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Elon Musk likened Apple and its App Store to the equivalent of a "30% tax on the Internet" and said the fee is "10 times higher than it should be," in a series of tweets responding to a Slashdot tweet about the European Union's latest antitrust complaint against the tech giant.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A group of Apple employees have written an open letter to the company's executive team complaining about its new policy that only allows for two days of working from home, iMore has reported. From a report: They said that Apple's reasons for implementing the policy don't stand up, and that the policy is wasteful, inflexible and will lead to a "younger, whiter, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied" workforce. "You have characterized the decision for the Hybrid Working Pilot as being about combining the "need to commune in-person" and the value of flexible work," the letter states. "But in reality, it does not recognize flexible work and is only driven by fear. Fear of the future of work, fear of worker autonomy, fear of losing control."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is vastly expanding its fight against cryptocurrency fraud by hiring more than a dozen new employees to combat cybercrime, the agency said Tuesday. From a report: The additional 20 positions will result in almost a doubling in size of the agency's Cyber Unit, which is also being renamed the Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit to reflect the group's growing mission, the SEC said in a release. The Cyber Unit was first founded within the SEC's enforcement division in 2017. "By nearly doubling the size of this key unit, the SEC will be better equipped to police wrongdoing in the crypto markets while continuing to identify disclosure and controls issues with respect to cybersecurity," SEC Chair Gary Gensler said in a statement.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) bought access to location data harvested from tens of millions of phones in the United States to perform analysis of compliance with curfews, track patterns of people visiting K-12 schools, and specifically monitor the effectiveness of policy in the Navajo Nation, according to CDC documents obtained by Motherboard. From a report: The documents also show that although the CDC used COVID-19 as a reason to buy access to the data more quickly, it intended to use it for more general CDC purposes. Location data is information on a device's location sourced from the phone, which can then show where a person lives, works, and where they went. The sort of data the CDC bought was aggregated -- meaning it was designed to follow trends that emerge from the movements of groups of people -- but researchers have repeatedly raised concerns with how location data can be deanonymized and used to track specific people. The documents reveal the expansive plan the CDC had last year to use location data from a highly controversial data broker. SafeGraph, the company the CDC paid $420,000 for access to one year of data to, includes Peter Thiel and the former head of Saudi intelligence among its investors. Google banned the company from the Play Store in June.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

vm shares the blogpost of Mozilla releasing Firefox 100, and outlines some of thoughts: Out of the ashes of Netscape/AOL, Firebird rose as a promising new browser. A significant name change and a hundred releases later, Firefox 100 is still the underdog that keeps on fighting. With my mounting annoyance at all the Google services underpinning Chrome, I've since discovered and used Ungoogled Chromium, Waterfox, LibreWolf, and a handful of other lesser known spins on Chrome or Firefox. On mobile, Brave really does the best job at ad blocking whether you're on iOS or Android but the Mozilla Foundations is probably still the largest dev group fighting the good fight when it comes to both privacy and security enhancements.That's not to say that the Chromium team isn't security savvy -- I only wish they were just a little less Google. Anyhow, tell us about your favorite browser in the comments and have a look at Mozilla's latest release while you're at it.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

UnknowingFool writes: In October 2021, PC World reviewed Windows 11 and labeled it as an "unnecessary replacement" to Windows 10 and did not recommend it for Windows 10 users. PC World noted that it was a "mixed bag of improved features and unnecessary changes." Six months later they reviewed it again. While MS has made improvements, PC World does not feel the improvements warrant a recommendation for Windows 10 users to upgrade.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

People who have been hospitalised with Covid may be left with difficulties in thinking comparable in magnitude to ageing 20 years, research suggests. From a report: As the pandemic swept the world it became apparent that coronavirus could not only cause immediate health problems but also leave some people with often debilitating symptoms -- a condition known as long Covid. According to one UK study, about a third of patients who experienced symptoms after being hospitalised felt fully recovered a year later, with little improvement for most patients in areas including physical function and cognitive impairment. Now experts have revealed that some patients were left with, on average, a lingering cognitive decline. David Menon, a professor at Cambridge University and senior author of the study, said the degree of impairment was linked to the severity of illness. "[Covid] does cause problems with a variety of organs in the body, including the brain and our cognitive function and our psychological health," he said. "If you can have a vaccine, and all your doses, you will have less severe illness. So all of these problems are going to be less." Writing in the eClinicalMedicine journal, Menon and colleagues report how they examined the results of cognitive tests performed by 46 patients, on average six months after they were admitted to Addenbrooke's hospital in Cambridge between March and July 2020. Of this group, 16 received mechanical ventilation.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A new espionage actor is breaching corporate networks to steal emails from employees involved in big financial transactions like mergers and acquisitions. From a report: Mandiant researchers, which first discovered the advanced persistent threat (APT) group in December 2019 and now tracks it as "UNC3524," says that while the group's corporate targets hint at financial motivation, its longer-than-average dwell time in a victim's environment suggests an intelligence gathering mandate. In some cases, UNC3524 remained undetected in victims' environments for as long as 18 months, versus an average dwell time of 21 days in 2021. Mandiant credits the group's success at achieving such a long dwell time to its unique approach to its use of a novel backdoor -- tracked as "QuietExit" -- on network appliances that do not support antivirus or endpoint detection, such as storage arrays, load balancers and wireless access point controllers. The QuietExit backdoor's command-and-control servers are part of a botnet built by compromising D-Link and LifeSize conference room camera systems, according to Mandiant, which said the compromised devices were likely breached due to the use of default credentials, rather than an exploit.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

PayPal helped spur a formal antitrust complaint against Apple and its iPhone payments system by raising concerns with the European Commission, Bloomberg reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter. From the report: European regulators hit Apple with a so-called statement of objections on Monday, arguing that the iPhone maker abuses its control over mobile payments. The complaint centers on the company reserving the iPhone's tap-to-pay abilities for its own Apple Pay service, rather than letting rival payment platforms use the feature. PayPal, which has its own payment service, was one of multiple companies making informal complaints about the situation to the commission, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions were private. PayPal offers a tap-to-pay option on Android phones and wants to be able to offer the same feature on Apple's iPhone.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Within a decade, 1 billion people will have used or tried crypto, up from about 200 million currently, Coinbase Global Chief Executive Officer Brian Armstrong said at the Milken Institute Global Conference on Monday. From a report: "My guess is that in 10-20 years, we'll see a substantial portion of GDP happening in the crypto economy," Armstrong said, speaking at a session with ARK Investment Management CEO Cathie Wood. His comments come at a time of turbulence in crypto markets. After hitting an all-time high of almost $69,000 in November, Bitcoin has been falling in value. The world's biggest cryptocurrency is down about 17% since the beginning of the year. The chorus of skeptics' voices has gotten louder, but Armstrong and Wood, whose Ark is one of the biggest Coinbase investors, have shown a united front. Wood is seeing promise in even decentralized finance, a lightly regulated corner of crypto where people can trade, lend and borrow tokens directly, without intermediaries like banks.