An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The government has launched a [4 million pound] fund to back projects trialling running fiber optic broadband cables through water pipes to help connect hard-to-reach homes without digging up roads. The money will also be used to test out monitors in pipes that can help water companies identify and repair leaks more quickly. About a fifth of water put into public supply every day is lost via leaks and it is hoped that sensors could help deliver water companies' commitment to reduce water loss by half.

Infrastructure works, in particular installing new ducts and poles, can make up as much as four-fifths of the costs to industry of building new gigabit-capable broadband networks, the government said. The project is designed to help cut those costs, and is part of a plan to improve broadband and mobile signals in rural areas. The digital infrastructure minister, Matt Warman, said: "The cost of digging up roads and land is the biggest obstacle telecoms companies face when connecting hard-to-reach areas to better broadband, but beneath our feet there is a vast network of pipes reaching virtually every building in the country. So we are calling on Britain's brilliant innovators to help us use this infrastructure to serve a dual purpose of serving up not just fresh and clean water but also lightning-fast digital connectivity."

As of its latest beta release, Valve's SteamVR software can add floating desktop windows inside VR games, letting you keep an eye on other apps without leaving VR. The Verge reports: It's a helpful addition, allowing players to keep an eye on anything from Discord, to a Twitch chat, or Netflix during a lower-intensity game. Road to VR suggests you could even watch YouTube during longer flights in Elite Dangerous.

The ability to interact with the rest of your desktop from within SteamVR's dashboard is not a new feature, but recently Valve has been making the system more flexible. Earlier this year it added the option to view individual application windows in the dashboard, and to be virtually attached to VR controllers ingame. This made apps viewable at a glance, but until now it lacked the ability to float windows persistently ingame. With the latest release, you can still opt to have a window attached to your controller, or pull it off to have it float in virtual space. The windows are view-only while you're actually playing a game, but you can open up the SteamVR menu to interact with them using a VR controller as a mouse pointer.

Google is discontinuing the Bluetooth Titan Security Key to focus on security keys with Near Field Communication (NFC) functionality. As part of this move, Google has also announced a new Titan Security Key with USB-C and NFC to go along with the previously available USB-A + NFC security key. Bleeping Computer reports: Google's Titan Security Keys were introduced in 2018 and are designed to help users prevent Google account takeover attempts using credentials stolen in data breaches or following phishing attacks. They work with the most popular devices, browsers, and an increasing number of apps that come with FIDO standard support.

"Since NFC functionality is now supported by a wide range of Android phones and iPhones, we are discontinuing the Bluetooth Titan Security Key and focusing on the easier and more widely available NFC capability," said Christiaan Brand, Google Cloud Product Manager. "However, for existing users with our Bluetooth Titan Security Keys, these will continue to work with Bluetooth and will continue to work as an NFC key on most modern mobile devices." The company will also continue to service existing Bluetooth Titan Security Keys until they are out of warranty.

Antitrust officials at the U.S. Justice Department said they have "grave concerns" about plans by T-Mobile US to shut down the wireless network used by millions of Boost Mobile customers. From a report: The department's worries were disclosed Monday in a regulatory filing by Dish Network, which bought Boost as part of an antitrust settlement approved by the Justice Department that cleared the way for T-Mobile's takeover of Sprint last year. T-Mobile operates the 3G network known as CDMA that's used by Boost.

"The Division is left with grave concerns about the potential for a nationwide CDMA shutdown to leave a substantial proportion of Boost's customers without service," the acting head of the department's antitrust division, Richard Powers, wrote to Dish and T-Mobile in a July 9 letter. The dispute over the network, which T-Mobile plans to decommission on Jan. 1, is threatening the elaborate antitrust deal brokered by the Trump administration's Justice Department, which allowed T-Mobile to buy Sprint even though the deal consolidated the mobile phone market to three national players. The Justice Department had long said four players were needed to ensure the market is competitive.

