Longtime Slashdot reader FudRucker quotes a report from Study Finds: Researchers from Northwestern University, Boston College, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a new synaptic transistor that works just like the human brain. This advanced device, capable of both processing and storing information simultaneously, marks a notable shift from traditional machine-learning tasks to performing associative learning -- similar to higher-level human cognition. This study introduces a device that operates effectively at room temperatures, a notable improvement over previous brain-like computing devices that required extremely cold conditions to keep their circuits from overheating. With its fast operation, low energy consumption, and ability to retain information without power, the new transistor is well-suited for real-world applications.

"The brain has a fundamentally different architecture than a digital computer," says study co-author Mark Hersam, the Walter P. Murphy Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering, in a university release. "In a digital computer, data move back and forth between a microprocessor and memory, which consumes a lot of energy and creates a bottleneck when attempting to perform multiple tasks at the same time. On the other hand, in the brain, memory and information processing are co-located and fully integrated, resulting in orders of magnitude higher energy efficiency. Our synaptic transistor similarly achieves concurrent memory and information processing functionality to more faithfully mimic the brain."

Hersam and his team employed a novel strategy involving moire patterns, a type of geometric design formed when two patterns are overlaid. By stacking two-dimensional materials like bilayer graphene and hexagonal boron nitride and twisting them to form a moire pattern, they could manipulate the electronic properties of the graphene layers. This manipulation allowed for the creation of a synaptic transistor with enhanced neuromorphic functionality at room temperature. The device's testing involved training it to recognize patterns and similarities, a form of associative learning. For instance, if trained to identify a pattern like "000," the transistor could distinguish that "111" is more similar to "000" than "101," demonstrating a higher level of cognitive function. This ability to process complex and imperfect inputs has significant implications for real-world AI applications, such as improving the reliability of self-driving vehicles in challenging conditions. The study has been published in the journal Nature.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: In recent years, tools such as Figma, TLDraw, Apple's Freeform and Arc browser's Easel functionality have tried to sell the idea of using an "infinite canvas" for capturing and sharing ideas. French startup Kosmik is building on that general concept with a knowledge-capturing tool that doesn't require the user to switch between different windows or apps to capture information. Kosmik was founded in 2018 by Paul Rony and Christophe Van Deputte. Prior to that, Rony worked at a video production company as a junior director, and he wanted a single whiteboard-type canvas instead of file and folders where he could put videos, PDFs, websites, notes and drawings. And that's when he started to build Kosmic, Rony told TechCrunch, drawing on a prior background in computing history and philosophy.

"It took us almost three years to make a working product to include baseline features like data encryption, offline-first mode and build a spatial canvas-based UI," Rony explained. "We have built all of this on IPFS, so when two people collaborate everything is peer-to-peer rather than relying on a server-based architecture." Kosmik offers an infinite canvas interface where you can insert text, images, videos, PDFs and links, which can be opened and previewed in a side panel. It also features a built-in browser, saving users from having to switch windows when they need to find a relevant website link. Additionally, the platform sports a PDF reader, which lets the user extract elements such as images and text.

The tool is useful for designers, architects, consultants, and students to build boards of information for different projects. The tool is useful for them as they don't need to open up a bunch of Chrome tabs and put details into a document, which is not a very visual medium for various media types. Some retail investors are using the app to monitor stock prices and consultants are using them for their project boards. Available via the web, Mac, and Windows, Kosmik ships with a basic free tier, though this has a limit of 50MB of files and 5GB of storage with 500 canvas "elements." For more storage and unlimited elements, the company offers a $5.99 monthly subscription, with plans in place to eventually offer a "pay-once" model for those who only want to use the software on a single device.

