An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: President Donald Trump has long been an outspoken foe of big technology companies. And in recent months, he has focused his ire on Section 230, a provision of the 1996 Communications Decency Act that shields online platforms from liability for content posted by their users. In May, Trump called on the Federal Communications Commission to reinterpret the law -- though it's not clear the agency has the power to do that. Since then, he has tweeted about the issue incessantly. On Tuesday evening, Trump ratcheted up his campaign against Section 230. In a tweet, he called the law "a serious threat to our National Security & Election Integrity." He warned that "if the very dangerous & unfair Section 230 is not completely terminated as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), I will be forced to unequivocally VETO the Bill."

The NDAA is a massive spending bill that Congress passes each year to authorize funding for the military. This year's version, now under active discussion on Capitol Hill, is expected to cost around $740 billion. The NDAA is seen as a "must pass" bill because no one wants to be blamed for holding up funding for the troops. So inserting language into it can be a way to pass proposals that might not stand on their own. But there's also a risk of a backlash -- especially if a measure is seen as unrelated to the military. This may be why Trump has started claiming that Section 230 is a "threat to our national security," since that would theoretically make it germane to a defense funding bill. Trump's campaign to repeal Section 230 appears to go beyond mere tweets. The White House is reportedly telling members of Congress the same thing in private that the president is telling his 88 million Twitter followers: that he will veto the NDAA if it doesn't repeal or at least overhaul Section 230.

schwit1 shares a report from Autoblog, adding: "And CR decides to predict poor reliability on EVs it hasn't even evaluated yet." From the report: The latest auto survey from Consumer Reports shows several newer electric cars to be beset with problems, contradicting the conventional wisdom that EVs with their simpler powertrains should have fewer issues than gasoline- or diesel-powered cars. The CR reader survey harvested data on some 329,000 vehicles and specifically calls out the Audi E-Tron, the Kia Niro EV, and the Tesla Model Y.

The E-Tron is dinged for "drive-system electrical failures along with other power-equipment issues." The Niro EV's problems reportedly included electric-motor bearing failure. The Tesla suffers a panoply of build-quality issues include misaligned body panels and poor paint quality. Both Audi and Kia claimed to be aware of the issues. For now, though, CR has removed the E-Tron and the Niro EV from its Recommended list (which is based on vehicle test results as well as reliability). The Model Y was not on the Recommended list. CR notes that some older, less-complicated EVs did well in the reliability survey, including the Chevrolet Bolt and the Nissan Leaf. More controversially, as a result of this latest survey's findings, Consumer Reports has decided to downgrade the predicted reliability of several new EVs that were not even included in the survey, including the Ford Mustang Mach-E, the Mercedes-Benz EQC, and the Porsche Taycan.

"Often, it's not the EV tech that's problematic," says Anita Lam, CR's associate director of automotive data integration. "It's all the other new technology that could show up on any car -- new infotainment systems, more sophisticated power equipment and gadgets -- that often gets put on new EVs to feed a perception that they're supposed to be luxurious and high-tech."

Google News Showcase visitors will soon be able to read select paywalled articles at no extra charge. TechCrunch reports: Google says it will be paying participating publishers to provide "limited access to paywalled content for News Showcase users." Those users will, however, still need to register directly with the publishers, which Google says will give them a way to build a relationship. The main News Showcase format is essentially story panel, and Google says it's introducing a new panel allowing publishers to curate a daily selection of their most important stories. Those panels will be shown to users who follow those publishers.

Google is also bringing the News Showcase to new devices and channels. It started out on Google News on Android and is now available on iOS as well, with plans to expand to the news.google.com website and Discover soon. And it says it has doubled the number of partners since the launch in October -- the list of nearly 400 publishers participating in the program includes new names like Le Monde, Courrier International, L'Obs, Le Figaro, Liberation and L'Express in France, plus Pagina12, La Gaceta and El Dia in Argentina.

