At Microsoft's Ignite conference this month, the company announced a new vision for its personal productivity assistant, Cortana -- one which aimed to make it more useful in your day-to-day work, including email, but one which also saw Microsoft scaling its ambitions back from Cortana as a true Siri, Alexa or Google Assistant competitor. Now, the other shoe has dropped, as Microsoft says it's planning to shut down its standalone Cortana mobile apps across a number of markets. From a report: The company quietly revealed its plans to wind down support for Cortana on iOS and Android in several regions, with an end-of-life date of January 31st, 2020. After this point, Cortana mobile app will no longer be supported. Microsoft also said it will release an updated version of its Microsoft Launcher, that will have Cortana removed. Microsoft tells us the impacted markets include Great Britain, Australia, Germany, Mexico, China, Spain, Canada, and India. While the U.S. isn't in this list today, it would not be surprising to see its support pulled at a later date. The Cortana app for iOS is only ranked No. 254 in the Productivity category on the App Store, and only No. 145 on Google Play, according to current data from Sensor Tower.

Microsoft has added more than 50 new games to the preview of its Project xCloud game streaming service, including Devil May Cry 5, Tekken 7 and Madden 2020. Engadget reports: In a blog post today, Microsoft said it'll send out a new wave of xCloud preview invites to gamers in the US, UK and South Korea. Starting next year, it also plans to expand the preview to Canada, India, Japan and Western Europe. If you live in one of those countries, you can sign up for the preview here and hope you get selected.

For now, the xCloud preview is only available for Android phones and tablets, but Microsoft says next year it'll also be headed to Windows PCs and other devices. I'm sure Roku owners would be pleased, but it'd be even more intriguing if Microsoft could eventually bring the xCloud preview to smart TVs and Apple devices. While testers need to use Xbox controllers with the service now, Microsoft also says it'll work with other bluetooth controllers next year, including Sony's Dual Shock 4 and Razer's entries. Yes, you'll soon live in a world where you can play Halo with a PlayStation branded gamepad. Among other tidbits, the xCloud preview will also let gamers stream titles they already own next year, as well those made available through Xbox GamePass for subscribers.

Instagram is making Like counts private for some users everywhere. From a report: Instagram tells TechCrunch the hidden Likes test is expanding to a subset of users globally. Users will have to decide for themselves if something is worth Liking rather than judging by the herd. The change could make users more comfortable sharing what's important to them without the fear of people seeing them receive an embarrassingly small number of likes. Instagram began hiding Likes in April in Canada and then brought the test to Ireland, Italy, Japan, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand in July. Facebook started a similar experiment in Australia in September. Instagram said last week the test would expand to the US, but now it's running everywhere to a small percentage of users in each country.

Disney Plus launched early Tuesday, and users are already complaining of service failures. From a report: So far, Disney Plus complaints are clustered in big cities in the Eastern US and Canada, lining up with the the areas likely to experiencing peak demand early Tuesday morning, according to outage tracker DownDetector. The tracker also showed complaints in the Netherlands, where Disney Plus launched as a subscription service Tuesday after operating as a free beta app for weeks. Disney said that demand for Disney Plus has exceeded its "high expectations."

"We are pleased by this incredible response and are working to quickly resolve the current user issue. We appreciate your patience," the company said in a statement. The complaints run a gamut of errors, including difficulties logging in, inability to stream, app failures, shows and movies disappearing from the library and other problems.

The IRS's criminal division identified "dozens" of potential cryptocurrency tax evaders or cybercriminals after a meeting this week with tax authorities from four other countries. Bloomberg reports: Officials from the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada and the Netherlands -- known as the Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement -- shared data, tools and tax enforcement strategies to find new leads in a quest to mitigate cross-border money-laundering, tax evasion and cybercrime. The IRS's cybercrime unit has developed expertise in "who is moving the money and where it's going," Ryan Korner, a senior special agent in the IRS's Criminal Investigations office in Los Angeles, said in a call with reporters Friday. "We have tools in place that we didn't have six months or a year ago."

