As part of Netflix's earning results today, which says the company reversed customer losses, Netflix plans to crack down on password sharing beginning in 2023. The Verge reports: After giving users the ability to transfer their profiles to new accounts last week, the streamer says it will start letting subscribers create sub-accounts starting next year in line with its plans to "monetize account sharing" more widely. [...] Earlier this year, Netflix reported losing subscribers for the first time in over 10 years, with the company's subscriber count dipping by another 1.3 million in the US and Canada and 1 million worldwide last quarter. To remedy this, Netflix has also been slowly nudging subscribers away from password sharing. The company conducted tests that prompted users in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru to pay extra for a sub-account if Netflix detected someone was using the owner's subscription outside of their household.

It also tried out a way for users in Argentina, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic to buy additional "homes" for accounts located outside of the subscriber's primary household. More recently, Netflix widely introduced a Profile Transfer tool that lets users easily transfer their personalized recommendations, viewing history, My List, saved games, and other settings to a new account after testing it in other countries. Last month, a report from Rest of World revealed frustration from users subject to the tests in Latin America. The earnings report (PDF) projects that the company's new ad-supported streaming service, which starts at $6.99 per month and launches in November, will help attract 4.5 million subscribers by year's end. This quarter it added 2.4 million subscribers and grew by 104,000 paid subscribers in the U.S. and Canada over the last three months, up from 73,000 in the same period last year.

Alberta's engineering regulator is in a fight with the province's technology sector, insisting anyone with the title "software engineer" must hold a permit -- and pay fees for that right. The Globe and Mail reports: The Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA), has asked a court to order one of the province's leading software companies, Octopusapp, known as Jobber, to stop using the term "engineer" in job titles and postings unless it gets a permit from the regulator. That has caused an uproar in Alberta's tech sector. On Friday, the Council of Canadian Innovators (CCI) published an open letter signed by chief executive officers of 32 Alberta tech companies, including Jobber's Sam Pillar, calling on Premier Danielle Smith to stop "regulator overreach" by APEGA.

The letter says APEGA's "aggressive position" would result in "onerous, restrictive and unnecessary certification requirements" for developers, and harm companies' ability to compete for talent. "If we cannot effectively compete for the best employees while headquartered in Alberta, we must seriously consider whether this is a place where our companies can succeed,â states the letter signed by CEOs of Benevity, Symend, Neo Financial Technologies and others. CCI president Benjamin Bergen said he hoped Ms. Smith, who pledged to cut red tape while campaigning to lead the United Conservative Party, would take action "because this is really a red tape issue. It is the only jurisdiction globally that is pushing this. It's making Alberta uncompetitive in the tech sector."

APEGA and Canada's 11 other provincial and territorial engineering regulators have complained for years about companies or individuals who use the titles "software engineer" and "computer engineer," arguing they are prohibited from doing so. In July, Engineers Canada, which represents the regulators, issued a joint statement calling for individuals to be prohibited from using the offending titles unless they are licensed as engineers. "Professional engineers are held to high professional and ethical standards and work in the public interest," it said. "The public places a high degree of trust in the profession and these layers of accountability and transparency help keep Canadians safe." The regulators are mandated to enforce their relative statutes and have sporadically taken legal action to protect their turf. [...] Provincial and territorial laws regulating engineers vary. Alberta's Engineering and Geoscience Professions Act states no individual, corporation or partnership can use the word "engineer" in a job title unless they are "a professional engineer, licensee or permit holder entitled to engage in the practice of engineering." A spokesperson for Alberta labour minister Kaycee Madu said in an e-mail the government would work with the parties to resolve the issue, adding: "We are concerned by any regulations that impede our competitiveness in the world skilled-labour market."

Meanwhile, Erum Afsar, director of enforcement with APEGA, said in an interview: "What we are doing is regulating what the government has legislated us to do. If you're using that title, you should be registered with APEGA."