According to Canalys Research, Microsoft's plan to end support for Windows 10 could result in about 240 million computers being sent to landfills. "The electronic waste from these PCs could weigh an estimated 480 million kilograms, equivalent to 320,000 cars," adds Reuters. From the report: While many PCs could remain functional for years post the end of OS support, Canalys warned demand for devices without security updates could be low. Microsoft announced a plan to provide security updates for Windows 10 devices until October 2028 for an undisclosed annual price. If the pricing structure for extended Windows 10 support mirrors past trends, migrating to newer PCs could be more cost-effective, increasing the number of older PCs heading to scrap, Canalys said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A report at The Information says that AI might already be taking people's jobs at Google. The report cites people briefed on the plans and says Google intends to "consolidate staff, including through possible layoffs, by reassigning employees at its large customer sales unit who oversee relationships with major advertisers." According to the report, the jobs are being vacated because Google's new AI tools have automated them. The report says a future restructuring was apparently already announced at a department-wide Google Ads meeting last week.

Google announced a "new era of AI-powered ads" in May, featuring a "natural-language conversational experience within Google Ads, designed to jump-start campaign creation and simplify Search ads." Google said its new AI could scan your website and "generate relevant and effective keywords, headlines, descriptions, images, and other assets," making the Google Ads chatbot one part designer and one part sales expert. [...] The report also notes another benefit of making AI do this work: "Because these tools don't require much employee attention, they carry relatively few expenses, so the ad revenue carries a high-profit margin."

The Information report says, "A growing number of advertisers have adopted PMax since [launch], eliminating the need for some employees who specialized in selling ads for a particular Google service, like search, working together to design ad campaigns for big customers." [Google's Performance Max, or "PMax," is a Google ad tool that can help advertisers actually make ad content and determine the best places for it -- YouTube, Search, Gmail, etc.] According to the report, as of a year ago, Google had about 13,500 people devoted to this kind of sales work, a huge chunk of the 30,000-strong ad division. These 13,500 people aren't necessarily all going to be affected, and those who are won't necessarily be laid off -- they could be reassigned to other areas in Google. We should know the scale of Google Ad's big re-org soon. The report says, "Some employees expect the changes to be announced next month."

The next version of Android could give you an estimate of your battery's remaining capacity, which naturally degrades over time. "Android 14 laid the initial groundwork for the OS to track battery health information, but Android 15 could actually bring that information in front of users," reports Android Authority. It could also tell you whether your device's battery has been replaced. From the report: The manufacture date and cycle count aren't the only battery-related statistics that Android 14 exposes to apps through new APIs, though. Other battery health details like the date of first use, charging policy, charging status, and state of health are also available. The state of health is particularly interesting because it's an estimate of the battery's current full charge capacity, expressed as a percentage relative to the battery's rated capacity. For example, if your Pixel 8 battery's state of health is measured at 90%, that means its remaining full charge capacity is estimated to be about 4118mAh (compared to the rated 4575mAh).

The Settings app currently doesn't show the battery state of health, but that's set to change in the future, as the latest version of the Settings Services app (an extension to the Settings app on Pixel and other devices) found within Android 14 QPR2 Beta 2 has a new "battery health" page that is set to show the state of health. [...] Strings within the APK suggest this page will show you the "estimated percentage of charge the battery can currently hold compared to when it was new" (i.e. the state of health) before and after "recalibration" of the battery. We don't have the exact details on what "recalibration" entails, but given that one string suggests the "process may take a few weeks," we're guessing that it's simply the system collecting data over a longer period to provide a more accurate estimate of the battery capacity. Meanwhile, the "initial battery health values" are "based on lab results" and hence "may vary from your actual battery state."

[...] We also learned that the Settings app itself will surface "tips" to the user when either the battery capacity is degraded or can't be detected, so the user doesn't have to manually check the "battery health" page. Lastly, we learned that Google is working on exposing more battery-related information to the OS, such as the part status and the serial number. [...] At the very least, we do know that Android will support reading the battery's part status and serial number, provided the battery exposes that information to the OS, and the vendor implements the new version of the Android health HAL. The health HAL is the software responsible for bridging the gap between the OS APIs that read battery/charging information (i.e. everything we talked about before) with the software that controls the battery/charging chips. Version 2.0 of the health HAL needs to be implemented to support all the new Android 14 battery health APIs like state of health, which is why so few devices support that right now.

