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Scientists have identified what appears to be a small chunk of the moon that is tracking the Earth's orbit around the Sun. From a report: The asteroid, named Kamo'oalewa, was discovered in 2016 but until now relatively little has been known about it. New observations suggest it could be a fragment from the moon that was thrown into space by an ancient lunar collision. Kamo'oalewa is one of Earth's quasi-satellites, a category of asteroid that orbits the Sun, but remains relatively close to the planet -- in this case about 9m miles away. Despite being close in astronomical terms, the asteroid is about the size of a ferris wheel and about 4m times fainter than the faintest star that can be seen with the naked eye. Consequently, the Earth's most powerful telescopes are needed to make observations. Using the Large Binocular Telescope on Mount Graham in southern Arizona, astronomers found the spectrum of reflected light from Kamo'oalewa closely matched lunar rocks from Nasa's Apollo missions, suggesting it originated from the moon. They had initially compared the light with that reflected off other near-Earth asteroids, but drawn a blank. "I looked through every near-Earth asteroid spectrum we had access to, and nothing matched," said Ben Sharkey, a PhD student at the University of Arizona and the paper's lead author.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The creator of EdgeDeflector said this week that the latest Insider build of Windows 11 now blocks all default browser workarounds. If this functionality makes its way to the finished product, it will mark a new, dark chapter for Microsoft, which told the media at the Windows 11 launch that it was aware that it had made changing app defaults pointlessly difficult, but that it had not done so maliciously and would fix it. This is the opposite of that claim. From a report: "Something changed between Windows 11 builds 22483 and 22494 (both Windows Insider Preview builds)," EdgeDeflector creator Daniel Aleksandersen writes in a new blog entry. "The build changelog ... omitted the headline news: you can no longer bypass Microsoft Edge using apps like EdgeDeflector." Microsoft not communicating effectively? I find that hard to believe. Cough. But Microsoft moving to make Windows 11 behave even more maliciously towards its users and browser rivals? That I have a hard time with. Basically, EdgeDeflector, as well as third-party browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Brave, intercept OS-level URL requests that force you to use Microsoft Edge even when you have gone through the incredibly ponderous steps to make a non-Edge browser the default in Windows 11. But in the latest Insider Preview build, Microsoft is changing how these URL requests work. And it's no longer possible to intercept URL requests that force users to use Edge instead of their default browser. (In the Insider builds. This functionality will come to mainstream users in the coming months unless we can change Microsoft's collective mind.)Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Portugal has banned bosses from text messaging and emailing staff out of working hours as part of new laws dubbed "right to rest." From a report: The move is part of changes being introduced to improve work-life balance in response to an expansion of working from home in the country. Companies with more than 10 staff could face fines if they contact employees outside their contracted hours. There are also new rules on allowing staff with children to work remotely. Parents will be about to work at home indefinitely without seeking prior approval from their employers until their child turns eight. And companies may also have to contribute to higher household bills from being home-based, such as energy and internet costs.Measures to tackle the isolation remote workers can feel are also included, with companies expected to organise regular face-to-face meetings. However, some elements of the package were not approved by Portugal's parliament, including a "right to disconnect" allowing staff to turn off all work devices out of hours. Portugal's Minister of Labour and Social Security, Ana Mendes Godinho, told a conference in Lisbon last week that "telework can be a game-changer" but its growth needs to be regulated. She also hoped the enhanced labour protections would attract more foreigners to the country. "We consider Portugal one of the best places in the world for these digital nomads and remote workers to choose to live in, we want to attract them to Portugal," Ms Godinho said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

President Biden signed into law a bill that requires the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to secure telecommunications systems against potential foreign threats to national security. From a report: In recent years, lawmakers have increasingly voiced concerns about Chinese telecom giants' operations in the U.S., and possible surveillance by the Chinese government. Under the new law, the FCC is barred from considering authorization for products made by companies on its "covered list," which includes Huawei and ZTE. The designation blocks U.S. companies from using FCC funds to purchase communications equipment and services that the U.S. government considers a national security threat. The bill received near-unanimous support in Congress. It was sponsored by Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), along with House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.).Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theodp writes: Leading entrepreneurs and luminaries representing a swath of the technology sector are uniting to voice their support for Code.org and Hour of Code in a call for increased computer science access and equitable representation of women and people of color across the industry," Code.org announced Thursday. "For a limited time from November 9 through December 2, a collective of leaders -- including Marc Benioff, Stacy Brown-Philpot, Mark Cuban, Reid Hoffman, Ashton Kutcher, Ellen Pao, Jennifer Tejada, and more -- are offering supporters the unique opportunity to receive an elusive Twitter "follow" from one of them, and at the same time, make a meaningful impact in advancing computer science education, particularly for young women and students from groups underrepresented in computer science." Valued at $2,500-$5,000, the tech billionaires and others' Twitter 'follows' are being auctioned by Charitybuzz.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon's algorithms were blamed for a crash that paralyzed an aspiring doctor. Amazon says it's not liable. From a report: Ans Rana was in the back seat of his brother's Tesla Model S when they stopped behind a disabled car just before 9 p.m. on Atlanta's busy Interstate 75. Seconds later, a blue Amazon.com delivery van slammed into them from behind -- mangling the rear of the car and sending Rana, his brother and father to Wellstar Kennestone Hospital. Rana bore the brunt of the collision, suffering life-changing brain and spinal-cord injuries. The 24-year-old spent months clinging to life, a ventilator helping him breathe, his family unsure if he'd ever leave the hospital. He slowly recovered enough to be released and now lives with a sister who looks after him. Rana gets around in a motorized wheelchair, unable to do simple tasks such as feeding himself, changing channels with a remote control or playing video games. The March 15 crash dashed his dreams of attending medical school, and the once-aspiring doctor is now focused on his own recovery, unsure if he'll walk again or regain control of his arms. In June, Rana filed a lawsuit in Georgia state court, alleging that Amazon is liable for the accident. Central to the complaint: the algorithms, apps and devices the company uses to manage its sprawling logistics operation. Amazon says it isn't legally culpable because the driver worked for Harper Logistics, one of thousands of small businesses launched in recent years specifically to deliver Amazon packages. By focusing on the key role played by the algorithms, Rana's attorney, Scott Harrison, is looking to prove that the company controls the operation, managing everything from how many packages drivers must deliver to whether they should be kept on or fired. Demonstrating Amazon isn't just a customer of Harper Logistics, but actually manages it from afar, is critical to any attempt to put the e-commerce giant on the hook for Rana's medical bills and a lifetime of diminished earnings. Amazon closely tracks delivery drivers' every move, the lawsuit states, including "backup monitoring, speed, braking, acceleration, cornering, seatbelt usage, phone calls, texting, in-van cameras that use artificial intelligence to detect for yawning, and more." If drivers fall behind schedule, Amazon employees send text messages "complaining that a certain driver is 'behind the rabbit' and needs to be 'rescued' to ensure that all the packages on Amazon's route are delivered in compliance with Amazon's unrealistic and dangerous speed expectations."