Slashdot

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Microsoft, one of the pioneers of DNA storage, is making some headway, working with the University of Washington's Molecular Information Systems Laboratory, or MISL. The company announced in a new research paper the first nanoscale DNA storage writer, which the research group expects to scale for a DNA write density of 25 x 10^6 sequences per square centimeter, or "three orders of magnitude" (1,000x) more tightly than before. What makes this particularly significant is that it's the first indication of achieving the minimum write speeds required for DNA storage. Microsoft is one of the biggest players in cloud storage and is looking at DNA data storage to gain an advantage over the competition by using its unparalleled density, sustainability, and shelf life. DNA is said to have a density capable of storing one exabyte, or 1 billion gigabytes, per square inch -- an amount many magnitudes larger than what our current best storage method, Linear Type-Open (LTO) magnetic tape, can provide. What do these advantages mean in real-world terms? Well, the International Data Corporation predicts data storage demands will reach nine zettabytes by 2024. As Microsoft notes, only one zettabyte of storage would be used if Windows 11 were downloaded on 15 billion devices. Using current methods, that data would need to be stored on millions of tape cartridges. Cut the tape and use DNA, and nine zettabytes of information can be stored in an area as small as a refrigerator (some scientists say every movie ever released could fit in the footprint of a sugar cube). But perhaps a freezer would be a better analogy, because data stored on DNA can last for thousands of years whereas data loss occurs on tape with 30 years and even sooner on SSDs and HDDs. Finding ways to increase write speeds addresses one of the two main problems with DNA storage (the other being cost). With the minimum write speed threshold within grasp, Microsoft is already pushing ahead with the next phase. "A natural next step is to embed digital logic in the chip to allow individual control of millions of electrode spots to write kilobytes per second of data in DNA, and we foresee the technology reaching arrays containing billions of electrodes capable of storing megabytes per second of data in DNA. This will bring DNA data storage performance and cost significantly closer to tape," Microsoft told TechRadar.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google has removed The Pirate Bay and more than 100 related domains from its search results in the Netherlands. The search engine points to a local pirate site-blocking order that was forwarded by anti-piracy group BREIN. The order targets ISPs and doesn't name Google but the company chose to voluntarily comply. TorrentFreak reports: The reason for this broad removal is provided by Google itself. The search giant notes that the results were removed in response to a legal request. This 'request' came from local anti-piracy group BREIN and includes a copy of a Dutch site-blocking order. The order, issued in October last year, required Dutch ISPs Ziggo, KPN, and XS4ALL to block access to Pirate Bay mirrors and proxy sites. Google isn't listed as a party in this lawsuit, but a copy was sent to the search engine nonetheless. BREIN's request, at least the part that's available publicly, doesn't explain why it would apply to Google. However, BREIN informs us that it's not uncommon for Internet services to comply with orders that don't target them directly. A few weeks ago, Dutch ISPs agreed to a covenant where they promise to comply with site-blocking orders that are targeted at other ISPs. While Google is not part of this agreement, in this case it chose to follow the court order. "In essence, this is the same situation as recently agreed in the Dutch government-supported covenant between right holders and internet access providers," BREIN director Tim Kuik informs TorrentFreak. "Dutch case law also shows that once there is a contested court order against one access provider, courts do grant the same order against others if they refuse to conform to it even though they are not named in it." The report notes that this is "the first time that Google has complied with a pirate site blocking order without being named." BREIN has gone on to submit the legal paperwork to block six additional pirate sites, including proxies and mirrors.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The White House will unveil a group of countries next week that have pledged to work together to curb exports of technology that can be used by bad actors and repressive governments to violate human rights, senior administration officials said on Thursday. Reuters reports: The announcement, which will be made as part of U.S. President Joe Biden's Summit for Democracy, is aimed at addressing "the misuse of certain dual-use technologies that can lead to human rights abuses" and ensuring "critical and emerging technologies work for and not against democratic societies," the officials told reporters in a briefing call. The officials declined to name the countries that would join the group or the technologies or users targeted by it, but said members would develop and adopt a "written nonbinding code of conduct or statement of principles intended to guide the application of human rights criteria to export licensing policy." The officials singled out China as an example of a nation that has misused technology to control its population.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Blockchain startup MonoX Finance said on Wednesday that a hacker stole $31 million by exploiting a bug in software the service uses to draft smart contracts. The company uses a decentralized finance protocol known as MonoX that lets users trade digital currency tokens without some of the requirements of traditional exchanges. "Project owners can list their tokens without the burden of capital requirements and focus on using funds for building the project instead of providing liquidity," MonoX company representatives say here. "It works by grouping deposited tokens into a virtual pair with vCASH, to offer a single token pool design." An accounting error built into the company's software let an attacker inflate the price of the MONO token and to then use it to cash out all the other deposited tokens, MonoX Finance revealed in a post. The haul amounted to $31 million worth of tokens on the Ethereum or Polygon blockchains, both of which are supported by the MonoX protocol. Specifically, the hack used the same token as both the tokenIn and tokenOut, which are methods for exchanging the value of one token for another. MonoX updates prices after each swap by calculating new prices for both tokens. When the swap is completed, the price of tokenIn -- that is, the token sent by the user -- decreases and the price of tokenOut -- or the token received by the user -- increases. By using the same token for both tokenIn and tokenOut, the hacker greatly inflated the price of the MONO token because the updating of the tokenOut overwrote the price update of the tokenIn. The hacker then exchanged the token for $31 million worth of tokens on the Ethereum and Polygon blockchains. There's no practical reason for exchanging a token for the same token, and therefore the software that conducts trades should never have allowed such transactions. Alas, it did, despite MonoX receiving three security audits this year. "These kinds of attacks are common in smart contracts because many developers do not put in the legwork to define security properties for their code" said Dan Guido, an expert in securing smart contracts and CEO of security consultancy Trail of Bits. "They had audits, but if the audits only state that a smart person looked at the code for a given period of time, then the results are of limited value. Smart contracts need testable evidence that they do what you intend, and only what you intend. That means defined security properties and techniques employed to evaluate them." According to Blockchain researcher Igor Igamberdiev, the drained tokens included $18.2 million in Wrapped Ethereum, $10.5 in MATIC tokens, and $2 million worth of WBTC, along with small amounts of tokens for Wrapped Bitcoin, Chainlink, Unit Protocol, Aavegotchi, and Immutable X.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday sued to block Nvidia's $40 billion acquisition of a fellow chip company, Arm, halting one of the biggest semiconductor industry deals in history. From a report: The F.T.C. said the deal between Nvidia, which is based in California and makes chips, and Arm, a British company that designs chips, would stifle competition and harm consumers. The proposed deal would give Nvidia control over computing technology and designs that rival firms rely on to develop competing chips. "Tomorrow's technologies depend on preserving today's competitive, cutting-edge chip markets," said Holly Vedova, the director of the F.T.C.'s competition bureau. "This proposed deal would distort Arm's incentives in chip markets and allow the combined firm to unfairly undermine Nvidia's rivals." The companies announced the merger in September 2020 and said the merger would position the companies as leaders in semiconductors for artificial intelligence.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Goldman Sachs is among a handful of tier-one U.S. banks figuring out how to use bitcoin as collateral for cash loans to institutions, CoinDesk reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the plans. From the report: Banks such as Goldman will not touch cryptocurrency spot markets but lean towards synthetic crypto products such as futures. Emulating tri-party repo type arrangements (a way of borrowing funds by selling securities with an agreement to repurchase them, involving a third-party agent), banks are exploring ways to follow the same path of not touching bitcoin, like other synthetic products. It's an opportunity that lays the groundwork for more integrated crypto prime brokerage services in the future, according to the sources CoinDesk spoke with. It's also a continuation of Wall Street's relatively sudden embrace of a $2.7 trillion asset class -- albeit with somewhat niche products. "Goldman was working on getting approved for lending against collateral and tri-party repo," said one of the people. "And if they had a liquidation agent, then they were just doing secured lending without ever having bitcoin touch their balance sheet."