Thelasko shares a new study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. NPR reports on the key findings: As several states face criticism for lifting coronavirus-related public health restrictions, a study published Friday confirms that state-imposed mask mandates and on-premises dining restrictions help slow the spread of COVID-19. The study, published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, looked at the impact of state-issued mask mandates and on-premises dining on county-level COVID-19 cases and deaths between March 1 and Dec. 31.

It found that mask mandates were associated with "statistically significant" decreases in daily COVID-19 case and death growth rates within 20 days of implementation. In contrast, allowing on-premises dining was associated with an increase in daily cases 41 to 100 days after reopening, and an increase in daily death growth rates after 61 to 100 days. "Policies that require universal mask use and restrict any on-premises restaurant dining are important components of a comprehensive strategy to reduce exposure to and transmission of SARS-CoV-2," the study authors wrote. "Such efforts are increasingly important given the emergence of highly transmissible SARS-CoV-2 variants in the United States." The study says its analysis did not differentiate between indoor and outdoor dining.

A sharp decline in Tesla's share price has wiped more than $250 billion off the value of the electric car company, and dragged down the value of an Edinburgh-based investment fund that is one of Tesla's biggest backers. The Guardian reports: The shares dropped by 7.5% in early trading in the U.S. on Friday to $575 -- setting them on course to close down 16% this week and 35% below their record peak of $883 on 26 January. The decline has knocked $267 billion off Tesla's market value, from $834 billion in January to about $567 billion. The collapse has also wiped billions from fortune of Elon Musk, the chief executive, who owns about 20% of the shares.

Musk, who lost his briefly held title of the world's richest person last month, has seen his paper fortune drop by $7.5 billion so far this year to an estimated $162 billion. Analysts said Tesla's shares were falling as investors worried that the car company may be vastly overvalued. At the same time rising US bond yields are making companies that pay small dividends unappealing. Tesla has never paid a dividend.

Twitter is working on a feature that could offer users a short window of time to rethink posting a tweet even after they hit send. CNN reports: The company confirmed to CNN Business on Friday it is testing an undo option that would potentially let users retract or correct a tweet before it's officially posted on the platform. The feature was discovered by Jane Manchun Wong, an app developer who has a strong track record of uncovering new tools on social networks before they're released. Wong posted a GIF on Twitter that shows a blue "undo" bar appearing beneath the words "Your Tweet was sent." (It's possible the feature could change before it formally rolls out -- if it ever does.) It's not quite the edit button users have long requested, but it's a step toward helping users proactively catch errors and slow down before sending impulse tweets.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Krebs On Security: At least 30,000 organizations across the United States -- including a significant number of small businesses, towns, cities and local governments -- have over the past few days been hacked by an unusually aggressive Chinese cyber espionage unit that's focused on stealing email from victim organizations, multiple sources tell KrebsOnSecurity. The espionage group is exploiting four newly-discovered flaws in Microsoft Exchange Server email software, and has seeded hundreds of thousands of victim organizations worldwide with tools that give the attackers total, remote control over affected systems.

In each incident, the intruders have left behind a "web shell," an easy-to-use, password-protected hacking tool that can be accessed over the Internet from any browser that gives the attackers administrative access to the victim's computer servers. Speaking on condition of anonymity, two cybersecurity experts who've briefed U.S. national security advisors on the attack told KrebsOnSecurity the Chinese hacking group thought to be responsible has seized control over "hundreds of thousands" of Microsoft Exchange Servers worldwide -- with each victim system representing approximately one organization that uses Exchange to process email. Microsoft said the Exchange flaws are being targeted by a previously unidentified Chinese hacking crew it dubbed "Hafnium," and said the group had been conducting targeted attacks on email systems used by a range of industry sectors, including infectious disease researchers, law firms, higher education institutions, defense contractors, policy think tanks, and NGOs. Microsoft's initial advisory about the Exchange flaws credited Reston, Va. based Volexity for reporting the vulnerabilities. "We've worked on dozens of cases so far where web shells were put on the victim system back on Feb. 28 [before Microsoft announced its patches], all the way up to today," Volexity President Steven Adair said. "Even if you patched the same day Microsoft published its patches, there's still a high chance there is a web shell on your server. The truth is, if you're running Exchange and you haven't patched this yet, there's a very high chance that your organization is already compromised."

A Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement: "The best protection is to apply updates as soon as possible across all impacted systems. We continue to help customers by providing additional investigation and mitigation guidance. Impacted customers should contact our support teams for additional help and resources."

Several new features are on the way to Microsoft Edge this month, including vertical tabs, startup boost, and modern Microsoft Bing search experiences. The new features were recently shown off by Microsoft in a recent blog post. Windows Central reports: First up is vertical tabs. This feature allows you to move the tabs from across the top of your browser over to the side. The feature lets you see more of your tabs at once. We recently saw the option to resize vertical tabs in Microsoft Edge Canary, but it is now rolling out to Dev too.

Next, are Microsoft's new Bing search experiences. Microsoft's new experiences help you see the information that you'd like without having to click around and fish through content as much. For example, when searching for a recipe, the new recipe experience will show ingredient lists, substitutions, and more information just by hovering over a search result. The experience will also play any video if you hover over a result. There are similar new experiences for other content, like DIY projects and gardening. Microsoft also announced improvements to how it aggregates information for topics you search.

Lastly, startup boost is a new feature that should cut down how long it takes Edge to launch after you reboot your PC. The feature will roll out this month, and Microsoft says that it will cut down launch times by between 29% -- 41%.

States like Pennsylvania, Virginia, Idaho, Florida and Wisconsin have granted sidewalk robots legal rights as "pedestrians." Axios reports: In Pennsylvania, robot "pedestrians" can weigh up to 550 pounds and drive up to 12 mph. "Opposition has largely come from pedestrian and accessibility advocates, as well as labor unions like the Teamsters," per the Pittsburgh City Paper. The laws are a boon to Amazon's Scout delivery robot and FedEx's Roxo, which are being tested in urban and suburban settings. "Backers say the laws will usher in a future where household items show up in a matter of hours, with fewer idling delivery vans blocking traffic and spewing emissions," per Wired.

Some technology evangelists think these laws are a spectacularly bad idea. The National Association of City Transportation Officials -- NACTO -- says the robots "should be severely restricted if not banned outright." "Uncoordinated autonomous delivery services could flood sidewalks with bots, making walking increasingly difficult and unpleasant," NACTO says in a report. "Drone delivery could significantly increase noise pollution and add a new dimension of chaos to urban streets."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Wall Street Journal: U.S. officials blacklisted Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi Corp. as a company with military ties partly due to an award given to the company's founder for his service to the state, the U.S. Department of Defense said in a legal filing. Lei Jun, the chief executive officer and founder of Xiaomi, received the award of "Outstanding Builder of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" in 2019 from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Xiaomi touts the award -- given to 100 Chinese executives that year -- on Mr. Lei's biography page on the company's website and in its annual report.

The award -- coupled with Xiaomi's ambitious investment plans in advanced technologies such as 5G and artificial intelligence -- was enough for the Defense Department in January to add Xiaomi to a list of companies that support China's military, according to the filing. The designation prohibits Americans from investing in the company, the world's third-largest smartphone seller. The U.S. rationale for adding Xiaomi to its list was laid out in a court filing by the Defense Department in response to a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., by the Chinese company seeking to overturn the military designation. The filing, which appeared last week but hasn't previously been reported, for the first time shed light on the department's reasoning in adding a company to the list.

schwit1 shares a report: One of China's largest and most pervasive surveillance networks got its start in a small county about seven hours north of Shanghai. In 2013, the local government in Pingyi County began installing tens of thousands of security cameras across urban and rural areas -- more than 28,500 in total by 2016. Even the smallest villages had at least six security cameras installed, according to state media. Those cameras weren't just monitored by police and automated facial recognition algorithms. Through special TV boxes installed in their homes, local residents could watch live security footage and press a button to summon police if they saw anything amiss. The security footage could also be viewed on smartphones.

