Google is widely rolling out a new Google Messages feature to beta users that allows the Android messaging app to correctly interpret emoji reactions sent from the iOS Messages app, 9to5Google reports. From a report: The feature appears to be live in version 20220121_02_RC00 of the app, according to Droid-Life, but not for every user. Although it didn't work on every phone we tried, we were able to get it working on an Oppo Find X3 Pro, which is more than can be said for when the feature initially started appearing last November. The feature fixes a long-standing issue that can affect SMS chats between iPhone and Android users. When an iPhone user reacts to an Android message with emoji, the Android user typically sees this reaction sent as an entirely separate text message, resulting in confusion and lots of unnecessary clutter.

DARPA has announced a new initiative called the Robust Optical Clock Network (ROCkN) program, which will look to develop a practical, super-accurate optical atomic clock that is robust and small enough to fit inside a military aircraft, warship, or field vehicle. New Atlas reports: Ignoring a lot of technical details, a conventional atomic clock works by using a beam of microwaves to measure the frequency of the target atoms, but by replacing the microwaves with light, the accuracy is boosted by a factor of 100. In fact, such optical clocks are so accurate that the most advanced wouldn't gain or lose a second through the entire lifespan of the universe. Such optical atomic clocks have been built, but they're still huge, delicate, room-filling machines that aren't practical for military application. The goal of DARPA's ROCKn program is to study the basic physics of the principle behind the optical clock and find a way to make optical atomic clocks with low size, weight, and power (SWaP). Not only that, they will be more precise and accurate than current state-of-the-art atomic clocks.

To do this, ROCKn will first look to produce a robust, high-precision small portable optical clock that can maintain picosecond accuracy for 100 seconds at a time. This clock would be small enough to install in a fighter jet or satellite and tough enough to withstand the temperatures, acceleration, and vibrational noise of such an environment. The second stage will aim to create a larger transportable version that can be used in a Navy ship or field unit that is accurate to a nanosecond for up to 30 days without an outside GPS signal.

Earlier this month, a German court fined an unidentified website $110 for violating EU privacy law by importing a Google-hosted web font. The Register reports: The decision, by Landgericht Munchen's third civil chamber in Munich, found that the website, by including Google-Fonts-hosted font on its pages, passed the unidentified plaintiff's IP address to Google without authorization and without a legitimate reason for doing so. And that violates Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). That is to say, when the plaintiff visited the website, the page made the user's browser fetch a font from Google Fonts to use for some text, and this disclosed the netizen's IP address to the US internet giant. This kind of hot-linking is normal with Google Fonts; the issue here is that the visitor apparently didn't give permission for their IP address to be shared. The website could have avoided this drama by self-hosting the font, if possible.

The decision says IP addresses represent personal data because it's theoretically possible to identify the person associated with an IP address, and that it's irrelevant whether the website or Google has actually done so. The ruling directs the website to stop providing IP addresses to Google and threatens the site operator with a fine of 250,000 euros for each violation, or up to six months in prison, for continued improper use of Google Fonts. Google Fonts is widely deployed -- the Google Fonts API is used by about 50m websites. The API allows websites to style text with Google Fonts stored on remote servers -- Google's or a CDN's -- that get fetched as the page loads. Google Fonts can be self-hosted to avoid running afoul of EU rules and the ruling explicitly cites this possibility to assert that relying on Google-hosted Google Fonts is not defensible under the law.

Eighty-four percent of app developers support an antitrust bill aimed at curtailing the market power of Apple's and Google's app stores, according to a poll (PDF) from the Coalition for App Fairness released Monday. The Hill reports: The industry group for app developers is pushing Congress to pass the Open App Markets Act, a bipartisan Senate bill that would block app stores from favoring their own in-house apps in searches, requiring developers to use their payment systems and preventing users from downloading apps from third-party stores. Developers surveyed by the group complained about exorbitant fees charged by the largest app stores -- Apple charges a 30 percent commission on app store sales for large developers -- and expressed how they'd experienced difficulty getting their apps featured or accepted by app stores. Just 13 percent of app developers surveyed oppose the bill. [...] The poll, conducted by ClearPath Strategies, surveyed 190 app developers in 11 states between December 2021 and January 2022. The margin of error is plus or minus 7.11 percentage points.

