Slashdot

Netflix is looking to hire an executive to oversee its expansion into videogames, The Information reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. Reuters: The company has approached veteran game industry executives in recent weeks, the report said. The move comes at a time when the video-streaming pioneer is stepping up efforts to grow beyond its traditional business as competition heats up and subscriber growth slows. The gaming industry has been a big pandemic winner thanks to a surge in demand from customers staying at home during the crisis.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Snap's new Spectacles glasses are its most ambitious yet. But there's a big catch: you can't buy them. From a report: On Thursday, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel unveiled the company's first true augmented reality glasses, technology that he and rivals like Facebook think will one day be as ubiquitous as mobile phones. A demo showed virtual butterflies fluttering over colorful plants and landing in Spiegel's extended hand. The new Spectacles have dual waveguide displays capable of superimposing AR effects made with Snapchat's software tools. The frame features four built-in microphones, two stereo speakers, and a built-in touchpad. Front-facing cameras help the glasses detect objects and surfaces you're looking at so that graphics more naturally interact with the world around you. [...] The idea is to encourage a small portion of the 200,000 people who already make AR effects in Snapchat to experiment with creating experiences for the new Spectacles, according to Spiegel. Like the bright yellow vending machines Snap used to sell the first version of Spectacles several years ago, the approach could end up being a clever way to build buzz for the glasses ahead of their wide release. Spiegel has said that AR glasses will take roughly a decade to reach mainstream adoption. "I don't believe the phone is going away," he told The Verge in an interview this week. "I just think that the next generation of Spectacles can help unlock a new way to use AR hands-free, and the ability to really roam around with your eyes looking up at the horizon, out at the world."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple injected a new level of intrigue in its bitter court fight with Epic Games, suggesting the Fortnite maker was acting as a stalking horse for Microsoft and withholding evidence. From a report: The iPhone maker made the accusations Wednesday night in a filing asking a judge to make an adverse credibility finding against Lori Wright, an Xbox executive who testified in the trial on behalf of Epic. That would mean the judge could ignore her testimony. Apple asked for such a ruling earlier, but upped its accusations in the new filing. "A reasonable observer might wonder whether Epic is serving as a stalking horse for Microsoft," Apple said. "Microsoft shielded itself from meaningful discovery in this litigation by not appearing as a party or sending a corporate representative to testify." Further reading: Apple and Microsoft's Rivalry Had Cooled. Now It's Back and Getting Testier.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Swedish private equity firm EQT had high hopes for its SUSE IPO on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, and set the European Linux and cloud power's IPO price at 30 euros per share. Alas, SUSE's shares opened at 29.50 euros per share. By the close of business on May 20th, the stock crept up to 30.39 euros. This gave it a market cap of around 5 billion euros (approximately $6.1 billion). This is nothing to sneeze at, but it wasn't what EQT hoped for either. Before the IPO, EQT had sought an IPO price as high as 34 euros per share. Still, this was no failure. SUSE and its backers sold 37.8 million shares in the IPO, for 1.1 billion euros. EQT is still keeping a stake. SUSE itself continues to do well with reported revenue of $503 million for the 2020 financial year.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

sciencehabit writes: Death Valley holds the record for the highest air temperature on the planet: On July 10, 1913, temperatures at the aptly named Furnace Creek area in the California desert reached a blistering 56.7C (134.1F). Average summer temperatures, meanwhile, often rise above 45C (113F). But when it comes to surface temperature, two spots have Death Valley beat. A new analysis of high-resolution satellite data finds the Lut Desert in Iran and the Sonoran Desert along the Mexican-U.S. border have recently reached a sizzling 80.8C (177.4F). The study uncovered other superlatives. The maximum temperature swing in a single day was 81.8C (147.3F), from -23.7C (-10.7F) to 58.1C (136.6F) on July 20, 2006 in China's Qaidam Basin, a crescent-shaped depression hemmed in by mountains on the Tibetan Plateau. And the coldest spot on our planet? No big surprise: Antarctica. But a satellite reading of 0110.9C (-167.6F) in 2016 is more than 20 degrees chillier than the coldest air temperature recorded in 1983. The findings have been reported in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

alaskana98 writes: In a newly leaked video, ship based U.S. Navy personnel appear to be tracking an orb-shaped UFO as it tracks closely above the water, eventually appearing to dip beneath water's surface. Last month, a still from this video was teased along with another video showing a triangular UFO transit the sky along with photos of three strange objects at high altitudes captured within minutes of each other by Navy pilots in 2019. These photos and videos all come on the eve of a highly anticipated unclassified report due to be released sometime in June for the intelligence and armed services committees in Congress. Referring to this report, former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe states: "There are instances where we don't have good explanations for some of the things that we've seen." Not everyone is convinced that these objects are being piloted by grey aliens. In an exhaustive report by the site "The War Zone," a plausible theory is laid out that purports that these objects are nothing more than cleverly disguised blimps or drones launched by U.S. adversaries, using nothing more than the social stigma of taking UFOS/UAPS seriously as a means to dissuade any serious attempts by the U.S. military to treat these as conventional domestic threats.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Does riding an electric bike to work count as exercise, and not just a mode of transportation? It can, if you ride right, according to a pragmatic new study comparing the physiological effects of e-bikes and standard road bicycles during a simulated commute. The study, which involved riders new to e-cycling, found that most could complete their commutes faster and with less effort on e-bikes than standard bicycles, while elevating their breathing and heart rates enough to get a meaningful workout. But the benefits varied and depended, to some extent, on how people's bikes were adjusted and how they adjusted to the bikes. The findings have particular relevance at the moment, as pandemic restrictions loosen and offices reopen, and many of us consider options other than packed trains to move ourselves from our homes to elsewhere. So, for the new study, which was published in March in the Translational Journal of the American College of Sports Medicine, researchers at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, decided to ask inexperienced cyclists to faux commute. To do so, they recruited 30 local men and women, aged 19 to 61, and invited them to the physiology lab to check their fitness levels, along with their current attitudes about e-bikes and commuting. Then, they equipped each volunteer with a standard road bike and an e-bike and asked them to commute on each bike at their preferred pace for three miles, a distance the scientists considered typical for bike commutes in America. The cyclists pedaled around a flat loop course, once on the road bikes and twice with the e-bike. On one of these rides, their bike was set to a low level of pedal assistance, and on the other, the oomph was upped until the motor sent more than 200 watts of power to the pedals. Throughout, the commuters wore timers, heart rate monitors and facial masks to measure their oxygen consumption. Afterward, to no one's surprise, the scientists found that the motorized bikes were zippy. On e-bikes, at either assistance level, riders covered the three miles several minutes faster than on the standard bike -- about 11 or 12 minutes on an e-bike, on average, compared to about 14 minutes on a regular bike. They also reported that riding the e-bike felt easier. Even so, their heart rates and respiration generally rose enough for those commutes to qualify as moderate exercise, based on standard physiological benchmarks, the scientists decided, and should, over time, contribute to health and fitness. But the cyclists' results were not all uniform or constructive. A few riders' efforts, especially when they used the higher assistance setting on the e-bikes, were too physiologically mild to count as moderate exercise. Almost everyone also burned about 30 percent fewer calories while e-biking than road riding -- 344 to 422 calories, on average, on an e-bike, versus 505 calories on a regular bike -- which may be a consideration if someone is hoping to use bike commuting to help drop weight.