Beeper is giving up on its mission to bring iMessage to Android after implementing a series of fixes that Apple has knocked down one by one over the past month. From a report: Although the company has issued a complex workaround, it says it has no plans to roll out another one if this one is knocked down by Apple. "Each time that Beeper Mini goes 'down' or is made to be unreliable due to interference by Apple, Beeper's credibility takes a hit," the company wrote in a blog post. "It's unsustainable. As much as we want to fight for what we believe is a fantastic product that really should exist, the truth is that we can't win a cat-and-mouse game with the largest company on earth. With our latest software release, we believe we've created something that Apple can tolerate existing. We do not have any current plans to respond if this solution is knocked offline"

Worldcoin is no longer offering its Orb-verification service in India, Brazil and France, just months after the crypto startup expanded the helmet-shaped eyeball-scanning device to those markets. From a report: Tools for Humanity, the foundation that oversees development of Worldcoin, exclusively told TechCrunch in a statement that it had expanded the Orb to many markets this year for a "limited time access." The sudden retreat, however, comes as a surprise. Worldcoin had opened pop-up kiosks in many parts of India to onboard new users to the platform and drove crowds as people lined up to sign up and collect the free tokens.

Microsoft has announced that it is deprecating Windows Mixed Reality, with plans to remove the feature in an upcoming release of the OS. From a report: Windows Mixed Reality was Microsoft's attempt at building out a VR ecosystem for Windows PCs, but unfortunately this effort has been mostly inactive for a number of years. While there have been several VR headsets built for Windows Mixed Reality, most of them launched between 2017 and 2021. It's been a long while since OEMs released new VR headsets for Windows Mixed Reality, likely because SteamVR is a much more successful platform with a much wider selection of games. Unfortunately, Microsoft says the deprecation of Windows Mixed Reality also includes support for using a Windows Mixed Reality headset with SteamVR, along with the dedicated Mixed Reality Portal app which acted as a launch environment for VR apps and games built for Windows Mixed Reality.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Rite Aid has been banned from using facial recognition software for five years, after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) found that the U.S. drugstore giant's "reckless use of facial surveillance systems" left customers humiliated and put their "sensitive information at risk." The FTC's Order (PDF), which is subject to approval from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court after Rite Aid filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October, also instructs Rite Aid to delete any images it collected as part of its facial recognition system rollout, as well as any products that were built from those images. The company must also implement a robust data security program to safeguard any personal data it collects.

A Reuters report from 2020 detailed how the drugstore chain had secretly introduced facial recognition systems across some 200 U.S. stores over an eight-year period starting in 2012, with "largely lower-income, non-white neighborhoods" serving as the technology testbed. With the FTC's increasing focus on the misuse of biometric surveillance, Rite Aid fell firmly in the government agency's crosshairs. Among its allegations are that Rite Aid -- in partnership with two contracted companies -- created a "watchlist database" containing images of customers that the company said had engaged in criminal activity at one of its stores. These images, which were often poor quality, were captured from CCTV or employees' mobile phone cameras.

When a customer entered a store who supposedly matched an existing image on its database, employees would receive an automatic alert instructing them to take action -- and the majority of the time this instruction was to "approach and identify," meaning verifying the customer's identity and asking them to leave. Often, these "matches" were false positives that led to employees incorrectly accusing customers of wrongdoing, creating "embarrassment, harassment, and other harm," according to the FTC. "Employees, acting on false positive alerts, followed consumers around its stores, searched them, ordered them to leave, called the police to confront or remove consumers, and publicly accused them, sometimes in front of friends or family, of shoplifting or other wrongdoing," the complaint reads. Additionally, the FTC said that Rite Aid failed to inform customers that facial recognition technology was in use, while also instructing employees to specifically not reveal this information to customers. In a press release, Rite Aid said that it was "pleased to reach an agreement with the FTC," but that it disagreed with the crux of the allegations.

"The allegations relate to a facial recognition technology pilot program the Company deployed in a limited number of stores," Rite Aid said in its statement. "Rite Aid stopped using the technology in this small group of stores more than three years ago, before the FTC's investigation regarding the Company's use of the technology began."