According to a Sony patent spotted by T3, the console maker may be working on a new PlayStation 5 with two graphics card. From the report: The patent describes a "scalable game console" where "a second GPU [is] communicatively coupled to the first GPU" and that the system is for "home console and cloud gaming" usage. To us here at T3 that suggests a next-gen PlayStation console, most likely a new PS5 Pro flagship, supercharged with two graphics cards instead of just one. These would both come in the APU (accelerated processing unit) format that the PlayStation 5's system-on-a-chip (SoC) do, with two custom made AMD APUs working together to deliver enhanced gaming performance and cloud streaming.

The official Sony patent notes that, "plural SoCs may be used to provide a 'high-end' version of the console with greater processing and storage capability," while "the 'high end' system can also contain more memory such as random-access memory (RAM) and other features and may also be used for a cloud-optimized version using the same game console chip with more performance." And, with the PlayStation 5 console only marginally weaker on paper than the Xbox Series X (the PS5 delivers 10.28 teraflops compared to the Xbox Series X's 12 teraflops), a new PS5 Pro console that comes with two APUs rather than one, improving local gaming performance as well as cloud gaming, would be no doubt the Xbox Series X as king of the next-gen consoles death blow.

The cloud gaming part of the patent is particularly interesting, too, as it seems to suggest that this technology could not just find itself in a new flagship PS5 Pro console, but also in more streamlined cloud-based hardware, too. An upgraded PS5 Digital Edition seems a smart bet, as too the much-rumored PSP 5G. [...] Will we see a PS5 Pro anytime soon? Here at T3 we think absolutely not -- we imagine we'll get at least two straight years of PS5 before we see anything at all. As for a cloud-based next-gen PSP 5G, though...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Google violated US labor laws by spying on workers who were organizing employee protests, then firing two of them, according to a complaint to be filed by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) today. The complaint names two employees, Laurence Berland and Kathryn Spiers, both of whom were fired by the company in late 2019 in connection with employee activism. Berland was organizing against Google's decision to work with IRI Consultants, a firm widely known for its anti-union efforts, when he was let go for reviewing other employees' calendars. Now, the NLRB has found Google's policy against employees looking at certain coworkers' calendars is unlawful. "Google's hiring of IRI is an unambiguous declaration that management will no longer tolerate worker organizing," Berland said in a statement. "Management and their union busting cronies wanted to send that message, and the NLRB is now sending their own message: worker organizing is protected by law."

Spiers was fired after she created a pop-up for Google employees visiting the IRI Consultants website. "Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities," the notification read, according to The Guardian. The company said Spiers had violated security policies, a statement that hurt her reputation in the tech community. Now, the NLRB has found the firing was unlawful. "This week the NLRB issued a complaint on my behalf. They found that I was illegally terminated for trying to help my colleagues," Spiers said. "Colleagues and strangers believe I abused my role because of lies told by Google management while they were retaliating against me. The NLRB can order Google to reinstate me, but it cannot reverse the harm done to my credibility."

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation says that cyber-criminals are increasingly relying on email forwarding rules in order to disguise their presence inside hacked email accounts. From a report: In a PIN (Private Industry Notification) alert sent last week and made public today, the FBI says the technique has been seen and abused in recent BEC (Business Email Compromise) attacks reported over the summer. The hackers' technique relies on a feature found in some email services called "auto-forwarding email rules." As its name implies, the feature allows the owner of an email address to set up "rules" that forward (redirect) an incoming email to another address if a certain criteria is met. Threat actors absolutely love email auto-forwarding rules as they allow them to receive copies of all incoming emails without having to log into an account each day -- and be at risk of triggering a security warning for a suspicious login.

The security team behind the "npm" repository for JavaScript libraries removed two npm packages this Monday for containing malicious code that installed a remote access trojan (RAT) on the computers of developers working on JavaScript projects. From a report: The name of the two packages was jdb.js and db-json.js., and both were created by the same author and described themselves as tools to help developers work with JSON files typically generated by database applications. Both packages were uploaded on the npm package registry last week and were downloaded more than 100 times before their malicious behavior was detected by Sonatype, a company that scans package repositories on a regular basis. According to Sonatype's Ax Sharma, the two packages contained a malicious script that executed after web developers imported and installed any of the two malicious libraries. The post-install script performed basic reconnaissance of the infected host and then attempted to download and run a file named patch.exe that later installed njRAT, also known as Bladabindi, a very popular remote access trojan that has been used in espionage and data theft operations since 2015.