Further reading: Oregon Fines Man For Writing a Complaint Email Stating 'I Am An Engineer'

Starting in November, Netflix will roll out its ad-supported tier for $6.99 a month, yet another sign that the onetime disruptive upstart streaming service has slowly become a cable package by another name. From a report: Netflix announced today that its new Basic with Ads tier is slated to launch on November 3rd, 2022, for $6.99 in the US, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Spain, and the UK. In exchange for making you watch an average of four to five ads per hour that run anywhere from 15-30 seconds, Basic with Ads will give subscribers access to a large swath of Netflix's programming but not the platform's full catalog. A small selection of television shows and movies will not be available to Basic with Ads subscribers due to licensing restrictions that Netflix says it's currently working on. Additionally, Basic with Ads subscribers will not be able to download content onto their devices, and video quality is capped at 720p / HD.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Alphabet's Google will open its first data center in Japan next year as part of increasing investment in the world's third-biggest economy. The new facility, based in Inzai City, Chiba, will accelerate the operation of Google tools and services and support economic activity and jobs, Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai wrote in a blog post Friday. It's part of a broader $730 million investment in local infrastructure by the US company, which began last year and will extend through 2024. Google is also leading the construction of a new subsea cable linking Japan and Canada, called Topaz. The Chiba data center will be the company's third location in Asia, after Taiwan and Singapore, and will support its efforts to connect Japan to the rest of the global economy, Pichai said. "Google's partnership in Japan is now deeper than ever," Pichai said in a surprise appearance at Google's Pixel 7 and Pixel Watch launch event in Tokyo. "Japan has a history of being at the forefront of the world's most advanced technologies."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google is clawing its way back into wearable relevance. Today the company took the wraps off what is officially its first self-branded smartwatch: the Pixel Watch. Google started revamping its wearable platform, Wear OS, in partnership with Samsung. While Wear OS 3, the new version of Google's wearable platform, technically launched with the Galaxy Watch 4 last year, this is the first time we'll be seeing an unskinned version on a real device. First up: prices. Google is asking a lot here, with the Wi-Fi model going for $349 and the LTE version clocking in at $399. The Galaxy Watch 4, which has a better SoC, and the Apple Watch SE, which has a way, way better SoC, both start at $250. Google is creating an uphill battle for itself with this pricing.

Google and Samsung's partnership means the Pixel Watch is running a Samsung Exynos 9110 SoC, with a cheap Cortex M33 co-processor tacked on for low-power watch face updates and 24/7 stat tracking. This SoC is a 10 nm chip with two Cortex A53 cores and an Arm Mali T720 MP1 GPU. If you can't tell from those specs, this is a chip from 2018 that was first used in the original Samsung Galaxy Watch. For whatever reason, Google couldn't get Samsung's new chip from the Galaxy Watch 4, an Exynos W920 (a big upgrade at 5 nm, dual Cortex A55s, and a Mali-G68 MP2 GPU). It's hard to understand why this is so expensive.

The display is a fully circular 1.6-inch OLED with a density of 320 ppi (that should mean around 360 pixels across). The only size available is 41 mm, the cover is Gorilla Glass 5, and the body is stainless steel in silver, black, or gold. It has 2GB of RAM, 32GB of eMMC storage, NFC, GPS, only 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi 802.11n support (Wi-Fi 4), and a 294 mAh battery. For sensors, you get SPO2 blood oxygen, heart rate, and an ECG sensor. It's water-resistant to 5 ATM, which means you're good for submersion, hand washing, and most normal water exposure. Usually 10 ATM is preferred for serious sports swimming, but the Apple Watch is 5 ATM, and Apple does all sorts of swimming promos. Google's black UI background does a good job of hiding exactly how large the display is in relation to the body, but a few screenshots reveal just how big the bezels are around this thing. They are big. Real big. Like, hard-to-imagine-we're-still-doing-this-in-2022 big. Other things to note: the watch bands are proprietary, it'll be able to charge to 50 percent in 30 minutes, will work with any Android phone running version 8.0 and newer, and features Fitbit integration.