New submitter tslinks7 writes: The US Navy is developing solar-powered aircraft to fly for 90 days at a time. The Skydweller aircraft could be used as a communications relay platform or a constant eye in the sky to escort surface ships. The testbed aircraft adds new software and upgraded hardware to Solar Impulse 2, a piloted solar aircraft that flew around the world in 2015-16. The new plane is made by US-Spanish aerospace firm Skydweller Aero. The company was awarded a $5 million contract to develop the aircraft.

Facebook's decision to close accounts connected to a misinformation research project last week prompted a broad outcry from the company's critics -- and now Congress is getting involved. From a report: A handful of lawmakers criticized the decision at the time, slamming Facebook for being hostile toward efforts to make the platform's opaque algorithms and ad targeting methods more transparent. Researchers believe that studying those hidden systems is crucial work for gaining insight on the flow of political misinformation.

The company specifically punished two researchers with NYU's Cybersecurity for Democracy project who work on Ad Observer, an opt-in browser tool that allows researchers to study how Facebook targets ads to different people based on their interests and demographics. In a new letter, embedded below, a trio of Democratic senators are pressing Facebook for more answers. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Chris Coons (D-DE) and Mark Warner (D-VA) wrote to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg asking for a full explanation on why the company terminated the researcher accounts and how they violated the platform's terms of service and compromised user privacy. The lawmakers sent the letter on Friday.

Valve is aiming to make its Steam Deck handheld gaming PC ready for Windows 11. From a report: While we've known for weeks that the Steam Deck can run Windows, it wasn't clear how well this would be supported by Valve, or whether an option for a Trusted Platform Modules (TPM) would be enabled to get Windows 11 on the Steam Deck. Now, Valve has confirmed it has been heavily focused on Windows support.

"There's work looking at TPM just now," says Greg Coomer, a Valve Steam Deck designer, in an interview with PC Gamer. "We've focused so much on Windows 10, so far, that we haven't really gotten that far into it. Our expectation is that we can meet that." Valve is working with AMD to make sure that TPM is supported at a BIOS level, and that the Steam Deck is ready for Windows 11. "So there's nothing to indicate to us yet that there'll be any issues with Windows 11," explains Coomer.

Ever wonder how cheap, no-name products on Amazon can amass hundreds, sometimes thousands, of nearly perfect star ratings, with just a handful of negative reviews? From a report: Here's one way: Some sellers are reaching out to unhappy buyers to revise or delete their negative reviews, in exchange for refunds or gift cards. With fewer disgruntled shoppers, the overall average star rating rises. Sellers who ship products via Amazon aren't supposed to reach out to customers outside of Amazon's official channel -- in fact, it's a violation of the terms they agree to on the retail platform. In March, New Yorker Katherine Scott picked out an oil spray bottle for cooking, based on nearly 1,000 glowing Amazon reviews of the product, which had a 4.5-star rating average. When the $10 sprayer arrived, she found the item didn't work as advertised: Instead of a mist, it produced a stream of oil, she said. She left a negative review.

A week later, Ms. Scott received an email from someone claiming to be from the customer-service team of the oil sprayer's brand, Auxtun -- correspondence which I have reviewed. "We are willing to refund in full," the representative wrote. "We hope you can reconsider deleting comments at your convenience okay?" The message concluded, "When we do not receive a response, we will assume that you did not see it, and will continue to send emails." The seller shouldn't have had her email address. Sellers who fulfill orders themselves do receive customer names and mailing addresses. But for orders that Amazon itself fulfills, customer data is supposed to be shielded from sellers and brands.

Sellers are permitted to communicate with buyers through Amazon's built-in messaging platform, which hides the customer's email address. Amazon's terms of service also prohibit sellers from requesting that a customer remove a negative review or post a positive one. "We do not share customer email addresses with third-party sellers," an Amazon spokesman told me. Meanwhile, brands, which can be distinct from sellers, may reach out to unsatisfied customers through Amazon's messaging service, but they also aren't allowed to ask customers to remove negative reviews.