The effort is part of the Internal Revenue Service's renewed focus on fighting tax evasion tied to cryptocurrency as digital currency has become more popular and gained in value. The agency has struggled in recent years to enforce tax laws and keep up with criminals as technology has advanced. "Tax fraud is not a new crime, but the sophistication with which criminals commit tax fraud has significantly increased through cyber-related activities in recent years," the joint chiefs said in a statement. "Data breaches, intrusions, takeovers and compromises are the new tools that criminals use to commit tax crimes." The IRS is preparing for a new wave of cryptocurrency audits. The agency sent letters to more than 10,000 people earlier this year, warning that they might be subject to penalties for skirting taxes on their virtual investments. The IRS and its partners are using data from previous enforcement activities to find new criminals, Korner said. Using the data from the five countries gives them a broader view of how accounts, money and people are connected.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: Enterprise information management (EIM) company OpenText is acquiring cloud data backup and protection service Carbonite in a deal worth $1.42 billion. Carbonite, which offers a number of data backup and protection services for consumers and businesses, had become the subject of significant takeover rumors over the past few months after its revenue dropped. CEO Mohamad Ali stepped down in July and was replaced on an interim basis by board chair Steve Munford.

Carbonite's announcement was timed to coincide with its Q3 2019 financials, which revealed a net loss of $14 million, compared to a small net income of $600,000 during the same period last year. Founded in 1991, OpenText is among Canada's biggest software companies, specializing in helping enterprises manage all their content and unstructured data in the cloud or on-premises. The company has made a number of other notable acquisitions in the recent past, including Dell EMC's enterprise content division, which it bought for $1.6 billion in 2017, and file-sharing service Hightail, formerly YouSendIt, which it bought for an undisclosed amount last year. OpenText hasn't offered any specifics around how it will leverage Carbonite's technology post-acquisition. But the latter's focus on backing up and protecting data stored in the cloud makes it easy to imagine the two platforms complementing each other as a growing number of businesses migrate to the cloud. "Following expressions of interest from multiple parties, the Carbonite board conducted a thorough and comprehensive process, which included contact with a number of strategic and financial parties, to identify the best way to maximize shareholder value," Munford said in a press release. "The board strongly believes that a transaction with OpenText delivers compelling, immediate, and substantial cash value to shareholders."

An unspecified number of smart TVs manufactured by Samsung will lose native support for Netflix next month, the companies said in an announcement this week. From a report: Netflix app installed -- or available for -- Samsung smart TVs manufactured in 2010 and 2011 (C and D lineups) -- and likely sold for many years after that -- will stop functioning December 2, Samsung alerted customers this week. In a statement, a company spokesperson said these TV models were sold only in the U.S. and Canada. In its statement, the top smart TV manufacturer advised affected customers to look for a game console, streaming media player, set-top box or other devices that still support Netflix app to continue their binge-watching sessions. A Netflix spokesperson cited technical limitations for the change. The developement comes weeks after Netflix alerted several Roku customers that they, too, will lose access to the streaming service on December 1.

Something strange is happening with text messages in the US right now. Overnight, a multitude of people received text messages that appear to have originally been sent on or around Valentine's Day 2019. From a report: These people never received the text messages in the first place; the people who sent the messages had no idea that they had never been received, and they did nothing to attempt to resend them overnight. Delayed messages were sent from and received by both iPhones and Android phones, and the messages seem to have been sent and received across all major carriers in the US. Many of the complaints involve T-Mobile or Sprint, although AT&T and Verizon have been mentioned as well. People using regional US carriers, carriers in Canada, and even Google Voice also seem to have experienced delays. At fault seems to be a system that multiple cell carriers use for messaging. A Sprint spokesperson said a "maintenance update" last night caused the error.

Earlier this year at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Microsoft announced the second generation of its HoloLens augmented reality visor. Today, the $3,500 HoloLens 2 is going on sale in the United States, Japan, China, Germany, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Australia and New Zealand, the same countries where it was previously available for pre-order. From a report: Ahead of the launch, I got to spend some time with the latest model, after a brief demo in Barcelona earlier this year. Users will immediately notice the larger field of view, which still doesn't cover your full field of view, but offers a far better experience compared to the first version (where you often felt like you were looking at the virtual objects through a stamp-sized window). The team also greatly enhanced the overall feel of wearing the device. It's not light, at 1.3 pounds, but with the front visor that flips up and the new mounting system that is far more comfortable. In regular use, existing users will also immediately notice the new gestures for opening up the Start menu (this is Windows 10, after all). Instead of a 'bloom' gesture, which often resulted in false positives, you now simply tap on the palm of your hand, where a Microsoft logo now appears when you look at it.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: Last month was the hottest ever October on record globally, according to data released Friday by the Copernicus Climate Change Service, an organization that tracks global temperatures. The month, which was reportedly 1.24 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the average October from 1981-2010, narrowly beat October 2015 for the top spot. According to Copernicus, most of Europe, large parts of the Arctic and the eastern U.S. and Canada were most affected. The Middle East, much of Africa, southern Brazil, Australia, eastern Antarctica and Russia also experienced above-average temperatures. Parts of tropical Africa and Antarctica and the western U.S. and Canada felt much colder than usual, however. While all major oceans experienced unusually low temperatures, air temperatures over the sea were still much higher than average.