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The world's fastest-growing major financial exchange has no head office or formal address, lacks licenses in countries where it operates and has a chief executive who until recently wouldn't answer questions about his location. From a report: Started just four years ago, Binance is the exchange giant that towers over the digital currency world, a crypto equivalent of the London, New York and Hong Kong stock exchanges combined. After a burst of growth, Binance processes more trades for cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ether each day, $76 billion worth, than its four largest competitors put together, according to data provider CryptoCompare. The years of largely unfettered, unregulated growth for Binance in particular and the crypto industry broadly, however, are coming to an end. Financial regulators increasingly worry that digital assets, until recently dismissed by some as a fad, have grown so quickly they now are systemically important. In an October speech, Bank of England official Jon Cunliffe brought up the 2008 subprime-mortgage-fueled crisis and said of crypto, "When something in the financial system is growing very fast, and growing in largely unregulated space, financial stability authorities have to sit up and take notice." Binance is drawing the most regulatory attention. Authorities in a dozen countries have cautioned users in recent months the exchange is unregistered or not authorized to provide various services.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Toshiba said it would split into three separate companies as part of an effort to improve shareholder value, responding to pressure from activists after years of scandal and mismanagement. From a report: The Tokyo-based company said it will separate core operations into two new publicly traded companies, one for infrastructure services and another for technology devices. The remaining Toshiba business will hold its stakes in memory chip pioneer Kioxia Holdings and Toshiba Tec. The goal is to complete the spinoffs by the second half of fiscal 2023. The company also plans 100 billion yen ($875 million) for shareholder returns over two years. It plans to monetize its stake in Kioxia and "return net proceeds in full to shareholders. Over our more than 140 year history, Toshiba has constantly evolved to stay ahead of the times," Chief Executive Officer Satoshi Tsunakawa said. "Today's announcement is no different. In order to enhance oure competitive positioning, each business now needs greater flexibility to address its own market opportunities and challenges.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechRadar: Seagate has unveiled the first ever hard disk drive (HDD) that utilizes both the NVMe protocol and a PCIe interface, which have historically been used for solid state drives (SSDs) exclusively. As explained in a company blog post, the proof-of-concept HDD is based on a proprietary controller that plays nice with all major protocols (SAS, SATA and NVMe), without requiring a bridge. The NVMe HDD was demoed at the Open Compute Compute Project Summit in a custom JBOD enclosure, with twelve 3.5-inch drives hooked up via a PCIe interface. Although the capacity of the drive is unconfirmed, Seagate used images of the Exos X18 for the presentation, which has a maximum capacity of 18TB. According to Seagate, there are a number of benefits to bringing the NVMe protocol to HDDs, such as reduced total cost of ownership (TCO), performance improvements, and energy savings. Further, by creating consistency across different types of storage device, NVMe HDDs could drastically simplify datacenter configurations. While current HDDs are nowhere near fast enough to make full use of the latest PCIe standards, technical advances could mean SATA and SAS interfaces are no longer sufficient in future. At this juncture, PCIe NVMe HDDs may become the default. That said, it will take a number of years for these hard drives to enter the mainstream. Seagate says it expects the first samples to be made available to a small selection of customers in Autumn next year, while full commercial rollout is slated for 2024 at the earliest.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

iOS 15.2 has been released today, bringing a new feature called Communication Safety in Messages that is able to detect and automatically blur nude images that are sent or received by children. It's one of several Child Safety features Apple announced over the summer. As MacRumors notes, it's "not the same as the controversial anti-CSAM feature that Apple plans to implement in the future after revisions." From the report: Communication Safety is a Family Sharing feature that can be enabled by parents, and it is opt-in rather than activated by default. When turned on, the Messages app is able to detect nudity in images that are sent or received by children. If a child receives or attempts to send a photo with nudity, the image will be blurred and the child will be warned about the content, told it's okay not to view the photo, and offered resources to contact someone they trust for help. When Communication Safety was first announced, Apple said that parents of children under the age of 13 had the option to receive a notification if the child viewed a nude image in Messages, but after receiving feedback, Apple has removed this feature. Apple now says that no notifications are sent to parents. Apple removed the notification option because it was suggested that parental notification could pose a risk for a child in a situation where there is parental violence or abuse. For all children, including those under the age of 13, Apple will instead offer guidance on getting help from a trusted adult in a situation where nude photos are involved. Checking for nudity in photos is done on-device, with Messages analyzing image attachments. The feature does not impact the end-to-end encryption of messages, and no indication of the detection of nudity leaves the device. Apple has no access to the Messages.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

fahrbot-bot shares a report from Scientific American: A diamond that formed deep in the earth's mantle contains a mineral never seen before in nature. The discovery is a rare glimpse into the deep mantle and may help reveal new information about the structure of the planet at depths of more than 660 kilometers. This, in turn, can help geologists better understand how the mantle controls the earth's plate tectonics. The mineral, calcium silicate perovskite, only forms under the incredibly high pressures that occur deep in the earth. The newly identified sample likely formed between 660 and 900 km below the planet's surface, says mineralogist Oliver Tschauner of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Though the mineral had previously been synthesized in the laboratory using 20 gigapascals of pressure (almost 200,000 times atmospheric pressure), it had immediately reverted to a different form when it was removed from that artificial high-pressure environment. So researchers had assumed it would be impossible to retrieve naturally occurring calcium silicate perovskite from the mantle. "The chances, we thought, of finding it were so low that we never really actively looked for it," Tschauner says. So it was a surprise when he and his colleagues, analyzing imperfections in a diamond from Orapa, Botswana, found three minuscule specks of calcium silicate perovskite. Calcium silicate is found in other forms, including wollastonite in the crust and breyite in the middle and lower regions of the mantle. But this version had a telltale cubic crystal structure that marked it as different from those versions of the mineral. Tschauner and his colleagues named the new mineral "davemaoite," after geologist Ho-Kwang "Dave" Mao, who carried out some of the pioneering experiments in using diamonds as presses to experimentally generate mantlelike pressures on the earth's surface. They announced the discovery on Thursday in Science.