The Weather Channel reports: One main reason humans need to get a flu vaccine annually: flu strains mutate regularly so vaccines need to be slightly altered every year. During past flu seasons, the CDC has noted a vaccine effectiveness range between 40-60%, and a reduced the risk of flu-related illness by 40-60% within the overall population. There are, however, several "universal" flu vaccines currently being studied that aim to make annual flu vaccinations a thing of the past. In fact, according to the American Society for Microbiology, some of these vaccine candidates are in phase 2 and phase 3 trials right now.
Now UPI reports: Researchers believe they are one step closer to a "universal" flu vaccine, even as concerns over the seasonal virus move to the back burner during the COVID-19 pandemic. T cells found in the lungs may hold the key to long-lasting immunity against influenza A, the more common and often more severe form of the virus, according to the researchers behind a study published Friday by Science Immunology.

These cells, which the researchers call resident helper T cells, help the body initiate antiviral responses against new influenza strains even after experience with only one type of the virus, the researchers said. This type of "generalized" immune response, against all virus strains, is not possible with the currently available yearly vaccine formulations, they said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Genetic differences between identical twins can begin very early in embryonic development, according to a study that researchers say has implications for examining the effects of nature versus nurture. Identical -- or monozygotic -- twins come from a single fertilized egg that splits in two. They are important research subjects because they are thought to have minimal genetic differences. This means that when physical or behavioral differences emerge, environmental factors are presumed to be the likely cause. But the new research, published on Thursday in the journal Nature Genetics, suggests the role of genetic factors in shaping these differences has been underestimated.

[Kari Stefansson, the co-author of the paper and head of Iceland's deCODE genetics] and his team sequenced the genomes of 387 pairs of identical twins and their parents, spouses and children in order to track genetic mutations. They measured mutations that occurred during embryonic growth and found that identical twins differed by an average of 5.2 early developmental mutations. In 15% of twins, the number of diverging mutations was higher. When a mutation happened in the first few weeks of embryonic development, it would be expected to be widespread both in an individual's cells and in those of their offspring.

In one of the pairs of twins studied, for example, a mutation was present in all cells in one sibling's body -- meaning it is likely to have happened very early in development -- but not at all in the other twin. Stefansson said that out of the initial mass that would go on to form the individuals, "one of the twins is made out of the descendants of the cell where the mutation took place and nothing else," while the other was not. "These mutations are interesting because they allow you to begin to explore the way in which twinning happens."

Equifax said Friday that it has signed a deal to acquire Kount, providers of digital identity and fraud prevention software, for $640 million. Equifax said it plans to use Kount's technology to bolster its footprint in digital identity and fraud prevention market. ZDNet reports: Kount's software relies on artificial intelligence to link trust and fraud data signals from billions of digital interactions, devices, and annual transactions. The signals are collected and combined with Kount's AI-driven predictive insights to help businesses prevent digital fraud and protect against account takeovers in real time. Applied to business transactions, Equifax posits that Kount's technology can help facilitate faster and more accurate identity trust decisions, including payments, account creations and login, while also reducing fraud, chargebacks, false positives, and manual reviews. The full suite of Kount products will be integrated into the Equifax Luminate fraud platform, which aims to help manage fraud decisions across the consumer account lifecycle.

Google is planning to release a new Nest Hub in 2021 that will feature sleeping tracking powered by the company's Soli radar technology. 9to5Google reports: Google's Advanced Technology and Projects group first unveiled Soli in 2015, but it did not launch on a consumer device until 2019. The sensor lets you perform air gestures over the Pixel 4 to play/pause and skip/rewind tracks, as well as snooze alarms and silence phone calls. It's also used to speed up face unlock by detecting when users reach for their phone and turning on the components needed for recognition. Third-party Android developers can incorporate the tech, which emits radar waves, into games and other interactive experiences. Meanwhile, the new Nest Thermostat also leverages it for improved motion sensing to wake the screen when you walk by.

Soli will soon be used to track sleep. Embedded into this upcoming Nest Hub, Google is embracing how Smart Displays are often placed on bedside tables as alarm clocks and speakers. The original Nest Hub is more likely to be used in sensitive areas since it lacks a camera, with sleep tracking serving as another incentive to place this device on your nightstand. The FCC filing at the start of this week revealed that the Soli sensor placed in the Nest Hub will have technical capabilities identical to the Pixel 4. Google has long touted precise and fine gesture recognition, like spinning a virtual dial or adjusting a slider. This should translate to detecting any body movements you make at night. For comparison, the Nest Thermostat uses a more limited version of Soli to detect general motion. It's possible that Google will also use Soli on this Nest Hub for gestures to control content. The Nest Hub Max today already uses its camera to play/pause tracks when you hold up a hand.

New submitter yuvcifjt writes: As of Friday 6pm EST (11pm GMT), The Verge reported that Apple and Google are under pressure and receiving complaints to deplatform Parler -- the social media platform favored by the right-wing and extremists -- from their app stores. BuzzFeed has since broken news that Apple has served notice to Parler's executives to implement a full moderation plan within 24 hours or risk being taken off the App Store.

"We have received numerous complaints regarding objectionable content in your Parler service, accusations that the Parler app was used to plan, coordinate, and facilitate the illegal activities in Washington D.C. on January 6, 2021 that led (among other things) to loss of life, numerous injuries, and the destruction of property," Apple wrote to Parler. "The app also appears to continue to be used to plan and facilitate yet further illegal and dangerous activities." Google issued a similar ultimatum, although it suspended Parler from its app store until it implements a moderation plan that addresses "this ongoing and urgent public safety threat."

Intel has talked with TSMC and Samsung about the Asian companies making some of its best chips, but the Silicon Valley pioneer is still holding out hope for last-minute improvements in its own production capabilities. Bloomberg reports: After successive delays in its chip fabrication processes, Santa Clara, California-based Intel has yet to make a final decision less than two weeks ahead of a scheduled announcement of its plans, according to people familiar with the deliberations. Any components that Intel might source from Taiwan wouldn't come to market until 2023 at the earliest and would be based on established manufacturing processes already in use by other TSMC customers, said the people, asking not to be identified because the plans are private.

Talks with Samsung, whose foundry capabilities trail TSMC's, are at a more preliminary stage, the people said. An Intel spokesperson referred to previous comments by Bob Swan, the company's chief executive officer. Swan has promised investors he'll set out his plans for outsourcing and get Intel's production technology back on track when the company reports earnings Jan. 21. [...] TSMC, the largest maker of semiconductors for other companies, is preparing to offer Intel chips manufactured using a 4-nanometer process, with initial testing using an older 5-nanometer process, according to the people. The company has said it will make test production of 4-nanometer chips available in the fourth quarter of 2021 and volume shipments the following year. The Taiwanese company expects to have a new facility in Baoshan operational by the end of this year, which can be converted to production for Intel if required, one of the people said. TSMC executives previously said the new Baoshan unit would house a research center with 8,000 engineers.

While Intel has outsourced production of lower-end chips before, it has kept the manufacturing of its best semiconductors in-house, considering it a competitive strength. Its engineers have historically tailored their designs to the company's manufacturing processes, making a shift to outsourcing of flagship products unthinkable in the past. As the provider of 80% of personal computer and server processors globally, Intel produces hundreds of millions of chips each year. That scale dictates that any potential supplier must create new capacity to accommodate Intel.

U.S. President Donald Trump was "permanently suspended" from Twitter Friday afternoon. "After close review of recent Tweets from the account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence," reads Twitter's announcement.

The announcement has since caused a new word to trend on Twitter: "Permanently."

Meanwhile, Reddit has banned r/donaldtrump for encouraging and glorifying violence after Wednesday's mob attack on the US Capitol. The Verge reports: Axios reporter Sara Fischer first reported the news, noting that the unofficial pro-Trump forum had been given multiple warnings. A Reddit splash page says the subreddit was "banned due to a violation of Reddit's rules against inciting violence." The r/donaldtrump forum had approximately 52,000 members before its ban, according to an Internet Archive snapshot.

"Reddit's site-wide policies prohibit content that promotes hate, or encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence against groups of people or individuals. In accordance with this, we have been proactively reaching out to moderators to remind them of our policies and to offer support or resources as needed," a Reddit spokesperson tells The Verge. "We have also taken action to ban the community r/donaldtrump given repeated policy violations in recent days regarding the violence at the US Capitol."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Analysts from security firm Trend Micro said in a report today that they've spotted a malware botnet that collects and steals Docker and AWS credentials. Researchers have linked the botnet to a cybercrime operation known as TeamTNT; a group first spotted over the 2020 summer installing cryptocurrency-mining malware on misconfigured container platforms. Initial reports at the time said that TeamTNT was breaching container platforms by looking for Docker systems that were exposing their management API port online without a password.

Researchers said the TeamTNT group would access exposed Docker containers, install a crypto-mining malware, but also steal credentials for Amazon Web Services (AWS) servers in order to pivot to a company's other IT systems to infect even more servers and deploy more crypto-miners. At the time, researchers said that TeamTNT was the first crypto-mining botnet that implemented a feature dedicated to collecting and stealing AWS credentials. But in a report today, Trend Micro researchers said that the TeamTNT gang's malware code had received considerable updates since it was first spotted last summer. TeamTNT has now also added a feature to collect Docker API credentials, on top of the AWS creds-stealing code. This feature is most likely used on container platforms where the botnet infects hosts using other entry points than its original Docker API port scanning feature.

phalse phace writes: After days of advanced talks to sell Quibi's content library to Roku, the companies have finally reached a deal. According to Deadline, Roku will acquire most of Quibi's content for less than $100 million.

