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Coinbase halted trading service in India because of "informal pressure" from the Reserve Bank of India, the crypto exchange's chief executive said on Tuesday, addressing the notable Indian episode for the first time in a month. From a report: The Nasdaq-listed firm launched its eponymous crypto trading service in India to much fanfare on April 7. The app allowed users in the world's second largest internet market to buy crypto tokens using UPI, a highly popular Indian payments infrastructure built by a coalition of retail banks. But just three days after the launch, the firm rolled back the service without an explanation. The move followed a strange statement made by the National Payments Corporation of India, the governing body that oversees UPI in the country, in which it refused to acknowledge UPI support on Coinbase's app. Asked about the Indian episode on the company's earnings call, Coinbase co-founder and chief executive Brian Armstrong said Coinbase disabled UPI "because of some informal pressure from the Reserve Bank of India." Armstrong pointed out that cryptocurrency trading is not illegal in India -- in fact, the South Asian nation just recently started to tax it -- but there are "elements in the government there, including at Reserve Bank of India, who don't seem to be as positive on it. And so they -- in the press, it's been called a 'shadow ban,' basically, they're applying soft pressure behind the scenes to try to disable some of these payments, which might be going through UPI," he said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Scientists have discovered evidence that a key rare resource, called helium-3, is potentially ten times more common on Earth than previously known -- though the source of all this extra supply remains mysterious, reports a new study. The finding is important because helium-3 could serve as a foundation of limitless clean power for our civilization, but has been seen as inaccessible since it is largely found in outer space locations, especially the Moon. Helium-3 is an isotope of helium, which means it contains the same number of protons as this common element but a different number of neutrons. This isotope is considered a potentially powerful energy source for future fusion reactors, making it a star of science fiction as well as a sought-out resource in the real world. However, while small amounts of the substance are produced by geological processes and from the fallout of nuclear weapons testing, there is thought to be very little helium-3 available on Earth. Now, scientists led by Benjamin Birner, a postdoctoral scholar in geosciences at the University of California San Diego, have captured evidence for a previously unknown abundance of helium-3 in the atmosphere, which "presents a major puzzle in the helium-3 budget" and "motivates a search for missing helium-3 sources on Earth, especially since helium-3 is considered an important, yet scarce, resource," according to a study published on Monday in Nature Geoscience. Known sources of helium-3 on Earth only account for 10 percent of the surplus, the researchers said. Birner and his colleagues serendipitously uncovered this inferred surplus of helium-3 (3He) while tackling another challenging problem: measuring the overall rise in atmospheric helium as a result of human consumption of fossil fuels. The team pioneered a first-of-its-kind technique for estimating these anthropogenic helium emissions by examining another isotope, helium-4 (4He), which in turn led to the perplexing conclusion that there is some unknown source of helium-3 on our planet. "We only measured the change in atmospheric 4He," Birner said in an email. "However, previous work by other researchers indicates that the helium isotopic ratio of the atmosphere (3He/4He) is roughly stable. Together these observations imply an increase in atmospheric 3He that matches the rise in 4He or we would see a change in the atmospheric isotope ratio." Helium-3 could be the ideal fuel for nuclear fusion, a potential energy source that mimics the same process that powers stars. Though nuclear fusion may not materialize as a practical power source for decades, assuming it is feasible at all, its potential to provide clean and limitless energy to the global human population makes it a tantalizing area of study. To that end, scientists across fields are likely to be interested in locating this unexplained surplus of helium-3 on Earth that has been implied by the new research. "That increase of 3He is quite puzzling because we don't have a good explanation for the source of this 3He so far," Birner noted. "It's quite an important puzzle to solve also because 3He is an important and scarce resource for nuclear fusion reactors. Based on the reported uncertainties in previous studies of the atmospheric 3He/4He trend, the buildup of 3He looks significant, but our study clearly motivates a closer look at the atmospheric 3He/4He trend."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The world is creeping closer to the warming threshold international agreements are trying to prevent, with nearly a 50-50 chance that Earth will temporarily hit that temperature mark within the next five years, teams of meteorologists across the globe predicted. NPR reports: With human-made climate change continuing, there's a 48% chance that the globe will reach a yearly average of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels of the late 1800s at least once between now and 2026, a bright red signal in climate change negotiations and science, a team of 11 different forecast centers predicted for the World Meteorological Organization late Monday. The odds are inching up along with the thermometer. Last year, the same forecasters put the odds at closer to 40% and a decade ago it was only 10%. The team, coordinated by the United Kingdom's Meteorological Office, in their five-year general outlook said there is a 93% chance that the world will set a record for hottest year by the end of 2026. They also said there's a 93% chance that the five years from 2022 to 2026 will be the hottest on record. Forecasters also predict the devastating fire-prone megadrought in the U.S. Southwest will keep going. "We're going to see continued warming in line with what is expected with climate change," said UK Met Office senior scientist Leon Hermanson, who coordinated the report.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ellithligraw writes: Analytics company Pixalate found that there are over 1.5 million abandoned iOS and Android apps. This analysis comes after Apple's announcement of changes to their App Store for abandoned apps, prompting a discussion on the Web. "Pixalate claims they crawled the App Store and Play Store to analyze all apps available for download based on their last update to determine their degree of 'abandonment,'" reports InfoQ. "Based on the previous definitions, Pixalate found over 650k iOS apps and about 870k Android apps to qualify as abandoned apps (haven't been updated in over two years). Of those, just about 180k iOS apps and 130k Android apps qualify as super-abandoned (haven't been updated in at least five years)." Note that according to Statista there are 4 million iOS apps, and 3 million Android apps available.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ScienceAlert: The oceans that surround us are transforming. As our climate changes, the world's waters are shifting too, with abnormalities evident not only in the ocean's temperature, but also its structure, currents, and even its color. As these changes manifest, the usually stable environment of the ocean is becoming more unpredictable and erratic, and in some ways the phenomenon is akin to the ocean losing its memory, scientists suggest. "Ocean memory, the persistence of ocean conditions, is a major source of predictability in the climate system beyond weather time scales," researchers explain in a new paper led by first author and climate researcher Hui Shi from the Farallon Institute in Petaluma, California. "We show that ocean memory, as measured by the year-to-year persistence of sea surface temperature anomalies, is projected to steadily decline in the coming decades over much of the globe." In the research, the team studied sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the shallow top layer of the ocean, called the upper-ocean mixed layer (MLD). Despite the MLD's relative shallowness -- extending only to a depth of about 50 meters down from the ocean's surface -- this upper layer of water exhibits a lot of persistence over time in terms of thermal inertia, especially compared to the variations seen in the atmosphere above. In the future, however, modeling suggests that this 'memory' effect of thermal inertia in the upper ocean is set to decline globally over the rest of the century, with dramatically greater variations in temperature predicted over coming decades. According to the researchers, shoaling effects in the MLD will introduce greater levels of water-mixing in the upper ocean, effectively thinning out the top layer. This is expected to lower the ocean's capacity for thermal inertia, rendering the upper ocean more susceptible to random temperature anomalies. Just what that means for marine wildlife is unclear, but the researchers note that "consequential impacts on populations are likely," although some species are expected to fare better than others in terms of adaptation. On another note, the ocean memory decline is expected to make it significantly harder for scientists to forecast upcoming ocean dynamics, reducing reliable lead times for all sorts of predictions related to SSTs. This will hinder our ability to project monsoons, marine heatwaves (MHWs), and periods of extreme weather, among other things. The findings have been published in the journal Science Advances.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) on Tuesday introduced a bill to regulate the volume of commercials shown on streaming platforms. The Hill reports: The bill is known as the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Modernization Act. It would modernize policies regarding ads on streaming services, saying that "the volume of commercials on streaming services cannot be louder than regular programming," according to Eshoo. It would also ramp up the Federal Communications Commission's ability to investigate and enforce violations of the original CALM Act and require a study into its effectiveness. Eshoo added that since she and Whitehouse created the original CALM Act, streaming service providers have "recreated the problem of loud ads because the old law doesn't apply to them." "Today, we're updating the legislation for the benefit of consumers who are tired of diving for the mute button at every commercial break," Eshoo added.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

