterrestrial objects, AP reported.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Some of the world's most advanced artificial intelligence companies have formed a group to research increasingly powerful AI and establish best practices for controlling it, as public anxiety and regulatory scrutiny over the impact of the technology increases. From a report: On Wednesday, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft and OpenAI launched the Frontier Model Forum, with the aim of "ensuring the safe and responsible development of frontier AI models." In recent months, the US companies have rolled out increasingly powerful AI tools that produce original content in image, text or video form by drawing on a bank of existing material. The developments have raised concerns about copyright infringement, privacy breaches and that AI could ultimately replace humans in a range of jobs. "Companies creating AI technology have a responsibility to ensure that it is safe, secure, and remains under human control," said Brad Smith, vice-chair and president of Microsoft. "This initiative is a vital step to bring the tech sector together in advancing AI responsibly and tackling the challenges so that it benefits all of humanity." Membership of the forum is limited only to the handful of companies building "large-scale machine-learning models that exceed the capabilities currently present in the most advanced existing models," according to its founders.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Wall Street's top regulator on Wednesday was poised to adopt new rules requiring publicly traded companies to disclose hacking incidents, a measure officials said was being taken to help the investing public contend with the mounting cost and frequency of cyber attacks. From a report: The five-member U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was also set to issue a proposal governing potential conflicts of interest in broker-dealers' use of artificial intelligence, a reform partly influenced by the events of the 2021 "meme stock" rally when officials found robo-advisers and brokers used AI and game-like features to drive trading. If adopted, the cybersecurity rule would require companies to disclose a cyber breach within four days after determining it is serious enough to be material to investors. The rule would allow delays if the Justice Department deems them necessary to protect national security or police investigations, according to the SEC. Companies will also have to describe periodically what efforts they are making to identify and manage threats in cyberspace. The rule, first proposed in March of 2022, forms part of a broader SEC effort to harden the financial system against data theft, systems failure and cyber-intrusions. Ahead of the vote, SEC officials said that in response to public comments they had trimmed certain parts of the proposal, removing a requirement for companies to disclose board members' expertise in cybersecurity and narrowing the definition of what information must be disclosed. The AI proposal, if issued by the commission, would require broker-dealers to "eliminate or neutralize" any conflict of interest that occurs if a trading platform's predictive data analytics puts the broker's financial interest ahead of that of the firm's clients.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A prominent journal has decided to retract a paper by Ranga Dias, a physicist at the University of Rochester in New York who has made controversial claims about discovering room-temperature superconductors -- materials that would not require any cooling to conduct electricity with zero resistance. From a report: The forthcoming retraction, of a paper published by Physical Review Letters (PRL) in 20211, is significant because the Nature news team has learnt that it is the result of an investigation that found apparent data fabrication. PRL's decision follows allegations that Dias plagiarized substantial portions of his PhD thesis and a separate retraction of one of Dias's papers on room-temperature superconductivity by Nature last September. After receiving an e-mail last year expressing concern about possible data fabrication in Dias's PRL paper -- a study, not about room-temperature superconductivity, but about the electrical properties of manganese disulfide (MnS2) -- the journal commissioned an investigation by four independent referees. Nature's news team has obtained documents about the investigation, including e-mails and three reports of its outcome, from sources who have asked to remain anonymous. "The findings back up the allegations of data fabrication/falsification convincingly," PRL's editors wrote in an e-mail obtained by Nature.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google and Apple dominate the market for online maps, charging mobile app developers for access to their mapping services. The other mega-cap tech companies are joining together to help create another option. From a report: A group formed by Meta, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, along with TomTom, is releasing data that could enable companies to build their own maps, without having to rely on Google or Apple. The Overture Maps Foundation, which was established late last year, captured 59 million "points of interest," such as restaurants, landmarks, streets and regional borders. The data has been cleaned and formatted so it can be used for free as the base layer for a new map application. Meta and Microsoft collected and donated the data to Overture, according to Marc Prioleau, executive director of the OMF. Data on places is often difficult to collect and license, and building map data requires lots of time and staff to gather and clean it, he told CNBC in an interview. "We have some companies that, if they wanted to invest to build the map data, they could," Prioleau said. Rather than spending that kind of money, he said, companies were asking, "Can we just get collaboration around the open base map?" Overture is aiming to establish a baseline for maps data so that companies can use it to build and operate their own maps.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Smartphones should be banned from schools to tackle classroom disruption, improve learning and help protect children from cyberbullying, a UN report has recommended. From a report: Unesco, the UN's education, science and culture agency, said there was evidence that excessive mobile phone use was linked to reduced educational performance and that high levels of screen time had a negative effect on children's emotional stability. It said its call for a smartphone ban sent a clear message that digital technology as a whole, including artificial intelligence, should always be subservient to a "human-centred vision" of education, and never supplant face-to-face interaction with teachers. Unesco warned policymakers against an unthinking embrace of digital technology, arguing that its positive impact on learning outcomes and economic efficiency could be overstated, and new was not always better. "Not all change constitutes progress. Just because something can be done does not mean it should be done," it concluded. With more learning moving online, especially in universities, it urged policymakers not to neglect the "social dimension" of education where students receive face-to-face teaching. "Those urging increasing individualisation may be missing the point of what education is about," it said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The tech giant and the Wall Street titan went from "the most successful credit card launch ever" to Goldman trying to exit the partnership. From a report: Apple and Goldman Sachs were in test runs before embarking publicly on one of the biggest-name partnerships ever between tech and finance. Engineers from the Silicon Valley giant and the Wall Street titan were pulling an all-nighter a few months before launch, scrambling to find a solution to a problem that had cropped up: Tim Cook couldn't get approved for an Apple Card. Apple and Goldman had struck the powerful alliance as they set out to build a revolutionary digital-first credit card with designs on expanding into other consumer finance products. For Goldman, it was a key opportunity to grow the consumer business it had jumped into as it sought to diversify away from the old-school Wall Street revenue model of trading and advising on deals. For Apple, it was a way to bolster its services business, broaden its finance offerings -- which began with Apple Pay -- and, maybe most importantly, prompt people to buy more iPhones. In October 2019, a couple of months after customers began signing up, Goldman CEO David Solomon described it as "the most successful credit card launch ever." Less than four years later -- and only a handful of months after the two companies extended their contract through the end of the decade -- the Apple-Goldman deal is teetering. Some of the partnership's shortcomings have blemished both companies' world-class reputations, and a falling-out could threaten future collaboration between Wall Street and tech at large. Goldman has been trying to get out of the pact because it won't be profitable enough for the bank in the near term, according to people familiar with the matter, and it has shopped the relationship to credit card issuer American Express.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon's Clubhouse rival, Amp, has struggled to get off the ground, documents shared with TechCrunch show. From the report: As part of the launch in March 2022, Amazon announced a slate of Amp-exclusive shows and programs, including from artists, radio hosts, sportscasters, culture writers and personalities like Nicki Minaj ("Queen Radio"), Tefi Pessoa and Guy Raz, among others. Amp launched on iOS, Amazon Alexa devices and the web in beta, only in the U.S. to start. Amazon was targeted at over 1 million monthly active users by the end of 2022, according to internal documents -- a tenth of Clubhouse's user base at its peak. But Amp never came close to achieving that milestone. Amp, which had roughly 32,000 monthly active users as of the end of March 2022, was sitting just short of 200,000 monthly active users by late October. (A source tells TechCrunch that the number is hovering around 700,000 today.) From September 2022 to October 2022, monthly first-time iOS app installs declined precipitously from ~76,000 to ~43,000, internal documents show. And Amp encountered roadblocks on the engagement front, despite its lineup of high-profile content. Between September 2022 and October 2022, the number of hours users spent listening to Amp shows dipped 51% from a peak of around 183,000. Even without access to internal data, it's obvious that Amp isn't the most active of the live audio platforms cohort.