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Earlier today, Microsoft unveiled three new Surface computers: the Surface Pro 9, Surface Laptop 5, and Surface Studio 2+. While this year's Surface Pro 9 remains very similar to last year's Surface Pro 8, it's being offered with refreshed Intel 12th-gen CPUs or a "new 5G-equipped model with a custom SQ 3 Arm chip," reports Engadget. From the report: If that sounds confusing to you, well, it is. We last saw the company's SQ chip in the 2020 Surface Pro X, a computer that we found both beautiful and frustrating, thanks to Windows' crummy software compatibility with Arm chips. To shift that problem over to a computer with the same name as its Intel sibling is a recipe for disaster. (We can just imagine the frustrated Best Buy shoppers who are dazzled with the idea of a 5G Surface, only to learn they can't run most of their traditional Windows apps.) The 5G Pro 9 is also broken down into millimeter-wave and Sub-6 variants, which will be sold in their respective markets. It's understandable why Microsoft isn't keen to keep the Surface Pro X moniker going -- the Pro 8 lifted many of its modern design cues, after all. But from what we've seen, Windows 11 doesn't solve the problems we initially had with the Pro X. After analyzing the product's tech specs, The Verge discovered that the Surface Pro 9 no longer appears to have a headphone jack. From the report: This seems to be the direct result of Microsoft bringing the Intel and Arm versions of the Surface Pro 9 together in the same chassis. The Surface Pro X has never had a 3.5mm jack, so now, the Intel hardware is coming in line with that design direction. But I'd argue it's a more controversial omission this time. Why? The new universal outer enclosure is essentially the same size as that of the Surface Pro 8. The Surface Pro X hardware was quite a bit thinner than Microsoft's Intel hardware at the time (and still now). So excising the 3.5mm jack made sense. But we've now lost the headphone jack for a chassis that's basically identical in dimensions to last year's model. They really couldn't fit one on there somewhere? Further reading: Microsoft's Surface Studio 2 Plus Ships With an RTX 3060 for $4,299Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Axios: TikTok is planning to build its own product fulfillment centers in the U.S., creating an e-commerce supply chain system that could directly challenge Amazon, as indicated by more than a dozen new job openings posted in the past two weeks to LinkedIn. The move signifies TikTok's commitment to e-commerce as its next major revenue stream, following the explosive growth of its ads business. "By providing warehousing, delivery, and customer service returns, our mission is to help sellers improve their operational capability and efficiency, provide buyers a satisfying shopping experience and ensure fast and sustainable growth of TikTok Shop," the company wrote in one job listing. According to the job postings, TikTok is looking to build an "international e-commerce fulfillment system" that will include international warehousing, customs clearings and supply chain systems that support domestic e-commerce efforts in the U.S. and cross-border e-commerce efforts. The systems will eventually perform parcel consolidation, along with transporting goods from one stage to the next and managing free returns. One position, a logistics solutions manager for a global fulfillment center, is looking for a Seattle-based employee to plan and design fulfillment centers and e-commerce logistics solutions that include the transportation of goods, order prediction and inventory management. Another Seattle-based role calls for the creation of a new fulfillment service center "from scratch." The center, the posting says, "is a global team responsible for developing and growing our logistics solution" and will include product fulfillment by TikTok Shop to its sellers by "providing warehousing, delivery, and customer service returns." While that role explicitly calls for the development of fulfillment services for TikTok's e-commerce logistics in the U.S., other roles reference a team that is responsible for a global logistics and warehousing network. For now, it does not appear that TikTok plans to build out its own transportation unit like Amazon. The job postings imply that TikTok would work with vendors to handle shipping, parcel consolidation and transportation. One job description for a fulfillment logistics manager implies that, like Amazon, TikTok is looking to develop a free return program.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

General Motors is creating a new energy business to sell batteries, charging equipment, solar panels, and software to residential and commercial customers in a broad-based effort to create a range of accessories that can help sell its lineup of electric vehicles. The Verge reports: The new division, GM Energy, is also a direct shot at Tesla as a major player in renewable energy generation and storage. GM has said it intends to eventually overtake Elon Musk's company in vehicles sales -- and now it wants to challenge it on the energy front as well. Travis Hester, GM's chief EV officer, said the company is making a serious grab for a piece of what is potentially a $120-150 billion market for energy generation and storage products. The aim is to make GM's brand synonymous with not just electric vehicles, but a whole host of products and services in orbit around EVs and their rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. GM Energy will be comprised of three units: Ultium Home, Ultium Commercial, and Ultium Charge 360, which is the company's EV charging program. The division will sell a range of products to residential and commercial customers, including bi-directional charging equipment, vehicle-to- home (V2H) and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) equipment, stationary storage, solar products, software applications, cloud management tools, microgrid solutions, and hydrogen fuel cells. GM Energy will also be in the virtual power plant business. Many EVs with high-capacity batteries are being marketed for their ability to serve as backup power in the event of a blackout. (Hester notes that the Chevy Silverado EV, with its 200kWh battery pack, can power an average sized home for 21 days.) EVs can also feed power back into the grid during times of peak demand. GM Energy will be the entity that sells that power back to the utilities during times of high-energy consumption. For solar energy, GM is teaming up with San Jose-based SunPower to sell solar panels and home energy storage products to residential customers. SunPower and other partners will supply the solar panels and perform the installations, with GM developing the complimentary software. Over time, as GM's battery factories come online and production of its Ultium-branded battery systems ramps up, the company intends on swapping in its own battery cells and storage units, Hester said. The automaker is also planning on manufacturing its own line of backup power generators using its Hydrotec-branded hydrogen fuel cells. (Ultium is the name of GM's electric vehicle battery and powertrain technology. Last year, the company said the Ultium Charge 360 network would be the name given to GM's own vehicle apps and software with a variety of third-party charging services, such as Blink, ChargePoint, EVgo, Flo, Greenlots, and SemaConnect.) "But much like its approach to EVs, the dates for the launch of these new products are still a ways off in the future," adds The Verge. "GM is still testing its V2H service in partnership with PG&E with a small sample of residential customers in California, and plans on expanding it to more homes in early 2023. And its solar products won't be available until 2024."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google has approved Donald Trump's Truth Social app for release in its Play Store, opening up a key distribution channel for the social network ahead of US midterm elections. Bloomberg reports: Google had previously declined to distribute the app, saying it needed to address the fact that it hosted violent threats and other content that goes against Google's standards. Google, which is owned by Alphabet Inc., confirmed on Wednesday that Truth Social was now available. Truth Social has agreed to take down content that violates Google's policies, Google said. Devin Nunes, chief executive officer of Trump Media & Technology Group, said in a statement that the development represented "a significant milestone in our mission to restore free speech online." "It's been a pleasure to work with Google, and we're glad they helped us to finally bring Truth Social to all Americans, regardless of what device they use," Nunes said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mullvad VPN has discovered that Android leaks traffic every time the device connects to a WiFi network, even if the "Block connections without VPN," or "Always-on VPN," features is enabled. BleepingComputer reports: The data being leaked outside VPN tunnels includes source IP addresses, DNS lookups, HTTPS traffic, and likely also NTP traffic. This behavior is built into the Android operating system and is a design choice. However, Android users likely didn't know this until now due to the inaccurate description of the "VPN Lockdown" features in Android's documentation. Mullvad discovered the issue during a security audit that hasn't been published yet, issuing a warning yesterday to raise awareness on the matter and apply additional pressure on Google. Android offers a setting under "Network & Internet" to block network connections unless you're using a VPN. This feature is designed to prevent accidental leaks of the user's actual IP address if the VPN connection is interrupted or drops suddenly. Unfortunately, this feature is undercut by the need to accommodate special cases like identifying captive portals (like hotel WiFi) that must be checked before the user can log in or when using split-tunnel features. This is why Android is configured to leak some data upon connecting to a new WiFi network, regardless of whether you enabled the "Block connections without VPN" setting. Mullvad reported the issue to Google, requesting the addition of an option to disable connectivity checks. "This is a feature request for adding the option to disable connectivity checks while "Block connections without VPN" (from now on lockdown) is enabled for a VPN app," explains Mullvad in a feature request on Google's Issue Tracker. "This option should be added as the current VPN lockdown behavior is to leaks connectivity check traffic (see this issue for incorrect documentation) which is not expected and might impact user privacy." In response to Mullvad's request, a Google engineer said this is the intended functionality and that it would not be fixed for the following reasons: - Many VPNs actually rely on the results of these connectivity checks to function, - The checks are neither the only nor the riskiest exemptions from VPN connections, - The privacy impact is minimal, if not insignificant, because the leaked information is already available from the L2 connection. Mullvad countered these points and the case remains open.