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Vegan alternatives to leather could save more than just animals. The scientists behind fashion's new latest must-have -- the "mushroom leather" handbag -- believe that mycelium, a material grown from fungi which can be engineered to look and feel like calfskin or sheepskin, could help save the planet. Speaking to the Guardian before a talk at the Business of Fashion Voices conference in Oxfordshire, Dr Matt Scullin, CEO of biomaterials company MycoWorks, forecast that mushroom leather could be a sustainability gamechanger, "unlocking a future of design which begins with the material, not with the object." Fine Mycelium, a patented material which can be grown from fungi in trays in a matter of weeks, replicates the appearance and feel of leather while outperforming it in strength and durability. The material recently made its high fashion debut as an exclusive HermÃs handbag. "It can give the same emotional response as an animal leather. It has that hand-feel of rarity," says Scullin. On a planet of finite natural resources, Scullin believes both the technology and the mindset of carbon-neutral, grown-to-order mushroom leather could be "revolutionary" -- and have implications for innovation in manufacture beyond fashion.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The US government's China Initiative sought to protect national security. In the most comprehensive analysis of cases to date, MIT Technology Review reveals how far it has strayed from its goals. Technology Review: A visiting researcher at UCLA accused of hiding his connection to China's People's Liberation Army. A hacker indicted for breaking into video game company servers in his spare time. A Harvard professor accused of lying to investigators about funding from China. And a man sentenced for organizing a turtle-smuggling ring between New York and Hong Kong. For years, the US Department of Justice has used these cases to highlight the success of its China Initiative, an effort to counter rising concerns about Chinese economic espionage and threats to US national security. Started in 2018, the initiative was a centerpiece of the Trump administration's hardening stance against China. Now, an investigation by MIT Technology Review shows that the China Initiative has strayed far from its initial mission. Instead of focusing on economic espionage and national security, the initiative now appears to be an umbrella term for cases with almost any connection to China, whether they involve state-sponsored hackers, smugglers, or, increasingly, academics accused of failing to disclose all ties to China on grant-related forms. To date, only about a quarter of defendants charged under the initiative have been convicted, and about half of those defendants with open charges have yet to see the inside of an American courtroom. Although the program has become a top priority of US law enforcement and domestic counterintelligence efforts -- and an unusual one, as the first country-specific initiative -- many details have remained murky. The DOJ has not publicly defined the initiative or answered many basic questions about it, making it difficult to understand, let alone assess or exercise oversight of it, according to many civil rights advocates, lawmakers, and scholars. While the threat of Chinese intellectual property theft is real, critics wonder if the China Initiative is the right way to counteract it. Today, after months of research and investigation, MIT Technology Review is publishing a searchable database of 77 cases and more than 150 defendants. While likely incomplete, the database represents the most comprehensive accounting of the China Initiative prosecutions to date. Our reporting and analysis showed that the climate of fear created by the prosecutions has already pushed some talented scientists to leave the United States and made it more difficult for others to enter or stay, endangering America's ability to attract new talent in science and technology from China and around the world.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft is starting to roll out its new Office UI to all users this week. The visual update was originally announced earlier this year and went into testing over the summer. Now it's starting to roll out to all Office 365 and Office 2021 users. From a report: This new Office UI is designed to match the visual changes in Windows 11, and it includes a more rounded look to the Office ribbon bar, with some subtle tweaks to the buttons throughout Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. It's a relatively simple refresh, and Office will now match the dark or light theme that you set inside Windows. The new look can be toggled on or off using the Coming Soon megaphone icon in the top right-hand corner of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or OneNote.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

At today's AWS re:Invent keynote, Amazon CTO Werner Vogels announced that AWS will now offer M1 Mac minis as part of its EC2 compute service. From a report: It was only last year, that AWS first brought Mac minis to its cloud. Using the Thunderbolt port, these minis connect to the AWS Nitro System, which helps make them available in the EC2 cloud, just like any other instance. The minis used here are the standard M1 8 core machines with 16 GiB of memory. The new instances will be available in two regions (US West - Oregon and US East - North Virginia) for $0.6498 per hour, with support for discounts through AWS' Savings Plans, too. AWS promises that these new machines offer a "60% better price performance over the x86-based EC2 Mac instances for iPhone and Mac app build workloads."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Facebook's parent company, Meta, has worked with the U.K.-based nonprofit Revenge Porn Helpline to build a tool that lets people prevent their intimate images from being uploaded to Facebook, Instagram and other participating platforms without their consent. From a report: The tool, which builds on a pilot program Facebook started in Australia in 2017, launched Thursday. It allows people who are worried that their intimate photos or videos have been or could be shared online, for example by disgruntled ex-partners, to submit the images to a central, global website called StopNCII.org, which stands for "Stop Non-Consensual Intimate Images." "It's a massive step forward," said Sophie Mortimer, the helpline's manager. "The key for me is about putting this control over content back into the hands of people directly affected by this issue so they are not just left at the whims of a perpetrator threatening to share it." Karuna Nain, Meta's director of global safety policy, said the company had shifted its approach to use an independent website to make it easier for other companies to use the system and to reduce the burden on the victims of image-based abuse to report content to "each and every platform." During the submission process, StopNCII.org gets consent and asks people to confirm that they are in an image. People can select material on their devices, including manipulated images, that depict them nude or nearly nude. The photos or the videos will then be converted into unique digital fingerprints known as "hashes," which will be passed on to participating companies, starting with Facebook and Instagram.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

schwit1 writes: At least three U.S. federal agencies, including the military, have purchased China-made video surveillance equipment banned from use in the federal government. Purchasing records seen by TechCrunch and video surveillance news site IPVM show the agencies collectively spent thousands of dollars on purchasing video surveillance equipment manufactured by Lorex, a wholly owned subsidiary of Dahua Technology. Dahua is one of several China-based companies banned from selling to the federal government under a 2019 defense spending law over fears that the technology could help the Chinese government conduct espionage.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Performance P650 won't beat a top-end Arm chip in a Samsung or Apple smartphone, but the startup believes its designs eventually could. From a report: It's really hard to get a new chip family to catch on when companies like Intel and Qualcomm ship their products by the millions, but SiFive has a faster new design it hopes will carve a niche. The startup on Thursday announced its Performance P650 design, which comes with a 50% speed boost over the P550 that arrived in June. SiFive is one of the most prominent members of RISC-V International, an alliance collectively developing a family of processors using the new RISC-V architecture. That competes against the x86 architecture from Intel and AMD that dominates in PCs and the Arm architecture used by Qualcomm, Samsung, Apple, MediaTek and others to power all smartphones. Unlike x86 and Arm, though, RISC-V is free to use. It's a fresh start its advocates believe will be more economical and efficient. SiFive doesn't make chips. Instead, it licenses its designs to others that customize them for their own purposes, an approach that's served Arm well. With performance comparable to Arm's two-year-old midrange Cortex A77 design, the P650 won't be ejecting Qualcomm or other Arm designs out of smartphones any time soon. Customers can start evaluating the design in the first quarter of 2022, SiFive said. But if SiFive succeeds with its longer-term plans for better speed, battery life and cost, you could get a SiFive powered phone in a couple years. "By 2023, you're likely to see the first mobile phone with RISC-V," SiFive Chief Executive Patrick Little said in an October interview. "I think we have an excellent shot at the phone."