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to The Wall Street Journal, a digital advertising network was selling precise movements of millions of users of the gay-dating app Grindr. The locations were available for purchase since "at least 2017," according to the report. Gizmodo reports: According to the Journal's sources, one of the company's old ad partners, MoPub (which was sold off by Twitter earlier this year), was freely passing off location data from the tens of thousands of apps that use place-based information to monetize. At one time, this included Grindr. Once in MoPub's hands, the Journal alleges that this data was sold off, in bulk, to other partners, like Near (formerly known as UM, and formerly formerly known as UberMedia). And Near offered up that data to just about anyone. Because data privacy laws in the U.S. are vague and chaotic where they exist at all, Near can pawn off data from its upstream partners out in the open. You, dear reader, could buy it yourself. "Grindr has shared less information with ad partners than any of the big tech platforms and most of our competitors, restricting the information we share to IP address, advertising ID, and the basic information necessary to support ad delivery," Grindr spokesperson Patrick Lenihan noted in a public statement. With all respect to Lenihan, that bar is extremely low. So-called "anonymous" data points like an ad ID or IP address can easily be tied back to a specific device, and the person who owns that device. By using "anonymous" data like this, advertisers can accurately surmise your workout routine, your favorite tunes, your immigration status and much, much more. "[A]bout one year ago, reports emerged that location data gleaned from the app was used to out a Catholic priest," adds Gizmodo. "The priest resigned, and Catholic news writers wrung their hands over the ill-gotten data source." "[T]he data used to out the priest was anonymized, legally speaking, but the middlemen were able to tie the Grindr-using device to a certain Grindr-using priest because the device was seen frequenting the priest's residence and lake house."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

schwit1 shares a report from Space.com: We'll have to wait at least another month to see the results of the U.S Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) environmental review of SpaceX's Starship program. The FAA has been working for months on that review -- officially known as a programmatic environmental assessment (PEA) -- which is assessing the environmental impacts of Starbase, the South Texas site where SpaceX has been building and testing its huge Starship vehicle. The agency published a draft PEA in September and estimated that the final version would be wrapped up by the end of the year. But the FAA has repeatedly delayed the final PEA, generally by a month at a time, citing the need to analyze the public comments submitted in response to the draft report and discuss next steps with other government agencies. "The FAA plans to release the Final PEA on May 31, 2022. The FAA is finalizing the review of the Final PEA, including responding to comments and ensuring consistency with SpaceX's licensing application," FAA officials wrote in an update. "The FAA is also completing consultation and confirming mitigations for the proposed SpaceX operations. All consultations must be complete before the FAA can issue the Final PEA."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Scientists working on NASA's James Webb Telescope have reached an important milestone, completely aligning the space observatory's massive mirrors. New Atlas reports: The achievement means the team can now move ahead with configuring the onboard instruments and prepare them to begin capturing sharp and in-focus images of the cosmos. Back in January, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) finished deploying its set of 18 mirrors, which it will use to direct light from cosmic objects onto its instruments to capture images. But to do so, the mirrors had to be precisely aligned over a three-month period in order to focus that light correctly. In March, the mirrors were brought into alignment with the telescope's primary imaging instrument, the Near-Infrared Camera, enabling it to focus and snap a crystal-clear image of a bright star. The team then continued aligning the mirrors with the JWST's remaining instruments, the Near-Infrared Spectrograph, Mid-Infrared Instrument, and Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph -- a task that is now complete. The team confirmed the mirrors were aligned and directing light onto the JWST's four instruments by capturing a set of test images covering the telescope's full-field of view [...]. The scientists say the optical performance of the telescope continues to exceed even their most optimistic expectations. With the mirrors now in position (save for some slight periodic adjustments here and there), the scientists are now turning their attention to commissioning of the science instruments. The unique lenses, masks, filters and other gear that make these highly sophisticated instruments tick will need to be precisely configured over the next two months, to ready the telescope for the start of its science operations in the middle of the year.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Russian troops stole almost $5 million worth of farm equipment from a John Deere dealer in the occupied city of Melitopol, Ukraine, only to discover that the machines have been shut down remotely, making them inoperable, according to a report from CNN. Some of the equipment, which comes with a remote locking feature and a built-in GPS, was tracked over 700 miles away in the Zakhan Yurt village of Chechnya. A source close to the situation told CNN that Russian troops gradually began taking machinery away from the dealer following their occupation of Melitopol in March. It reportedly started with two combine harvesters worth $300,000 each, a tractor, and a seeder, until troops hauled away all 27 pieces of equipment. Some of the equipment went to Chechnya, while others reportedly landed in a nearby village. "When the invaders drove the stolen harvesters to Chechnya, they realized that they could not even turn them on, because the harvesters were locked remotely," CNN's source told the outlet. Although the pieces of equipment were remotely disabled, CNN's source says that Russian troops may be trying to find a way around the block, as they're in contact with "consultants in Russia who are trying to bypass the protection."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Biden administration plans to begin a $3.1 billion effort on Monday to spur the domestic production of advanced batteries, which are essential to its plan to speed the adoption of electric vehicles and renewable energy. The New York Times reports: President Biden has prodded automakers to churn out electric vehicles and utilities to switch to solar, wind and other clean energy, saying the transitions are critical to eliminating the pollution that is dangerously heating the planet. In the wake of surging energy prices caused largely by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, administration officials also have described the transition to clean energy as a way to insulate consumers from the fluctuation of global oil markets and achieve true energy independence. Jennifer Granholm, the energy secretary, last week called renewable energy "the greatest peace plan this world will ever know." Yet currently, lithium, cobalt and other minerals needed for electric car batteries and energy storage are processed primarily in Asia. China alone controls nearly 80 percent of the world's processing and refining of those critical minerals. Ms. Granholm plans to announce the funding plan on Monday during a visit to Detroit, a senior administration official said. The $3.1 billion in grants, along with a separate $60 million program for battery recycling, is an effort to "reduce our reliance on competing nations like China that have an advantage over the global supply chain," according to a Department of Energy statement. The funding is aimed at companies that can create new, retrofitted or expanded processing facilities as well as battery recycling programs, officials with the Department of Energy said. The grants will be funded through the $1 trillion infrastructure law, which includes more than $7 billion to improve the domestic battery supply chain. Venkat Srinivasan, director of the Argonne Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science at Argonne National Laboratory, told the panel that the United States "can become a dominant force in energy storage technology" and has a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to seize the moment." Between electric vehicles and grid storage, the market for lithium-ion batteries in the United States is expected to increase by a factor of 20 to 30 in the next decade but a secure domestic supply chain is needed, Dr. Srinivasan said. The Biden administration wants half of all new vehicles sold in the United States to be electric by 2030. The president also has issued procurement guidelines to transform the 600,000-vehicle federal fleet, so that all new cars and trucks purchased by the federal government by 2035 are zero-emission.