An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: The Biden administration is exploring the possibility of new export controls that would limit China's access to some of the most powerful emerging computing technologies, according to people familiar with the situation. The potential plans, which are in an early stage, are focused on the still-experimental field of quantum computing, as well as artificial intelligence software, according to the people, who asked not to be named discussing private deliberations. Industry experts are weighing in on how to set the parameters of the restrictions on this nascent technology, they said. The efforts, if implemented, would follow separate restrictions announced earlier this month aimed at stunting Beijing's ability to deploy cutting-edge semiconductors in weapons and surveillance systems.

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, in a speech last month on technology, competitiveness and national security, referred to "computing-related technologies, including microelectronics, quantum information systems and artificial intelligence" as among developments "set to play an outsized importance over the coming decade." He also noted the importance of export controls to "maintain as large of a lead as possible" over adversaries. Expanding the wall around advanced technologies risks further antagonizing China and forcing other countries to pick sides between the world's two top economies. The new ideas have been shared with US allies, according to the people. Officials are still determining how to frame the controls on quantum computing, which will probably focus on the level of output and the so-called error correction rate, the people said. [...] The Biden administration is also working on an executive order for an outbound investment review mechanism that would scrutinize money heading to certain Chinese technologies, and the quantum computing and artificial intelligence controls could be included, one of the people said. That could incorporate some aspects similar to a measure pushed by senators Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat, and John Cornyn, a Texas Republican.

A new study finds that some people really are "mosquito magnets" and it probably has to do with the way they smell. From a report: The researchers found that people who are most attractive to mosquitoes produce a lot of certain chemicals on their skin that are tied to smell. And bad news for mosquito magnets: they stay loyal to their favorites over time. "If you have high levels of this stuff on your skin, you're going to be the one at the picnic getting all the bites," said study author Leslie Vosshall, a neurobiologist at Rockefeller University in New York. There is folklore about who gets bitten more, but many claims are not backed up with strong evidence, said Vosshall.

The researchers designed an experiment pitting people's scents against each other, explained study author Maria Elena De Obaldia. Their findings were published Tuesday in the journal Cell. They asked 64 volunteers from the university and nearby to wear nylon stockings around their forearms to pick up their skin smells. The stockings were put in separate traps at the end of a long tube, then dozens of mosquitos were released. "They would basically swarm to the most attractive subjects," De Obaldia said. "It became very obvious right away." Scientists held a round-robin tournament and ended up with a striking gap: the biggest mosquito magnet was around 100 times more attractive to the mosquitoes than the last place finisher.

French police said Friday they're investigating multiple cuts to fiber-optic cables in France's second-largest city. Operators said the cables link Marseille to other cities in France and Europe and that internet and phone services were severely disrupted. From a report: The disruptions in Marseille were a taste of what analysts warn could be far larger problems in other cases if cables are systematically attacked. The vulnerability of fiber-optic cables, especially those underwater, and other key infrastructure was highlighted by the sabotage last month in the Baltic Sea of natural gas pipelines from Russia. The damage in the city in southern France also appeared to resemble suspected acts of sabotage to other cables in the country earlier this year. French cable operator and internet service provider Free said its repair teams were mobilized before dawn Wednesday to deal with "an act of vandalism on our fiber infrastructure." It said the attacks were simultaneous and on multiple spots of its fiber network near Marseille. Photos that Free published on Twitter showed multiple cables completely severed in their concrete housings buried in the ground. It said the cuts led to major disruptions to its network and phone services in the Marseille area.

Communications to Shetland, the Scottish archipelago that lies across the sea from Norway and more than 100 miles north of mainland Britain, have been severely disrupted after a subsea cable was damaged. From a report: Police have declared a major incident after the south subsea cable between the islands and the mainland was cut. The force said some landlines and mobiles were not usable and that officers were patrolling to try to reassure residents. Repairs to another cable connecting Shetland and Faroe are ongoing after it was damaged last week. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said it was an emergency situation for the island. The Scottish government's resilience committee had met and was working with partner agencies to ensure support was provided, she added. She said the assumption was the damage was accidental, adding: "There is nothing to suggest otherwise, but work is continuing to assess exactly what the cause of the problem has been." MP for Orkney and Shetlands Alastair Carmichael told the BBC he had raised the issue with the UK government, but understood it could be days before communications were restored. He said the priority was fixing the issue but that resilience would also need to be looked at in future.

The U.S. has rules limiting federal officials' stock-market investing. They can be waived. The Wall Street Journal: Mark Wu held more than $1 million of Amazon.com stock when President Biden tapped him to help craft a trade policy that would benefit U.S. technology companies and online retailers. Ethics officials at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said they gave Mr. Wu two options: Get rid of the stock or recuse himself from digital trade issues. He did neither.

For several months, Mr. Wu continued working on the trade matter while keeping the shares. He had "not followed the requirements," the U.S. Trade Representative's chief of staff told him in a June 2021 phone call, an email describing the call shows. Eventually, Mr. Wu quit, citing family issues. He kept his Amazon stock. Mr. Wu said he didn't work on trade issues specific to Amazon and left the government when the restrictions became too much of a burden on his family.