In 2015 the Chinese government announced that a similar program would be rolled out across China, with a particular focus on remote and rural towns. It was called the "Xueliang Project," or Sharp Eyes, a reference to a quote from communist China's former revolutionary leader Mao Zedong who once wrote that "the people have sharp eyes" when looking out for neighbors not living up to communist values. China's next five-year plan, which covers 2021 to 2025 (PDF), places specific emphasis on giving social governance to local municipalities via the grid system, as well as building out even more security projects, to "strengthen construction of the prevention and control system for public security." This means the future of China's surveillance apparatus likely looks a lot like Sharp Eyes: More power and social control given to local governments, so neighbors watch neighbors.

Samsung Electronics and Mastercard have partnered to pilot a biometric card that uses a built-in fingerprint sensor to authorise in-store transactions. From a report: The partnership, confirmed through a memorandum of understanding, will see the companies develop a card using Samsung's System LSI Business' new security chipset, which Samsung claimed has integrated "key discrete chips" to improve efficiency. "Drawing from our strong security solution background in various applications such as passports, credit cards, and mobile devices, we will work with Mastercard and Samsung Card to create an environment where consumers can use payment card services with an added peace of mind," Samsung Electronics vice president Harry Cho said. The card will be able to be used at any Mastercard in-store payment terminal, they said. It will not require PIN or signature authorisations when transactions are made, the companies added. The pilot biometric card will be rolled out in South Korea later this year, with the adoption of the solution to be a gradual process, Samsung said. The rollout will first start with corporate credit cards that have more frequent international transactions.

India's government has threatened to jail employees of Facebook, its WhatsApp unit and Twitter as it seeks to quash political protests and gain far-reaching powers over discourse on foreign-owned tech platforms, WSJ reported Friday, citing people familiar with the warnings. From the report: The warnings are in direct response to the tech companies' reluctance to comply with data and takedown requests from the government related to protests by Indian farmers that have made international headlines, the people say. At least some of the written warnings cite specific, India-based employees at risk of arrest if the companies don't comply, according to two of the people. The threats mark an escalation of India's efforts to pressure U.S. tech companies at a moment when those companies are looking to the world's second-most-populous nation for growth in the coming years. Some of the government's requests for data involve WhatsApp, which is hugely popular in India and promises users encrypted communication, unable to be read by outside parties.

Students are using HDMI cables and hidden phones to cheat on exams administered through invasive proctoring software like Proctorio. From a report: "I've taken online exams cheating and not cheating and they are just about as stressful anyways so fuck it, am I right?" That's what one French student who had cheated on multiple remote exams administered through the popular digital proctoring software Proctorio told Motherboard in a voice message. With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing to rage around the globe and no quick end to remote learning in sight, many students have found themselves taking exams under the watch of proctoring software like Proctorio, which surveils students through algorithmic systems that, among other things, detect eye movements, track keyboard strokes, and monitor audio inputs. Universities sometimes shell out thousands of dollars per exam for Proctorio, which helps at least give the impression that academic integrity is being maintained during remote learning. But for some students using Proctorio and other online proctoring services is invasive and anxiety-inducing, subjecting them and their surroundings to unwarranted surveillance that is difficult to refuse without their studies being negatively affected.

Yet, despite the fact that popular online proctoring platforms like Proctorio claim that they use "state-of-the-art technology" and "ensure the total learning integrity of every assessment, every time," students are cheating on their exams anyway. Motherboard spoke to 10 university students from various countries who claimed to have cheated on exams where Proctorio was in place. While their motivations and techniques varied, there was one common denominator: none of them got caught. The relative ease with which the students cheated, and the fact that each student could point to multiple peers who had done the same (one American student estimated that 90 percent of her class had cheated), raises the question of how effective online proctoring software like Proctorio actually is -- and whether it is worth the hefty price tag or the invasion of privacy. "With Proctorio obviously you need to show yourself and your room with the computer's webcam," one Dutch student who had helped a friend cheat on a multiple choice exam told Motherboard. "My friend put a phone on a stand on his keyboard so it couldn't be seen during the room and desk sweep. Then we FaceTimed with me at the other end," she continued. "The phone was at a slant so he could see me and I could see the exam. Then I would just hold up a flashcard with a, b, c, or d." Another French student used a 10-meter HDMI cable that ran from his laptop to a TV screen in another room that mirrored his screen. His friend would then look up the exam answers and send it via WhatsApp to his phone, which was also on the keyboard and out of sight of the webcam. "Worked perfectly and got a good grade," he said.

