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OnePlus Beats Google With Four Years of Major OS Updates Published on December 01, 2022 at 03:31AM Android OEMs still don't provide the six years of updates you get with Apple phones, but some manufacturers are trying to close that gap. From a report: OnePlus is adding an extra year to its smartphone update promise and is now offering four years of major OS updates and five years of security updates. Timeline-wise, this plan matches Samsung's, though Samsung offers monthly security updates and OnePlus doesn't. The company is still only promising security updates every other month, so it can't do too much bragging. Android-maker Google -- who you'd think would have the best update plan -- is in a distant third, with only three years of OS updates and five years of security updates. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

UK Internet Watchdog Increasingly Led by Ex-Big Tech Executives Published on December 01, 2022 at 02:50AM UK's Ofcom hired former Google executive Gill Whitehead to head up a team regulating search engines and social media firms, the latest in a string of Silicon Valley appointments as the watchdog prepares to impose sweeping new online safety laws. From a report: Whitehead, formerly Google's senior director of client solutions and analytics, will work alongside Ofcom Chief Technology Officer Sachin Jogia and online safety lead Jessica Zucker. Jogia and Zucker were was previously executives at Amazon.com and Meta Platforms respectively. Ofcom's top hires over the past 18 months underscore a pivot in its role from an auditor of the airwaves and postal service to one increasingly concerned with the internet and Big Tech. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Telegram Shares Users Data in Copyright Violation Lawsuit Published on December 01, 2022 at 02:11AM Telegram has disclosed names of administrators, their phone numbers and IP addresses of channels accused of copyright infringement in compliance with a court order in India in a remarkable illustration of the data the instant messaging platform stores on its users and can be made to disclose by authorities. From a report: The app operator was forced by a Delhi High Court order to shared the data after a teacher sued the firm for not doing enough to prevent unauthorised distribution of her course material on the platform. Neetu Singh, the plaintiff teacher, said a number of Telegram channels were re-selling her study materials without permission at discounted prices. An Indian court earlier had ordered Telegram to adhere to the Indian law and disclose details about those operating such channels. Telegram unsuccessfully argued that disclosing user information would violate the privacy po...

Mark Zuckerberg Still 'Long-Term Optimistic' on Metaverse, Says Skepticism Doesn't Bother Him Too Much Published on December 01, 2022 at 01:25AM Meta founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said he was still optimistic about the metaverse on a longer, "five-to-ten-year horizon" at the New York Times Dealbook Summit in New York City on Wednesday. From a report: "The way we communicate gets richer and more immersive," Zuckerberg said via a virtual interview, doubling down on his company's bet on a virtual and augmented reality-dominated future. The company has come under criticism for generating billions of dollars of losses as it builds out its version of the metaverse. However, Zuckerberg admitted that Meta would need to operate with "more efficiency and discipline" in the near term as macroeconomic woes have forced the company to scale back on spending. [...] The billionaire CEO said he's unfazed by critics of his company's b...

Autonomous Trucking Software Upstart Embark Has Quietly Gone From $5B+ To Basically Worthless Published on December 01, 2022 at 12:50AM Out of all the beaten-down public companies in the autonomous driving space, Embark Technology stands out as a conspicuously terrible stock market performer. From a report: The San Francisco-headquartered company, which develops autonomous driving technology for the trucking industry, has presided over a roughly 98% share price decline since going public a year ago. In the process, it's wiped out close to $5 billion in market capitalization. Today, Embark and a few others that carried out SPAC mergers are in that weird category of companies trading below the value of cash reserves. In Embark's case, the company's recent market capitalization of $110 million is actually quite a bit lower than the $191 million cash it had at the end of Q3. In other words, investors seem to think it's worth less than nothing. What happened? What's no...

Remittances Grow 5% in 2022, Despite Global Headwinds Published on December 01, 2022 at 12:10AM Remittances to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) withstood global headwinds in 2022, growing an estimated 5% to $626 billion. This is sharply lower than the 10.2% increase in 2021, according to the latest World Bank Migration and Development Brief. World Bank: Remittances are a vital source of household income for LMICs. They alleviate poverty, improve nutritional outcomes, and are associated with increased birth weight and higher school enrollment rates for children in disadvantaged households. Studies show that remittances help recipient households to build resilience, for example through financing better housing and to cope with the losses in the aftermath of disasters. Remittance flows to developing regions were shaped by several factors in 2022. A reopening of host economies as the COVID-19 pandemic receded supported migrants' employment and their ability to continue helpin...