PowerShell inventor Jeffrey Snover has aired some grievances about how his indispensable tool once got him demoted. The Register reports: The Microsoft Technical Fellow discussed the incident in a weekend Twitter thread that started when controversial investor Peter Thiel discussed the virtues of courage. "Courage is a key characteristic of future leaders and previous employees," Snover joked in response to Thiel's musings. He also asserted that "many people focus on getting their boss to pat them on the head rather than address problems." Snover said he was urged by friend Kevin Kean -- who served as director of the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) in the mid 2000s -- not to reveal PowerShell, as it may not well be received. This is not the first time Snover has revealed his demotion, but he hasn't previously discussed his profound embarrassment -- or that he kept it secret from everyone other than his wife. "I never mentioned it to anyone for over a decade until I got promoted to Distinguished Engineer," tweeted Snover, who was given the honor in March 2009. Snover then contrasted Microsoft's policy for company-related passion projects to Google's famous 20 percent rule.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Although it's supposed to be restricted by surveillance rules at local, state and federal levels, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has built up a mass surveillance system that includes details on almost all US residents, according to a report from a major think tank. Engadget reports: Researchers from Georgetown Law's Center on Privacy and Technology said ICE "now operates as a domestic surveillance agency" and that it was able to bypass regulations in part by purchasing databases from private companies. "Since its founding in 2003, ICE has not only been building its own capacity to use surveillance to carry out deportations but has also played a key role in the federal government's larger push to amass as much information as possible about all of our lives," the report's authors state. "By reaching into the digital records of state and local governments and buying databases with billions of data points from private companies, ICE has created a surveillance infrastructure that enables it to pull detailed dossiers on nearly anyone, seemingly at any time." The researchers spent two years looking into ICE to put together the extensive report, which is called "American Dragnet: Data-Driven Deportation in the 21st Century." They obtained information by filing hundreds of freedom of information requests and scouring more than 100,000 contracts and procurement records. The agency is said to be using data from the Department of Motor Vehicles and utility companies, along with the likes of call records, child welfare records, phone location data, healthcare records and social media posts. ICE is now said to hold driver's license data for 74 percent of adults and can track the movement of cars in cities that are home to 70 percent of the adult population in the US. The study shows that ICE, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security, has already used facial recognition technology to search through driver's license photos of a third of adults in the US. In 2020, the agency signed a deal with Clearview AI to use that company's controversial technology. In addition, the report states that when 74 percent of adults hook up gas, electricity, phone or internet utilities in a new residence, ICE was able to automatically find out their updated address. The authors wrote that ICE is able to carry out these actions in secret and without warrants. Along with the data it acquired from other government departments, utilities, private companies and third-party data brokers, "the power of algorithmic tools for sorting, matching, searching and analysis has dramatically expanded the scope and regularity of ICE surveillance," the report states. The agency spent around $2.8 billion on "new surveillance, data collection and data-sharing initiatives," according to the report. Approximately $569 million was spent on data analsys, including $186.6 million in contracts with Plantir Technologies. "ICE also spent more than $1.3 billion on geolocation tech during that timeframe and $389 million on telecom interception, which includes tech that helps the agency track someone's phone calls, emails, social media activity and real-time internet use," adds Engadget.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Sky News: The UK, US and EU have formally accused Russia of being behind a cyber attack targeting a satellite communications network used in Ukraine. Businesses and individuals using routers made by Viasat, an American business that provides broadband-speed satellite internet connections, were knocked offline just before tanks began to roll into the country. "The cyberattack took place one hour before Russia's unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, thus facilitating the military aggression," the EU said in its statement. "Although the primary target is believed to have been the Ukrainian military, other customers were affected, including personal and commercial internet users," the Foreign Office added. As a result of the attack 5,800 wind turbines in Germany were knocked offline as they depended upon Viasat routers for remote monitoring and control. The company said in total tens of thousands of its terminals were effectively destroyed and needed to be replaced. UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said: "This is clear and shocking evidence of a deliberate and malicious attack by Russia against Ukraine which had significant consequences on ordinary people and businesses in Ukraine and across Europe. We will continue to call out Russia's malign behavior and unprovoked aggression across land, sea and cyberspace, and ensure it faces severe consequences." The attack was described as "yet another example of Russia's continued pattern of irresponsible behavior in cyberspace, which also formed an integral part of its illegal and unjustified invasion of Ukraine," in the EU's statement. "Such behavior is contrary to the expectations set by all UN member states, including the Russian Federation, of responsible state behavior and the intentions of states in cyberspace. Russia must stop this war and bring an end to the senseless human suffering immediately," the EU added.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to figures from trade group IAB and PwC, the podcast advertising business in the United States is expected to grow to an estimated $4.2 billion in 2024. Variety reports: The sector hit $1.45 billion in 2021, representing 72% annual growth, according to the report. In 2021, U.S. podcast advertising revenue grew twice as fast as the total internet advertising market, which was up 35% last year, according to the 2021 PwC/IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report. Still, U.S. podcast advertising revenue is poised to continue double-digit growth, growing more than 100% over the next two years to an estimated $4.2 billion in 2024, per the report. According to the latest IAB/PwC podcast report, three key factors are driving podcast ad revenue growth: the ongoing increase in listeners and content; increased use of automated ad tech, as ad revenue served via dynamic ad insertion (DAI) has almost doubled in two years to take 84% share in 2021 (versus ads embedded in podcast audio); and growth of ad spending in categories that historically had lower spend volumes like sports and true crime. "Everything right now is aligned to drive growth," said Chris Bruderle, IAB's VP of research and insights. "There's more engaging and diverse podcast content than ever, and that is translating into larger, more attractive audiences. But more than anything, podcasting has proven that it can deliver beyond direct-to-consumer advertising to support brand-building and drive business outcomes."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Matter is a new open-source, interoperability smart home standard that's been created by over 200 companies to allow all of your devices to communicate with each other locally, without the need for a cloud. The Verge sat down with Michele Turner, the senior director of Google Smart Home Ecosystem, to hear how the company plans to implement Matter when it finally arrives later this year. Here's an excerpt from the interview: Matter has evolved substantially from that first meeting, and there have been delays and setbacks. Do you still feel confident in that original vision, that it's being carried through and is on track to achieve what you set out to do at that Woodside dinner three years ago? Michele Turner: I do. And, in fact, I think it's exceeding our original vision in some ways. It's been incredibly heartening to see the enthusiasm and the adoption and the number of companies that have joined the CSA and the Matter workgroup. We're at 200 companies -- it's amazing. How is Matter going to change the smart home experience for the Google Home user? Michele Turner: "For the Google Home user, I think the bigger areas of Matter where they'll see change first is in getting your devices set up. I just set up some lights at my mother-in-law's house, and it still took me 45 minutes to set up four lights. It shouldn't have been so hard. The first thing is going to be that significantly simpler setup. The second piece is the speed and the reliability of the local network. This has been a big pain point for users. My team spent a lot of time working with partners on improving reliability and reducing latency. Because in our mind, if it's not as fast as a light switch, what's the point? We believe Matter's going to drive down those latency numbers significantly and improve the overall reliability of devices in the home. Then, I think interoperability for users is going to be a big piece. As much as we love having everybody using the Google Assistant, the reality is people have iPhones and Android phones in their homes. Some of them want to use HomeKit. We just don't have that kind of compatibility today for users. And I think that's hard. Being able to have multi-admin really work well between these ecosystems is going to be a big benefit for users. Then, our long-term goal is to build out what we call the proactive home. Instead of having a whole bunch of connected devices, how do we build that truly proactive home that works for the benefit of users? ... Matter is going to be absolutely foundational to that. It's the architecture behind