The U.S. Postal Service will order more than twice the number of electric vehicles initially projected for its new fleet, the agency announced Wednesday. From a report: The move follows months of controversy after the Postal Service initially sought to make about 10 percent of its fleet electric. Now it plans to make at least 40 percent of its fleet electric. The Postal Service said in a statement it adjusted the fleet's Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement to include more electric vehicles under the current contract. The Postal Service is targeting a purchase of at least 25,000 electric vehicles, it said. The Postal Service said in February that its initial order to have 10 percent of its new trucks be electric included an option to adjust the percentage later, but the announcement sparked pushback from members of Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency. The Postal Service maintains the largest vehicle fleet in the federal government, and critics argued that not including more electric vehicles in the fleet would fly in the face of President Biden's push for the federal government to pursue carbon neutrality.

Microsoft has launched a platform to train the artificial intelligence (AI) systems of autonomous aircraft. From a report: Project AirSim is, in effect, a flight simulator for drones, which companies can use to train and develop software controlling them. It makes it possible for test flights in places that would be too risky in reality, such as near power lines. And it means, Microsoft says, that millions of flights can be simulated in seconds. For example, companies can virtually see how the vehicle flies in rain, or how strong winds might affect its battery life. In a statement announcing the launch, Microsoft's Gurdeep Pall said that it showed "the power of the industrial metaverse -- the virtual worlds where businesses will build, test and hone solutions, and then bring them into the real world." The firm envisages the tech being used to train the AI systems which fly autonomous air vehicles from air taxis to delivery drones.

Google said it will pause hiring for two weeks, after saying last week it would slow its pace of hiring for the rest of the year. From a report: In an email to employees viewed by The Information, Prabhakar Raghavan, a senior vice president at Google, said the hiring pause would not impact offers that had already been extended to applicants, but that Google would not make any new offers until the pause was over. "We'll use this time to review our headcount needs and align on a new set of prioritized Staffing Requests for the next three months," Raghavan said.

Zipmex, a Singapore-based digital assets trading platform, today announced that it is pausing customer withdrawals. From a report: The company took to Twitter on Wednesday to announce the move, citing "a combination of circumstances beyond our control" that made it take the decision. "Due to a combination of circumstances beyond our control including volatile market conditions, and the resulting financial difficulties of our key business partners, to maintain the integrity of our platform, we would be pausing withdrawals until further notice," said the exchange.

Zipmex, which markets itself as "Asia's leading digital assets exchange" and has offices in Thailand, Indonesia, and Australia, offers a variety of products including cryptocurrency spot trading and interest-bearing accounts. According to the company's website, users can enjoy up to 10% in rewards per year by depositing their funds on the platform. For example, Zipmex claims to offer 6% returns on Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), and 10% on the USDC stablecoin. The startup, which counts Eduardo Saverin's B Capital as an investor, had concluded a $52 million fundraise in March this year.

An installation-art company called META (or Meta.is) announced Tuesday that it will be suing Meta (or Facebook) for trademark violation, alleging that Zuckerberg's name change violated the smaller company's established brand. The Verge reports: "On October 28, 2021, Facebook seized our META mark and name, which we put our blood, sweat, and tears into building for over twelve years," reads a post on the smaller company's site. "Today, after eight months of trying to negotiate with Facebook in good faith to no avail, we were left with no choice but to file a lawsuit against them."

Much of the case hinges on Facebook's many privacy scandals, which Meta.is argues has made it impossible to share the name. "Meta can no longer provide goods and services under the META mark," the complaint argues, "because consumers are likely to mistakenly believe that Meta's goods and services emanate from Facebook and that Meta is associated with the toxicity that is inextricably linked with Facebook."