"The evidence is clear -- app developers want the Open App Markets Act to pass so that they can have the opportunity to compete in a fair digital marketplace," Meghan DiMuzio, executive director of the Coalition for App Fairness, said in a statement. "For too long, developers have been harmed by gatekeepers' monopolistic practices, and consumers have suffered from less choice and innovation."

A venture capital-backed battle is raging in New York City in the burgeoning field of instant delivery. From a report: At least six startups, including Gorillas, Jokr SARL, Getir Perakende Lojistik and Buyk, are vying to win the chance to ferry groceries to customers within 10 to 20 minutes of their order placement on an app. Prices are similar to grocery stores, discounts are plentiful, and many services don't have a fee or minimum order, allowing consumers to request a single pint of Ben & Jerry's delivered to their doorstep. Food-delivery app DoorDash, based in San Francisco, also recently entered the fray in New York City.

While these consumer-friendly offerings have brought surging sales, losses are heavy given the high cost of prolific advertising and paying couriers to hand-deliver potato chips, soap and eggs in a short time frame, industry investors and executives said. Some of the companies are averaging a loss of over $20 per order when factoring in costs like advertising, those people said. "The economics are brutal," said Damir Becirovic, a principal at venture-capital firm Index Ventures, which hasn't invested in any of the startups. He added that if any of the companies can build a giant business with efficiencies from scale, that picture could change, but the short-term challenges seem daunting. Take for example Fridge No More, a New York-based company that launched in 2020. As of September, its average order value was $33, according to a 2021 investor presentation viewed by The Wall Street Journal. After paying for the products, the people packaging them, delivery riders, waste and other expenses related to storage, it lost $3.30 on every order. That doesn't include marketing costs. Fridge No More spent $70 on advertising to win the average customer, an investment that resulted in a $78 loss for every customer that stayed in the 10 months through September, according to the presentation.

Long-time Slashdot reader Hope Thelps brings news about the future of self-driving cars. "The law commisions of England and Wales and of Scotland (statutory bodies which keep the laws in those countries under review) are recommending a shift in accident liability away from 'drivers' when autonomous cars become a reality."

The BBC reports: Human drivers should not be legally accountable for road safety in the era of autonomous cars, a report says. In these cars, the driver should be redefined as a "user-in-charge", with very different legal responsibilities, according to the law commissions for England and Wales, and Scotland. If anything goes wrong, the company behind the driving system would be responsible, rather than the driver....

In the interim, carmakers must be extremely clear about the difference between self-drive and driver-assist features. There should be no sliding scale of driverless capabilities — a car is either autonomous or not....

Transport Minister Trudy Harrison said the government would "fully consider" the recommendations. The Scottish and Welsh governments will also decide whether to introduce legislation.
The BBC also summarized some of the reports other recommendations:

• Data to understand fault and liability following a collision must be accessible
• Sanctions for carmakers who fail to reveal how their systems work

"A race against time is under way for the U.S. Navy to reach one of its downed fighter jets — before the Chinese get there first," reports the BBC: The $100m (£74m) F-35C plane came down in the South China Sea after what the Navy describes as a "mishap" during take-off from the USS Carl Vinson. The jet is the Navy's newest, and crammed with classified equipment. As it is in international waters, it is technically fair game. Whoever gets there first, wins.

The prize? All the secrets behind this very expensive, leading-edge fighting force....

