Observations of supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies point to a likely source of dark energy -- the 'missing' 70% of the universe. Phys.Org reports: The measurements from ancient and dormant galaxies show black holes growing more than expected, aligning with a phenomenon predicted in Einstein's theory of gravity. The result potentially means nothing new has to be added to our picture of the universe to account for dark energy: black holes combined with Einstein's gravity are the source. The conclusion was reached by a team of 17 researchers in nine countries, led by the University of Hawai'i and including Imperial College London and STFC RAL Space physicists. The work is published in two papers in the journals The Astrophysical Journal and The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The conclusion was made by studying nine billion years of black hole evolution. [...] The researchers looked at a particular type of galaxy called giant elliptical galaxies, which evolved early in the universe and then became dormant. Dormant galaxies have finished forming stars, leaving little material for the black hole at their center to accrete, meaning any further growth cannot be explained by these normal astrophysical processes. Comparing observations of distant galaxies (when they were young) with local elliptical galaxies (which are old and dead) showed growth much larger than predicted by accretion or mergers: the black holes of today are 7-20 times larger than they were nine billion years ago.

Further measurements with related populations of galaxies at different points in the universe's evolution show good agreement between the size of the universe and the mass of the black holes. These show that the measured amount of dark energy in the universe can be accounted for by black hole vacuum energy. This is the first observational evidence that black holes actually contain vacuum energy and that they are 'coupled' to the expansion of the universe, increasing in mass as the universe expands -- a phenomenon called 'cosmological coupling.' If further observations confirm it, cosmological coupling will redefine our understanding of what a black hole is.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Australians would gain greater control of their personal information, including the ability to opt out of targeted ads, erase their data and sue for serious breaches of privacy, under a proposal to the Albanese government. On Thursday the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, will release a review conducted by his department into modernization of the Privacy Act which calls to expand its remit to small businesses and add new safeguards for use of data by political parties. Although the document is not government policy, in January Dreyfus told Guardian Australia the right to sue for privacy breaches and European-style reforms such as the right to be forgotten would be considered for the next tranche of legislation.

In 2022 the Albanese government passed a bill increasing penalties for companies that fail to protect customer data in the wake of major data breaches at telco Optus and health insurer Medibank. A summary section of the review, seen in advance by Guardian Australia, called for the exemption from the Privacy Act for small businesses to be abolished, citing community expectations that if small businesses are provided personal information "they will keep it safe." But first the government should conduct an "impact analysis" and give support to ensure small businesses can comply with their obligations, it said. Despite calls to abolish the privacy exemptions for political parties, the review proposed only increased safeguards, such as for parties to publish a privacy policy and not target voters "based on sensitive information or traits" except for political opinions, membership of a political association, or a trade union. "There was very strong support for increasing the protections for personal information under the Act," the review said.

The review called for new limits on targeted advertising, including to prohibit targeting to a child except where it is in their "best interests," and to provide others with an "an unqualified right to opt-out" of targeted ads and their information being disclosed for direct marketing purposes. The Privacy Act should include a new overarching requirement that "the collection, use and disclosure of personal information must be fair and reasonable in the circumstances," it said. The review also proposes individual rights modeled on the European Union's general data protection regulation including to: object to the collection, use or disclosure of personal information; request erasure of personal information; and to de-index online search results containing sensitive information, excessive detail or "inaccurate, out-of-date, incomplete, irrelevant, or misleading" information. The review suggested that consent should be required for collection and use of precise geolocation tracking data. The government should "consult on introducing a criminal offense for malicious re-identification of de-identified information where there is an intention to harm another or obtain an illegitimate benefit," it said. The report said that individuals wanted "more agency to seek redress for interferences with their privacy," proposing the creation of a right to sue for "serious invasions of privacy," which was also a recommendation of the Australian Law Reform Commission in 2014.

Community Health Systems (CHS), one of the largest healthcare providers in the United States with close to 80 hospitals in 16 states, confirmed this week that criminal hackers accessed the personal and protected health information of up to 1 million patients. TechCrunch reports: The Tennessee-based healthcare giant said in a filing with government regulators that the data breach stems from its use of a popular file-transfer software called GoAnywhere MFT, developed by Fortra (previously known as HelpSystems), which is deployed by large businesses to share and send large sets of data securely. Community Health Systems said that Fortra recently notified it of a security incident that resulted in the unauthorized disclosure of patient data. "As a result of the security breach experienced by Fortra, protected health information and personal information of certain patients of the company's affiliates were exposed by Fortra's attacker," according to the filing by Community Health Systems, which was first spotted by DataBreaches.net. The healthcare giant added that it would offer identity theft protection services and notify all affected individuals whose information was exposed, but said there had been no material interruption to its delivery of patient care.