Waymo has a new peer-reviewed study (PDF) to share that shows how safe its autonomous cars are compared to cars driven by humans. SFist reports: As the Chronicle notes, the study covers the 1.76 million driverless miles that Waymo's cars have registered in San Francisco so far, along with about 5.4 million miles registered elsewhere. It compares data about vehicle crashes of all kinds, and finds that Waymo vehicles were in involved in crashes resulting in injury or property damage far less often than human-driven cars. In fact, the "human benchmark" -- which is what Waymo is using to refer to human averages for various driving foibles -- is 5.55 crashes per 1 million miles. And the Waymo robot benchmark is just 0.6 crashes per 1 million miles. The overall figure for crash rates found Waymo's to be 6.7 times lower (0.41 incidents per 1 million miles) than the rate of humans (2.78 per million). This included data from Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The report's "Conclusions" section is less than definitive in its findings, noting that the data of police-reported incidents across various jurisdictions may not be consistent or "apples-to-apples." "The benchmark rates themselves... varied considerably between locations and within the same location," the report's authors say. "This raises questions whether the benchmark data sources have comparable reporting thresholds (surveillance bias) or if other factors that were not controlled for in the benchmarks (time of day, mix of driving) is affecting the benchmark rates."

Still, the report, one of several that Alphabet-owned Waymo has commissioned in recent months, is convincingly thorough and academic in its approach, and seems to be great news for the company as it hopes to scale up -- starting with the enormous LA market. Waymo, like Cruise previously, has sought to convince a skeptical public that driverless vehicles are, in fact, safer than humans. And this is another step toward doing so -- even if people are going to be naturally wary of sharing the road with too many robots.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Long before Facebook existed, or even before the Internet, there was Usenet. Usenet was the first social network. Now, with Google Groups abandoning Usenet, this oldest of all social networks is doomed to disappear. Some might say it's well past time. As Google declared, "Over the last several years, legitimate activity in text-based Usenet groups has declined significantly because users have moved to more modern technologies and formats such as social media and web-based forums. Much of the content being disseminated via Usenet today is binary (non-text) file sharing, which Google Groups does not support, as well as spam." True, these days, Usenet's content is almost entirely spam, but in its day, Usenet was everything that Twitter and Reddit would become and more.

In 1979, Duke University computer science graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived of a network of shared messages under various topics. These messages, also known as articles or posts, were submitted to topic categories, which became known as newsgroups. Within those groups, messages were bound together in threads and sub-threads. [...] In 1980, Truscott and Ellis, using the Unix to Unix Copy Protocol (UUCP), hooked up with the University of North Carolina to form the first Usenet nodes. From there, it would rapidly spread over the pre-Internet ARPANet and other early networks. These messages would be stored and retrieved from news servers. These would "peer" to each other so that messages to a newsgroup would be shared from server to server and to user to user so that within hours, your messages would reach the entire networked world. Usenet would evolve its own network protocol, Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP), to speed the transfer of these messages. Today, the social network Mastodon uses a similar approach with the ActivityPub protocol, while other social networks, such as Threads, are exploring using ActivityPub to connect with Mastodon and the other social networks that support ActivityPub. As the saying goes, everything old is new again.

[...] Usenet was never an organized social network. Each server owner could -- and did -- set its own rules. Mind you, there was some organization to begin with. The first 'mainstream' Usenet groups, comp, misc, news, rec, soc, and sci hierarchies, were widely accepted and disseminated until 1987. Then, faced with a flood of new groups, a new naming plan emerged in what was called the Great Renaming. This led to a lot of disputes and the creation of the talk hierarchy. This and the first six became known as the Big Seven. Then the alt groups emerged as a free speech protest. Afterward, fewer Usenet sites made it possible to access all the newsgroups. Instead, maintainers and users would have to decide which one they'd support. Over the years, Usenet began to decline as discussions were replaced both by spam and flame wars. Group discussions were also overwhelmed by flame wars. "If, going forward, you want to keep an eye on Usenet -- things could change, miracles can happen -- you'll need to get an account from a Usenet provider," writes ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols. "I favor Eternal September, which offers free access to the discussion Usenet groups; NewsHosting, $9.99 a month with access to all the Usenet groups; EasyNews, $9.98 a month with fast downloads, and a good search engine; and Eweka, 9.50 Euros a month and EU only servers."