"Unlike the Pixel 7, which is expanding to 17 markets, the Pixel Watch is only for sale in eight countries: the US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Australia, Japan, and Taiwan," adds Ars. "The watch is up for preorder today and ships October 13."

Further reading: Google Unveils Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro Smartphones

Alarm sirens from the C-Suite about a looming recession are gaining volume in America and elsewhere, but calls back to the office for full-time work are a lot softer. Most CEOs across the globe shared the view that a recession is on the horizon and coming sooner than later, according to a Tuesday report from KPMG on business-leader outlooks. From a report: Nine in ten CEOs in the U.S. (91%) believe a recession will arrive in the coming 12 months, while 86% of CEOs globally feel the same way, according to the findings from the international audit, tax and advisory firm. That echoes the foreboding predictions coming from big name Wall Street investors like Stanley Druckenmiller. In America, half of the CEOs (51%) say they're considering workforce reductions during the next six months -- and in the global survey overall, eight in ten CEOs say the same. One caveat for people who like working from home: Remote workers may find it in their best interest to show their faces in the office as their job security becomes more uncertain.

It is "likely" and/or "extremely likely" that remote workers will be laid off first, according to a majority (60%) of 3,000 managers polled by beautiful.ai, a presentation software provider. Another 20% were undecided, and the remaining 20% said it wasn't likely. When asked how they foresaw their company's working arrangements in three years for jobs traditionally in an office, nearly half of U.S. CEOs (45%) said it would be a hybrid mix of in-person and remote work. One-third (34%) said the jobs would still be in-office, and 20% said it was fully remote. CEOs across the globe sounded more keen on in-person work. Two-thirds (65%) said in-office work was the ideal, while 28% said hybrid would be the way and 7% said it would be fully remote. The global findings pulled from U.S. business leaders, but also from CEOs in Australia, Canada, China, India, Japan and certain European Union countries and the United Kingdom.

Apple's App Store net revenue fell about 5% in September, according to Morgan Stanley, the steepest drop for the business since the bank started modeling the data in 2015. From a report: The App Store saw declines in markets including the U.S., Canada and Japan, Morgan Stanley analyst Erik Woodring wrote in a report Monday. His analysis was based on data from Sensor Tower, a firm that tracks app downloads and sales. Morgan Stanley said the main culprit for the drop was gaming revenue, which was down 14% in September, according to the data.

Apple customers may be spending less due to economic concerns, Woodring wrote. Across much of the globe, consumers are facing soaring inflation and recessionary risks. "We believe the recent App Store results make clear that the global consumer has somewhat de-emphasized App Store spending in the near-term as discretionary income is reallocated to areas of pent-up demand," Woodring wrote in the note. Morgan Stanley analysts also expect to see a drop in sales on Google Play, the primary Android app store. They estimate revenue there fell 9% in September.

AmiMoJo writes: First it was chess -- now top-level US poker and match fishing have been dogged by their own claims of cheating. A casino is investigating after one player stunned poker fans by making an audacious bet to win a huge pot. Meanwhile, two fishermen have been accused of stuffing their catches with lead weights in order to win a tournament held on Lake Erie, Ohio. And world chess officials are probing whether a teen talent cheated in face-to-face matches -- something he denies. A row erupted following a high-stakes game held at the Hustler Casino in Los Angeles on Thursday night. Robbi Jade Lew stunned the table by appearing to successfully call a semi-bluff by her opponent Garrett Adelstein. Lew called an all-in bet by her opponent, risking her chips with an underwhelming hand, apparently convinced her opponent was bluffing and scooping a pot that had grown to $269,000. Pundits commentating during the livestreamed match expressed their incredulity at the gambit, while Adelstein gave his competitor an icy stare.