Ms. Scott asked for a refund but didn't want to delete her review. Another representative reached out the next day and declined to issue her refund. "A bad review is a fatal blow to us," read the email. "Could you help me delete the review? If you can, I want to refund $20 to you to express my gratitude." (This was twice what Ms. Scott paid.) A few hours later, she received another plea from the same email address. "It was so creepy. They emailed me directly about it over and over," Ms. Scott said. Ms. Scott contacted Amazon twice about the matter. I reviewed Amazon's chat transcripts and emails.

Instead of having AI in a self-driving car decide whether to kill its driver or pedestrians, the Washington Post reports there's a new philosophy gaining traction: Why not stop cars from getting in life-or-death situations in the first place? (Alternate URL): After all, the whole point of automated cars is to create road conditions where vehicles are more aware than humans are, and thus better at predicting and preventing accidents. That might avoid some of the rare occurrences where human life hangs in the balance of a split-second decision... The best way to kill or injure people probably isn't a decision you'd like to leave up to your car, or the company manufacturing it, anytime soon. That's the thinking now about advanced AI: It's supposed to prevent the scenarios that lead to crashes, making the choice of who's to die one that the AI should never have to face.

Humans get distracted by texting, while cars don't care what your friends have to say. Humans might miss objects obscured by their vehicle's blind spot. Lidar can pick those things up, and 360 cameras should work even if your eyes get tired. Radar can bounce around from one vehicle to the next, and might spot a car decelerating up ahead faster than a human can... [Serial entrepreneur Barry] Lunn is the founder and CEO of Provizio, an accident-prevention technology company. Provizio's secret sauce is a "five-dimensional" vision system made up of high-end radar, lidar and camera imaging. The company builds an Intel vision processor and Nvidia graphics processor directly onto its in-house radar sensor, enabling cars to run machine-learning algorithms directly on the radar sensor. The result is a stack of perception technology that sees farther and wider, and processes road data faster than traditional autonomy tech, Lunn says. Swift predictive analytics gives vehicles and drivers more time to react to other cars.

The founder has worked in vision technology for nearly a decade and has previously worked with NASA, General Motors and Boeing under the radar company Arralis, which Lunn sold in 2017. The start-up is in talks with big automakers, and its vision has a strong team of trailblazers behind it, including Scott Thayer and Jeff Mishler, developers of early versions of autonomous tech for Google's Waymo and Uber... Lunn thinks the auto industry prematurely pushed autonomy as a solution, long before it was safe or practical to remove human drivers from the equation. He says AI decision-making will play a pivotal role in the future of auto safety, but only after it has been shown to reduce the issues that lead to crashes. The goal is the get the tech inside passenger cars so that the system can learn from human drivers, and understand how they make decisions before allowing the AI to decide what happens in specified instances.

"Part of the reason that misinformation about vaccines is so intractable is that it can be very lucrative," argues a new article in Slate: For years anti-vaccine figures have made money publishing books and giving speeches, and only in the past couple of years have major sites like YouTube started preventing anti-vaxxers from directly earning revenue from advertising. During the pandemic, as the coronavirus created new markets for health hoaxes, conspiracy theorists have been able to make money online by using the misinformation that they publicize on major sites like Facebook to sell supplements and books to followers via e-commerce shops. Now, vaccine skeptics with large followings are turning to crowdfunding platforms — both the relatively obscure GiveSendGo and the decidedly mainstream GoFundMe — to monetize their activities, often to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars...

On GiveSendGo and GoFundMe, vaccine truthers often portray themselves as little guys in a fight against the pro-vaccine tyranny of big pharma, big tech, and big government, and in doing so rake in money from thousands of sympathetic donors. They're able to do it in part because of lax standards and moderation blind spots, and in part by operating in gray areas... Over the past few months, GiveSendGo has been hosting fundraisers for causes casting doubt on vaccines that have racked up huge sums... But it isn't just GiveSendGo, though, that's facilitating donations for efforts to resist coronavirus vaccines. GoFundMe is also providing services to these causes. There, however, skeptics have a workaround: They're not raising money to oppose vaccines, per se, but to oppose vaccine mandates... [T]here are numerous other GoFundMe campaigns to support people who are choosing to leave their jobs instead of getting the vaccine.