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Alphabet's Google will provide any U.S. business over $100,000 worth of online courses in data analytics, design and other tech skills for their workers free of charge, the search company said on Monday. Reuters reports: The offer marks a big expansion of Google's Career Certificates, a program the company launched in 2018 to help people globally boost their resumes by learning new tools at their own pace. Over 70,000 people in the United States and 205,000 globally have earned at least one certificate, and 75% receive a benefit such as a new job or higher pay within six months, according to Google. The courses, designed by Google and sold through online education service Coursera, each typically cost students about $39 a month and take three to six months to finish. Google will now cover costs for up to 500 workers at any U.S. business, and it valued the grants at $100,000 because people usually take up to six months to finish. Lisa Gevelber, founder of Grow with Google, the company unit overseeing certificates, said course completion rates are higher when people pay out of pocket but that the new offer was still worthwhile if it could help some businesses gain digital savvy. Certificates also are available in IT support, project management, e-commerce and digital marketing. They cover popular software in each of the fields, including Google advertising services.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Staff at a top London law firm have been told they can work from home permanently â" but they will have to take a 20% pay cut. The Guardian reports: Managing partners at Stephenson Harwood are offering lawyers and other staff the option as City firms try to move beyond solely office-based working in a post-pandemic cultural shift to flexible and remote models. Junior lawyers at the company have starting salaries of 90,000 pounds, meaning anyone taking up the officer would lose about 18,000 pounds. Stephenson Harwood, one of the top 50 highest earning legal firms in the UK and with its headquarters in London, employs more than 1,100 people and has offices in Paris, Greece, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea. A spokesperson for the firm told the Times that the new working policy would apply to staff at its London office and most of the company's international offices. Partners will not be eligible, though. Full equity partners receive an average of 685,000 pounds annually. The new salary sacrifice for full remote working policy is being introduced after the company's experience of recruiting lawyers during the coronavirus pandemic who were not based in London, where living costs tend to be higher. However, the company said it expected only a few staff to take up the full-time work from home option because "for the vast majority of our people, our hybrid working policy works well." Staff already have the option of working remotely for two days a week. "Like so many firms, we see value in being in the office together regularly, while also being able to offer our people flexibility," the spokesman said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Spanish authorities have detected "Pegasus" spyware in the mobile phones of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Defense Minister Margarita Robles, the government minister for the presidency, Felix Bolanos, said on Monday. Bolanos told a news conference Sanchez's phone was infected in May 2021 and at least one data leak occurred then. He did not say who could have been spying on the premier or whether foreign or Spanish groups were suspected of being behind it. "The interventions were illicit and external. External means carried out by non-official bodies and without state authorization," he said, adding that the infections had been reported to the justice ministry, and the High Court would be in charge of the case. [...] The European Union's data watchdog has called for a ban on Pegasus over allegations it has been abused by client governments to spy on rights activists, journalists and politicians.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

After nearly three years of preparation, small satellite launch company Rocket Lab has successfully caught one of its rockets in mid-air today, after launching the vehicle to space from New Zealand. The Verge reports: But by catching and reusing its rockets after flight, Rocket Lab hopes to cut down on the manufacturing cost associated with building an entirely new rocket for each of its missions. The goal is similar to that of SpaceX, which has become famous for landing and reusing its rockets post-flight. Rocket Lab also claims that recovering and reusing its rockets could also help speed up its flight cadence. "By bringing one back, it just saves a tremendous amount of time where you don't have to build a whole new rocket from scratch," Peter Beck, CEO of Rocket Lab, tells The Verge. "So we'll obviously see some good cost savings, but I think the most important thing for us right now is just getting the vehicles back into the production line." When Electron launches to space, computers on board the vehicle guide the booster back through Earth's atmosphere, maneuvering it in just the right way so that it stays intact during the fall to the ground. Once the rocket reaches an altitude of about 8.3 miles up, it deploys a drogue parachute to slow its fall, followed by a main parachute. As the rocket leisurely floats down toward the ocean, that's when the helicopter will arrive and attempt to capture the line of the parachute with a dangling hook, avoiding a splashdown in salty seawater. UPDATE 4:08PM PST: Rocket Lab confirmed the helicopter catch. The summary and headline have been updated to reflect the successful mission. You can view the livestream of the launch here.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Meta Platforms is planning to release four virtual reality headsets between now and 2024, according to an internal road map viewed by The Information. The aggressive timeline reflects Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's desire to advance his vision of the metaverse by getting more people to use VR devices. Whether he can meet the timeline, however, is far from certain. Meta is planning to release Project Cambria, a high-end VR and mixed-reality headset it is billing as a device for the future of work, around September, according to a person familiar with the matter. Cambria was originally supposed to come out last year but its launch was delayed by supply chain and other pandemic-related issues, which could again push back the launch date, the person said. A second version of Cambria, code-named Funston, is slated to come out in 2024. Meanwhile, Meta plans two new versions of its less expensive Quest headset -- internally code-named Stinson and Cardiff -- for release in 2023 and 2024, the road map shows. All four code names for the devices on Meta's Cambria and Quest lines refer to locations in California, following the pattern of the earliest Quest prototypes, made under the name Project Santa Cruz.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Telegram appears to be testing another way for the super popular messaging app to start bringing in revenue. From a report: Beta testers for Telegram's iOS app noticed something new in version 8.7.2, as first spotted by Android Police: a new set of stickers and reaction emoji that you can only unlock "by subscribing to Telegram Premium." Telegram Premium, of course, doesn't exist yet. But right now, users with access to Telegram's TestFlight builds and its Test Server are able to send each other exploding-heart and flying-ghost reactions, a sticker in which that cute blobby yellow duck is just unbearably sad, and a few other new things. And it appears that, ultimately, even the recipients of those messages will need Telegram Premium to see them; if you send a non-subscriber a sad duck, they'll get a prompt to sign up.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In a potential blow to all the apps and websites that have popped up alongside the Amazon Kindle to streamline the process of converting EPUB ebook files to the e-reader's propriety file format, starting in "late 2022," the Kindle Personal Documents Service will finally support EPUB files, expanding where users can source their content. From a report: The Amazon Kindle's original AZW ebook file format was based on the MOBI format created for an e-reader app called Mobipocket, which was first released back in 2000 for a wide variety of PDAs and older mobile devices. Over the years it has evolved into the KF8/AZW3 format, and now the KFX format, which are all proprietary to the Kindle. For those who solely rely on Kindle e-readers and apps and only buy ebooks from Amazon, a proprietary file format isn't an issue, particularly when Amazon offers one of the largest selections of ebooks currently available, and a streamlined way to get the files onto its devices. But there are countless e-readers available on the market that offer better features than the Kindle does, including color E Ink screens, and all of them instead support the EPUB ebook file format (among others), which is the most popular format in the world. It's also a format that Amazon, to date, has refused to support. This has typically meant that someone looking to buy an ebook reader has had to either fully commit to the Amazon Kindle ecosystem, or choose one of the many alternatives and stick with their choice, because ebook files they'd purchased or downloaded weren't cross-compatible.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