"You'll also need a Usenet client. One popular free one is Mozilla's Thunderbird E-Mail client, which doubles as a Usenet client. EasyNews also offers a client as part of its service. If you're all about downloading files, check out SABnzbd."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday proposed sweeping changes to bolster the key federal rule that has protected children's privacy online, in one of the most significant attempts by the U.S. government to strengthen consumer privacy in more than a decade. The changes are intended to fortify the rules underlying the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, a law that restricts the online tracking of youngsters by services like social media apps, video game platforms, toy retailers and digital advertising networks. Regulators said the moves would "shift the burden" of online safety from parents to apps and other digital services while curbing how platforms may use and monetize children's data.

The proposed changes would require certain online services to turn off targeted advertising by default for children under 13. They would prohibit the online services from using personal details like a child's cellphone number to induce youngsters to stay on their platforms longer. That means online services would no longer be able to use personal data to bombard young children with push notifications. The proposed updates would also strengthen security requirements for online services that collect children's data as well as limit the length of time online services could keep that information. And they would limit the collection of student data by learning apps and other educational-tech providers, by allowing schools to consent to the collection of children's personal details only for educational purposes, not commercial purposes. [...]

The F.T.C. began reviewing the children's privacy rule in 2019, receiving more than 175,000 comments from tech and advertising industry trade groups, video content developers, consumer advocacy groups and members of Congress. The resulting proposal (PDF) runs more than 150 pages. Proposed changes include narrowing an exception that allows online services to collect persistent identification codes for children for certain internal operations, like product improvement, consumer personalization or fraud prevention, without parental consent. The proposed changes would prohibit online operators from employing such user-tracking codes to maximize the amount of time children spend on their platforms. That means online services would not be able to use techniques like sending mobile phone notifications "to prompt the child to engage with the site or service, without verifiable parental consent," according to the proposal. How online services would comply with the changes is not yet known. Members of the public have 60 days to comment on the proposals, after which the commission will vote.

Most companies are not ready to deploy generative AI at scale because they lack strong data infrastructure or the controls needed to make sure the technology is used safely, according to the chief executive of the consultancy Accenture. From a report: The most hyped technology of 2023 is in an experimental phase at most companies and macroeconomic uncertainty is holding back IT spending generally, Julie Sweet told the Financial Times in an interview ahead of the company publishing quarterly results on Tuesday. Accenture reported another big jump in revenues from generative AI projects in the three months to November 30, with $450mn in bookings compared with $300mn over the previous six months. But they remain small relative to group sales of $64bn annually.

Corporate executives are keen to deploy the technology to understand data across their organisation better or to automate more customer service, Sweet said. "The thing that is going to hold it back, though, isâ...âmost companies do not have mature data capabilities and if you can't use your data, you can't use AI. That said, in three to five years we expect this to be a big part of our business." Accenture and other consulting groups have boasted of multibillion-dollar investments in generative AI, including hiring and training staff, in the hope of a windfall from deploying the technology to clients across the world.

Sweet said executives were being âoeprudentâ in rolling out the technology, amid concerns over how to protect proprietary information and customer data and questions about the accuracy of outputs from generative AI models. "We are still at the stage where most CEOs, asked if there is someone in their organisation who can tell them where AI is being used, what the risks are and how they're being mitigated, the answer is still 'no.'"

A worrying number of UK authorities are still unaware of the impending switch-off of 2G and 3G mobile networks, according to Local Government Association (LGA) figures. From a report: While 38 percent of respondents were fully aware, 27 percent were only partially aware, and 7 percent had no idea at all that the axe would be falling by 2033 at the latest. The numbers worsened when the researchers spoke to respondents in senior management. Almost half (48 percent) were "partially aware" the UK's 2G and 3G mobile networks were due to be switched off and 14 percent were not at all aware.