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel of the Federal Communications Commission proposes a new broadband standard of 100Mbps downloads and 20Mbps uploads, replacing the 2015's 25Mbps/3Mbps metric. From a report: "In today's world, everyone needs access to affordable, high-speed Internet, no exceptions," Rosenworcel said in the announcement today. "It's time to connect everyone, everywhere. Anything short of 100 percent is just not good enough." Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act requires the FCC to determine whether broadband is being deployed "on a reasonable and timely basis" to all Americans. If the answer is no, the US law says the FCC must "take immediate action to accelerate deployment of such capability by removing barriers to infrastructure investment and by promoting competition in the telecommunications market." The FCC's previous Section 706 reports analyzed availability and included data on adoption but didn't consider affordability. In her announcement today, Rosenworcel said she "recently shared with her colleagues an updated Notice of Inquiry that would kick off the agency's evaluation of the state of broadband across the country, as required by Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act. Chairwoman Rosenworcel proposes that the Commission consider several crucial characteristics of broadband deployment, including affordability, adoption, availability, and equitable access, when determining whether broadband is being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion to 'all Americans.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Federal Trade Commission is finalizing its long-awaited antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, POLITICO reported Tuesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter, a move that could ultimately break up parts of the company. From the report: The FTC has been investigating the company on a number of fronts, and the coming case would be one of the most aggressive and high-profile moves in the Biden administration's rocky effort to tame the power of tech giants. The wide-ranging lawsuit is expected as soon as August, and will likely challenge a host of Amazon's business practices, said the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss a confidential matter. If successful, it could lead to a court-ordered restructuring of the $1.3 trillion empire and define the legacy of FTC Chair Lina Khan. Khan rose to prominence as a Big Tech skeptic with a 2017 academic paper specifically identifying Amazon as a modern monopolist needing to be reined in. Because any case will likely take years to wind through the courts, the final result will rest with her successors. The exact details of the final lawsuit are not known, and changes to the final complaint are expected until the eleventh hour. But personnel throughout the agency, including Khan herself, have homed in on several of Amazon's business practices, said some of the people.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Following two years of testing, The Browser Company's Arc is graduating from its waitlist phase, launching its version 1.0. Arc, the Mac and iOS browser, aims to redefine online interaction by incorporating tools for note-taking, collaboration, webpage personalisation, among others. The Verge adds: We've covered Arc a lot in recent months, both because it's a good browser and because it's a big new idea about how you use the internet. The Browser Company's ultimate plan is to build "the operating system for the internet." Arc isn't just a place to see webpages; it has tools for taking notes, making visual and collaborative easels with others, redesigning webpages to your liking, and more. (Personally, I love Arc's picture-in-picture mode above everything else, especially now that it works with Google Meet calls.)Arc 1.0 doesn't seem to come with any splashy new features. Rather, The Browser Company seems to just feel like it's ready to launch more widely. Arc has been pretty stable for me in recent months, though it does run into some of the same performance issues you'll find with any browser based on the Chromium engine -- you can always open a couple dozen tabs and watch your computer grind to a halt.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: In January, artificial intelligence powerhouse OpenAI announced a tool that could save the world -- or at least preserve the sanity of professors and teachers -- by detecting whether a piece of content had been created using generative AI tools like its own ChatGPT. Half a year later, that tool is dead, killed because it couldn't do what it was designed to do. ChatGPT creator OpenAI quietly unplugged its AI detection tool, AI Classifier, last week because of "its low rate of accuracy," the firm said. The explanation was not in a new announcement, but added in a note added to the blog post that first announced the tool. The link to OpenAI's classifier is no longer available. "We are working to incorporate feedback and are currently researching more effective provenance techniques for text, and have made a commitment to develop and deploy mechanisms that enable users to understand if audio or visual content is AI-generated," OpenAI wrote.