Snap Demands Employees Work In Office 80% of the Time Starting Early Next Year Published on November 30, 2022 at 05:50AM Snapchat's parent company is asking workers to return to the office 80% of the time, or the equivalent of four days a week, beginning early next year, in the latest sign of tech employees receiving less flexibility nearly three years after the pandemic took hold and amid a wave of industry cost cutting. CNN reports: "After working remotely for so long we're excited to get everyone back together next year with our new 80/20 hybrid model," a spokesperson for Snap (SNAP) confirmed to CNN in a statement Tuesday. "We believe that being together in person, while retaining flexibility for our team members, will enhance our ability to deliver on our strategic priorities of growing our community, driving revenue growth, and leading in [augmented reality]." The new policy will take effect at the end of February. News of Snap's stricter in-offi...

Dropbox Acquires Boxcryptor Assets To Bring Zero-Knowledge Encryption To File Storage Published on November 30, 2022 at 05:10AM An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Dropbox has announced plans to bring end-to-end encryption to its business users, and it's doing so through acquiring "key assets" from Germany-based cloud security company Boxcryptor. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Dropbox is well-known for its cloud-based file back-up and sharing services, and while it does offer encryption for files moving between its servers and the destination, Dropbox itself has access to the keys and can technically view any content passing through. What Boxcryptor brings to the table is an extra layer of security via so-called "zero knowledge" encryption on the client side, giving the user full control over who is allowed to decrypt their data. For many people, such as consumers storing family photos or music files, this level of privacy might not be ...

'I Don't Even Know How To Code': FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried Has Long, Candid Talk With Vlogger Published on November 30, 2022 at 04:33AM Former FTX head Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) selected cryptocurrency vlogger Tiffany Fong for a series of lengthy and candid telephone interviews. In the two interviews that had been released on YouTube at press time, SBF speaks about many of the major questions connected with the collapse of FTX. CoinTelegraph reports: The first interview was conducted Nov. 6 and released Nov. 29 on YouTube. [...] The recording began with SBF saying, "You don't get into the situation we got in if you, like, make all the right decisions." Taking her cue from that, Fong started her interview by asking about the "backdoor" that allowed SBF "to execute commands that could alter the [FTX] company's financial records without alerting others." SBF expressed surprise at the very idea. "And this is something I would be doin...

Anker's Eufy Cameras Caught Uploading Content To the Cloud Without User Consent Published on November 30, 2022 at 03:55AM Anker's popular Eufy-branded security cameras appear to be sending some data to the cloud, even when cloud storage is disabled and local only storage settings are turned on. MacRumors reports: The information comes from security consultant Paul Moore, who last week published a video outlining the issue. According to Moore, he purchased a Eufy Doorbell Dual, which was meant to be a device that stored video recording on device. He found that Eufy is uploading thumbnail images of faces and user information to its cloud service when cloud functionality is not enabled. Moore demonstrates the unauthorized cloud uploading by allowing his camera to capture his image and turning off the Eufy HomeBase. The website is still able to access the content through cloud integration, though he had not signed up for cloud service, and it remains accessible even when the foot...

Influencers Were Paid By Google To Promote a Pixel Phone They Never Used Published on November 30, 2022 at 03:15AM An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google and iHeartMedia -- the US's biggest radio station operator -- are being hit with a false advertising lawsuit for ads they ran about the Pixel 4 [...]. The FTC and four states say the companies aired "nearly 29,000 deceptive endorsements by radio personalities" during 2019 and 2020, with Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Samuel Levine saying that "Google and iHeartMedia paid influencers to promote products they never used, showing a blatant disrespect for truth-in-advertising rules." The two companies have settled the lawsuit and will be required to pay $9.4 million in penalties. Google's ads had on-air personalities give first-hand accounts of how much they liked the Pixel 4, but, to quote the FTC's press release, "the on-air personalities were not provided with Pixel ...

Amazon's New Chip Moves AWS Into High-Performance Computing Published on November 30, 2022 at 12:32AM Amazon's cloud-computing unit is rolling out new chips designed to power the highest-end of computing, supporting tasks such as weather forecasting and gene sequencing. From a report: Amazon Web Services, the largest provider of over-the-internet computing, on Monday said it would let customers rent computing power that relies on a new version of its Graviton chips. Peter DeSantis, a senior vice president who oversees most of AWS's engineering teams, said in an interview that the product is a springboard for making what the industry calls high-performance computing more readily available. The newest chip is the latest piece of Amazon's effort to build more of the hardware that fills the massive data centers that power AWS. Amazon says making its own chips will give customers more cost-effective computing power than they could get by renting time on processors built by...