October is following a 2019 trend. The hottest-ever September follows a record-setting summer, which included the hottest-ever June and July and the second-hottest August. Overall, 2019 will make history as one of the top five warmest years on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. Temperatures from November 2018 to October 2019 were above average for "virtually all of Europe," and most other areas of land and ocean, Copernicus said.

haaz (Slashdot reader #3,346) tells us that history has just been made as part of the Children's Miracle Network Hospitals annual online game-playing fundraiser, Extra Life:
A man from Milwaukee, Wisconsin is trying to play pinball long enough to break the standing Guinness World Record for Longest Marathon Pinball Play of 30 hours 10 minutes.

He's using Extra Life's gaming/DIY fundraising site to webcast his attempt and raise money for Children's Hospital of Wisconsin. He gets a five minute break every hour, and yes, he's wearing an adult diaper.
Just minutes ago on Twitter, the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin announced he'd beaten the record. And lots of other fundraising game-playing marathons are happening around the world today, including one in Canada -- and many of them are being streamed online.

The event began in 2008, and over the last four years has raised close to $10 million each year. As one gaming site put it, "Let's help the future programmers of our cyborg overlords fulfill their mission by streaming some video games for the kids this weekend!"

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: New details about how Uber responded to a massive hack attack in 2016 raise questions about the way it handled sensitive customer information. Instead of reporting the hackers to police, the company allegedly paid $100,000 in exchange for a promise to delete 57 million user files the men stole off a third party server, prosecutors said. Within weeks of paying the ransom, Uber employees showed up at Brandon Glover's Winter Park, Florida, home and found Vasile Mereacre at a hotel restaurant in Toronto, Canada, the Justice Department said. The pair admitted their crimes, but Uber didn't turn them over to the cops. Instead, they had the hackers sign non-disclosure agreements, promising to keep quiet. The two hackers pleaded guilty on Wednesday.

But there was a third person involved who was unknown to Uber, U.S. attorney for Northern California Dave Anderson told CBS News correspondent Kris Van Cleave in an exclusive interview. Anderson, who investigated the hack, said there's "no way to know definitively" what actually happened to the stolen data. [...] The hackers also targeted a company owned by LinkedIn in December of 2016, but prosecutors say LinkedIn did not pay and promptly reported the hack to police. Uber eventually did as well -- a year after the hack, when new CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, publicly disclosed the attack. The two known hackers were eventually arrested and pleaded guilty on Wednesday to conspiracy to commit extortion charges. They face a maximum of five years in prison. The third person involved remains at large.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Globe and Mail: A confidential Sidewalk Labs document from 2016 lays out the founding vision of the Google-affiliated development company, which included having the power to levy its own property taxes, track and predict people's movements and control some public services. The document, which The Globe and Mail has seen, also describes how people living in a Sidewalk community would interact with and have access to the space around them -- an experience based, in part, on how much data they're willing to share, and which could ultimately be used to reward people for "good behavior." Known internally as the "yellow book," the document was designed as a pitch book for the company, and predates Sidewalk's relationship and formal agreements with Toronto by more than a year. Peppered with references to Disney theme parks and noted futurist Buckminster Fuller, it says Sidewalk intended to "overcome cynicism about the future."

But the 437-page book documents how much private control of city services and city life Google parent company Alphabet Inc.'s leadership envisioned when it created the company, which could soon be entitled to some of the most valuable underdeveloped real estate in North America, estimated by one firm to be worth more than half-a-billion dollars. Since 2017, Sidewalk has been in negotiations with the government agency Waterfront Toronto to redevelop a lucrative section of the city's derelict eastern waterfront. Both parties have been working toward a development deal ahead of an Oct. 31 vote, which The Globe reported Tuesday is expected to be on terms that are favorable to Waterfront Toronto. That includes a reduction in the amount of land Sidewalk would have control over, better guarantees for privacy in the neighborhood and better opportunities for Canadian entities to profit from innovations there. "Sidewalk will require tax and financing authority to finance and provide services, including the ability to impose, capture and reinvest property taxes," the book said. The company would also create and control its own public services, including charter schools, special transit systems and a private road infrastructure.