NASA and the German Aerospace Center are permanently shutting down the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a telescope on an aeroplane that has been scrutinized for years for its high cost and low scientific output. From a report: Since 2014, the observatory has made hundreds of flights above the water vapour in Earth's atmosphere to get an unobscured view of celestial objects and to gather data at infrared wavelengths. SOFIA has measured magnetic fields in galaxies1, spotted water on sunlit portions of the Moon2 and detected the first type of ion that formed in the Universe, helium hydride3. But it costs NASA around $85 million a year to operate, which is nearly as much as the operational expenses for the Hubble Space Telescope. On 28 April, NASA and the German Aerospace Center, the two partners in SOFIA, announced that they will close down the observatory by 30 September.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Alphabet's Google lashed out at the European Union for doling out a "quasi criminal fine of very large proportions" for allegedly thwarting advertising rivals on websites. From a report: At a hearing at the bloc's General Court on Monday, the search giant said the 2019 decision by the EU's antitrust arm to issue the 1.49 billion-euro ($1.6 billion) fine was riddled with errors and should be struck down. The case is the last of a trilogy of EU court fights over cases that set the course for antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager's bid to rein in Silicon Valley. It focuses on Google's role as an ad broker for websites, targeting exclusivity agreements for online ads with its AdSense for Search product. In its decision, the EU accused the company of imposing a number of restrictive clauses in contracts with third-party websites which prevented Google's rivals from placing their search adverts on these websites. The European Commission analysis includes "errors of characterization" that led it "to proceed on a false basis in its assessment of the clauses and they have resulted in material errors of analysis," said Josh Holmes, one of the lawyers for Google appearing in court.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Robert "Razerguy" Krakoff, the co-founder and former president of gaming hardware company Razer, died last week at the age of 81. Maybe you've never heard Krakoff's name, but it's possible you've been impacted by his far-reaching legacy. From a report: In 1999, Krakoff was behind the first-ever gaming mouse: the Razer Boomslang. Not only was it the foundation of Razer's now-massive lineup of gaming mice, it arguably jumpstarted the entire gaming peripheral industry. Below, you can see Krakoff himself in an ad promoting the Razer Boomslang mouse in 2002 -- alongside professional gamer Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel, who signed a historic sponsorship deal with Razer long before the word "esports" entered the lexicon.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Less than two years after Google dismissed two researchers who criticized the biases built into artificial intelligence systems, the company has fired a researcher who questioned a paper it published on the abilities of a specialized type of artificial intelligence used in making computer chips. From a report: The researcher, Satrajit Chatterjee, led a team of scientists in challenging the celebrated research paper, which appeared last year in the scientific journal Nature and said computers were able to design certain parts of a computer chip faster and better than human beings. Dr. Chatterjee, 43, was fired in March, shortly after Google told his team that it would not publish a paper that rebutted some of the claims made in Nature, said four people familiar with the situation who were not permitted to speak openly on the matter. Google confirmed in a written statement that Dr. Chatterjee had been "terminated with cause." Google declined to elaborate about Dr. Chatterjee's dismissal, but it offered a full-throated defense of the research he criticized and of its unwillingness to publish his assessment.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As a category, mental health apps have worse privacy protections for users than most other types of apps, according to a new analysis from researchers at Mozilla. Prayer apps also had poor privacy standards, the team found. From a report: "The vast majority of mental health and prayer apps are exceptionally creepy," Jen Caltrider, the Mozilla *Privacy Not Included guide lead, said in a statement. "They track, share, and capitalize on users' most intimate personal thoughts and feelings, like moods, mental state, and biometric data." In the latest iteration of the guide, the team analyzed 32 mental health and prayer apps. Of those apps, 29 were given a "privacy not included" warning label, indicating that the team had concerns about how the app managed user data. The apps are designed for sensitive issues like mental health conditions, yet collect large amounts of personal data under vague privacy policies, the team said in the statement. Most apps also had poor security practices, letting users create accounts with weak passwords despite containing deeply personal information.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Brussels regulators have charged Apple with breaking EU competition law by abusing its dominant position in mobile payments to limit rivals' access to contactless technology. From a report: Antitrust investigators are concerned that the US tech group is preventing competitors from accessing "tap and go" chips or near-field communication (NFC) to benefit its own Apple Pay system, the European Commission said in a statement on Monday. Margrethe Vestager, the EU's executive vice-president in charge of competition policy, said Brussels had "indications that Apple restricted third-party access to key technology necessary to develop rival mobile wallet solutions on Apple's devices." She added that the commission had "preliminarily found that Apple may have restricted competition, to the benefit of its own solution Apple Pay." If confirmed, "such a conduct would be illegal under our competition rules," Vestager said. The company could face fines worth up to 10 per cent of global turnover if the charges are upheld.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Register noted this week that two "unofficial" Ubuntu remixes "came out on the same day as the official flavors." - Ubuntu Cinnamon (Linux Mint's flagship desktop environment) - Ubuntu Unity, a revival of what used to be the official Ubuntu desktop by Ubuntu team member Rudra B. Saraswat (described the Register as "a 12-year-old wunderkind")Ubuntu Cinnamon is the older of the two and first appeared in 2019, while Ubuntu Unity came out in May 2020, soon after the release of Ubuntu 20.04. Ubuntu Unity....has the macOS-like desktop that was Ubuntu's standard offering from 2011 until the company pensioned it off in 2017.... Ubuntu Unity is as free as Ubuntu itself, and the new remix continues to evolve. In 22.04, most of the GNOME-based accessory apps have been replaced with the MATE equivalents, such as the Pluma text editor and Atril document viewer. (A handful remain, such as the GNOME system monitor rather than the MATE one, but the differences are trivial.) The System Settings app is the original Unity one, and the Unity Tweaks app comes pre-installed.... The new "Jammy Jellyfish" version of Ubuntu Unity also adds support for Flatpak packages alongside Ubuntu's native Snap packages. To do this, it replaces Ubuntu's Software Store with version 41.5 of GNOME Software. Interestingly, this also supports Snap packages, so sometimes, when you search for a package, you might get multiple results: one for the OS-native DEB package, possibly one for a Flatpak, and maybe a Snap version too.... [I]f you dislike both the Unity and GNOME desktops and want something more Windows-like, but you don't mind GNOME's CSD windows, then Joshua Peisach's Ubuntu Cinnamon remix may appeal. Cinnamon is the default desktop of both Ubuntu-based Linux Mint and its Debian variant. Ubuntu Cinnamon combines the latest upstream version of Mint's Cinnamon desktop, 5.2.7, with the standard app selection of upstream Ubuntu. This means most of its apps lack menu bars, except for the Nemo file manager and LibreOffice. For these classic-style apps, the Ubuntu Cinnamon distro has tweaked the GNOME title-bar layout to be more Windows-like: minimize/maximize/close buttons at top right, and a window-management menu at top left.... Cinnamon's roots as a fork of GNOME 3 do offer a significant potential feature that MATE, Xfce and indeed Unity cannot do: fractional scaling. This is clearly labelled as an experimental feature, and in testing, we couldn't get it to work, so for now, this remains a theoretical advantage.... These caveats aside, though, Ubuntu Cinnamon is maturing nicely in the new version. While Ubuntu and Ubuntu Unity are now purple-toned, Ubuntu Cinnamon has switched to a restrained theme in shades of dark orange and brown, which reminded us of the tasteful earth-toned Ubuntu of the old GNOME 2 days... Both these desktops are X.11-based, so there's not a trace of Wayland in either distro. Both also benefit from having working 3D acceleration. Both remixes "are aiming for inclusion as official Ubuntu flavors," the article points out. But then again, "There are dozens of Ubuntu remixes and flavors out there. The official Ubuntu Derivatives page links to 30, and DistroWatch has more than five times as many, including many which are no longer maintained."