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tesla has launched a mini Cyberquad designed for the kiddos starting in 2-4 weeks if you order one right now from its website. From a report: The Tesla 'Cyberquad for Kids' is available to purchase on Tesla's site for $1,900 -- a steep price relative to your average Power Wheels, but the lowest-priced vehicle in Tesla's existing lineup by far. And the Cyberquad's materials are a cut above your average battery electric kid car, with a "full steel frame," along with cushioned seating and fully adjustable suspension. It may be the cheapest Tesla you can buy, but it's also the most limited when it comes to range: You'll get up to around 15 miles on a full charge, which takes five hours to wooer up, according to the company. It's also not going to break any land speed records, with a speedometer that tops out at 10 mph (which you can limit to a max of 5 mph for safety if desired). That's still plenty fast for a kid's ride-on vehicle, which is probably why Tesla labels this one as designed for kids at least 8 and up, with a max weight of 150 lbs.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft has never been a fan of Windows users downloading Chrome instead of using Edge, but the company has now stepped up its campaign to keep people using its built-in browser. From a report: Windows 10 and Windows 11 have both started displaying new prompts when people navigate to the Chrome download page, in an effort to discourage people from installing Google's rival browser. These new prompts, spotted by Neowin, include messages like: "Microsoft Edge runs on the same technology as Chrome, with the added trust of Microsoft.""That browser is so 2008! Do you know what's new? Microsoft Edge.""'I hate saving money,' said no one ever. Microsoft Edge is the best browser for online shopping."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple, suffering from a global supply crunch, is now confronting a different problem: slowing demand. From a report: The company has told its component suppliers that demand for the iPhone 13 lineup has weakened, people familiar with the matter said, signaling that some consumers have decided against trying to get the hard-to-find item. Already, Apple had cut its iPhone 13 production goal for this year by as many as 10 million units, down from a target of 90 million, because of a lack of parts, Bloomberg News reported. But the hope was to make up much of that shortfall next year -- when supply is expected to improve. The company is now informing its vendors that those orders may not materialize, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

fahrbot-bot shares a report from Gizmodo: New research this week finds that people hospitalized with severe covid-19 often pay a heavy price afterward. The study concluded that these survivors were more than twice as likely to die in the subsequent 12 months compared to people who had tested negative for the virus. This relatively increased risk of death was even higher for people under the age 65. While there remains much research to be done, studies thus far have made it clear that many covid-19 survivors can experience lingering symptoms even after the infection itself has cleared up. And those who are hospitalized are all the more vulnerable to these aftereffects. Severe covid often seriously damages the lungs and other organs, while life-saving interventions like steroids, ventilators, and life support devices like ECMO can take a toll on the body as well. Researchers from the University of Florida had already published a study in July showing that hospitalized survivors were significantly more likely to be hospitalized again within six months, compared to those with mild to moderate covid-19. This new study of theirs, based on an examination of anonymous electronic health records, instead looked at the long-term mortality risk of patients up to a year later. Nearly 14,000 patients in the same health care system were studied. These included 178 diagnosed with severe COVID-19 and 246 diagnosed with mild to moderate covid-19, as well as many others who tested negative for the virus but may have been sick for other reasons and received medical care in some way. Compared to covid-negative patients, and even after accounting for other factors like age and sex, those with severe covid were 2.5 times more likely to die in the next 12 months after their illness. Overall, just over 52% of severe covid patients died in a year's time. There was no significant increased risk of mortality for mild to moderate cases, however. "About 20% of the deaths among these patients post-infection were attributed to problems with either the respiratory or cardiovascular system," the report adds. "[A]mong patients in this study, the associated risk of dying was actually relatively greater for survivors of severe covid under age 65 than it was for patients over 65. Compared to similarly aged but non-infected people, they were more than three times more likely to die in the months after their hospitalization." The findings have been published in the journal Frontiers in Medicine.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Crypto Briefing: The U.S. House Committee on Financial Services has announced that several cryptocurrency executives will testify at a panel hearing. Jeremy Allaire, CEO of the USD Coin company Circle, is first on the list of executives that will attend the panel. The list also includes Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO and founder of the crypto exchange FTX. It additionally includes Brian Brooks, current CEO of Bitfury and former acting comptroller for the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). Chad Cascarilla, CEO of the stablecoin and brokerage firm Paxos, will also appear on the panel. Paxos is best known for powering crypto services for PayPal and Facebook's Novi wallet. Denelle Dixon, CEO of the Stellar Development Foundation, and Alesia Haas, CFO of Coinbase, will also make an appearance. The panel will be led by Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Chairwoman of the House Committee on Financial Services. Waters previously held a hearing on Facebook's proposed crypto plans in 2019, as well as other panels on crypto, digital currencies, and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). This upcoming panel is titled "Digital Assets and the Future of Finance: Understanding the Challenges and Benefits of Financial Innovation in the United States." The page describing the hearing suggests the goal of the event is to hold financial companies accountable to consumers and investors. The hearing will be held at 10:00 AM ET on Wednesday, Dec. 8. It will be available as an online webcast.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Long-time Slashdot reader tlhIngan writes: The AstraZeneca vaccine, one of the few approved vaccines to fight COVID-19, was under fire earlier this year for causing blood clots. While the vaccine is still approved for use, and is being used, scientists have been working hard to figure out the cause. The main trigger appears to be caused by the immune system mistakenly identifying a blood protein as part of the virus. The AstraZeneca vaccine has viral RNA embedded on a normal cold virus. Platelet factor 4, a blood protein, is attracted to the virus and sticks to it. Sometimes, the immune system thinks the protein on the virus is the virus and attacks it, causing red blood cells to clump on it, creating a blood clot. This is a positive hope in helping figure out who may be susceptible to blood clots caused by the vaccine and to offer an alternative to those allergic to components of the mRNA vaccines.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: It has been another record year for renewable energy, despite the Covid-19 pandemic and rising costs for raw materials around the world, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). About 290GW of new renewable energy generation capacity, mostly in the form of wind turbines and solar panels, has been installed around the world this year, beating the previous record last year. On current trends, renewable energy generating capacity will exceed that of fossil fuels and nuclear energy combined by 2026. New climate and energy policies in many countries around the world have driven the growth, with many governments setting out higher ambitions on cutting greenhouse gas emissions before and at the Cop26 UN climate summit in Glasgow last month. However, this level of growth is still only about half that required to meet net zero carbon emissions by mid-century. According to the IEA report, published on Wednesday, renewables will account for about 95% of the increase in global power-generation capacity from now to the end of 2026, with solar power alone providing about half of the increase. Raw material prices have risen as the world has emerged from the Covid pandemic and on the back of the energy price rises around the world. These price increases have cancelled out some of the cost falls of recent years in the renewable sector. If they continue next year the cost of wind power will return to levels last seen in 2015, and two to three years of cost falls in solar power will be wiped out. Heymi Bahar, lead author of the report, said that commodity prices were not the main obstacles to growth, however. Wind and solar would still be cheaper than fossil fuels in most areas, he noted. Permitting was the main barrier to new wind energy projects around the world, and policy measures were needed to expand use of solar power for consumers and industry. "China installed the most new renewable energy capacity this year, and is now expected to reach 1,200GW of wind and solar capacity in 2026, four years earlier than its target of 2030," the report notes. "India, the world's third-biggest emitter, also experienced strong growth in renewable energy capacity in the past year, but its target -- set out at Cop26 -- of reaching net zero by 2070 is also regarded as too weak by many."