CHS hasn't said what types of data were exposed and a spokesperson has not yet responded to TechCrunch's questions. This is CHS' second-known breach of patient data in recent years. The Russia-linked ransomware gang Clop has reportedly taken responsibility for exploiting the new zero-day in a new hacking campaign and claims to have already breached over a hundred organizations that use Fortra's file-transfer technology -- including CHS. While CHS has been quick to come forward as a victim, Clop's claim suggests there could be dozens more affected organizations out there -- and if you're one of the thousands of GoAnywhere users, your company could be among them. Thankfully, security experts have shared a bunch of information about the zero-day and what you can do to protect against it. Security researcher Brian Krebs first flagged the zero-day vulnerability in Fortra's GoAnywhere software on February 2.

"A zero-day remote code injection exploit was identified in GoAnywhere MFT," Fortra said in its hidden advisory. "The attack vector of this exploit requires access to the administrative console of the application, which in most cases is accessible only from within a private company network, through VPN, or by allow-listed IP addresses (when running in cloud environments, such as Azure or AWS)."

Tesla will open part of its U.S. charging network to electric vehicles (EVs) made by rivals as part of a $7.5 billion federal program to expand the use of EVs to cut carbon emissions, the Biden administration said on Wednesday. Reuters reports: Such a move could help turn Tesla into the universal "filling station" of the EV era - and risk eroding a competitive edge for vehicles made by the company, which has exclusive access to the biggest network of high-speed Superchargers in the United States. By late 2024, Tesla will open 3,500 new and existing Superchargers along highway corridors to non-Tesla customers, the Biden administration said. It will also offer 4,000 slower chargers at locations like hotels and restaurants.

A White House official said at a briefing that Tesla would be eligible for a subsidy - including retrofitting its existing fleet - as long as its chargers would allow other vehicles with a federally backed charging standard called CCS to charge. The administration said Tesla has not committed to adopting CCS as its standard, but it must comply with the requirements to qualify for federal funds.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: Oakland has declared a local state of emergency because of the impact of a ransomware attack that forced the City to take all its IT systems offline on February 8th. Interim City Administrator G. Harold Duffey declared (PDF) a state of emergency to allow the City of Oakland to expedite orders, materials and equipment procurement, and activate emergency workers when needed. "Today, Interim City Administrator, G. Harold Duffey issued a local state of emergency due to the ongoing impacts of the network outages resulting from the ransomware attack that began on Wednesday, February 8," a statement issued today reads. The incident did not affect core services, with the 911 dispatch and fire and emergency resources all working as expected.

While last week's ransomware attack only impacted non-emergency services, many systems taken down immediately after the incident to contain the threat are still offline. The ransomware group behind the attack is currently unknown, and the City is yet to share any details regarding ransom demands or data theft from compromised systems. "The City's IT Department is working with a leading forensics firm to perform an extensive incident response and analysis, as well as with additional cybersecurity and technology firms on recovery and remediation efforts," the statement said. "This continues to be an ongoing investigation with multiple local, state, and federal agencies involved."

A former Google employee said the company has lost its way, writing in a recent blog post that Google is inefficient, plagued by mismanagement and paralyzed by risk. Praveen Seshadri joined the Alphabet-owned company at the start of 2020 when Google Cloud acquired AppSheet, which Seshadri co-founded. He left in January, according to his LinkedIn profile. CNBC reports: Seshadri argued it's a "fragile moment" for Google, particularly because of the recent pressures it is facing to compete with Microsoft's artificial intelligence initiatives. Seshadri said Google's problems are not rooted in its technology, but in its culture. "The way I see it, Google has four core cultural problems," Seshadri said. "They are all the natural consequences of having a money-printing machine called 'Ads' that has kept growing relentlessly every year, hiding all other sins. (1) no mission, (2) no urgency, (3) delusions of exceptionalism, (4) mismanagement."

Instead of working to serve customers, Seshadri argued most employees ultimately serve other Google employees. He described the company as a "closed world" where working extra hard isn't necessarily rewarded. Seshadri said feedback is "based on what your colleagues and managers think of your work." Seshadri said Google is hyper-focused on risk and that "risk mitigation trumps everything else." Every line of code, every launch, nonobvious decisions, changes from protocol and disagreements are all risks that Googlers have to approach with caution, Seshadri wrote. He added that employees are also "trapped" in a long line of approvals, legal reviews, performance reviews and meetings that leave little room for creativity or true innovation.