A U.S. salvage vessel looks to be at least 10 days away from the crash site. That's too late, says defence consultant Abi Austen, because the black box battery will die before then, making it harder to locate the aircraft. "It's vitally important the U.S. gets this back," she says. "The F-35 is basically like a flying computer. It's designed to link up other assets — what the Air Force calls 'linking sensors to shooters'."
The BBC describes the plane as the U.S. Navy's first "low observable" carrier-based aircraft, "which enables it to operate undetected in enemy airspace." And it's also "the most powerful fighter engine in the world," flying at speeds up to 1,200 mph, or Mach 1.6.

After the $100 million warplane crash-landed onto the deck of an aircraft carrier — and then tumbled into the water — images of the crash appeared on social media, reports CNN.

Thanks to Slashdot reader Thelasko for submitting the story!

The Washington Post reports: Pope Francis denounced on Friday the "distortion of reality based on fear" that has ripped across the world during the coronavirus pandemic, but he also called for compassion, urging journalists to help those misled by coronavirus-related misinformation and fake news to better understand the scientific facts. "We can hardly fail to see that these days, in addition to the pandemic, an 'infodemic' is spreading: A distortion of reality based on fear, which in our global society leads to an explosion of commentary on falsified if not invented news," the leader of the world's Catholics said.

Meeting with members of the International Catholic Media Consortium on COVID-19 Vaccines — a fact-checking network that aims to combat misinformation — the pope said that being fully informed by scientific data was a human right. "To be properly informed, to be helped to understand situations based on scientific data and not fake news, is a human right. Correct information must be ensured above all to those who are less equipped, to the weakest and to those who are most vulnerable. Francis, 85, received the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus shot last year and has been vocal about the importance of vaccines.

"Fake news has to be refuted, but individual persons must always be respected, for they believe it often without full awareness or responsibility," he said Friday.

Microsoft's Azure DDoS Protection team said that in November, it fended off what industry experts say is likely the biggest distributed denial-of-service attack ever: a torrent of junk data with a throughput of 3.47 terabits per second. Ars Technica reports: The record DDoS came from more than 10,000 sources located in at least 10 countries around the world. The DDoS targeted an unidentified Azure customer in Asia and lasted for about two minutes. The following month, Microsoft said, Azure warded off two other monster DDoSes. Weighing in at 3.25Tbps, the first one came in four bursts and lasted about 15 minutes. The second December DDoS reached a peak of 2.54Tbps and lasted about five minutes.

The record beats a 2.5Tbps attack that Microsoft mitigated in the first half of 2021. Previously, one of the biggest attacks was 2.37Tbps in size, a 35 percent increase over a record set in 2018. A separate DDoS in 2020 generated 809 million packets per second, which was also a record at the time. Packet-per-second DDoSes work by exhausting the computing resources of a server. More traditional volumetric attacks, by contrast, consume available bandwidth either inside the targeted network or service or get between the target and the rest of the Internet. The 3.7Tbps attack delivered roughly 340 million packets per second.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Los Angeles Times: Waymo, the driverless car company operating an autonomous taxi fleet in San Francisco, is suing the California Department of Motor Vehicles. The immediate issue: whether the company, owned by Google parent Alphabet, can hide from the public safety-related information by designating it as a trade secret. The topics Waymo wants to keep hidden include how it plans to handle driverless car emergencies, what it would do if a robot taxi started driving itself where it wasn't supposed to go, and what constraints there are on the car's ability to traverse San Francisco's tunnels, tight curves and steep hills. Waymo also wants to keep secret descriptions of crashes involving its driverless cars.

That's among the information the DMV requires to determine whether to issue permits to deploy robot vehicles on public roads. The permit was issued last year. Waymo is focusing on San Francisco, where, for the time being, its robotaxis operate under the supervision of trained human drivers. The wider issue: how to handle the explosion in trade secret claims in an age of artificial intelligence, robot technology, the internet of things and pervasive data collection. The lawsuit, filed in Sacramento County Superior Court on Jan. 21, contends that Waymo would lose out against other driverless car companies if full permit information were shared with the public. "Every autonomous vehicle company has an obligation to demonstrate the safety of its technology, which is why we've transparently and consistently shared data on our safety readiness with the public," Waymo spokesperson Nicholas Smith said via email when asked about the suit. "We will continue to work with the CA DMV to determine what is appropriate for us to share publicly and hope to find a resolution soon."