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from International Business Times: US scientists have developed a new form of drug that promotes the regeneration of cells and reversed paralysis in mice with spinal injuries, allowing them to walk again within four weeks of treatment. The research was published in the journal Science on Thursday, and the team of Northwestern University scientists behind it hope to approach the Food and Drug Administration as early as next year to propose human trials. [Northwestern's Samuel Stupp, who led the study, and his team] used nanofibers to mimic the architecture of the "extracellular matrix" -- a naturally occurring network of molecules surrounding tissue that is responsible for supporting cells. Each fiber is about 10,000 times narrower than a human hair, and they are made up of hundreds of thousands of bioactive molecules called peptides that transmit signals to promote nerve regeneration. The therapy was injected as a gel into tissue surrounding the spinal cords of lab mice 24 hours after an incision was made in their spines. The team decided to wait a day because humans who receive devastating spinal injuries from car accidents, gunshots and so on also experience delays in getting treatment. Four weeks later, mice who received the treatment regained their ability to walk almost as well as before the injury. Those left untreated did not. The mice were then put down to examine the impacts of the therapy on the cellular level, and the team found dramatic improvements to the spinal cords. The severed extensions of neurons called axons regenerated, and scar tissue that can act as a physical barrier to regeneration was significantly diminished. What's more, an insulating layer of axons called myelin that is important in transmitting electric signals had reformed, blood vessels that deliver nutrients to injured cells had formed, and more motor neurons survived. A key discovery by the team was that creating a certain mutation in the molecules intensified their collective motion and heightened their efficacy. This is because receptors in neurons are naturally in constant motion, Stupp explained, and increasing the motion of the therapeutic molecules within the nanofibers helps connect them more effectively with their moving targets. The researchers in fact tested two versions of the treatment -- one with the mutation and one without -- and found that mice that received the modified version regained more function. The gel developed by the scientists is the first of its kind, but could usher in a new generation of medicines known as "supramolecular drugs," because the therapy is an assembly of many molecules rather than a single molecule, said Stupp. According to the team, it is safe because the materials biodegrade within a matter of weeks and become nutrients for cells. Stupp said he hopes to rapidly move direct to human studies next without the need for further animal testing, such as on primates.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Bitcoin's long-awaited Taproot update will occur in the coming days, with most sources suggesting Saturday as its activation date. Crypto Briefing reports: Taproot is an upgrade that will improve Bitcoin's capacity for scripting, bringing it in line with competing blockchains like Ethereum that already have programmable smart contracts. Taproot will also introduce MAST (Merkelized Abstract Syntax Tree), which will make it more difficult to trace and analyze Bitcoin transactions. It does so by making complex transactions -- such as multi-signature transactions and Lightning Network transactions -- indistinguishable from basic transactions. The upgrade will also include Schnorr signatures, which will create smaller transaction sizes through data aggregation. Together, these features mean that developers will be able to create more extensive Bitcoin applications, while end-users will be able to benefit from cheaper, more private transactions. Taproot is Bitcoin's most significant upgrade since 2017, when the cryptocurrency introduced a controversial new feature called SegWit. The Taproot upgrade is much less likely to cause division. Though Taproot already gained support from miners earlier this week, 800 blocks will need to be mined under those conditions before the feature is actually activated. NiceHash's countdown suggests that the upgrade will occur at 1:00 UTC on Saturday, Nov. 14. Another countdown website, Taproot.watch concurs with that estimate, suggesting that there are just 339 blocks left to mine at the time of writing.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft successfully docked with the International Space Station on Thursday evening, less than 24 hours after it launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Fox Business reports: NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, and Kayla Barron, as well as European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer, will spend six months at the ISS conducting scientific research and monitoring the space station. The launch was supposed to occur nearly two weeks ago, but was delayed by bad weather and an undisclosed medical problem with a crew member. Wednesday's launch carried the 600th person to ever reach orbit and comes just days after SpaceX returned four astronauts to Earth on Monday, bringing an end to a 200-day mission at the space station.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The world's largest music company has created a band of four virtual apes. Bloomberg reports: Universal Music, the home to top-selling musicians like Drake and Taylor Swift, is working with collector Jimmy McNelis to convert four of his NFTs into a band called Kingship. Kingship consists of four digital characters -- three bored apes and one mutant ape -- all part of an NFT collection known as the Bored Ape Yacht Club. The club is one of the most successful NFT stories of the past year; it gave anyone who bought one of the apes full commercial rights to use the image. 10:22PM, one of Universal's labels, has hired a team of crypto artists and animators to turn the two-dimensional apes into three-dimensional beings. The company will record music for Kingship that it releases on streaming services. The "band" will perform and participate in video games, virtual-reality applications and across the constellation of digital experiences known as the metaverse. "You can call it an NFT band, or think of them as characters," Celine Joshua, the head of 10:22, said in an interview this week. "The characters will come to life. The apes will come to life." As technophiles coalesce around the idea of Web 3.0 -- a decentralized internet -- Joshua has jumped into the world of NFTs. That's how she met McNelis, one of the leading collectors. McNelis acquired hundreds of ape NFTs from Yuga Labs LLC, the creator of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, and has a collection that he estimates is worth more than $100 million. He was an early buyer of Ethereum, a cryptocurrency. Joshua pitched him on the idea of creating a new group, and picked four characters that she thought would work as a band. That includes a golden ape, another of which just sold at Sotheby's for $3.4 million. Kingship's golden ape is valued at around $190,000 at current prices, according to offer data on OpenSea, the largest marketplace for NFTs.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: Seoul says it will be the first major city government to enter the metaverse. On Nov. 3, the South Korean capital announced a plan to make a variety of public services and cultural events available in the metaverse, an immersive internet that relies on virtual reality. If the plan is successful, Seoul residents can visit a virtual city hall to do everything from touring a historic site to filing a civil complaint by donning virtual reality goggles. The 3.9 billion won ($3.3 million) investment is part of mayor Oh Se-hoon's 10-year plan for the city, which aims to improve social mobility among citizens and raising the city's global competitiveness. It also taps into South Korea's Digital New Deal, a nationwide plan to embrace digital and AI tools to improve healthcare, central infrastructure, and the economy in its recovery from the economic crisis caused by covid-19. Seoul's metropolitan government will develop its own metaverse platform by the end of 2022. By the time it is fully operational in 2026, it will host a variety of public functions including a virtual mayor's office, as well as spaces serving the business sector; a fintech incubator; and a public investment organization. The platform will kick off with a virtual new year's bell-ringing ceremony this December. In 2023, the city plans to open "Metaverse 120 Center," a place for virtual public services where avatars will handle citizen concerns that could previously only be addressed by physically going to city hall. So far the plan offers sparse details about exactly what devices citizens will use to access the metaverse platform, though city officials emphasize that the goal is to broaden access to public city services, regardless of geography or disabilities. But specialized equipment could be a barrier for many people. Virtual reality headsets still sell for $300 and $600, and are not as widely accessible as smartphones and computers.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