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There is no such thing as a "safe" level of drinking, with increased consumption of alcohol associated with poorer brain health, according to a new study. CNN reports: In an observational study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, researchers from the University of Oxford studied the relationship between the self-reported alcohol intake of some 25,000 people in the UK, and their brain scans. The researchers noted that drinking had an effect on the brain's gray matter -- regions in the brain that make up "important bits where information is processed," according to lead author Anya Topiwala, a senior clinical researcher at Oxford. "The more people drank, the less the volume of their gray matter," Topiwala said via email. "Brain volume reduces with age and more severely with dementia. Smaller brain volume also predicts worse performance on memory testing," she explained. "Whilst alcohol only made a small contribution to this (0.8%), it was a greater contribution than other 'modifiable' risk factors," she said, explaining that modifiable risk factors are "ones you can do something about, in contrast to aging." The team also investigated whether certain drinking patterns, beverage types and other health conditions made a difference to the impact of alcohol on brain health. They found that there was no "safe" level of drinking -- meaning that consuming any amount of alcohol was worse than not drinking it. They also found no evidence that the type of drink -- such as wine, spirits or beer -- affected the harm done to the brain. However, certain characteristics, such as high blood pressure, obesity or binge-drinking, could put people at higher risk, researchers added.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: Much as a smoke detector gives only a vague idea of where a fire is, current methods to detect smuggled nuclear materials are slow and imprecise. But a new technique that images nuclear materials based on the neutrons and gamma rays they shed can locate these dangers in record time, scientists report. The new technique -- neutron-gamma emission tomography (NGET) detection -- relies on detectors that emit light when struck by either a neutron or a gamma ray and measure the time of arrival with nanosecond precision. Suppose two detectors sit face to face, separated by 1 meter or so, and that a nucleus decays and emits a neutron that hits one detector and a gamma ray that hits the other. The difference in the arrival times, when accounting for the detailed physics of the nuclear decay process, defines a fuzzy, somewhat spherical shell in space in which the nucleus could have been. Timing many neutron-gamma ray pairs with several detectors produces a set of probability shells that should intersect at a point -- the location of the source. The ability to pinpoint a source may offer a "paradigm shift" in nuclear safeguards, the researchers say. NGET detectors might also be shrunk to fit on a drone. That offers "a really fascinating possibility" of quickly mapping radiological contamination at disaster sites like Fukushima or Chernobyl, they say. The findings appear in the journal Science Advances.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft has open-sourced today a tool that can be used to build lab environments where security teams can simulate attacks and verify the detection effectiveness of Microsoft security products. The Record reports: Named SimuLand, the tool was specifically built to help security/IT teams that use Microsoft products such as Microsoft 365 Defender, Azure Defender, and Azure Sentinel. Currently, SimuLand comes with only one lab environment, specialized in detecting Golden SAML attacks. However, Microsoft said it's working on adding new ones. Community contributions are also welcomed, and the reason the project has been open-sourced on GitHub, with Microsoft hoping to get a helping hand from the tens of thousands of security teams that run its software. "If you would like to share a new end-to-end attacker path, let us know by opening an issue in our GitHub repository, and we would be happy to collaborate and provide some resources to make it happen," Microsoft said today in a blog post. But Microsoft doesn't want only lab environments specialized in executing well-known techniques or adversary tradecraft. The OS maker is also encouraging the community to contribute improved detection rules for the attacks they're sharing, so everyone can benefit from the shared knowledge.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Mercury News: Instead of learning a foreign language, Michigan students could take computer coding classes to replace the high school graduation requirement, under a bill that passed the state House Tuesday. Currently, the Michigan Merit Curriculum, which dictates the state's academic standards for graduation, requires students to take two world language credits to receive a high school diploma. Before the bill passed a vote, bill sponsor Rep. Greg VanWoerkom spoke about the value of coding in Michigan's prominent auto and tech industries, as well as it being a good alternative for those kids who struggle with traditional language classes. "Besides being a hard skill, that employers actually want, coding. helps build soft skills. Coding promotes the use of logic, reasoning, problem solving and creativity," the Norton Shores Republican said. "Any professional coder will tell you that to be fluent in coding takes years of practice and a deep understanding of the language." In opposition to the bill, Rep Padma Kuppa said though she understands the importance of adding more technology education to curriculums, having had a career as a mechanical engineer, coding is not a foreign language. Students need both computer and tech skills and foreign language skills. "As technology helps the world become more interconnected, our ability to understand and work with others on technical projects around the globe is not only related to the ability to code, but to understand one another," the Troy Democrat said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

After years of seasonal pop-ups, Made by Google is finally opening a retail store for its hardware division. The first physical Google Store will be in Chelsea directly under one of the company's New York City offices. 9to5Google reports: At the Google Store, you'll be able to "browse and buy an extensive selection of products made by Google," including Pixel phones, Nest products, Fitbit devices, and Pixelbooks. You'll also be able to pick up online orders. The company says this is "an important next step in our hardware journey of providing the most helpful experience of Google, wherever and whenever people need it." "Throughout the store, visitors will be able to experience how our products and services work together in a variety of immersive ways, which we're excited to share more about when the doors open." Besides shopping, there will be product support help from troubleshooting to cracked screen repairs and installations, as well as how-to workshops: "It doesn't matter whether you're a longtime Pixel user, are curious about our Nest displays or want to participate in one of the how-to workshops we'll offer throughout the year -- our team will be able to provide you with help that's specific and personalized to your needs." The first-ever physical Google Store will open this summer, with the company saying it will "explore and experiment with the possibilities of a physical retail space and build upon the experience."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Coronavirus infections continue to plummet across the U.S. From a report: The U.S. averaged about 30,000 cases per day over the past week. The progress is happening remarkably fast, and across the board. It was just last week that average daily cases dropped below 40,000, for the first time in months. This week's figures are a 20% improvement over last week. 39 states saw their caseloads improve over the past week. Alabama showed an increase in new cases, although the state had some unusual reporting glitches this week. Technically, cases also increased in Washington, D.C., but it's no cause for alarm: The District has fewer new cases per day (about 48, on average) than any state.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hmmmmmm shares a report from Taiwan News: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), National Taiwan University (NTU), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have made a significant breakthrough in the development of 1-nanometer chips, reports said Tuesday (May 18). The joint announcement has trumped IBM's statement earlier in the month about the development of a 2nm semiconductor, British website Verdict reported. While at present the most advanced chips are 5nm, TSMC's find was likely to lead to power-saving and higher speeds for future electric vehicles, artificial intelligence, and other new technologies. The discovery was first made by the MIT team, with elements optimized by TSMC and improved by NTU's Department of Electrical Engineering and Optometrics, according to a report in Nature Magazine. The key element of the research outcome was that using the semi-metal bismuth as the contract electrode of a two-dimensional material to replace silicon can cut resistance and increase the current, Verdict reported. Energy efficiency would thus increase to the highest possible level for semiconductors.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Verizon and other Internet service providers are preventing some low-income customers from getting new $50-per-month government subsidies unless they switch to different plans that are sometimes more expensive. Over 825 ISPs nationwide are selling plans eligible for the new subsidies that the US government made available to people who have low incomes or who lost income during the pandemic. Verizon stands out among big ISPs in its use of the subsidy to "upsell" customers to pricier plans, according to a story yesterday by Washington Post tech columnist Geoffrey Fowler. "Soon after the EBB [Emergency broadband Benefit program] launched, I started hearing from Washington Post readers about their frustrations signing up with certain ISPs," he wrote. "Verizon elicited the most ire from readers." Instead of letting people enroll online, Verizon requires them to call a phone number to sign up and then "tells some customers the EBB can't be used on 'old' data plans, so they'll have to switch," the Post article said. Verizon is limiting the plans available on both mobile and home Internet service. The EBB is temporary, lasting until the $3.2 billion in program funding runs out or six months after the Department of Health and Human Services declares an end to the pandemic. Verizon customers who have to switch to a more expensive plan in order to get the $50 monthly discount would have to pay the higher rate after the subsidy expires. "At the end of the program, you will either continue on your plan at the price without the EBB discount or you will end your Internet-related services with Verizon," a company FAQ says. "We will give you an opportunity to decide this at the beginning of your enrollment into the EBB program and again before the end of the program. If you do not affirmatively choose to keep your Internet-related services, the FCC requires that we disconnect those services at the end of the EBB program." Verizon defended its implementation of the subsidy program yesterday, saying it has enrolled nearly 1,000 customers in less than a week. But that's just an average, and yesterday's Washington Post story makes clear that some customers would have to switch to more expensive plans to get the subsidy. Earlier today, the FCC said that more than one million U.S. households have signed up to take part in the broadband subsidy program, which is being accepted at over 900 broadband providers. Some providers estimate the program could run out of money in four to six months.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CNA Financial, among the largest insurance companies in the U.S., paid $40 million in late March to regain control of its network after a ransomware attack, Bloomberg News reported Thursday. From a report: The Chicago-based company paid the hackers about two weeks after a trove of company data was stolen, and CNA officials were locked out of their network, according to two people familiar with the attack who asked not to be named because they weren't authorized to discuss the matter publicly. In a statement, a CNA spokesperson said the company followed the law. She said the company consulted and shared intelligence about the attack and the hacker's identity with the FBI and the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which said last year that facilitating ransom payments to hackers could pose sanctions risks.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon recently banned some sellers of large Chinese electronics brands like Aukey and Mpow that reportedly do hundreds of millions in sales on the shopping site each year. The bans followed a database leak that appeared to tie some of the brands to paid-review schemes, which Amazon prohibits and says it strictly polices. But while some press coverage implied that Amazon took these actions in response to the database leak, internal employee messages viewed by Recode show that pressure from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) led to at least one of the notable bans. Communications between Amazon employees viewed by Recode also appear to expose an inconsistent punishment system in which employees need special approval for suspending certain sellers because of their sales numbers, while some merchants are able to keep selling products to Amazon customers despite multiple policy violations and warnings. The leaked internal messages also revealed several other instances in recent months of FTC inquiries pressuring Amazon to take action against merchants engaging in fake-review schemes. Amazon has long said that it aggressively polices fake reviews, but the frequency with which the FTC has pressured the company to police merchants that run paid-review programs has not been previously known.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Do gamers need a dedicated browser? Opera sure thinks so. Two years after launching Opera GX, a browser aimed at gamers, on desktop, the company has started to beta test Opera GX on iOS and Android. From a report: So what sets it apart from regular browsers? For starters, Opera GX features a control panel that lets you set limits on CPU, RAM and network bandwidth. Mobile users can also utilize the fast action button to quickly access functions like search and to open and close tabs. Exporting elements from the world of gaming, the button also uses vibrations and haptic feedback. You can also sync the mobile browser with the desktop version by scanning a QR code. Doing this will allow you to transfer across files of up to 10MB, links, YouTube videos, photos and various ephemera. The company says it expects Opera GX for iOS and Android to leave beta in a few weeks.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft today open-sourced a tool that can be used to build lab environments where security teams can simulate attacks and verify the detection effectiveness of Microsoft security products. From a report: Named SimuLand, the tool was specifically built to help security/IT teams that use Microsoft products such as Microsoft 365 Defender, Azure Defender, and Azure Sentinel. Currently, SimuLand comes with only one lab environment, specialized in detecting Golden SAML attacks. However, Microsoft said it's working on adding new ones. Community contributions are also welcomed, and the reason the project has been open-sourced on GitHub, with Microsoft hoping to get a helping hand from the tens of thousands of security teams that run its software. "If you would like to share a new end-to-end attacker path, let us know by opening an issue in our GitHub repository, and we would be happy to collaborate and provide some resources to make it happen," Microsoft said today in a blog post. But Microsoft doesn't want only lab environments specialized in executing well-known techniques or adversary tradecraft. The OS maker is also encouraging the community to contribute improved detection rules for the attacks they're sharing, so everyone can benefit from the shared knowledge.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Facebook says that its services were interrupted 84 times in 19 countries in the second half of last year, compared to 52 disruptions in eight countries that took place during the first half of the year. From a report: That's a symptom of a growing trend among countries to restrict access to social media and the open internet. [...] During the last six months of 2020, Facebook also said government requests for user data increased 10% from 173,592 to 191,013. The company says it continues to scrutinize all government requests for any user data. Of the total volume, the U.S. continues to submit the largest number of requests, followed by India, Germany, France, Brazil and the U.K. Similarly, from the first half of 2020 to the second, the number of times Facebook had to restrict access to content based on local law increased 93% globally, from 22,120 to 42,606. Those increases, Facebook says, were driven mainly by increases in requests from the U.K., Turkey and Brazil.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