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Researchers have grown brain cells in a lab that have learned to play the 1970s tennis-like video game, Pong. They say their "mini-brain" can sense and respond to its environment. Writing in the journal Neuron, Dr Brett Kagan, of the company Cortical Labs, claims to have created the first ''sentient'' lab-grown brain in a dish. Other experts describe the work as ''exciting'' but say calling the brain cells sentient is going too far. "We could find no better term to describe the device,'' Dr Kagan says. ''It is able to take in information from an external source, process it and then respond to it in real time." The research team: grew human brain cells grown from stem cells and some from mouse embryos to a collection of 800,000; connected this mini-brain to the video game via electrodes revealing which side the ball was on and how far from the paddle. In response, the cells produced electrical activity of their own. They expended less energy as the game continued. But when the ball passed a paddle and the game restarted with the ball at a random point, they expended more recalibrating to a new unpredictable situation. The mini-brain learned to play in five minutes. It often missed the ball -- but its success rate was well above random chance. Although, with no consciousness, it does not know it is playing Pong in the way a human player would, the researchers stress. Dr Kagan hopes the technology might eventually be used to test treatments for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's. "When people look at tissues in a dish, at the moment they are seeing if there is activity or no activity. But the purpose of brain cells is to process information in real time," he says. "Tapping into their true function unlocks so many more research areas that can be explored in a comprehensive way." Next, Dr Kagan plans to test the impact alcohol has on the mini-brain's ability to play Pong. If it reacts in a similar way to a human brain, this would underscore just how effective the system might be as an experimental stand-in. As the "mini-brains" become more complex, Dr Kagan's team says they'll be working with bioethicists to ensure they do not accidentally create a conscious brain. "We have to see this new technology very much like the nascent computer industry, when the first transistors were janky prototypes, not very reliable -- but after years of dedicated research, they led to huge technological marvels across the world," he says.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mark Zuckerberg said he enjoys "being doubted" in a new interview. From a report: The Meta CEO talked about where the company is now, and what's new for the metaverse, the big pivot he's currently leading his company through. Compared to building Facebook from the ground up, which he noted reached a billion users 10 years ago, growing the metaverse on top of an already built platform is "a lot easier." "I enjoy being doubted," Zuckerberg said, talking about building something over time. When Heath asked Zuckerberg how he still enjoys being doubted and why, Zuckerberg said he thinks "it gets a little comfortable" if "too many people get or think what you're doing is obviously going to happen." Zuckerberg said getting hate is different from being doubted, and that one of the difficult things about running his company and being a public person on the internet is separating constructive criticism and "people who are just haters." But, he said, listening to criticism can be useful. "If you tune out everyone who thinks that you're not doing something right, then you're going to miss a lot of really valuable signals to do stuff better than you're doing it today," Zuckerberg said. "So you want to not ignore critique, but at the same time, I just think that there are a lot of people who actually aren't trying to help and aren't trying to make things better." Further reading: Mark Zuckerberg Says Waking Up Every Day as CEO of Meta is Like Getting Punched in the Stomach.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft today announced a few user-facing updates to its Edge browser. The most important of these is likely Edge Workspaces, a new feature (currently in preview) that will allow teams to share browser tabs. From a report: Microsoft argues that this feature can be useful when bringing on new team members to an existing project. Instead of sharing lots of links and files, the team can simply share a single like to an Edge Workspace (which will then likely consist of lots of links and files, but hey, at least it's just one link to share). As the project evolves, the tabs are updated in real time. I guess that's a use case. We've seen our share of extensions that do similar things, none of which ever get very popular. Meanwhile, teams share these links and files in other ways (think Confluent, etc.). On the security front, Microsoft is bringing typo protection for website URLs to the browser, promising to protect "users from accidentally navigating to online fraud sites after misspelling the website address by suggesting the website that the user intended." Nothing too complicated here, and a useful feature for sure.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CNN has ended its big Web3 project by announcing, "we have decided that it's time to say goodbye to the Vault by CNN." From a report: You may have already forgotten about it, but Vault by CNN launched in the summer of 2021 as a marketplace for its own NFTs (non-fungible tokens) that would "offer collectors the opportunity to own a piece of history." Sort of like NBA Top Shot except for media nerds instead of basketball nerds, it minted CNN reports of key events or artistic interpretations inspired by them, creating digital collectibles that owners could show off somehow or trade with others, like baseball cards. This idea apparently seemed more reasonable while cryptocurrency prices were sky-high, and headlines about NFTs didn't include phrases like "trading volumes collapse 97 percent since January peak." Things have obviously changed as the "crypto winter" settled in, although an April report by the Press Gazette said CNN had pulled in more than $300,000 from the sales. Reactions from the community included shock, disappointment, and a few posters saying they planned to contact their lawyers while accusing CNN of a "rug pull," which in crypto terms applies when a development team unexpectedly yanks support -- and funds -- from a project, leaving the people who bought in with nothing.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Project Starline, Google's experimental technology using holographic light field displays to video chat with distant co-workers, is moving out of Google's offices and into some real corporate locations for testing starting this year. From a report: Google's Project Starline tech, announced last year at the company's I/O developer conference, uses giant light field displays and an array of cameras to record and display 3D video between two people at two different remote locations. Starline prototypes are being installed at Salesforce, WeWork, T-Mobile and Hackensack Meridian Health offices as part of the early-access program, with each company that's part of the program getting two units to test for start.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As online gaming platform Roblox confronts a lawsuit alleging it enabled a California girl's exploitation, its chief scientist said finding dangerous content in the company's virtual world is nothing like spotting it in video. From a report: "It's such a challenge to moderate 3D," said Morgan McGuire in an interview at the Reuters Momentum conference in Austin on Tuesday. He had no comment on the recent lawsuit but said Roblox was built with safety and civility at the forefront. San Mateo, Calif.-based Roblox is deploying bots to patrol user-generated games and press buttons to detect any dangerous content that players have disguised. "This is more like shutting down speakeasies," he said, referring to U.S. prohibition-era bars hiding from law enforcement. BBC reported this year that users had created explicit private spaces, known as "condos," where people's digital avatars could engage in virtual sex.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: In case you follow the smartphone industry, particularly on YouTube and Twitter, you'd know that there have been recent reports of Samsung phones that are ... "blowing up", or at least about to. Of course, to most, that'd probably bring immediate Galaxy Note 7 flashbacks - we all remember when Samsung's 2016 flagship phone became the subject of universal entry checks, jokes, and legitimate fires. Despite trying, in the end Samsung wasn't able to handle the Note 7 battery crisis. The company recalled the defective phones and released a fresh batch of Note 7s (after having changed its battery supplier). The issues persisted, and the Note 7 was eventually officially discontinued less than two months after its official launch. But this time, the case is slightly different... The recently reported battery issues seem to be affecting any Samsung phone (as recent as 18 months old) that isn't used/charged regularly. Simply put, you could have a Samsung phone that's been sitting in a drawer for some time (without having been charged). This device could then suddenly start expanding and might eventually start looking like it was split in half due to a bloated battery. At this point, the cell would be expanding further and further until it's taken care of or... not (which could lead to an explosion or/and a fire). Popular YouTuber Arun did a video on this late last month and has corroborated his account with several other people.