Japan -- which has strict laws against the use of marijuana -- should consider approving the import, manufacture and use of medicines derived from cannabis, subject to the same approval process as pharmaceuticals, a health ministry panel said. From a report: At the same time, the country should do more to discourage recreational use of the plant, the committee said in its findings following a meeting Thursday. Possession of cannabis is illegal but not its use; the panel recommended that unsanctioned use should also be made a criminal offense. While Canada, several US states and some European countries have decriminalized the recreational use of marijuana, penalties for possession, cultivation and sales of the substance in Japan can carry prison sentences of as long as 10 years. Just 1.4% of the population have ever tried cannabis, according to one study with 2017 data. Celebrities caught for possession often become front-page news.

Canada has said it is dropping all remaining Covid border restrictions, including vaccine requirements for travelers. The BBC reports: As of 1 October, travelers will also no longer need to provide proof of Covid vaccination, to undergo any testing or to isolate and quarantine. The mask mandate on planes and trains will also be lifted. The ArriveCan app -- used to upload health documents when entering Canada -- will become optional.

Federal health minister Jean-Yves Duclos said in an announcement on Monday that Canada is "in a much better position" than it was earlier in the pandemic, in part due to availability of Covid-19 vaccines and treatment options. The country's high vaccination rate - with around 82% of the population having received two doses - and a falling death rate are also factors. The report notes that vaccine mandates for travelers entering the U.S. remain in place.

Further reading: Japan To Allow Visa-Free Travel After 2 1/2 Years of Mostly Closed Borders

Using the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), astronomers have detected a new radio pulsar in a binary system with a massive non-degenerate companion star. The discovery of the pulsar, which received designation PSR J2108+4516, was detailed in a paper published September 14 on the arXiv pre-print server. Phys.Org reports: Pulsars are highly magnetized, rotating neutron stars emitting a beam of electromagnetic radiation. They are usually detected in the form of short bursts of radio emission; however, some of them are also observed via optical, X-ray and gamma-ray telescopes. Now, an international team of astronomers led by Bridget C. Andersen of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, reports the finding of a new rare type of a binary pulsar -- hosting a massive companion. The detection was made using CHIME, a radio telescope possessing a very wide field of view, large collecting area and high sensitivity across the 400-800 MHz range.

All in all, the team acquired almost three years of near-daily CHIME/Pulsar observations of PSR J2108+4516 extending from October 20, 2018 to September 3, 2021. Profile drifts over pulse phase indicated that the pulsar was experiencing significant acceleration from orbiting with a massive binary companion. The observations of PSR J2108+4516 revealed that it has a spin period of about 0.58 seconds and orbital period of 269 days. The orbital eccentricity was found to be at a level of approximately 0.09 and the pulsar's characteristic age was estimated to be around 2.1 million years. The surface magnetic field of PSR J2108+4516 was measured to be some 1.2 trillion Gauss.

When it comes to the companion object, the results suggest that its mass should be between 11.7 and 113 solar masses. The study found that the companion is a bright OBe star, known as EM* UHA 138, located at a distance of about 10,600 light years. The researchers estimate that the mass of this star is most likely between 17 and 23 solar masses. Summing up the results, the astronomers underlined that PSR J2108+4516 is the sixth young pulsar with a massive non-degenerate companion so far detected. The authors of the paper added that PSR J2108+4516 may serve as a rare laboratory for the exploration of massive star winds and circumstellar disks.

Psychiatrists in Brussels can now prescribe free visits to cultural venues to people suffering from depression, stress or anxiety. The Guardian reports: Delphine Houba, a Brussels deputy mayor in charge of culture, believes the project is the first of its kind in Europe. The first objective is to reinforce access to culture after the pressured days of lockdown, she told the Observer. "I want everybody back in our cultural institutions... but we know that, even before Covid, for some people it [was] not easy to open the door of a museum, they don't feel at ease, they don't think that it's for them. And I really want to show that cultural venues are for everybody." The second goal, she said, is to give doctors "a new tool in the healing process." The young socialist politician was inspired by a similar project in Canada, where doctors have been issuing prescriptions to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts since 2018.

