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Fox News Breaking News Alert Los Angeles explosion: 16 injured -- 3 seriously -- after cache of illegal fireworks explodes 06/30/21 11:14 PM

A Government Watchdog May Have Missed Clearview AI Use By Five Federal Agencies Published on July 01, 2021 at 09:00AM An anonymous reader quotes a report from BuzzFeed News: A government inquiry into federal agencies' deployment of facial recognition may have overlooked some organizations' use of popular biometric identification software Clearview AI, calling into question whether authorities can understand the extent to which the emerging technology has been used by taxpayer-funded entities. In a 92-page report published by the Government Accountability Office on Tuesday, five agencies -- the US Capitol Police, the US Probation Office, the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, Transportation Security Administration, and the Criminal Investigation Division at the Internal Revenue Service -- said they didn't use Clearview AI between April 2018 and March 2020. This, however, contradicts internal Clearview data previously reviewed by BuzzFeed News. In April, BuzzFeed News reveal...

Fox News Breaking News Alert Jaw-dropping ruling in Britney Spears conservatorship case, reports reveal 06/30/21 6:46 PM

Maine Passes the Strongest State Facial Recognition Ban Yet Published on July 01, 2021 at 07:32AM The state of Maine now has the most stringent laws regulating government use of facial recognition in the country. The Verge reports: The new law prohibits government use of facial recognition except in specifically outlined situations, with the most broad exception being if police have probable cause that an unidentified person in an image committed a serious crime, or for proactive fraud prevention. Since Maine police will not have access to facial recognition, they will be able to ask the FBI and Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) to run these searches. Crucially, the law plugs loopholes that police have used in the past to gain access to the technology, like informally asking other agencies or third parties to run backchannel searches for them. Logs of all facial recognition searches by the BMV must be created and are designated as public records. The only other state-wide facial r...

'Great Resignation' Gains Steam As Return-To-Work Plans Take Effect Published on July 01, 2021 at 06:55AM In what's been dubbed the "Great Resignation," a whopping 95% of workers are now considering changing jobs, and 92% are even willing to switch industries to find the right position, according to a recent report by jobs site Monster.com. CNBC reports: Most say burnout and lack of growth opportunities are what is driving the shift, Monster found. "When we were in the throes of the pandemic, so many people buckled down, now what we're seeing is a sign of confidence," said Scott Blumsack, senior vice president of research and insights at Monster. Already, a record 4 million people quit their jobs in April alone, according to the Labor Department. At the same time, there are more opportunities for job seekers -- with the Labor Department reporting a record 9.3 million job openings as of the latest tally. "The number of open jobs is higher than ...

Intel's New Optane SSD P5800X Is the Fastest SSD Drive Ever Made Published on July 01, 2021 at 06:15AM MojoKid writes: Intel recently shifted its storage strategy somewhat and is now catering its flagship Optane SSD P5800X, which was formerly targeted solely at data centers, to workstation users. The Optane SSD P5800X is based on a proprietary PCIe Gen 4x4 native controller and it features Intel's second-generation Intel Optane memory. In terms of performance, in some of the first benchmark numbers to hit the web, the drive is an absolute beast in the workloads that matter most for the vast majority of workstation users and enthusiasts. Random reads and writes are exceptionally good and access times at low queue depths are best-of-class. The Optane SSD P5800X's sequential transfers, while strong, aren't quite on the same level as some of today's fastest NAND-based PCIe 4 solid state drives, but they do exceed 7GB/s, which is still extremely fast. Overall, it's...

IBM's 18-Month Company-Wide Email System Migration Has Been a Disaster Published on July 01, 2021 at 05:32AM An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: IBM's planned company-wide email migration has gone off the rails, leaving many employees unable to use email or schedule calendar events. And this has been going on for several days. Current and former IBMers have confirmed to The Register that the migration, 18 months in the making, has been a disaster. We've been told that email service has been intermittent for the past four or five days, and not everyone has been affected in the same way. Lack of access has been shorter for some -- one source told us email was back after two days of downtime. Slack is said to be working though Outlook, Verse (IBM's webmail), and Notes have been unreliable. "Outlook won't work with the new system, IBM Notes won't work and the online email called Verse has now gone down," a tipster told us. "Everyo...