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This week saw the 36th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster -- which had occurred just days before the Soviet Union's annual May Day celebration in 1986 -- and featured lots of patriotic outdoor parades. At the time Lev Golinkin was a 6-year-old living less than 300 miles away in the Ukrainian town now called Kharkiv. Writing for CNN, Golinkin remembers that Moscow "had remained silent, refusing to admit anything had occurred until the radioactive cloud from Chernobyl was detected in Scandinavia on April 28, making it impossible to hide the catastrophe any longer." Even then, Golinkin remembers that they "grossly downpayed the issue...."On April 29, three days after the Chernobyl disaster, Moscow issued a terse television announcement informing citizens that a reactor was damaged and aid was being provided to those who required it. The announcement was less than 20 seconds The days and weeks that followed were filled with a torrent of rumors and innuendo swirling around living rooms across the USSR while Moscow continued to pile over the explosion with secrecy and obfuscation. The Politburo began to loosen up restrictions on freedom of speech, but the confusion remained. No one knew the truth, but everyone knew the Kremlin was lying -- and that was about the only certainty around... [T]here was no rationalizing away the radiation. Moscow's refusal to cancel May Day festivities exposed the hollow horror of the Soviet Union -- even the most faithful believers in communism realized they lived in a country that thrust millions of people into danger just so it could hold a parade. Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev himself admitted Chernobyl -- which eroded faith in the Soviet system, poisoned vast tracts of land and cost billions to clean up -- contributed to the collapse of the USSR more than any other factor. Decades of Moscow's secrecy around the disaster makes it impossible to arrive at an accurate estimate of casuaties, and to this day, experts continue to guess and reassess the true impact of Chernobyl.... For nearly 70 years, the Soviets in Kremlin had generations of citizens tolerate bloodshed papered over by mendacity and propaganda. The same is happening today, during Moscow's savage war in Ukraine. The media formats may be somewhat different, but the lies continue... My family and I fled the Soviet Union in 1989. Watching the horrors in Ukraine unfold from America is surreal, in no small part because it feels like the intervening decades between the falls of communism and today have evaporated.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

28-year-old Brenton Tarrant killed 51 people in New Zealand in 2019. The Associated Press reports that at that point he'd been reading 4Chan for 14 years, according to his mother — since the age of 14. The year before, 25-year-old Alek Minassian, who killed 11 people in Toronto in 2018, namechecked 4Chan in a pre-attacked Facebook post. But the Guardian now adds another a story from nine days ago — when a 23-year-old shooter with 1,000 rounds of ammunition opened fire from his apartment in Washington D.C.Just two minutes after the shooting began, someone under the username "Raymond Spencer" logged onto the normally-anonymous 4chan and started a new thread titled "shool [sic] shooting". The newly published message contained a link — to a 30-second video of images captured from the digital scope of Spencer's rifle.... Even as police stormed the apartment building where Spencer hid, with officers maneuvering past a surveillance camera that he had set up in the hallway and was monitoring, Spencer continued to post to the message board. "They're in the wrong part of the building right now searching," he posted at one point. A few minutes later: "Waiting for police to catch up with me." As he waited, Spencer logged on to Wikipedia to edit the entry for Edmund Burke School, which he had just opened fire on.... Police believe Spencer shot himself to death as officers breached his apartment.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hot Hardware warns that on Tuesday, the Stable Channel for Chrome's desktop edition "had an update on April 26, 2022. That update includes 30 security fixes, some of them so bad that Google is urging all users to update immediately."The release notes for Google's Chrome v101.0.4951.41 for Windows, Mac, and Linux has a long list of bug fixes; you can view it here. However, there's also a key statement in that page. "Note: Access to bug details and links may be kept restricted until a majority of users are updated with a fix. We will also retain restrictions if the bug exists in a third party library that other projects similarly depend on, but haven't yet fixed...." Effectively the the non-developer translation of the quote above is that something so significant was found, the details are being kept hidden.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As an apparent reward for returning to the office, thousands of Google employees were treated to a private Lizzo concert at the Shoreline Amphitheatre near Google's headquarters, reports CNBC:Google implemented a return-to-office policy starting in early April, requiring employees to go to physical facilities at least three days a week. Staffers pushed back on the mandate and the prospect of navigating traffic jams, after they worked efficiently for so long at home while the company enjoyed some of its fastest revenue growth of the past 15 years.... Google had delayed its return plans on multiple occasions, due mostly to surges in Covid-19 case numbers. But this time, the company stuck to its reopening schedule. In the early days back, employees were greeted with marching bands on campus, as well as photo booths, celebratory food and visits from prominent politicians. "Thank you for being back!" Lizzo said. "Thank you for surviving! Google, we back, bitch!!" [...] She inserted the company's name into her popular song "Boys," changing the lyrics from "I heard you a freak, too" to "I heard you a freak, Google!" After two and a half years "of protecting others and ourselves but also being very disconnected," Lizzo told the crowd, "It's so incredible to see how connected we are right now!" CNBC reports. Someone in the crowd shouted back, "Propaganda! Propaganda!"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There's a new metaverse project from the creators of the "Bored Apes Yacht Club" NFTs. Last night they held a "virtual land" sale, reports Bloomberg, raising nearly a third of a billion dollars. At about the same time, Mashable noticed something else happening:If you were trying to complete a transaction on the Ethereum network last night, you might have been taken aback by the ridiculously high gas fees you saw. For example, one user purchased a $25 NFT on Saturday evening. Their total price? $3,325. That's $3,300 just in fees. Every transaction on their blockchain incurs a fee (which rises based on the number of concurrent transactions), the article points out. "Ethereum transactions can fail if a user doesn't pay enough in gas fees. When this happens, not only does the transaction not go through, but the user is still charged the gas fee." "Ethereum proved unusable for hours due to its inability to distribute the load..." reports CNET. "Someone tweeted a picture of them trying to send $100 in crypto from one wallet to another, showing it required $1,700 in gas fees.... "Over $175 million was spent on gas alone." Mashable adds:An overwhelmed Ethereum Network....caused fees to skyrocket to astronomically high amounts.... One cryptocurrency advocate noticed that from just the Bored Ape's NFT sale, approximately $100 million were wasted during the first hour of the "land" sale in gas fees alone. As mentioned earlier, transactions can often fail when the Ethereum network is facing unusually high traffic. And last night, many people paid thousands in gas fees for transactions that didn't even go through. Yuga Labs says it will refund users those fees, but it's unclear just how the company plans to do that. Also, Yuga Labs will ostensibly only cover the fees from failed transactions directly involving the company. If you're a user who was attempting an unrelated transaction, you can say goodbye to those thousands in lost fees.... However, there was at least one winner from the Saturday night sale: Yuga Labs. The owner of the Bored Ape Yacht Club brand raked in $285 million from the NFT sale. Transaction costs just to mint the Otherdeed NFTs after the launch "reached $123 million," reports Bloomberg, "with each Otherdeed requiring about $6,000, or two Ether, in transaction fees to mint, according to data from Etherscan — or more than the price of the deed itself."Yuga Labs apologised on Twitter for "turning off the light on Ethereum", and suggested the possibility of establishing an ApeCoin blockchain.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