In Brussels, the pilot project is running for six months, involving five museums that are directly under the control of city authorities. These include the city's history museum, a centre for contemporary art, and the fashion and lace museum. Patients may also discover the sewer museum, which allows them to stroll 10 meters underground along the banks of the Senne, the hidden river of Brussels, largely paved over in the 19th century. Or they could explore the collection of outfits belonging to the Manneken Pis, the statue of a peeing boy that has become a symbol of Belgium's self-deprecating humor

"Anything could have therapeutic value if it helps people get a good feeling and get in touch with themselves," said Dr Johan Newell, a psychiatrist at Brugmann University Hospital, which is taking part in the pilot scheme. He expects museum prescriptions would suit people suffering from depression, anxiety, autism spectrum disorders, psychosis and bipolar disorder. "I think almost anyone could benefit from it," he said. "It would probably be more adapted for people who are already a little bit further on in the recovery process," rather than those who are severely ill, he said. Museum prescriptions, Newell stressed, were a voluntary addition to medication, psychotherapy, individual or group therapy, as well as exercise, healthy eating and other forms of relaxation. "It's just one extra tool that could help people get out of the house: to resocialize, reconnect with society." Newell suggests that the pilot could eventually be expanded to include other museums, cinemas, hospitals and groups of patients.

Five luxury cars, including two BMWs, two McLarens, and a Lamborghini, have been seized from 23-year-old Aiden Pleterski, the self-described "crypto king" of Canada, during bankruptcy proceedings according to a new report from the CBC. But those cars are only worth a fraction of the $35 million that Pleterski allegedly took from investors who thought he'd make them rich in the cryptocurrency market, and it's not clear whether they'll ever see their money again. Gizmodo reports: Pleterski and his company AP Private Equity Limited are facing at least two civil lawsuits after 140 people have come forward to say they invested a combined $35 million with Pleterski. Those people believed they were investing in cryptocurrency, and Pleterski's online presence -- including photos of the 23-year-old on private jets and next to luxury cars-- helped create the image that he knew what he was doing.

Pleterski's YouTube channel and Instagram account have been deleted but it appears he purchased articles on websites like Forbes.mc (the top level domain for Monaco) and the far-right news outlet Daily Caller to get his name associated with success in crypto investment. The Daily Caller article from December 2021 includes a photo of Pleterski looking at his phone in what appears to be a private jet. Notably, December 2021 was a time when cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum were trading near all-time highs. The headline reads, "Aiden Pleterski: Meet the Young Canadian Investor Who Is Taking the World of Crypto By Storm."

The question remains whether Pleterski actually invested any of the money in crypto to begin with, and speaks to just how strange the crypto market has been over the past year. For all anyone knows, Pleterski may have actually invested the money and lost it like so many others since the peak of November 2021. Bitcoin is down 56% since its price a year ago, while ethereum is down 57%. Pleterski insists he invested the money but that he's just bad with record-keeping. But some investors suspect Pleterski didn't even bother investing the money, instead pocketing it for himself, according to people who spoke with the CBC. Investors are trying to get their money back through the bankruptcy court and two civil lawsuits, but criminal charges haven't been pursued, even though some have reported their incidents to Toronto police, according to the CBC.

President Joe Biden has declared the pandemic over in the US, even as the number of Americans who have died from Covid continues to rise. From a report: Mr Biden said that while "we still have a problem", the situation is rapidly improving. Statistics show that over 400 Americans on average are dying from the virus each day. The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said last week that the end of the pandemic is "in sight". In an interview with 60 Minutes on CBS, Mr Biden said that the US is still doing "a lot of work" to control the virus. The interview - aired over the weekend - was partly filmed on the floor of the Detroit Auto Show, where the president gestured towards the crowds. "If you notice, no one's wearing masks," he said. "Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape...I think it's changing."