John McAfee, creator of the eponymous anti-virus software, has been indicted in Manhattan federal court on fraud and money laundering conspiracy crimes, stemming from two schemes concerning the fraudulent promotion to investors of cryptocurrencies, officials said on Friday. From a report: McAfee and his bodyguard Jimmy Gale Watson Jr were charged for a scheme to exploit McAfee's large Twitter following by publicly touting cryptocurrency offerings and digital tokens that they later sold once prices rose on the promotions, according to the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. McAfee is being detained in Spain on separate criminal charges filed by the Justice Department's tax division, the department said. Watson, an executive adviser of McAfee's so-called cryptocurrency team, was arrested on Thursday night, the Justice Department said.

France's ranks of amateur astronomers have been urged to help find an apricot-size meteorite that fell to Earth last weekend in the south-west of the country. From a report: The rock, estimated to weigh 150 grams (just over five ounces), was captured plunging through the atmosphere by cameras at an astronomy education facility in Mauraux, and landed at exactly 10.43pm on Saturday near Aiguillon, about 100km (62 miles) from Bordeaux. The site is part of the Vigie-Ciel (Sky Watch) project of around 100 cameras in the Fireball Recovery and InterPlanetary Observation Network (FRIPON), which aims to detect and collect the 10 or so meteorites that fall on France each year.

"Meteorites are relics of the solar system's creation, with the benefit of never being exposed to the elements," said Mickael Wilmart of the A Ciel Ouvert (Open Sky) astronomy education association that operates the Mauraux observatory. "A fresh meteorite like this, which fell just a few days ago, hasn't been altered by the Earth's environment and therefore contains very precious information for scientists," he said.

Images of what appears to be a hovering ship have been captured as the result of a rare optical illusion off the coast of England. From a report: David Morris took a photo of the ship near Falmouth, Cornwall. BBC meteorologist David Braine said the "superior mirage" occurred because of "special atmospheric conditions that bend light". He said the illusion is common in the Arctic, but can appear "very rarely" in the UK during winter. Mr Morris said he was "stunned" after capturing the picture while looking out to sea from the hamlet of Gillan. Mr Braine said: "Superior mirages occur because of the weather condition known as a temperature inversion, where cold air lies close to the sea with warmer air above it. "Since cold air is denser than warm air, it bends light towards the eyes of someone standing on the ground or on the coast, changing how a distant object appears.

After getting $500 per month for two years without rules on how to spend it, 125 people in California paid off debt, got full-time jobs and reported lower rates of anxiety and depression, according to a study released this week. From a report: The program in the Northern California city of Stockton was the highest-profile experiment in the U.S. of a universal basic income, where everyone gets a guaranteed amount per month for free. Announced by former Mayor Michael Tubbs with great fanfare in 2017, the idea quickly gained momentum once it became a major part of Andrew Yang's 2020 campaign for president.

Supporters say a guaranteed income can alleviate the stress and anxiety of people living in poverty while giving them the financial security needed to find good jobs and avoid debt. But critics argue free money would eliminate the incentive to work, creating a society dependent on the state. Tubbs, who at 26 was elected Stockton's first Black mayor in 2016 after endorsements from Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama, wanted to put those claims to the test. Stockton was an ideal place, given its proximity to Silicon Valley and the eagerness of the state's tech titans to fund the experiment as they grapple with how to prepare for job losses that could come with automation and artificial intelligence. The Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration launched in February 2019, selecting a group of 125 people who lived in census tracts at or below the city's median household income of $46,033. The program did not use tax dollars, but was financed by private donations, including a nonprofit led by Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes.