The Securities and Exchange Commission is poised to allow the first U.S. Bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund to begin trading in a watershed moment for the cryptocurrency industry, according to people familiar with the matter. Bloomberg reports: The regulator isn't likely to block the products from starting to trade next week, said the people, who asked not to be named while discussing the decision. Unlike Bitcoin ETF applications that the regulator has previously rejected, the proposals by ProShares and Invesco Ltd. are based on futures contracts and were filed under mutual fund rules that SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has said provide "significant investor protections." Barring a last-minute reversal, the fund launch will be the culmination of a nearly decade-long campaign by the $6.7 trillion ETF industry. Advocates have sought approval as a confirmation of mainstream acceptance of cryptocurrencies since Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the twins best known for their part in the history of Facebook Inc., filed the first application for a Bitcoin ETF in 2013.

Approval has for years been out of the grasp of issuers who, amid myriad false signs of progress and outright rejections, have tried to get a variety of different structures cleared for trading. Over the years, there have been plans for funds that proposed to hold Bitcoin via a digital vault or that could use leverage to juice returns. Others sought to mitigate Bitcoin's famous volatility, a key point of contention for the SEC. [...] Four futures-backed Bitcoin ETFs could begin trading on U.S. exchanges this month, with deadlines for applications from VanEck and Valkyrie also approaching. Meanwhile, dozens of cryptocurrency exchange-traded products have launched in Canada and across Europe.

China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope has detected more than 1,600 fast radio bursts from a single enigmatic system. From a report: Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are one of the greatest mysteries of our universe. Coming from deep space, these outbursts can flash and fade in a matter of milliseconds, yet in each instance can release as much energy as the sun does in a year. They pop up all across the sky multiple times a day, but most appear to be one-off events and are thus hard to catch. First discovered in 2007, FRBs have challenged and tantalized scientists seeking to uncover their obscure origins and to use them as unique tools for probing the depths of intergalactic space. Now, using the world's largest single-dish radio telescope, an international team has reported the largest set of FRB events ever detected in history.

According to their paper published in Nature today, between August and October 2019 the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) in southwestern China recorded a total of 1,652 such brief and bright outbursts from a single repeating FRB source in a dwarf galaxy three billion light years away. Besides dramatically boosting the total number of known FRB events, the observations also revealed a very wide range of brightnesses among the recorded events, offering new clues about the astrophysical nature of their mysterious source. "The study is very thorough, with a level of details and sensitivity we've never had before," says astrophysicist Emily Petroff from the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands and McGill University in Canada, who is not involved in the research. "Such in-depth analyses of individual sources will be a top priority in FRB research in the near future."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Conversation: Our new paper in Nature Communications presents a global assessment of how many rooftop solar panels we'd need to generate enough renewable energy for the whole world -- and where we'd need to put them. Our study is the first to provide such a detailed map of global rooftop solar potential, assessing rooftop area and sunlight cover at scales all the way from cities to continents. We found that we would only need 50 percent of the world's rooftops to be covered with solar panels in order to deliver enough electricity to meet the world's yearly needs.

We designed a program that incorporated data from over 300 million buildings and analyzed 130 million km of land -- almost the entire land surface area of the planet. This estimated how much energy could be produced from the 0.2 million km of rooftops present on that land, an area roughly the same size as the U.K. We then calculated electricity generation potentials from these rooftops by looking at their location. Generally, rooftops located in higher latitudes such as in northern Europe or Canada can vary by as much as 40% in their generation potential across the year, due to big differences in sunshine between winter and summer. Rooftops near the equator, however, usually only vary in generation potential by around 1% across the seasons, as sunshine is much more consistent. This is important because these large variations in monthly potential can have a significant impact on the reliability of solar-powered electricity in that region. That means places where sunlight is more irregular require energy storage solutions -- increasing electricity costs. Our results highlighted three potential hotspots for rooftop solar energy generation: Asia, Europe and North America.

Of these, Asia looks like the cheapest location to install panels, where -- in countries like India and China -- one kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity, or approximately 48 hours of using your laptop, can be produced for just 0.05p. This is thanks to cheap panel manufacturing costs, as well as sunnier climates. Meanwhile, the costliest countries for implementing rooftop solar are the U.S., Japan and the U.K. Europe holds the middle ground, with average costs across the continent of around 0.096p per kWh. The report mentions this endeavor would be "extremely expensive," and won't be a solution for some industries that require very large currents and specialized electricity delivery. However, the report concludes by saying: "If the costs of solar power continue to decrease, rooftop panels could be one of the best tools yet to decarbonize our electricity supply."

Japanese technology giant Olympus has confirmed it was hit by a cyberattack over the weekend that forced it to shut down its IT systems in the U.S., Canada and Latin America. From a report: In a statement on its website, Olympus said it is "investigating a potential cybersecurity incident detected October 10" and is "currently working with the highest priority to resolve this issue."

"As part of the investigation and containment, we have suspended affected systems and have informed the relevant external partners. The current results of our investigation indicate the incident was contained to the Americas with no known impact to other regions. We are working with appropriate third parties on this situation and will continue to take all necessary measures to serve our customers and business partners in a secure way. Protecting our customers and partners and maintaining their trust in us is our highest priority. Our investigation is ongoing and we are committed to transparent disclosure and will continue to provide updates as new information becomes available."

It's near-identical to a statement put out by Olympus last month following a cyberattack on its European, Middle East and Africa network.

Carmaker Opel, which is part of the Stellantis group, said on Thursday it will close one of its plants in Germany until at least the end of the year due to chip shortages. Reuters reports: Production at the Eisenach plant, which makes internal combustion engine and hybrid electric cars, should start again in 2022, although an Opel spokesperson could not specify a date. Some 1,300 workers employed at the plant will be temporarily laid off, Opel said, with a separate plant in France picking up some of the production. Stellantis has halted production at other plants, including in Europe and Canada, forecasting that it would make 1.4 million fewer vehicles this year due to the chip shortage.

Ford has issued a recall of 5,000 Mustang Mach-E electric SUVs in Canada over a risk of the glass roof and windshield potentially coming loose and falling off. Ironically, the automaker mocked Tesla for the same problem just a year ago. Electrek reports: The automaker just issued two recalls in Canada, and one of them is specifically about the risk of the glass roof coming off: "On certain vehicles, the glass panel of the panoramic sunroof may not be properly attached. Over time, the glass could become loose and separate from the vehicle."

Ford says that it affects 1,812 2021 Mustang Mach-E vehicles in Canada. On another 3,178 Mach-Es, Ford says that there's a similar problem that could result in the windshield coming off: "On certain vehicles, the windshield may not be properly attached. As a result, the glass can become loose and could separate from the vehicle in a crash." In both cases, Ford plans to notify the affected owners, check the roof and windshield, and reassemble them with more adhesive if needed. For now, it looks like the recalls are limited to Canadian Mach-Es, even though Ford produces all its electric SUVs at the same factory in Mexico.

Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou would appear in a Brooklyn federal courtroom today via streaming video and enter a plea regarding US charges against her. From a report: Canadian authorities arrested the Chinese executive in December 2018 on suspicion of violating US sanctions, and she has remained there on house arrest ever since, fighting US attempts at extradition. Hearings in her extradition case ended in August, with the ruling scheduled for October 21st. Meng was indicted on fraud charges claiming the Chinese technology and telecommunications company misrepresented its relationship with an Iranian affiliate, along with accusations it stole intellectual property from T-Mobile. The 13-count indictment named Meng, Huawei, and two of its subsidiaries -- Huawei USA and Skycom. On Friday afternoon, Meng pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors submitted a statement of facts asserting that in 2013 she told financial institutions the Iranian company Skycom was a partner of Huawei while knowing that Skycom was owned and controlled by a Huawei subsidiary to act as its agent in the region. As part of the deal in making this admission, the prosecution says "Meng has agreed to the accuracy of a four-page statement of facts that details the knowingly false statements she made to Financial Institution 1."

Slashdot reader Striek writes: VoIP.ms, a Canadian VoIP provider [also serving the US], has been under a sustained, and presumably massive DDoS attack which started on the September 16th, 2021. The attack has been disruptive enough to be covered by major media outlets, including Hacker News, ZDNet, Ars Technica, BleepingComputer, CTV News, and The Toronto Star.

They have so far refused to pay a ransom demand, which has grown from 1 bitcoin at the outset ($45,000 USD at that time), to 100 bitcoin now, or $45 million. Similar attacks have occurred recently on several UK based VOiP providers.

With DDoS attacks against VOiP infrastructure difficult to defend against — or at least more difficult than your bog-standard denial of service, this may be setting a worrying trend.
Bleeping Computer reported Monday that the attack was "severely disrupting the company's operation: As customers configured their VoIP equipment to connect to the company's domain name, the DDoS attack disrupted telephony services, preventing them from receiving or making phone calls. As DNS was no longer working, the company advised customers to modify their HOSTS file to point the domain at their IP address to bypass DNS resolution. However, this just led the threat actors to perform DDoS attacks directly at that IP address as well.

To mitigate the attacks, VoIP.ms moved their website and DNS servers to Cloudflare, and while they reported some success, the company's site and VoIP infrastructure still have issues due to the continued denial-of-service attack.
ZDNet has been following the story: In an update on Wednesday, VoIP.ms apologized to customers and confirmed it was still being targeted by what it described as a 'ransom DDoS attack' . VoIP.ms says it has over 80,000 customers in 125 countries.
And in addition, this afternoon the company's Twitter account announced that "Our main U.S. upstream carrier is currently experiencing major issues on their network affecting inbound and outbound calls and messaging to US numbers. We have already been in contact with their senior leadership team and they are on it along with their whole NOC."

The chief financial officer of Chinese tech firm Huawei will be released and allowed to return to China after reaching an agreement with the U.S. government on fraud charges, prosecutors said Friday in a Brooklyn federal court. CNBC reports: A U.S. district judge accepted the deferred prosecution agreement, which will last until Dec. 1, 2022. Under the deal, the executive, Meng Wanzhou, affirmed the accuracy of a statement of facts and agreed not to commit other crimes, or risk prosecution. Meng, the daughter of Huawei's founder, was arrested in Canada in December 2018. The U.S. sought to extradite her on bank and wire fraud charges, claiming she was misled a financial institution to violate American sanctions on Iran. The U.S. said Friday it plans to withdraw its extradition request.

Meng pleaded not guilty to the charges on Friday. As part of the agreement, however, she took "responsibility for her principal role in perpetrating a scheme to defraud a global financial institution," acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Nicole Boeckmann said in a statement. According to Boeckmann, Meng admitted to making "multiple material misrepresentations" while CFO of Huawei about the company's business in Iran, in conversations with the senior executive of a financial institution. The government claimed she did this to continue Huawei's business relationship with the firm. Boeckmann said the admission confirms the core allegations against Meng.

Amazon is officially in the TV set business. From a report: After years of selling Fire TV devices that plug into third-party HDTVs and teaming with TV makers for Fire TV-based products, the ecommerce giant is rolling out the first-ever Amazon-built TVs: the Amazon Fire TV Omni Series ($410 and up), which provides hands-free Alexa voice navigation, and the value-priced 4-Series smart TV line ($370 and up). They're set to ship in October.

In addition, Amazon is baking in new features to the overall Fire TV platform, including bringing TikTok content to the platform in the U.S. and Canada; letting users access Netflix's shuffle-mode feature via Alexa; and being able to ask Alexa for movie or TV show recommendations. The company also is bowing the new Fire TV Stick 4K Max ($55), which it says is more powerful than the prior-generation model and is Amazon's first streaming media player to launch with Energy Star certification and Wi-Fi 6 support.

While the pandemic supercharged streaming, a few people decided to swim against the current and go back to the familiar format of VHS. It isn't the easiest of hobbies. From a report: VCR players haven't been in production within the last five years, and using the player on a current smart TV requires an expensive customized setup of several devices. Looking for a recent film on VHS format? It's likely you'll only find films from the 1980s and 90s, direct-to-VHS specials and home videos. That hasn't stopped die-hards. A small community of VHS fanatics has sprung up around the country, trading tapes and tips on how to watch. Much of it is organized around small boxes where people can drop off or pick up tapes. The "Free Blockbuster" boxes started in Los Angeles and spread. There are VHS tape trading events and auctions.

In the late 1990s, Hollywood studios began selling films on DVDs and VHS rentals lost their grip on home viewings. Blu-ray took over in the early 2000s. By 2010 Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy protection. To try to re-create a bit of the video-store experience, Brian Morrison started Free Blockbuster in 2019. The group turns former newspaper boxes into free little libraries of movies. VHS die-hards hope the effort encourages the exchange of home entertainment with strangers in their neighborhood. A film fan who worked at various video stores throughout his teenage years, Mr. Morrison, 37, stocked his first Free Blockbuster box in Los Angeles with old VHS tapes, hoping to create community around film watching.

Though DVDs and videogames showed up later in some boxes, he says VHS tapes were the more interesting draw for Free Blockbuster users. Mr. Morrison connects tape fanatics in different places, who maintain their own boxes. VHS tapes "aren't just DVDs' older cousins," Mr. Morrison says, "they're an art form in many ways." The 69 Free Blockbuster boxes, now located across the U.S. and in Canada and Australia, are maintained by a network of fans. Mr. Morrison said he received a request from Blockbuster, which is owned by Dish Network, last year that he change the name of his organization. He said he asked if the company would consider licensing out the name but hasn't heard back.

"When residents of an affluent estate community in Alberta started hearing noise from a nearby power plant, they didn't expect their complaints of sleepless nights would lead to a months-long investigation that would find a bitcoin mining operation had set up shop without approval," reports the CBC: Now, Link Global, the company behind the site, is being ordered by the province's utility commission to shut down two plants until it can prove it's allowed to operate — a move the company says will cost jobs and cause the oil and gas infrastructure in which it operates to sit dormant....

Vancouver-based Link Global had set up four 1.25 MW gas generators at the site, pulling power from a dormant natural gas well owned by Calgary-based company MAGA Energy. The natural gas powers thousands of computer servers that run programs to "mine" digital currency... Work on the plant began in August 2020, and by fall — when neighbours started to get annoyed — it was operating at full capacity. There was just one problem: The company hadn't notified neighbours of its plans. Or the county. Or the provincial utilities commission — which allows power plants to be set up without approval if they meet several conditions, including only generating power for the company's own use and proving the plant has no adverse effects on people or the environment...

Alberta is littered with nearly 200,000 dormant or abandoned oil and gas wells, often because they're no longer economically viable. It has raised the spectre that landowners and taxpayers could be on the hook for the cleanup costs, which the province estimates could be up to $30 billion, as well as prompted a push to find other uses for the facilities, such as powering cryptocurrency operations. Stephen Jenkins, Link Global's CEO, said some of that abandoned energy infrastructure, is at risk of leaking methane — a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide. "We look at, OK, what can we do to use this in a beneficial way ... I don't want to say we're in the business of methane destruction, but we're in the business of beneficial use of that potential methane-generating source. You combust it properly. You don't flare it, and you control those emissions," Jenkins said...

And though the facility employs only four people, Jenkins said it's important to him to employ locally and give former oil and gas workers a path into other careers. The Sturgeon County plant's supervisor is a former pipefitter; he's now a bitcoin pro and an expert at keeping the plant online, Jenkins said. "It's a perfect use of people's skills," he said.

Of course, it's not all altruism. The company has said for every 10 MW of power, it can generate about 1.2 bitcoins per day.
Last Friday the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) ruled that the plant had indeed been violating their regulatory requirements, and would now also have to suffer a financial penalty which the CBC reported as "a $50,000 to $75,000 fine, reduced by up to 50% because Link Global admitted to breaking the rules..."

"More penalties could be on the way. The AUC will now review whether specific sanctions should be imposed against Link Global for operating without approval — a decision on that is expected this fall."

The CBC adds that another Link Global plant was also found to be "set up without the AUC's prior approval."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BuzzFeed News: Law enforcement agencies and government organizations from 24 countries outside the United States used a controversial facial recognition technology called Clearview AI, according to internal company data reviewed by BuzzFeed News. That data, which runs up until February 2020, shows that police departments, prosecutors' offices, universities, and interior ministries from around the world ran nearly 14,000 searches with Clearview AI's software. At many law enforcement agencies from Canada to Finland, officers used the software without their higher-ups' knowledge or permission. After receiving questions from BuzzFeed News, some organizations admitted that the technology had been used without leadership oversight.

In March, a BuzzFeed News investigation based on Clearview AI's own internal data showed how the New York -- based startup distributed its facial recognition tool, by marketing free trials for its mobile app or desktop software, to thousands of officers and employees at more than 1,800 US taxpayer-funded entities. Clearview claims its software is more accurate than other facial recognition technologies because it is trained on a database of more than 3 billion images scraped from websites and social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Law enforcement officers using Clearview can take a photo of a suspect or person of interest, run it through the software, and receive possible matches for that individual within seconds. Clearview has claimed that its app is 100% accurate in documents provided to law enforcement officials, but BuzzFeed News has seen the software misidentify people, highlighting a larger concern with facial recognition technologies.

Based on new reporting and data reviewed by BuzzFeed News, Clearview AI took its controversial US marketing playbook around the world, offering free trials to employees at law enforcement agencies in countries including Australia, Brazil, and the United Kingdom. To accompany this story, BuzzFeed News has created a searchable table of 88 international government-affiliated and taxpayer-funded agencies and organizations listed in Clearview's data as having employees who used or tested the company's facial recognition service before February 2020, according to Clearview's data. Some of those entities were in countries where the use of Clearview has since been deemed "unlawful." Clearview CEO Hoan Ton-That insists the company's key market is the U.S., saying: "While there has been tremendous demand for our service from around the world, Clearview AI is primarily focused on providing our service to law enforcement and government agencies in the United States. Other countries have expressed a dire need for our technology because they know it can help investigate crimes, such as, money laundering, financial fraud, romance scams, human trafficking, and crimes against children, which know no borders."

Ton-That alleged there are "inaccuracies contained in BuzzFeed's assertions," but declined to explain what those might be and didn't answer any follow-up questions.

A plane has major damage after a York Regional Police (YRP) drone struck the aircraft at Toronto Buttonville Municipal Airport earlier this month. CTV News reports: On Aug. 10, a Canadian Flyers International Inc. Cessna plane was on a flight to the airport in Markham at an unknown time during the day. The small plane was about to land at the airport's runway when the pilot felt a jolt that "pushed them back on their seat," according to a report from Transport Canada issued this week. The pilot thought the plane hit a large bird and proceeded to land the plane, the report said. When the pilot exited the aircraft they saw a "major dent" on the left underside of the engine cowling and the airbox was also bent. No injuries were reported but the airplane suffered significant damage, including a propeller strike. A few hours after the incident, police confirmed that a YRP drone had struck the aircraft, according to the report.

Nearly half of the U.S. (47.5%) has migrated to IPv6, ranking the U.S. sixth in percentage of users who have migrated to the latest version of the Internet Protocol. That estimate is based on an analysis of data about Google users — which also finds that India leads the world, with a 61.67% adoption rate. Inside.com's developer newsletter reports: The figures come from the latest Google IPv6 Statistics data organized and ranked by BBC Radio and Music's Lead Technical Architect for his blog. Malaysia and French Guiana came in second and third, respectively...

IPv6 is considered far more secure, faster, and powerful than its predecessor, IPv4, while offering more IP addresses. Test your IPv6 connectivity here.
After third place there's a close three-way race, where the U.S. has dropped from the #4 position earlier this week. As of today the U.S. is now in 6th place...

Fourth is France (48.38%) and Fifth is Taiwan (48.0%).

Canada ranks #20 (36.59%) and the UK ranks #24 (33.27%).

In November GM recalled 69,000 of its "Bolt" electric cars after five reported fires and two minor injuries. Last month they issued a second recall "after at least two of the electric vehicles that were repaired for a previous problem erupted into flames," CNBC reported.

And then Friday the company expanded that recall "due to potential fire risk." The recall expansion is expected to cost the automaker an additional $1 billion, bringing the total to $1.8 billion to replace potentially defective battery modules in the vehicles. GM said about 73,000 vehicles in the U.S. and Canada are being added to the recall from the 2019-2022 model years, including a recently launched larger version of the car called the Bolt EUV...

The expanded recall now includes all Bolt EV models ever produced, casting a shadow over GM's first mainstream electric vehicle, as it attempts to transition to exclusively sell EVs by 2035...

The expansion follows the companies finding that the batteries for these vehicles may have two manufacturing defects — a torn anode tab and folded separator — present in the same battery cell, which increases the risk of fire. GM has confirmed one fire in the new population of recalled vehicles. That's in addition to at least nine previous confirmed fires in the first round of vehicles that were recalled.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Atlantic: Alexa used to be a name primarily given to human babies. Now it's mainly for robots. Seven years ago, Amazon released Alexa, its voice assistant, and as the number of devices answering to that name has skyrocketed, its popularity with American parents has plummeted. In fact, it has suffered one of the sharpest declines of any popular name in recent years. "Alexa stands alone as a name that was steadily popular -- not a one-year celebrity wonder, not a fading past favorite -- that was pushed off the popularity cliff," Laura Wattenberg, the founder of the naming-trends website Namerology, told me.

At first, the number of baby Alexas spiked following the voice assistant's rollout in late 2014 -- perhaps parents heard the name in the news and liked it -- but it has since crashed. Likely, parents began to realize that having the name could be a nuisance, or worse, could become associated with subservience, because people are always giving orders to their virtual Alexas. This up-and-down pattern reminded Wattenberg of what happens with babies named after hurricanes, when "the news coverage and attention causes the name to briefly shoot up, and then the aftermath, when the name is constantly referred to as a disaster, kind of kills it off." Basically, Amazon's impact on the name Alexa resembles that of a natural disaster.

The data on baby names released by the Social Security Administration don't indicate why parents pick or avoid particular names, but Alexa's trajectory mirrors the adoption of smart speakers in the U.S. Bret Kinsella, the founder of Voicebot.ai, a site that covers and analyzes data on the voice-assistant industry, told me that consumer uptake surged three years after Alexa's release, in 2017. And the number of baby Alexas plunged below its pre-Amazon baseline in 2018 -- that may be when many parents started to understand the ubiquity of the name. (Now more than 90 million American adults are estimated to have a smart speaker in their household.) "The voice assistant's debut in the United Kingdom (in 2016) and in Canada (in 2017) were also followed by drop-offs in baby Alexas," the report adds.

"Amazon did not exactly ruin the life of every Alexa, but the consequences of its decision seven years ago are far-reaching -- roughly 127,000 American baby girls were named Alexa in the past 50 years, and more than 75,000 of them are younger than 18. Amazon didn't take their perfectly good name out of malice, but regardless, it's not giving it back."

Apple censors references to Chinese politicians, dissidents and other topics in its engraving service, a report alleges. The BBC reports: Citizen Lab said it had investigated filters set up for customers who wanted something engraved on a new iPhone, iPad or other Apple device. And Apple had a broad list of censored words, not just in mainland China but also in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Apple said its systems "ensure local laws and customs are respected." "As with everything at Apple, the process for engraving is led by our values," chief privacy officer Jane Horvath wrote in a letter (PDF) provided to CitizenLab in advance of the publication of its report. And the engraving service tried not to allow trademarked phrases, alongside those that "are vulgar or culturally insensitive, could be construed as inciting violence, or would be considered illegal according to local laws, rules, and regulations."