Where the DMV stands on the issue remains unclear. The agency has yet to file a response to the suit and told The Times it won't discuss ongoing legal matters.

Messenger has fully rolled out end-to-end encryption (E2EE) to everyone, with toggles to encrypt text messages as well as group chats and calls. As The Verge notes, Messenger first added E2EE in 2016 back when it was still called Facebook Messenger and Meta was still Facebook. "Meta has discussed switching to E2EE as a default, but that may not happen until next year at the earliest, as some regulators claim this would harm public safety," adds The Verge. From the report: There are two ways Messenger users can opt in to the secure chats, either via vanish mode, by swiping up on an existing chat to enter one where messages automatically disappear when the window is closed or the original version that was introduced in 2016 as Secret Conversations. You can turn that on by toggling the lock icon when you start a new chat.

In addition to a full rollout of the feature, Messenger has some new features to enable as well. Now, in end-to-end encrypted chats, you can use GIFs, stickers, reactions, and long-press to reply or forward messages. The encrypted chats also now support verified badges so that people can identify authentic accounts. You can also save media exchanged in the chats, and there's a Snapchat-style screenshot notification that will be rolling out over the next few weeks.

According to a new report from the FTC, more than 95,000 people lost $770 million to scammers who found them via social media platforms in 2021. "That's more than double the $258 million they say scammers made off with in 2020," notes Engadget. From the report: The report doesn't speculate on why there was such a big increase in 2021, but it notes that reports of scams have "soared" over the last five years. It also states that there was a "massive surge" in scams related to "bogus cryptocurrency investments" and that investment scams accounted for nearly $285 million -- more than third -- of the $770 million lost last year. Romance scams have also "climbed to record highs in recent years," according to the report. "These scams often start with a seemingly innocent friend request from a stranger, followed by sweet talk, and then, inevitably, a request for money," the FTC says. Also prevalent are scams related to online shopping, most of which involve "undelivered goods" that were purchased as the result of an ad on social media.

Of note, Facebook and Instagram are the only two platforms named in the report. "More than a third of people who said they lost money to an online romance scam in 2021 said it began on Facebook or Instagram," the report states. Likewise, the FTC says that Facebook and Instagram were the most commonly cited platform for reports of undelivered good, with the two apps cited in 9 out of 10 reports where a service was identified. [...] Interestingly one of the FTC's recommendations is that users try to opt out of targeted advertising when possible as scammers can "easily use the tools available to advertisers on social media platforms to systematically target people with bogus ads based on personal details such as their age, interests, or past purchases." The agency also recommends users lock down their privacy settings and to be wary of any messages asking for money, especially in the form of cryptocurrency or gift cards.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: There is hope for users of Google's "legacy" free G Suite accounts. Last week, Google announced a brutal policy change -- it would shut down the Google Apps accounts of users who signed up during the first several years when the service was available for free. Users who had a free G Suite account were given two options: start paying the per-user monthly fee by July 2022 or lose your account. Naturally, this move led to a huge outcry outside (and apparently inside) Google, and now, the company seems to be backing down from most of the harsher terms of the initial announcement. First, Google is launching a survey of affected G Suite users -- apparently, the company is surprised by how many people this change affected. Second, it's promising a data-migration option (including your content purchases) to a consumer account before the shutdown hits.

The support page detailing the shutdown has quietly been updated (for some reason, Google is not making a big deal of the changes yet). First, if (and only if) you're signed in with a free G Suite account, you'll see a link to this survey, which is aimed at free G Suite admins with 10 users or fewer using the service for "non-business" purposes. Google says users filling out the survey will receive "updates on more options for your non-business legacy account in the coming months." It's a sign that Google had no idea how many people this change would affect, and now, the company wants to hear from you.