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Android Developers Blog: Passkeys are a significantly safer replacement for passwords and other phishable authentication factors. They cannot be reused, don't leak in server breaches, and protect users from phishing attacks. Passkeys are built on industry standards and work across different operating systems and browser ecosystems, and can be used for both websites and apps. Passkeys follow already familiar UX patterns, and build on the existing experience of password autofill. For end-users, using one is similar to using a saved password today, where they simply confirm with their existing device screen lock such as their fingerprint. Passkeys on users' phones and computers are backed up and synced through the cloud to prevent lockouts in the case of device loss. Additionally, users can use passkeys stored on their phone to sign in to apps and websites on other nearby devices. Today's announcement is a major milestone in our work with passkeys, and enables two key capabilities: Users can create and use passkeys on Android devices, which are securely synced through the Google Password Manager. Developers can build passkey support on their sites for end-users using Chrome via the WebAuthn API, on Android and other supported platforms. To try this today, developers can enroll in the Google Play Services beta and use Chrome Canary. Both features will be generally available on stable channels later this year. Our next milestone in 2022 will be an API for native Android apps. Passkeys created through the web API will work seamlessly with apps affiliated with the same domain, and vice versa. The native API will give apps a unified way to let the user pick either a passkey or a saved password. Seamless, familiar UX for both passwords and passkeys helps users and developers gradually transition to passkeys. For the end-user, creating a passkey requires just two steps: (1) confirm the passkey account information, and (2) present their fingerprint, face, or screen lock when prompted. Signing in is just as simple: (1) The user selects the account they want to sign in to, and (2) presents their fingerprint, face, or screen lock when prompted. A passkey on a phone can also be used to sign in on a nearby device. For example, an Android user can now sign in to a passkey-enabled website using Safari on a Mac. Similarly, passkey support in Chrome means that a Chrome user, for example on Windows, can do the same using a passkey stored on their iOS device. Since passkeys are built on industry standards, this works across different platforms and browsers - including Windows, macOS and iOS, and ChromeOS, with a uniform user experience.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The first two satellites of Amazon's space-based internet constellation will be launched early next year on the maiden flight of a new rocket being developed by one of the U.S. Space Force's biggest contractors. In an announcement Wednesday, Amazon said it would hitch a ride on the new Vulcan rocket being developed by the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin. From a report: The prototype satellites, part of Amazon's Kuiper system that would beam the internet to stations on the ground, were initially scheduled to launch by the end of this year by rocket start-up ABL Space Systems. But delays and the opportunity to launch with ULA, which was already contracted for 47 launches of satellites for Amazon, compelled the company to switch rockets, Rajeev Baydal, the vice president of technology for Project Kuiper, said in an interview. Amazon has permission from the Federal Communications Commission to put up 3,236 satellites, helping connect people without easy access to broadband, as it seeks to compete with SpaceX's Starlink system. The company has pledged to invest more than $10 billion into a system it says will serve not only individual households, but also schools, hospitals and businesses that don't have access to reliable broadband. Baydal said that Amazon now has 1,000 people working on the project as it seeks to grab a part of the lucrative internet market taking hold in space.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

British artist Damien Hirst is among the many art-world giants who have set fire to their work, having burned 1,000 of his artworks Tuesday. From a report: He streamed the event on Instagram and is set to burn thousands more works of art. It's part of his project "The Currency." It consists of a collection of 10,000 NFTs. Each non-fungible token corresponds to a physical painting featuring his signature multicolored dots, made from enamel paint on handmade paper. The pieces were initially available for $2,000, which is affordable compared with what Hirst's work has been known to go for. "A lot of people think I'm burning millions of dollars of art but I'm not, I'm completing the transformation of these physical artworks into nfts by burning the physical versions," Hirst wrote in an Instagram caption. "the value of art digital or physical which is hard to define at the best of times will not be lost it will be transferred to the nft as soon as they are burnt." A year after buying a piece from "The Currency," collectors had to make a choice. They could either take the painting, meaning they would lose the NFT, or hold onto the NFT, meaning the painting would be burned.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

schwit1 shares a report: A Wall Street Journal investigation revealed that thousands of officials across the U.S. government's executive branch disclosed owning or trading stocks that stood to rise or fall with decisions their agencies made. Across 50 federal agencies ranging from the Commerce Department to the Treasury Department, more than 2,600 officials reported stock investments in companies while those companies were lobbying their agencies for favorable policies, during both Republican and Democratic administrations. When the financial holdings caused a conflict, the agencies sometimes simply waived the rules. The Office of Government Ethics, which oversees the conflict-of-interest rules across the executive branch, is "committed to transparency and citizen oversight of government," said a spokeswoman. Among the findings of the investigation, which is the most comprehensive analysis of stock trading by officials in the executive branch of the government:Numerous federal officials owned shares of companies lobbying their agencies: More than 200 senior officials at the Environmental Protection Agency, or nearly one in three, reported that they or their family members held investments in companies that were lobbying the agency.Issues emerged at a wide array of agencies: At the Defense Department, officials in the office of the secretary or their family members collectively owned between $1.2 million and $3.4 million of stock in aerospace and defense companies, on average, during years the Journal examined. Some owned stock in Chinese companies while the U.S. considered blacklisting the companies.Some officials traded ahead of regulatory actions: More than five dozen officials at five agencies reported trading stocks of companies shortly before their departments announced enforcement actions against those companies, such as charges or settlements.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft is making a major investment in DALL-E 2, OpenAI's AI-powered system that generates images from text, by bringing it to first-party apps and services. During its Ignite conference this week, Microsoft announced that it's integrating DALL-E 2 with the newly announced Microsoft Designer app and Image Creator tool in Bing and Microsoft Edge. From a report: With the advent of DALL-E 2 and open source alternatives like Stable Diffusion in recent years, AI image generators have exploded in popularity. In September, OpenAI said that more than 1.5 million users were actively creating over 2 million images a day with DALL-E 2, including artists, creative directors and authors. Brands such as Stitch Fix, Nestle and Heinz have piloted DALL-E 2 for ad campaigns and other commercial use cases, while certain architectural firms have used DALL-E 2 and tools akin to it to conceptualize new buildings.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's been a long time since Microsoft updated its Surface Studio line of all-in-one PCs. While rumors had suggested a Surface Studio 3 was on the way, Microsoft is debuting its Surface Studio 2 Plus today instead -- an upgrade on the Surface Studio 2 that launched four years ago. It includes some important upgrades on the inside, but the exterior is practically the same, and it all starts at an eye-watering $4,299. From a report: The Surface Studio 2 Plus will ship with Intel's 11th Gen Core i7-11370H processor, a chip that's rapidly approaching two years on the market. We're about to enter Intel's 13th Gen era, so it's hugely disappointing to see Microsoft not move to 12th Gen H series chips or wait for Intel's latest and greatest. "Our goal was ship to market sooner, especially for a lot of our commercial customers... so we focused on stability and supply with known good parts because the difference from 11th to 12th Gen on the H series wasn't something we needed to push for," explains Pete Kyriacou, vice president of program management at Microsoft, in an interview with The Verge. Despite the disappointing CPU choice, Microsoft has opted for a graphics card upgrade here. The Surface Studio 2 Plus comes with Nvidia's RTX 3060 laptop GPU with 6GB of VRAM. Microsoft has redesigned its Surface Studio 2 Plus motherboard, and the RTX 3060 itself will be running at around 60-70 watts in a laptop configuration. Microsoft hides all of the components in the Studio 2 Plus inside a little laptop-like enclosure underneath the 28-inch display.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: The attorney general of New York has changed the rules of a state gun buyback program, after a participant exploited the system by using a 3D printer to make firearm parts in bulk that he then exchanged for $21,000 in gift cards. The seller, who identified himself by a pseudonym, said he traveled from West Virginia to a gun buyback on August 27 in Utica, New York, to take advantage of a loophole in the program -- and to demonstrate that buybacks are futile in an era of printable weapons. At the buyback, the seller turned in 60 printed auto sears, small devices that can convert firearms into fully automatic weapons. Under the rules of the buyback, hosted by the office of the attorney general, Letitia James, and city police, that entitled him to $350 for each of the printed parts, including a $100 premium, since they were deemed "ghost guns" lacking serial numbers. The seller, who declined to provide his real name, said in an email on Monday the prospect of making money was enticing, but that the big reason he took part in the buyback was to send a message. James' office said it responded to the loophole by giving buyback personnel more discretion to determine the value of weapons being handed in, and setting a standard that all 3D-printed guns accepted by the program must be capable of being fired more than once. The new rules were in place by September 17, when the attorney general's office hosted a gun buyback in a Syracuse suburb, Camillus. "It's shameful that this individual exploited a program that has successfully taken thousands of guns off the streets to protect our communities from gun violence," the attorney general's office said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google