"Y'all a plane just crashed into all those houses," one eyewitness says in an online video. "People jumped out of the plane with parachutes."

The two people — jumping from the 38-foot-long training plane — were both hospitalized, reports CNN: Police were notified of the crash...around 10:53 a.m. (11:53 am ET) and on arrival found one pilot who had ejected from the military training jet caught in power lines, Lake Worth Police Chief JT Manoushagian said during a Sunday afternoon news conference. Another pilot also ejected from the training jet and was found in a neighborhood nearby...

None of the homes involved in the crash took a direct hit, said Fire Chief Ryan Arthur. A little bit of damage occurred to the areas around the homes, he said. "This incident could've been much worse knowing that this plane went down in a residential area here in Lake Worth," Arthur said.
ABC News has more information: One of the occupants was burned by power lines and another landed in a tree as they parachuted to the ground, authorities said. One of the crew members was in critical condition, the other one was in serious condition, authorities said...

WFAA-TV reported that the plane crashed in the backyard of a home, and no one on the ground was injured. Power was also knocked out to around 1,300 customers in the area.
ABC News identifies the aircraft as a T45 Goshawk fighter jet trainer, a plane first developed in 1974 by McDonnell Douglas and British Aerospace (before McDonnell Douglas's 1997 merger with Boeing). But Boeing.com notes they "delivered the 221st and final T-45 training jet to the Navy in November 2009." The company continued to support the T-45 fleet by providing engineering, logistics and support equipment in partnership with BAE Systems, the successor company to British Aerospace, which had supplied the aircraft's rear and center fuselage sections, wing assembly and vertical tail. On Aug. 26, 2010, Boeing joined the U.S. Navy at Cecil Field in Jacksonville, Florida, to celebrate the Naval Air Training Command's one millionth flight-hour with the T-45 Goshawk.

Social media may be bad for our health, argues long-time technology reporter/commentator Kara Swisher in the New York Times: In March of 2018, I interviewed Marc Benioff, the chief executive of Salesforce, at the top of the company's San Francisco tower. He offered up an astonishing metaphor when I asked him for his take on the impact of social media companies. "Facebook is the new cigarettes," Benioff said. "It's addictive. It's not good for you." As it did with cigarette companies, "the government needs to step in," he added." The government needs to really regulate what's happening."

At the time, I thought it was a flashy reach by an executive who often went out on verbal limbs to make brazen points. But today, after the latest series of investigations into the sketchy acts of the social media giant, Benioff seems like Nostradamus. In the past weeks, The Wall Street Journal published "The Facebook Files" — well reported pieces that rely on whistle-blowers who are now just tossing incriminating documents over the wall at a furious pace. The Journal's series includes: internal reports showing that Facebook was fully aware of Instagram's deleterious impact on the mental health of teen girls, while moving full steam ahead with an Instagram for Kids product; internal documents inferring that the company lied to its independent Oversight Board when it said it gave only a small amount of celebs, pols and other grandees a wide berth to break its rules on the platform while, in fact, the free pass was given to millions; and the latest revelation that Facebook makes people angry, in part because of futile efforts of its leader, Mark Zuckerberg, to stop the endless rage...

[N]owadays the human race seems even more abhorrent, and in many more twisted and amplified ways, and it's because of Facebook, the biggest and least accountable communications and media platform in history.

"Federal prosecutors plan to criminally charge a former Boeing Co. pilot they suspect of misleading aviation regulators about safety issues blamed for two fatal crashes of the 737 Max," reports the Wall Street Journal, citing "people familiar with the matter."

Mark Forkner, who was Boeing's 737 Max chief technical pilot during the aircraft's development, is likely to face prosecution in the coming weeks, these people said... Boeing BA, admitted in a criminal settlement reached with prosecutors earlier this year that two of its employees — unnamed in that agreement — conspired to defraud the FAA about 737 Max training issues in order to benefit themselves and the company.
CBS News offers more details: It would, says the Journal, "be the first attempt to hold a Boeing employee accountable" for conduct before the two crashes. [Forkner] was the lead contact between the aviation giant and the Federal Aviation Administration over how pilots should be trained to fly the planes, the Journal said. According to documents published in early 2020, Forkner withheld details about the planes' faulty flight handling system known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS — later blamed for both crashes — from regulators.

The Journal said it wasn't clear what charges Forkner would face... A lawyer for Forkner, David Gerger, didn't respond to requests for comment Thursday from the Journal. Gerger has said in the past that Forkner, a pilot and Air Force veteran, wouldn't put pilots or passengers in danger.

"Mozilla is running an experiment on 1% of the Firefox desktop population currently, which sets the default search engine to Bing in the web browser," reports Ghacks: [I]n most regions, it is Google Search. Mozilla and Google extended the search deal in 2020 for another three years. Google is paying Mozilla "between $400 and $450 million per year" so that its search engine is the default in Firefox in most regions. Google has been Firefox's default search engine since 2017, when Mozilla ended its search deal with Yahoo early.

Firefox users may change the default search engine to one of the other engines that are included by default, or an engine that is not included but can be added...

The study started on September 6 and it will run until early 2022, likely January 2022. About 1% of Firefox desktop users may notice that the default search engine is changed when the installation of Firefox is picked for the experiment.

Tip: load about:studies in the Firefox address bar to list the studies that the browser us currently taking part in and has completed already. Firefox users who don't want to participate in studies can disable the preference "Allow Firefox to install and run studies" on about:preferences#privacy.

This week the Wall Street Journal reported that a 2018 algorithm change at Facebook "rewarded outrage," according to Facebook's own internal memos. But the Journal says the memos showed "that CEO Mark Zuckerberg resisted proposed fixes," and that the memos "offer an unparalleled look at how much Facebook knows about the flaws in its platform and how it often lacks the will or the ability to address them." In the fall of 2018, Jonah Peretti, chief executive of online publisher BuzzFeed, emailed a top official at Facebook Inc. The most divisive content that publishers produced was going viral on the platform, he said, creating an incentive to produce more of it... Mr. Peretti blamed a major overhaul Facebook had given to its News Feed algorithm earlier that year to boost "meaningful social interactions," or MSI, between friends and family, according to internal Facebook documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal that quote the email...

Facebook's chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, said the aim of the algorithm change was to strengthen bonds between users and to improve their well-being. Facebook would encourage people to interact more with friends and family and spend less time passively consuming professionally produced content, which research suggested was harmful to their mental health. Within the company, though, staffers warned the change was having the opposite effect, the documents show. It was making Facebook's platform an angrier place. Company researchers discovered that publishers and political parties were reorienting their posts toward outrage and sensationalism. That tactic produced high levels of comments and reactions that translated into success on Facebook. "Our approach has had unhealthy side effects on important slices of public content, such as politics and news," wrote a team of data scientists, flagging Mr. Peretti's complaints, in a memo reviewed by the Journal... They concluded that the new algorithm's heavy weighting of reshared material in its News Feed made the angry voices louder. "Misinformation, toxicity, and violent content are inordinately prevalent among reshares," researchers noted in internal memos.

Some political parties in Europe told Facebook the algorithm had made them shift their policy positions so they resonated more on the platform, according to the documents. "Many parties, including those that have shifted to the negative, worry about the long term effects on democracy," read one internal Facebook report, which didn't name specific parties...

Mr. Zuckerberg resisted some of the proposed fixes, the documents show, because he was worried they might hurt the company's other objective — making users engage more with Facebook.

General Motors urged some owners of Chevrolet Bolt electric cars to park and store the vehicles at least 50 feet away from other cars to reduce the risk that a spontaneous fire could spread. Bloomberg reports: The Detroit automaker has recalled all of the roughly 142,000 Bolts sold since 2016 because the battery can catch on fire. GM has taken a $1.8 billion charge so far for the cost of the recall and has been buying cars back from some disgruntled owners. The company expects to recoup much of the cost from battery supplier LG Corp. The new advice is likely to rankle owners who are already limiting their use of the Bolt to avoid overheating the battery and risking a fire. The parking guidance -- recommending a distance of 50 feet from other parked cars -- is especially difficult for owners in urban areas. GM has confirmed 10 fires. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the agency has found 13 fires in Bolts, but the company hasn't confirmed the additional three are part of the current recall issue.

The Bolt normally can go 259 miles on a charge, but that has been limited by GM's guidance to avoid a fire. The automaker told Bolt owners to limit the charge to 90%, plug in more frequently and avoid depleting the battery to below about 70 miles of remaining range. They're also advised to park their vehicles outside immediately after charging and not leave them charging indoors overnight. The company will be telling Bolt owners who are concerned about parking in public places that it recommends keeping 50 feet from other cars in garages and lots, spokesman Dan Flores said.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company will use personal driving data to determine whether owners who have paid for its controversial "Full Self-Driving" software can access the latest beta version that promises more automated driving functions. TechCrunch reports: Musk tweeted late Thursday night that the FSD Beta v10.0.1 software update, which has already been pushed out to a group of select owners, will become more widely available starting September 24. Owners who have paid for FSD, which currently costs $10,000, will be offered access to the beta software through a "beta request button." Drivers who select the beta software will be asked for permission to access their driving behavior using Tesla's insurance calculator, Musk wrote in a tweet. "If driving behavior is good for seven days, beta access will be granted," Musk wrote.

The latest FSD Beta is supposed to automate driving on highways and city streets. However, this is still a Level 2 driver assistance system that requires the driver to pay attention, have their hands on the wheel and take control at all times. Recent videos posted showing owners' experiences with this beta software provide a mixed picture of its capability. In some videos, the vehicles handle city driving; in many others, drivers are seen taking control due to missed turns, being too close to the curb, failure to creep forward and, in one case, veering off suddenly toward pedestrians.

Rolls-Royce's "Spirit of Innovation" all-electric airplane completed a 15 minute flight, marking "the beginning of an intensive flight-testing phase in which we will be collecting valuable performance data on the aircraft's electrical power and propulsion system," the company announced. Engadget reports: Rolls Royce said the one-seat airplane has "the most power-dense battery pack every assembled for an aircraft." The aircraft uses (PDF) a 6,000 cell battery pack with a three-motor powertrain that currently delivers 400kW (500-plus horsepower), and Rolls-Royce said the aircraft will eventually achieve speeds of over 300 MPH. The flight comes about a year after the originally scheduled takeoff and about six months after taxi trials. Rolls-Royce is also developing an air taxi with manufacturer Tecnam, with the aim of delivering an "all-electric passenger aircraft for the commuter market," according to the companies. It has previously teamed with Siemens and Airbus on another e-plane concept.

The project was half funded by the Aerospace Technology Institute and UK government, with the aim of eventually creating all-electric passenger planes. "This is not only about breaking a world record; the advanced battery and propulsion technology developed for this program has exciting applications for the Urban Air Mobility market and can help make 'jet zero' a reality," said Rolls-Royce CEO Warren East.

Google announced plans today to port its Permission Auto-Reset feature from Android 11 to older versions of its mobile operating system, as far back as Android 6. From a report: Launched last fall, the Permission Auto-Reset feature works by automatically withdrawing user permissions from an app that hasn't been opened and used for a few months. "Starting in December 2021, we are expanding this [feature] to billions more devices," Google said today. "This feature will automatically be enabled on devices with Google Play services that are running Android 6.0 (API level 23) or higher." Exempt from this new feature will be device admin apps and enterprise apps where the permissions have been fixed through a general enterprise policy.

Apple and Google removed an app meant to coordinate protest voting in this weekend's Russian elections from the country on Friday, a blow to the opponents of President Vladimir V. Putin and a display of Silicon Valley's limits when it comes to resisting crackdowns on dissent around the world. From a report: The decisions came after Russian authorities, which claim the app is illegal, threatened to prosecute local employees of Apple and Google -- a sharp escalation in the Kremlin's campaign to rein in the country's largely uncensored internet. A person familiar with Google's decision said the authorities had named specific individuals who would face prosecution, prompting it to remove the app.

The person declined to be identified for fear of angering the Russian government. Google has more than 100 employees in the country. Apple did not respond to phone calls, emails or text messages seeking comment. The app was created and promoted by allies of the opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny, who were hoping to use it to consolidate the opposition vote in each of Russia's 225 electoral districts. It disappeared from the two technology platforms just as voting got underway in the three-day parliamentary election, in which Mr. Putin's United Russia party -- in a carefully stage-managed system -- holds a commanding advantage.

Mr. Navalny's team reacted with outrage to the decision, suggesting the companies had made a damaging concession to the Russians. "Removing the Navalny app from stores is a shameful act of political censorship," an aide to Mr. Navalny, Ivan Zhdanov, said on Twitter. "Russia's authoritarian government and propaganda will be thrilled." The decisions also drew harsh condemnation from free-speech activists in the West. "The companies are in a really difficult position but they have put themselves there," David Kaye, a former United Nations official responsible for investigating freedom of expression issues, said in an interview. "They are de facto carrying out an element of Russian repression. Whether it's justifiable or not, it's complicity and the companies need to explain it."

Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan signaled changes are on the way in how the agency scrutinizes acquisitions after revealing the results of a study of a decade's worth of Big Tech company deals that weren't reported to the agency. From a report: Tech's business ecosystem is built on giant companies buying up small startups, but the message from the antitrust agency this week could chill mergers and acquisitions in the sector. The FTC reviewed 616 transactions valued at $1 million or more between 2010 and 2019 that were not reported to antitrust authorities by Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft. 94 of the transactions actually exceeded the dollar size threshold that would require companies to report a deal. The deals may have qualified for other regulatory exemptions. 79% of transactions used deferred or contingent compensation to founders and key employees, and nearly 77% involved non-compete clauses. 36% of the transactions involved assuming some amount of debt or liabilities. In a statement, Khan said the report shows that loopholes may be "unjustifiably enabling deals to fly under the radar."

The EPA says the Lucid Air electric sedan will do 520 miles on a full charge, which is well over 100 miles more than the Tesla Model S Long Range, which delivers an estimated 405 miles. CNET reports: The 520-mile range estimate is specific to the Air Dream Edition Range with 19-inch wheels. Buyers should know the optional 21-inch wheels drop the range to an estimated 481 miles. Still, that's damned impressive. For those who select the Air Dream Edition Performance, they won't be penalized too much with a lower range. The car still comes in at an EPA-estimated 471 miles with 19-inch wheels and 451 miles with 21-inch wheels. The trade-off is there's 1,111 horsepower on tap with the Performance, compared to only 933 hp for the Range model.

The Dream Edition cars are two limited-edition choices Lucid sold out of a while ago, but don't fret, there are other options. For now, the EPA also got its hands on the Air Grand Touring trim, which returns 516 miles of range after the feds' tests. Even if you missed out on the Dream Edition Range, losing just four miles isn't the worst thing in the world. Opt for the larger 21-inch wheels on this model and the range figure drops to 469 miles. This particular configuration also provides a no-less-substantial 800 hp. If you ask me, there's nothing anyone's compromising on here. Production of the first customer cars is meant to start later this year, with prices for the Dream Editions starting at $169,000.

WhatsApp is testing a new "Yellow Pages" like feature in Sao Paulo, Brazil, that will let users search for local shops. The Next Web reports: WhatsApp's head, Will Cathcart, announced this feature and said "we've built this in a private way." He claims that the company won't log your location or the businesses you're searching for. If you live in Sao Paulo, you'll be able to search for local shops using WhatsApp Business through the 'Businesses Nearby' menu in the new chat option. For years, Facebook and Instagram have been trying to connect you to businesses and make your shop through their platforms. While the WhatsApp Business app has been around, you couldn't really search for businesses using the app, unless you've interacted with them previously. The chat app doesn't have any ads, unlike Facebook and Instagram, so business interactions and transactions are one of the biggest ways for Facebook to earn some moolah out of it. Matt Idema, Facebook's vice president of business messaging, told Reuters that while the program is taking off in Brazil, India and Indonesia are the perfect next candidates for expansion.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Adam Mosseri isn't doing Facebook any favors. The head of Instagram was interviewed on the Recode Media podcast this week following a damning series of articles in the Wall Street Journal based on leaked internal Facebook documents. In the interview with host Peter Kafka, Mosseri attempted to defend the negative effects his platform has on its users by comparing social media to cars. The gist of his argument? Some people are just going to get run over, and that's the price we all pay. "We know that more people die than would otherwise because of car accidents, but by and large cars create way more value in the world than they destroy," argued Mosseri. "And I think social media is similar."