In August, US officials extended the ongoing Covid-19 public health emergency, which has been in place since January 2020, through 13 October. To date, more than one million Americans have died from the pandemic. Data from Johns Hopkins University shows that the seven-day average of deaths currently stands at over 400, with more than 3,000 dead in the last week. In January 2021, by comparison, more than 23,000 people were reported dead from the virus over a single week-long span. About 65% of the total US population is considered fully vaccinated. Some federal vaccine mandates remain in place in the US - including on healthcare workers, military personnel and any non-US citizen entering the country by airplane.

First, a rumor from the blog Phone Arena. "Not to be outdone by Apple and Huawei, Samsung is planning to incorporate satellite connectivity options in its Galaxy phones as well, hints leakster Ricciolo."

But it's not the first rumor we've heard about phone vendors and satellites. "Cringley Predicts Apple is About to Create a Satellite-Based IoT Business ," read the headline in June. Long-time tech pundit Robert X. Cringely predicted that Apple would first offer some limited satellite-based functionality,

But he'd also called those services "proxies for Apple entering — and then dominating — the Internet of Things (IoT) business. "After all, iPhones will give them 1.6 billion points of presence for AirTag detection even on sailboats in the middle of the ocean — or on the South Pole.... Ubiquity (being able to track anything in near real time anywhere on the planet) signals the maturity of IoT, turning it quickly into a $1 TRILLION business — in this case Apple's $1 TRILLION business." And beyond that, "in the longer run Cupertino plans to dis-intermediate the mobile carriers — becoming themselves a satellite-based global phone and data company [and] they will also compete with satellite Internet providers like Starlink, OneWeb, and Amazon's Kuiper."

So how did Cringely react last week when Apple announced "Emergency SOS" messaging for the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus — via communication satellites — when their users are out of range of a cell signals? He began by wondering if Apple was intentionally downplaying the satellite features: They limited their usage case to emergency SOS texts in the USA and Canada, sorta said it would be just for iPhone 14s, and be free for only the first two years. They showed a satellite app and very deliberately tried to make it look difficult to use. They gave no technical details and there was no talk of industry partners.

Yet there were hints of what's to come. We (you and I, based on my previous column) already knew, for example, that ANY iPhone can be made to work with Globalstar. We also knew the deal was with Globalstar, which Apple never mentioned but Globalstar confirmed, more or less, later in the day in an SEC filing. But Apple DID mention Find My and Air Tags, notably saying they'd work through the satellites even without having to first beseech the sky with an app. So the app is less than it seems and Apple's satellite network will quickly find its use for the Internet of Things [Cringely predicts]....

Apple very specifically said nothing about the global reach of Find My and Air Tags. There is no reason why those services can't have immediate global satellite support, given that the notification system is entirely within Apple's ecosystem and is not dependent on 911-type public safety agreements.

Maybe it will take a couple years to cover the world with SOS, but not for Find My, which means not for IoT — a business headed fast toward $1 trillion and will therefore [hypothetically] have a near-immediate impact on Apple's bottom line.
Speculating further, Cringely predicts that Globalstar — which has ended up with vast tracts of licensed spectrum — will eventually be purchased by a larger company. ("If not Apple, maybe Elon Musk.")

And this leads Cringely to yet another prediction. "If Elon can't get Globalstar, he and his partners will push for the regulatory expansion into space of terrestrial 5G licenses, which will probably be successful." This will happen, frankly, whether SpaceX and T-Mobile are successful or not, because AST&Science and its investors AT&T, Verizon and Zodafone need 5G in space, too, to compete with Apple. So there WILL eventually be satellite competition for Apple and I think the International Telecommunication Union will eventually succumb to industry pressure.
And by the end Cringely is also speculating about just how Apple will come up with innovative new satellite designs on a faster schedule...

With the recent addition of Antarctica, SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service is now available on all seven continents. PC Magazine reports: The company has shipped a Starlink dish to McMurdo Station, a US research facility based on an island right off the coast of Antarctica. In a tweet on Wednesday, the National Science Foundation said that scientists with the US Antarctic Program have been testing out the dish at the site to supply increased internet bandwidth. The Starlink dish promises to offer faster internet speeds to McMurdo Station, which previously relied on satellite internet from other providers. The broadband quality had to be shared over a 17Mbps connection for the entire research facility, which can house over 1,000 people. Starlink, on the other hand, can offer much faster broadband due to the lower orbits of the company's Starlink satellites. Download speeds can range from 50 to 200Mbps for residential users, and 100 to 350Mbps for business customers through a high-performance dish, which can also withstand extreme temperatures.