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Meta is backing away from its longstanding (if not absolute) ban on cryptocurrency ads. Engadget reports: As CNBC reports, Meta has greatly loosened its ban by expanding the number of regulatory licenses it accepts from three to 27. The crypto landscape has "matured and stabilized" enough to justify the change of heart, the company said, including an increased amount of government regulation that sets "clearer responsibilities and expectations." Advertisers still need written permission to run ads for cryptocurrency exchanges, lending and borrowing, crypto mining tools and wallets that let you buy, sell, stake or swap tokens. This does, however, open the door to cryptocurrency businesses that previously couldn't run any ads, not to mention would-be investors who might not be familiar with the market. The report goes on to note that "the shift comes just a day after Meta's crypto overseer, David Marcus, said he was leaving the company."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to Margrethe Vestager, EU's Commissioner for Competition, it's unlikely that the EU will ever become completely independent from other countries as far as semiconductor supply is concerned. Tom's Hardware reports: Leading contract makers of semiconductors -- such as Intel, Samsung Foundry, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. -- spend around $30 billion per year on capital expenditures and billions on developing new process technologies. Analysts believe that a country, or a group of countries, that wants to build a competitive semiconductor industry locally would need to spend over $150 billion over a period of five years on direct help, tax breaks, and incentives. However, the chances of success are extremely low. The EU official believes that such investments are impossible to make, which is why the bloc will continue to rely on internal and external chip supply. "The numbers I hear of, sort of, the upfront investments to be fully self-sufficient, that makes it not doable," said Vestager in an interview with CNBC. "What is important is that there is a different level of production capacity in Europe." It is noteworthy that Europe does not produce smartphones or PCs, two kinds of applications that need chips made using leading-edge fabrication technologies. Meanwhile, the EU produces cars, consumer electronics, and other things that do not need chips made using the latest nodes. Thus, the bloc wants to expand production of chips for these products to protect its economy. It also does not want supply chains to be disrupted by China or tensions with the U.S. and Germany. At present, about 10% of the global chip supply is produced in Europe, down from 40% in 1990. The current goal that the block has is to expand its global chip production market share to 20% by 2030, which is already a very ambitious goal as chip manufacturing is growing. Vestager admits that to accomplish this goal, the EU needs to support local makers of semiconductors. Unfortunately, Margrethe Vestager does not announce any particular plans at this time.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Michael Schwekutsch, a director of engineering in the Apple Special Projects Group that's reportedly working on self-driving cars, has left to join electric air taxi start-up Archer as its senior VP of engineering. Schwekutsch noted the change on his LinkedIn page on Wednesday. CNBC reports: The move is the latest example of staff turnover in Apple's secretive car project. Former VP of special projects Doug Field left in September to lead Ford's emerging technology efforts, a priority for the legacy automaker under its new Ford+ turnaround plan. The move also indicates that tech start-ups attacking climate issues can attract the most qualified engineers. A former VP of engineering at Tesla, Schwekutsch holds more than 100 patents related to vehicle design, worked on prototypes for the Tesla Plaid systems, and led production of electric drive systems for several vehicle models from Tesla, Porsche, BMW and others, according to his online resume. Archer is working on electric-powered air taxis that take off and land vertically. Like competitors Lilium and Joby Aviation, Archer aims to transport passengers on short trips, avoiding traffic on the ground and the noise and emissions generated by traditional fuel-burning aircraft and cars. It's already developed a model known as the Maker that can carry one passenger and a pilot, and is working on a four-passenger model. The company aims to operate urban air mobility services starting in Los Angeles once its aircraft are cleared by the Federal Aviation Administration for commercial use. Founded in 2018 and based in Palo Alto, Calif., Archer went public in September after merging with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), Atlas Crest Investment Corp.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The HashiCorp IPO intends to shoot the narrows between Thanksgiving and Christmas, with its first IPO pricing interval set to give it among the richest valuations of any technology company with a strong open source component to its core business. In a recent S-1/A filing, the cloud infra management company indicated that it expects to sell shares in its public offering at a range of $68 to $72 apiece. That interval could move, of course, before the company prices. Nubank, for example, reduced its IPO price range this week ahead of its anticipated debut. HashiCorp's IPO valuation at its current range can be calculated in one of two ways. The first employs a simple share count, or the number of shares that are currently anticipated to be outstanding after its debut. The second is a fully diluted share count, which includes shares that have been earned through options but not yet turned from pledges into shares. The company expects to have 178,895,570 shares of Class A and B stock in circulation after its IPO. HashiCorp's simple IPO share count rises to 181,190,570 if we count shares reserved for its underwriting entities. Using the latter figure, at a $68 to $72 per-share IPO price interval, HashiCorp would be worth between $12.3 billion and $13.0 billion. However, on a fully diluted basis, the company's value is much higher. Per Renaissance Capital, at $70 per share, HashiCorp's IPO, inclusive of a broader share count, would value it at $14.2 billion. Converting that to $72 per share, the company could be worth as much as $14.6 billion. The unicorn was last valued at around $5 billion in March 2020, meaning its IPO pricing looks set to be a win.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nearly 3 billion people -- or 37% of the world's population -- have never used the internet, according to the United Nations, despite the Covid-19 pandemic driving people online. From a report: The UN's International Telecommunication Union (ITU) estimated that 96% of the 2.9 billion people who have not accessed the web live in developing countries. The agency said the estimated number of people who have gone online rose from 4.1 billion in 2019 to 4.9 billion this year, partially due to a "Covid connectivity boost." But even among those internet users, many hundreds of millions might only go online infrequently, using shared devices or facing connection speeds that hamper their internet use. "ITU will work to make sure the building blocks are in place to connect the remaining 2.9 billion. We are determined to ensure no one will be left behind," said the ITU secretary general, Houlin Zhao. The number of users globally grew by more than 10% in the first year of the Covid crisis -- by far the largest annual increase in a decade. The ITU cited measures such as lockdowns, school closures and the need to access services such remote banking as having an influence.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

At the Snapdragon Tech Summit 2021 yesterday, Qualcomm introduced their new always-on camera capabilities in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, which is expected to arrive in high-end Android phones early next year. The company says this new feature will let users wake and unlock their phone without having to pick it up or have it instantly lock when it no longer sees their face. Even though Judd Heape, Qualcomm Technologies vice president of product management, said that the "always-on camera data never leaves the secure sensing hub while it's looking for faces," it raises a serious privacy concern that "far outweighs any potential convenience benefits," argues The Verge's Dan Seifert. From the report: Qualcomm is framing the always-on camera as similar to the always-on microphones that have been in our phones for years. Those are used to listen for voice commands like "Hey Siri" or "Hey Google" (or lol, "Hi Bixby") and then wake up the phone and provide a response, all without you having to touch or pick up the phone. But the key difference is that they are listening for specific wake words and are often limited with what they can do until you do actually pick up your phone and unlock it. It feels a bit different when it's a camera that's always scanning for your likeness. It's true that smart home products already have features like this. Google's Nest Hub Max uses its camera to recognize your face when you walk up to it and greet you with personal information like your calendar. Home security cameras and video doorbells are constantly on, looking for activity or even specific faces. But those devices are in your home, not always carried with you everywhere you go, and generally don't have your most private information stored on them, like your phone does. They also frequently have features like physical shutters to block the camera or intelligent modes to disable recording when you're home and only resume it when you aren't. It's hard to imagine any phone manufacturer putting a physical shutter on the front of their slim and sleek flagship smartphone. Lastly, there have been many reports of security breaches and social engineering hacks to enable smart home cameras when they aren't supposed to be on and then send that feed to remote servers, all without the knowledge of the homeowner. Modern smartphone operating systems now do a good job of telling you when an app is accessing your camera or microphone while you're using the device, but it's not clear how they'd be able to inform you of a rogue app tapping into the always-on camera. [...] But even if it's not found in every phone next year, the mere presence of the feature means that it will be used by someone at some point. It sets a precedent that is unsettling and uncomfortable; Qualcomm may be the first with this capability, but it won't be long before other companies add it in the race to keep up. Maybe we'll just start having to put tape on our smartphone cameras like we already do with laptop webcams.