"The acquisition covers most of the Quibi library, but some daily news shows are not part of the package," reports Deadline. "A key draw for Roku is the talent, a roster including Idris Elba, Kevin Hart, Liam Hemsworth, Anna Kendrick, Nicole Richie, Chrissy Teigen and Lena Waithe. The lineup includes titles like Most Dangerous Game, Dummy and Murder House Flip. The programming will be available for free starting later this year. Shows will have advertising, as they did on the $5-a-month Quibi service, and they will be housed on the Roku Channel." Earlier today, Roku says it sold more smart TVs in the U.S. in 2020 than competitors like Samsung, LG and Vizio, becoming the biggest smart TV platform in North America.

A new study provides early evidence that a Covid-19 vaccine might be effective against two new coronavirus strains first identified in South Africa and the UK, despite a concerning mutation. CNN reports: The two strains share a mutation known as N501Y that scientists worry could allow the virus to evade the immune protection generated by a vaccine. In research posted online Thursday, scientists found that antibodies from people who had received the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine showed "no reduction in neutralization activity" against a version of the virus that carries the N501Y mutation, which they created in the lab. In order to do this, researchers tested the virus against blood from 20 people who had received two doses of the vaccine as part of a clinical trial.

The N501Y mutation is located in the coronavirus' spike protein -- the same structure targeted by vaccines. The virus uses this protein to enter the cells it attacks. This particular mutation appears to help the virus attach to human cells, which may partly explain why these new strains appear to be more transmissible. But it is just one of many mutations in both strains that scientists have worried could make the virus less susceptible to vaccines or treatments. The study -- conducted by researchers at Pfizer and the University of Texas Medical Branch -- does not test the full array of these mutation, nor has it been peer-reviewed.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: In the months since a coalition of app-based gig companies successfully passed Prop 22 in California, exempting themselves from reclassifying their workers as employees, DoorDash has been silently passing costs onto consumers. The company-funded Yes on Prop 22 campaign claimed that not passing the ballot initiative would result in higher prices for consumers, and in early December, news first broke that gig companies would be charging more anyway to cover the cost of benefits promised in Prop 22 such as a healthcare stipend and a minimum pay guarantee. It's also not clear whether these new benefits warrant price hikes as an October 2019 study by the Berkeley Labor Center of Proposition 22 found that driver pay would come out to $5.64 an hour. Nonetheless, companies in the coalition signaled they'd have to pass costs onto consumers instead of absorbing them into their already unprofitable enterprises.

Now, DoorDash is raising its service fee to 15 percent in California, which according to an in-app description "helps us operate DoorDash & provide a minimum pay guarantee to California Dashers. Service fees are, according to DoorDash, also calibrated by market demand and Motherboard has seen receipts where the service fee jumped as high as 21 percent. A DoorDash spokesperson told Motherboard that the company is raising fee percentages for orders in California to cover Prop 22 and is keeping a close eye on the impact of these various price hikes and fee increases, adjusting them when necessary. It's important to remember, however, that for DoorDash and other companies, that usually means when a policy is affecting the gig economy's schemes to realize previously illegal profits.

A laptop was stolen from the office of U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, one of her aides said on Friday. From a report: Drew Hammill, an aide to Democrat Pelosi, said on Twitter that the laptop belonged to a conference room and was used for presentations. He declined to offer further details. The theft of electronic devices from congressional offices has been a persistent worry following the invasion by pro-Trump followers. They were encouraged by Republican President Donald Trump at a rally beforehand to march to the Capitol while Congress was certifying Democrat Joe Biden's Nov. 3 election win. Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat, said on Twitter on Thursday that a laptop was taken from his office.

Apple's App Store grossed more than $64 billion in 2020, according to an analysis by CNBC. From a report: That's up from an estimated $50 billion in 2019 and $48.5 billion in 2018, according to the same analysis, suggesting that App Store sales growth accelerated strongly during the Covid-19 pandemic, as people sheltered at home and spent more time and money on apps and games. App Store revenue grew 28% in 2020, up from 3.1% growth in 2019, according to CNBCâ(TM)s analysis. Apple's App Store is a core growth area for the company. It's reported as part of Apple's Services division, which reported $53.7 billion in sales in Apple's fiscal 2020, which ended in September. The money that Apple makes from its App Store has become a flash point for critics of Apple which argue it has too much power. Apple charges 30% for digital sales through its platform, with a few exceptions. Apple recently altered its fee structure, and now it only takes a 15% cut from companies that generate less than $1 million in the App Store.