the proactive home. If we don't have a home that's reliable, if we don't have things running locally, if it doesn't work consistently, we cannot deliver on that promise. The proactive home is really that intelligence layer, whether it's being able to predict that I'm going upstairs, it's 10 at night, and I always go into my bedroom at that time, so turn on the lights for me; or, I'm watching TV, it's 9:30PM, the kids are in bed, and I get a notification on my phone that the lights just went on in the kid's bedroom. Is somebody sick? Are they watching YouTube? Being able to do anomaly detection. Now, Matter doesn't do that. But it's foundational to be able to enable the rest of that. Because if that core foundation of the home -- of the smart home -- isn't solid, the rest of it just doesn't work." As you've said, Matter is complicated. And there's a lot of expectation that's been placed on its shoulders. What would you say is the biggest misconception right now with Matter? Michele Turner: "I think the biggest misconception is that Matter is going to solve every problem in IoT. It doesn't have a native intelligence layer that's going to automatically give you the proactive home. In my mind, it's solving three very foundational things. It's solving making setup easier for the majority of the devices that people put in their homes. Not the majority of device types, necessarily, but the majority of devices people put in their homes. It's making the IoT more reliable and faster. And then it's going to solve this multi-admin problem. It's going to provide that device interconnectivity that we don't have today that is really great for users. While it's going to be a lot more than that, it's not today. But it's solving what we believe are really the core problems that have challenged adoption by mainstream users in the past." The report notes that all of Google's existing Nest branded smart speakers and displays will be upgraded to support Matter, "allowing you to use Google's voice assistant to control any Matter-enabled device in your home, no matter who made it."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg Law: Valve must face antitrust litigation over claims that "most favored nation" policies for its Steam distribution platform have driven up video game prices across the industry, a federal judge in Seattle ruled. Judge John C. Coughenour let part of the case move forward in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, saying it's plausible Valve exploits its market dominance to threaten and retaliate against developers that sell games for less through other retailers or platforms. The company "allegedly enforces this regime through a combination of written and unwritten rules" imposing its own conditions on how even "non-Steam-enabled games are sold and priced," Coughenour wrote. "These allegations are sufficient to plausibly allege unlawful conduct." The May 6 decision hands a win to the consumers and game publishers leading the proposed class action after the judge twice issued preliminary rulings in Valve's favor. Coughenour first ordered Steam subscribers to arbitrate their consumer claims in October, then tentatively dismissed the developer lawsuit the following month. Consumers who don't subscribe to Steam -- and never signed its arbitration agreement -- are still involved in the case. [...] Coughenour trimmed the Valve case May 6, rejecting claims that the Steam store and gaming platform operate in separate markets the company ties together. There are no plausible allegations of any consumer demand for "fully functional gaming platforms distinct from game stores," he said. But the judge let the most-favored-nation claims move forward, walking back his earlier skepticism about the idea that Steam commissions are "supracompetitive." He had previously found that their stability over time shows Valve didn't raise prices as it gained market share. In fact, when the company competed only against brick-and-mortar retailers, it "did not need market power to charge a fee well above its cost structure because those brick-and-mortar competitors had a far higher cost structure," Coughenour wrote. That makes the analysis apples-to-oranges, he said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A coalition of tech giants, including Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, have pledged support for a New York bill that would ban the use of controversial search warrants that can identify people based on their location data and internet search keywords. From a report: In a brief statement, the coalition known as Reform Government Surveillance said it "supports the adoption of New York Assembly Bill A84A, the Reverse Location Search Prohibition Act, which would prohibit the use of reverse location and reverse keyword searches." The bill, if passed, would become the first state law to ban so-called geofence warrants and keyword search warrants, which rely on demanding tech companies turn over data about users who were near the scene of a crime or searched for particular keywords at a specific point in time. But the bill hasn't moved since it was referred to a committee for discussion in January, the first major hurdle before it can be considered for a floor vote.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sony and Nintendo said their flagship videogame machines are likely to be in short supply all year owing to component shortages, extending a problem that has plagued both companies. From a report: "There's no end in sight to the semiconductor shortage at this point," said Nintendo's president, Shuntaro Furukawa. Sony's chief financial officer, Hiroki Totoki, said the company aimed to sell 18 million units of its PlayStation 5 videogame console in the current fiscal year, which ends in March 2023, down from a previous projection of 22.6 million. Demand is greater than what Sony can supply, he said. Among other problems, Mr. Totoki cited Covid-19 restrictions in China, including a lockdown in Shanghai, that have made it hard for companies there to manufacture and ship parts used in game machines. "It would be likely to affect our production if the pandemic situation in China worsens, or if the lockdown expands further," he said. The PlayStation 5 has been notoriously hard to get hold of since its introduction in 2020. In the fiscal year ended March 2022, Sony said it sold 11.5 million units of the machine, falling short of the previous target of 14.8 million.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Thieves are targeting digital currency investors on the street in a wave of "crypto muggings," police have warned, with victims reporting that thousands of pounds have been stolen after their mobile phones were seized. From a report: Anonymised crime reports provided to the Guardian by City of London police, as part of a freedom of information request, reveal criminals are combining physical muscle with digital knowhow to part people from their cryptocurrency. One victim reported they had been trying to order an Uber near Londonâ(TM)s Liverpool Street station when muggers forced them to hand over their phone. While the gang eventually gave the phone back, the victim later realised that $6,150-worth of ethereum digital currency was missing from their account with the crypto investing platform Coinbase. In another case, a man was approached by a group of people offering to sell him cocaine and agreed to go down an alley with them to do the deal. The men offered to type a number into his phone but instead accessed his cryptocurrency account, holding him against a wall and forcing him to unlock a smartphone app with facial verification. They transferred $7,400-worth of ripple, another digital currency, out of his account. A third victim said he had been vomiting under a bridge when a mugger forced him to unlock his phone using a fingerprint, then changed his security settings and stole $35,300, including cryptocurrency.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes: Former NASA engineer Mark Rober builds some awesome stuff on his YouTube channel, like devious squirrel mazes, but his most popular video series is the annual glitter bomb, a beautifully over-engineered fake package that douses porch pirates with a shower of glitter and fart spray. In an unexpected twist, last year's glitter bomb video also helped police catch and arrest someone involved in a phone scam scheme, and Rober's spent the subsequent year digging into just how these phone scam operations work. In a new video he shows off the extensive results of that effort, including hiring double agents to infiltrate several phone centers in India and hacking their security camera footage. And of course he got off a stink bomb, too. For Rober, this crusade started when he teamed up with another YouTuber, Jim Browning, to try to send a glitter bomb to a scammer operation. Browning's whole channel, which has 3.7 million followers, is devoted to identifying the call centers behind tech support scams and refund scams. These scams typically target the elderly and less computer-savvy folks and usually rely on the scammers gaining remote access to your computer and then tricking them into giving up personal information like their bank account login. 'Refund' scams make people believe they've been overcompensated with some bogus refund and trick them into sending cash in the mail to the scammers. The people who receive those cash packages in the United States are essentially underlings in these scam operations, so after getting a glitter bomb in their hands last year, Rober set his sights on the call centers themselves. With Browning's help, they were able to gain access to the CCTV of the infiltrated call centers, while another YouTube pair, Trilogy Media, traveled to Kolkata, India to run operations on the ground. Also worth checking out: Kitboga's YouTube channel.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Intel announced seven new mobile processors for the 12th Gen Intel Core mobile family at its Intel Vision event today. From a report: The 12th Gen Intel Core HX processors use desktop-caliber silicon in a mobile package to deliver high levels of performance for professional workflows like CAD, animation and visual effects. The HX processors are unlocked out of the box and available in Core i5, Core i7 and Core i9 models. The 12th Gen Intel Core HX processors enable mobile workstation platforms by providing 65% more performance in multithreaded workloads with more cores, more memory and more I/O while utilizing Intel Thread Director technology to leverage high-power Performance-cores and Efficient-cores so pros can create, program, render and work with maximum efficiency in the office, at home or on the go. In addition to being a commercial workhorse, 12th Gen Intel Core HX processors provide a gaming powerhouse platform that will give enthusiast gamers higher frame rates. The processors have up to 16 cores (8 Performance-cores and 8 Efficient-cores) and 24 threads running at a processor base power of 55 watts. More than 10 workstation and gaming designs powered by 12th Gen Intel Core HX processors are expected to be launched by major computer makers this year, including systems from Dell, HP, Lenovo and others.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Twitter was "foolish in the extreme" in kicking former US President Donald Trump off its service, and permanent bans should be extremely rare, said Elon Musk, who has agreed to acquire the social media company. From a report: "I would reverse the permanent ban," Musk said Tuesday at a Financial Times conference. "Perma bans just fundamentally undermine trust in Twitter as a town square where everyone can voice their opinion." Booting the former president off the site "didn't end Trump's voice," Musk said. "It will amplify it among the right. This is why it is morally wrong and flat-out stupid. My opinion, and Jack Dorsey I want to be clear shares this opinion, is that we should not have permanent bans," Musk said, referring to the Twitter co-founder and former chief executive officer.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