has announced what it's calling "the world's first laptops built for cloud gaming," less than two weeks after announcing plans to shut down Stadia. Forbes reports: Google says the Acer Chromebook 516 GE, ASUS Chromebook Vibe CX55 Flip and Lenovo Ideapad Gaming Chromebook all have refresh rates of at least 120Hz, displays with up to 1600p resolution, immersive audio and, critically for cloud gaming, WiFi 6 or 6E connectivity. Some models have RGB keyboards too. Subject to availability, you may get a SteelSeries Rival 3 gaming mouse at no extra cost if you pick up one of these Chromebooks. All three laptops were benchmarked by GameBench to ensure that they're capable of running games at 120 frames per second at 1080p resolution. You should get input latency of under 85 ms as well. Google notes that's "console-class" input latency. [...] Google is bringing some neat cloud gaming features to these Chromebooks. For one thing, the devices will support Xbox Cloud Gaming, Amazon Luna and NVIDIA GeForce Now. In the latter case, Google worked with NVIDIA to ensure these Chromebooks support GeForce Now's highest RTX 3080 tier. That enables cloud gaming at 120 fps at a resolution of 1600p on these systems, which come with the GeForce Now app preinstalled. You'll also be able to install Xbox Cloud Gaming as a web app on your Chromebook. Additionally, these Chromebooks will come with three-month trials for both the GeForce Now RTX 3080 tier and Amazon Luna. Meanwhile, it could be pretty easy for you to find and start playing games on these services through ChromeOS. If you search for a game in the launcher (i.e. through the Everything Button), you'll see where it is available. You'll then be able to load up the game with a single click. To begin with, this feature will be compatible with GeForce Now and the Play Store. "It's good to see that Google hasn't entirely given up on cloud gaming," adds Forbes. "Still, the timing of this announcement comes at a very odd time."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Diana Kwon writes via Scientific American: A Scottish woman named Joy Milne made headlines in 2015 for an unusual talent: her ability to sniff out people afflicted with Parkinson's disease, a progressive neurodegenerative illness that is estimated to affect nearly a million people in the U.S. alone. Since then a group of scientists in the U.K. has been working with Milne to pinpoint the molecules that give Parkinson's its distinct olfactory signature. The team has now zeroed in on a set of molecules specific to the disease -- and has created a simple skin-swab-based test to detect them. [...] The researchers used mass spectrometry to identify types and quantities of molecules in a sample of sebum, an oily substance found on the skin's surface. They discovered changes to fatty molecules known as lipids in people with Parkinson's. In their latest study, published on September 7 in the American Chemical Society journal JACS Au, the researchers revealed the results of using a simple skin-swab-based test to detect the lipid signature that is indicative of Parkinson's. By comparing sebum samples from 79 people with Parkinson's and 71 people without the illness, the team zeroed in on a set of large lipids that could be detected in a matter of minutes using a special type of mass spectrometry in which substances are rapidly transferred from a swab to an analyzer using just a piece of paper. "I think it's a very promising set of biomarkers," says Blaine Roberts, a biochemist at Emory University, who wasn't involved in the work. He adds that one of the big open questions that remains is how exacting this test can be. While the authors of the September 7 study reported the detailed chemical profile of the unique Parkinson's signature, they did not include an assessment of its accuracy. According to Barran, based on not-yet-published data, their test appears to be able to determine whether an individual has Parkinson's with more than 90 percent accuracy. [...] The team is now working with local hospitals to determine whether this sebum-based test can also be conducted in clinical labs -- a key step toward determining whether it can be used as a diagnostic tool. Ultimately, Barran says, the hope is to use the test to help identify individuals who have been referred to their neurologists by their general practitioner for suspected Parkinson's so they can receive a faster diagnosis. The researchers are also working with a group at Harvard "to determine whether sebum-based biomarkers are detectable in people who have constipation, a reduced sense of smell or other early signs of Parkinson's but have not yet received a diagnosis," reports Kwon. Meanwhile, Milne is working with scientists to sniff out people with Alzheimer's, cancer, and tuberculosis -- all of which she says have a unique smell.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A voice synthesis company based in Dubai has published a fictional podcast interview between Joe Rogan and Steve Jobs using realistic voices digitally cloned from both men. It takes place during the "first episode" of a purported podcast series called "Podcast.ai," created by Play.ht, which sells voice synthesis services. Further reading: ArsTechnica.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Intel is planning a major reduction in headcount, likely numbering in the thousands, to cut costs and cope with a sputtering personal-computer market, according to people with knowledge of the situation. The layoffs will be announced as early as this month, with the company planning to make the move around the same time as its third-quarter earnings report on Oct. 27, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private. The chipmaker had 113,700 employees as of July. Some divisions, including Intel's sales and marketing group, could see cuts affecting about 20% of staff, according to the people. Intel is facing a steep decline in demand for PC processors, its main business, and has struggled to win back market share lost to rivals like Advanced Micro Devices Inc. In July, the company warned that 2022 sales would be about $11 billion lower than it previously expected. Analysts are predicting a third-quarter revenue drop of roughly 15%. And Intel's once-enviable margins have shriveled: They're about 15 percentage points narrower than historical numbers of around 60%. During its second-quarter earnings call, Intel acknowledged that it could make changes to improve profits. "We are also lowering core expenses in calendar year 2022 and will look to take additional actions in the second half of the year," Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger said at the time. Intel's last big wave of layoffs occurred in 2016, when it trimmed about 12,000 jobs, or 11% of its total. The company has made smaller cuts since then and shuttered several divisions, including its cellular modem and drone units. Like many companies in the technology industry, Intel also froze hiring earlier this year, when market conditions soured and fears of a recession grew. Gelsinger took the helm at Intel last year and has been working to restore the company's reputation as a Silicon Valley legend. But even before the PC slump, it was an uphill fight. Intel lost its long-held technological edge, and its own executives acknowledge that the company's culture of innovation withered in recent years. Now a broader slowdown is adding to those challenges. Intel's PC, data center and artificial intelligence groups are contending with a tech spending downturn, weighing on revenue and profit.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Cameco and Brookfield Renewable Partners said on Tuesday they would acquire nuclear power plant equipment maker Westinghouse Electric in a $7.9-billion deal including debt, amid renewed interest in nuclear energy. Reuters reports: The deal for one of the most storied names in the American power industry at an equity value of $4.5 billion comes at a time when nuclear power is seeing an uptick in interest amid an energy crisis in Europe and soaring crude oil and natural gas prices. Nuclear power is also key for countries to meet global net-zero carbon emission goals and could be on the cusp of a boom seen after the 1970s oil crisis. Cameco will own 49% of Westinghouse, while Brookfield Renewable and its institutional partners will own the rest. Westinghouse was acquired from Toshiba by Brookfield Business Partners , an affiliate of Canadian asset manager Brookfield, out of bankruptcy in 2018, for $4.6 billion, including debt. Brookfield Business said in a separate statement it expects to generate about $1.8 billion in proceeds from the sale of its 44% stake in Westinghouse, with the balance distributed among institutional partners. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2023. Brookfield Renewable and its partners will pay about $2.3 billion for the deal, whereas Cameco will incur equity costs of about $2.2 billion. Westinghouse's existing debt structure will remain in place.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

During Meta Connect today, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the company is partnering with Meta to bring its biggest services -- Teams, Office, Windows, and even Xbox Cloud Gaming -- to Meta's Quest VR headsets. The Verge reports: It's a surprise partnership that will see Microsoft and Meta combine their strengths. Microsoft sees an opportunity to bring Teams and its other productivity experiences to a capable VR headset, and Meta gets a key partner in its grand metaverse plan. [...] The Teams experience the new Quest Pro and Quest 2 headsets will even include Microsoft adapting Meta's avatar system for Teams and Teams getting support within Meta's own Horizon Workrooms. "People will be able to join a Teams meeting directly from Workrooms," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the event. "We think that this cross-device, cross-screen experience will be the foundation of the virtual office of the future." This virtual office of the future won't just be about meetings. Microsoft is bringing Windows 365 to Quest, the company's platform for streaming full versions of Windows to devices. "With Windows 365 coming to Quest, you'll have a new way to securely stream the entire Windows experience, including all the personalized apps, content, and settings to your VR device with the full power of Windows and Windows applications," Nadella said. Microsoft is also bringing 2D versions of its Office apps to Quest through its Progressive Web Apps (PWA) technology. These won't be full-blown 3D versions of Office designed for VR, but if there's an appetite for VR in the enterprise, then it's easy to imagine Microsoft adapting them in the future. Xbox Cloud Gaming will even make its way to Meta's Quest VR headsets, allowing Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers to stream games. It's not going to be as immersive as a native VR experience for Xbox games, but you'll be able to pick up an Xbox controller and play them on a giant screen projected inside a Quest headset. Earlier today, Meta announced the Meta Quest Pro: a $1,499 virtual reality headset it's been teasing for the past year. They also announced a big addition to their updated higher-detail avatars: legs.