MoviePass co-founder Stacy Spikes successfully bought back the company out of bankruptcy and wants to relaunch it next year. Insider reports: Spikes had placed a bid of an undisclosed amount to the trustee handling the bankruptcy of Helios and Matheson Analytics (HMNY), the former parent company of MoviePass. "I can confirm that we acquired MoviePass out of bankruptcy on Wednesday," Spikes said in a statement to Insider. "We are thrilled to have it back and are exploring the possibility of relaunching soon. Our pursuit to reclaim the brand was encouraged by the continued interest from the moviegoing community. We believe, if done properly, theatrical subscription can play an instrumental role in lifting moviegoing attendance to new heights." Spikes told Insider that since this summer, he'd been working on putting the money together to place a bid to get the company back. He said he made the offer last month. Though Spikes would not disclose the amount, he said his bid was lower than the $250,000 minimum the trustee set in 2020. Customer data and email addresses were not part of the sale, Spikes said. Spikes hopes to relaunch MoviePass sometime next year. A new site has been created for the relaunch, iwantmoviepass.com, and its logo will now feature a black background with white lettering, ditching its previous red background. Spikes founded MoviePass with Hamet Watt in 2011, creating a service that let moviegoers see a certain number of movies a month in theaters for one monthly price. After struggling to stay afloat for years, in 2017 the company was bought by HMNY. HMNY was delisted from the Nasdaq in 2019 and both MoviePass and HMNY filed for bankruptcy in 2020. At the time of MoviePass' bankruptcy filing, it said it was under pending investigations by the FTC, SEC, four California district attorneys, and the New York attorney general. This June, Farnsworth and Lowe settled with the FTC and reached a $400,000 settlement with the California district attorneys.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Patreon is building a video hosting solution and native player. The Verge reports: CEO Jack Conte confirmed the project to The Verge, alongside news that he is joining many executives before him in launching a podcast called The Creator Economy. "We already host podcasts, and now we're starting to host video, as well," he says. "We're building a video product ... So in terms of how we've approached our strategy, and what exactly it is that we're building, we're building the horizontal architecture for any creator, no matter their medium, or no matter the upload format, to be able to build a business around their work." Conte didn't share more details on the product, but it's presumably a way for creators to host and share video without leaving the platform. It's still unclear when it might launch or how broadly it would be deployed. We've reached out to a spokesperson for additional context and will update if we hear back. Still, Conte's acknowledgment of the goal and progress on allowing creators to natively host their videos on Patreon could allow more people to avoid YouTube, or at least not rely on it so heavily.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Microsoft is taking the fight to Chromebooks in schools with the $250 Surface Laptop SE, but inexpensive hardware is only part of the equation. One reason Chromebooks have succeeded in education is because of Chrome OS, which is well-suited for lower-end hardware, easy for IT administrators to manage, and hard to break with errant apps or malware. Microsoft's answer to Chrome OS is Windows 11 SE. Unlike past efforts like Windows in S mode (which is still its own separate thing), Windows 11 SE isn't just a regular version of Windows with a cheaper license or a cut-down version that runs fewer apps. Windows 11 SE defaults to saving all files (including user profile information) to students' OneDrive accounts, and it has had some standard Windows 11 features removed to ensure a "distraction-free" learning environment that performs better on low-end devices. The operating system also gives IT administrators exclusive control over the apps and browser extensions that can be installed and run via Microsoft Intune. If you're a school IT administrator with a fleet of PC laptops or desktops, you might wonder if you can buy and install Windows 11 SE on hardware you already have so you can benefit from its changes without buying new hardware. The answer, Microsoft tells us, is no. The only way to get Windows 11 SE is on laptops that ship with Windows 11 SE. And if you re-image a Windows 11 SE device with a different version of Windows 10 or Windows 11, it won't even be possible to reinstall Windows 11 SE after that. [...] Microsoft has published documentation (PDF) that more fully explains the differences between Windows 11 SE and the other editions of Windows (including Windows in S mode).Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AI systems being developed to diagnose skin cancer run the risk of being less accurate for people with dark skin, research suggests. From a report: The potential of AI has led to developments in healthcare, with some studies suggesting image recognition technology based on machine learning algorithms can classify skin cancers as successfully as human experts. NHS trusts have begun exploring AI to help dermatologists triage patients with skin lesions. But researchers say more needs to be done to ensure the technology benefits all patients, after finding that few freely available image databases that could be used to develop or "train" AI systems for skin cancer diagnosis contain information on ethnicity or skin type. Those that do have very few images of people with dark skin. Dr David Wen, first author of the study from the University of Oxford, said: "You could have a situation where the regulatory authorities say that because this algorithm has only been trained on images in fair-skinned people, you're only allowed to use it for fair-skinned individuals, and therefore that could lead to certain populations being excluded from algorithms that are approved for clinical use. Alternatively, if the regulators are a bit more relaxed and say: 'OK, you can use it [on all patients]', the algorithms may not perform as accurately on populations who don't have that many images involved in training." That could bring other problems including risking avoidable surgery, missing treatable cancers and causing unnecessary anxiety, the team said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google researchers caught hackers targeting users in Hong Kong exploiting what were at the time unknown vulnerabilities in Apple's Mac operating system. According to the researchers, the attacks have the hallmarks of government-backed hackers. From a report: On Thursday, Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG), the company's elite team of hacker hunters, published a report detailing the hacking campaign. The researchers didn't go as far as pointing the finger at a specific hacking group or country, but they said it was "a well resourced group, likely state backed." "We do not have enough technical evidence to provide attribution and we do not speculate about attribution," the head of TAG Shane Huntley told Motherboard in an email. "However, the nature of the activity and targeting is consistent with a government backed actor." Erye Hernandez, the Google researcher who found the hacking campaign and authored the report, wrote that TAG discovered the campaign in late August of this year. The hackers had set up a watering hole attack, meaning they hid malware within the legitimate websites of "a media outlet and a prominent pro-democracy labor and political group" in Hong Kong. Users who visited those websites would get hacked with an unknown vulnerability -- in other words, a zero-day -- and another exploit that took advantage of a previously patched vulnerability for MacOS that was used to install a backdoor on their computers, according to Hernandez.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A new version of a lawsuit accusing Subway of deceiving the public about its tuna products said lab testing shows they contain animal proteins such as chicken, pork and cattle, and not the advertised "100% tuna." From a report: Karen Dhanowa and Nilima Amin filed a third version of their proposed class action this week in the federal court in San Francisco, near their homes in Alameda County. Subway said in a statement it will seek to dismiss the "reckless and improper" lawsuit. The chain said the plaintiffs have "filed three meritless complaints, changing their story each time," and that its "high-quality, wild-caught, 100% tuna" was regulated strictly in the United States and around the world. Since the case began in January, Subway has run TV ads and launched a website defending its tuna. It also revamped its menu but not its tuna, saying an upgrade wasn't needed. The original complaint claimed that Subway tuna salads, sandwiches and wraps were "bereft" of tuna, while an amended complaint said they were not 100% sustainably caught skipjack and yellowfin tuna. Further reading, from last year: Irish Court Says Subway Bread Is Too Sugary to Be Called 'Bread'.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez has again raised the stakes as to which city in the U.S. will become the country's crypto hub. From a report: Suarez announced today on CoinDesk TV that the city would be staking (i.e. locking up cryptocurrencies to earn yield) a large portion of its native cryptocurrency, MiamiCoin, to earn yield in Bitcoin. What's more, he said Miami will be "the first city in America to give a Bitcoin yield as a dividend directly to its residents." Previously, only holders of MiamiCoin could earn any kind of crypto return, be it STX, the native cryptocurrency for the Stacks protocol on which MiamiCoin is built, or Bitcoin. Now, according to today's announcement, residents will be given a Bitcoin wallet and receive free BTC regardless of whether they hold MiamiCoin or not.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