The Journal story in question explains how internal Facebook research (Facebook owns Instagram) found Instagram was making life worse for a segment of its users. "We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls," read one 2019 internal slide obtained by the paper. "Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression," read another. In response to Mosseri's car comments, Kafka rightly pointed out that automobiles are subject to intense safety regulation on a federal level, which Mosseri countered by pivoting between saying social media regulation is welcome and, well, that it's also potentially problematic. "We think you have to be careful," he said, "because regulation can cause more problems."

Electric vehicles might be good for the environment, but they're terrible for state budgets, which depend on fuel taxes to pay for road maintenance. So states like Oregon and Utah are experimenting with new road user fees -- known as "vehicle mileage taxes" or VMTs -- that reflect changing mobility trends. From a report: By charging drivers for the miles they drive -- instead of taxing the gas they use -- states can ensure that everyone pays their fair share for public roads. But some drivers might wind up paying more than they do now, and the preliminary technology involved is raising privacy concerns.

In Utah and Oregon -- where EVs and increased fuel efficiency are blowing a hole in road repair budgets -- drivers are being asked to enroll in voluntary experiments in pay-as-you-go tolling. Under a VMT system, drivers report their mileage electronically, using a plug-in device in their cars or a smartphone app. Per the Deseret (Utah) News: "Users are given the option to pay 1.5 cents per mile traveled or an annual flat fee of $120 for electric vehicles or $20 for gas hybrids." Oregon is testing several potential funding models based on the time of day and other factors. Under one potential scenario, a driver could pay a statewide 1.8-cents-per-mile fee, plus a 20-cent metropolitan Portland surcharge, plus a virtual toll on Interstate 5 and another fee for entering downtown Portland.

As a young rapper, Jay-Z once teamed up with Damon Dash to sell CDs of his music out of a car in the Brooklyn projects. Today, the co-founders of Roc-A-Fella Records are embroiled in a legal fight involving one of the most cutting-edge investments: non-fungible tokens. From a report: The lawsuit is among a flurry involving NFTs as U.S. courts begin to grapple with the novel legal issues surrounding ownership and regulation of the assets, which have recently exploded in value. More than half a dozen suits citing NFTs have been filed in federal courts alone since the start of 2020, as monthly trading volume in the world's biggest NFT marketplace, OpenSea, soared from $8 million six months ago to more than $1 billion in August.

The dispute began in June, when Roc-A-Fella sued Dash, seeking to stop him from auctioning off the copyright to Jay-Z's debut album, Reasonable Doubt, as an NFT, which represents ownership of a digital object on a blockchain. Roc-A-Fella says that while Dash holds a one-third stake in the company, it owns the album itself, and he has no legal right to sell the NFT. The Jay-Z suit should serve as a warning to buyers and sellers of NFTs to make sure both sides know exactly what's being sold, said Christopher A. Cole, a partner with Crowell & Moring LLP in Washington. "They need to be very careful up front, when the NFT is created, to ensure that it's a valid instrument and the creators had the rights they needed to what's being sold, so that it's not attacked down the road," Cole said. More litigation involving NFTs is likely, from lawsuits on behalf of consumers who didn't understand the nature of the rights they were acquiring to government enforcement actions to protect them, said Pratin Vallabhaneni, a partner with White & Case in Washington.

Zhao Wei was the Reese Witherspoon of China, then she was censored by the Communist Party amid a clampdown of the country's entertainment industry. WSJ: She directed award-winning films, sold millions of records as a pop singer and built a large following on social media, amassing 86 million fans on Weibo, China's Twitter -like microblogging site. She also made a fortune as an investor in Chinese technology and entertainment companies. Today, the 45-year-old star has been erased from the Chinese internet. Searches for her name on the country's biggest video-streaming sites come up blank. Her projects, including the wildly popular TV series "My Fair Princess," have been removed. Anyone looking up her acclaimed film "So Young" on China's equivalent of Wikipedia wouldn't know she was the director; the field now reads "---."