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Citing rules issued by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), German airliner Lufthansa says it is banning activated Apple AirTags from luggage "as they are classified as dangerous and need to be turned off." Slashdot reader AmiMoJo first shared the news with us. The New York Times reports: Lufthansa, a German airline, set off confusion recently after telling passengers that they could not use trackers like Apple AirTags in checked baggage because of international guidelines for personal electronic devices. Apple rejected that interpretation on Tuesday, saying its trackers comply with all regulations. It does not appear that any other airlines are requiring passengers to turn off the trackers, which have become popular as a way to find lost baggage. Lufthansa found itself in the middle of the issue when reports surfaced in the German news media that the devices were prohibited. Though Lufthansa said it has no desire to prohibit the devices that it deemed safe, the airline seems to have stepped in a mess based on the reading of obscure international guidelines and regulations, with no clear consensus on what is and is not allowed in Europe. Lufthansa said on Sunday on Twitter that the trackers must be deactivated in checked baggage on its flights, citing the International Civil Aviation Organization's guidelines for dangerous goods as well as the trackers' "transmission function." Shutting off the trackers renders them useless. The airline has not issued a specific policy prohibiting baggage trackers. Rather, it says it is at the mercy of the rules. On Tuesday, the airline said it was "in close contact with the respective institutions to find a solution as quickly as possible." It also indicated its own examination saw no danger from their use. "The Lufthansa Group has conducted its own risk assessment with the result that tracking devices with very low battery and transmission power in checked luggage do not pose a safety risk," said Martin Leutke, a Lufthansa spokesman. "We have never issued a ban on devices like that. It is on the authorities to adapt regulations that right now limit the use of these devices for airline passengers in checked luggage." In its statement, Apple said that AirTags are "compliant with international airline travel safety regulations for carry-on and checked baggage."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Drivers using advanced driver assistance systems like Tesla Autopilot or General Motors Super Cruise often treat their vehicles as fully self-driving despite warnings, a new study has found. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), an industry funded group that prods automakers to make safer vehicles, said on Tuesday a survey found regular users of Super Cruise, Nissan/Infiniti ProPILOT Assist and Tesla Autopilot "said they were more likely to perform non-driving-related activities like eating or texting while using their partial automation systems than while driving unassisted." The IIHS study of 600 active users found 53% of Super Cruise, 42% of Autopilot and 12% of ProPILOT Assist owners "said that they were comfortable treating their vehicles as fully self-driving." About 40% of users of Autopilot and Super Cruise -- two systems with lockout features for failing to pay attention -- reported systems had at some point switched off while they were driving and would not reactivate. "The big-picture message here is that the early adopters of these systems still have a poor understanding of the technology's limits," said IIHS President David Harkey.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nike wants to keep a closer eye on resellers. In a sweeping update to its rules for U.S. shoppers this month, the sneaker giant said it could cancel orders placed with automated ordering software or technology on its website or apps. From a report: The company also said it could charge restocking fees, decline to issue refunds or suspend the accounts of people it determines are buying its shoes, apparel or other items with the intent to resell them. Orders that exceed product purchase limits -- which Nike can implement on highly coveted items -- could be rejected, according to the revised rules posted on Nike's website. Nike previously prohibited the purchase of products for resale but the rules update expands the company's response if it identifies such activity taking place. Its rules had also banned purchases deemed to be fraudulent but didn't explicitly mention the use of specialized software, known as bots.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Meta didn't hold back with their announcements at Meta Connect this year. As Facebook has done every year or so, the company is shaking up their avatar products. From a report: This year as Meta focuses more heavily on the metaverse, the company made a big addition to their updated higher-detail avatars: legs. The announcement that the avatars, which were previously floating torsos with arms and heads, now have evolved to walk was something Zuckerberg was very excited about with his avatar jumping for joy during the keynote.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Epic Games and Match Group are looking to fortify their antitrust lawsuits against Google by adding new counts to their initial complaint, filed last year, which illustrate the lengths Google supposedly went to in order to dominate the Android app market. From a report: The companies on Friday filed a motion to amend their complaints in their cases against Google, which now allege that Google paid off business rivals not to start other app stores that would put them in competition with Google Play. This would be a direct violation of U.S. antitrust law known as the Sherman Act, the amended complaint states. [...] Now, Epic Games and Match Group are looking to add to their complaint with two new allegations specifying how Google had either paid or otherwise induced its potential competitors to agree to not distribute apps on Android in competition with the Play Store, including through their own competing app stores. Google, it says, had identified developers who were "most at risk...of attrition from Play" and then approached them with an offer of an agreement. The complaint now deems this a "per se" violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, which prohibits "every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations," it says.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Intel and Google Cloud on Tuesday said they have launched a co-designed chip that can make data centers more secure and efficient. From a report: The E2000 chip, code named Mount Evans, takes over the work of packaging data for networking from the expensive central processing units (CPU) that do the main computing. It also offers better security between different customers that may be sharing CPUs in the cloud, explained Google's vice president of engineering, Amin Vahdat. Chips are made up of basic processors called cores. There can be hundreds of cores on a chip and sometimes information can bleed between them. The E2000 creates secure routes to each core to prevent such a scenario. Companies are running increasingly complex algorithms, using progressively bigger data sets, at a time when the performance improvement of chips like CPUs is slowing down. Cloud companies are therefore looking for ways to make the data center itself more productive.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google said Tuesday that it will rely on Coinbase to start letting some customers pay for cloud services with cryptocurrencies early in 2023, while Coinbase said it would draw on Google's cloud infrastructure. From a report: The deal, announced at Google's Cloud Next conference, might succeed in luring cutting-edge companies to Google in a fierce, fast-growing market, where Google's top competitors do not currently permit clients to pay with digital currencies. The cloud business helps diversify Google parent Alphabet away from advertising, and it now accounts for 9% of revenue, up from less than 6% three years ago, as it is expanding more quickly than Alphabet as a whole. Coinbase, which generates a majority of its revenue from retail transactions, will move data-related applications to Google from the market-leading Amazon Web Services cloud, which Coinbase has relied on for years, said Jim Migdal, Coinbase's vice president of business development. The Google Cloud Platform infrastructure service will initially accept cryptocurrency payments from a handful of customers in the Web3 world who want to pay with cryptocurrency, thanks to an integration with the Coinbase Commerce service, said Amit Zavery, vice president and general manager and head of platform at Google Cloud, in an interview with CNBC.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As Meta makes deeper inroads with businesses on WhatsApp, its biggest bet to monetize the instant messaging app with over 2 billion users, we are getting an early glimpse at how user experience might change on the free app. It's not great. From a report: Scores of people in India, WhatsApp's largest market by users with over 500 million accounts, have complained about getting too many spam texts from businesses in recent months. WhatsApp, which quickly displaced the SMS app in the country by offering free texts, is increasingly looking like that SMS app, users say. Thousands of brands in India have signed up for WhatsApp, consistently succeeding in reaching eyeballs of more than 80% users, a person familiar with the matter said, a figure miles ahead of campaigns run on emails and traditional texts. What's more annoying is that even after users have blocked some businesses, many return to the inbox from different phone numbers, according to author's account.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Starlink has debuted in Japan, making it the first Asian nation to receive SpaceX's satellite internet service. From a report: Much of the country's north, including Tokyo, can now receive Starlink's signals, according to a map the startup shared on Twitter. Other areas including southern Japan and Hokkaido are expected to receive the service by the fourth quarter, before neighboring South Korea early next year.