More than two dozen Dropbox employees say they've witnessed or experienced gender discrimination at the company, an investigation by news outlet VentureBeat has found. From a report: In December 2020, a source familiar with the matter sent VentureBeat a document containing anonymous interviews with 16 current and former Dropbox employees who allege gender discrimination at the cloud computing company. The report alleging discrimination began circulating internally after its author sent it to Dropbox employees throughout North America on December 9. Compiled by a former Dropbox researcher, the report was not commissioned by Dropbox executives and is strongly contested by the company. "When I first read the email, when the report was sent out, I started crying," Source 1, who said she had experienced discrimination with regard to promotion at Dropbox, told VentureBeat. "I was frustrated and almost livid that so many other people were experiencing it, too. I really hoped that my personal experience was a one-off, and it was jarring and really upsetting to see so many things that could have been my story." The subjects of the report alleging discrimination point to examples such as "changing standards for promotions, unequal compensation, being set back in their careers after maternity leave, and experiencing retribution when they take their cases to HR." The report also detailed instances of alleged harassment and demotion after employees filed a complaint with Dropbox HR or returned to work following maternity leave. Internal communications VentureBeat obtained indicate that more than a dozen Dropbox employees agreed with the report's conclusions.

Planned legislation to establish new business areas in Nevada would allow technology companies to effectively form separate local governments. From a report: Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak announced a plan to launch so-called Innovation Zones in Nevada to jumpstart the state's economy by attracting technology firms, Las Vegas Review-Journal reported Wednesday. The zones would permit companies with large areas of land to form governments carrying the same authority as counties, including the ability to impose taxes, form school districts and courts and provide government services. The measure to further economic development with the "alternative form of local government" has not yet been introduced in the Legislature. Sisolak pitched the concept in his State of the State address delivered Jan. 19. The plan would bring in new businesses at the forefront of "groundbreaking technologies" without the use of tax abatements or other publicly funded incentive packages that previously helped Nevada attract companies like Tesla. Sisolak named Blockchains, LLC as a company that had committed to developing a "smart city" in an area east of Reno after the legislation has passed.

Nvidia is now requiring, not just encouraging, companies selling laptops with its new RTX 30-series graphics chips to be more transparent about the kind of power people can expect. From a report: Nvidia tells The Verge these companies will have to disclose specific clock speed stats and total graphics power on online product pages -- all of which tells people everything they need to know about a laptop's graphics potential, for better or worse. However, companies won't have to mention that these chips are Max-Q variants because, according to an Nvidia spokesperson, "Max-Q is no longer part of the GPU name." Rather, Max-Q is now solely used to communicate that a laptop with an RTX 30-series graphics chip ships with efficiency features like Whisper Mode 2, Dynamic Boost 2, and Advanced Optimus. Previously, seeing Max-Q branding made it easy to determine a laptop's general performance without having to know its specific clock speeds. It's encouraging to see Nvidia no longer allows companies to hide this vital information from marketing materials. It should go far enough in helping buyers make an educated purchase without having to wait on reviewers and early adopters to report on the specs.

Three Democratic U.S. senators introduced a bill that would limit Section 230, a law that shields online companies from liability over content posted by users, and make the companies more accountable when posts result in harm. From a report: Called the SAFE TECH Act, the bill would mark the latest effort to make social media companies like Alphabet's Google, Twitter and Facebook more accountable for "enabling cyber-stalking, targeted harassment, and discrimination on their platforms," Senators Mark Warner, Mazie Hirono and Amy Klobuchar said in a statement. In the wake of the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, lawmakers have been studying ways to hold Big Tech more accountable for the role they played in the spread of disinformation before the riot and about policing content on their platforms. The bill would make it clear that Section 230, which was enacted in 1996 as part of a law called the Communications Decency Act, does not apply to ads or other paid content, does not impair the enforcement of civil rights laws, and does not bar wrongful-death actions.

Threat actors have discovered they can abuse the Google Chrome sync feature to send commands to infected browsers and steal data from infected systems, bypassing traditional firewalls and other network defenses. From a report: For non-Chrome users, Chrome sync is a feature of the Chrome web browser that stores copies of a user's Chrome bookmarks, browsing history, passwords, and browser and extension settings on Google's cloud servers. The feature is used to sync these details between a user's different devices, so the user always has access to his most recent Chrome data wherever they go. Bojan Zdrnja, a Croatian security researcher, said on Thursday that during a recent incident response, he discovered that a malicious Chrome extension was abusing the Chrome sync feature as a way to communicate with a remote command and control (C&C) server and as a way to exfiltrate data from infected browsers. Zdrnja said that in the incident he investigated, attackers gained access to a victim's computer, but because the data they wanted to steal was inside an employee's portal, they downloaded a Chrome extension on the user's computer and loaded it via the browser's Developer Mode.