EA Sports will rename their popular FIFA game series after they failed to extend their partnership with world football's governing body. From a report: The Athletic revealed in October that EA Sports were considering renaming their gaming series and it has now been revealed it will be called EA Sports FC from 2023. EA Sports said in a statement: "After nearly 30 years of creating genre-defining interactive football experiences, we will soon begin an exciting new era. Next year, EA SPORTS FC will become the future of football from EA SPORTS. Alongside our 300+ licence partners across the sport, we're ready to take global football experiences to new heights, on behalf of all football fans around the world. Everything you love about our games will be part of EA SPORTS FC -- the same great experiences, modes, leagues, tournaments, clubs and athletes will be there. Ultimate Team, Career Mode, Pro Clubs and VOLTA Football will all be there." EA Sports have been producing an annual version of the football video game since 1993, along with various spin-off editions. It is one of the best-selling video game franchises of all time.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Last October marked 20 years of the iPod. It's a remarkable run in the cutthroat, always-iterating world of consumer electronics. And while it's undoubtedly true that life hasn't been particularly fruitful for the music player in a product lineup that includes various iPhones and iPads, the beloved music player has somehow managed to hang on. That is, until today. Apple this morning announced that the iPod is dead. That is, as much as a particular gadget can ever be dead. Rather, it will shuffle off this mortal coil slowly, remaining for sale while supplies last. So if you were considering purchasing one for any reason, buy now or forever hold your peace. The iPod's death has been a protracted one. I can hear those "the iPod was still around?" posts clogging up the comments section as I type this. The iconic clickwheel model, which later gave rise to the Classic, was discontinued back in 2014. The Shuffle and Nano, meanwhile, were killed off three years later. Until today, the seventh-generation iPod Touch stubbornly clung to life, three years after its debut.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The start-up has had a meteoric rise, thanks to its charismatic co-founder, Ryan Breslow. But he sometimes stretched the truth to get there. From a report: In just over three years, Bolt has soared in valuation to $11 billion from $250 million, making it a Valley success story. But Bolt's meteoric rise has been fueled at least in part by a pattern of stretching the truth, according to interviews with over 50 former and current employees, clients, investors and others with whom Bolt discussed partnerships and fund-raising, as well as a lawsuit filed recently by a big customer. Most of them sought anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly. In a rush to show growth, Bolt often overstated its technological capability and misrepresented the number of merchants using its service, some of the people said. In presentations to investors, it included the names of customers before verifying whether those merchants were able to use its technology. For a time, a fraud detection product it was pitching to merchants was more dependent on manual review than Mr. Breslow implied, according to a former employee. Mr. Breslow, 27, abruptly stepped down as chief executive in January, blindsiding some investors who, just weeks earlier, had put money into Bolt at an $11 billion valuation. Now, Bolt's troubles are mounting. Some investors are looking to sell their stakes, while customers are questioning Bolt's technology. One of Bolt's biggest customers, Authentic Brands Group, which owns and licenses brands like Brooks Brothers, is suing the company for having "utterly failed to deliver on the technological capabilities that it held itself out as possessing." At an all-hands staff meeting last month, Bolt -- which has around 800 employees -- announced a three-month hiring freeze. Although it has cash to keep operating for a while, Bolt has talked to prospective investors about raising more funds, according to people with knowledge of the outreach. The implosion last month of Fast, a direct competitor, has only heightened investor scrutiny. [...] The race to add merchants often meant that Bolt's sales team signed deals without always verifying that the merchant's payments technology would be able to integrate with Bolt. Ms. Neve said it was standard industry practice to include both prospective clients and those who had signed, even if they weren't using the service. Guess, for instance, was listed on Bolt's website as a "won" customer but never went live and was later removed, she said. An internal document viewed by The Times laid out what to do if a merchant asked whether Bolt's technology could integrate with its e-commerce platform. "If it's a big merchant, you probably want to act like our integration is already underway, not lie about it being done, but act as if it's close," the document said. "If it's a smaller merchant, gauge how much we want them vs how excited they are. If we want them a lot and they're not absolutely ecstatic, then act as if we'll build it." Ms. Neve said the company couldn't locate the document, but that it does not reflect "the practices or policies of Bolt." Bolt's business tactics raised questions from at least one big potential investor. As part of its due diligence, Tiger Global, a fund known for investing in hundreds of young start-ups, had talked to clients that Bolt said it had signed on. Based on those conversations, Tiger executives weren't so sure those merchants would use Bolt beyond a trial, according to two people involved in the conversations. To Tiger, Bolt's revenue projections seemed overly bullish and exaggerated, the people said. Tiger passed.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Forty years after it first began to dabble in quantum computing, IBM is ready to expand the technology out of the lab and into more practical applications -- like supercomputing! The company has already hit a number of development milestones since it released its previous quantum roadmap in 2020, including the 127-qubit Eagle processor that uses quantum circuits and the Qiskit Runtime API. IBM announced on Wednesday that it plans to further scale its quantum ambitions and has revised the 2020 roadmap with an even loftier goal of operating a 4,000-qubit system by 2025. Before it sets about building the biggest quantum computer to date, IBM plans release its 433-qubit Osprey chip later this year and migrate the Qiskit Runtime to the cloud in 2023, "bringing a serverless approach into the core quantum software stack," per Wednesday's release. Those products will be followed later that year by Condor, a quantum chip IBM is billing as "the world's first universal quantum processor with over 1,000 qubits." This rapid four-fold jump in quantum volume (the number of qubits packed into a processor) will enable users to run increasingly longer quantum circuits, while increasing the processing speed -- measured in CLOPS (circuit layer operations per second) -- from a maximum of 2,900 OPS to over 10,000. Then it's just a simple matter of quadrupaling that capacity in the span of less than 24 months.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Netflix could introduce its lower-priced ad-supported tier by the end of the year, a more accelerated timeline than originally indicated, the company told employees in a recent note. From a report: In the note, Netflix executives said that they were aiming to introduce the ad tier in the final three months of the year, according to two people who shared details of the communication, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe internal company discussions. The note also said that they were planning to begin cracking down on password sharing among its subscriber base around the same time, the people said. Last month, Netflix stunned the media industry and Madison Avenue when it revealed that it would begin offering a lower-priced subscription featuring ads, after years of publicly stating that commercials would never be seen on the streaming platform. But Netflix is facing significant business challenges. In announcing first quarter earnings last month, Netflix said that it lost 200,000 subscribers in the first three months of the year -- the first time that has happened in a decade -- and expected to lose two million more in the months to come. Since the subscriber announcement, Netflix's share price has dropped sharply, wiping away roughly $70 billion in the company's market capitalization.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A House subcommittee is scheduled to hold next week the first open congressional hearing on unidentified aerial vehicles in more than half a century, with testimony from two top defense intelligence officials. From a report: The hearing comes after the release last June of a report requested by Congress on "unidentified aerial phenomena." The nine-page "Preliminary Assessment" from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence focused on 144 incidents dating back to 2004 and was able to explain only one. The report declined to draw inferences, saying that the available reporting was "largely inconclusive" and noting that limited and inconsistent data created a challenge in evaluating the phenomena. But it said most of the phenomena reported "do represent physical objects." The assessment concluded that the objects were not secret U.S. technology and that "we currently lack data to indicate any UAP are part of a foreign collection program or indicative of a major technological advancement by a potential adversary."