To serve users in Antarctica, SpaceX has been launching batches of Starlink satellites to orbit the Earth's polar regions in an effort to beam high-speed broadband to users below, including in Alaska and northern Canada. Normally, Starlink satellites fetch the internet data by relying on ground stations on the planet's surface. But last year, SpaceX began outfitting new satellites with "laser links," which can allow them to send and receive data with each other across space. This can allow the same satellites to beam broadband without relying on a ground station below.

Last week, Twitter announced the ability to edit tweets for subscribers of its Twitter Blue service. "The company said that once the feature is available users will be able to edit their tweets for up to 30 minutes from posting," reports TechCrunch. "However, there's a catch: Users can only edit their tweets five times within this period." From the report: While this limit seems sufficient for correcting typos, uploading media files or adding some tags, the company might have introduced it to stop people from abusing the feature by changing the content on the tweet on a whim. The social media firm told TechCrunch that it's currently observing user behavior, and the number of edits available to users in the approved time frame could change.

The "edit tweet" feature will be first available to users who pay for the optional Twitter Blue subscription, but it won't be rolling out to all paid users initially. Twitter confirmed that New Zealand-based subscribers will first get the feature and it will be later pushed to Twitter Blue users in Australia, Canada and the U.S once it learns more about usage patterns. So subscribers in these three countries might have to wait a bit longer and use the service without the marquee feature.

Sunnova is one of America's largest rooftop solar companies, according to the New York Times. But they've now applied to California's Public Utilities Commission for permission to become the state's first solar (and storage) micro-utility, initiating formal steps to qualify and "request a certificate to construct and operate microgrids," targetting new home developments that aren't yet connected to the grid.

"We see a future where communities, neighborhoods, and businesses can operate independently from the legacy grid with sustainable energy sources that provide uninterrupted power," says the company's founder and CEO. "We believe microgrids address a strong need in the market for more robust energy solutions and better connectivity...." But he's also offering touting another possible benefit: "relief that the existing transmission and distribution system will experience given that most of the power that will be consumed by these communities will be generated locally from renewable resources."

The company likes to point out that America's recently-passed climate bill included tax incentives to encourage microgrids. But the New York Times describes it as "a business model that is illegal in much of the United States." Sunnova said it would offer those residents electricity that was up to 20 percent cheaper than the rates charged by investor-owned utilities like Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison. If approved by regulators, the micro-utility model, also known as a microgrid, could undermine the growth of those larger utilities by depriving them access to new homes or forcing them to lower their rates to keep that business. Sunnova executives argue that the approach they are seeking approval for was authorized under a California law passed almost two decades ago for a resort just south of Lake Tahoe. In addition, the company says advances in solar and battery technology mean that neighborhoods can be designed to generate more than enough electricity to meet their own needs at a lower cost than relying on the grid.

"If they don't want to choose me, that should be their right; if they don't want to choose you, that should be their right, too," said John Berger, the chief executive of Sunnova.

A small number of homeowners have gone off the grid as the cost of solar panels and batteries has fallen. But doing so can be hard or impossible. Some local governments have rejected permits for off-grid homes on health and safety grounds, arguing that a connection to the grid is essential. But connecting a single home to the grid can cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, which means an off-grid system may actually be cheaper — especially for properties in remote areas, or in places where the local grid is at its capacity and would require significant upgrades to serve more homes. Off-grid setups can also be appealing because once a system is paid off, the cost of operating and maintaining it is often modest and predictable, whereas utility rates can move up sharply.... The nationwide average retail electricity rate increased 11 percent in June from a year earlier, according to the Energy Information Administration.