South Korea demonstrated a system for controlling urban air mobility vehicles (UAM) on Thursday, which it hopes will serve as taxis between major airports and downtown Seoul as soon as 2025, cutting travel time by two-thirds. From a report: Last year, South Korea announced a roadmap to begin commercial urban air travel by 2025. The transport ministry estimates such services could cut travel time for distances between 30-50km (19-31 miles) from an hour by car to 20 minutes by air. "As UAM is expected to become one of the common means of transportation that citizens use in daily life, it is absolutely imperative that we test and try out UAM services in various environments," Transport Minister Noh Hyeong-ouk, who attended the demonstration on Thursday, said in a statement. A pilot flew a two-seat model made by Germany's Volocopter at Seoul's Gimpo Airport to test and demonstrate its control and coordination.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The U.S. is now part of an international agreement on cybersecurity that the Trump administration declined to sign up for, Vice President Kamala Harris announced in Paris Wednesday. From a report: 80 countries, along with hundreds of tech companies -- including Microsoft and Google -- nonprofits and universities have signed the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace, established in 2018 to create international norms and laws for cybersecurity and warfare. The U.S. support of the voluntary Paris Call reflects the Biden administration's "priority to renew and strengthen America's engagement with the international community on cyber issues," per a White House statement. It builds on U.S. efforts to improve cybersecurity for citizens and businesses, the statement continued. This includes "rallying G7 countries to hold accountable nations that harbor cyber criminals, supporting the update of NATO cyber policy for the first time in seven years, and the recent counter-ransomware engagement with over 30 countries around the world to accelerate international cooperation to combat cybercrime."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The use of whole genome sequencing could save the NHS millions of pounds, a study suggests, after it found a quarter of people with rare illnesses received a diagnosis for their condition through the technology. From a report: In some cases, the findings have provided reassurance for families that they have not passed their condition on to their children, while in others they have inspired life-changing treatments. Though individually uncommon, rare inherited diseases affect about 6% of the UK population, or roughly 3 million people. Traditionally, geneticists searched for the abnormalities underpinning such conditions by looking at the person's chromosomes through a microscope, but this is no good at spotting tiny, but often highly significant changes, such as single letter substitutions in the genetic code. Because of this, "many of the people who have a rare disease either live very long diagnostic odysseys to get an answer for why they are like they are, or they do not get an answer in their entire lifetime," said Prof Sir Mark Caulfield at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), a former chief scientist at Genomics England. In 2013, the UK government launched the 100,000 Genomes Project to investigate whether WGS -- which involves reading through the entire 3bn pairs of letters in the human genome -- could help doctors better understand the cause of patients' symptoms, and identify other family members who may be at risk. Five years later, NHS England became the first national health care system in the world to offer WGS to people with undiagnosed rare diseases and cancer as part of routine care.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

McGruber shares a report: Some Mailchimp employees said their situation just kept getting worse after they learned their company was being sold to Intuit in September. Employees discovered their MailChimp health benefits were abruptly terminated Sunday. Some employees also found out last week that their total pay as Intuit employees may be less, multiple employees said. "The general feeling from those I'm speaking to is that the transition has been so badly handled that the only explanation is that Intuit wants to drive attrition," one employee said. The employee, along with two others, spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media. These employees said they learned their health benefits had lapsed only after their colleagues posted questions on Slack and in an online onboarding session. One said he found out when he went to go pick up a prescription and was told his coverage had expired. The employees Business Insider spoke with said they would be covered retroactively only once the paperwork was finalized, which left them on the hook to pay upfront fees. Some employees had still not received their enrollment paperwork, they said. One said they canceled medical appointments for serious ongoing conditions to avoid bills for expensive treatments. "I am extremely worried that in a 1,200-person company, it seems likely at least one person or dependent will need an ER visit before they get their new info and be saddled with the stress of a six-figure out-of-pocket bill," another employee said. "Or worse, some support colleague making 50K a year won't take a sick kid in because they are worried about the cost."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sony Group has reduced its PlayStation 5 production outlook for this fiscal year due to component and logistics constraints, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The Tokyo-based entertainment giant had previously targeted more than 16 million units assembled in the year ending March, setting it up to achieve its sales goal for the period and also get a head start on the subsequent year's production. The company has now cut that number down to about 15 million, making its aim of 14.8 million PS5 sales by March difficult, the people said, asking not to be named as the information is not public. Logistics issues and parts shortages have grown more severe for Sony, Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki told investors on a conference call late last month. PS5 sales in the quarter ended September were slightly weaker than expectations, he said on Oct. 28, having previously warned that any resurgence in the spread of Covid-19 may impact the company's components supply. The PlayStation 5 became the fastest Sony console to reach 10 million units sold this July, but it has fallen behind the sales pace of its predecessor PlayStation 4 since then.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Longtime Something Awful forum administrator Fragmaster posted that site founder Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka has died. From a report: "I guess I should preface this by saying this isn't a joke especially since I'm posting for like the first time in 10 years or something, but I got the bad news today directly from Rich's family," wrote Fragmaster. "Lowtax has passed away." "I didn't ask for details," Fragmaster continued. "I don't know details. I don't know what the current opinion of Rich here is. Not here to answer questions, I'm sharing the news. I really hate to share this news. But there you go." Considering all the shit that Something Awful has gotten up to over the years, some have wondered if this were a hoax. "Is this for real?" wondered one forum member. Some expressed shock at the news, while others offered their condolences to his children. Kyanka's second wife, who posts on SA under the name LadyAmbien, has confirmed her husband's death, in a very angry post about his treatment of her and their children.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google Earth Engine has created a vast trove of open source satellite imagery and augmented it with data-analysis software that makes it relatively easy for skilled outsiders to draw up their own interactive maps. From a report: More important, its team of staff scientists (Google won't say how many) wrangles massive data sets to answer critical questions for a constellation of pro bono "clients" that includes conservation groups, city agencies, community advocates, and researchers. The 20,000 image files added to the Earth Engine team's collection each day are more than just static photos. Satellites gather, for example, detailed information on the soil composition more than a foot underground and the amount of water vapor rising from farmland. Staffers help clients distill relevant information and relay it to the field. Via radio, the nomads in Senegal learn where to find a drink for their cows; bright pink dots on interactive maps inform the indigenous Peruvians of the locations of logging activity; and a shared website targets the spots in LA where trees will likely do the most good. "The raw data is not enough. Government officials now tell us, "We're drowning in data, but we're thirsty for insights,'" says Rebecca Moore, who runs the team. "We invented Google Earth Engine to allow scientists to easily analyze data and ask questions about how the climate is changing and answer in seconds or minutes instead of years." Other companies, including Amazon.com and Microsoft, have technical services with capabilities comparable to Earth Engine, but experts in the field say the sheer number of work-hours Moore's staff dedicates to volunteer efforts sets it apart. "It's just a remarkable level of transparency and information that wasn't available before," says Mikaela Weisse, project manager for Global Forest Watch, an open source online tool that monitors deforestation. Joe Morrison, a vice president at satellite imaging company Umbra, who writes a newsletter about the industry, calls Earth Engine the most important contribution to climate science in 50 years.