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: The U.S. Copyright Office has launched a public consultation to evaluate whether it's wise to make certain technical protection measures mandatory under the DMCA. The Office hopes to hear all relevant stakeholders and the public at large in what may become a de facto review of the recently introduced SMART Copyright Act. [...] Following repeated nudges from Senators Thom Tillis and Patrick Leahy, the Copyright Office started looking into automated tools that online services can use to ensure that pirated content can't be easily reuploaded. This "takedown and staydown' approach relies on technical protection tools, which include upload filters. This is a sensitive subject that previously generated quite a bit of pushback when the EU drafted its Copyright Directive. To gauge the various options and viewpoints, the Copyright Office launched a consultation last year, which triggered a wave of objections and opposition. Last week, the Office followed up with yet another consultation, asking for input on shortcomings in the current DMCA legislation and what alternatives could help to improve things. As things stand, online services are allowed to implement their own upload filters, which many do. Scanning uploads for potentially copyright-infringing content isn't mandatory but that could change in the future. The consultation outline mentions several potential changes to the DMCA's Section 512, such as online services losing their safe harbor protection if they fail to implement specific "standard technical measures" (STMs). "Is the loss of the section 512 safe harbors an appropriate remedy for interfering with or failing to accommodate STMs?" the Copyright Office asks. "Are there other obligations concerning STMs that ought to be required of internet service providers?" the list of questions continues. Stakeholders are asked to share their views on these matters. While it is uncertain whether any measures will be made mandatory, the Copyright Office is already looking ahead. For example, who gets to decide what STMs will be mandatory, and how would the rulemaking process work? "What entity or entities would be best positioned to administer such a rulemaking? What should be the frequency of such a rulemaking? What would be the benefits of such a rulemaking? What would be the drawbacks of such a rulemaking?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Back in March, Google halted Android app and subscription purchases in Russia due to sanctions. Google Play is now "blocking the downloading of paid apps and updates to paid apps in Russia starting May 5, 2022.â 9to5Google reports: The company cites "compliance efforts" as being responsible for this latest policy. There are no changes to free applications as Google says in the Q&A of its support article on the matter: "Can I publish new apps or update existing apps during this pause? You can still publish new free apps, and update existing free apps. Updates to paid apps are blocked for compliance reasons." Google has recommended developers defer payment renewals (which is possible for up to one year). Another given possibility for developers was making apps free or removing the paid subscription "during this pause." That was advised for applications that provide a "critical service to users that keeps them safe and provides access to information."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

During a press conference Monday morning, NASA provided an update on the status of the Webb Space Telescope and released images from the telescope that put Webb's progress on dazzling display. Gizmodo reports: "I'm delighted to report that the telescope alignment has been completed with performance even better than we had anticipated," said Michael McElwain, a Webb observatory project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, in a NASA press conference. "This is an extraordinary milestone for humanity." Webb sits at an observational point called L2 nearly 1 million miles from Earth, where it will look further back in time than the Hubble Space Telescope. (Hubble will continue to operate alongside Webb once the latter is operational). [...] The preparation and testing of the telescope's science instruments (a process called commissioning) will take about two months to complete. Only once the commissioning is complete can Webb begin taking the scientific images that will define its tenure in space. But some images are already being collected, to make sure the telescope is functioning properly. Webb's coldest instrument -- the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) -- recently took a test image of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way that was previously imaged by the now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope's Infrared Array Camera. Webb's image of the same region makes Spitzer's look like a finger painting, showing interstellar gas clearly distributed across the star field. The stars -- blots, in Spitzer's view -- are seven-pointed beacons of light in the MIRI test. Webb's next steps will focus on taking images of its science targets, known as early release observations. These will not only be the first images of Webb science targets, but they will be the first images processed into full color. (Webb sees the cosmos in the infrared and near-infrared wavelengths, but the images will be translated into visible light.) Klaus Pontoppidan, a Webb project scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute, said in the briefing that the chief differences between the most recent images and the ones to come are that the former were taken to test the telescope's ability to see clearly, whereas the latter will test the telescope's ability to image science targets. Pontoppidan wouldn't elaborate on what Webb team will capture in the early release observations -- the targets are a "surprise," he said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Scientists are developing magnetically guided microscopic projectiles that can be injected into patients' blood to attack breast, prostate and other tumors. The project -- led by researchers at Sheffield University -- builds on progress in two key medical fields. The first involves viruses that specifically attack tumors. The second focuses on soil bacteria that manufacture magnets which they use to align themselves in the Earth's magnetic field. The anti-cancer viruses that are being exploited by the Sheffield group -- who have been funded by Cancer Research UK -- are known as oncolytic viruses. They occur naturally but can also be modified to improve their efficacy and to limit the chances of them infecting healthy cells. [...] "The problem is that oncolytic viruses attract the attention of the body's immune defenses and only skin-deep tumors can be tackled this way before the viruses are blocked fairly quickly by our cell defenses," said Dr Faith Howard, another project leader. A solution, the scientists say, is to coat the viruses in magnetic particles. Injected into the blood, these microscopic projectiles could then be directed quickly to a tumor -- by using magnets placed over a patient's body -- before their progress can be blocked by immune defenses. An oncolytic virus had a diameter of about 180 nanometers while the magnets needed to be about 50 nanometers in size, added Howard. (A nanometre is a billionth of a meter.) "These tiny magnets could be made in the laboratory but we have found bacteria do a better job of manufacturing them than we could," she added. Some species of soil bacteria synthesize iron oxide nanoparticles that are called magnetosomes. These are used as compasses that allow the microbes to navigate in Earth's magnetic field and help them find optimum conditions for their growth and survival. "These microscopic magnets they make are perfectly shaped and ideally suited to the microscopic packages we need to target deep cancers," Howard said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

China's internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), has published guidelines that aim to stop minors from giving tips or other forms of payment to livestreamers, watching after 10pm, or livestreaming themselves. The Register reports: "Website platforms must not develop functional applications that attract minors to tip or induce minors to give 'gifts.' If it is found that the website platform violates the aforementioned requirements, measures such as suspending the tipping function and shutting down the live broadcast business will be implemented," said the recently published Opinions on Regulating Online Live Rewards and Strengthening the Protection of Minors (in Chinese). The opinions were issued jointly by China's Central Civilization Office, Ministry of Culture and Tourism, State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, and State Internet Information Office. The focus was to "persist in taking the socialist core values as the guide." If minors try to circumvent the rules and use adult accounts, the platforms may be responsible for providing refunds. [...] Beijing's qualm with livestreaming and its tech is that the practice can result in physical and mental health issues, as well as create "social problems." [...] There is also concern that teenagers will spend their evenings staying up late online and therefore not have sufficient rest time, hence the 10pm curfew.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