Huawei CFO Says HSBC Emails Disprove Basis For US Extradition Claim Published on July 01, 2021 at 04:50AM AltMachine shares a report from Reuters: "Lawyers fighting the extradition of Huawei's chief financial officer to the United States on Tuesday presented internal emails from British bank HSBC that they said disproved U.S. claims that Huawei misled the bank," reports Reuters. "CFO Meng Wanzhou's legal team said the emails and documents submitted to a Canadian court showed at least two senior HSBC leaders were aware of connections between Huawei and its Iranian subsidiary, Skycom. Meng's lawyers are trying to add the documents to evidence. They are meant to counter U.S. charges that only junior employees of the British bank knew about the true nature of relationship between Huawei and Skycom. U.S. prosecutors have alleged that Meng misled HSBC about Huawei's business dealings in Iran and may have caused the bank to break U.S. sanctions." Business...

Apple Makes OS X Lion and Mountain Lion Free To Download Published on July 01, 2021 at 04:10AM Mac OS X Lion and OS X Mountain Lion can now be downloaded for free from Apple's website. "Apple has kept OS X 10.7 Lion and OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion available for customers who have machines limited to the older software, but until recently, Apple was charging $19.99 to get download codes for the updates," notes MacRumors. "The $19.99 fee dates back to when Apple used to charge for Mac updates. Apple began making Mac updates free with the launch of OS X 10.9 Mavericks, which also marked the shift from big cat names to California landmark names." From the report: Mac OS X Lion is compatible with Macs that have an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, or Xeon processor, a minimum of 2GB RAM, and 7GB storage space. Mac OS X Mountain Lion is compatible with the following Macs: iMac (Mid 2007-2020), MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer), MacBook Pro ...

Fox News Breaking News Alert Bill Cosby reacts to newfound freedom in eye-opening tweet 06/30/21 3:16 PM

Carrier Caught Injecting 'SMS AD' Into Google Verification Code Message Published on July 01, 2021 at 03:32AM An anonymous reader quotes a report from 9to5Google: SMS is widely regarded as an insecure form of two-factor authentication, and another example of this has just emerged. A carrier looks to be injecting ads into the Google verification code used to sign in to services like Gmail. Action Launcher developer Chris Lacy today tweeted how his Google verification code -- which starts with "G-" -- featured an "SMS AD." The advertisement -- for a VPN -- includes a quick message and short URL. For those that immediately suspect this is just a phishing attempt, the verification code is legitimate and was requested by Lacy to successfully verify a login attempt. Google Messages even flagged the link/message as spam. As such, Googlers responding to the thread suspect this is an occurrence of a carrier appending an ad -- note the extra spaces -- into a real te...

Fox News Breaking News Alert NCAA agrees to allow college athletes to capitalize on fame for the first time 06/30/21 2:55 PM

Oklo Has a Plan To Make Tiny Nuclear Reactors That Run Off Nuclear Waste Published on July 01, 2021 at 02:53AM An anonymous reader shares a report: The face of nuclear energy is changing, and one of the companies working to redefine what nuclear energy looks like is Oklo. The 22-person Silicon Valley start-up has a plan to build mini-nuclear reactors, powered by the waste of conventional nuclear reactors and housed in aesthetically pleasing A-frame structures. "Microreactors are an exciting innovation that completely flips the technology story for nuclear energy," Alex Gilbert, a project manager for nuclear power think tank the Nuclear Innovation Alliance, told CNBC. Historically, nuclear energy producers aimed to be competitive with "economies of scale," meaning they save money by being massive, Gilbert said. That strategy, however, often results in construction projects being mired in delays and cost overruns, like the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia, wher...