Mauna Loa Volcano In Hawaii Erupts For the First Time In Nearly 40 Years Published on November 29, 2022 at 03:30AM An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: The world's largest active volcano, Mauna Loa on the Big Island of Hawaii, erupted for the first time in 38 years late Sunday night, following a series of spectacular eruptions of the smaller Kilauea volcano, also on the island, over the last five years. At 11:30 p.m. local time, an eruption began at Mauna Loa's summit, inside Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Lava flowing from the volcano was confined to the summit area, and officials said there was no immediate threat to the public, but they warned that winds could carry volcanic gas, fine ash and thin glass fibers known as Pele's hair downwind. The Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency raised the volcano alert level to a warning from an advisory. Mitch Roth, the mayor of Hawaii County, which has a population of...

Microsoft Likely To Offer EU Concessions Soon in Activision Deal Published on November 29, 2022 at 02:51AM Microsoft is likely to offer remedies to EU antitrust regulators in the coming weeks to stave off formal objections to its $69 billion bid for "Call of Duty" maker Activision Blizzard, Reuters reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The U.S. software giant and Xbox maker announced the deal in January to help it compete better with leaders Tencent and Sony. It has since then faced regulatory headwinds in the European Union, Britain and in the United States, with Sony criticising the deal and even calling for a regulatory veto. The deadline for the European Commission, which is investigating the deal, to set out a formal list of competition concerns known as a statement of objection is in January. Offering remedies before such a document is issued could shorten the regulatory process. [...] Microsoft's remedy would consist mainly of ...

Brands Filing for Trademark Applications for the Metaverse Have Waned Published on November 29, 2022 at 02:10AM Brands flocked to file trademark applications for the metaverse earlier this year. Now, the number of those applications is falling, causing some to herald the end of the gold-rush era. From a report: Between January and October, approximately 5,000 U.S. trademark applications for metaverse and virtual goods or services were filed, according to public filings, from brands including Nike, Adidas, Tommy Hilfiger, Levi's, and Versace. In the month of March, the number peaked at a total of 773. The 2021 total was 1890. However, the applications for the month of October were just 334, half of those in March, showing signs of decline, according to Josh Gerben, a trademark attorney and founder of law firm Gerben Perrott, PLLC. "The gold rush era of Web3 is over," said Gerben. "The folks that are going to file trademark applications going forward are likely going...

Can't Hear What Actors Are Saying on TV? It's Not You, Probably Published on November 29, 2022 at 01:31AM Some people turn on closed captions because they like how it helps them understand the plotlines of shows and movies, and multitask in front of the tube. Others turn them on because they can't hear what actors are saying. That doesn't always mean they are hard of hearing. From a report: Muddled audio is the top reason why more people are watching video with on-screen text, according to a May survey commissioned by language-teaching app Preply. As more video-production studios embrace advanced audio formats for at-home content, not every device can keep up. Plenty of viewers can't keep up, either. "If you have people talking or shouting during the adventure scenes, the explode-y sounds are way higher than the dialogue," said Melanie Brooks, a 43-year-old professional musician in Boston. Catching some of the lines in her favorite fantasy and adventure ...

Apple Has Threatened To Withhold Twitter From App Store, Elon Musk Says Published on November 29, 2022 at 12:34AM In a series of tweets Monday, Elon Musk said Apple had mostly stopped advertising on Twitter and had threatened to withhold the Twitter app from the App Store. Musk said the iPhone-maker won't disclose why it is making the threat. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google Partners With Med Tech Company To Develop AI Breast Cancer Screening Tools Published on November 29, 2022 at 12:15AM Google announced today that it has licensed its AI research model for breast cancer screening to medical technology company iCAD. This is the first time Google is licensing the technology, with the hopes that it will eventually lead to more accurate breast cancer detection and risk assessment. From a report: The two companies aim to eventually deploy the technology in real-world clinical settings -- targeting a "2024 release," Google communications manager Nicole Linton told The Verge in an email. Commercial deployment, however, still depends on how successful continued research and testing are. "We will move deliberately and test things as we go," Linton said in the email. The partnership builds on Google's prior work to improve breast cancer detection. Back in 2020, Google researchers published a paper in the journal Nature that found t...

US Goverment Investigating Real-Estate Tech Company Accused of Helping Landlords Collude Published on November 28, 2022 at 06:01AM The anti-trust division of America's Department of Justice "has reportedly opened up an investigation into RealPage, the real estate technology company accused of contributing to higher-than-normal rent prices," reports the Verge. ProPublica writes that the investigation explores "whether rent-setting software made by a Texas-based real estate tech company is facilitating collusion among landlords, according to a source with knowledge of the matter." *The inquiry is being launched as questions have arisen about a 2017 merger between RealPage and its largest pricing competitor.... Congressional leaders have pushed for an investigation into RealPage in three letters to the DOJ and the Federal Trade Commission, which were sent after a ProPublica report on the software's use in mid-October. The letters raised concerns that RealPage...