DrunkenTerror shares a report from ExtremeTech: Microsoft is advising Windows 11 users to uninstall a recent update. Reports indicated the optional update KB5012643 is causing various apps to crash. The problem involves an interaction between the update and the .Net Framework that's part of Windows. At this time it's unclear which apps are affected by the issue, leaving uninstallation as the "only" viable solution. "Affected apps are using certain optional components in .NET Framework 3.5, such as Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Workflow (WWF) components." This update also broke Safe Mode. Microsoft says when users booted into 'Safe Mode without networking' users might see the screen flicker. Per MS, "Components that rely on explorer.exe, such as File Explorer, the Start menu, and the taskbar, can be affected and appear unstable." Microsoft issued a Known Issue Rollback (KiR) for this already so it should be fixed. If you encounter it, you should be able to resolve it by enabling network support in Safe Mode.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The new free trade agreement between Australia and the UK includes a site blocking paragraph. The text requires the countries to provide injunctive relief to require ISPs to prevent subscribers from accessing pirate sites. While this doesn't change much for the two countries, rightsholders are already eying similar requirements for trade deals with other nations. TorrentFreak reports: The inclusion of a blocking paragraph in the copyright chapter of the trade deal was high on the agenda of various copyright holder groups. Following a series of hearings and consultations, both countries settled on the following text: 1. Each Party shall provide that its civil judicial authorities have the authority to grant an injunction against an ISP within its territory, ordering the ISP to take action to block access to a specific online location, in cases where:(a) that online location is located outside the territory of that Party; and(b) the services of the ISP are used by a third party to infringe copyright or related rights in the territory of that Party. 2. For greater certainty, nothing in this Article precludes a Party from providing that its judicial authorities may grant an injunction to take action to block access to online locations used to infringe intellectual property rights in circumstances other than those specified in paragraph 1. This hasn't gone unnoticed by the Alliance for Intellectual Property, which represents rightsholder organizations such as the MPA, BPI, and the Premier League. The group repeatedly urged the UK Government to include site-blocking powers in the agreement. In a recent submission to the UK Government, the Alliance once again stresses the importance of site blocking, while also hinting at broadening the current anti-piracy toolbox. "It has become a hugely valuable tool in the armory of rights holders looking to protect their IP. It is vital that the UK Government ensures the preservation of the no-fault injunctive relief regime," the Alliance writes. "We would also encourage the opening of dialogue, wherever possible, to share experience around UK practices and to encourage faster, more efficient website blocking procedures, whether through civil, criminal, administrative or voluntary means." The site-blocking language is already included in the latest trade deal draft but the Alliance is also looking ahead at future agreements with other countries. In this context, the blocking paragraph will send a clear message. "We would therefore urge the UK Government to include reference to the site blocking legislation in the FTA with Australia as it will send an important message to future countries that we might chose [sic] to negotiate trade agreements with." The Alliance for Intellectual Property doesn't mention any other countries by name. However, it specifically references a report from the U.S. Copyright Office where site blocking was mentioned as a potential future anti-piracy option. In the same report, the Copyright Office also stressed that further research would be required on the effect and impact of a U.S. site-blocking scheme, but the idea wasn't dismissed outright.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Researchers are marveling at the scope and magnitude of a vulnerability that hackers are actively exploiting to take full control of network devices that run on some of the world's biggest and most sensitive networks. The vulnerability, which carries a 9.8 severity rating out of a possible 10, affects F5's BIG-IP, a line of appliances that organizations use as load balancers, firewalls, and for inspection and encryption of data passing into and out of networks. There are more than 16,000 instances of the gear discoverable online, and F5 says it's used by 48 of the Fortune 50. Given BIG-IP's proximity to network edges and their functions as devices that manage traffic for web servers, they often are in a position to see decrypted contents of HTTPS-protected traffic. Last week, F5 disclosed and patched a BIG-IP vulnerability that hackers can exploit to execute commands that run with root system privileges. The threat stems from a faulty authentication implementation of the iControl REST, a set of web-based programming interfaces for configuring and managing (PDF) BIG-IP devices. "This issue allows attackers with access to the management interface to basically pretend to be an administrator due to a flaw in how the authentication is implemented," Aaron Portnoy, the director of research and development at security firm Randori, said in a direct message. "Once you are an admin, you can interact with all the endpoints the application provides, including execute code." Images floating around Twitter in the past 24 hours show how hackers can use the exploit to access an F5 application endpoint named bash. Its function is to provide an interface for running user-supplied input as a bash command with root privileges. While many images show exploit code supplying a password to make commands run, exploits also work when no password is supplied. [...] Elsewhere on Twitter, researchers shared exploit code and reported seeing in-the-wild exploits that dropped backdoor webshells that threat actors could use to maintain control over hacked BIG-IP devices even after they're patched. BIG-IP users can check exploitability via a one-line bash script that can be found here.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Facebook on Thursday began informing users that Nearby Friends and other location-based features will soon be discontinued at the end of the month. While the reasons are currently unclear, the company claims that all information related to these features will be deleted from Facebook's servers. 9to5Mac reports: Users have been getting a notification in the Facebook app for iOS and Android about the end of Nearby Friends, a feature that lets people share their current location with other Facebook friends. At the same time, Facebook also says that Time Alerts, Location History, and Background Location are also "going away soon." According to the company, Nearby Friends and other location-based features will no longer be available to users after May 31, 2022. Some of the data, such as the user's location history (which automatically uses your location to create a map of places you have visited, will be available for download by August 1, 2022. After that, Facebook says that this data will be deleted. Unfortunately, this doesn't mean that Facebook's app will stop collecting users' location. The company states that location data will still be collected "for other experiences." Of course, you can always disable the Facebook app's access to your location by going into the iOS Privacy settings.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Security researchers have noticed a malicious campaign that used Windows event logs to store malware, a technique that has not been previously documented publicly for attacks in the wild. BleepingComputer reports: The method enabled the threat actor behind the attack to plant fileless malware in the file system in an attack filled with techniques and modules designed to keep the activity as stealthy as possible. [...] The dropper copies the legitimate OS error handling file [...] and then drops an encrypted binary resource to the 'wer.dll' (Windows Error Reporting) in the same location, for DLL search order hijacking to load malicious code. DLL hijacking is a hacking technique that exploits legitimate programs with insufficient checks to load into memory a malicious Dynamic Link Library (DLL) from an arbitrary path. [Denis Legezo, lead security researcher at Kaspersky] says that the dropper's purpose is to loader on the disk for the side-loading process and to look for particular records in the event logs (category 0x4142 - 'AB' in ASCII. If no such record is found, it writes 8KB chunks of encrypted shellcode, which are later combined to form the code for the next stager. "The dropped wer.dll is a loader and wouldn't do any harm without the shellcode hidden in Windows event logs," says Legezo. The new technique analyzed by Kaspersky is likely on its way to becoming more popular as Soumyadeep Basu, currently an intern for Mandiant's red team, has created and published on GitHub source code for injecting payloads into Windows event logs.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: Notorious facial recognition company Clearview AI has agreed to permanently halt sales of its massive biometric database to all private companies and individuals in the United States as part of a legal settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union, per court records. Monday's announcement marks the close of a two-year legal dispute brought by the ACLU and privacy advocate groups in May of 2020 against the company over allegations that it had violated BIPA, the 2008 Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. This act requires companies to obtain permission before harvesting a person's biometric information -- fingerprints, gait metrics, iris scans and faceprints for example -- and empowers users to sue the companies who do not. In addition to the nationwide private party sales ban, Clearview will not offer any of its services to Illinois local and state law enforcement agencies (as well as all private parties) for the next five years. "This means that within Illinois, Clearview cannot take advantage of BIPA's exception for government contractors during that time," the ACLU points out, though Federal agencies, state and local law enforcement departments outside of Illinois will be unaffected. That's not all. Clearview must also end its free trial program for police officers, erect and maintain an opt-out page for Illinois residents, and spend $50,000 advertising it online. The settlement must still be approved by a federal judge before it takes effect. "Fourteen years ago, the ACLU of Illinois led the effort to enact BIPA -- a groundbreaking statute to deal with the growing use of sensitive biometric information without any notice and without meaningful consent," Rebecca Glenberg, staff attorney for the ACLU of Illinois, said in a statement. "BIPA was intended to curb exactly the kind of broad-based surveillance that Clearview's app enables. Today's agreement begins to ensure that Clearview complies with the law. This should be a strong signal to other state legislatures to adopt similar statutes."