Amazon Demands One More Thing From Some Vendors: A Piece of Their Company Published on July 01, 2021 at 02:12AM Suppliers that want to land Amazon as a client for their goods and services can find that its business comes with a catch: the right for Amazon to buy big stakes in their companies at potentially steep discounts to market value. The Wall Street Journal: The technology-and-retail giant has struck at least a dozen deals with publicly traded companies in which it gets rights, called warrants, to buy the vendors' stock in the future at what could be below-market prices, according to corporate filings and interviews with people involved with the deals. Amazon over the past decade also has done more than 75 such deals with privately held companies, according to a person familiar with the matter. In all, the tech titan's stakes and potential stakes amount to billions of dollars across companies that provide everything from call-center services to natural gas, and in some c...

Fox News Breaking News Alert WATCH LIVE: Bill Cosby addresses media after prison release 06/30/21 1:44 PM

Robinhood's Luster Stained Again With a Record $70 Million Fine Published on July 01, 2021 at 01:31AM An anonymous reader shares a report: Robinhood Markets unleashed a revolution, marshaling throngs of new traders to financial markets in an upside-down year. But the free trading app's breakneck growth hurt the same small-time investors it sought to empower. That's the accusation leveled by Wall Street's self-funded watchdog, which extracted almost $70 million from the brokerage in a record settlement Wednesday, including a $57 million fine and about $12.6 million in payments to aggrieved customers. It follows Robinhood's meteoric rise against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic and the frenzy over hot stocks such as GameStop Corp. that warped the realm of retail trading. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Fox News Breaking News Alert Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld dead at 88 06/30/21 12:49 PM

At Nearly 116 Degrees, Heat in Western Canada Shatters National Record Published on July 01, 2021 at 12:53AM The heat is expected to continue for several days in some parts of British Columbia, according to weather warnings from the government. From a report: Vancouverites were frying eggs on pans placed on their terraces. One man checked into an air-conditioned five-star hotel, after the five fans aimed at his bed at home and the seventh cold shower failed to bring relief. Lettuce plants shriveled in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia's picturesque wine region. Flowers wilted. People wilted. The heat wave across western Canada has much of a country known for its sweater weather sweating. Canada broke a national heat record on Sunday when the temperature in a small town in British Columbia reached almost 116 degrees Fahrenheit, breaking an 84-year-old record by nearly 3 degrees, with dangerously hot weather expected to continue for several more days. "This is a complete s...

Tim Berners-Lee Sells Web Source Code NFT for $5.4 Million Published on July 01, 2021 at 12:16AM The original source code for the world wide web has been sold as a non-fungible token, making $5.4m. From a report: NFTs are certificates of ownership for digital assets, which often do not have a physical representation. They do not necessarily include copyright control -- and critics say they are get-rich-quick schemes that are bad for the environment. World-wide-web creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee sold the NFT to an unidentified buyer, through auction house Sotheby's. The highest bid stood at $3.5m for most of the last day of the auction -- but there were a flurry of bids in the closing 15 minutes. The auction began on 23 June, with an opening bid of $1,000. Further reading: Tim Berners-Lee Defends Auction of NFT Representing Web's Source Code. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Fox News Breaking News Alert Bill Cosby walks out of prison after sex assault conviction overturned 06/30/21 11:43 AM

Google and Microsoft End Their Five-Year Cease-Fire Published on June 30, 2021 at 10:12PM Microsoft and Google have decided to stop playing nice. From a report: The two tech giants recently ended a years-long truce during which they agreed not to aim their substantial lobbying firepower against each other. With regulators around the world threatening to impose limits on the power of the biggest technology companies, the two rivals -- which compete in web search, cloud computing and artificial intelligence -- are now free to step up behind-the-scenes lobbying efforts and public complaints against one another. The old non-aggression pact, forged at the time by two new CEOs wanting a fresh start on a formerly acrimonious relationship, had already been fraying before it lapsed in April. The companies feuded publicly over a proposal to force Google to pay news publishers for content and squabbled more quietly over technology for selling search ads. Neither company is eager to extend or re...