Dan Goodin, writing for ArsTechnica: Earlier this year, Apple patched one of the most breathtaking iPhone vulnerabilities ever: a memory corruption bug in the iOS kernel that gave attackers remote access to the entire device -- over Wi-Fi, with no user interaction required at all. Oh, and exploits were wormable -- meaning radio-proximity exploits could spread from one nearby device to another, once again, with no user interaction needed. This Wi-Fi packet of death exploit was devised by Ian Beer, a researcher at Project Zero, Google's vulnerability research arm. In a 30,000-word post published on Tuesday afternoon, Beer described the vulnerability and the proof-of-concept exploit he spent six months developing single-handedly. Almost immediately, fellow security researchers took notice.

"This is a fantastic piece of work," Chris Evans, a semi-retired security researcher and executive and the founder of Project Zero, said in an interview. "It really is pretty serious. The fact you don't have to really interact with your phone for this to be set off on you is really quite scary. This attack is just you're walking along, the phone is in your pocket, and over Wi-Fi someone just worms in with some dodgy Wi-Fi packets." Beer's attack worked by exploiting a buffer overflow bug in a driver for AWDL, an Apple-proprietary mesh networking protocol that makes things like Airdrop work. Because drivers reside in the kernel -- one of the most privileged parts of any operating system -- the AWDL flaw had the potential for serious hacks. And because AWDL parses Wi-Fi packets, exploits can be transmitted over the air, with no indication that anything is amiss.

Uber is in advanced talks to sell its Uber Elevate unit to Joby Aviation, Axios reported Wednesday, citing multiple sources. A deal could be announced later this month. From the report: Uber Elevate was formed to develop a network of self-driving air taxis, but to date has been most notable for its annual conference devoted to the nascent industry. The sale comes as Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi's works to attain profitability, and follows partial sales of Uber's money-losing freight and self-driving units. Axios had previously reported that Uber was seeking a buyer. Elevate had a helicopter service running in New York City, but suspended those operations during the pandemic. At last check, the unit had around 80 employees.

Elon Musk would consider leveraging Tesla's mega $554 billion market cap to buy a legacy automaker, but only if it was on friendly terms, the billionaire entrepreneur said Tuesday in a wide-ranging interview with Axel Springer CEO Mathias Dopfner. From a report: Musk, who received an award Tuesday from the media giant, discussed his various interests and businesses, notably SpaceX and Tesla, both of which he leads. Dopfner noted that Tesla's valuation far exceeds the market cap of incumbent automakers like BMW, Daimler and VW, which along with others in the industry once dismissed Musk's ability to make electric vehicles mainstream. When asked if it would be a serious option to buy one of the legacy automakers, Musk said it was possible, but only under certain conditions. "Well, I think we're definitely not going to launch a hostile takeover," Musk said. "So I suppose if there was a friendly one, if somebody said, 'Hey, we think it would be a good idea to merge with Tesla,' we certainly could have that conversation. But, you know, we don't want it to be a hostile takeover sort of situation." Tesla today sits in an enviable position -- although Musk said once again that its share price is too high. The company, which will join the S&P 500 Index on December 21, is now the most valuable automaker in the world, surpassing rivals that produce far more vehicles annually.

Microsoft has started testing smaller feature updates for Windows 10 in the form of a Windows Feature Experience Pack. The branding appeared inside Windows 10 earlier this year, but Microsoft has only confirmed what the packs will be used for this week. From a report: The Windows Feature Experience Pack will be used to "improve certain features and experiences that are now developed independently of the OS," according to Microsoft. The first feature pack has been released to Windows 10 beta testers this week, and it includes the ability to use the built-in screen snipping app to paste screenshots directly into folders within the File Explorer. The pack also includes a split keyboard mode for 2-in-1 touch devices.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Massachusetts lawmakers have voted to pass a new police reform bill that will ban police departments and public agencies from using facial recognition technology across the state. The bill was passed by both the state's House and Senate on Tuesday, a day after senior lawmakers announced an agreement that ended months of deadlock.