The actual switch-off will happen over the next few years. UK mobile operators have told government they do not intend to offer 2G and 3G mobile networks past 2033 at the latest, and there is a high likelihood that some networks will be shut down earlier. The UK government said it welcomes plans to end services ahead of time. Vodafone, for example, intends to pull the plug on 3G once and for all from January 2024. Although most consumers, with their 4G and 5G devices, will likely be unaware of the end when it comes, the same cannot be said of local authorities. According to the survey, almost two-thirds of respondents (63 percent) reported that their authority was still using devices or services reliant on 2G and 3G networks.

samleecole writes: The LAION-5B machine learning dataset used by Google, Stable Diffusion, and other major AI products has been removed by the organization that created it after a Stanford study found that it contained 3,226 suspected instances of child sexual abuse material, 1,008 of which were externally validated.

LAION told 404 Media on Tuesday that out of "an abundance of caution," it was taking down its datasets temporarily "to ensure they are safe before republishing them." According to a new study by the Stanford Internet Observatory shared with 404 Media ahead of publication, the researchers found the suspected instances of CSAM through a combination of perceptual and cryptographic hash-based detection and analysis of the images themselves.

The European Union on Wednesday added three adult content companies - Pornhub, Stripchat and XVideos - to its list of firms subject to stringent regulations under new online content rules. From a report: The new rules, known as the Digital Services Act (DSA), require companies to conduct risk management, undergo external and independent auditing, and share data with authorities and researchers. In April, the EU designated five Alphabet subsidiaries, two Meta Platforms units, two Microsoft businesses, X and Alibaba's AliExpress among 19 companies under the rules. Such designated companies will have to do more to tackle disinformation, give more protection and choice to users and ensure stronger protection for children or risk fines of as much as 6% of their global turnover. "Pornhub, Stripchat and XVideos meet the user thresholds to fall under stricter #DSA obligations," the bloc's industry chief Thierry Breton said. "Creating a safer online environment for our children is an enforcement priority under the DSA."

"EVs mandates are coming to Canada whether you like it or not," writes Slashdot reader Major_Disorder, sharing a report from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. "Here is what my Canadian brothers and sisters need to know." From the report: New regulations being published this week by Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault will effectively end sales of new passenger vehicles powered only by gasoline or diesel in 2035. Guilbeault said the Electric Vehicle Availability Standard will encourage automakers to make more battery-powered cars and trucks available in Canada. "There's no mistaking it. We are at a tipping point," he said, noting sizable growth in EV sales in Canada and demand that has previously outstripped the available supply.

Automakers will have the next 12 years to phase out combustion engine cars, trucks and SUVs with a requirement to gradually increase the proportion of electric models they offer for sale each year. The electric-vehicle sales mandate regulations will be published later this week. They are setting up a system in which every automaker will have to show that a minimum percentage of vehicles they offer for sale are fully electric or longer-range plug-in hybrids. It will start with 20 per cent in 2026 and rise slightly to 23 per cent in 2027. After that, the share of EVs will begin to increase much faster, so that by 2028, 34 per cent of all vehicles sold will need to be electric -- 43 per cent by 2029 and 60 per cent by 2030. That number keeps rising until it hits 100 per cent in 2035.

Guilbeault said the government is working to revise the national building code to encourage the spread of charging stations. The updated code would ensure that residential buildings constructed after 2025 have the electrical capacity to accommodate the charging stations. [...] The policy will be regulated under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act and will issue credits to automakers for the EVs they sell. Generally, a fully electric model will generate one credit, with plug-in hybrids getting partial or full credit depending on how far they can go on a single charge. Manufacturers that sell more EVs than they need to meet each year's target can either bank those credits to meet their targets in future years, or sell them to companies that didn't sell enough. They can also cover up to 10 per cent of the credits they need each year by investing in public fast-charging stations. Every $20,000 spent on DC fast chargers that are operating before 2027 can earn the equivalent of one credit. Automakers that come up short for their sales requirements will be able to cover the difference by buying credits from others who exceed their targets, or by investing in charging stations. Automakers can start earning some credits toward their 2026 and 2027 targets over the next two years -- a bid by the government to encourage a faster transition.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: A bill that mandates tech giants pay news outlets for their content has come into effect in Canada amid an ongoing dispute with Facebook and Instagram owner Meta over the law. Some have hailed it as a game-changer that sets out a permanent framework that will see a steady drip of funds from wealthy tech companies to Canada's struggling journalism industry. But it has also been met with resistance by Google and Meta -- the only two companies big enough to be encompassed by the law. In response, over the summer, Meta blocked access to news on Facebook and Instagram for Canadians. Google looked set to follow, but after months of talks, the federal government was able to negotiate a deal with the search giant as the company has agreed to pay Canadian news outlets $75 million annually.