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Square, the financial services and digital payments company founded by Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey in 2010, announced today that it is changing its name to Block. From a press release: Block will be the name for the company as a corporate entity. The Square name has become synonymous with the company's Seller business, which provides an integrated ecosystem of commerce solutions, business software, and banking services for sellers, and this move allows the Seller business to own the Square brand it was built for. The change to Block acknowledges the company's growth. Since its start in 2009, the company has added Cash App, TIDAL, and TBD54566975 as businesses, and the name change creates room for further growth. Block is an overarching ecosystem of many businesses united by their purpose of economic empowerment, and serves many people -- individuals, artists, fans, developers, and sellers. The name change to Block distinguishes the corporate entity from its businesses, or building blocks. There will be no organizational changes, and Square, Cash App, TIDAL, and TBD54566975 will continue to maintain their respective brands. A foundational workforce, which includes teams such as Counsel, People, and Finance, will continue to help guide the ecosystem at the corporate level. As a result of the name change, Square Crypto, a separate initiative of the company dedicated to advancing Bitcoin, will change its name to Spiral. The name has many associated meanings for the company -- building blocks, neighborhood blocks and their local businesses, communities coming together at block parties full of music, a blockchain, a section of code, and obstacles to overcome. "We built the Square brand for our Seller business, which is where it belongs," said Jack Dorsey, cofounder and CEO of Block. "Block is a new name, but our purpose of economic empowerment remains the same. No matter how we grow or change, we will continue to build tools to help increase access to the economy."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Social media platform Reddit said on Wednesday it would launch several real-time features, including voting animations and typing indicators, [...] to boost engagement on the platform that has fueled a 'meme-stock' frenzy in the recent past. Reuters reports: While Reddit has been a well-known internet name for years, attracting millions of experts and enthusiasts to its niche discussion groups, it has trailed behind other major social media sites in terms of its development as a business. Reddit's new features are a departure from its current interface that so far provided no live information on topic pages and threads. Users would now see dynamic animations indicating new comments, upvotes and downvotes, Reddit said. They would also be shown anonymous avatars when two or more people are reading or looking to comment on a post. "These features are aimed at increasing engagement across Reddit. They answer our question of 'if other redditors know other redditors are viewing the same content, will users be more likely to contribute?' The answer: yes. This creates a better user experience and makes Reddit a platform that is engaging with rich media and real-time capabilities," the company said in a statement. Reddit is reportedly seeking to hire investment bankers and lawyers for an IPO. In August, the company was valued at $10 billion.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: U.S. health officials have confirmed the country's first case of the new, heavily mutated coronavirus variant called omicron in California, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday. White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said the individual, who was fully vaccinated, had just returned from traveling in South Africa to the San Francisco area on Nov. 22 and tested positive on Nov. 29. "The individual is self quarantining and all close contacts have been contacted and all close contacts, thus far, have tested negative," he announced at a White House press briefing providing more details of the case. "We feel good that this patient not only had mild symptoms, but actually the symptoms appear to be improving." The CDC said genomic sequencing was initially conducted at the University of California, San Francisco and confirmed by the CDC as the omicron variant. On Twitter, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said: "CA's large-scale testing and early detection systems have found the Omicron COVID-19 variant in California. We should assume that it's in other states as well. There's no reason to panic--but we should remain vigilant. That means get vaccinated. Get boosted. Wear a mask indoors." Further reading: WHO Says Omicron Has Been Found in 23 Countries Across the WorldRead more of this story at Slashdot.

The prevailing narrative about tech workers assumes that they have more power than ever before. This even has a term -- the Great Resignation. But at the booming, much-revered payments company Stripe, some applicants have found themselves accepting job offers only to learn they have been rescinded without warning. From a report: Protocol spoke with two Stripe candidates who received either verbal or written offers from the company and then had those offers revoked because of "shifting business priorities." (We reviewed their communications with Stripe recruiters, including the offer letter, to confirm the candidates' stories). Protocol also spoke with a former Stripe recruiter who described the company as embracing a "hire and fire" mentality and constantly shifting priorities and reorganizing staff. All three of these sources were granted anonymity for fear of repercussions by their current and potential future employers. Protocol also reviewed multiple online complaints detailing similar rescinded offers; the most prominent of these complaints was posted on Hacker News and received a rousing defense of Stripe from Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong. "We want everyone who interacts with Stripe during a recruiting process to be treated professionally and with respect. We value feedback and are always looking for ways to improve our recruiting experience," a Stripe spokesperson wrote to Protocol. Stripe, which has the highest valuation of any private, venture-backed tech company in the U.S., has grown so rapidly over the last few years that many engineers and other tech workers see it as one of the most desirable, successful places to work. The former recruiter interviewed by Protocol said that she chose the job over offers at Google and two other tech companies, in part because of the extremely positive and enthusiastic way the company was sold to her and because of Stripe's reputation in the industry.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Twitch has launched a tool that uses machine learning to detect users trying to rejoin chat channels from which they have been banned for abusive behaviour. The gaming-focused livestreaming website said "bad actors" often created new accounts to continue to harass people. From a report: But the new system would warn streamers and chat moderators if a user was a "likely" or "possible" ban evader. It is part of Twitch's long-running efforts to reduce hate and harassment. The company has been criticised over "hate raids", in which unscrupulous streamers send their followers or even automated bots to other channels to harass someone. Often the victims belong to minority or marginalised groups. Creators had demanded the Amazon-owned company do more to counter this kind of hate speech. In September, Twitch announced "phone-verified chat", enabling streamers to require some or all users to verify a phone number before chatting. And the same month, it began legal action against unidentified users allegedly involved in "chat-based attacks against marginalised streamers."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Windows 11's taskbar is a giant step back in usability compared to Windows 10, and now Microsoft is starting to make improvements. A new update that's currently being tested by Windows Insiders brings the clock and date back to the taskbar on secondary or multiple monitors. From a report: It's a change that multiple monitor users will appreciate, as many have had to install third-party apps like ElevenClock just to get this basic functionality in Windows 11. I've not been shy about criticizing the changes made to the taskbar in Windows 11. I hate the new taskbar, so I'm happy to see Microsoft make this initial change. There's still much more to be improved, and hopefully we see the return of being able to drag and drop files onto taskbar apps and the general customization options. Elsewhere, Microsoft is also making some improvements to the Start menu in Windows 11. The latest 22509 Insider build includes the ability to configure the Start menu to show more pins or more recommendations instead. That makes the Start menu a little more customizable, although many Windows 11 users are also opting for third-party apps here, too.