"Overall, it is a soft peacetime culture where nothing is worth fighting for," Seshadri wrote "The people who are inclined to fight on behalf of customers or new ideas or creativity soon learn the downside of doing so." Seshadri said Google has also been hiring at a rapid pace, which makes it difficult to nurture talent and leads to "bad hires." Many employees also believe the company is "truly exceptional," Seshadri said, which means that a lot of antiquated internal processes continue to exist because "that's the way we do it at Google." Seshadri said Google has a chance to turn things around, but he doesn't think the company can continue to succeed by merely avoiding risk. He argues that Google needs to "lead with commitment to a mission," reward people who fight for "ambitious causes" and trim the layers of middle management. "There is hope for Google and for my friends who work there, but it will require an intervention," he wrote.

Apple has once again delayed its announcement event for the Apple AR/VR headset. Originally expected to debut in the spring, Bloomberg reports that Apple is now targeting its WWDC conference in June as the new date for the product's unveiling. 9to5Mac reports: That's a delay of two months compared to the previously-rumored April release date. The headset device, likely branded the 'Apple Reality Pro', will represent Apple's first hardware venture in the augmented reality and virtual reality market. The product has been many years in the making, and has faced multiple late-stage hardware and software development setbacks in the run up to launch.

Of course, nothing is set in stone until Apple officially announces the event publicly. But there was strong indications that Apple was originally ramping up for a mid-late 2022 debut. This was then pushed back to January of this year, and then April, and now early summer -- according to Bloomberg. The Bloomberg report says the reason for the latest delay is multi-faceted and both hardware and software issues are to blame.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: ASML, one of the world's most critical semiconductor firms, said Wednesday that it recently discovered that a former employee in China had misappropriated data related to its proprietary technology. The Dutch firm said that it does not believe the alleged misappropriation is material to its business. "We have experienced unauthorized misappropriation of data relating to proprietary technology by a (now) former employee in China," ASML said in its annual report. "However, as a result of the security incident, certain export control regulations may have been violated. ASML has therefore reported the incident to relevant authorities." The data that was misappropriated involved documents. ASML did not expand on the details.

The security incident comes at a sensitive time for ASML and the government of the Netherlands which has been caught in the middle of a battle for tech supremacy between the U.S. and China. Semiconductors are very much part of that rivalry. ASML holds a unique position in the chip supply chain. The company makes a tool called an extreme ultraviolet lithography machine that is required to make the most advanced semiconductors, such as those manufactured by TSMC. ASML is the only company in the world that produces this piece of kit. The U.S. is worried that if ASML ships the machines to China, chipmakers in the country could begin to manufacture the most advanced semiconductors in the world, which have extensive military and advanced artificial intelligence applications. "With ASML's unique position and the growing geopolitical tensions in the semiconductor industry, we see increasing security risk trends, ranging from ransomware and phishing attacks to attempts to acquire intellectual property or disrupt business continuity," a spokesperson for the company said.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed a rule that would effectively require registered investment advisors (RIA) to go outside the crypto industry for storing digital assets, according to its first formal policy push that leans heavily into the cryptocurrency sector. From a report: The rule, approved in a 4-1 vote by the SEC on Wednesday, would expand the agency's existing regulations that say an investment adviser needs to keep customers' money and securities with a "qualified custodian." The new version, if approved, would grow that safeguarding requirement to any assets that investment advisers are entrusted with -- including crypto.

Right now, crypto trading and lending platforms routinely offer custody for crypto customers, but they're not "qualified custodians" under this rule. An appropriate custodian under SEC's regulations would generally mean a chartered bank or trust company, a broker-dealer registered with the SEC or a futures commission merchant registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). While officials said the rule wasn't specific to crypto, the industry featured heavily in formal remarks previewing it. "Make no mistake: Based upon how crypto platforms generally operate, investment advisers cannot rely on them as qualified custodians," SEC Chair Gary Gensler said in a statement. "Though some crypto trading and lending platforms may claim to custody investors' crypto, that does not mean they are qualified custodians."

Customers of Spotify's audiobook narration firm say that they were not adequately informed of a contract clause that they agreed to, that ultimately allowed Apple to use their voices in its AI training. From a report: Apple quietly released a range of audio Apple Books in early January 2023, which were narrated by voices entirely generated by Artificial Intelligence. Publishers and professional voice actors objected that this was removing a major source of income, but Apple claimed it was still committed to artists.