After 17 years underground, the Brood X periodical cicadas are slowly emerging in 15 states across the East Coast and Midwest. From a report: They'll shed their skins and spend four to six weeks mating before the females lay eggs and they all die. But some of them are getting wilder in their short lives above ground. A fungus called Massospora, which can produce compounds of cathinone -- an amphetamine -- infects a small number of them and makes them lose control. The fungus takes over their bodies, causing them to lose their lower abdomen and genitals. And it pushes their mating into hyperdrive. "This is stranger than fiction," Matt Kasson, an associate professor of forest pathology and mycology at West Virginia University, tells NPR's All Things Considered. "To have something that's being manipulated by a fungus, to be hypersexual and to have prolonged stamina and just mate like crazy." Kasson, who has been studying Massospora for about five years, says just before the cicadas rise from the ground, the spores of the fungus start to infect the bug. Once it's above ground and starts to shed its skin to become an adult, its butt falls off. Then a "white plug of fungus" starts to grow in its place.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Treasury Department on Thursday announced that it is taking steps to crack down on cryptocurrency markets and transactions, and said it will require any transfer worth $10,000 or more to be reported to the Internal Revenue Service. From a report: "Cryptocurrency already poses a significant detection problem by facilitating illegal activity broadly including tax evasion," the Treasury Department said in a release. "This is why the President's proposal includes additional resources for the IRS to address the growth of cryptoassets," the department added. "Within the context of the new financial account reporting regime, cryptocurrencies and cryptoasset exchange accounts and payment service accounts that accept cryptocurrencies would be covered. Further, as with cash transactions, businesses that receive cryptoassets with a fair market value of more than $10,000 would also be reported on." Bitcoin traded off its highs for the day on the Treasury headlines and was last up just 1%, according to Coin Metrics. Previously in the session, it was up more than 9%. A growing number of Wall Street analysts have over the past month sounded the alarm that regulators at Treasury and the Securities and Exchange Commission could soon take a more active role in cryptocurrency regulation.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A giant slab of ice bigger than the Spanish island of Majorca has sheared off from the frozen edge of Antarctica into the Weddell Sea, becoming the largest iceberg afloat in the world, the European Space Agency said on Wednesday. From a report: The newly calved berg, designated A-76 by scientists, was spotted in recent satellite images captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission, the space agency said in a statement posted on its website with a photo of the enormous, oblong ice sheet. Its surface area spans 4,320 square km (1,668 square miles) and measures 175 km (106 miles) long by 25 km (15 miles) wide. By comparison, Spain's tourist island of Majorca in the Mediterranean occupies 3,640 square km (1,405 square miles). The U.S. state of Rhode Island is smaller still, with a land mass of just 2,678 square km (1,034 square miles). The enormity of A-76, which broke away from Antarctica's Ronne Ice Shelf, ranks as the largest existing iceberg on the planet, surpassing the now second-place A-23A, about 3,380 square km (1,305 square miles) in size and also floating in the Weddell Sea.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Twitter on Thursday reopened its verification application process to the public for the first time since putting it on pause in November 2017. From a report: The company is rolling out a new process to apply for verification, which adds a checkmark to an account's Twitter profile that signals the authenticity of an account to other users. To apply for verification, an account must have a profile that includes a picture and a confirmed email address or phone number. The user must have been active on the service within the last six months with a record of adhering to the company's rules. Additionally, accounts must fall into one of six categories Twitter will consider for verification. Those categories are: Government; companies, brands and organizations; news organizations and journalists; entertainment; sports and gaming; activists, organizers and other influential individuals. The company said it will add more categories, like scientists, academics and religious leaders, later this year.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Microsoft security team has published details about a malware campaign that is currently spreading a remote access trojan named STRRAT that steals data from infected systems while masquerading as a ransomware attack. From a report: According to the Microsoft Security Intelligence team, the campaign is currently leveraging a mass-spam distribution vector to bombard users with emails containing malicious PDF file attachments. "Attackers used compromised email accounts to launch the email campaign," Microsoft said in a series of tweets last night. "The emails contained an image that posed as a PDF attachment but, when opened, connected to a malicious domain to download the STRRAT malware." First spotted in June 2020, STRRAT is a remote access trojan (RAT) coded in Java that can act as a backdoor on infected hosts. According to a technical analysis by German security firm G DATA, the RAT has a broad spectrum of features that vary from the ability to steal credentials to the ability to tamper with local files.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Linux on Chromebooks is finally coming out of beta with the release of Chrome OS 91, Google said at its developer I/O conference. From a report: The company had offered Linux apps on Chrome OS alongside Android apps, hoping to reach an audience of developers with IDEs and so on. However, the Linux Development Environment, as Google had dubbed it, had been in beta ever since while first launched. The company had added new features at a steady cadence, enabling things like GPU acceleration, better support for USB drives, and so on so people could be more productive while using Linux apps. Alongside Linux, Google also announced that it would be bringing Android 11 to Chromebooks. Technically, the update has already started with Chrome OS 90 for select Chromebooks, and it'll come with a host of new features including increased optimization of Android apps and a new dark theme. Google's increased support of Android is no coincidence. The company says that the operating system sees 3x increased usage of Android apps, and the new Android 11 update will see Android move to a virtual machine rather than the current container based method, making it easier to update in the future.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Axios: Zhang Yiming, co-founder of TikTok owner ByteDance, is stepping down as CEO and moving to a new role, the company said in a memo released Thursday. The replacement of Zhang with human resources chief Liang Rubo, another TikTok co-founder, marks the "biggest corporate shake-up" at the firm since it launched in 2012, going on to become a major social media player in China and turning TikTok into a massive global force, per Reuters, which first reported the news. Zhang will move into a "key strategy" position later in the year. In the meantime, he and Liang "will work side by side over the next six months to ensure the smoothest possible transition," ByteDance said in the memo. "There are still many things that we need to improve, and I think someone else can better drive progress through areas like improved daily management. The truth is, I lack some of the skills that make an ideal manager," Zhang said in the memo to employees. "I'm more interested in analyzing organizational and market principles, and leveraging these theories to further reduce management work, rather than actually managing people."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

China has released the first photographs taken by its Zhurong rover, which touched down on Mars late on May 14 as part of the country's Tianwen-1 mission. Space.com reports: The China National Space Administration (CNSA), which runs the mission, has released two Mars photographs taken by the rover: one in color and one in black and white. Both images show parts of the rover and its lander against a backdrop of Utopia Planitia, the expansive northern plain that Zhurong will explore during its mission. The color image shows a view looking to the rear of Zhurong from a navigation camera above the rover's main deck. Solar arrays are visible, as are some surface rocks and features. The black and white image is from an obstacle avoidance camera at the front of the rover. It was captured with a wide-angle lens that also revealed a view of the Mars horizon in the distance, as well as two subsurface radar instruments on the rover itself. In addition to the photos from the surface, CNSA also released two short videos of the orbiter and Zhurong rover's landing capsule separating during Friday's maneuver. Both videos come from cameras on the orbiter and show the capsule pulling away.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ford unveiled Wednesday the F-150 Lightning, an all-electric pickup truck that is a critical piece of the company's $22 billion investment into electrification. TechCrunch reports: Ford had a challenging gig with the F-150 Lightning. The truck would need everything that has made its gas-powered counterpart the best-selling vehicle in North America as well as new benefits that come from going electric. That means torque, performance, towing capability and the general layout has to meet the needs of its customers, many of whom use it for commercial purposes. The vehicle specs suggest that Ford has delivered on the torque and power, while keeping the same cab and bed dimensions as its gas counterpart. [...] Will it convert or will the F-150 Lightning attract a whole new group of customers? It's a question that won't be answered until it comes to market in spring 2022. The F-150 Lightning will be offered in four trims, which includes the base, XLT, Lariat and Platinum series, and two battery options. The truck, which has an aluminum alloy body, is powered by two in-board electric motors, comes standard with four-wheel drive, and has an independent rear suspension. Ford is only releasing two prices at the moment. The base version will be priced at $39,974 before any federal or state tax credits, while the mid-series XLT model will start at $52,974. According to the reservations site, a fully loaded Lightning will go for $90,474. All of these prices exclude the destination fees and taxes. The standard battery range truck delivers a targeted 426 horsepower and 775 pound-feet of torque. The F-150 Lightning equipped with the extended-range battery helps push the horsepower to 563 (or 420 kW) and has the same torque, which Ford says is the most of any F-150 ever. The vehicle's battery has a targeted range of 230 miles in the standard and pops up to 300 miles in the extended version. One question remains: how will the range be affected by towing a boat or trailer? [...] Ford notes that the new frame on the truck uses the strongest steel ever put in an F-150 frame and supports a maximum 2,000-pound payload and up to 10,000-pound towing capacity. Other features include a 15.5-inch infotainment system, support for Ford's hands-free driving feature called Blue Cruise, and 9.6 kW of back up power, which the company says can provide energy to a home during a blackout for up to 10 days.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Among humans, laughter can signify a lot of different things, from intimacy to discomfort. Among animals, however, laughter usually communicates something along the lines of "this is playtime -- I'm not actually going for your throat." According to new research from the University of California, Los Angeles, there are likely at least 65 different creatures, including humans, that make these vocalizations. They're most commonly found in primates, but they have also been noted in distant relatives like birds. It's not clear whether this is because laughter has arisen several times over the course of evolution or if it's more widespread and we just haven't noticed. The list of "laughing" animals is mostly made up of primates, but there are a few other mammals on the list, such as the degu -- whose laugh is described as purring or grumbling -- and the killer whale. There are even three birds on the list, such as the kea parrot, which uses play vocalizations discovered in 2017. According to [Sasha Winkler, a PhD student in UCLA's anthropology department], there have been other surveys of the primates who laugh, but little work has been done outside that group. "To my knowledge, no one has gone through and tried to see a comprehensive look of all the vocalizations during play across all mammals, and we even found some birds," she said. Winkler told Ars that understanding animal laughter could help us understand the origins of human laughter. Laughter in humans plays several other functions beyond play, such as indicating membership in a group. The findings appear in the journal Bioacoustics.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Craig Federighi is currently testifying during the Apple vs. Epic lawsuit. While facing questioning from Apple's lawyers, Federighi made some interesting comments about security, particularly noting that the Mac currently has a level of malware that Apple "does not find acceptable." 9to5Mac reports: One of Federighi's goals is to paint the iPhone ecosystem, including the App Store and lack of side-loading support, as a secure and trusted environment for users. To do this, it appears that part of Federighi's strategy is to throw the Mac under the bus. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who is presiding over the Epic vs. Apple case, asked Federighi about why the Mac can have multiple app stores, but not the iPhone. "It is regularly exploited on the Mac," Federighi explained. "iOS has established a dramatically higher bar for customer protection. The Mac is not meeting that bar today." "Today, we have a level of malware on the Mac that we don't find acceptable," Federighi added. The Apple executive also pointed to Android as another example of a platform with multiple app stores that suffers from security problems. "It's well understood in the security community that Android has a malware problem," he explained. "iOS has succeeded so far in staying ahead of the malware problem." Federighi added that Apple is essentially playing "an endless game of whack-a-mole" with malware on the Mac and has to block "many instances" of infections that can affect "hundreds of thousands of people" every week. Since last May, Federighi testified there have been 130 types of Mac malware, and one of them infected 300,000 systems. When asked whether side-loading would affect security on iOS, Federighi said things would change "dramatically. No human policy review could be enforced because if software could be signed by people and downloaded directly, you could put an unsafe app up and no one would check that policy," he said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Archer-Daniels-Midland Co., one of the world's biggest grain traders, is injecting carbon dioxide released by its corn plants underground, using commercial-scale technology that's the first of its kind. BNN Bloomberg reports: The company just completed a project with the University of Illinois proving that its methods to capture carbon are safe, according to a Wednesday release. That will aid its commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% against a 2019 baseline. In the project, ADM used wells to pump carbon dioxide 6,500 feet underground. The site was able to accept and store 1 million metric tons over three years. That's equivalent to annual emissions from about 1.2 million passenger cars, according to the release. The corn plant in Decatur, Illinois, where the emissions originated from processes the grain into starches and sweeteners, among other products. ADM has another well set to operate until 2022 that could store 5.5 million metric tons of the gas. Together, the two projects have already stored 3.4 million tons.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Ethereum and seemingly every cryptocurrency out there took a big hit Wednesday following the news of China reconfirming its criticism of the crypto service. This appeared to contribute to a sell-off across the board and is even affecting the stock market. CNET reports: The China Internet Finance Association said it will not allow the country's financial institutions to partake in any business related to cryptocurrency due to the volatile nature of the digital coins, according to a Chinese media report Tuesday that was spotted earlier by Coindesk. This move isn't new. China took a similar stance back in 2017, which also resulted in a massive Bitcoin selloff. Bitcoin's price dropped sharply Wednesday morning to a low of just below $32,000. It has since rebounded to $37,000, according to Coindesk, which still makes it a loss of 12% for the day. Ethererum and Dogecoin also saw drops at about the same time and are down 12% and 13% respectively.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Sidewalk Labs, Alphabet's urban innovation organization, has announced the launch of Pebble, a vehicle sensor that's designed to help manage parking in cities by providing real-time parking and curb availability data. Here's how it works: Small spherical sensors are stuck to the ground on parking spaces to note the absence or presence of a vehicle. Then solar-powered gateway hardware, which can be strapped easily to street poles, uses IoT to connect the sensor to the cloud through the cellular network. The data is then viewed and analyzed by real estate developers, parking operators or municipal agencies via a dashboard. Pebble doesn't use cameras or collect identifying information about a person or vehicle, and is touting a "privacy preserving" approach. Between 9% and 56% of traffic, and all the pollution that comes with it, is caused by people who are cruising for parking. Pebble says its real-time parking availability can be integrated into navigation apps, like Google Maps, through an API to help users spend less time circling the block. "Real-time parking information can also alert would-be drivers when spaces are limited before they even leave home, leading them to use alternative travel modes, such as park-and-ride transit or ferries," wrote Sidewalk Labs' senior creative technologist, Nick Jonas, in a blog post announcing the launch. "For example, a smart parking program at a BART park-and-ride station reduced driving by a monthly average of nearly 10 miles per person -- and even shortened commutes."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Staff at the world's largest FOSS IRC network, Freenode, have resigned following a "hostile takeover." "Seeking to take control of the Freenode IRC network after acquiring Freenode Limited as their live conference organization is reported to be Andrew Lee, the founder of VPN service Private Internet Access (PIA)," reports Phoronix. Aaron Jones, a member of the staff since March 2019, details the sequence of events. Another staff member has provided additional details. Slashdot reader rastos1 writes: As it is now known, the Freenode IRC network has been taken over by a "narcissistic Trumpian wannabe korean royalty bitcoins millionaire," [writes (former) staff member Marco d'Itri]. "To make a long story short, the former freenode head of staff secretly 'sold' the network to this person even if it was not hers to sell, and our lawyers have advised us that there is not much that we can do about it without some of us risking financial ruin." Fuck you Christel, lilo's life work did not deserve this. What you knew as Freenode after 12:00 UTC of May 19 will be managed by different people. Freenode Limited has responded to the backlash, writing: "Given the millions I have injected into freenode thus far, the fact I own it and the fact that I protected the freenode staff with professional legal work and funding when they needed help and they could still lie and slander like this... says a lot about who they are. It saddens me that christel was forced out, and I wish she'd feel safe returning. I'm frustrated that tomaw's hostile takeover seems likely to succeed, in spite of all. I simply want freenode to keep on being a great IRC network, and to support it financially and legally as I have for a long time now."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google developers are confident they can build a commercial-grade quantum computer by 2029. Engadget reports: Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced the plan during today's I/O stream, and in a blog post, quantum AI lead engineer Erik Lucero further outlined the company's goal to "build a useful, error-corrected quantum computer" within the decade. Executives also revealed Google's new campus in Santa Barbara, California, which is dedicated to quantum AI. The campus has Google's first quantum data center, hardware research laboratories, and the company's very own quantum processor chip fabrication facilities. "As we look 10 years into the future, many of the greatest global challenges, from climate change to handling the next pandemic, demand a new kind of computing," Lucero said. "To build better batteries (to lighten the load on the power grid), or to create fertilizer to feed the world without creating 2 percent of global carbon emissions (as nitrogen fixation does today), or to create more targeted medicines (to stop the next pandemic before it starts), we need to understand and design molecules better. That means simulating nature accurately. But you can't simulate molecules very well using classical computers."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and several states filed a lawsuit against Frontier Communications on Wednesday, accusing them of lying about internet speeds, in one of the first cases the regulator has overseen since net neutrality rules were repealed. In the complaint, the agency and state attorneys general said Frontier advertised internet via a digital subscriber line (DSL) at certain speeds to consumers but then failed to deliver. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The FTC was joined on the lawsuit by attorneys general from Arizona, Indiana, Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin. District attorneys' offices from two California counties also joined the complaint to represent California. The complaint said Frontier has more than 3 million U.S. internet service subscribers, offering internet via DSL to some 1.3 million consumers in 25 states, many in rural areas. Frontier has advertised different tiers of speeds to consumers, including an August 2018 mailer that offered download speeds of 12 megabits per second for $12, the complaint said. But, the complaint said, since 2015, Frontier has "in numerous instances" promised certain speeds for its DSL internet access but did not deliver. "Indeed, network limits imposed by Frontier prevent numerous consumers from receiving DSL Internet service at speeds corresponding to the tiers of service they pay for," the complaint said. A spokesperson for Frontier, which is emerging from bankruptcy protection, said that the lawsuit was "without merit." "Frontier's DSL Internet speeds have been clearly and accurately articulated, defined and described in the company's marketing materials and disclosures," the spokesperson said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft is finally retiring Internet Explorer next year, after more than 25 years. The aging web browser has largely been unused by most consumers for years, but Microsoft is putting the final nail in the Internet Explorer coffin on June 15th, 2022, by retiring it in favor of Microsoft Edge. From a report: "We are announcing that the future of Internet Explorer on Windows 10 is in Microsoft Edge," says Sean Lyndersay, a Microsoft Edge program manager. "The Internet Explorer 11 desktop application will be retired and go out of support on June 15, 2022, for certain versions of Windows 10." While the Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) of Windows 10 will still include Internet Explorer next year, all consumer versions will end support of the browser. Microsoft doesn't make it clear (and we're checking), but it's likely that we'll finally see the end of Internet Explorer being bundled in Windows either in June 2022 or soon after.