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Companies that run food delivery and ride-hailing apps are concerned that the European Union will push for gig workers to be considered employees rather than self-employed under a forthcoming proposal aimed at bolstering their labor rights. From a report: The draft European Commission proposal, seen by Bloomberg, would apply to any company that controls digital workers' performance by determining pay, controlling communication with customers, or offering future work based on previous performance -- a move that would be sure to hit companies like Uber Technologies, Deliveroo and Bolt Technology if implemented. These workers would have the "rebuttable presumption of employment," according to the draft, which would mean there is an employment arrangement no matter how the contract is worded. The EU's executive arm doesn't have the authority to mandate labor laws across the bloc and would leave it to EU countries to interpret the rules. The proposal, which is expected to made public next week, said some workers will still be considered "self-employed" but doesn't make clear which ones. Platforms that rely on gig work are pushing back against the commission's plans, which they argue risk putting food delivery workers and drivers out of work. They warn against stricter rules like those implemented by Spain, which prompted Deliveroo to pull out of the country and cost thousands of food delivery workers their jobs.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A British man has become the first patient in the world to be fitted with a 3D printed eye, according to Moorfields Eye Hospital in London. From a report: Steve Verze, who is 47 and an engineer from Hackney, east London, was given the left eye on Thursday and first tried it for size earlier this month. Moorfields Eye Hospital said in a press release Thursday that the prosthetic is the first fully digital prosthetic eye created for a patient. The eye is more realistic than other alternatives, and is designed to have "clearer definition and real depth to the pupil," the hospital said. Other prosthetic eyes consist of an iris hand-painted onto a disc that is then embedded into the eye socket. However, their design prevents light from passing into the "full depth" of the eye, the hospital added in the release. As well as appearing more realistic, the procedure is considered less invasive. Fitting traditional prosthetics requires a mold to be taken of the eye socket, whereas in 3D prosthetic eye development the socket is scanned digitally to create a detailed image. Verze's functional eye was also scanned to ensure both eyes look the same.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The World Health Organization said Wednesday that 23 countries across the world have reported cases of the highly mutated omicron Covid-19 variant. From a report: "At least 23 countries from five of six WHO regions have now reported cases of omicron and we expect that number to grow," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters during an update Wednesday in Geneva. "WHO takes this development extremely seriously and so should every country. But it should not surprise us," Tedros continued. "This is what viruses do. And it's what this virus will continue to do, as we long as we allow it to continue spreading." The new number comes one day after White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said 226 cases of the variant have been detected across 20 countries. Officials have not confirmed a case in the U.S. yet. The variant, which was reported to WHO by South Africa a week ago, has more than 30 mutations to the spike protein alone. Some of the mutations are associated with a decrease in antibody protection and higher transmission, according to the WHO. Tedros said there is still more to learn about the new variant's effect on transmission, the severity of disease and the effectiveness of tests, therapeutics and vaccines. Several WHO advisory groups have met in the last few days to "evaluate the emerging evidence, and prioritize the studies needed to answer these questions," he said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Today, Vice President Kamala Harris' office released a new framework for US space policy, detailing how the Biden administration plans to approach commercial, civil, and military space activity moving forward. From a report: Called the United States Space Priorities Framework, the document keeps many of the same space priorities from the previous administration but adds a new emphasis on using space to help combat climate change and investing in STEM education. The new framework comes ahead of today's National Space Council meeting, the first one to be held under the Biden administration. Harris, who chairs the National Space Council, will convene the policy advisory group at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, DC, at 1:30PM ET today. [...] When it comes to space, the Biden administration is carrying forward many of the priorities set by the Trump administration. Notably, NASA's ambitious Artemis program, which was solidified under Trump, is still a major focus under Biden. And plenty of the topics discussed under Pence's Space Council are included in the new framework released by Harris. A few of the key points include maintaining US leadership in space by sending humans back to the Moon and exploring the Solar System with robotic spacecraft, fostering a competitive, regulatory environment for space companies, and defending against security threats in space while strengthening our space assets. In the biggest break from the previous administration, there looks to be a renewed focus on using space in the fight against climate change. In the new framework, the administration pledges to invest in satellites that can observe Earth from space, helping scientists better understand our changing climate. "Open dissemination of Earth observation data will support both domestic and international efforts to address the climate crisis," the document states. To further drive home this new emphasis on climate research from space, President Biden plans to sign a new Executive Order today that will add five new members to the National Space Council, including the Secretaries of Education, Labor, Agriculture, and the Interior, but also notably the National Climate Advisor.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple is asking a higher court to halt a judge's decision that will force changes to its App Store while a legal fight with Epic Games continues. From a report: Lawyers for the company filed Tuesday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, seeking action by Dec. 8. Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers rejected Apple's request to put on hold her ruling allowing developers to steer customers to payment methods outside the App Store, an overhaul the judge ordered in September that could cost the tech giant a few billion dollars annually. The company said at that time it would appeal to the higher court.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

China is planning to ban companies from going public on foreign stock markets through variable interest entities -- Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter -- closing a loophole long used by the country's technology industry to raise capital from overseas investors. From the report: The ban, intended in part to address concerns over data security, is among changes included in a new draft of China's overseas listing rules that may be finalized as soon as this month, said the people, asking not to be identified discussing private information. Companies using the so-called VIE structure would still be allowed to pursue initial public offerings in Hong Kong, subject to regulatory approval, the people said. The China Securities Regulatory Commission said on its website Wednesday that a media report about banning the overseas listings of companies using the VIE structure is not true, without giving further details. [...] The overhaul would represent one of Beijing's biggest steps to crack down on overseas listings following the New York IPO of ride-hailing giant Didi Global, which proceeded despite regulatory concerns.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Thousands of networking devices belonging to AT&T Internet subscribers in the US have been infected with newly discovered malware that allows the devices to be used in denial-of-service attacks and attacks on internal networks, researchers said on Tuesday. From a report: The device model under attack is the EdgeMarc Enterprise Session Border Controller, an appliance used by small- to medium-sized enterprises to secure and manage phone calls, video conferencing, and similar real-time communications. As the bridge between enterprises and their ISPs, session border controllers have access to ample amounts of bandwidth and can access potentially sensitive information, making them ideal for distributed denial of service attacks and for harvesting data. Researchers from Qihoo 360 in China said they recently spotted a previously unknown botnet and managed to infiltrate one of its command-and-control servers during a three-hour span before they lost access. "However, during this brief observation, we confirmed that the attacked devices were EdgeMarc Enterprise Session Border Controller, belonging to the telecom company AT&T, and that all 5.7k active victims that we saw during the short time window were all geographically located in the US," Qihoo 360 researchers Alex Turing and Hui Wang wrote. They said they have detected more than 100,000 devices accessing the same TLS certificate used by the infected controllers, an indication that the pool of affected devices may be much bigger. "We are not sure how many devices corresponding to these IPs could be infected, but we can speculate that as they belong to the same class of devices the possible impact is real," they added.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Biden administration is looking for communities willing to serve as temporary homes for tens of thousands of metric tons of nuclear waste currently stranded at power plants around the country. Bloomberg reports: The Energy Department filed (PDF) a public notice Tuesday that it is restarting the process for finding a voluntary host for spent nuclear fuel until a permanent location is identified. "Hearing from and then working with communities interested in hosting one of these facilities is the best way to finally solve the nation's spent nuclear fuel management issues," Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement. The agency, in its notice, requested input on how to proceed with a "consent-based" process for a federal nuclear storage facility, including what benefits could entice local and state governments and how to address potential impediments. Federal funding is also possible, the notice said. Approximately 89,000 metric tons of nuclear waste is being stored at dozens of nuclear power plants and other sites around the country.