Meta.is holds a valid trademark for the name but may still be facing an uphill battle in court, given the broad range of trademark applications Facebook has made since the name change became official -- including separate marks for messaging, social networks, and financial services. There are also a number of trademarks claiming the Meta name for non-tech products, including a hard seltzer and manufacturer of prosthetic limbs.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: An Italian court has ordered Cloudflare to block three torrent sites on its public DNS resolver 1.1.1.1. The anti-piracy measures were requested by local music industry group FIMI and anti-piracy group FPM. [...] Rightsholders agree that there's no silver bullet to stop piracy, but they argue that Cloudflare can and should do more to address the problem. In a case before the Court of Milan, they argued that Cloudflare should go even further. In court, anti-piracy outfit FPM and the music group FIMI pointed out that Cloudflare's DNS resolver is problematic too. This DNS resolver helps people to access pirate sites, even when the sites are not using Cloudflare's CDN services. As such, Cloudflare should be required to block problematic sites on its DNS servers too. After hearing these arguments the Milan Court agreed. It issued an interim injunction that requires Cloudflare to block three torrent sites: kickasstorrents.to, limetorrents.pro and ilcorsaronero.pro. These sites are already blocked by ISPs in Italy following an order from local regulator AGCOM.

This is the first time that Cloudflare has been ordered to make pirate sites unavailable through its public DNS resolver 1.1.1.1. This is an important expansion since many Italians switched to public DNS resolvers to bypass ISP blocking measures. With the court order, rightsholders can remove this shortcut. "We welcome the Court's decision which will further strengthen the ongoing infringing site blocking program performed by AGCOM in Italy, whilst also increasing the efficiency of the enforcement actions carried out by the rightsholders to protect their online content," says FIMI CEO Enzo Mazza. [...] In theory, similar injunctions could follow against other DNS providers as well, including Google and OpenDNS. "The ruling opens the door to others that offer similar services, such as Google," Mazza told local media.

NSO Group's Pegasus spyware was used to target Thai pro-democracy protesters and leaders calling for reforms to the monarchy. "We forensically confirmed that at least 30 individuals were infected with NSO Group's Pegasus spyware," reports Citizen Lab. "The observed infections took place between October 2020 and November 2021." Here's an excerpt from the report: Introduction: Surveillance & Repression in Thailand: The Kingdom of Thailand is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary-style government divided into executive, legislative, and judiciary branches. The country has been beset by intense political conflict since 2005, during the government of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Corruption allegations against the regime culminated in a military coup on September 19, 2006 that ousted Thaksin. The military launched another coup on May 22, 2014 and seized power following mass protests against the civilian government led by Thaksin's sister, Yingluck Shinawatra. The junta claimed that the 2014 coup was needed to restore order and called itself the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO).

Findings: Pegasus Infections in Thailand: On November 23, 2021, Apple began sending notifications to iPhone users targeted by state-backed attacks with mercenary spyware. The recipients included individuals that Apple believes were targeted with NSO Group's FORCEDENTRY exploit. Many Thai civil society members received this warning. Shortly thereafter, multiple recipients of the notification made contact with the Citizen Lab and regional groups. In collaboration with Thai organizations iLaw and DigitalReach, forensic evidence was obtained from notification recipients, and other suspected victims, who consented to participate in a research study with the Citizen Lab. We then performed a technical analysis of forensic artifacts to determine whether these individuals were infected with Pegasus or other spyware. Victims publicly named in this report consented to be identified as such, while others chose to remain anonymous, or have their cases described with limited detail.

Civil Society Pegasus Infections: We have identified at least 30 Pegasus victims among key civil society groups in Thailand, including activists, academics, lawyers, and NGO workers. The infections occurred from October 2020 to November 2021, coinciding with a period of widespread pro-democracy protests, and predominantly targeted key figures in the pro-democracy movement. In numerous cases, multiple members of movements or organizations were infected. Many of the victims included in this report have been repeatedly detained, arrested, and imprisoned for their political activities or criticism of the government. Many of the victims have also been the subject of lese-majeste prosecutions by the Thai government. While many of the infections were detected on the devices of prominent figures, hacking was also observed against individuals who are not publicly involved in the protests. Speculatively, this may reflect the attackers' intent to uncover details about how opposition movements were organized, and may have been prompted by specific financial transactions that would have been known to Thai financial institutions and the government, but not the public.

Volkswagen's plan to roll out a new line of sporty electric trucks and SUVs under the resurrected Scout brand is a rare chance to win back Americans' hearts, Scout's new boss tells Axios in an exclusive interview. From the report: VW sees an opportunity to reconnect with U.S. consumers by offering EVs in the segments they care most about: pickup trucks and large SUVs. [...] "It's time now to concentrate more on the U.S. market and the U.S. customer, and one piece of the puzzle, for sure, is Scout," Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess said while chauffeuring me in one of his company's first U.S.-built EVs, the ID.4 compact SUV. Between Scout and further growth of the Volkswagen and Audi brands, the VW Group aims to double its U.S. market share, which currently stands at about 5%. "America is probably the country where we have the biggest potential worldwide," Diess told me.