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Labor Department on Tuesday unveiled a proposal that would make it more likely for millions of janitors, home-care and construction workers and gig drivers to be classified as employees rather than independent contractors. From a report: Companies are required to provide certain benefits and protections to employees but not to contractors, such as paying a minimum wage, overtime, a portion of a worker's Social Security taxes and contributions to unemployment insurance. The proposed rule is essentially a test that the Labor Department will apply to determine whether workers are contractors or employees for companies. The test considers factors such as how much control workers have over how they do their jobs and how much opportunity they have to increase their earnings by doing things like offering new services. Workers who have little of either are often considered employees. The new version of the test lowers the bar for that employee classification from the current test, which the Trump's administration's Labor Department created. The proposal is intended as a so-called interpretive rule that doesn't have the legal force of a regulation specifically authorized by Congress, and it applies only to laws that the department enforces, such as the federal minimum wage. States and other federal agencies, like the Internal Revenue Service, set their own criteria for employment status, and the rule would not directly affect what they decided about the status of gig workers. But many employers and regulators in other jurisdictions are likely to consider the department's interpretation when making decisions about worker classification, and many judges are likely to use it as a guide. As a result, the proposal is a potential blow to gig companies and other service providers that argue their workers are contractors, though it would not immediately affect the status of those workers.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: Siemens Gamesa's 14-222 DD offshore wind turbine prototype has, according to the Spanish-German wind giant today, set a world record for the most power output by a single wind turbine in a 24-hour period: 359 megawatt-hours. This would be enough energy, according to the company, for a mid-sized electric vehicle -- think a Tesla Model 3 -- to drive around 1.12 million miles (1.8 million km). Siemens Gamesa's huge wind turbine achieved this power output milestone only 10 months after it produced its first electricity and delivered it to the grid at the test center in Osterild, Denmark. The SG 14-222 DD is a 14 megawatt (MW) offshore wind turbine with a capacity of up to 15 MW with Power Boost. It features a 222-meter (728 feet) diameter rotor, 108-meter-long (354-feet-long) B108 blades that are cast in a single piece and can now be recycled, and a swept area of 39,000 square meters (419,792 square feet). The SG 14-222 DD can provide enough energy to power around 18,000 households annually. In June, Siemens Gamesa was awarded a firm order for 60 of its SG 14-222 DD offshore wind turbines, which will be installed at the 882-megawatt (MW) Moray West offshore wind farm in Scotland. It will be the first installation of this model. Siemens Gamesa writes: "By increasing the rotor diameter to 222 meters with 108 meter-long blades, the SG 14-222 DD delivers more than 25% [annual energy production] AEP compared to its predecessor."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lynk, a competitor to the much larger SpaceX, plans to offer an experimental 5G cellular base station aboard a mission in December, working alongside an undisclosed cellular partner. Space.com reports: The experimental payload will launch on Lynk's second commercial satellite, company officials said. "This test will demonstrate the ability to send a 5G signal from space to standard mobile devices on Earth," Lynk officials wrote in late September. The test is a shot across the bow to SpaceX, which has already signed a deal with T-Mobile for cellular service but, unlike Lynk, does not yet have Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval. Lynk received the prized FCC thumbs-up just a few weeks ago. Lynk and SpaceX are jostling for market access to people living in rural areas who lack access to standard internet service. Lynk already tested a satellite-to-phone service link last year, according to Via Satellite, and is ramping up service fast in a bid to keep ahead of the competition. "We are actively testing satellite-direct-to-phone-services in 12 countries on five continents," Dan Dooley, chief commercial officer of Lynk, said in the same company statement. The company's patent allows the orbiting cell tower to link up with standard 5G devices in 55 countries, Lynk says.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Andy Lapsa and Tom Feldman, former Blue Origin engineers and the founders of Stoke Space, are working to develop the first fully recyclable space rocket -- one that features a reusable first and second stage. Here's an excerpt from Ars Technica's exclusive report, written by Eric Berger: In the 20 months since its initial seed round of funding, Stoke has built a second-stage engine, a prototype for the second stage, turbopumps, and manufacturing facilities. It also increased its headcount to 72 people and finalized the overall design for the rocket, which has a lift capacity of 1.65 metric tons to low-Earth orbit, in fully reusable mode. Last month, the company started to test-fire its upper-stage engines at a facility in Moses Lake, Washington. The images and video show an intriguing-looking ring with 15 discrete thrusters firing for several seconds. The circular structure is 13 feet in diameter, and this novel-looking design is Stoke's answer to one of the biggest challenges of getting a second stage back from orbit. Most commonly, a traditional rocket has an upper stage with a single engine. This second-stage rocket engine has a larger nozzle -- often bell-shaped -- to optimize the flow of engine exhaust in a vacuum. Because all parts of a rocket are designed to be as light as possible, such extended nozzles are often fairly fragile because they're only exposed above Earth's atmosphere. So one problem with getting an upper stage back from Earth, especially if you want to use the engine to control and slow its descent, is protecting this large nozzle. One way to do that is to bury the engine nozzle in a large heat shield, but that would require more structure and mass, and it may not be dynamically stable. Stoke's answer was using a ring of 30 smaller thrusters. (The tests last month only employed 15 of the 30 thrusters). In a vacuum, the plumes from these nozzles are designed to merge and act as one. And during reentry, with a smaller number of smaller thrusters firing, it's easier to protect the nozzles. "What you're seeing in the photos of the test is a high-performance upper-stage engine that can operate within atmosphere at deep throttle to support vertical landing but then also perform at a higher ISP than some variants of the RL 10 engine in space," Lapsa said. Another significant second-stage problem is protecting the whole vehicle from the super-heated atmosphere during reentry. NASA's Space Shuttle accomplished this with brittle thermal tiles, but these required 30,000 employee hours to inspect, test, and refurbish between flights. SpaceX is using a different type of ceramic tile, designed to be more reusable, for Starship. Given Stoke's background in rocket engines, Lapsa said it made the most sense to try a regeneratively cooled heat shield. The vehicle's ductile metallic outer layer will be lined with small cavities to flow propellant through the material to keep it cool during reentry. The second stage, therefore, will return to Earth somewhat like a space capsule -- base first, with the regeneratively cooled heat shield. Stoke Space has a very long road ahead of it to reach space. Engine tests are an important step, but they're only the first step of many. Next up for the company is "hop" tests with a full-scale version of the second stage at the Moses Lake facility in central Washington. This prototype won't have a fairing as it would during launch, but it will still stand 19 feet tall. Initially, the tests will be low-altitude, probably measured in hundreds of feet. If there's an engineering need to go higher, the company will consider that, Lapsa said. But for now, the goal is to prove the capability to control the rocket during ascent and descent and make a soft landing. This is a shockingly difficult guidance, navigation, and control problem, especially with a novel system of distributed thrusters. "This is kind of a final proof point of this architecture," Lapsa said. "It is new. It's different. It's weird. It's original. There were a lot of questions that we had about how this thing is going to work. But we've already mitigated a lot of risk." If Stoke can manage to land the upper stage, it can move ahead with the first stage and start to turn the yet-unnamed rocket into an orbital vehicle. It sounds easy, but it's not...Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: The Motion Picture Association (MPA) has sent its latest overview of notorious piracy markets to the US Government. The Hollywood group, which also represents Netflix, lists a broad variety of online piracy threats. Aside from traditional pirate sites, it also includes domain registries, hosting providers, advertisers, and apps. [...] The MPA report typically provides a detailed overview of the piracy landscape. This year, the USTR further asked rightsholders to explain how piracy impacts US workers. According to the movie industry group, the effect is significant. "In 2020, there were an estimated 137.2 billion visits to film and TV piracy sites globally, which cost the U.S. economy at least $29.2 billion in lost revenue each year. Specifically, piracy has been estimated to reduce employment in our industry between 230,000 and 560,000 jobs," MPA writes, citing external research. The MPA notes that piracy is a global problem that requires cooperation from the broader Internet ecosystem. Services that see themselves as neutral intermediaries, operating parts of the core Internet infrastructure, should take responsibility. "All stakeholders in the internet ecosystem -- including hosting providers, DNS providers, cloud services, advertising networks, payment processors, social networks, and search engines -- should actively seek to reduce support for notoriously infringing sites," MPA writes. The industry group views Cloudflare as part of this group and mentions the US company by name in its submission. "Cloudflare's customers include some of the most notorious, longstanding pirate websites in the world, including the massively popular streaming site cuevana3.me and The Pirate Bay," MPA notes, adding that repeated notices of infringement elicited no action on Cloudflare's part. The notorious markets list is