GoFundMe does, however, appear to be placing banners with links to information from the CDC and WHO on fundraising pages that promote vaccine hesitancy, unlike GiveSendGo. "Fundraisers raising money to promote misinformation about vaccines violate GoFundMe's terms of service and will be removed from the platform," GoFundMe's senior communication manager Monica Corbett wrote in an email. "Over the last several years, we have removed over 250 fundraisers attempting to promote misinformation related to vaccines. Fundraisers for legal challenges do not violate our terms of service...." As the Daily Beast reported, users have in the past found ways to get around GoFundMe's ban on vaccine misinformation by crafting their campaigns in the name of anti-vax dog whistles like "medical freedom" and "informed consent...."

[T]he platform has tried to crack down on vaccine misinformation, finding itself walking the content-moderation tightrope that other large social media platforms are familiar with, which inevitably leaves loopholes in place that purveyors of misinformation try to exploit.

Google Chrome will disable JavaScript functions like alert() and confirm() inside cross origin-frames," reports Inside.com's developer newsletter.

"As this is a breaking change, developers are encouraged to update their apps and debugging tools before the update." A Chrome engineering team member said the team is disabling alert() to protect users from being tricked by scammers. Some are complaining this has already affected programming tutorials and Javascript learning sites that sandbox user-provided code in cross-origin frames. For those affected by the changes, Chrome advises the following:

- Get a few months' extension by signing up for the "reverse origin trial" so you can temporarily opt out of the change.

- Check out the enterprise policy.


The move has sparked controversy:

- One Discord engineer criticized the fact such a major breaking change is happening without extensive discussion on the matter.

- Another Twitter user echoed the sentiment of many when he argued the move will just hurt those who can't easily update sites while encouraging attackers to use pseudo alert functionality.
One of Google's Chrome engineers explained on Twitter that "Major browser vendors are generally aligned about wanting to move the platform away from alert() and friends, even though it will unfortunately involve some breakage...

"On breakage in general — breaking changes happen often on the web, and as a developer it's good practice to test against early release channels of major browsers to learn about any compatibility issues upfront."

Friday a CNN video offered what it calls "an exclusive look into how Space Force is defending America." CNN's Jim Sciutto reported: Inside Mission Control at Buckley Space Force Base in Aurora, Colorado, Space Force Guardians, as they're known, fly the nation's missile warning satellites. Using infrared sensors, these satellites, orbiting 22,000 miles above earth, scour the planet 24/7 for missile launches and nuclear detonations.

Lt. Col. Michael Mariner: "We never stop — always vigilant — and we never fail. Because that's how important this mission is to our nation. We provide decision-quality data to tactical war fighters on the ground, to save their lives."

This satellite dish is in touch with missile-warning satellites deployed in what's known as geosynchronous orbit. If those warning satellites detect a launch anywhere on the surface of the planet, it beams that information back down to this ground station instantaneously, at the speed of light. And then Space Force sends that information, that warning, around the world to U.S. forces deployed aboard or here on the U.S. homeland. In January 2020, these satellites sprang into action, detecting multiple missiles from Iran targetting the Al Asad airbase in Iraq. Before those missiles rained down, within minutes Space Force had delivered a lifesaving warning to units on the ground. Space Force specialist Sally Stevens was on duty. "It is lightning fast."

CNN: "Right. And quick enough to take action to protect themselves."

Stevens: "Absolutely. Especially in the Al Asad night. Not very often do we get reminded of where our end data gets to, and that night was a shocking reality."

Missile-warning satellites are just a fraction of the hundreds of U.S. government and commercial satellites monitored and defended by the Guardians of the Space Force today — defended because U.S. adversaries led by Russia and China have deployed weapons to disable or destroy them. Space Force is now an independent branch of the U.S. military due to this alarming new reality. Space, once relatively peaceful territory, is now considered a potential front in any modern war.

Colonel Matthew Holston: "Space is a war-fighting domain. It's the reason that we set up the United States Space Force as a separate service. So each and every day, we're training our operators to deter conflict, but if deterrence fails, to compete and win in space."