Scout will be an independent U.S.-based company, which will allow it the flexibility to take on partners or other investors -- or even go public some day, Volkswagen execs said. Scout will develop what the company calls a "true American" electric SUV and pickup truck designed for rugged, off-road use. With a dedicated engineering platform, Scout expects to provide new conveniences and connectivity to meet different needs, like camping, off-roading or work site use. The hope is that the iconic Scout name can help the company penetrate the highly profitable American market for big SUVs and pickup trucks, which is currently dominated by U.S. brands like Ford, Chevrolet, Jeep and Ram. Production will start in 2026, and the aim is to sell up to 250,000 Scout-branded vehicles annually in the U.S. The report notes that Scout was originally developed in 1961 by International Harvester as a precursor to the modern SUV. "It was marketed as an all-terrain family recreational vehicle and eventually came in several body styles, competing with Land Rover, Jeep, and the Ford Bronco," reports Axios. "Production ended in 1980, but Scout SUVs remain popular with collectors."

Volkswagen acquired the rights to the Scout brand name in 2020.

Cloud services and servers hosted by Google and Oracle in the UK have dropped offline due to cooling issues as the nation experiences a record-breaking heatwave. From a report: When the mercury hit 40.3C (104.5F) in eastern England, the highest ever registered by a country not used to these conditions, datacenters couldn't take the heat. Selected machines were powered off to avoid long-term damage, causing some resources, services, and virtual machines to became unavailable, taking down unlucky websites and the like.

Multiple Oracle Cloud Infrastructure resources are offline, including networking, storage, and compute provided by its servers in the south of UK. Cooling systems were blamed, and techies switched off equipment in a bid to prevent hardware burning out, according to a status update from Team Oracle. "As a result of unseasonal temperatures in the region, a subset of cooling infrastructure within the UK South (London) Data Centre has experienced an issue," Oracle said on Tuesday at 1638 UTC. "As a result some customers may be unable to access or use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure resources hosted in the region.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Four months ago, Netflix began its crackdown on password sharing by creating an "extra member" fee for users who share accounts with people they don't live with. The extra member fee of about $2 to $3 per month was implemented in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru, with Netflix saying it would evaluate the rollout before making changes in other countries. On Monday this week, Netflix announced a different kind of fee it will charge customers who share accounts.

The new one requires customers to pay for "extra homes" and will be charged starting August 22 in Argentina, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. "Beginning August 22, 2022, if your Netflix account is being used on a TV outside of your home, you will need to pay an extra $2.99 per month for each extra home. You will only be charged when you or someone who uses your account chooses to add an extra home -- this fee will NOT be automatically charged," Netflix says on its Honduras pricing page. The fee for each extra home is also $2.99 a month in the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, and Guatemala. In Argentina, the fee is 219 pesos per month (about $1.70 USD). Netflix apparently is aiming for a broader rollout of an account-sharing fee or fees by the end of this year.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Exactly 10 years ago today, Microsoft completed its $1.2 billion purchase of Yammer, an enterprise-focused social networking platform. Despite a big Yammer overhaul in 2019, Microsoft has been increasingly focused on Teams and its new Viva platform as the hubs of communication in workplaces. Microsoft is now launching Viva Engage today, a new Facebook-like app inside Teams that encourages social networking at work.

Viva Engage builds on some of the strengths of Yammer, promoting digital communities, conversations, and self-expression in the workplace. While Yammer often feels like an extension of SharePoint and Office, Viva Engage looks like a Facebook replica. It includes a storylines section, which is effectively your Facebook news feed, featuring conversational posts, videos, images, and more. It looks and feels just like Facebook, and it's clearly designed to feel similar so employees will use it to share news or even personal interests.

Federal investigators "disrupted" a North Korean state-sponsored hacking group that targeted US medical facilities and other health organizations, a top Justice Department official said Tuesday. From a report: The attacks included the targeting of a medical center in Kansas last year, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said, disabling the hospital's systems that store important data and run key equipment. Monaco said the government's investigation led to a public warning, with the Department of Homeland Security, about "Maui" ransomware targeting the health sector.

"The hospital's leadership faced an impossible choice: Give in to the ransom demand, or cripple the ability of the doctors and nurses to provide critical care," Monaco said at the International Conference on Cyber Security at Fordham University in New York. The Biden administration has increasingly warned of cyber threats from countries, including Russia, and has urged the private sector to do more to harden its security. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, for instance, has widely published tips it said could help deter and mitigate potentially disruptive attacks.

Google will start allowing the developers of non-gaming apps in the European Economic Area (EEA) to offer alternate payment systems. In a blog post, Google outlines its plans to comply with the Digital Markets Act (or DMA), a piece of legislation aimed at regulating big tech. From a report: The DMA passed through the European Parliament earlier this month, but it isn't expected to go into force until spring 2023. But Google is rolling out the changes ahead of time to make sure that its plans "serve the needs" of users.

The legislation requires "gatekeepers," or companies with a market capitalization of $75.8 billion or over, to follow a set of rules meant to promote competition among digital platforms. Failing to comply could lead to fines of up to 10 percent of a firm's global revenue or 20 percent in case of repeat offenses. Android developers who choose to use an alternate payment processor will still have to pay Google a service fee for each transaction on the first $1 million they make within one year. However, Google says it will reduce this fee by 3 percent, meaning the company will take a 12 percent or lower cut from every transaction. If developers make more than $1 million in one year, Google will charge developers a 27 percent fee on transactions (3 percent less than the standard 30 percent).

The UK is set to become home to the world's largest automated drone superhighway within the next two years. The drones will be used on the 164-mile Skyway project connecting towns and cities, including Cambridge and Rugby. From a report: It is part of a $328.3m funding package for the aerospace sector which will be revealed by Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng on Monday. Other projects include drones delivering mail to the Isles of Scilly and medication across Scotland. Mr Kwarteng is to announce the news at the Farnborough International Airshow -- the first to be held since 2019. He will say the funding will "help the sector seize on the enormous opportunities for growth that exist as the world transitions to cleaner forms of flight."

Dave Pankhurst, director of drones at BT, told the BBC that Skyway is about scaling up trials that have been taking place around the UK. BT is one of the partners involved in the collaboration. "This drone capability has existed for quite some time, but is in its infancy in terms of being actually part of our society and being a usable application," he said. "So for us, this is about taking a significant step towards that point. It's going to open up so many opportunities." Skyway aims to connect the airspace above Reading, Oxford, Milton Keynes, Cambridge, Coventry and Rugby by mid-2024, and will receive more than $14.4m. A total of $126.8m of the government's funding will be specifically for projects relating to "integrated aviation systems and new vehicle technologies", including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) such as drones.

Alphabet's Google and Meta Platforms's Facebook have submitted to Indonesian regulations that grant Jakarta sweeping powers to shut down content it deems undesirable and tax digital sales. From a report: The US giants were among the last of several internet media platforms that submitted official business registrations in Indonesia, effectively endorsing the new rules. Netflix, Spotify Technology, Meta Platforms' Instagram and ByteDance-owned TikTok have also registered, according to Indonesia's information ministry. Social media operators are facing increasing scrutiny from governments around the world as their market dominance grows. The Indonesia regulations allow the government to block services that fail to remove within 24 hours content that could potentially "incite unrest" or "disturb public order," such as those that promote child pornography or support terrorism. They also allow the government to levy a value-added tax on the sale of digital goods, from content to virtual items.

Having previously upset software developers by implementing a ban on the sale of open source software in its app store, Microsoft has reversed its decision. From a report: The company says that it has listened to feedback -- which was vocal and negative -- and has updated the Microsoft Stores Policies, removing references to open source pricing. Microsoft has also clarified just why it put the ban in place. The policy changes that effectively banned the sale of open source came into force last month, but Microsoft has already been forced to backtrack in the face of mounting criticism. In a series of tweets announcing the latest policy changes that remove this ban, Microsoft's Giorgio Sardo says that the previous policy was intended to "help protect customers from misleading product listings."

American Airlines has committed to making pre-delivery payments for 50 Vertical Aerospace VX4 electric VTOL aircraft. The Register reports: The commitment [PDF] comes just over a year after the aviation giant made a pre-order for 250 of the flying taxis, with an option for a further 100. Vertical Aerospace claims its VX4 will be 100x quieter than a helicopter and have a top speed of 202mph. Its range will be at least 100 miles and it can carry five people (including the pilot). Being electric, the aircraft will also have zero operating emissions, the company said.

In a recent letter to shareholders [PDF], Vertical Aerospace boasted that the prototype VX4 was nearly complete and would be kicking off its flight test program in the summer of 2022. It also talked up its pre-order book, which stands at up to 1,350 aircraft with a value of $5.4 billion, according to the company. However, it is the move by American Airlines to reserve its first 50 aircraft with a pre-delivery payment commitment that makes a fleet of eVTOL aircraft seem closer to reality than science fiction. The report notes that the VX4 still needs to be certified by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), and US Federal Aviation Agency (FAA).

Denmark is effectively banning Google's services in schools, after officials in the municipality of Helsingor were last year ordered to carry out a risk assessment around the processing of personal data by Google. TechCrunch reports: In a verdict published last week, Denmark's data protection agency, Datatilsynet, revealed that data processing involving students using Google's cloud-based Workspace software suite -- which includes Gmail, Google Docs, Calendar and Google Drive -- "does not meet the requirements" of the European Union's GDPR data privacy regulations. Specifically, the authority found that the data processor agreement -- or Google's terms and conditions -- seemingly allow for data to be transferred to other countries for the purpose of providing support, even though the data is ordinarily stored in one of Google's EU data centers.

Google's Chromebook laptops, and by extension Google Workspace, are used in schools across Denmark. But Datatilsynet focused specifically on Helsingor for the risk assessment after the municipality reported a "breach of personal data security" back in 2020. While this latest ruling technically only applies to schools in Helsingor for now, Datatilsynet notes that many of the conclusions it has reached will "probably apply to other municipalities" that use Google Chromebooks and Workspace. It added that it expects these other municipalities "to take relevant steps" off the back of the decision it reached in Helsingor. The ban is effective immediately, but Helsingor has until August 3 to delete user data. A Google spokesperson told TechCrunch in a statement: "We know that students and schools expect the technology they use to be legally compliant, responsible, and safe. That's why for years, Google has invested in privacy best practices and diligent risk assessments, and made our documentation widely available so anyone can see how we help organizations to comply with the GDPR.

Schools own their own data. We only process their data in accordance with our contracts with them. In Workspace for Education, students' data is never used for advertising or other commercial purposes. Independent organizations have audited our services, and we keep our practices under constant review to maintain the highest possible standards of safety and compliance."

According to a new report from The Washington Post, congressional Democrats are expected to introduce a new bill codifying net neutrality in the coming weeks. The Verge reports: The Net Neutrality and Broadband Justice Act -- spearheaded by longtime Senate internet advocates Ed Markey (D-MA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) -- would reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service under Title II. This would give the Federal Communications Commission new enforcement powers over the internet, including the power to set rules against throttling, blocking, or paid prioritization. [...] The lawmakers could introduce the bill as early as August, a source familiar told The Verge on Monday. The measure would restore the FCC's authority over broadband and allow the agency to investigate consumer complaints and roll out new rules to promote broadband competition and close the digital divide, the source said.

In 2017, the Trump FCC, led by former chair Ajit Pai, rolled back the net neutrality provisions put in place under the former administration. The rules banned broadband providers from throttling and blocking certain lanes of traffic and offering paid fast lanes for specific services. Since the Trump reversal, congressional Democrats have vowed to codify net neutrality permanently. [...] Without an FCC Democratic majority, Markey's net neutrality bill may be the Biden administration's only means of reinstating the open internet regulations.

Russia has hit Google with a $373 million fine for failing to restrict access to "prohibited" material about the war in Ukraine and other content. The BBC reports: Roskomnadzor, the country's communications regulator, said the information included "fake" reports that discredited Russia's military and posts urging people to protest. It called the US tech giant a "systematic" violator of its laws. Google did not comment immediately.

The company's local subsidiary declared bankruptcy last month. The move came after Russian authorities seized its local bank account, allowing them to recover 7.2bn roubles that the firm had been ordered to pay for similar reasons last year. [...] The fine announced on Monday, which was calculated as a share of the firm's local revenue, marks the biggest penalty ever imposed on a tech company in Russia, according to state media.