Is Everyone Still Getting Remote Work Wrong? Published on November 28, 2022 at 04:43AM ZDNet asks: why is everyone getting remote working wrong? Researchers at tech analyst Gartner believe a rigid requirement to return to offices is a mistake. But the researchers also believe so-called "hybrid" schedules often are also flawed: "Most of those work models delivered below-average outcomes," the research found, and the common factor was some kind of rigid on-site requirement. Much more successful was a "hybrid-flexible" set-up offering leaders and employees the opportunity to choose where they work from. But most successful by far were workplaces that offered this flexibility and also included elements of "intentional collaboration and empathy-based management", where bosses don't force staff to come to the office just to keep an eye on them. How the working week is organized matters: get it right, and staff are more likely to want to stay, and...

Workers at Amazon's Largest Air Hub in the World Push for a Union Published on November 28, 2022 at 03:43AM "Amazon workers at the air hub outside the Cincinnati Northern Kentucky international airport, Amazon's largest air hub in the world, are pushing to organize a union," reports the Guardian, "in the latest effort to mobilize workers at the tech company." Workers say they are dissatisfied with annual wage increases this year. About 400 of them have signed a petition to reinstate a premium hourly pay for Amazon's peak season that hasn't been enacted at the site yet. Their main demands also include a $30 an hour starting wage, 180 hours of paid time off and union representation at disciplinary hearings.... About 4,500 workers are employed at the expanding air hub in Kentucky. Those organizing have already filed two unfair labor practice charges over Amazon's response to the unionization effort, which has included anti-union talking points on ...

Small Study Finds Computer Repair Shops Accessed Personal Data - And Sometimes Even Copied It Published on November 28, 2022 at 02:43AM Ars Technica reports on what happened when researchers at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, left laptops overnight at 12 computer repair shops — and then recovered logs after receiving their repairs: The logs showed that technicians from six of the locations had accessed personal data and that two of those shops also copied data onto a personal device.... The amount of snooping may actually have been higher than recorded in the study, which was conducted from October to December 2021. In all, the researchers took the laptops to 16 shops in the greater Ontario region. Logs on devices from two of those visits weren't recoverable. Two of the repairs were performed on the spot and in the customer's presence, so the technician had no opportunity to surreptitiously view personal data. In three cases, Windows Quick Access or Recently Acce...

Protests Erupting Across China Published on November 28, 2022 at 01:43AM "Protesters clash with police as unrest rocks cities across China," reads CNN's headline. The Guardian calls it "the biggest wave of civil disobedience on the mainland since Xi Jinping assumed power a decade ago," noting one crowd numbered over 1,000 protesters. "Crowdsourced lists on social media claim protests have been documented at as many as 50 Chinese universities over the weekend." Looking back over the last 10 years, CNN's correspondent in China calls it "an unprecedented level of public dissent". During lockdowns people struggled to get emergency care, food, and necessities, but CNN's correspondent warns now "what we're seeing is this tipping point across the country, after years of suffering and deaths." "What we're seeing is people past their breaking point. It's years of pent-up anger. This is three years of draconian lock...

Linux Kernel Gets More Infrastructure for Rust, Increasing Interest in the Language Published on November 28, 2022 at 12:25AM Linux 6.1 (released last month) included what Linus Torvalds described as "initial Rust scaffolding," remembers this update from SD Times But now, "work has already been done since the 6.1 release to add more infrastructure for Rust in the kernel, though still none of the code interacts with any C code." And there's still no actual Rust code in Linux: "You need to get all those things that can make sure that Rust can compile, and you can do the debugging and all these things," explained Joel Marcey, director of advocacy and operations for the Rust Foundation, "and make sure that the memory safety is there and all that sort of stuff. And that has to happen first before you can actually write any real code in Rust for the Linux kernel itself." Marcey explained that Linux is going to be doing this inclusion very pieceme...

Will Made-in-China EV's Bring New Competition for Automakers? Published on November 27, 2022 at 05:32AM The Washington Post reports: China is already a huge manufacturer of electric vehicles for its own market, and it is increasingly making EVs for overseas buyers, too. Made-in-China EVs are hitting U.S. dealerships and European auto shows, providing new competition to Western and Japanese automakers that have long dominated the global vehicle market. Examples from the article: Polestar 2, from "an automaker headquartered in Sweden and controlled by Chinese billionaire Li Shufu... The company says it will start manufacturing its next model, the Polestar 3, in the United States in 2024."Nio ET7, "an EV company founded in Shanghai by entrepreneur William Li. The company is selling its ET7 sedan in the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, and has said it aims to enter the U.S. market in 2025."China's largest automaker, the state-owned SAIC, ...