At the end of the year 2000, Noah Grey created the free and open-source blogging software Greymatter (now maintained by a community of users). Wil Wheaton's new book describes it as "the original, primordial blogging platform. Blogs look like they do... because Noah Grey did it first." Three days ago Noah Grey created a Gofundme campaign headlined "I am losing my home in four days." "I am deeply ashamed and afraid of having to doing this, but I have no choice."My sister and I are about to lose our house. It's being foreclosed next Tuesday (May 3rd)... unless we can pay $35,000 before then. (We could pay $23k and get to keep the house for now, but will be left to pay off the rest over an unknown amount of time....) I don't know who among the few friends I have that will read this can contribute anything at all, and heaven knows I understand.... [T]his was sprung on us with no warning, and having the money ready to go is our only salvation.... Noah's plea was retweeted by long-time geeks who remembered his contribution, including tech entrepreneur Anil Dash as well as the founder of Harvard's Nieman Lab. And a San Antonio newspaper reported on another response from Texas:Alex Mahan, the brand director of Lockheed Martin, wrote on Twitter: "I coded my first blog in 2000 with Greymatter. If it weren't for Noah, I might not have had a career in web development. He was always helpful and patient with my beginner questions back then. Please throw down some $ if you are able." Wil Wheaton himself apparently got involved. (Several people made donations along with the tagline #WilSentMe.) And with an average donation size of $95.87, a total of 1,073 people ultimately donated... $102,873. By the end of the day Friday, wearing a t-shirt that says 127.0.0.1, Noah Grey shared a tearful video on Twitter. "This has been the craziest, most emotionally overwhelming day of — of my life.... Oh my god, thank you. It hardly even feels like enough to say the words. But thank you so much. Everybody, oh my god... It may take me time to respond to all of this, but I will — I will.... I have never felt so seen. I have never felt so — I've never felt embraced by the internet before. "I've seen some say this feels like 'the Old Internet' in action...." Grey posted on Twitter this weekend. "But 20+ years ago I was still a struggling mentally-ill man who wanted to matter... and never dared let himself feel he *might* til now. I am shattered with gratitude."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The non-profit Wikimedia Foundation (which operates Wikipedia) "announced that it would no longer accept cryptocurrency donations," reports Mashable, saying the decision came after a three-month discussion period:Wikimedia said it would close its account with Bitpay, the crypto payment service provider which Wikimedia used to collect cryptocurrency donations.... The Wikimedia Foundation did say it would continue to monitor the situation, possibly keeping the door open to a future where it did accept crypto donations once again. For now, though, the critics of cryptocurrency and the broader Wiki community are victorious. Mashable notes Wikipedia own figures showing that for all of 2021, donations in cryptocurrency to Wikipedia barely totalled $130,000 — or just 0.08% of its revenue. And a long-time Wikipedia editor notes on Twitter that in a three-month request for comments "excluding new accounts and unregistered users," the final tally supporting the ban was 232 to 94 opposing it. (That is, 71.17% supported the ban.) "I'm really happy that the Wikimedia Foundation listened to the community's wishes on this issue," they tell Mashable, "and I'm really proud of my community for taking a principled stand."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

MacRumors reports that Apple has begun a staggered rollout of a new firmware update (which will go fully live to everyone on May 13.) Here's how Apple's describes how it will change the lost-device-tracking AirTags:"Currently, iOS users receiving an unwanted tracking alert can play a sound to help them find the unknown AirTag. We will be adjusting the tone sequence to use more of the loudest tones to make an unknown AirTag more easily findable." That'll make them easier to find — but some people have a different problem. This ZDNet reporter keeps getting notifications on their iPad trying to warn them about their own AirPod earbuds.The warning is totally erroneous. These are my AirPods Pro, which I have had for years now. I was able to verify they are mine by using the iPad to play a sound on the AirPods. Apple's technology doesn't know these are my own AirPods. The strange behavior began to appear in February. I am not alone in experiencing this annoying mistaken alert. Apple's AirPods support user forum shows several individuals in recent months with the same frustration... "It still happens several times a day. I'm getting annoyed. I get it on my phone and my iPad everytime I open the case and use my AirPods. I play the sound to be sure its really mine and it is indeed mine." There are numerous examples of this.... Users have also reported the problem with their AirTags not being recognized. "I get constant notifications that an air tag is near me, but it turns out it's my tags. Shouldn't my phone know the difference?" writes Joe Thomas 3 on February 8th.... It's worth noting that Apple has posted a note that promises "a series of updates that we plan to introduce later this year," which include something such as "precision finding" for AirTags, and "Refining unwanted tracking alert logic."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CNN cites a local source imagining the surprise of the looters of a Ukranian farm equipment dealership who'd transported some heavy machines over 700 miles to Russia. "They realized that they could not even turn them on, because the harvesters were locked remotely." CNN adds that "The equipment now appears to be languishing at a farm near Grozny."Over the past few weeks there's been a growing number of reports of Russian troops stealing farm equipment, grain and even building materials — beyond widespread looting of residences. But the removal of valuable agricultural equipment from a John Deere dealership in Melitopol speaks to an increasingly organized operation, one that even uses Russian military transport as part of the heist. CNN has learned that the equipment was removed from an Agrotek dealership in Melitopol, which has been occupied by Russian forces since early March. Altogether it's valued at nearly $5 million. The combine harvesters alone are worth $300,000 each.... The contact said the process began with the seizure of two combine harvesters, a tractor and a seeder. Over the next few weeks, everything else was removed: in all 27 pieces of farm machinery. One of the flat-bed trucks used, and caught on camera, had a white "Z" painted on it and appeared to be a military truck. The contact said there were rival groups of Russian troops: some would come in the morning and some in the evening. Some of the machinery was taken to a nearby village, but some of it embarked on a long overland journey to Chechnya more than 700 miles away. The sophistication of the machinery, which are equipped with GPS, meant that its travel could be tracked.... The end result? "After a journey of more than 700 miles, the thieves were unable to use any of the equipment — because it had been locked remotely."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from XDA Developers: Microsoft is testing a VPN-like service for its Edge browser, adding a new layer of security and privacy to the browsing experience. A recently-discovered support page on Microsoft's website details the "Microsoft Edge Secure Network" feature, which provides data encryption and prevents online tracking, courtesy of Cloudflare. While it isn't available yet, even if you have the latest Dev channel build, the Microsoft Edge Secure Network feature appears to be similar in nature to Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 service. This is essentially a proxy or VPN service, which encrypts your browsing data so that it's safe from prying eyes, including your ISP. It also keeps your location private, so you can use it to access geo-restricted websites, or content that's blocked in your country. Microsoft Edge's Secure Network mode will require you to be signed into your Microsoft account, and that's because the browser keeps track of how much data you've used in this mode. You get 1GB of free data per month, and that's tied to your Microsoft account. Most VPN services aren't free, so this shouldn't come as a surprise. Cloudflare itself doesn't keep any personally-identifiable user data, and any data related to browsing sessions is deleted every 25 hours. Information related to your data usage is also deleted at the end of each monthly period.