The police reform bill also bans the use of chokeholds and rubber bullets, and limits the use of chemical agents like tear gas, and also allows police officers to intervene to prevent the use of excessive and unreasonable force. But the bill does not remove qualified immunity for police, a controversial measure that shields serving police from legal action for misconduct, following objections from police groups. Critics have for years complained that facial recognition technology is flawed, biased and disproportionately misidentifies people and communities of color. But the bill grants police an exception to run facial recognition searches against the state's driver license database with a warrant. In granting that exception, the state will have to publish annual transparency figures on the number of searches made by officers. "The Massachusetts Senate voted 28-12 to pass, and the House voted 92-67," notes the report. "The bill will now be sent to Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker for his signature."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Ford is urging major automakers to consider backing a framework deal with California on vehicle emissions in a bid to reach industry consensus before President-elect Joe Biden takes office, according to a letter seen by Reuters on Monday. Major automakers are set to discuss next steps at a virtual meeting of their auto trade association Tuesday, which comes a week after General Motors abruptly announced it would no longer back the Trump administration's ongoing effort to bar California from setting its own vehicle emissions rules.

In a previously unreported letter, Ford Americas President Kumar Galhotra on Wednesday said with Biden's win, the fight over Trump's effort to preempt California on vehicle emissions "is now, at least for the next set of years, essentially moot. The more relevant issue is thus the question of the standards." Galhotra urged automakers "to actively consider embracing the California framework." He added: "The Biden Administration will not let the Trump standards stand, and either by way of litigation and/or a regulatory reboot, the new team will move in a different, more stringent direction." A Ford spokeswoman declined comment on the letter but said the California agreement "should be the foundation for new regulations as the Biden administration considers stronger fuel economy standards in 2021."

According to The Wall Street Journal, Reddit says it now has 52 million daily users, with daily usage growing 44 percent year over year for October. The Verge reports: The number is small compared to other social media rivals, though. Twitter has 187 million daily users, Snap has 249 million, and Facebook has 1.82 billion. But at their larger sizes, none of those services are seeing daily usage grow as rapidly as Reddit. In their most recent quarters, Twitter reported 29 percent year-over-year growth, Snap reported 18 percent, and Facebook reported 12 percent.

Daily usage of Reddit is being shared for the first time "as a more accurate reflection of our user growth and to be more in-line with industry reporting," the company told the Journal. (It is true that social media companies tend to use daily users as their preferred metric; though Twitter, for instance, only switched away from reporting monthly users because that number was dipping, while daily users was growing.) The other reason for the change was to focus on a number that would better help to grow Reddit's advertising business. Reddit has focused on monthly usage in the past. This time last year, the company said it had 430 million monthly users, with 30 percent year-over-year growth.

Joe2020 writes: Famous developer Hector Martin who put Linux on the PS4 now wants to port Linux to the new Apple M1, and he wants to do it with the help of crowdfunding by making it his full-time job. One can find his official pledge for support here. "Since these devices are brand new and bespoke silicon, porting Linux to run on them is a huge undertaking. Well beyond a hobby project, it is a full-time job," the developer explains.

"The goal is to bring Linux support on Apple Silicon macs to the point where it is not merely a tech demo, but is actually an OS you would want to use on a daily driver device. To do this, there is a huge amount of work to be done. Running Linux on things is easy, but making it work well is hard. Drivers need to be written for all devices. The driver for the completely custom Apple GPU is the most complicated component, which is necessary to have a good desktop experience. Power management needs to work well too, for your battery life to be reasonable," the dev explains. Martin says he hopes to have enough donations to purchase the new Apple Silicon-powered devices and hire other people to help with the job.