[...]One such interim storage site could be in Andrews, Texas. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission in September approved a license for a proposal by Orano CIS LLC and its joint venture partner, J.F. Lehman & Co.'s Waste Control Specialists LLC, to establish a repository in the heart of Texas' Permian Basin oil fields for as many as 40,000 metric tons of radioactive waste. The joint venture envisioned having nuclear waste shipped by rail from around the country and sealed in concrete casks where it would be stored above ground at a site about 30 miles (48.28 kilometers) from Andrews. But the plan has drawn opposition from Texas authorities and local officials who once embraced it as an economic benefit but have since had a change of heart. A similar nuclear waste storage project, proposed in New Mexico by Holtec International Corp., is awaiting approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The agency said it expects to make a decision on that proposal in January 2022.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes: The mysterious ways cancer spreads through the body, a process known as metastasis, is what can make it such a difficult enemy to keep at bay. Researchers at Princeton University working in this area have been tugging at a particular thread for more than 15 years, focusing on a single gene central to the ability of most major cancers to metastasize. They've now discovered what they describe as a "silver bullet" in the form of a compound that can disable this gene in mice and human tissue, with clinical trials possibly not too far away. This discovery has its roots in 2004 research in which Princeton scientists identified a gene implicated in metastatic breast cancer, called metadherin, or MTDH. A 2009 paper by cancer biologist Yibin Kang then showed the gene was amplified and produced abnormally high levels of MTDH proteins in around a third of breast cancer tumors, and was central to not just the process of metastasis, but also the resistance of those tumors to chemotherapy. Subsequent research continued to shed light on the importance of the MTDH gene, demonstrating how it is critical for cancer to flourish and metastasize. Mice engineered to lack the gene grew normally, and those that did get breast cancer featured far fewer tumors -- and those tumors that did form didn't metastasize. This was then found to be true of prostate cancer, lung cancer, colorectal cancer, liver cancer and many other cancers. The crystal structure of MTDH shows the protein has a pair of protrusions likened to fingers, which interlock with two holes in the surface of another protein called SND1. This is "like two fingers sticking into the holes of a bowling ball," according to Kang, and the scientists suspected if this intimate connection could be broken, it could go a long way to dampening the harmful effects of MTDH. "We knew from the crystal structure what the shape of the keyhole was, so we kept looking until we found the key," Kang says. The team spent two years screening for the right molecules to fill these holes without any great success, until they landed on what they say is a "silver bullet." The resulting compound plugs these voids and prevents the proteins from interlocking, with profound anti-cancer effects that resemble those seen in the MTDH-deficient mice from their earlier work. "The scientists say that MTDH assists cancer in two primary ways, by helping tumors endure the stresses of chemotherapy and by silencing the alarm that organs normally sound when a tumor invades them," adds New Atlas. "By interlocking with the SND1 protein, it prevents the immune system from recognizing the danger signals normally generated by cancerous cells, and therefore stops it from attacking them. The team is now working to refine the compound, hoping to improve its effectiveness in disrupting the connection between MTDH and SND1 and lower the required dosage. [T]hey hope to be ready for clinical trials on human patients in two to three years." The research has been published across two papers in the journal Nature Cancer.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Over 300,000 Android smartphone users have downloaded what turned out to be banking trojans after falling victim to malware that has bypassed detection by the Google Play app store. ZDNet reports: Detailed by cybersecurity researchers at ThreatFabric, the four different forms of malware are delivered to victims via malicious versions of commonly downloaded applications, including document scanners, QR code readers, fitness monitors and cryptocurrency apps. The apps often come with the functions that are advertised in order to avoid users getting suspicious. In each case, the malicious intent of the app is hidden and the process of delivering the malware only begins once the app has been installed, enabling them to bypass Play Store detections. The most prolific of the four malware families is Anatsa, which has been installed by over 200,000 Android users -- researchers describe it as an "advanced" banking trojan that can steal usernames and passwords, and uses accessibility logging to capture everything shown on the user's screen, while a keylogger allows attackers to record all information entered into the phone. [...] The second most prolific of the malware families detailed by researchers at ThreatFabric is Alien, an Android banking trojan that can also steal two-factor authentication capabilities and which has been active for over a year. The malware has received 95,000 installations via malicious apps in the Play Store. [...] The other two forms of malware that have been dropped using similar methods in recent months are Hydra and Ermac, which have a combined total of at least 15,000 downloads. ThreatFabric has linked Hydra and Ermac to Brunhilda, a cyber-criminal group known to target Android devices with banking malware. Both Hydra and Ermac provide attackers with access to the device required to steal banking information. ThreatFabric has reported all of the malicious apps to Google and they've either already been removed or are under review.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A new browser extension promises to show you which products in your Amazon search results are sold by brands that are either owned by or are exclusive to Amazon, giving you a better idea of who's selling what you're buying. The Verge reports: It's called Amazon Brand Detector, and it uses a list of Amazon brands created by The Markup, along with filters and other techniques (detailed here) to detect and highlight products that are a part of Amazon's Our Brands program. The Markup created this extension after its investigation into how Amazon ranks its in-house brands in search results and says the tool (available for Chrome-like browsers and Firefox) is designed to make searches more transparent. When we tested it, it obviously highlighted Amazon Basics and Essentials products, but it also drew attention to results that were otherwise indistinguishable from ones not affiliated with Amazon: a dog leash labeled as being made by Panykoo, socks by Teebulen, a sweater by Ofeefan. While Amazon marked some of those results as "featured from our brands," that wasn't the case for all of them. That advisory text is also small and grey, making it easy to miss if you're casually browsing (especially since there may not be any notice of the affiliation on the actual product page), and it didn't show up on every result the tool highlighted. Amazon isn't necessarily shadowy about these brands: it has a page that lists its "private and select exclusive brands," many of which have legit-sounding names: Happy Belly, Wag, Nature's Wonder. Some are private labels owned by Amazon, where some are "curated selections" sold exclusively on Amazon but not necessarily operated by the company. According to The Markup, the extension "does not collect any data" and should be compatible with other extensions.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

What if users could pay for apps or services not with money or attention, but with their spare compute power? A startup called "Massive" is working to take this concept "into the modern world as an alternative to charging users or pounding them with advertisements to generate revenue," writes TechCrunch's Alex Wilhelm. From the report: Massive announced an $11 million round this morning, led by Point72 Ventures with participation from crypto-themed entities, including CoinShares Ventures and Coinbase Ventures. Several angels also participated in the funding event. The model is interesting, and Massive's funding round is an indication that it has found some market traction. So, we get the company on the horn to learn more. Massive co-founder and CEO Jason Grad described the startup's work as something akin to an Airbnb or Turo for users' computers, comparing its service to some of the more popular consumer-sharing startups that folks already know. It's a reasonable comparison. Some 50,000 desktop computer users -- nodes, in the company's parlance -- have opted into its service. Which is white hat, it goes without saying. Given that Massive is asking for compute power, it will have constant work to do to ensure that it is a good steward of user trust and partner selection; no one wants their spare CPU cycles to go to something illegal. The company has a good early stance toward caring for its nascent compute exchange, with a hard requirement of getting users to opt into its service before joining. To start, Massive is working with crypto-focused companies. They have an obvious need for compute power, and the work they execute -- running blockchain calculations -- is monetized through block rewards and other fees, making them easy choices for partnerships. You can now see why the company's investor list includes a number of crypto-focused venture capital firms. The startup's goal is broader, however. It wants to build a two-sided marketplace for compute power, Grad explained. That means lots more users offering up a slice of their computing power, future acceptance of mobile devices, and a broader partner list. Part of the company's perspective is rooted in the belief that the dominant business models of the internet today are lacking. "Shit," to quote Grad directly.