The ideal situation, if the custom domain option has to shut down, would be the option to port your free G Suite account to a consumer Google account, with all the purchases, data, email, and other features intact. You would naturally have to pick a new account name and email address, but minimal disruption to other services would seem like the least Google could do, and it sounds like the company is building something like that. There's now a new section on the support page titled: "If I don't want to upgrade to a paid subscription, can I transfer my data?" [...] This is the option everyone has been asking for, as it specifically references "non-Google Workspace paid content," which presumably would mean all your app, game, and media purchases made through Google Play and YouTube. The support article doesn't offer any additional details yet, only saying to wait for further updates, but Google promises the option will be ready before July, which is when the account disruptions start happening.

The Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously Thursday to approve a proposal that would require internet service providers to share details about their plans in easy-to-read nutrition labels, similar to those on food. From a report: The FCC action, required by law and included in President Biden's executive order on competition, is meant to address consumer complaints about surprise pricing and fees, and make it easier to comparison shop for an internet provider. The proposal would require ISPs to include information about prices, internet speeds, data allowances and other details on the label. "With these broadband nutrition labels, we can compare service providers and plans, hold broadband providers to their promises and foster more competition, which means better service and better prices," FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said during the agency's meeting.

Meta Platforms' WhatsApp was given a month to answer European Union concerns over new terms and services that sparked outrage among consumers and privacy campaigners. From a report: WhatsApp must provide "concrete commitments" to address EU concerns about a possible lack of "sufficiently clear information" to users, or the exchange of user data between WhatsApp and third parties, the European Commission said Thursday. "WhatsApp must ensure that users understand what they agree to and how their personal data is used," EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders said in a statement. "I expect from WhatsApp to fully comply with EU rules that protect consumers and their privacy."

WhatsApp announced the policy changes a year ago, but was forced to delay their introduction until May after a backlash over what data the messaging service collects and how it shares that information with parent Facebook. European consumer association BEUC complained to the EU, saying the new terms and services were opaque. "WhatsApp bombarded users for months with persistent pop-up messages," BEUC said in reaction to the commission announcement. "WhatsApp has been deliberately vague about this, laying the ground for far-reaching data processing without valid consent from consumers."

A proposed antitrust bill has cast a spotlight on the immense portfolios of dozens of lawmakers. From a report: At a December press conference, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was asked her opinion of proposed restrictions on stock trading by members of Congress. Her response was quick and clear: She hated the idea. "We are a free-market economy," Pelosi, whose family's shareholdings exceed $100 million, shot back. "They should be able to participate in that." Growing numbers of legislators from both sides of the aisle disagree. Following a series of recent abuses, at least five bills making their way through Congress would forbid lawmakers from owning individual stocks or force them to move their assets into a blind trust. One would make violators turn over any profits they earn to the U.S. Treasury Department. Another would extend the ban to family members. A third would also encompass top staffers.

[...] The fight over the measure highlights the potential conflicts of interest in lawmakers' shareholdings. A Bloomberg Businessweek examination of financial filings found that at least 18 senators and 77 House members report owning shares of one or more of the companies, and the law could have a significant effect on the value of their portfolios. Pelosi disclosed that her husband has as much as $25.5 million in Apple stock alone. Republican Representative Mike McCaul of Texas reported that his family holds shares of all four tech giants, with a collective value topping $8 million. Last year members of Congress filed more than 4,000 trading disclosures involving more than $315 million of stock and bond transactions, according to Tim Carambat, a researcher who maintains databases of lawmakers' financial trades.

Twitter revealed on Tuesday that governments' requests for content to be removed from the platform hit a record high in the first six months of 2021. The Hill reports: Governments made 43,387 legal demands for content to be pulled down from 196,878 accounts between January and the end of June. Twitter's latest transparency report showed that 95 percent of the requests came from Japan, Russia, Turkey, India and South Korea. The platform "withheld" access to content or required accounts to take down posts in response to 54 percent of the demands. Twitter's transparency report also showed that government requests to preserve account information fell four percent compared to the previous reporting period, the last six months of 2020. The United States accounted for 57 percent of preservation requests.