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Discord founder and CEO Jason Citron sought to reassure users Wednesday that the company doesn't have impending plans to shift its business toward NFTs. From a report: In a tweet earlier this week, Citron shared an image of crypto wallet MetaMask integrated into Discord's user interface with the text "probably nothing" -- shorthand language in the NFT space for something that's about to be a big deal. He contextualized the previous tweet Wednesday evening, noting that Discord has "no current plans" to integrate crypto wallets into its app.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: A University of Arizona-led effort to reconstruct Earth's climate since the last ice age, about 24,000 years ago, highlights the main drivers of climate change and how far out of bounds human activity has pushed the climate system. The study, published this week in Nature, had three main findings: 1.) It verified that the main drivers of climate change since the last ice age are rising greenhouse gas concentrations and the retreat of the ice sheets. 2.) It suggests a general warming trend over the last 10,000 years, settling a decade-long debate about whether this period trended warmer or cooler in the paleoclimatology community. 3.) The magnitude and rate warming over the last 150 years far surpasses the magnitude and rate of changes over the last 24,000 years. There are different methods for reconstructing past temperatures. The team combined two independent datasets -- temperature data from marine sediments and computer simulations of climate -- to create a more complete picture of the past. The researchers looked at the chemical signatures of marine sediments to get information about past temperatures. Because temperature changes over time can affect the chemistry of a long-dead animal's shell, paleoclimatologists can use those measurements to estimate temperature in an area. It's not a perfect thermometer, but it's a starting point. Computer-simulated climate models, on the other hand, provide temperature information based on scientists' best understanding of the physics of the climate system, which also isn't perfect. The team decided to combine the methods to harness the strengths of each. This is called data assimilation and is also commonly used in weather forecasting. [...] Now, the team is working on using their method to investigate climate changes even farther in the past.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theodp writes: On Tuesday, Code.org announced that the new activities for kids in this year's Hour Of Code will include yet another Minecraft-themed tutorial from Code.org Diamond Supporter Microsoft, making it seven years in a row that the best-selling videogame of all time has 'headlined' the Hour of Code during the holiday buying season. Going into the Hour of Code in 2018, Microsoft boasted that 100+ million Minecraft Hour of Code tutorials had already been logged by students. In this year's Hour of Code: TimeCraft tutorial, kids will "learn basic coding concepts to correct mysterious mishaps throughout history!" An accompanying one-size-fits-all lesson plan for ages 6-18 instructs students to: "Experience a choose-your-own-adventure game, exploring key moments in human achievement. Using your coding superpowers, save the future by solving mysterious mishaps in time." Among other things, the coding challenges have K-12 students travel back in time to save Jazz from a kazoo future, prevent the Great Pyramids from being built as cubes, save the Great Wall of China from destruction by pandas, and wipe the frown off of the Mona Lisa. New this year, Microsoft notes, is that educators can sign up to have a Microsoft Education Expert lead their classroom through an Hour of Code lesson with Minecraft, thanks to the magic of Microsoft Teams Live Events.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

nickwinlund77 shares a report from SciTechDaily: Since the first observation of merging black holes by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in 2015, astronomers have been repeatedly surprised by their large masses. Though they emit no light, black hole mergers are observed through their emission of gravitational waves -- ripples in the fabric of spacetime that were predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity. Physicists originally expected that black holes would have masses less than about 40 times that of the Sun, because merging black holes arise from massive stars, which can't hold themselves together if they get too big. The LIGO and Virgo observatories, however, have found many black holes with masses greater than that of 50 suns, with some as massive as 100 suns. Numerous formation scenarios have been proposed to produce such large black holes, but no single scenario has been able to explain the diversity of black hole mergers observed so far, and there is no agreement on which combination of formation scenarios is physically viable. This new study, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, is the first to show that both large and small black hole masses can result from a single pathway, wherein the black holes gain mass from the expansion of the universe itself. Astronomers typically model black holes inside a universe that cannot expand. "It's an assumption that simplifies Einstein's equations because a universe that doesn't grow has much less to keep track of," said Kevin Croker, a professor at the UH Mnoa Department of Physics and Astronomy. "There is a trade-off though: predictions may only be reasonable for a limited amount of time." Because the individual events detectable by LIGO-Virgo only last a few seconds, when analyzing any single event, this simplification is sensible. But these same mergers are potentially billions of years in the making. During the time between the formation of a pair of black holes and their eventual merger, the universe grows profoundly. If the more subtle aspects of Einstein's theory are carefully considered, then a startling possibility emerges: the masses of black holes could grow in lockstep with the universe, a phenomenon that Croker and his team call cosmological coupling. The most well-known example of cosmologically-coupled material is light itself, which loses energy as the universe grows. "We thought to consider the opposite effect," said research co-author and UH Manoa Physics and Astronomy Professor Duncan Farrah. "What would LIGO -- Virgo observe if black holes were cosmologically coupled and gained energy without needing to consume other stars or gas?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Scientists have shown how a fatty acid found in palm oil can encourage the spread of cancer, in work that could pave the way for new treatments. The study, on mice, found that palmitic acid promoted metastasis in mouth and skin cancers. In future, this process could be targeted with drugs or carefully designed eating plans, but the team behind the work cautioned against patients putting themselves on diets in the absence of clinical trials. The study adds to emerging evidence that diet can be used to enhance existing cancer treatments because certain nutrients are disproportionately relied on by tumor cells, or are required at critical stages such as metastasis. The study built on previous work by the same team showing that, within a tumor, just a small subset of cells have the capacity to spread by traveling out of the tumor, reaching other organs and colonizing them. These specialized cancer cells appeared to rely particularly heavily on fatty acids and the latest work narrowed this down to palmitic acid, which is found in palm oil -- but also in a wide variety of foods such as butter and olive oil. The study, published in Nature, found that when palmitic acid was supplemented into the diet of mice, mouth and skin cancers were more likely to spread. Other fatty acids called oleic acid and linoleic acid -- omega-9 and omega-6 fats found in foods such as olive oil and flaxseeds -- did not show the same effect. Neither of the fatty acids tested increased the risk of developing cancer in the first place. The study suggested that exposure to palmitic acid caused changes to the function of genes in cancer cells that allowed them to sense fatty acids and consume them more efficiently. The presence of palmitic acid also appeared to send cancer cells into a "regenerative state" allowing them to form signaling networks beyond the tumor, which is known to be a crucial step towards spreading.