No such agreement appears to be on the horizon with Meta, which has called the law "fundamentally flawed." If Meta is refusing to budge, so is the government. "We will continue to push Meta, that makes billions of dollars in profits, even though it is refusing to invest in the journalistic rigor and stability of the media," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters on Friday. According to a study by the Media Ecosystem Observatory, the views of Canadian news on Facebook dropped 90% after the company blocked access to news on the platform. Local news outlets have been hit particularly hard.

"The loss of journalism on Meta platforms represents a significant decline in the resiliency of the Canadian media ecosystem," said Taylor Owen, a researcher at McGill and the co-author of the study. He believes it also hurts Meta's brand in the long run, pointing to the fact that the Canada's federal government, as well as that of British Columbia, other municipalities and a handful of large Canadian corporations, have all pulled their advertising off Facebook and Instagram in retaliation.

Alphabet will pay $700 million and alter its Google Play policies to settle claims that the app store unlawfully dominates the Android mobile applications market, resolving antitrust complaints brought by attorneys general of about three dozen states and consumers. From a report: The deal disclosed in a court filing late Monday calls for tweaks to Google Play policies designed to reduce barriers to competition in the markets for app distribution and payment processing. The lawsuits that were grouped together in federal court in California had threatened billions of dollars in revenue generated by the sale and distribution of apps through Google Play. Google will also make a series of changes to its business practices as part of the settlement. In a blog post, the Android-maker said: Streamlining sideloading while prioritizing security: Unlike on iOS, Android users have the option to sideload apps, meaning they can download directly from a developer's website without going through an app store like Google Play. While we maintain it is critical to our safety efforts to inform users that sideloading on mobile could come with unique risks, as part of our settlement we will be further simplifying the sideloading process and updating the language that informs users about these potential risks of downloading apps directly from the web for the first time.
Expanding user choice billing to more people: App and game developers will be able to implement an alternative billing option alongside Google Play's billing system for their U.S. users who can then choose which option to use when making in-app purchases. We have been piloting user choice billing in the U.S. for over a year and will now expand this option further.
Expanding open communication on pricing: We have always given developers more ways to interact with their customers than iOS and other operating systems. For example, Google Play allows developers to communicate freely with their customers outside the app about subscription offers or lower-cost options available on a rival app store or the developer's website. This openness has spurred competition and benefited consumers and developers. As part of user choice billing, which we're expanding with today's settlement announcement, developers are also able to show different pricing options within the app when a user makes a digital purchase.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: IBM said on Monday that it would buy Software AG's enterprise integration platforms for 2.13 billion euros ($2.33 billion) to bolster its artificial intelligence and hybrid cloud offerings. IBM will acquire Software AG's StreamSets and webMethods platforms with available cash on hand, it said. The two units formed Software AG's so-called "Super Ipaas" business, which was launched in October.

The platforms provide application integration, application programming interface (API) management, and data integration among other uses. Software AG is majority owned by private equity firm Silver Lake, which currently owns 93.3% of shares in the German software company, following a takeover pursuit spanning several months. That deal valued the whole business at 2.6 billion euros ($2.84 billion). The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2024. "The opportunity to bring the StreamSets and webMethods teams together with IBM to innovate in building the future of hybrid cloud and next-generation AI solutions for the enterprise is uniquely compelling," Christian Lucas, chairman of the supervisory board of Software AG said in a statement.