limited to non-US operations, so Cloudflare itself isn't one of the MPA's targets. Various other Internet services are, including several third-party intermediaries. The MPA's list of notorious markets calls out domain name registries, including the Russian .RU registry, and the companies that maintain the records for the .CH, .CC, .IO, .ME and .TO domain names. These continue to keep pirate sites on board, despite numerous complaints. The same is true for the payment provider VoguePay, which is reportedly quite popular among IPTV services. In addition, advertisers such as 1XBET and Propeller Ads are called out as well. The latter company rebutted MPA's accusations last year but that didn't prevent it from being highlighted again. Hosting companies are also cited as intermediaries that could and should do more. Instead, some find themselves appealing to pirate services with products such as "bulletproof" hosting. Squitter.eu and Amaratu are two such examples, the MPA reports. In addition to third-party intermediaries, there is also a category of services that caters to pirates directly. These "piracy as a service" (PaaS) companies offer tools that allow people to start a pirate site with minimal effort. "PaaS encompasses a suite of often off-the-shelf services that make it easy for would-be pirates without any technical knowledge to create, operate, and monetize a fully functioning pirate operation," MPA writes. [...] Actual pirate sites themselves are also mentioned, including the usual suspects The Pirate Bay, RARBG and YTS. In addition to torrent sites, the MPA also lists direct download hubs, streaming portals and linking sites, including Uptobox.com, Fmovies.to and Egy.best. Various dedicated piracy apps get a mention as well, and the MPA further includes a long list of unauthorized IPTV services. The anti-piracy group says that it has identified more than a thousand pirate IPTV platforms, so the list provided to the USTR is certainly not exhaustive. In fact, the MPA says that all companies, sites, and services are part of a broader piracy problem. Those flagged in the MPA's report are just examples of some of the worst offenders, nothing more. A list of all sites and services that are highlighted and categorized in MPA's notorious markets submission (PDF) can be found in the article.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nearly 43 percent of millions of devices studied by asset management provider Lansweeper are unable to upgrade to Windows 11 due to the hardware requirements Microsoft set out for the operating system. The Register reports: Lansweeper said 42.76 percent of the estimated 27 million PCs it tested across 60,000 organizations failed the CPU test, albeit better than the 57.26 percent in its last test a year ago. Altogether 71.5 percent of the PCs failed the RAM test and 14.66 percent the TPM test. "We know that those who can't update to Windows 11... will continue to use Windows 10," said Roel Decneut, chief strategy officer at Lansweeper, whose customers include Sony, Pepsico, Cerner, MiT and Hilton hotels. He said that even if enterprises are prepared to upgrade their PC fleet to meet the system requirements of Microsoft's latest OS, there are "broader issues affecting adoption that are out of Microsoft's control." "Global supply chain disruption has created chip a processor shortage, while many are choosing to stick with what hardware they have at the moment due to the global financial uncertainty." Other findings from Lansweeper show adoption rates for the latest OS are improving, running on 1.44 percent of computers versus 0.52 percent in January. This means the latest incarnation has overtaken Windows 8 in the popularity stakes but remains behind market share for Windows 7, despite that software going end of life in January 2020. Adoption is, unsurprisingly, higher in the consumer space. Some 4.82 percent of the biz devices researched were running an OS that wasn't fully supported and 0.91 percent had servers in their estate that are end of life.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Privacy-focused cryptocurrency and payments firm MobileCoin, in collaboration with stablecoin platform Reserve, has launched a stablecoin dubbed "Electronic Dollars" (eUSD). CoinDesk reports: According to MobileCoin, eUSD is backed by a basket of other stablecoins, namely, USD coin (USDC), Pax dollar (USDP) and trueUSD (TUSD). Each transaction is said to be encrypted using end-to-end zero-knowledge encryption. In other words, only the transacting parties can see their own transactional data, thanks to encryption that uses zero knowledge proofs (a way of proving something without revealing sensitive information). The stablecoin eUSD is built on the MobileCoin blockchain, which, according to MobileCoin, is optimized for mobile devices. Apparently, MobileCoin was originally designed for integration with encrypted mobile messaging app, Signal. Consequently, eUSD will inherit the features of MobileCoin's native cryptocurrency, MOB, although eUSD users will pay transaction fees (a flat $0.0026 per transaction) in eUSD and not MOB. The eUSD relies on what seems to be a centralized governance structure where the MobileCoin Foundation acts as the primary governing body. The foundation elects "governors" who are authorized to mint and burn eUSD. The stablecoin's collateral is held in a popular Ethereum multisignature (multisig) wallet called Safe (formerly "Gnosis Safe"). New eUSD is only minted after governors confirm an equivalent amount of collateral has been transferred to the Safe wallet. "Anybody can inspect the contract holding this basket [of collateral], to see what the current balances are. It's a Gnosis safe, which is also one of the most highly regarded contracts on Ethereum for holding assets," Henry Holtzman, MobileCoin's chief innovation officer explained during an interview with CoinDesk. Similarly, if a user redeems eUSD, the token is "verifiably burned" and governors release the corresponding collateral. Verifiable burning is when burned eUSD is sent to a "burn address" that renders it "visible" for transparency purposes, "but unspendable." However, everyday users won't typically engage in burning and minting. An individual seeking eUSD would simply purchase it on an exchange. Approved liquidity providers (LPs) would be the ones minting large amounts of eUSD. To our knowledge, no project has created a native stablecoin with privacy properties, which is a first-class citizen in the ecosystem, and which never requires the use of 'non-private' transaction technologies to use normally. In short, no one has yet actually created a private digital dollar," MobileCoin stated in the eUSD white paper. Holtzman said that eUSD uses a "reserve-auditor" program that "connects to the Safe wallet via an application programming interface (API) and verifies that each newly minted eUSD has a corresponding amount of collateral in the wallet." Holtzman added: "We'll release it all open source. So if you want to run your own copy [of the reserve auditor], you can. You can examine it to make sure we really are backed exactly as we claim," Holtzman told CoinDesk.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Game developer Sam Chiet has found another use for Microsoft Notepad. The ingenious creator has gotten Doom (1993) to run at 60 FPS through the boring text editor in Windows. Tom's Hardware reports: Chiet highlighted that he didn't have to modify the Notepad application. Dubbed "NotepadDOOM," the project is fully playable. Although Chiet didn't explain how the mod works, has committed to launching NotepadDOOM for other Doom fans to try out. Chiet said in a subsequent tweet that "it'll take some work to polish NotepadDOOM into something releasable, but it'll almost certainly happen over the next couple days." John Romero, one of Doom's creators, was impressed and replied to Chiet in a tweet that the mod was "incredible." You can see the iconic 1993 shooter running in its full glory on Chiet's YouTube channel. It's Notepad, so obviously, Chiet replaced the graphics with characters and numbers. The gameplay looks pretty smooth, although we did catch some screen tearing. However, that could be because Notepad can't write the text fast enough on screen.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: Toyota Motor Corporation is warning that customers' personal information may have been exposed after an access key was publicly available on GitHub for almost five years. Toyota T-Connect is the automaker's official connectivity app that allows owners of Toyota cars to link their smartphone with the vehicle's infotainment system for phone calls, music, navigation, notifications integration, driving data, engine status, fuel consumption, and more. Toyota discovered recently that a portion of the T-Connect site source code was mistakenly published on GitHub and contained an access key to the data server that stored customer email addresses and management numbers. This made it possible for an unauthorized third party to access the details of 296,019 customers between December 2017 and September 15, 2022, when access to the GitHub repository was restricted. On September 17, 2022, the database's keys were changed, purging all potential access from unauthorized third parties. The announcement explains that customer names, credit card data, and phone numbers have not been compromised as they weren't stored in the exposed database. Toyota blamed a development subcontractor for the error but recognized its responsibility for the mishandling of customer data and apologized for any inconvenience caused. The Japanese automaker concludes that while there are no signs of data misappropriation, it cannot rule out the possibility of someone having accessed and stolen the data. For this reason, all users of T-Connect who registered between July 2017 and September 2022 are advised to be vigilant against phishing scams and avoid opening email attachments from unknown senders claiming to be from Toyota.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon said on Monday it will invest more than 1 billion euros ($974.8 million) over the next five years in electric vans, trucks and low-emission package hubs across Europe, accelerating its drive to achieve net-zero carbon. From a report: The retailer said the investment was also aimed at spurring innovation across the transportation industry and encouraging more public charging infrastructure for electric vehicles (EVs). The U.S. online retailer said the investment would help its electric van fleet in Europe more than triple from 3,000 vehicles to more than 10,000 by 2025. The company did not say what percentage of its European last-mile delivery fleet is electric today, but said those 3,000 zero-emission vans delivered over 100 million packages in 2021. Amazon said it also hopes to purchase more than 1,500 electric heavy goods vehicles - used for "middle-mile" shipments to package hubs - in the coming years.