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Europe's first commercial facility for psychedelic drug trials is to open in London, with the goal of making the UK a global leader in psychedelics research and innovation. From a report: The British startup Clerkenwell Health aims to begin trials in its central London facility in August, initially focusing on the use of psilocybin to help people deal with the anxiety associated with a diagnosis of terminal illness, and to support them through their end-of-life care. The news comes as scientists and policymakers gather in London this Wednesday for the Agenda for Psych Symposium, a daylong programme to discuss the latest research and the future of the psychedelics industry in Europe.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Match Group accused Alphabet's Google in a lawsuit of acting as a monopolist with its app store billing rules, the latest escalation in a brawl over the mobile-app industry. From a report: Match Group, which operates dating apps such as Tinder and OkCupid, alleged that Google breaks federal and state laws and abuses its power with a requirement that app developers use its billing system on Android devices. "Ten years ago, Match Group was Google's partner. We are now its hostage," Match Group said in a complaint filed Monday in northern California federal court. "Blinded by the possibility of getting an ever-greater cut of the billions of dollars users spend each year on Android apps, Google set out to monopolize the market for how users pay for their Android apps." Google, like Apple, has faced enormous recent legal and political scrutiny over the commission fees and billing restrictions both companies apply to paid services in their app stores. Congress is currently weighing a bill to force Google and Apple to change their business models.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

More than four dozen former national security leaders are calling on Congress to exempt international advanced technical degree holders from green card caps in a bid to maintain U.S. science and tech leadership, especially over China, according to a copy of a letter viewed by Axios. From the report: The America COMPETES Act passed by the Democrat-led House includes a provision to exempt foreign-born science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) doctoral degree recipients from green card caps. The exemption would be offered whether their degree is from a U.S. or foreign institution. Current U.S. immigration law limits the number of green cards issued per country, and people from populous countries like India and China are disproportionately affected. The Bipartisan Innovation Act Conference Committee is expected to begin this month to try to reconcile the House and Senate bills. Several Republican senators, including Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) have said they're open to keeping the green card provision in final legislation. The letter, dated May 9, is addressed to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and the conference committee. Signatories include former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, former Secretary of Energy Steve Chu, former deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security Kari Bingen and 46 others.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

echo123 writes: Twenty Internet providers, including AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, have agreed to provide high-speed service at a steep discount to low-income consumers, the White House announced Monday, significantly expanding broadband access for millions of Americans. The plan, a feature of the $1 trillion infrastructure package passed by Congress last year, would cost qualifying households no more than $30 per month. The discounts plus existing federal Internet subsidies mean the government will cover the full cost of connectivity if consumers sign on with one of the 20 participating companies. The White House estimates the program will cover 48 million households, or 40 percent of the country. The 100-megabit-per-second service is fast enough for a family to work from home, complete schoolwork, browse the Internet and stream high-definition movies and TV shows, the White House said. Households can qualify for the subsidies, called the Affordable Connectivity Program, if their income is at or below 200 percent of federal poverty guidelines, a member of the household participates in certain federal anti-poverty initiatives -- including Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, federal housing assistance, Pell Grant tuition assistance, or free or reduced-price school meals -- or if the household already qualifies for an Internet provider's low-income service program. Consumers can check whether they qualify for discounted service at getinternet.gov.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The algorithmic stablecoin UST briefly fell 2% below its peg to the US dollar on Monday, according to data from crypto exchange Binance -- the fourth significant drop below its peg in the last two days. From a report: UST is a stablecoin backed through its relationship with the LUNA token. A burning mechanism and the ability to always be able to sell $1 worth of LUNA for 1 UST are designed to keep it in check. Yet critics say the success of this operation depends on the strength of LUNA's price and on its key DeFi platform, Anchor, continuing to produce an up to 20% yield to incentivize liquidity -- something that's on track to run out soon barring any fixes.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lincoln College is scheduled to close its doors Friday, becoming the first U.S. institution of higher learning to shut down in part due to a ransomware attack. From a report: A goodbye note posted to the school's website said that it survived both World Wars, the Spanish flu and the Great Depression, but was unable to handle the combination of the Covid pandemic and a severe ransomware attack in December that took months to remedy. "Lincoln College was a victim of a cyberattack in December 2021 that thwarted admissions activities and hindered access to all institutional data, creating an unclear picture of Fall 2022 enrollment projections," the school wrote in its announcement. "All systems required for recruitment, retention, and fundraising efforts were inoperable. Fortunately, no personal identifying information was exposed. Once fully restored in March 2022, the projections displayed significant enrollment shortfalls, requiring a transformational donation or partnership to sustain Lincoln College beyond the current semester." The Illinois school, which is named after President Abraham Lincoln and broke ground on his birthday in 1865, is one of only a handful of rural American colleges that qualify as predominantly Black institutions by the Department of Education.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Complex Games, the developers of the new Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate -- Daemonhunters, have issued a statement to frustrated players after running a campaign where certain in-game items were only available to those who sat through some Twitch streams. From a report: While Complex probably thought they were running a fairly standard (by 2022 standards anyway) release window promotional thing, the nature of the items and the fanbase and platform in question weren't having it. Here's an example of a negative review left on the game's Steam page as a result, one of many that presumably prompted the statement: "The game would have gotten a thumbs up but for one thing. The developers for some ridiculous reason decided to put 11 ingame items(not skins or cosmetics but actual weapons and armor) behind twitch drops on the day of release. In order to get these items you not only have to create and link a Frontier account and a Twitch account but you have to watch hours and hours of inane twitch streamers prattling on instead of actually playing the game you paid for. They also are timed so if you miss them you miss them forever. If there was another way to earn these ingame it would not be a big deal..." The Angry Joe stream was actually only 45 minutes, but their point remains. The items weren't anything fancy or game-breaking. Most of them were just very slight variations on early-game weapons and armour that you'll move past in a few hours anyway. But it's the spirit of the move -- and its mandates on player's time if they want to try out everything the game has to offer -- that has upset people as much as its practical consequences. As a result, Complex have said that every item offered during the streams will now be given away to free to all players later this month.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Uber will cut back on spending and focus on becoming a leaner business to address a "seismic shift" in investor sentiment, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told employees in an email obtained by CNBC. From the report: "After earnings, I spent several days meeting investors in New York and Boston," Khosrowshahi said in the email, which was sent out late Sunday. "It's clear that the market is experiencing a seismic shift and we need to react accordingly." [...] To address the shift in economic sentiment, the ride-hailing firm will slash spending on marketing and incentives and treat hiring as a "privilege," Khosrowshahi said. "We have to make sure our unit economics work before we go big," the Uber boss wrote. "The least efficient marketing and incentive spend will be pulled back... We will treat hiring as a privilege and be deliberate about when and where we add headcount," he added. "We will be even more hardcore about costs across the board."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Investors are divided about whether technology companies are set for a deep retrenchment or if growth is simply slowing from pandemic highs. From a report: The technology industry, which powered the U.S. economy during the pandemic and grew at tremendous scale during a decade of ultralow interest rates, is confronting one of the most punishing stretches in years. Global powerhouses and fledgling startups are feeling pain from a variety of economic, industry and market factors, spawning postpandemic turbulence in e-commerce, digital advertising, electric vehicles, ride-hailing and other segments. Companies that emerged as job-creating juggernauts in the past two years -- collectively adding hundreds of thousands of workers to their payrolls in engineering, warehouse and delivery jobs -- have begun to freeze hiring or even lay off employees. Concerned that some of the forces that have propelled tech ever upward have begun to fade, investors have sent share prices for a number of companies, including Lyft and Peloton plunging on disappointing financial results or other news. The stocks of Netflix, Facebook parent Meta Platforms and Amazon.com all are down more than 30% this year, exceeding the more-than-13% drop in the S&P 500. Investors are divided on the question of whether the slowdown is temporary -- as well-positioned companies work through a period of stagnation after expanding ultrafast in recent years -- or if these are the early signs of a deeper retrenchment for the industry and its investors.