As for public safety and criminal justice, the book mentions "an alternative approach to jail," using data from so-called "root-cause asseessment tools." "This would guide officials in determining a response when someone is arrested, such as sending someone to a substance abuse center," reports The Globe. "The overall criminal justice system and policing of serious crimes and emergencies would be 'likely to remain within the purview of the host government's police department,' however."

Sidewalk Labs released its official plan in June, which includes building ten new buildings, integrating Toronto's light-rail system to serve the new neighborhood, and installing public Wi-Fi.

California's largest power utility began power shut-offs today for an estimated 2.35 million people -- expected to last two days -- after weather forecasts predicted extreme fire danger due to exceptionally dry weather and severe winds, according to the Washington Post. "Some gusts this weekend might reach 75 mph (120 kph) or higher as part of a 'historic' wind event, the National Weather Service said. The winds could lead to 'erratic fire behavior,' warned the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection..."

The San Jose Mercury News reports: PG&E won't restore power until inspections of de-energized lines are completed and any damage to the system is repaired. The utility also has requested mutual aid from 1,000 workers from other energy companies, including ATCO Energy in Alberta, Canada; Xcel Energy in Minnesota; and Florida Power & Light. Those crews are expected to be staged and in place to do repairs by Sunday, according to the company.
50,000 people living near Northern California's wine country were also ordered to evacuate, as firefighters struggled to contain an already-burning 25,955-acre wildfire nearby which is only 10% contained. And 40,000 people were ordered to evacuate homes in Southern California near Santa Clarita, where the 4,600-acre Tick Fire is now 25% contained.

In the turbid, frigid waters roaring from the glaciers of Canada's high Arctic, researchers have made a surprising discovery: for decades, the northern rivers secretly pulled carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at a rate faster than the Amazon rainforest. From a report: The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, flip the conventional understanding of rivers, which are largely viewed as sources of carbon emissions. "It was a total surprise," said Dr Kyra St Pierre, a biologist at the University of British Columbia and lead researcher on the project. "Given what we know about the rivers though ... the findings are intuitive when you think about it. But we were initially very surprised to see what we did." The discovery came from time spent collecting meltwater samples on Ellesmere Island, in Canada's Nunavut territory, where several glaciers flow into Lake Hazen. The team of researchers also gathered samples in the Rocky Mountains and Greenland.

"We have a pretty good understanding of the state of glaciers globally," said St Pierre. "One thing we don't know much about is the meltwaters and what happens when it ... flows into rivers and downstream lakes." In temperate rivers, a bounty of organic material -- plant life and fish -- results in higher levels of decomposition, meaning the bodies of water emit a far greater amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than they absorb. But glacial rivers, with their milky appearance and silt-laden composition, are not very hospitable to aquatic life, leading to far less organic decay -- and little carbon output.

Freshly Exhumed shares a report from Futurism: Canada's Hyperstealth Biotechnology already manufactures camouflage uniforms for militaries across the globe. But now, the company has patented a new "Quantum Stealth" material that disguises a military's soldiers -- or even its tanks, aircraft, and ships -- by making anything behind it seem invisible. Earlier in October, Hyperstealth filed a patent for the material, which doesn't require a power source and is both paper-thin and inexpensive -- all traits that could make it appealing for use on the battlefield. Alongside the news of the patent application, Hyperstealth released more than 100-minutes worth of footage describing and demonstrating the material.

For the third time, someone who vandalized a Tesla discovered that the car's "Sentry Mode" had filmed them -- and after the video went viral online, decided to turn themselves in.

An anonymous reader quotes Electrek: The 20-year-old said that he was frustrated after a car cut him off and he thought the Model 3 might have been the same car. The Edmonton man said that he saw the video online and "became overcome with disappointment and embarrassment." He added that he doesn't have anything against Tesla and he regretted doing it right away...

Earlier this month, we reported on the case of Alan Tweedie's Tesla Model 3 being keyed badly by a woman for seemingly no reason while he was at his daughter's soccer game. The Tesla Sentry mode video of her keying the car went viral and she ended up turning herself in. There was also another similar incident involving two men who ended up turning themselves in earlier this year and now this new incident in Canada becomes the third example of vandals turning themselves in because of Sentry mode.