The U.S. has far more satellites than any other nation, some 2,500, compared to 431 for China and 168 for Russia. And a whole range of U.S. military technologies depend on them... The danger for the U.S. is that greater dependence on space equals greater vulnerability to attacks in space.

Lt. Col. Michael Mariner: "When you're at the top, the target's on your back. Everybody's shooting for you."

China is launching kidnapper satellites with grappling arms capable of plucking satellites out of orbit. Russia is deploying kamikaze satellites, capable of ramming and destroying U.S. space assets. And Russia now has a new space weapon that Space Force dubs "the nesting doll."

General John W. Raymond, Space Force Chief of Space Operations: "Back in 2017, Russia launched a satellite, and it opened up and another satellite came out, and then it open up and a projectile came out. That projectile is designed to kill U.S. satellites. So in 2019 they did the same thing, but this time they put it up next to one of our satellites. And then we started talking about it."

CNN: "You warned them away?"

Raymond: "We described what is safe and professional behavior. And it's important. Today there's no rules in space. It's the wild, wild west."

Russia and China also have directed-energy weapons, which can damage or disable U.S. satellites from a distance. The age of lasers in space has already arrived. New satellites are being designed with greater maneuverability, shielding to block directed-energy weapons, and resiliency so that losing one or a few does not disable the entire system. Space Force commanders welcome the private sector's entry into space, since it gives more and cheaper options to get into orbit... Raymond: "I would bet on U.S. industry any day. It's a huge advantage that we have."
A CNN article summarizing the report adds that Ameria's adversaries" have already attempted to use space weapons to temporarily disable US satellites, using lasers and directed-energy weapons to blind or 'dazzle' them."

CNN's report concludes that space war "is not science fiction, but a battle already underway today," adding this quote from Space Force Chief of Space Operations, General John W. Raymond. "We would prefer the domain to remain free of conflict. But like in any other domain — like air, land, sea, and now space — we'll be ready to protect and defend."

Slashdot reader Thelasko quotes the BBC: A sprawling network of more than 350 fake social media profiles is pushing pro-China narratives and attempting to discredit those seen as opponents of China's government, according to a new study. The aim is to delegitimise the West and boost China's influence and image overseas, the report by the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) suggests...

Some of the accounts — spread across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube — use fake AI-generated profile pictures, while others appear to have been hijacked after previously posting in other languages.

There is no concrete evidence that the network is linked to the Chinese government, but according to the CIR, a non-profit group which works to counter disinformation, it resembles pro-China networks previously taken down by Twitter and Facebook. These networks amplified pro-China narratives similar to those promoted by Chinese state representatives and state media. Much of the content shared by the network focuses on the US, and in particular on divisive issues like gun laws and race politics... Some accounts repeatedly deny human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region, where experts say China has detained at least a million Muslims against their will, calling the allegations "lies fabricated by the United States and the West".

The New York Times reports on what's apparently a new Russia-aligned disinformation campaign to "undermine the effort to immunize people" — and more. (Alternate URL here) Both Russia and China have worked to promote their own vaccines through messaging that undermines American and European vaccination programs, according to the State Department's Global Engagement Center. But in addition to overt messaging promoting their own vaccines, Moscow has also spread conspiracy theories. Last year, the department began warning about how Russia was using fringe websites to promote doubts around vaccinations... The aim of various Russian groups continues to be to exacerbate tensions in Western societies, a key foreign policy goal of Moscow, according to American officials briefed on the disinformation efforts...

In recent weeks, the nature of Russian disinformation has also begun to shift, some officials and outside experts said. Recent postings spreading false information have suggested that the Biden administration is intent on mandating that Americans get vaccines that are failing against the coronavirus. The campaign also comes as President Biden warned President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia last month to rein in ransomware attacks emanating out of Russia and aimed at critical American infrastructure. Though the ransomware attacks are separate from the disinformation campaigns, the warning was the latest effort by United States officials to prod Russia to rein in destructive digital incursions... The Biden administration is actively monitoring Russian misinformation and is trying to counter it by encouraging the public to get vaccinated and promoting the safety and efficacy of Western vaccines, according to an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss potentially sensitive information...