Amazon Seeks Recusal of FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan in Antitrust Investigations of Company Published on June 30, 2021 at 09:22PM Amazon.com filed a request with the Federal Trade Commission seeking the recusal of new Chairwoman Lina Khan from antitrust investigations of the company, in light of her extensive past criticisms of the company. From a report: "Given her long track record of detailed pronouncements about Amazon, and her repeated proclamations that Amazon has violated the antitrust laws, a reasonable observer would conclude that she no longer can consider the company's antitrust defenses with an open mind," Amazon said in a 25-page recusal motion filed with the FTC. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Fox News Breaking News Alert WATCH LIVE: Florida officials give update in condo collapse after more bodies found 06/30/21 8:36 AM

New UK Internet Law Raises Free Speech Concerns, Say Civil Liberties Campaigners Published on June 30, 2021 at 08:57PM Britain's proposed new internet law entails a government power grab with worrying implications for freedom of speech, according to civil liberties groups, academics and the tech industry. From a report: The groups are concerned the proposed Online Safety Bill would hand to Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden disproportionate powers in the name of protecting users from "harmful" content. The Bill allow him to "modify" a code of practice -- the blueprint created by the regulator Ofcom for how tech companies should protect users -- to ensure it "reflects government policy." Critics say such powers, which were set out in a draft of the proposed law published in May and due for imminent scrutiny by MPs and peers, could undermine the regulator's independence and potentially politicize the regulation of the internet. "The notion that a...

New Charges Filed Against Capital One Hacker, Trial Postponed To 2022 Published on June 30, 2021 at 08:40PM The US government has filed a superseding indictment against Paige A. Thompson, a former Amazon engineer accused of hacking Capital One and stealing the personal data of more than 100 million Americans. From a report: According to court documents filed earlier this month and obtained by The Record, the US Department of Justice has added seven new charges on top of the original two it filed in August 2019. The new charges -- six counts of computer fraud and abuse, and one count of access device fraud -- come as investigators have made headway in analyzing data seized from Thompson's computers and servers. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Fox News Breaking News Alert Death toll rises to 16 in Florida condo collapse as officials find more victims' bodies in rubble 06/30/21 8:07 AM

Germany Thwarts Cyberattack, Denies Impact on Banking System Published on June 30, 2021 at 07:51PM German authorities thwarted a cyberattack on a data service provider used by federal agencies and pushed back on a report that a broad assault targeted critical infrastructure and banks. From a report: The attempt was quickly dealt with and impact on service was "very marginal," Interior Ministry spokesman Steve Alter told reporters on Wednesday, adding that it was likely criminally motivated. He was queried about a report by Bild newspaper, which cited unidentified intelligence sources saying that a hacker group linked to the Kremlin had carried out an attack on German infrastructure and the country's banking system. Bild identified the group as "Fancy Lazarus" after earlier referencing "Fancy Bear," a group controlled by Russia's GRU military intelligence agency that was behind the hacking of Hillary Clinton's staff before the 2016 election, a...

United's Latest Jets Will Offer Bluetooth For In-Flight Entertainment Published on June 30, 2021 at 06:30PM An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: United Airlines is adding a long-awaited feature to the in-flight entertainment seatback screens of its new Boeing 737 Max 8 jets -- support for Bluetooth headphones. The company is making the upgrade as part of "United Next," a new plan to expand and modernize its fleet with what it says are larger, fuel-efficient jets and a more comfortable in-flight experience. Adding seatback screens made a huge difference in how tolerable flying is, but it's been held up by lagging audio support that The Verge has even written a guide to getting around. And this isn't a problem unique to United. Other airlines like Delta or JetBlue have been offering seatback screens for years, but have also saddled flyers with analog audio. United just might be one of the first airlines to start the next wave of inflight entertainme...

Glauconitic-Like Clay Found On Mars Suggests the Planet Once Had Habitable Conditions Published on June 30, 2021 at 03:30PM A team of researchers from Spain, France and the U.S. has found evidence of a glauconitic-like clay on Mars that suggests the planet once had habitable conditions. Phys.Org reports: In their paper published in the journal Nature Astronomy, the group describes their study of clay minerals extracted from Gale Crater by Curiosity rover back in 2016 and what they found. Back in 2016, NASA's Curiosity rover drilled into the Martian surface inside of Gale Crater. The rover then extracted samples of the clay minerals and used its instruments to analyze the material. In this new effort, the researchers have taken a close look at the results of the analysis and found that it very closely resembles glauconitic clays here on Earth. Glauconite is an iron potassium phyllosilicate mineral. It is almost always found as ovoid shapes in sediment beds, carbonates and sandston...