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An enzyme variant created by engineers and scientists at The University of Texas at Austin can break down environment-throttling plastics that typically take centuries to degrade in just a matter of hours to days. Phys.Org reports: This discovery, published today in Nature, could help solve one of the world's most pressing environmental problems: what to do with the billions of tons of plastic waste piling up in landfills and polluting our natural lands and water. The enzyme has the potential to supercharge recycling on a large scale that would allow major industries to reduce their environmental impact by recovering and reusing plastics at the molecular level. [...] The project focuses on polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a significant polymer found in most consumer packaging, including cookie containers, soda bottles, fruit and salad packaging, and certain fibers and textiles. It makes up 12% of all global waste. The enzyme was able to complete a "circular process" of breaking down the plastic into smaller parts (depolymerization) and then chemically putting it back together (repolymerization). In some cases, these plastics can be fully broken down to monomers in as little as 24 hours. Researchers at the Cockrell School of Engineering and College of Natural Sciences used a machine learning model to generate novel mutations to a natural enzyme called PETase that allows bacteria to degrade PET plastics. The model predicts which mutations in these enzymes would accomplish the goal of quickly depolymerizing post-consumer waste plastic at low temperatures. Through this process, which included studying 51 different post-consumer plastic containers, five different polyester fibers and fabrics and water bottles all made from PET, the researchers proved the effectiveness of the enzyme, which they are calling FAST-PETase (functional, active, stable and tolerant PETase). [...] Up next, the team plans to work on scaling up enzyme production to prepare for industrial and environmental application. The researchers have filed a patent application for the technology and are eying several different uses. Cleaning up landfills and greening high waste-producing industries are the most obvious. But another key potential use is environmental remediation. The team is looking at a number of ways to get the enzymes out into the field to clean up polluted sites.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Researchers in Japan have developed a new method for making 5-cm (2-in) wafers of diamond that could be used for quantum memory. The ultra-high purity of the diamond allows it to store a staggering amount of data -- the equivalent of one billion Blu-Ray discs. New Atlas reports: [R]esearchers at Saga University and Adamant Namiki Precision Jewelery Co. in Japan have developed a new method for manufacturing ultra-high purity diamond wafers that are big enough for practical use. With this technique, the team says the resulting diamond wafers measure 5 cm across, and have such immense data density that they can theoretically store the equivalent of a billion Blu-Ray discs. One Blu-Ray can store up to 25 GB (assuming it's single-layered), which would mean this diamond wafer should be able to store a whopping 25 exabytes (EB) of data. The company calls these wafers Kenzan Diamond. The key is that these diamonds have a nitrogen concentration of under three parts per billion (ppb), making them incredibly pure. The researchers say that these are the largest wafers with that level of purity -- most others only get to 4 mm2 (0.006 in2) at most. Achieving this requires a new manufacturing technique. Diamond wafers are made by growing the crystals on a substrate material, and that material is usually a flat surface. The problem is, the diamond can crack under the strain, degrading the quality. In the new process, the team made a relatively simple change -- the substrate surface was shaped like steps, which spreads the strain horizontally and prevents cracking. This allows them to make larger diamond wafers with higher purity. The team hopes to commercialize these diamond wafers in 2023, and in the meantime are already working towards doubling the diameter to 10 cm (4 in).Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Smithsonian Magazine: The sea changes are already happening. Earth's oceans are warmer than they were a century ago, sea levels are rising, and ocean waters are more acidic than they used to be, all because of human-created climate change. Global temperatures are expected rise even further in the coming decades, leaving researchers to wonder how these alterations will affect life on Earth -- and especially in the seas. But the oceans have been through major crises before -- including at least five mass extinctions -- and those events in the deep past can help outline what might happen in our near future. To better understand what trends to expect, Princeton University oceanographers Justin Penn and Curtis Deutsch applied a scientific model used to predict the extent of a past mass extinction to estimate the consequences of current global warming. Their research, published today in Science, warns that failing to reduce fossil fuel emissions will set Earth's oceans on track for a mass extinction within the next 300 years. This potential disaster will have uneven consequences across the seas. While the temperatures of both the global climate and the oceans are rising, the consequences will differ from place to place. How ocean life at the North and South poles respond will be different than species in the tropics. Under the worst-case scenarios, the researchers found, extinctions in the oceans will likely mimic the die offs that have occurred during Earth's five mass extinctions as organisms struggle to find suitable habitat in warmer, likely oxygen-depleted waters. Ecosystems where oxygen levels in the water are already low, like in the tropical seas of the Indo-Pacific Ocean, are likely to be hit especially hard as seawater may lack the oxygen required to support the diverse creatures that live there. Polar seas, too, will likely see die offs as waters become too warm for cold-adapted species. The study does have some limitations, [...] including that it does not consider other factors affecting ocean biodiversity such as overfishing and pollution. Researchers also need more information about the metabolic requirements of many different ocean organisms. Nevertheless, the study makes a solid case that many marine species can't simply move to another place and changes in ocean warmth will make it much more difficult for many species to survive. The long view is especially needed. [...] Looking centuries into the future, the new study emphasizes that now is the time to forestall some of these possible consequences for our oceans. The global climate is expected to get about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit warmer by 2100. If emissions can be curbed and warming kept around this minimum, then these mass extinction scenarios can be avoided. [...] The study outlines two possible scenarios. Continued and unmitigated fossil fuel emissions will eventually recreate conditions of some of Earth's worst biological crises. If emission trends can be reversed, however, there is greater hope for the future of the ocean's ecosystems and biodiversity.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to a survey of 501 people conducted by insurance company Progressive, most people prefer the process of buying a car online than at dealerships. Autoblog reports: Based on the 251 people who completed a transaction entirely online or through a dealer web site, and the 250 who did solely face-to-face business, there are two big takeaways. The first is that online shopping, still a small percentage of overall car sales, is growing rapidly in acceptance and actual transactions. [...] The second takeaway is that millennials are a major part of the online sales growth. Overall, though, online shoppers expressed more joy with the process than showroom floor shoppers. Compared to 78% of buyers highly satisfied with buying a car online, only 58% of in-person shoppers registered the same pleasure. That carried through to trade-ins and financing as well. Eighty percent of online shoppers were highly satisfied with the trade-in process, versus 57% of dealership visitors; 70% of online shoppers gave the highest marks to the financing process as opposed to 53% of guests asked to "Step into the office" and wait while the salesperson conferred with the finance manager.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The European Union has joined the social network Mastodon, which has seen a staggering 30,000 new users after Elon Musk's bid for Twitter was accepted. PC Magazine reports: On Thursday, the European Commission said it had set up its own server, dubbed EU Voice, to join Mastodon's decentralized social network, also known as a "Fediverse." The effort is currently only a pilot, but it represents the EU's goal of supporting private and open-source software capable of rivaling mainstream social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. On the same day, the European Commission also launched an account for PeerTube, another decentralized platform that revolves around video sharing. "With the pilot launch of EU Voice and EU Video, we aim to offer alternative social media platforms that prioritize individuals and their rights to privacy and data protection," said European Data Protection Supervisor Wojciech Wiewiorowski. "In concrete terms this means, for example, that EU Voice and EU Video do not rely on transfers of personal data to countries outside the European Union and the European Economic Area; there are no advertisements on the platforms; and there is no profiling of individuals that may use the platforms," he added. "These measures, amongst others, give individuals the choice on and control over how their personal data is used."