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: When a scammer wants to set up an account on Amazon, Discord, or a spread of other online services, sometimes a thing that stands in their way is SMS verification. The site will require them to enter a phone number to receive a text message which they'll then need to input back into the site. Sites often do this to prevent people from making fraudulent accounts in bulk. But fraudsters can turn to large scale, automated services to lease them phone numbers for less than a cent. One of those is 5SIM, a website that members of the video game cheating community mention as a way to fulfill the request for SMS verification. Various YouTube videos uploaded by the company explain how people can use its service explicitly for getting through the SMS verification stage of various sites. The videos include instructions specifically on PayPal, Instagram, Facebook, Telegram, and dating site Plenty of Fish. Instagram told Motherboard it is concerned by sites that suggest people can use services to bypass Instagram's measures to then abuse the platform. Instagram said it uses SMS verification to prevent the creation of fake accounts and to make account recovery possible. "We have many measures in place to protect against scripted account creation and block millions of fake accounts at registration every day," an Instagram spokesperson said. Some online services don't allow users to perform SMS verification with VoIP numbers, presumably in an effort to mitigate against fraud. 5SIM's numbers, however, are just like ordinary phone numbers, the site claims. When people buy 5SIM's services, they must only use it for receiving texts related to an online account. "Different SMS will [be] rejected," the website adds. 5SIM also offers an API to automate parts of the service. 5SIM's rules say that customers are "Forbidden to use the service for any illegal purposes as well as not to take actions that harm the service and (or) third parties." The website also includes a denylist of words that its service may block. In an email to Motherboard, 5SIM said: "5sim service is prohibited to use for illegal purposes. In cases, where fraudulent operations with registered accounts are detected, restrictions may be imposed on the 5sim account until the circumstances are clarified. 5sim is used by those who want to get a discount or bonus, webmasters, SMM specialists, owners of business for advertising and increasing business loyalty."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft has decided to add "Buy Now, Pay Later" financing options to its Edge browser in the U.S. -- and the overwhelming response has been negative. The Register reports: The Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) option pops up at the browser level (rather than on checkout at an ecommerce site) and permits users to split any purchase between $35 and $1,000 made via Edge into four instalments spread over six weeks. The system is powered by Zip, previously Quadpay, and offers a Chrome extension for users who want to split their payments (interest-free if you make the payments on time, although Zip charges $1 per installment). Microsoft has now bundled the platform into Edge. Feedback could charitably be described as negative so far, as demonstrated by the tags assigned to the post on Microsoft's Tech Community site. Comments (numbering 119 at time of writing) posted by visitors to the site can be pretty much summed up thusly: "This [is] a cheap and disgusting move from Microsoft and edge team to the browser users. You should be ashamed for pushing such crap to users. Listening to the users checkout flows, suggesting third party services. Bloating the browser. Seriously, be better and more responsible." "It's deeply shocking this is built into the base Windows OS on billions of devices," writes cybersecurity expert Kevin Beaumont in a tweet. "I feel like I should start a GoFundMe for Microsoft, or teach them how to beg bounty, as clearly they need the money."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Consumers logged online Monday and spent $10.7 billion, marking a 1.4% decrease from year-ago levels, according to data released Tuesday by Adobe Analytics. This year's tally marks the first time that Adobe has tracked a slowdown in spending on major shopping days. CNBC reports: Despite the slowdown, Adobe expects the entire holiday season will see record-breaking e-commerce activity, as shoppers spread out their dollars over more days. So far, from Nov. 1 through Cyber Monday, consumers in the United States have spent $109.8 billion online, which is up 11.9% year over year, Adobe said. And on 22 of those days, consumers purchased more than $3 billion worth of goods, another new milestone, it said. Adobe anticipates digital sales from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31 will hit $207 billion, which would represent record gains of 10%. Last Cyber Monday, retailers rang up $10.8 billion in sales on the web, as more people stayed home and avoided shopping in retailers' stores due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. It marked a record day for e-commerce purchases in the U.S. The slight deceleration in online spending follows a similar pattern that played out on Thanksgiving Day and on Black Friday this year, as shoppers appeared to have spread out their dollars onto more days rather than squeezing their shopping into "Cyber Week." Retailers rang up $8.9 billion in sales online on Black Friday, down from the record of about $9 billion spent on the Friday after Thanksgiving a year earlier, Adobe said. And on Thanksgiving Day, consumers spent $5.1 billion on the internet, flat from year-ago levels. [...] Shopper traffic on Black Friday was up 47.5% compared with year-ago levels, but was still down 28.3% versus 2019, according to separate data from Sensormatic Solutions.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Record: A recently discovered FBI training document shows that US law enforcement can gain limited access to the content of encrypted messages from secure messaging services like iMessage, Line, and WhatsApp, but not to messages sent via Signal, Telegram, Threema, Viber, WeChat, or Wickr. The document, obtained earlier this month following a FOIA request filed by Property of the People, a US nonprofit dedicated to government transparency, appears to contain training advice for what kind of data agents can obtain from the operators of encrypted messaging services and the legal processes they have to go through. Dated to January 7, 2021, the document doesn't include any new information but does a good job at providing an up-to-date summary of what type of information the FBI can currently obtain from each of the listed services. [...] While the document confirms that the FBI can't gain access to encrypted messages sent through some services, the other type of information they can glean from providers might still help authorities in other aspects of their investigations. The content of the document, which may be hard to read due to some font rendering issues, is also available in the table [embedded in the article]. Of note, the table above does not include details about Keybase, a recent end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) service that has been gaining in popularity. The service was acquired by video conferencing software maker Zoom in May 2020.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SpaceX's Starlink unit is testing its space-based internet service with several aircraft and wants to offer in-flight connection to airlines "as soon as possible," a company vice president said. From a report: Starlink is in talks with several airlines about offering in-flight broadband connections, Jonathan Hofeller, vice president of commercial sales, said Tuesday on a panel at the Airline Passenger Experience Association gathering in Long Beach, California. That would put the company in direct competition with Viasat, Intelsat SA, Telesat and others. Starlink is producing six satellites a week at its assembly site near Seattle, Hofeller said. It is also moving to a more sophisticated version.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nasa has postponed a planned spacewalk outside the International Space Station due to flying "debris," two weeks after Russia blew up one of its own satellites in a missile test that created clouds of zooming shrapnel in orbit. From a report: Washington's space agency did not mention the Russian test in its announcement, but a Nasa official had warned a day earlier of a slightly elevated risk to astronauts due to the 14 November incident. The strike generated thousands of pieces of "space junk" that are now hurling around the Earth at about 17,000 mph (27,400km/h) -- much faster than the speed of a bullet. At that velocity, even tiny flecks of paint can damage spacecraft, with spacesuits even more vulnerable. On Tuesday, about five hours before the astronauts Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron were due to venture outside the space station, Nasa said on Twitter that the spacewalk to fix a failed antenna had been cancelled. "Nasa received a debris notification for the space station. Due to the lack of opportunity to properly assess the risk it could pose to the astronauts, teams have decided to delay the 30 November spacewalk until more information is available," it tweeted. Moscow has said its test to destroy its own spacecraft, Tselina-D, which had been in orbit since 1982, was successful and the debris posed no "threat to space activity."Read more of this story at Slashdot.