Specifically, Apple said that the new AI audiobooks were only done for titles where it was not economic to hire an actor. So that would be low-circulation ones such as textbooks, small presses, and self-published titles. Now according to Wired, voiceover artists and authors working with a company called Findaway have complained about Apple using them to train their own AI replacements. Findaway is effectively a self-publishing audio company that is owned by Spotify, where authors pay to have audiobooks produced. As yet, it appears that no actors working for traditionally published titles -- where the audiobook is produced by the publisher without a charge to the author -- have complained.

ChatGPT is big in China, even though it's not officially available there. From a report: China's obsession with ChatGPT runs deeper than curiosity. Search giant Baidu is preparing to launch its own competitor, Ernie Bot, in March. It'll embed the tool initially into its search services and smart speakers. Amid the fervor, Alibaba, NetEase and Tencent each promised similar initiatives in the span of a few days, stirring Chinese tech stocks from a years-long slump. The government in Beijing, where Baidu is based, has vowed to give more support to such efforts.

This is the first time in probably more than a decade that Chinese internet firms are all racing to adopt, localize and perhaps advance a Silicon Valley invention on the level of Google, Facebook or YouTube. Microsoft's Bing and Alphabet's Google -- which showed its own artificial-intelligence search assistant called Bard -- appear to have an early lead. But both products exhibit many flaws. Rolling the services out too soon could create problems for Bing and Google. Doing so in China could be disastrous. Appeasing the country's complex censorship machine is difficult enough for search and social media companies. Trying to keep a malleable AI bot in check is a new kind of challenge.

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai sent an internal memo to Googlers on Wednesday asking them to contribute 2-4 hours of their time to helping improve Bard, the company's AI chatbot that it intends to integrate into search. From a report: The email signals how Google's urgency in moving to win the next generation of AI-based search. The company has found itself on its back foot as Microsoft took the spotlight for its investment in OpenAI. OpenAI created the popular ChatGPT, a chatbot released in late 2022 which can respond to broad, open-ended questions with human-like answers. Last week, Microsoft unveiled a revamped version of its Bing search engine with ChatGPT, and CEO Satya Nadella called it a "new day" for search.

"I know this moment is uncomfortably exciting, and that's to be expected: the underlying technology is evolving rapidly with so much potential," Pichai wrote in his memo to Googlers. "The most important thing we can do right now is to focus on building a great product and developing it responsibly." Google kicked off "dogfooding," or internally testing, Bard on Tuesday, according to another memo seen by Insider. It already has thousands of external and internal testers using it, submitting feedback regarding the quality, safety, and "groundedness" of Bard's responses, Pichai's memo said.

The Justice Department has ramped up work in recent months on drafting a potential antitrust complaint against Apple, WSJ reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The investigation into whether Apple has monopoly power that it abuses began in 2019, but enforcers have escalated their efforts in recent months, with more litigators now assigned to the case and new requests for documents and consultations with companies involved, the people said. The Justice Department's investigation deals in part with Apple's policies governing mobile third-party software on its devices, which has been the focus of much of the criticism targeting Apple's competitive practices. The department is also looking at whether Apple's mobile operating system, iOS, operates in an anticompetitive way by favoring its own products over those of outside developers, the people said.

President Biden's Department of Justice has formally made its position known on a class action filed against John Deere over farmers' right to repair their tractors. From a report: John Deere owns 53 percent of the market share for tractors in the U.S. and has become notorious among farm workers for using monopolistic practices when it comes to repairs. Last month, Forest River Farms launched a class action lawsuit against John Deere accusing them of violating antitrust laws with its repair policies, including putting software locks on their tractors and restricting access to repair tools. In a "Statement of Interest" filed Monday, the DOJ sided with plaintiffs and forcefully disagreed with Deere's analysis of antitrust law.

"I'm thrilled that the Department of Justice is weighing in on this issue," said Willie Cade, a board member at Repair.org whose grandfather served as a board member at John Deere for 30 years. "I'm sure he would be pleased that there is support being garnered for farmers and ranchers," Cade said of his grandfather. In its statement, the DOJ argued that because of Deere's practices, when tractors break, "repair markets function poorly, agriculture suffers. Crops waste. Land lies fallow." It expressed concern that "repair restrictions can drive independent repair shops out of business by raising their costs or denying them key inputs, which, in turn, leaves consumers with fewer choices." Further reading: 11 states consider right to repair for farming equipment.