Much of the disinformation efforts are posted on websites with little to no moderation... Measuring the impact of the disinformation efforts is difficult, given the deep divisions over vaccinations that already exist in the United States and Europe; exploiting splits among Americans is a typical Russian tactic.

Even on the hard-right discussion forums, some users have fingered the cartoons as being Russian in origin, though the postings have continued.

wiredmikey shares a report from SecurityWeek: Researchers have discovered three separate Chinese military affiliated advanced threat groups simultaneously targeting and compromising the same Southeast Asian telcos. The attack groups concerned are Soft Cell, Naikon, and a third group, possibly Emissary Panda (also known as APT27)...

Cybereason released details of a triple-pronged attack by Chinese military-affiliated groups against cellular network providers in southeast Asia. Disturbingly, Yonatan Striem-Amit, CTO and co-founder of Cybereason, told SecurityWeek, "We discovered and have evidence that Chinese advanced groups have been using the Hafnium zero-days since at least 2017." Cellular networks are a prime target for nation states because they provide an excellent steppingstone to many other types of attack and different targets. "At this point," said Striem-Amit, "the attacks seem to be a stepping point for a major espionage campaign. We all carry a device in our pocket that knows where we are, where we have been, and who we are with...."

The surprising feature, apart from their stealthy duration, is that three groups, all associated with the Chinese government and often sharing tactics, techniques and procedures, have attacked the same targets at the same time — and have even been seen on the same endpoints simultaneously. It is consequently unclear whether the groups were separately instructed to target telcos, or whether they were being guided from a single source within the Chinese military... The one thing that is clear is that telcos are a major target for China, and that it has had knowledge of and has used serious Exchange zero-day vulnerabilities for many years.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Interesting Engineering: The U.S. Air Force joins a group of venture capital firms in making a $60 million investment in Hermeus, a Georgia-based startup that is striving to make the world's first reusable hypersonic aircraft, a press statement reveals. The new contract, awarded on July 30, sets ambitious objectives for Hermeus, to be accomplished over the next three years. These include the building of three prototypes of the company's Quarterhorse aircraft and the testing of its full-scale reusable hypersonic propulsion system. If all goes to plan, the Quarterhorse passenger aircraft will be capable of flying at a staggering Mach 5 speeds, starting at 3836 mph (6174 km/h). By comparison, NASA's new supersonic jet, the X-59, will fly at Mach 1.5 and reach top speeds of 990 mph.

As Hermeus' aircraft will eventually be able to fly five times the speed of sound, it will be capable of traveling from New York to London in only 90 minutes -- instead of seven hours it typically takes today's commercial airliners. In order to reach those speeds, Hermeus is developing a proprietary turbine-based combined cycle (TBCC) engine, based on the GE J85 turbojet engine used for a variety of high-speed aircraft including Virgin Galactic's White Knight carrier aircraft and Boom Supersonic's prototype XB-1 aircraft. The first Quarterhorse prototype is set to be unmanned -- much in the same way that Virgin Galactic's first space plane missions were uncrewed, the earliest flight tests will not be piloted so as to eliminate the risk to human life and to allow the company to start its flight testing earlier. According to a 2020 report by Aviation International News, Hermeus has already built and tested a small-scale hypersonic engine prototype and it is now working on a full-scale engine demonstrator of its TBCC engine.

Jim Salter writes via Ars Technica: In March of last year, proprietary filesystem vendor Paragon Software unleashed a stream of anti-open source FUD about a Samsung-derived exFAT implementation headed into the Linux kernel. Several months later, Paragon seemed to have seen the error of its ways and began the arduous process of getting its own implementation of Microsoft's NTFS (the default filesystem for all Windows machines) into the kernel as well. Although Paragon is still clearly struggling to get its processes and practices aligned to open source-friendly ones, Linux kernel BDFL Linus Torvalds seems to have taken a personal interest in the process. After nearly a year of effort by Paragon, Torvalds continues to gently nudge both it and skeptical Linux devs in order to keep the project moving forward.