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Valve has delayed the release of its Steam Deck handheld by several months, it announced in a statement today. The anticipated handheld will now start rolling out in February 2022, pushed back from an initial December release. Kotaku reports: "We're sorry about this -- we did our best to work around the global supply chain issues, but due to material shortages, components aren't reaching our manufacturing facilities in time for us to meet our initial launch dates," Valve wrote. "Based on our updated build estimates, Steam Deck will start shipping to customers February 2022. This will be the new start date of the reservation queue -- all reservation holders keep their place in line but dates will shift back accordingly." Further reading: Valve Launches Steam Deck, a $400 PC Gaming PortableRead more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple says it will back off its plan to break Face ID on independently repaired iPhones. Ars Technica reports: The company's often contentious relationship with the repair community was tested again when "unauthorized" iPhone 13 screen replacements started resulting in broken Face ID systems. A new report from The Verge says that Apple "will release a software update that doesn't require you to transfer the microcontroller to keep Face ID working after a screen swap." Screen replacements are the most common smartphone repairs. Apple included a new microcontroller in the iPhone 13's display that pairs each screen with other components in the phone. As iFixit reported, if a third-party repair shop replaced the iPhone 13 display, Apple would disable the phone's Face ID system. [...] After a wave of bad press, it's "crisis averted" for the repair community. It would be nice if this was never an issue in the first place, though.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hmmmmmm shares a report from Reuters: Unity will buy Weta Digital, a visual effects (VFX) studio known for its work in movies such as "Godzilla vs. Kong" and "Avatar" in a $1.63 billion cash-and-stock deal, the companies said on Tuesday. The deal would help Unity, which makes software for video games and animation, tap into Weta Digital's technology and talent to develop VFX tools and focus on metaverse opportunities. Weta Digital was founded by film director Peter Jackson of "The Lord of the Rings" fame and has won several Academy and BAFTA Awards. It is known for its animated characters such as Gollum and Caesar from "Planet of the Apes." Unity, which made the software behind the popular mobile phone game Temple Run, will roll out tools for artists and developers across a number of industries, including film and gaming. [...] Weta Digital's Academy Award-winning VFX team will remain a standalone entity known as WetaFX, and is expected to become Unity's largest customer in the media and entertainment space, the companies said. Weta FX will license back the technologies and tools from Unity, sign an annual agreement worth $50 million and a contract for commercial services, they added.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares the results of a new poll (PDF) from CNN, adding: "Facebook should be treated like cigarettes." From the report: Roughly three-quarters of adults believe Facebook is making American society worse, a new CNN poll (PDF) conducted by SSRS finds [...]. Americans say, 76% to 11%, that Facebook makes society worse, not better, according to the survey. Another 13% say it has no effect either way. That broadly negative appraisal holds across gender, age and racial lines. Even frequent Facebook users -- those who report using the site at least several times a week -- say 70% to 14% that the social network harms, rather than helps, US society. Although majorities across parties say Facebook is doing more harm than good, that feeling spikes among Republicans (82%). Among the majority overall who think Facebook is worsening society, however, there's less of an overwhelming consensus on whether or not the platform itself is primarily to blame: 55% say that the way some people use Facebook is more at fault, with 45% saying it's more due to the way Facebook itself is run.Overall, about one-third of the public -- including 44% of Republicans and 27% of Democrats -- say both that Facebook is making American society worse and that Facebook itself is more at fault than its users.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This week, following successful tests on Android smartphones and tablets, Netflix has announced that it will bring AV1 to TVs. 9to5Google reports: In a blog post this week, Netflix confirms it will start using the AV1 codec on some TVs. AV1, which has been available since 2018, allows for the more efficient encoding and decoding of data for streaming, leading to higher quality for the end user and better use of bandwidth for providers. However, the codec relies on hardware support. To ensure that TVs using AV1 streams will provide a good experience, Netflix says it analyzes the steam to ensure the device is spec-compliant for AV1 decoding. For the time being, Netflix isn't specifically announcing which devices will support AV1 outside of the Netflix app on Sony's PS4 Pro console. On other TVs, support is only specified as working on "a number of AV1 capable TVs." In theory, this should include a considerable number of Android TV models.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Electric vehicle startup Rivian is now a publicly traded company after executing one of the biggest initial public offerings in history. The Verge reports: Rivian shares started trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange Wednesday at around $78 per share. That gave Rivian an overall valuation of nearly $80 billion and helped it net $12 billion in fresh cash, despite the fact that it only just recently started to make and ship its first electric pickup trucks. It's the sixth-largest IPO ever on a US stock exchange, according to Bloomberg, and it's hard to imagine the company picking a better time to debut. Tesla has generated an incredible amount of interest in electric vehicles and is now one of the most highly valued companies in the world. The public markets have also been on an outrageous run over the last few years -- a run that was supercharged over the last 18 months by an influx of retail traders and a boom in electric vehicle companies going public. Rivian, which has a steady CEO and founder and relatively modest goals for the next few years, could be a good test of all that hype. It has received a little more than 55,000 preorders for its pricey electric pickup truck (the R1T) and SUV (the R1S) and has said it won't be able to deliver all of those until the end of 2023. Where other EV startups went public with big promises of near-term growth, Rivian has been very conservative in the few estimates it's offered for what the next few years look like and has instead emphasized that it will be largely focused on making vans for Amazon, which owns about 20 percent of the startup. And yet, shares of Rivian jumped to $106 as they began trading on the Nasdaq exchange Wednesday and climbed from there, lifting the company's valuation well over $100 billion -- higher than all other automakers on the planet, save for Tesla, Toyota, Volkswagen, and China's BYD.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: The recently passed $1 trillion infrastructure package is jam-packed with initiatives but sprinkled in there alongside $17 billion in funding for road safety programs is a mandate requiring carmakers to implement monitoring systems to identify and stop drunk drivers. The mandate, first noted by the Associated Press could apply to new vehicles sold as early as 2026. Courts have ordered some drunk drivers to use breathalyzers attached to ignition interlocks to start their vehicles for years, but the technology noted in this bill would take that concept much further and would need to be capable of "passively monitor[ing] the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired." Though the Department of Transportation has yet to put its foot down on the exact type of technology it will use for this program, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and 17 automakers have been working on something called the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS) since 2008. DADSS is exploring both a breath and touch-based system to detect whether or not a driver has a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) at or above 0.08%. The breath-based system aims to measure alcohol readings based on a driver's breath with the goal of distinguishing between the driver and passengers. The touch-based system meanwhile would shine an infrared light through a driver's fingertip to measure blood alcohol levels under the skin's surface. [...] The new mandate struck a positive note with some car safety groups, including Mothers Against Drunk Driving which has advocated for more detection tech in the past. "It's monumental," Alex Otte, national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving told the AP. Otte went on to describe the package as the "single most important legislation" in the group's history. At the same time though, the mandate has drawn concerns from safety experts and digital rights groups that warn driver monitoring technology could have knock-on privacy implications. In a letter sent last year by the American Highway Users Alliance, the organization urged support of the NHTSA's DADSS Research Program but expressed concerns that the technology could potentially infringe on driver's civil liberties. "The group also expressed concerns over how the collection and storage of driver data would work and who would have the rights to that data," adds Gizmodo. Others have also expressed concerns over the accuracy of driving monitoring technology and potential risks of bias.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