While Tesla Sentry Mode is useful to capture those incidents and pressure the vandals, the hope is that the feature gets publicized enough that people become less inclined to vandalize Tesla vehicles in the first place.

Jack Newcombe, the Chief Operating Officer of a syndication company with 44 million daily readers, describes the strange voice he heard talking to his 18-month old son: She says we have a nice house and encourages the nanny to respond. She does not. The voice even jokes that she hopes we don't change our password. I am sick to my stomach. After about five minutes of verbal "joy riding," the voice starts to get agitated at the nanny's lack of response and then snaps, in a very threatening voice: "I'm coming for the baby if you don't answer me...." We unplug the cameras and change all passwords...

Still helpless, I started doing the only thing I could do -- Googling. I typed "Nest + camera + hacked" and found out that this happens frequently. Parent after parent relayed stories similar to mine -- threatening to steal a baby is shockingly common -- and some much worse, such as playing pornography over the microphone to a 3-year-old... What is worse is that anyone could have been watching us at any time for as long as we have had the cameras up. This person just happened to use the microphone. Countless voyeurs could have been silently watching (or worse) for months.

However, what makes this issue even more terrifying is a corporate giant's complete and utter lack of response. Nest is owned by Google, and, based on my experience and their public response, Google does not seem to care about this issue. They acknowledge it as a problem, shrug their shoulders and point their fingers at the users. Their party line is to remind people that the hardware was not hacked; it was the user's fault for using a compromised password and not implementing two-step authentication, in which users receive a special code via text to sign on. That night, on my way home from work, I called Nest support and was on hold for an hour and eight minutes. I followed all directions and have subsequently received form emails in broken English. Nobody from Google has acknowledged the incident or responded with any semblance of empathy. In every email, they remind me of two-step authentication.

They act as if I am going to continue to use Nest cameras.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: While the 2020 U.S. presidential elections have lawmakers on edge over AI-generated fake videos, a new study by Netherlands-based deepfake-detection outfit Deeptrace shows that the main victims today are women. According to Deeptrace, deepfake videos have exploded in the past year, rising from 8,000 in December 2018 to 14,678 today. And not surprisingly for the internet, nearly all of the material is pornography, which accounts for 96% of the deepfake videos it's found online. The fake videos have been viewed 134 million times.

The numbers suggest deepfake porn is still niche but also growing quickly. Additionally, 90% of the fake content depicted women from the U.S., UK, and Canada, while 2% represented women from South Korea and 2% depicted women from Taiwan. "Deepfake pornography is a phenomenon that exclusively targets and harms women," the company notes. That small number of non-pornographic deepfake videos it analyzed on YouTube mostly contained (61%) synthesized male subjects. According to Henry Ajder, a researcher at Deeptrace, currently most of the deepfake porn involves famous women. But he reckons the threat to all women is likely to increase as it becomes less computationally expensive to create deepfakes. As for the political threat, there actually aren't that many cases where deepfakes have changed a political outcome.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Federal authorities in the U.S. have unsealed charges against the South Korean operator of a child porn ring that's been billed as the world's "largest dark web child porn marketplace." The child porn site, known as Welcome to Video, charged some users in Bitcoin and authorities say they successfully unmasked those Bitcoin transactions in order to catch the perpetrators. An additional 337 people from around the world have been charged in relation to the Tor-based site. Welcome to Video contained over 200,000 videos of child sexual abuse and had users from countries like the U.S., UK, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Ireland, Spain, Brazil, and Australia, according to the indictment, which was uploaded by NBC News reporter Cyrus Farivar. Users could download videos through a system of credits that could be gained by referring new users or by buying those credits with Bitcoin.

Charges in the U.S. against the site's operator Jong Woo Son were only unveiled today, but the 23-year-old Korean national was arrested in March of 2018 and is already behind bars in South Korea. The operation was a joint investigation by numerous law enforcement agencies around the globe. Between June 2015 and March 2018, Welcome to Video received Bitcoin transactions totaling over $370,000 in U.S currency. Undercover agents in Washington D.C. monitored the site, filled with images of child rape, and were able to deanonymize the Bitcoin transactions, something that average users often believe is impossible. The investigation uncovered at least two former federal law enforcement officials allegedly involved in the child porn site, a 35-year-old U.S. Border Patrol Agent from Texas, and a former HSI special agent, also from Texas.