To those familiar with daily Linux use, the utility of Paragon's version of NTFS might not be immediately obvious. The Linux kernel already has one implementation of NTFS, and most distributions make it incredibly easy to install and use another FUSE-based implementation (ntfs-3g) beyond that. Both existing implementations have problems, however. The in-kernel implementation of NTFS is extremely old, poorly maintained, and should only be used read-only. As a result, most people who actually need to mount NTFS filesystems on Linux use the ntfs-3g driver instead. Ntfs-3g is in reasonably good shape -- it's much newer than the in-kernel ntfs implementation, and as Linux filesystem guru Ted Ts'o points out, it actually passes more automated filesystem tests than Paragon's own ntfs3 does.

Unfortunately, due to operating in userspace rather than in-kernel, ntfs-3g's performance is abysmal. In Ts'o's testing, Paragon's ntfs3 completed automated testing in 8,106 seconds -- but the FUSE-based ntfs-3g required a whopping 34,783 seconds. Bugs and performance aside, ongoing maintenance is a key aspect to Paragon's ntfs3 making it in-kernel. Torvalds opined that "Paragon should just make a pull request for [ntfs3]" -- but he did so after noting that the code should get OKs from current maintainers and that Paragon itself should maintain the code going forward. (Paragon developer Konstantin Komarov quickly replied that the company intended to continue maintaining the code, once accepted.) [...] For his own part, Torvalds seems determined to find a performant, modern, maintainable replacement for the ancient (2001-era) and seldom-used ntfs implementation in the kernel now. As long as Paragon remains willing to keep playing, it seems likely to get there eventually -- perhaps even in time for the 5.15 kernel.

According to a survey from Consultancy Accenture, young people born in the 90s are less likely to be getting their information about tech careers from school and teachers than social media, TV series and film. ZDNet reports: Social media ranks top for information sources about career aspirations (31%), beating out parents by a small margin (29%) and teachers by a larger margin (24%). Gen Z are more likely to learn about a future in the tech sector from TV and film (27%) than from school (19%). Accenture surveyed 1,000 UK-based 16-21-year-olds on their career aspirations and their long-term options. It found that 44% of young women said they had good digital skills, but only 40% of young men said they did. Despite this, less than a quarter of young people are confident in securing a technology job.

Shaheen Sayed, Accenture's technology lead in the UK & Ireland, said: "If the digital native generation is not turning to technology as a career option, then we have a huge pipeline problem for the technology profession. Young people know technology is completely redefining the world right now -- but their lack of confidence in securing a tech job indicates a worrying disconnect between young people, particularly girls, and a changing jobs market." Those interviewed who were interested in tech jobs said they would most likely choose jobs in AI, data analytics, and cybersecurity. Which makes sense to an extent, given that these are the top three subjects in online tech media at present.

"It's striking that young people are influenced more by digital channels than their connections at home and school when choosing their next steps," said Sayed. "Careers advice will need to meet young people where they are at and paint an engaging picture of the skills required for the economy today. Developing the next generation of tech talent requires more than having coding on the curriculum. Technology moves quickly and subjects must evolve to equip young people with the digital skills that will drive economic growth. Employers are looking for people to work with technologies, like AI, as they tackle global challenges like climate change and become more competitive."

Hackers are going after U.S. hospitals with a fresh wave of cyberattacks this week just as coronavirus cases surge around the country. From a report: Eskenazi Health, a health-care service provider that operates a 315-bed hospital, inpatient facilities, and community health centers throughout Indianapolis, was crippled by a ransomware attack that began between 3:30 and 4 a.m. Wednesday morning, a spokesperson told The Daily Beast. By 8 a.m. Eskenazi Health was turning ambulances away and diverting patients to other hospitals as a result of the ransomware incident, the spokesperson said. "A ransomware attack happened," an Eskenazi spokesperson told The Daily Beast, confirming that all of Eskenazi Health's locations -- its hospital, its inpatient facilities, and its community health centers -- are impacted. The spokesperson added that Eskenazi Health was working to contain the ransomware by shutting down some services and operations in order to try to keep the malware from spreading through its systems.