First it was called Freedive, then it was dubbed IMDb TV. Now, less than three years after launching its free ad-supported video-streaming service, Amazon is looking to rename it, The Information reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the situation. From a report: Amazon executives believe the existing name is too hard for people to pronounce, which hurts its popularity, said people familiar with the situation. Several alternatives have been tossed around in internal discussions, including Zon -- short for Amazon -- as well as Free TV and Free Streaming TV. The Zon idea was shot down but otherwise Amazon is yet to make a decision about the new name, the people said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

China vowed more aggressive steps on emissions Wednesday in a joint announcement with the U.S. -- a move that signals an easing of tensions evident at the COP26 climate summit. From a report: The two nations' joint statement calls for "accelerated actions in the critical decade of the 2020s," as well as cooperation on measurement and reductions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane. The statement also represents a rhetorical pivot from China, even though it does not explicitly change China's existing pledge under the Paris agreement to have its emissions peak before 2030 -- a stance that has disappointed advocates who want more aggressive action. "Climate change is becoming increasingly urgent and severe," Xie Zhenhua, China's top climate negotiator, said via a translator at a briefing in Glasgow, warning of an "existential crisis." China accounts for nearly a third of global energy-related CO2 emissions in particular. Its emissions path is key to whether the temperature-limiting goals of the Paris agreement can remain within reach.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Justice Department said Wednesday that it was suing Uber for charging wait-time fees to passengers with physical disabilities. From a report: The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that the company violated the Americans with Disabilities Act for charging fees to passengers who, because of disability, need more time to enter a car.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Twitter is building a new division for "all things blockchain at Twitter," called Twitter Crypto, and has hired Tess Rinearson as the team's engineering lead to "set the strategy for the future of crypto at (and on) Twitter," the company said in a release Wednesday. From a report: "First, we'll be exploring how we can support the growing interest among creators to use decentralized apps to manage virtual goods and currencies, and to support their work and communities," Rinearson said on Twitter. "Looking farther ahead, we'll be exploring how ideas from crypto communities can help us push the boundaries of what's possible with identity, community, ownership and more." She added that her team would be working closely with Bluesky, an independent Twitter-funded effort to create a decentralized social network standard.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tuvalu is looking at legal ways to keep its ownership of its maritime zones and recognition as a state even if the Pacific island nation is completely submerged due to climate change, its foreign minister said on Tuesday. From a report: "We're actually imagining a worst-case scenario where we are forced to relocate or our lands are submerged," the minister, Simon Kofe, told Reuters in an interview. "We're looking at legal avenues where we can retain our ownership of our maritime zones, retain our recognition as a state under international law. So those are steps that we are taking, looking into the future," he said. Images of Kofe recording a speech to the United Nations COP26 climate summit standing knee-deep in the sea have been widely shared on social media over recent days, pleasing the tiny island nation which is pushing for aggressive action to limit the impact of climate change. [...] "We didn't think it would go viral as we saw over the last few days. We have been very pleased with that and hopefully that carries the message and emphasises the challenges that we are facing in Tuvalu at the moment," Kofe said. Tuvalu is an island with a population of around 11,000 people and its highest point is just 4.5m (15 ft) above sea level. Since 1993, sea levels have risen about 0.5cm (0.2 inches) per year, according to a 2011 Australian government report.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

YouTube today announced its decision to make the "dislike" count on videos private across its platform. The decision is likely to be controversial given the extent that it impacts the public's visibility into a video's reception. From a report: But YouTube believes the change will better protect its creators from harassment and reduce the threat of what it calls "dislike attacks" -- essentially, when a group teams up to drive up the number of dislikes a video receives. The company says that while dislike counts won't be visible to the public, it's not removing the dislike button itself. Users can still click the thumbs down button on videos to signal their dislike to creators privately. Meanwhile, creators will be able to track their dislikes in YouTube Studio alongside other analytics about their video's performance, if they choose. The change follows an experiment YouTube ran earlier this year whose goal was to determine if these sorts of changes would reduce dislike attacks and creator harassment. At the time, YouTube explained that public dislike counts can affect creators' well-being and may motivate targeted campaigns to add dislikes to videos. While that's true, dislikes can also serve as a signal to others when videos are clickbait, spam, or misleading, which can be useful.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

La Haus, a Latin American property tech startup backed by Bezos Expeditions, said it will accept Bitcoin for real estate transactions, adding to the region's growing adoption of the cryptocurrency as a means of payment. From a report: The company, which allows users to purchase homes through an app, will allow buyers to pay with the digital currency, starting with a housing development in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. It will eventually open the rest of its inventory of more than 80,000 properties to Bitcoin, according to the company. "We think that Bitcoin will be the reserve currency of the future," said Rodrigo Sanchez-Rios, president and co-founder of La Haus, in an interview. "At our core, we're a tech company. It's natural for us to be pioneers with this technology." The company is partnering with Los Angeles-based payment processor OpenNode to allow for transactions both on-chain and over the Lightning Network, which was designed to make purchases quicker and easier. La Haus will act as an intermediary, paying the sellers in fiat. The company has not decided how much Bitcoin it will keep on its balance sheets, he said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Alphabet unit Google lost an appeal against a 2.42-billion-euro ($2.8-billion) antitrust decision on Wednesday, a major win for Europe's competition chief in the first of three court rulings central to the EU push to regulate big tech. From a report: Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager fined the world's most popular internet search engine in 2017 over the use of its own price comparison shopping service to gain an unfair advantage over smaller European rivals. The shopping case was the first of three decisions that saw Google rack up 8.25 billion euros in EU antitrust fines in the last decade. The company could face defeats in appeals against the other two rulings involving its Android mobile operating system and AdSense advertising service, where the EU has stronger arguments, antitrust specialists say. The court's support for the Commission in its latest ruling could also strengthen Vestager's hand in her investigations into Amazon, Apple and Facebook.Read more of this story at Slashdot.