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Gulf Stream system could collapse as soon as 2025, a new study suggests. The shutting down of the vital ocean currents, called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (Amoc) by scientists, would bring catastrophic climate impacts. From a report: Amoc was already known to be at its weakest in 1,600 years owing to global heating and researchers spotted warning signs of a tipping point in 2021. The new analysis estimates a timescale for the collapse of between 2025 and 2095, with a central estimate of 2050, if global carbon emissions are not reduced. Evidence from past collapses indicate changes of temperature of 10C in a few decades, although these occurred during ice ages. Other scientists said the assumptions about how a tipping point would play out and uncertainties in the underlying data are too large for a reliable estimate of the timing of the tipping point. But all said the prospect of an Amoc collapse was extremely concerning and should spur rapid cuts in carbon emissions. Amoc carries warm ocean water northwards towards the pole where it cools and sinks, driving the Atlantic's currents. But an influx of fresh water from the accelerating melting of Greenland's ice cap and other sources is increasingly smothering the currents.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google Street View's cameras have returned to Germany more than a decade after a privacy backlash in the country pushed it to stop updating images. From a report: Alphabet's update will start with new photos of the streets and landmarks of the country's 20 largest cities and expand from there, the company said in a blog post on Tuesday. Google voluntarily suspended Street View photography in Germany in 2011, after an outcry from privacy advocates and opposition from regulators. "We've been back on the road with our vehicles in Germany since June and will be posting the latest images as they become available -- adding footage from other regions across the country," Sven Tresp, a program manager for Street View, wrote. Google is posting information about where its cameras are traveling, he said. The Street View rollout across Europe more than a decade ago triggered probes by data protection watchdogs across the European Union. The investigations included a probe by the Hamburg authority, where Google had its main German base. Some led to fines, including a $1.1 million penalty in Italy.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Council of the EU has adopted new rules intended to make it much easier for EV owners to travel across Europe, while simultaneously helping to reduce the output of harmful greenhouse gases. From a report: The new regulation is set to benefit owners of electric cars and vans in three ways: It reduces range anxiety by expanding the EV charging infrastructure along Europe's main highways, it makes payments "at the pump" easier without requiring an app or subscription, and ensures pricing and availability is clearly communicated to avoid surprises. From 2025 onward, the new regulation requires fast charging stations offering at least 150kW of power to be installed every 60km (37mi) along the EU's Trans-European Transport Network, or (TEN-T) system of highways, the bloc's main transport corridor. The fast charging network along European highways is already pretty robust, I discovered on a recent 3,000km (2,000 mile) roadtrip with a VW ID Buzz. This new law could all but eliminate range anxiety for those sticking to TEN-T roads.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Chainalysis' head of investigations doesn't seem to have a great understanding of whether her company's flagship software even works. From a report: Elizabeth Bisbee, head of investigations at Chainalysis Government Solutions, testified she was "unaware" of scientific evidence for the accuracy of Chainalysis' Reactor software used by law enforcement, an unreleased transcript of a June 23 hearing shared with CoinDesk shows. The fact that Chainalysis' blockchain demystification tools have become so widespread is a serious threat to the crypto ecosystem. Although industry insiders have raged against Chainalysis since it was founded, often accusing it of violating people's financial privacy, there may be a better argument to make against the company and analysis firms like it: it's within the realm of possibility that these "probabilistic" machines don't work as well as advertised. This is a big deal considering Chainalysis' surveillance tools are used widely across the industry for compliance, and have at times led to unjustified account restrictions and -- even worse -- land unsuspecting individuals on the radar of law enforcement agencies without probable cause.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google's newest proposed web standard is... DRM? Over the weekend the Internet got wind of this proposal for a "Web Environment Integrity API. " From a report: The explainer is authored by four Googlers, including at least one person on Chrome's "Privacy Sandbox" team, which is responding to the death of tracking cookies by building a user-tracking ad platform right into the browser. The intro to the Web Integrity API starts out: "Users often depend on websites trusting the client environment they run in. This trust may assume that the client environment is honest about certain aspects of itself, keeps user data and intellectual property secure, and is transparent about whether or not a human is using it." The goal of the project is to learn more about the person on the other side of the web browser, ensuring they aren't a robot and that the browser hasn't been modified or tampered with in any unapproved ways. The intro says this data would be useful to advertisers to better count ad impressions, stop social network bots, enforce intellectual property rights, stop cheating in web games, and help financial transactions be more secure. Perhaps the most telling line of the explainer is that it "takes inspiration from existing native attestation signals such as [Apple's] App Attest and the [Android] Play Integrity API." Play Integrity (formerly called "SafetyNet") is an Android API that lets apps find out if your device has been rooted. Root access allows you full control over the device that you purchased, and a lot of app developers don't like that. So if you root an Android phone and get flagged by the Android Integrity API, several types of apps will just refuse to run. You'll generally be locked out of banking apps, Google Wallet, online games, Snapchat, and some media apps like Netflix. [...] Google wants the same thing for the web. Google's plan is that, during a webpage transaction, the web server could require you to pass an "environment attestation" test before you get any data. At this point your browser would contact a "third-party" attestation server, and you would need to pass some kind of test. If you passed, you would get a signed "IntegrityToken" that verifies your environment is unmodified and points to the content you wanted unlocked. You bring this back to the web server, and if the server trusts the attestation company, you get the content unlocked and finally get a response with the data you wanted.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The European Union's plan to bolster domestic semiconductor production will become law after ministers completed the final approval on Tuesday. From a report: The EU's Chips Act, which was approved by the European Parliament earlier this month, will take effect once it's published in the bloc's Official Journal. The European Commission first proposed the $47.5 billion Chips Act as part of an ambitious goal of producing 20% of the world's semiconductors by 2030. Numerous companies, including Intel and STMicroelectronics, have already announced new sites in Europe.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Driven by a surge in demand for artificial intelligence, Taiwanese chip maker TSMC plans to invest nearly T$90 billion ($2.87 billion) in an advanced packaging facility in northern Taiwan, the company said on Tuesday. From a report: "To meet market needs, TSMC is planning to establish an advanced packaging fab in the Tongluo Science Park," the company said in a statement. CEO C.C. Wei said last week that TSMC is unable to fulfil customer demand driven by the AI boom and plans to roughly double its capacity for advanced packaging - which involves placing multiple chips into a single device, lowering the added cost of more powerful computing. For advanced packaging, especially TSMC's chip on wafer on substrate (CoWoS), capacity is "very tight," Wei said after the company reported a 23% fall in second-quarter profit. "We are increasing our capacity as quickly as possible. We expect this tightening will be released next year, probably towards the end of next year."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

By 1983 there were a whopping 2,000 pieces of software for Apple's pre-Macintosh computer, the Apple II - more than for any other machine in the world. It turns out this left a trail for one historian to understand The Apple II Age: How the Computer Became Personal. The new book (by New York University academic Laine Nooney) argues that it was the first purchasers of that software who are the true overlooked pioneers during the seven years before the Macintosh. And (as this reviewer explains, with quotes from the book), collectively they form the most compelling story about the history of Apple:It's about all those brave and curious people, the users, who came "Not to hack, but to play... Not to program, but to print..." And you can trace their activities in perfect detail through the decades-old software programs they left behind. It's a fresh and original approach to the history of technology. Yes, the Apple II competed with Commodore's PET 2001 and Tandy's TRS-80... [But] this trove of programs uniquely offers "a glimpse of what users did with their personal computers, or perhaps more tellingly, what users hoped their computers might do." Looking back in time, Nooney calls the period "one of unusually industrious and experimental software production, as mom-and-pop development houses cast about trying to create software that could satisfy the question, 'What is a computer even good for...?'" The book's jacket promises "a constellation of software creation stories," with each chapter revisiting an especially iconic program that also represents an entire category of software... [T]he book ultimately focuses more heavily on the lessons that can be learned from what programmers envisioned for these strange new devices - and how the software-buying public did (or didn't) respond... The earliest emergence of personal computing in America was "a wondrous mangle," Nooney writes, saying it turned into an era where "overnight entrepreneurs hastily constructed a consumer computing supply chain where one had never previously existed." Vice republished an excerpt in May which describes the "roiling debate" that took place over copy protection in 1981.