[CitizenLab's] new report found more than 1,100 filtered keywords, across six different regions, mainly relating to offensive content, such as racist or sexual words. But it alleges the rules are applied inconsistently and are much wider for China. "Within mainland China, we found that Apple censors political content, including broad references to Chinese leadership and China's political system, names of dissidents and independent news organizations, and general terms relating to religions, democracy, and human rights," it says. The report also alleges that censorship "bleeds" into both the Hong Kong and Taiwan markets. It found: 1,045 keywords blocked in mainland China; 542 in Hong Kong; and 397 in Taiwan. In contrast, Japan, Canada and the US had between 170 and 260 filtered words.

In 1999 Los Angeles Times reporter Michael Hiltzik won a Pulitzer Prize. Now a business columnist for the Times, he writes that Ivermectin, "the latest supposed treatment for COVID-19 being touted by anti-vaccination groups, had 'no effect whatsoever' on the disease, according to a large patient study." (Alternate URL here) That's the conclusion of the Together Trial, which has subjected several purported nonvaccine treatments for COVID-19 to carefully designed clinical testing.

The trial is supervised by McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, and conducted in Brazil. One of the trial's principal investigators, Edward Mills of McMaster, presented the results from the Ivermectin arms of the study at an Aug. 6 symposium sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. Among the 1,500 patients in the study, he said, Ivermectin showed "no effect whatsoever" on the trial's outcome goals — whether patients required extended observation in the emergency room or hospitalization. "In our specific trial," he said, "we do not see the treatment benefit that a lot of the advocates believe should have been" seen...

The Ivermectin camp, as I reported earlier, is heavily peopled by anti-vaccination advocates and conspiracy mongers. They maintain that the truth about the drug has been suppressed by agents of the pharmaceutical industry, which ostensibly prefers to collect the more generous profits that will flow from COVID vaccines. The problem, however, is that the scientific trials cited by Ivermectin advocates have been too small or poorly documented to prove their case. One large trial from Egypt that showed the most significant therapeutic effect was withdrawn from its publishers due to accusations of plagiarism and bogus data. Nevertheless, the advocates have continued to press their case — without necessarily observing accepted standards of scientific discourse. During the symposium, Mills complained that serious researchers looking into claims for COVID treatments have faced unprecedented abuse from advocates.

"I've had enough abuse and so have the other clinical trialists doing Ivermectin," he said. "Others working in this area have been threatened, their families have been threatened, they've been defamed," he said...

Asked whether he expected further criticism from Ivermectin advocates, he said it was all but inevitable. "The advocacy groups have set themselves up to be able to critique any clinical trial. They've already determined that any valid, well-designed critical trial was set up to fail."

Sonos became a favorite with audiophiles by selling sleek, wireless speakers for streaming music long before technology titans such as Alphabet''s Google entered the market with cheaper, internet-connected models. Now Sonos is hoping a U.S. trade judge finds Friday that its partner turned foe, Google, infringed its patents for multiroom audio systems. From a report: Sonos is asking U.S. International Trade Commission Judge Charles Bullock to support its bid to block imports of Google's Home and Chromecast systems and Pixel phones and laptops, which are made in China. "Google has thrown everything at us in this case, but we believe that the evidence before the ITC demonstrates Google to be a serial infringer of Sonos' valid patents and that the ITC case represents just the tip of the iceberg," Sonos Chief Legal Officer Eddie Lazarus said in an earnings call Wednesday.

The dispute has caught the attention of regulators and Congress who are investigating whether the big Silicon Valley tech companies have become too powerful. Sonos officials urged politicians to beef up antitrust laws and enforcement against companies like Google and Amazon.com. Sonos and Google have each accused the other of bad behavior, and suits have been filed in California, Texas, Canada, France, Germany and the Netherlands. A federal judge last year said the legal fees being incurred in the global battle "will likely have been able to build dozens of schools, pay all the teachers, and provide hot lunches to the children." Sonos is fighting over what CEO Patrick Spence says is the "Golden Age of Audio." Buoyed by consumers who buy more audiobooks, streaming music and podcasts and are looking for "theater-like" sound while watching movies from home, the focus on home sound systems is likely to survive even after the Covid-19 pandemic and work-from-home orders end.