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The operator of the Colonial Pipeline learned it was in trouble at daybreak on May 7, when an employee found a ransom note from hackers on a control-room computer. By that night, the company's chief executive came to a difficult conclusion: He had to pay. From a report: Joseph Blount, CEO of Colonial Pipeline, told The Wall Street Journal that he authorized the ransom payment of $4.4 million because executives were unsure how badly the cyberattack had breached its systems or how long it would take to bring the pipeline back. Mr. Blount acknowledged publicly for the first time that the company had paid the ransom, saying it was an option he felt he had to exercise, given the stakes involved in a shutdown of such critical energy infrastructure. The Colonial Pipeline provides roughly 45% of the fuel for the East Coast, according to the company. "I know that's a highly controversial decision," Mr. Blount said in his first public remarks since the crippling hack. "I didn't make it lightly. I will admit that I wasn't comfortable seeing money go out the door to people like this. But it was the right thing to do for the country," he added. [...] Mr. Blount said Colonial paid the ransom in consultation with experts who had previously dealt with the criminal organization behind the attacks. He and others involved declined to detail who assisted in those negotiations. Colonial said it has cyber insurance, but declined to provide details on ransomware-related coverage. In return for the payment, made in the form of bitcoin, about 75 in all, according to a person familiar with the matter, the company received a decryption tool to unlock the systems hackers penetrated. While it proved to be of some use, it was ultimately not enough to immediately restore the pipeline's systems, the person said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Chrome, at least in its experimental Canary version on Android (and only for users in the U.S.), is getting an interesting update in the coming weeks that brings back RSS, the once-popular format for getting updates from all the sites you love in Google Reader and similar services. From a report: In Chrome, users will soon see a 'Follow' feature for sites that support RSS and the browser's New Tab page will get what is essentially a (very) basic RSS reader -- I guess you could almost call it a "Google Reader." Now we're not talking about a full-blown RSS reader here. The New Tab page will show you updates from the sites you follow in chronological order, but it doesn't look like you can easily switch between feeds, for example. It's a start, though. "Today, people have many ways to keep up with their favorite websites, including subscribing to mailing lists, notifications and RSS. It's a lot for any one person to manage, so we're exploring how to simplify the experience of getting the latest and greatest from your favorite sites directly in Chrome, building on the open RSS web standard," Janice Wong, Product Manager, Google Chrome, writes in today's update. "Our vision is to help people build a direct connection with their favorite publishers and creators on the web." A Google spokesperson told me that the way the company has implemented this is to have Google crawl RSS feeds "more frequently to ensure Chrome will be able to deliver the latest and greatest content to users in the Following section on the New Tab page."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Zoom is announcing an expanded live events product today that's launching this summer. From a report: Zoom Events builds on Zoom's previous paid event marketplace, OnZoom, by layering in features that can support larger multiday events and non-video activities like chat. Zoom says it's still building out Zoom Events in the lead up to its launch, but as it stands, it's both a rebranding of the more small-business focused OnZoom, with new features that serve Zoom's original pre-pandemic customers -- enterprise companies. Like OnZoom, with a paid Zoom Meetings or Zoom Webinar license you'll be able to host live events, organize them in a hub, sell tickets, and track stats like ticket sales or attendance.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Twenty companies are responsible for producing more than half of all the single-use plastic waste in the world, fuelling the climate crisis and creating an environmental catastrophe, new research reveals. From a report: Among the global businesses responsible for 55% of the world's plastic packaging waste are both state-owned and multinational corporations, including oil and gas giants and chemical companies, according to a comprehensive new analysis. The Plastic Waste Makers index reveals for the first time the companies who produce the polymers that become throwaway plastic items, from face masks to plastic bags and bottles, which at the end of their short life pollute the oceans or are burned or thrown into landfill. It also reveals Australia leads a list of countries for generating the most single-use plastic waste on a per capita basis, ahead of the United States, South Korea and Britain. ExxonMobil is the greatest single-use plastic waste polluter in the world, contributing 5.9m tonnes to the global waste mountain, concludes the analysis by the Minderoo Foundation of Australia with partners including Wood Mackenzie, the London School of Economics and Stockholm Environment Institute. The largest chemicals company in the world, Dow, which is based in the US, created 5.5m tonnes of plastic waste, while China's oil and gas enterprise, Sinopec, created 5.3m tonnes. Eleven of the companies are based in Asia, four in Europe, three in North America, one in Latin America, and one in the Middle East. Their plastic production is funded by leading banks, chief among which are Barclays, HSBC, Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A top Apple executive tasked with defending the App Store in a monopoly lawsuit by Epic Games found himself having to answer Tuesday for a spate of other alleged antitrust fouls by the world's most valuable company. From a report: During Phil Schiller's cross-examination in a trial in Oakland, California, Apple's former global marketing chief was confronted about several instances in which the company has locked in users and made it difficult for them to switch away from its devices. Katherine Forrest, a lawyer for Epic, pointed out that Schiller emailed his colleagues a 2016 news article titled "iMessage is the glue that keeps me stuck to the iPhone," which explained that Apple's messaging platform is a reason people don't switch to Android devices. She also quizzed Schiller on the idea that users can't easily move music and video purchased on Apple services to Google's Android. She went further, indicating that Apple's iCloud Keychain service for storing passwords on Apple devices can't synchronize with Android devices. Her point: Apple doesn't just lock in developers with its App Store rules, it also locks in consumers, limiting their ability to switch to competitors. In response, Schiller said many users subscribe to video and music streaming services and can input their passwords into a new device manually. He also suggested that users could use third-party password managers.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