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes: The US biofuel program is probably killing endangered species and harming the environment in a way that negates its benefits, but the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is largely ignoring those problems, a new federal lawsuit charges. The suit alleges the EPA failed to consider impacts on endangered species, as is required by law, when it set new rules that will expand biofuel use nationwide during the next three years, said Brett Hartl, government affairs director with the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), which brought the litigation. The agency has twice ignored court orders to study the impacts and is probably dodging the requirements because ethanol production "props up" the corn industry, which has a politically powerful lobby, Hartl added. "The Biden administration failed to even modestly reform this boondoggle and crumbled again in the face of political pressure from powerful special interests," Hartl said. "Our streams and rivers will choke with more pollution and coastal dead zones will continue to expand." The EPA said in a statement that it does not comment on ongoing litigation. About 40% of all corn grown in the US is used for ethanol production, and nearly half is used as animal feed.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CNN reports that "There is a 'gravity hole' in the Indian Ocean - a spot where Earth's gravitational pull is weaker, its mass is lower than normal, and the sea level dips by over 328 feet (100 meters)."This anomaly has puzzled geologists for a long time, but now researchers from the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru, India, have found what they believe is a credible explanation for its formation: plumes of magma coming from deep inside the planet, much like those that lead to the creation of volcanoes. To come to this hypothesis, the team used supercomputers to simulate how the area could have formed, going as far back as 140 million years. The findings, detailed in a study published recently in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, center around an ancient ocean that no longer exists. Humans are used to thinking about Earth as a perfect sphere, but that's far from the truth. "The Earth is basically a lumpy potato," said study coauthor Attreyee Ghosh, a geophysicist and associate professor at the Centre for Earth Sciences of the Indian Institute of Science. "So technically it's not a sphere, but what we call an ellipsoid, because as the planet rotates the middle part bulges outward." Our planet is not homogeneous in its density and its properties, with some areas being more dense than others - that affects Earth's surface and its gravity, Ghosh added. "If you pour water on the surface of the Earth, the level that the water takes is called a geoid - and that is controlled by these density differences in the material inside the planet, because they attract the surface in very different ways depending on how much mass there is underneath," she said. The "gravity hole" in the Indian Ocean - officially called the Indian Ocean geoid low - is the lowest point in that geoid and its biggest gravitational anomaly, forming a circular depression that starts just off India's southern tip and covers about 1.2 million square miles (3 million square kilometers).Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Binance, its founder Changpeng Zhao and the crypto exchange's former Chief Compliance Officer Samuel Lim plan to seek the dismissal of a Commodity Futures Trading Commission lawsuit. From a report: The response to the CFTC complaint is due July 27 and the defendants intend to submit motions to dismiss, according to a court filing on Monday. They also sought permission to exceed a 15-page limit on supporting briefs, citing the complexity of the case and the number of arguments they anticipate making. The CFTC in March alleged that Binance and CEO Zhao, also known as CZ, routinely broke US derivatives rules as the firm grew to be the world's largest digital-asset trading platform. Binance should have registered with the agency years ago and continues to violate the CFTC's rules, the regulator said at the time. The crypto platform previously described the CFTC lawsuit as "unexpected and disappointing." The US Securities & Exchange Commission last month accused Binance and Zhao of mishandling customer funds, misleading investors and regulators, and breaking securities rules. Binance has said that it intends to defend its platform "vigorously."