"They took all of our systems down so they wouldn't get breached," the spokesperson said, confirming email systems and electronic medical records were still down as of Thursday evening. Eskenazi Health is not alone. Sanford Health, a Sioux Falls, South Dakota-headquartered health system which includes 46 hospitals and care locations in 26 states and 10 countries, said in a statement Thursday it had been hit with a cyberattack in recent days as well. Sanford Health did not confirm whether it was the victim of ransomware, but president and CEO Bill Gassen confirmed to The Daily Beast it was working to "contain" the impact. In both the Sanford Health and Eskenazi Health cases, patient data and employee data were not affected, officials said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Edmunds, written by Cameron Rogers: BlueCruise operates on the same principle as Super Cruise. Once the vehicle is traveling on one of the 100,000 miles of qualified roadways (Ford dubs these Hands-Free Blue Zones) and certain conditions have been met, a graphic appears in the instrument panel to let you know that BlueCruise is ready for activation. Simply press the cruise control button on the steering wheel and you can take your hands off the wheel to let the vehicle drive itself. Like Super Cruise, Ford's BlueCruise system is not autonomous. As the driver, you have to be alert and prepared to take the wheel at any time. BlueCruise will not take evasive action if there is a small obstruction in the road -- a box on the freeway, for instance -- and you must be ready to perform advanced maneuvers if necessary. To that end, BlueCruise includes a head and eye position sensor to make sure you're watching the road ahead. Divert your attention for too long and the system will deactivate. And because BlueCruise relies on clearly visible lane markers, traveling on highway sections that lack them will deactivate the system. The first vehicles to receive BlueCruise functionality will be two of Ford's newest models -- the 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E and 2021 Ford F-150. In both cases, the BlueCruise hardware is tied to the Ford Co-Pilot360 Active 2.0 package.

I had the opportunity to drive both an F-150 and Mustang Mach-E with BlueCruise, and there was no functional difference in how the system behaved in each vehicle. The system itself melds several driver aids that are already present on the majority of cars today, but with a head- and eye-tracking component that makes sure you're paying attention. Once this is established -- and you're driving on a preapproved road -- a ring will appear around a graphic of the vehicle in the digital instrument panel. This lets you know that BlueCruise is ready to activate. Simply press the cruise control button and acceleration, braking and turning is handed over to BlueCruise. In this way, BlueCruise functions similarly to GM's Super Cruise. The primary difference is that GM vehicles with Super Cruise have an LED light bar integrated into the steering wheel to let you know when Super Cruise can be activated. Ford's system isn't so obvious in letting you know when it's ready. When you press the cruise control button, however, the instrument panel graphics turn blue to inform you that BlueCruise is active and you can take your hands off the wheel.

The other difference between the two competing systems is that GM's Super Cruise has one prescribed distance for the adaptive cruise control (ACC) aspect. Ford has decided to treat BlueCruise like a typical ACC system in which you can choose one of four following distances. When engaged, BlueCruise does a good job at approximating typical human driving behavior. I never had to adjust the following distance from one of the medium settings, and the system gives you a few beats to put your hands on the wheel when it needs you to resume control. I didn't experience many technical issues in either vehicle on my limited test drive, but there was one instance in which I was forced to make an emergency maneuver. A Civic driver with little concern for their personal safety accelerated to merge right in front of my F-150, and the truck didn't slow down quickly enough. This wasn't necessarily a fault of BlueCruise itself -- I have found that ACC systems in general are slow to react to vehicles merging into or out of my lane -- but it goes to show that you still need to have your wits about you at all times. "Like GM's Super Cruise, Ford's BlueCruise provides a hands-free driving experience on certain limited-access highways," writes Rogers in closing. "It certainly takes some stress out of driving in bumper-to-bumper traffic, and should be similarly pleasant on long-distance road trips. But these are not autonomous systems, and drivers need to be ready to take the wheel at any time to react to changing road conditions."