After IFA became one of an extremely small number of in-person trade shows in 2020, the Consumer & Home Electronics GmbH is pulling the plug on this year's event. Initially planned for September 3-7 at the Messe in Berlin, the large-scale consumer electronics trade show is going on hiatus. From a report: Among other concerns, organizer are citing the emergency of Covid-19 variants and concerns around the speed and consistency with which vaccines have been rolled out globally. "Ultimately, several key global health metrics did not move as fast in the right direction as had been hoped for -- from the rapid emergence of new COVID-19 variants, for example in South Asia, to continued uncertainties about the speed of the rollout of vaccination programmes around the world," the organization said in a press release.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: At a hearing this March on Capitol Hill, the Republican congresswoman [Cathy McMorris Rodgers] from Washington confronted Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Google CEO Sundar Pichai with a list of statistics: From 2011 to 2018, rates of teen depression increased by more than 60%, and from 2009 to 2015, emergency room admissions for self-harm among 10- to 14-year-old girls tripled. "It's a battle for their development. It's a battle for their mental health -- and ultimately a battle for their safety," McMorris Rodgers told the tech leaders. But when she pointed a question specifically to Zuckerberg, about whether he acknowledged a connection between children's declining mental health and social media platforms, he demurred. "I don't think that the research is conclusive on that," replied Zuckerberg. It's a position that he and his company, which is working on expanding its offerings to even younger children, have held for years. But mental health researchers whom NPR spoke with disagree. They describe an increasingly clear correlation between poor mental health outcomes and social media use, and they worry that Facebook (which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp) in particular may be muddying the waters on that connection to protect its public image. "The correlational evidence showing that there is a link between social media use and depression is pretty definitive at this point," said Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University. "The largest and most well-conducted studies that we have all show that teens who spend more time on social media are more likely to be depressed or unhappy." Correlation is not causation, and one area of further study is whether greater social media usage leads to poor mental health outcomes or whether those who are depressed and unhappy are drawn to spend more time on social media. But researchers also worry that not enough government funding is going toward getting objective data to answer these sorts of questions. Facebook also almost certainly knows more than it has publicly revealed about how its products affect people. Zuckerberg told McMorris Rodgers that the company has specifically researched the mental health effects Facebook has on children, but when McMorris Rodgers' staff followed up the company declined to share any of its research. "I believe that they have done the research. They're not being transparent," McMorris Rodgers told NPR in an interview. "They seem to be more concerned about their current business model, and they have become very wealthy under their current business model. But the fact of the matter is we're seeing more and more evidence ... that their current business model is harming our kids."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon said on Tuesday it is extending a moratorium on police use of its facial recognition software. The company imposed the ban last year after the murder of George Floyd by law enforcement in June 2020. Reuters reports: Civil liberties advocates have long warned that inaccurate face matches by law enforcement could lead to unjust arrests, as well as to a loss of privacy and chilled freedom of expression. Amazon's extension, which Reuters was first to report, underscores how facial recognition remains a sensitive issue for big companies. The world's largest online retailer did not comment on the reason for its decision. Last year, it said it hoped Congress would put in place rules to ensure ethical use of the technology, though no such law has materialized. Amazon also faced calls this month from activists who wanted its software ban to be permanent.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The same technology that powers Google Duplex to call businesses and make appointments for you is being used to help you automatically change your password to a website that's been compromised in a security breach. TechCrunch reports: This new feature will start to roll out slowly to Chrome users on Android in the U.S. soon (with other countries following later), assuming they use Chrome's password-syncing feature. It's worth noting that this won't work for every site just yet. As a Google spokesperson told us, "the feature will initially work on a small number of apps and websites, including Twitter, but will expand to additional sites in the future."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: All future fossil fuel projects must be scrapped if the world is to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and to stand any chance of limiting warming to 1.5C, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday. In a special report designed to inform negotiators at the crucial COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in November, the IEA predicted a "sharp decline in fossil fuel demand" in the next three decades as well as a 2040 deadline for the global energy sector to achieve carbon neutrality. The Paris-based think tank called for a rapid and vast ramping up of renewable energy investment and capacity, which bring gains in development, wealth and human health. IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said the roadmap outlined in the report showed that the path to global net-zero by 2050 was "narrow but still achievable." "The scale and speed of the efforts demanded by this critical and formidable goal -- our best chance of tackling climate change and limiting global warming to 1.5C -- make this perhaps the greatest challenge humankind has ever faced," he said. "Under the IEA's net-zero pathway, oil usage is projected to decline 75 percent and gas 55 percent by mid-century," the report notes. "It also said that all inefficient coal power plants needed to close by 2030 in order to achieve net-zero by 2050." The IEA went on to say that around half of reductions by 2050 would be provided by "technologies that are currently only in demonstration or prototype phase," which include direct air capture and storage of CO2 from the atmosphere.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Today, Google and Samsung announced that they are merging Wear OS and Tizen in an effort to better compete against Apple's watchOS. "The resulting platform is currently being referred to simply as 'Wear,' though that might not be the final name," notes The Verge. From the report: Benefits of the joint effort include significant improvements to battery life, 30 percent faster loading times for apps, and smoother animations. It also simplifies life for developers and will create one central smartwatch OS for the Android platform. Google is also promising a greater selection of apps and watch faces than ever before. "All device makers will be able to add a customized user experience on top of the platform, and developers will be able to use the Android tools they already know and love to build for one platform and ecosystem," Google's Bjorn Kilburn wrote in a blog post. Wired has more details on what's to come, including the tidbit that Samsung will stick with its popular rotating bezel on future devices -- but it's finished making Tizen-only smartwatches. There will also be a version of Google Maps that works standalone (meaning without your phone nearby) and a YouTube Music app that supports offline downloads. Oh, and Spotify will support offline downloads on Wear smartwatches, as well. Samsung confirmed that its next Galaxy Watch will run on this unified platform. And future "premium" Fitbit devices will also run the software.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

After Ethereum transitions to proof-of-stake, the blockchain's power consumption is expected to drop by more than 99%, making it about 7,000 times more energy efficient than Bitcoin. Crypto Briefing reports: Ethereum will reduce its energy consumption by 99.95% following its transition to proof-of-stake, according to a new blog post from Carl Beekhuizen of the Ethereum Foundation. Beekhuizen estimated there are 87,000 at-home stakers using about 100W of energy for a total of 1.64 megawatts. Additionally, there are another 52,700 exchanges and custodial services that use about 100W per 5.5 validators for a total of 0.98 megawatts. Based on those estimates, Beekhuizen says that Ethereum will consume about 2.62 megawatts when it switches to proof-of-stake. Beekhuizen added that this estimate may be too large. He noted that his own personal staking setup was optimized to use 15W, while some staking services use as little as 5W per validator. This means that Ethereum will no longer use the energy equivalent of a country or even a city. Instead, its total consumption will be comparable to a small town that contains around 2100 homes.Read more of this story at Slashdot.