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A group of cybersecurity researchers has uncovered what they believe is an intentional backdoor in encrypted radios used by police, military, and critical infrastructure entities around the world. The backdoor may have existed for decades, potentially exposing a wealth of sensitive information transmitted across them, according to the researchers. From a report: While the researchers frame their discovery as a backdoor, the organization responsible for maintaining the standard pushes back against that specific term, and says the standard was designed for export controls which determine the strength of encryption. The end result, however, are radios with traffic that can be decrypted using consumer hardware like an ordinary laptop in under a minute. "There's no other way in which this can function than that this is an intentional backdoor," Jos Wetzels, one of the researchers from cybersecurity firm Midnight Blue, told Motherboard in a phone call. The research is the first public and in-depth analysis of the TErrestrial Trunked RAdio (TETRA) standard in the more than 20 years the standard has existed. Not all users of TETRA-powered radios use the specific encryption algorithim called TEA1 which is impacted by the backdoor. TEA1 is part of the TETRA standard approved for export to other countries. But the researchers also found other, multiple vulnerabilities across TETRA that could allow historical decryption of communications and deanonymization. TETRA-radio users in general include national police forces and emergency services in Europe; military organizations in Africa; and train operators in North America and critical infrastructure providers elsewhere.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Alphabet's Google violated a software developer's patent rights with its remote-streaming technology and must pay $338.7 million in damages, a federal jury in Waco, Texas decided on Friday. From a report: The jury found that Google's Chromecast and other devices infringe patents owned by Touchstream Technologies related to streaming videos from one screen to another. Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said on Monday that the company will appeal the verdict and has "always developed technology independently and competed on the merits of our ideas." Touchstream attorney Ryan Dykal said on Monday that Touchstream was pleased with the verdict. New York-based Touchstream, which also does business as Shodogg, said in its 2021 lawsuit that founder David Strober invented technology in 2010 to "move" videos from a small device like a smartphone to a larger device like a television.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

What's old is hot again, and flip phones are so very hot right now. From a report: These phones are a far cry from the phone that you mastered T9 texting on in college. Today's flip phones are garden-variety 2023 smartphones that happen to fold in half -- plus a screen on the front cover. They've been making a kind of comeback over the past few years, but until now, they've existed in the shadows of their bigger, pricier fold-style counterparts. That's understandable, considering that their small cover screens haven't been good for much more than checking the weather and pressing pause on a podcast. But that's all changing this year: in a round of updates from Motorola, Oppo, and very likely Samsung next, cover screens are getting much larger and way more useful. And that's a big deal. Samsung will likely announce its fifth-generation Z Fold 5 and Z Flip 5 this week at Unpacked, which has become its annual summer foldable-fest. They'll be thinner and lighter than last year's models -- that's what TM Roh told us, anyway -- and will both likely use new hinges that fold totally flat. The Z Flip 5 is heavily rumored to come with a much bigger cover screen than previous generations. The Z Fold 5? Well, rumors point to a very boring update, frankly. [...] The previous generation of flip-style phones felt like a regular phone with a smartwatch on the front -- good for checking quick information but not a lot more. The new flippable cover screens sit in a more comfortable place between a smartwatch and a full-size phone. They're big enough to provide a lot more information at a glance than a watch, but you can't comfortably do everything you'd do on a normal phone screen. As a result, you get a little bit of your attention back that you would have spent mindlessly scrolling Instagram when all you wanted to do was check the weather.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In its latest attempt to boost revenue and cut losses, Spotify unveiled a widely telegraphed move to raise prices for its premium paying subscriber base. From a report: The new monthly cost for U.S. users will be $10.99, the company said. The hike brings Spotify in line with rivals Apple Music ($10.99 a month) and Amazon Music ($10.99, though cheaper for Prime members), which both raised prices last year. Slightly cheaper: YouTube Music ($9.99 a month), which has steadily built a major presence in the space with more than 80 million-plus combined music and premium subscribers. The price of the Premium Duo plan will go up by $2 to $14.99 per month, while the Family plan and Student plans rise by $1 to $16.99 and $5.99, respectively. "The market landscape has continued to evolve since we launched. So that we can keep innovating, we are changing our Premium prices across a number of markets around the world," the company said in a statement. "These updates will help us continue to deliver value to fans and artists on our platform." Spotify had 210 million global paying subscribers (a 15 percent increase year-over-year) and 515 million monthly active users as of March 31. Yet the audio giant has been operating at a loss and has been looking for ways to cut costs amid what CFO Paul Vogel called in late April a "very modest underperformance in advertising" revenue in its first quarter of 2023.Read more of this story at Slashdot.