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to Breaking Defense, the head of machine learning at Lyft, Craig Martell, has been named the Pentagon's Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer. From the report: The hiring of a Silicon Valley persona for the CDAO role is likely to be cheered by those in the defense community who have been calling for more technically-minded individuals to take leadership roles in the department. At the same time, Martell's lack of Pentagon experience -- he was a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School for over a decade studying AI for the military, but has never worked in the department's bureaucracy -- may pose challenges as he works to lead an office only months old. In an exclusive interview with Breaking Defense, Martell, who also worked as head of machine learning at Dropbox and led several AI teams at LinkedIn, acknowledged both the benefits and risks of bringing in someone with his background. [...] As CDAO, Martell will be responsible for scaling up DoD's data, analytics and AI to enable quicker and more accurate decision-making and will also play an important role in the Pentagon's Joint All-Domain Command and Control efforts to connect sensors and shooters. "If we're going to be successful in achieving the goals, if we're going to be successful in being competitive with China, we have to figure out where the best mission value can be found first and that's going to have to drive what we build, what we design, the policies we come up with," Martell said. "I just want to guard against making sure that we don't do this in a vacuum, but we do it with real mission goals, real mission objectives in mind." His first order of business? Figuring out what needs to be done, and how to best use the $600 million in fiscal year 2023 dollars the CDAO's office was marked for in the Pentagon's most recent budget request. "So whenever I tackle a problem, whenever I go into a new organization, the first questions that I ask are: Do we have the right people? Do we have the right processes? Do we have the right tools to solve the visions [and] goals?" Martell said. To tackle that, Martell wants to identify the office's "marquee customers" and figure out what's "broken in terms of... people, platform, processes and tools" -- a process that could take anywhere from three to six months, he added. "We really want to be customer-driven here," Martell said. "We don't want to walk in and say if we build it, they'll come."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Qualcomm bought a chipmaking startup called Nuvia back in March of 2021, and later that year, the company said it would be using Nuvia's talent and technology to create high-performance custom-designed ARM chips to compete with Apple's processor designs. But if you're waiting for a truly high-performance Windows PC with anything other than an Intel or AMD chip in it, you'll still be waiting for a bit. Qualcomm CEO Christian Amon mentioned during the company's most recent earnings call that its high-performance chips were on track to land in consumer devices "in late 2023." Qualcomm still plans to sample chips to its partners later in 2022, a timeframe it has mentioned previously and has managed to stick to. A gap between sampling and mass production is typical, giving Qualcomm time to work out bugs and improve chip yields and PC manufacturers more time to design and build finished products that incorporate the chips. [...] Like Apple's processors, Nuvia's support the ARM instruction set but don't use off-the-shelf ARM Cortex CPU designs. These processor cores have been phenomenally successful in commodity SoCs that power everything from Android phones to smart TVs, and they helped popularize the practice of combining large, high-performance CPU cores and small, high-efficiency CPU cores together in the same design. But they rarely manage to top the performance charts, something that's especially noticeable when they're running x86 code on Windows with a performance penalty.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Even as it deals with continued supply constraints and consumers wary of inflation, Apple today reported the best March quarter in its history. The Verge reports: The company tallied $97.3 billion in revenue in Q2, up 9 percent over the year-ago quarter. That amounted to a profit of $25 billion, with earnings per share of $1.52. Apple set March quarter revenue records for its iPhone, Mac, and Wearables / Home / Accessories divisions. But the second quarter saw a slowdown in iPad sales, which were down slightly year over year. Apple's various services grew to a new high of 825 million subscribers, up 165 million from the total a year ago. The increase in iPhone revenue comes even after Apple noted that the year-ago Q2 saw very strong iPhone demand due to the iPhone 12 series launching a bit later in the fall than normal. New products released by Apple during the March quarter included the third-gen iPhone SE, green colors of the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro, the powerful Mac Studio desktop, and the 5K Studio Display external monitor.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Khan Academy, a non-profit educational organization that offers free online tools to help students learn, is opening an online global high school in August 2022. "This full-time online school will combine the expertise of Khan Lab School, Schoolhouse.world, and ASU Prep Digital in a unique model based on the principles of the [...] founder of Khan Academy," says the company in a press release. "The core principles include mastery-based learning, personalization of each student's experience and learning together as a community." From the report: Each day will include a seminar where small student peer groups will have the opportunity to interact online and actively dive deep into society's most challenging questions with support from mentors and world-class learning guides. This inaugural class of 9th graders will work together solving real-world problems in a unique virtual school model that rewards curiosity, empowers agency and provides them with the skills and confidence needed to excel in college and careers. The organization is partnering with Arizona State University to make this initiative possible. Out-of-state students will need to pay tuition to attend, but Arizona residents will be able to attend for free. "Interested students will need to apply through ASU Prep Digital, the full-time online school," notes the press release. "The 2022-23 class is open to incoming 9th grade students with plans to expand the program to grades 9-12 the following year."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: More than 55 countries and the United States announced their commitment Thursday to defending a free and open internet, agreeing to uphold digital human rights in response to rising authoritarianism in cyberspace. The agreement (PDF), known as the Declaration for the Future of the Internet, aims to forestall an emerging "splinternet" characterized by the growing repression of internet users in closed regimes such as Russia and China -- and the divergence of those countries from the internet's founding principles of universal access and unfettered information flow. Concerns about the internet's long-term trajectory have been amplified by the war in Ukraine, according to senior Biden administration officials, as Russia has moved to block western social media services and penalized the sharing of accurate information about the conflict. Many of the commitments outlined in the agreement reflect existing US policy initiatives, and the administration officials described the declaration as a way to organize and harmonize those efforts internationally. Under the agreement, countries have pledged not to abuse internet technologies for illegal surveillance; block content or websites in violation of so-called net neutrality principles; or use digital tools to undermine trust in elections. They agreed to support multilateral efforts against cybercrime, an issue that's grown in significance as businesses and governments alike have reeled in the face of devastating ransomware attacks. They committed to using only "trustworthy" network equipment, a nod to the spying risks the US and its allies have said are associated with Chinese vendors such as Huawei. And they joined together in reaffirming support for the decentralized, consensus-driven approach that for decades has underpinned decisions about how the internet should work.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft Edge could soon receive an integrated VPN service called the "Microsoft Edge Secure Network." The VPN (Virtual Private Network) service would work very similar to commercial VPN services, but it could be deeply integrated within the Microsoft Edge browser. From a report: The VPN service will be powered by Cloudflare. The company assures it permanently deletes the diagnostic and support data collected, every 25 hours.Read more of this story at Slashdot.