India is restoring 4G internet services in Jammu and Kashmir, a senior government official said Friday evening, 18 months after cutting internet access in the Muslim-majority state in an attempt to curb the spread of potential backlash over its decision to strip the region of its special status in August of 2019. From a report: Rohit Kansal, principal secretary of the Jammu and Kashmir government, said 4G internet services were being restored in the entire region. India lifted ban on internet and some social media services in two districts (of 20) of the state last year but maintained speed restrictions and time limits, after Supreme Court ruled last year that an indefinite shutdown of the internet in the state was unwarranted and demonstrated "abuse of power" by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government. The internet ban in Jammu and Kashmir was by far the longest by any democracy.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Google Play Music stopped working at the start of December, but the files you uploaded to the cloud locker and other data remain available for export. That will be changing later in February when Google deletes all information associated with Play Music. Besides all the songs you've uploaded to the cloud locker since the service's inception in 2011, Play Music data includes purchases, playlists, stations, albums/songs saved to your library, and likes/dislikes.

More children have been absent from school this academic year than a year earlier, with attendance declining as the pandemic wears on, new research and data show. From a report: Students attending school in person as well as those learning remotely are struggling with poor attendance, though it is worse among the millions of homebound students who are still learning primarily through a screen. Districts showed a 2.3% decline in average daily attendance nationally from September to November of last year, compared with the same period in 2019, according to data from PowerSchool, which tracks grades and attendance for schools. Attendance fell in 75% of the districts as the year wore on, dropping by 1.5% on average each month, data show. The data covers 2,700 districts that include more than 2.5 million students learning in person and online.

Limited data from some states and districts shows that students learning remotely -- especially students of color, special needs and elementary school students -- were attending school less often compared with their in-school classmates. The data deepens concerns that the lengthy school closures will widen the pre-pandemic academic achievement gaps between poor students and others. About 56% of school districts were exclusively remote as of Dec. 18, according to the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a nonpartisan research group at the University of Washington focused on improving public education in the U.S. The barriers for students learning online continue to include problems with internet connectivity and access to devices.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BuzzFeed News: Over the last two years, the government of Pakistan has forced Google and Apple to take down apps in the country created by developers based in other nations who are part of a repressed religious minority. The move is part of a crackdown led by the country's telecommunications regulator targeting the Ahmadiyya Muslim community. Adherents, called Ahmadis, number about 4 million in Pakistan. Though Ahmadis identify as Muslim, Pakistan's government views them as heretics, and a 1984 ordinance forbids them from "posing" as Muslims, adopting Islamic religious practices, and referring to their houses of worship as mosques. Pakistan is the only country to declare that Ahmadis are not Muslim.

Ahmadis have faced persecution for decades, including an attack in 2010 that killed 93 people. But the pressure on multinational tech companies from Pakistan's telecom regulator, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), signals a new willingness to target religious minorities beyond its borders. It is also one of the first examples of governments using anti-blasphemy rules to force international tech companies to censor content. At issue are seven religious apps created by the Ahmadi community in the United States, published under the name "Ahmadiyya Muslim Community." Three of the apps contain "the exact same [Arabic] text found universally in all versions of the Holy Quran," as well as commentary from the Ahmadi perspective, according to their descriptions. They are still available on app stores in other countries. All of these have been taken down by Google in Pakistan. In addition, there are four other apps, which include an FAQ on Islam and a weekly Urdu-language news magazine, that the PTA is pressuring Google to remove, but which have not been taken down.

Google has launched a limited version of its News Showcase in Australia despite threatening to pull Search from the nation a fortnight ago. ZDNet reports: News Showcase, Google claims, provides an "enhanced view" of articles, and aims to give participating news publishers more ways to share important news to readers while having "more direct control of presentation and branding." The product will appear across Google News on Android, iOS and the mobile web, and in Discover on iOS.

As part of the initial version of News Showcase in Australia, seven local news publishers have partnered with the search giant, Google APAC news, web and publishing head Kate Beddoe said in a blog post. "The initial publishers featured in today's launch were among the first globally to sign up, providing early feedback and input on how the product could help bring their journalism to the fore for readers," she said. The Australian publications included in the initial version of Google News Showcase are The Canberra Times, The Illawarra Mercury, The Saturday Paper, Crikey, The New Daily, InDaily, and The Conversation.

The iconic Empire State Building that has crowned Midtown Manhattan since the early 1930s is now a game changer in American architecture in a different way: by becoming completely powered with renewable energy. The Hill reports: Announced on Wednesday, Empire State Realty Trust (ESRT) confirmed that it struck a three-year contract with Green Mountain Energy to power its entire commercial real estate portfolio with renewable wind electricity. This reportedly makes ESRT the largest user of green power in U.S. real estate. Green Mountain Energy, based out of Vermont, is a leading sustainable energy provider, offering plans with public and private real estate groups using solar panels and wind turbines as the source of electricity.