But the kind of micro-utilities that Sunnova hopes to create have also had problems. The utopian visions of generating electricity where it is used have often run into maintenance and other problems. Many tiny utilities created under such models in the United States and Canada were later swallowed up by larger power companies.... Sunnova's microgrid approach could suffer a similar fate. But the costs of solar panels and batteries have tumbled over the last decade, making the energy that off-grid systems generate much more affordable....

Utilities have been pressing regulators to reduce the compensation homeowners receive for the excess solar energy their rooftop systems send to the grid. The companies have argued that customers with solar panels are being offered generous credits for power that they are not contributing adequately toward the cost of maintaining power lines and other grid equipment....

Building and operating microgrids could provide a steady source of income to companies like Sunnova. That could essentially transform the rooftop solar companies into the kinds of utilities that they have long fought against.
Sunnova bills itself as an "Energy as a Service" company, and they expect their microgrids to experience 30 minutes or less of outages each year, the Times points out, "compared with an average of two hours a year at California's large investor-owned utilities."

In the article, the chief executive of home-building company Lennar says they've already formed a partnership with Sunnova. "We value the current electric grid and we're intrigued by new microgrid solutions that can supplement and support the traditional utility grid and help solve reliability during extreme weather and peak demand."

Here's a Linux distro scoop from IT World Canada. "Gregory Kurtzer, who founded and once led the former open-source project CentOS Linux as well as The cAos Foundation, the organization where early development of it took place, said today a governance structure has been put in place that will keep Rocky Linux in the public domain forever." Development of Rocky Linux began shortly after, in late 2020, Red Hat terminated development of CentOS, a community-based Linux distribution derived from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that had been in existence since 2004. It is named after Jason Dale "Rocky" McGaugh, a talented programmer involved in CentOS development, who passed away in December 2004 at the age of only 30. Asked what McGaugh might have thought of the OS being named after him, Kurtzer told IT World Canada, "to be honest, he was a shy guy. I don't know if he would have liked the attention, but at the same token, he was a huge advocate of open source and a big fan of open source.

"Personally, I don't think he would have liked what happened with CentOS."

Kurtzer added that "what we are doing with Rocky Linux is really where he would have liked to see the project and open source going. When we named it Rocky Linux, it was a hat tip to him for everything he has done, not only in open source and high-performance computing (HPC), but also with the CentOS project.

"One of the last e-mails that he wrote to the e-mail list was that he was 99 per cent done development of CentOS. It was pretty much ready to go when he passed, but he never saw it released."

The key for an open-source initiative to grow and flourish, said Kurtzer, lies with registering it as a non-profit organization, which was the case with The cAos Foundation. He has done the same with Rocky Linux.
It's official name is the Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation, "backed by an advisory board of trusted individuals and team leads from the Rocky Linux community."

Netflix is moving up the timeline for the debut of its cheaper, ad-supported plan to November -- in order to get out before the Dec. 8 launch of the Disney+ tier with advertising. From a report: In July, Netflix told investors that it was targeting the launch of the ad-supported plan "around the early part of 2023." But now, Netflix's ad-supported is set to go live Nov. 1 in multiple countries, including the U.S., Canada, U.K., France and Germany, according to industry sources who have been briefed on the streamer's plans. That would be a little over a month before Disney+ Basic, priced at $7.99/month, hits the market in the U.S.

Netflix declined to comment. "We are still in the early days of deciding how to launch a lower-priced, ad-supported tier and no decisions have been made," a company rep said. Sources confirmed the new Nov. 1 launch date, which was previously reported by the Wall Street Journal. Netflix and its exclusive ad partner, Microsoft, have requested ad buyers submit initial bids next week, with a "soft $65 CPM" -- the cost per thousand views -- meaning that the company is open to negotiating the ad rates. That's well above industry CPMs of sub-$20. Sources speculate Netflix's request for proposals from ad buyers will function as a Dutch auction, with the company looking to see what the market will bear.