Boom Supersonic, which is developing ultra-fast airplanes it believes will lead to the return of commercial supersonic flights, has picked Greensboro, N.C., to build and test those planes. CNBC reports: The Greensboro-based plant, which is expected to employ 1,250 workers by the end of the decade, is the latest example of a new aviation manufacturing facility being built in the region. In the last 11 years, Boeing and Airbus have established new final assembly plants in North Charleston, S.C., and Mobile, Ala., respectively. "This is the right choice for us and we couldn't be more excited," Blake Scholl, founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic told CNBC. "Greensboro brings a significant, local skilled labor population and there are more than two hundred aerospace suppliers in the state. Many will be key suppliers for The Overture."

The Overture is Boom's first commercial supersonic plane. The company plans to start building the plane in 2024, with the first one rolling off the line in 2025 and the initial test flight set for 2026. If all goes as planned, Boom's inaugural supersonic jet would enter commercial service by 2029. While Boom is based in Denver and will continue designing aircraft at its headquarters, it chose Greensboro, in part, because of its short distance from the Atlantic coast. "The proximity to the ocean is an important factor," Scholl said. "The vast majority of our flight tests will be over the water, where the plane can speed up so there is not a sonic boom over populated areas." Boom says the Overture will fly at a top speed of Mach 1.7, or about 1,300 mph, allowing it to shave hours off of some of the longest international flights.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Amazon has killed a program under which it paid warehouse employees to say nice things about the company on social media. "Amazon quietly shut down and removed all traces of the influence campaign at the end of last year, people with direct knowledge of the decision told the Financial Times," FT reported today. FT noted that the social media program suffered from "poor reach and embarrassing backfires."

Amazon began paying workers to tweet in 2018 in a widely mocked effort to counter negative perceptions about the company. As Business Insider reported in August 2018, "The company now has a small army of 'FC Ambassadors' saying nice things about the company online and engaging in dialogue with average Twitter users. The ambassadors are full-time employees, according to an Amazon spokesperson, and it is their job to share their experiences working at a fulfillment center."

"FC" stands for fulfillment centers, and the "ambassadors" worked in the Amazon warehouses before being paid to tweet, and in at least some cases, they split duties between the warehouse and Twitter. "I get paid $15/hr whether I am answering tweets or out on the floor stowing. I do this 2 days a week and 2 days a week I stow," one Amazon employee explained in 2019, as seen in a Bellingcat report that found 53 Amazon FC Ambassador accounts on Twitter. "The 'ambassador' program was always a laughable attempt to minimize the abuses unfolding inside Amazon warehouses," Warehouse Worker Resource Center Executive Director Sheheryar Kaoosji told the Financial Times.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: North Korea's internet appears to have been hit by a second wave of outages in as many weeks, possibly caused by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, researchers said on Wednesday. The latest incident took place for about six hours on Wednesday morning local time, and came a day after North Korea conducted its fifth missile test this month.

Junade Ali, a cybersecurity researcher in Britain who monitors a range of different North Korean web and email servers, said that at the height of the apparent attack, all traffic to and from North Korea was taken down. "When someone would try to connect to an IP address in North Korea, the internet would literally be unable to route their data into the country," he told Reuters. Hours later, servers that handle email were accessible, but some individual web servers of institutions such as the Air Koryo airline, North Korea's ministry of foreign affairs, and Naenara, which is the official portal for the North Korean government, continued to experience stress and downtime. "It's common for one server to go offline for some periods of time, but these incidents have seen all web properties go offline concurrently," said Ali. "It isn't common to see their entire internet dropped offline."

During the incidents, operational degradation would build up first with network timeouts, then individual servers going offline and then their key routers dropping off the internet, Ali said. "This indicates to me that this is the result of some form of network stress rather than something like a power cut."