ESRT controls more than 10.1 million square feet of real estate, all of which will be powered by renewable energy for the next three years. This switch will spare about 450 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions from entering the atmosphere. This is roughly the equivalent of every New York State household turning off all of their lights for an entire month. Prior to this partnership, the Empire State Building underwent renovations a decade ago to help convert the building to be more environmentally friendly, resulting in a 40 percent reduction in energy usage prior to the contract with Green Mountain.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Magma was developed by Facebook to help telecom operators deploy mobile networks quickly and easily. The project, which Facebook open-sourced in 2019, does this by providing a software-centric distributed mobile packet core and tools for automating network management. This containerized network function integrates with the existing back end of a mobile network and makes it easy to launch new services at the network edge. Magma operators can build and augment modern and efficient mobile networks at scale. It integrates with existing LTE and newly minted 5G networks. Several Magma community members are also collaborating in the Telecom Infra Project (TIP)'s Open Core Network project group. The plan is to define, build, test, and deploy core network products that integrate Magma with TIP Open Core disaggregated hardware and software solutions.

The Linux Foundation will help oversee this new stage in Magma's organizational future. Magma will be managed under a neutral governance framework at the Linux Foundation. Arm, Deutsche Telekom, Facebook, FreedomFi, Qualcomm, the Institute of Wireless Internet of Things at Northeastern University, the OpenAirInterface(OAI) Software Alliance, and the Open Infrastructure Foundation (OIF). You may ask, since Magma is already working with OIF, which is something of a Linux Foundation rival, why Magma will be working with both? Arpit Joshipura, the Linux Foundation's general manager of Networking, Edge, and IoT, explained, "Magma has gotten great community support from several ecosystem players and foundations including OIF, OAI etc. What we are announcing today is the next evolution of the project where the actual hosting of the project is being set up under the Linux Foundation with neutral governance that has been accepted by the community for a long time. OIF, OAI, and LF will work with their communities of Software Developers to contribute to Magma's core project."

Samsung is considering Austin, Texas, as the site for a new $17 billion chip plant that the South Korean firm said could create 1,800 jobs, according to documents filed with Texas state officials. Reuters reports: The documents say the project would involve building out 7 million square feet (650,000 square meters) of new space on a 640-acre (259-hectare) site that the company already owns. The company has an existing chip plant in Austin that makes computing chips. Samsung's filing said it plans to make "advanced logic devices" for outside customers at the facility, meaning it would aim to make the smallest, fastest kinds of computing chips. Samsung said in its filings that if Austin is selected, the company would break ground on the site in the second quarter of this year and that the plant will become operational in the third quarter of 2023.

Google has blocked The Great Suspender extension from the Chrome store "because it contains malware." The extension was very popular for users running Chrome with 8GB or less of RAM, as it would automatically suspend tabs you hadn't used in a while, freeing up precious memory and CPU power. It would then allow you to return to the tab and reload back to where you were. Mishaal Rahman writes via XDA Developers: For some people, this isn't news. Since November of 2020, close followers of the extension have warned that it may be running malicious code. The old maintainer of the extension sold it to an unknown party in June of 2020, and users alleged that the unknown party quietly slipped some trackers into version 7.1.8 of the extension. Although version 7.1.9 removed the tracker, many users were understandably suspicious of the extension. Then in early January of this year, multiple media outlets picked up on the news, and many, including myself, decided to ditch it. Earlier today, however, Google pulled the plug entirely on the popular Chrome extension, forcibly removing The Great Suspender from people's Chrome installations and removing the extension's listing on the Chrome Web Store. You can recover your suspended tabs by opening up your search history and searching for "klbibkeccnjlkjkiokjodocebajanakg." If that doesn't work, you can try the other options outlined in this GitHub post.

Some alternatives to The Great Suspender, as recommended by XDA Developers community member TheMageKing, include: Tabs Outliner, Auto Tab Discard, or Session Buddy.

President Joe Biden's nominee for Commerce secretary, Gina Raimondo, said she knows of "no reason" why Huawei and other Chinese companies shouldn't remain on a restricted trade list. From a report: Raimondo, in written questions from Senate Republicans, was asked about the company, as well as Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co. and others. They are on a list that requires U.S. firms to obtain government licenses if they want to sell American tech and intellectual property to the companies. "I understand that parties are placed on the Entity List and the Military End User List generally because they pose a risk to U.S. national security or foreign policy interests," said Raimondo, the Democratic governor of Rhode Island. "I currently have no reason to believe that entities on those lists should not be there. If confirmed, I look forward to a briefing on these entities and others of concern."