No Hope For Life In Venus Clouds, But Maybe On Jupiter, Study Suggests Published on June 30, 2021 at 12:30PM The amount of water in the atmosphere of Venus is so low that even the most drought-tolerant of Earth's microbes wouldn't be able to survive there, a new study has found. However, the researchers looked at data from other planets too and found that the clouds of Jupiter do provide sufficient water activity to theoretically support life. Space.com reports: The new study looked at measurements from probes that flew through the atmosphere of Venus and acquired data about temperature, humidity and pressure in the thick sulphuric acid clouds surrounding the planet. From these values, the scientists were able to calculate the so-called water activity, the water vapor pressure inside the individual molecules in the clouds, which is one of the limiting factors for the existence of life on Earth. The findings are likely a disappointment for the Venus research community, which w...

Ohio GOP Ends Attempt To Ban Municipal Broadband After Protest From Residents Published on June 30, 2021 at 09:00AM An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: After coming close to imposing a near-total ban on municipal broadband networks, Ohio's Republican-controlled legislature has reportedly dropped the proposed law in final negotiations over the state budget. The final budget agreement "axed a proposal to limit local governments from offering broadband services," The Columbus Dispatch wrote. With a June 30 deadline looming, Ohio's House and Senate approved the budget and sent it to Gov. Mike DeWine for final approval on Monday night, the Dispatch wrote. As we wrote earlier this month, the Ohio Senate approved a version of the budget containing an amendment (PDF) that would have forced existing municipal broadband services to shut down and prevented the formation of new public networks. The proposed law was reportedly "inserted without prior publ...

US Agency Orders Automated Vehicle Makers To Report Crashes Published on June 30, 2021 at 07:32AM The U.S. government's highway safety agency has ordered automakers to report any crashes involving fully autonomous vehicles or partially automated driver assist systems. The Associated Press reports: The move Tuesday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration indicates the agency is taking a tougher stance on automated vehicle safety than in the past. It has been reluctant to issue any regulations of the new technology for fear of hampering adoption of the potentially life-saving systems. The order requires vehicle and equipment manufacturers and companies that operate the vehicles to report crashes on public roads involving fully autonomous vehicles, or those in which driver assist systems were operating immediately before or during a crash. "By mandating crash reporting, the agency will have access to critical data that will help quickly identify safety issues that...

DoubleVPN Servers, Logs, and Account Info Seized By Law Enforcement Published on June 30, 2021 at 06:55AM Law enforcement has seized the servers and customer logs for DoubleVPN, a double-encryption service commonly used by threat actors to evade detection while performing malicious activities. BleepingComputer reports: DoubleVPN is a Russian-based VPN service that double-encrypts data sent through their service. When using the service, requests are encrypted and transmitted to one VPN server, which sends it to another VPN server, which finally connects to the final destination. The doublevpn.com [archive.org] website was seized today by law enforcement, who stated that they gained access to the servers for DoubleVPN and took personal information, logs, and statistics for the service's customers. "On 29th of June 2021, law enforcement took down DoubleVPN. Law enforcement gained access to the servers of DoubleVPN and seized personal information, logs and statistics kept by Dou...

Canada To Ban Sale of New Fuel-Powered Cars and Light Trucks From 2035 Published on June 30, 2021 at 06:15AM Canada will ban the sale of fuel-burning new cars and light-duty trucks from 2035 in an effort to reach net-zero emissions across the country by 2050, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government said on Tuesday. Reuters reports: Only zero-emissions cars and trucks can be sold from 2035, according to a statement, adding that a mixture of investments and regulations will help industry transition toward that goal. The government also said it will set interim targets for 2025 and 2030. "We are committed to aligning Canada's zero-emission vehicles sales targets with those of the most ambitious North American jurisdictions," Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said in the statement. "We will work with the United States to harmonize fuel efficiency regulations and we're investing in consumer rebates, charging stations, business tax breaks and industry tr...