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II will require players to register with a phone number on Battle.net to play the game, in order to make players responsible for their actions. The game is set for release later this month on October 28th. The Verge reports: It's a repeat of the practice that caused issues for Overwatch 2 players last week, PCGamer reports. A Battle.net support page lists the upcoming CoD shooter as one of its three games that "require that you add a phone number to your Battle.net account" to play, alongside Overwatch 2 and 2019's Modern Warfare. The phone verification system, which Activision Blizzard calls SMS Protect, is meant to cut down on toxic behavior from players, preventing them from creating endless new accounts to evade bans or to cheat. "Limiting the number of free accounts that a single person can create helps keep players accountable for their actions and, in turn, reduces toxicity and cheating and ensures a positive community experience for all players," Activision Blizzard's support page reads. The problem is that SMS Protect is designed for text-enabled mobile phones, and doesn't treat all phone numbers equally. A separate Battle.net support page notes that "mobile phones with prepaid plans may not work with the phone notification service." It also doesn't work with VoIP numbers. That restricts the service to players with postpaid cellular plans, which may not be affordable or easily accessible to many players around the world. Requiring players to provide a phone number isn't new (Dota 2 and Rainbow Six Siege both require them for ranked play) but there haven't been widespread reports of problems with prepaid phone plans with these previous implementations. One player we spoke to was blocked from playing Overwatch 2 when they entered the same number they'd used to successfully play Dota 2 for years. It's unclear whether Activision Blizzard's phone number requirements will apply equally for Modern Warfare II players across both Battle.net and Steam, given the game is available across both PC digital stores.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser wants to dismiss the country's cybersecurity chief due to possible contacts with people involved with Russian security services, German media reported late on Sunday, citing government sources. Reuters reports: Arne Schoenbohm, president of the BSI federal information security agency, could have had such contacts through the Cyber Security Council of Germany, various outlets reported. Schoenbohm was a founder of the association, which counts as a member a German company that is a subsidiary of a Russian cybersecurity firm founded by a former KGB employee, they wrote. "These accusations must be decisively investigated," said Konstantin von Notz, the head of the parliamentary oversight committee for Germany's intelligence agencies.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: It's still possible to learn a lot of interesting things about old operating systems. Sometimes, those things are already documented (on a blog post) that miraculously still exist. One such quirk showed up recently when someone noticed how Microsoft made sure that SimCity and other popular apps worked on Windows 95. A recent tweet by @Kalyoshika highlights an excerpt from a blog post by Fog Creek Software co-founder, Stack Overflow co-creator, and longtime software blogger Joel Spolsky. The larger post is about chicken-and-egg OS/software appeal and demand. The part that caught the eye of a Hardcore Gaming 101 podcast co-host is how the Windows 3.1 version of SimCity worked on the Windows 95 system. Windows 95 merged MS-DOS and Windows apps, upgraded APIs from 16 to 32-bit, and was hyper-marketed. A popular app like SimCity, which sold more than 5 million copies, needed to work without a hitch. Spolsky's post summarizes how SimCity became Windows 95-ready, as he heard it, without input from Maxis or user workarounds: "Jon Ross, who wrote the original version of SimCity for Windows 3.x, told me that he accidentally left a bug in SimCity where he read memory that he had just freed. Yep. It worked fine on Windows 3.x, because the memory never went anywhere. Here's the amazing part: On beta versions of Windows 95, SimCity wasn't working in testing. Microsoft tracked down the bug and added specific code to Windows 95 that looks for SimCity. If it finds SimCity running, it runs the memory allocator in a special mode that doesn't free memory right away. That's the kind of obsession with backward compatibility that made people willing to upgrade to Windows 95." Spolsky (in 2000) considers this a credit to Microsoft and an example of how to break the chicken-and-egg problem: "provide a backwards compatibility mode which either delivers a truckload of chickens, or a truckload of eggs, depending on how you look at it, and sit back and rake in the bucks." Windows developers may have deserved some sit-back time, seeing the extent of the tweaks they often have to make for individual games and apps in Windows 95. Further in @Kalyoshika's replies, you can find another example, pulled from the Compatibility Administrator in Windows' Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK). A screenshot from @code_and_beer shows how Windows NT, upon detecting files typically installed with Final Fantasy VII, will implement a fittingly titled compatibility fix: "Win95VersionLie." Simply telling the game that it's on Windows 95 seems to fix a major issue with its operation, along with a few other emulation and virtualization tweaks. "Mike Perry, former creative director at Sim empire Maxis (and later EA), noted later that there was, technically, a 32-bit Windows 95 version of Sim City available, as shown by the 'Deluxe Edition' bundle of the game," adds Ars. "He also states that Ross worked for Microsoft after leaving Maxis, which would further explain why Microsoft was so keen to ensure people could keep building parks in the perfect grid position to improve resident happiness."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Price tag for a recently approved ALS drug illustrates broad industry problems. From a report: Like many patients suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS -- also known as Lou Gehrig's disease -- Layne Oliff didn't have any time to waste. Even before the drug Relyvrio was approved late last month by the Food and Drug Administration, he has had his own do-it-yourself method: he gets sodium phenylbutyrate in liquid form from a New Jersey pharmacy and taurursodiol online from Amazon. That costs him over $7,000 a year, but he says it has been well worth it because he feels the combination has helped stabilize a disease that often causes death within a few years. Now that the drug combining those two known compounds has been approved in the U.S., the official list price is going to be $158,000 for a year's supply, or over 20 times more than he was spending. While that may be excellent news for Amylyx, which makes the drug and whose shares are up 159% over the past 6 months, the exorbitant price tag is bad news for the U.S. healthcare system. Patients won't be footing the entire bill themselves -- insurers pick up most of the tab, which is finalized after rebates are made by pharmaceutical companies to get the drug covered. And of course making the drug available through the proper channels will be a more affordable and more reliable way for patients to take the medication, especially those who can't afford the out-of-pocket costs Mr. Oliff was able to pay for his unorthodox, but doctor-supervised method. But the jarring price difference underscores just how out of whack drug prices have become in the U.S. Each time a drug is priced up in the stratosphere, it sets a precedent for the next manufacturer to do the same, sending drug costs in an upward spiral with no real ceiling except for public outcry.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

What's going on in the metaverse these days, you might ask. Looking at two of the biggest companies with over $1 billion valuations, the answer is surprising: Not much, or at least not enough to bring users back every day. From a report: According to data from DappRadar, the Ethereum-based virtual world Decentraland had 38 active users in the past 24 hours, while competitor The Sandbox boasted 522 active users in that same time. An active user, according to DappRadar, is defined as a unique wallet address' interaction with the platform's smart contract. For example, logging onto The Sandbox or Decentraland to make a purchase with SAND or MANA, each platform's respective native utility token, is counted as an "active use." This means that DappRadar's compilation of daily active users doesn't account for people who log in and mosey around a metaverse platform or drop in briefly for an event, such as a virtual fashion week. It also likely means that these spaces are not where people are making transactions such as buying non-fungible tokens (NFT). A developer might defend the low daily stats with the familiar phrase, "don't hate the player, hate the game" but it seems it's not just one quiet day for the two metaverse platforms. The largest number of daily users ever on Decentraland was 675, according to DappRadar. For The Sandbox, that number was larger at about 4,503.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Angus Chen, reporting for StatNews: For a while, scientists thought the trillions of microbes on our bodies lived in landscapes connected to the outside world -- our skin, hair, and gut -- but research in the last few years has shown that's not so. When Ravid Straussman, a cancer biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, looked deeper, he and several other research groups around the world found bacteria in the milieu of tumors. Then, he and other scientists began wondering: if tumors are home to bacteria, then what about another major resident of our microbiome, fungi? Now, two new papers published in Cell, one from Straussman's lab and collaborators at the University of California San Diego and another from researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and Duke University, have found genetic footprints of fungi in tumors across the human body. Together, the studies provide a "nice, rigorous association" between fungi and cancer, said Ami Bhatt, an associate professor of medicine and genetics at Stanford University who did not work on either paper. "It provides pretty compelling evidence there may be rare fungi within tumors," she said. But the work raises far more questions than it answers. "Are they alive or not? And assuming they really are there, then why are they there? And how did they get there?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.