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced today that the platform is going to start testing NFTs with select creators in the United States this week. From a report: Mosseri noted that there will be no fees associated with posting or sharing a digital collectible on Instagram. At launch, the supported blockchains for showcasing NFTs on Instagram are Ethereum and Polygon, with support for Flow and Solana coming soon. The third-party wallets compatible for use will include Rainbow, Trust Wallet and MetaMask. Creators and people who are part of the test can now share NFTs that they've made or that they've bought. You can share these NFTs in your main Feed, Stories, or in messages. Mosseri outlined that only a limited number of people have access to the test, but the company plans to roll out more functionality related to NFTs in the future once it gets feedback from its initial testing.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Congress may soon require government agencies to vet tech startups seeking federal funding, after a Defense Department study found China is exploiting a popular program that funds innovation among small American companies. From a report: The study, which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal, found China is using state-sponsored methods to target companies that have received Pentagon funding from the Small Business Innovation Research program. The SBIR program for decades has sought to promote innovation through a competitive U.S. government award process. The April 2021 report, which has been circulating among lawmakers on Capitol Hill, details eight case studies it says have "national and economic security implications." The studies include examples of program participants who dissolve their American companies, join Chinese government talent programs and continue their work at institutions that support the People's Liberation Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party. The report also documents instances of SBIR recipients taking venture-capital money from Chinese state-owned firms and of working with Chinese entities that support the country's defense industry. The report concludes that the SBIR program needs a due-diligence process to identify entities of potential concern that would then receive a more detailed review.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Israeli spyware company NSO Group has stonewalled questions over whether it is operating legally, according to consultants acting on behalf of the controversial company's owners. From a report: Berkeley Research Group, the US consultancy that was last year put in charge of the private equity fund that owns 70 per cent of NSO, has told EU lawmakers that its inquiries about NSO's "lawfulness" have been "ignored and/or frustrated by NSO Group's management team." Concerns remain about âoethe historical management of the NSO Group" and "possible ongoing activities in relation to which [BRG is] being kept in the dark," BRG's lawyers wrote in a letter to MEPs. BRG's complaint is a further escalation of the controversy surrounding NSO, which was once a highly prized asset that Israel used as a diplomatic calling card, but is now facing lawsuits from Meta and Apple and has been blacklisted by the US. NSO's Pegasus software can infiltrate a smartphone and mirror its encrypted contents. It was last year found to have been used to target smartphones belonging to 37 journalists, human rights activists and other prominent figures.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Developers of the Deno JavaScript and TypeScript runtime are exploring the possibility of JavaScript containers — and the JavaScript sandbox itself — as a higher-level alternative to Linux containers," reports InfoWorld, citing a blog post by Node.js and Deno creator Ryan Dahl:Dahl also noted that Docker popularized the use of Linux containers, with operating system-level virtualization for distributing server software. Each container image is a dependency-free, ready-to-run software package. But browser JavaScript offers a similar hermetic environment at a higher level of abstraction, he said. Dahl said he expects JavaScript container technology to unfold over the next couple of years. In the blog post Dahl says scripting languages are "all pretty much the same" — but that JavaScript is "by far more widely used and future proof."[A JavaScript sandbox container] isn't meant to address the same breadth of problems that Linux containers target. Its emergence is a result of its simplicity. It minimizes the boilerplate for web service business logic. It shares concepts with the browser and reduces the concepts that the programmer needs to know. (Example: when writing a web service, very likely any systemd configuration is just unnecessary boilerplate.) Every web engineer already knows JavaScript browser APIs. Because the JavaScript container abstraction is built on the same browser APIs, the total amount of experience the engineer needs is reduced. The universality of Javascript reduces complexity.... In this emerging server abstraction layer, JavaScript takes the place of Shell. It is quite a bit better suited to scripting than Bash or Zsh. Instead of invoking Linux executables, like shell does, the JavaScript sandbox can invoke Wasm.... Maybe the majority of "web services" can be simplified by thinking in terms of JavaScript containers, rather than Linux containers. At Deno we are exploring these ideas; we're trying to radically simplify the server abstraction. We're hiring if this sounds interesting to you.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon defeated an attempt by a second warehouse to unionize, CNBC reports — after "holding mandatory worker meetings to persuade its employees not to unionize." But now the U.S. government's National Labor Relations Board "has found merit in a union charge that Amazon violated labor law..."The labor board has in the past allowed employees to mandate such meetings, which are routinely held at companies like Amazon and Starbucks during union drives. But in a memo sent to the agency's field offices last month, NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo said she believes the meetings, often called "captive audience meetings," are at odds with labor law, and would seek to get them outlawed... An NLRB spokesperson said the agency will issue a complaint against Amazon unless the retailer agrees to a settlement. If the company doesn't settle, the complaint would trigger an administrative court process where both parties can litigate the case.... The agency also found merit in an accusation from the union that the company indicated to workers they could be fired if they voted to unionize, and threatened to withhold benefits should they chose to do so, according to an email from Matt Jackson, an attorney with the NLRB's field office in Brooklyn. "These allegations are false and we look forward to showing that through the process," Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement. In addition, an Amazon spokesperson tells CNBC, "These meetings have been legal for over 70 years."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

After Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, "VPNs have been downloaded in Russia by the hundreds of thousands a day," reports the Washington Post, "a massive surge in demand that represents a direct challenge to President Vladimir Putin and his attempt to seal Russians off from the wider world. "By protecting the locations and identities of users, VPNs are now granting millions of Russians access to blocked material...."Daily downloads in Russia of the 10 most popular VPNs jumped from below 15,000 just before the war to as many as 475,000 in March. As of this week, downloads were continuing at a rate of nearly 300,000 a day, according to data compiled for The Washington Post by the analytics firm Apptopia, which relies on information from apps, public data and an algorithm to come up with estimates. Russian clients typically download multiple VPNs, but the data suggests millions of new users per month. In early April, Russian telecom operator Yota reported that the number of VPN users was over 50 times as high as in January, according to the Tass state news service. The Internet Protection Society, a digital rights group associated with jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, launched its own VPN service last month and reached its limit of 300,000 users within 10 days, according to executive director Mikhail Klimarev. Based on internal surveys, he estimates that the number of VPN users in Russia has risen to roughly 30 percent of the 100 million Internet users in Russia. To combat Putin, "Ukraine needs Javelin and Russians need Internet," Klimarev said.... In the days before the war, and in the weeks since then, Russian authorities have also ratcheted up pressure on Google, asking the search engine to remove thousands of Internet sites associated with VPNs, according to the Lumen database, an archive of legal complaints related to Internet content. Google, which did not respond to a request for comment, still includes banned sites in search results.... Although downloading a VPN is technically easy, usually requiring only a few clicks, purchasing a paid VPN has become complicated in Russia, as Western sanctions have rendered Russian credit and debit cards nearly useless outside the country. That has forced many to resort to free VPNs, which can have spotty service and can sell information about users. Vytautas Kaziukonis, chief executive of Surfshark — a Lithuania-based VPN that saw a 20-fold increase in Russian users in March — said some of those customers are now paying in cryptocurrencies or through people they know in third countries. One 52-year-old told the Post that downloading a VPN "brought back memories of the 1980s in the Soviet Union, when he used a shortwave radio to hear forbidden news of dissident arrests on Radio Liberty, which is funded by the United States." "We didn't know what was going on around us. That's true again now."Read more of this story at Slashdot.