Slashdot reader NoMoreACs also shared the news via Mac Rumors.

People are getting frustrated that Stories are everywhere now, but Google Maps is keeping it old school. From a report: Instead of adding tiny circles to the top of the app's screen, Google Maps is introducing its own news feed. Technically, Google calls its new feature the "Community Feed," as it includes posts from a local area. However, it's organized as any other news feed would be -- a vertically scrollable feed with posts you can "Like" by tapping on a little thumbs up icon. The feed, which is found with the Explore tab of the Google Maps app, is designed to make it easier to find the most recent news, updates, and recommendations from trusted local sources. This includes posts business owners create using Google My Business to alert customers to new deals, menu updates, and other offers. At launch, Google says the focus will be on highlighting posts from food and drink businesses.

For years, businesses have been able to make these sorts of posts using Google's tools. But previously, users would have to specifically tap to follow the business's profile in order to receive their updates. Now, these same sort of posts will be surfaced to even those Google Maps users who didn't take the additional step of following a particular business. This increased exposure has impacted the posts' views, Google says. In early tests of Community Feed ahead of its public launch, Google found that businesses' posts saw more than double the number of views than before the feed existed. Further reading: Google Maps Has Introduced So Many New Features and Design Changes in Recent Months That Getting Directions On It is Becoming an Increasingly Challenging Task (2018).

Amazon is laying the groundwork for a quantum computer, deepening efforts to harness technology that can crunch in seconds vast amounts of data that take even the most powerful supercomputers hours or days to process. From a report: Amazon has been hiring for a Quantum Hardware Team within its Amazon Web Services Center for Quantum Computing, according to internal job postings and information on LinkedIn. Marc Runyan, a former engineer with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, lists his title on the professional social network as senior quantum research scientist at Amazon and describes his role as "helping to design and build a quantum computer for Amazon Web Services." [...] Among Amazon's recent hires are research scientists focusing on designing a new superconducting quantum device as well as device fabrication. Developing its own quantum computer would let Amazon more closely mirror the approach taken by its major cloud rivals. International Business Machines first made a quantum computer available to the public in 2016 and has rolled out regular upgrades.

Google said it is launching Android Enterprise Essentials, a mobile device management service for small enterprises. From a report: Based on the Android Enterprise Recommended program, Google's Android Enterprise Essentials is a pared down version with default features and smaller budgets. Google is trying to address the reality that smaller organizations are often targeted by cybercriminals. Features include:

Requiring a lock screen and encryption on devices to prevent unauthorized access to company data.
Enforcing mandatory malware protection with an always-on Google Play Protect.
The ability to wipe all company data from a device.
The core security features are applied automatically without the need to configure devices.

Microsoft has removed 18 Edge browser extensions from the Edge Add-ons portal after the extensions were caught injecting ads into users' web search results pages. From a report: The extensions were removed between November 20 and November 25 after Microsoft received multiple complaints from users via Reddit. A subsequent investigation found multiple abusive extensions that had been uploaded on Microsoft's new fledgling Edge Add-ons portal. According to a list shared by a Microsoft community manager, the 18 extensions can be grouped into two categories. The first one is for extensions that tried to pass as the official versions of various apps, even if those apps didn't have official versions for Edge. This included: NordVPN, Adguard VPN, TunnelBear VPN, Ublock Adblock Plus, Greasemonkey, and Wayback Machine.

Companies need millions more cybersecurity professionals to fill roles around the world, but researchers say outlandish job requirements are the problem, rather than a lack of workers. From a report: Around 3.1 million professionals are needed to bridge the cybersecurity talent gap, a trade association for cybersecurity professionals estimated in a November report. The International Information System Security Certification Consortium, known as ISC2, said world-wide employment in the field would need to grow 89% to meet security requirements. However, excessive requirements for years of experience and professional certifications plus inflated expectations for junior roles aren't uncommon, said Chase Cunningham, principal analyst at research firm Forrester. He said that results in the perpetual problem of such positions going unfilled because companies often target overqualified candidates who can command greater salaries than these jobs tend to offer.