Ms. Zhao's online disappearance on Aug. 26 came at the onset of a broader clampdown on the country's entertainment industry as the Communist Party attempts to halt what it sees as a rise in unhealthy celebrity culture. The Chinese government hasn't publicly stated what prompted this sudden change to her status, raising questions among fans and observers about how far it is willing to go against her and other celebrities, and why. The mystery also has sparked open speculation about what, if anything, she might have done wrong. "Zhao Wei is like a poster child for what the Communist Party sees as what's wrong with celebrity culture in China," said Stanley Rosen, a professor at the University of Southern California who specializes in Chinese films and politics. "It's a demonstration that no one, no matter how wealthy or popular, is too big to pursue." In Zhao Wei's case, he added, the lack of explanation "will certainly make other celebrities extremely cautious and proactive in embracing regime goals."

An anonymous reader shares a report: In January, Google's parent company, Alphabet, shut down Project Loon, an initiative exploring using stratospheric helium balloons to distribute wireless internet (an attempt to use solar-powered drones folded in 2017). However, some technology developed as a part of the Loon project remained in development, specifically the Free Space Optical Communications (FSOC) links that were originally meant to connect the high flying balloons -- and now that technology is actively in use providing a high-speed broadband link for people in Africa.

Sort of like fiber optic cables without the cable, FSOC can create a 20Gbps+ broadband link from two points that have a clear line of sight, and Alphabet's moonshot lab X has built up Project Taara to give it a shot. They started by setting up links in India a few years ago as well as a few pilots in Kenya, and today X revealed what it has achieved by using its wireless optical link to connect service across the Congo River from Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo and Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 20 days, Project Taara lead Baris Erkmen says the link transmitted nearly 700TB of data, augmenting fiber connections used by local telecom partner Econet and its subsidiaries.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Our streets might not be overflowing with robotaxis as we were promised circa 2017, but here and there, AV companies are beginning commercial deployments. Argo AI, the AV startup heavily backed by Ford, Volkswagen, and others, is one of those companies. On Wednesday, Argo, Ford, and Walmart revealed that they will be working together to roll out last-mile deliveries from the retail giant's stores in Austin, Texas; Miami, Florida; and Washington, DC. "Our focus on the testing and development of self-driving technology that operates in urban areas where customer demand is high really comes to life with this collaboration," said Bryan Salesky, founder and CEO of Argo AI. "Working together with Walmart and Ford across three markets, we're showing the potential for autonomous vehicle delivery services at scale."

"Argo and Ford are aggressively preparing for large-scale autonomous vehicle operations across a broad footprint of US cities," said Scott Griffith, the CEO of Ford Autonomous Vehicles and Mobility Businesses. "Pairing Walmart's retail and e-commerce leadership with Argo and Ford's self-driving operations across these multiple cities marks a significant step toward scaling a commercial goods delivery service that will ultimately power first-to-scale business efficiencies and enable a great consumer experience." Argo AI and Ford have been testing their AV systems in Miami and DC since 2018 and began testing in Austin the following year. The trio says that the first autonomous deliveries to Walmart customers will begin later this year. Around the same time, Ford and Argo will start deploying passenger-carrying robotaxis in Austin and Miami.

Sony has released a new software update for the PlayStation 5 that will let you expand the console's internal storage and use the PS5's 3D audio effects on external speakers. CNET reports: The PS5 update will also let you view PS4 and PS5 versions of the same game separately -- particularly useful after you upgrade to a next-gen version -- plus it gives you more options for customizing the Control Center and lets you use it to write messages to other players. PlayStation Now subscribers will also get the ability to choose between 720p and 1080p streaming options, or use a streaming connection test to identify and fix connection issues. The PS4 is also getting a software update, letting you see PS5 trophies on your profile and those of other players.