The U.S. has a law aimed at preventing the nation's thousands of obscure but powerful federal officials from using their influence on regulations, policies and investigations to benefit themselves. With penalties up to $50,000 and five years in prison, the law is supposed to ensure that officials in the executive branch don't work on any matter that could affect their personal finances. It doesn't. It has exceptions. Violations often go unpunished. When a problematic holding is identified, if the official resists selling it, the rules often are waived. The result is a system that largely relies on government employees to police their own stock investing.

Canonical blog: Codenamed "Kinetic Kudu," this interim release improves the experience of enterprise developers and IT administrators. It also includes the latest toolchains and applications with a particular focus on the IoT ecosystem. Ubuntu 22.10 delivers toolchain updates to Ruby, Go, GCC and Rust. OpenSSH in Ubuntu 22.10 is configured by default to use systemd socket activation, meaning that sshd will not be started until an incoming connection request is received. This reduces the memory footprint of Ubuntu Server on smaller devices, VMs or LXD containers. Ubuntu 22.10 also comes with a new debuginfod service to help developers and admins debug programs shipped with Ubuntu. Debugging tools like gdb will automatically download the required debug symbols over HTTPS.

Ubuntu 22.10 now supports MicroPython on a variety of microcontrollers, including the Raspberry Pi Pico W. rshell, thonny and mpremote are all available in the Ubuntu repositories. The Ubuntu graphics stack transition to kms means developers can run Pi-based graphical applications using frameworks like Qt outside of a desktop session and without Pi specific drivers. This complements expanded support for a range of embedded displays for the Raspberry Pi, including the Inky eInk HAT series, Hyperpixel range and the Raspberry Pi Official Touchscreen. [...] All users will benefit from the refinements in GNOME 43, including GTK4 theming for improved performance and consistency. Quick Settings now provide faster access to commonly used options such as wifi, bluetooth, dark mode and power settings.

Not content with doing $28.8 billion in revenue in 2021, YouTube has recently gone on the hunt for more revenue-generating strategies. Now, the Google division has announced a price hike for YouTube Premium family plans. From a report: As 9to5Google was the first to spot, the family plan is jumping over 27 percent in the US, from $17.99 to $22.99, with other regions also seeing price hikes. Instead of making an official announcement, Google is quietly emailing existing subscribers. So far, it does not seem like the single-person YouTube Premium price (still $11.99 per month) is going up. The family plan lets a user share ad-free YouTube Premium with up to five same-household family members for a discounted rate. On iOS, all the prices are higher if you sign up through the App Store, which charges a 30 percent fee on every transaction. In Apple land, YouTube Premium's family plan was always $22.99, and now it's jumping up to $29.99 a month. You can avoid the Apple tax by just paying Google directly through the YouTube website.

Apple's head of hardware design, Evans Hankey, is leaving the iPhone maker three years after taking the job, creating a significant hole at the top of a company famous for its slick-looking products,
Bloomberg News reported Friday, citing sources. From the report: Hankey was named to the post in 2019 to replace Jony Ive, the company's iconic design chief for two decades. Before taking her current role as vice president of industrial design, Hankey spent several years at Apple reporting to Ive. Since then, she has reported to Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams.

The departure was announced inside the Cupertino, California-based technology giant this week, with Hankey telling colleagues that she will remain at Apple for the next six months. Hankey oversees several dozen industrial designers, and the company hasn't named a replacement. Her pending exit marks the first time that Apple will be without a de facto design chief since co-founder Steve Jobs retook control of the company in the late 1990s and appointed Ive to the job. Richard Howarth, a key designer on both Ive's and Hankey's teams, briefly held the role of head of industrial design, reporting to Ive, between 2015 and 2017.

Microsoft has decided the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA) -- its offering that runs Android VMs which behave just like another application in Windows -- is sufficiently stable that it can be designated version 1.0 and made available to all. From a report: While it's lovely that Windows can now run Android VMs, Hendrixson's tweet needs a little parsing. The "50,000 apps" he mentions are only available from the Amazon.com app store -- not the larger Google Play digital tat bazaar. Google's apps aren't in the Amazonian store, nor are Microsoft's. I couldn't find Twitter, WhatsApp, Slack, any of the banks I use, or the Australian government apps I need to access services. In fact it's tough work to find apps other than games in the store -- and when a search term does bear fruit it delivers what look like knockoff apps that scream "here be dragons."

Would you pay for a username on social media? Telegram is hoping yes. From a report: The messaging app is soon to launch a username auction platform on The Open Network (TON) blockchain, the company said in an official channel on Thursday. Telegram founder Pavel Durov revealed the project in August, citing inspiration from the success of a recent TON auction for their wallet usernames. Some, including "casino.ton," sold for over $200,000.

"If TON has been able to achieve these results, imagine how successful Telegram with its 700 million users could be if we put reserved @ usernames, group and channel links for auction," he said. But Durov isn't stopping there. "Other elements of the Telegram ecosystem, including channels, stickers or emoji, could later also become part of this marketplace," he added. Paying for usernames isn't new. Over half a million people have paid for usernames on Ethereum through the Ethereum Name Service (ENS), according to Non Fungible's market tracker. It's not just a web3 phenomenon either. It's becoming harder and harder to get the desired username on platforms like Twitter and Instagram and some people are going to great lengths to obtain them.

Apple has sued medical technology company Masimo in Delaware federal court, accusing its new W1 line of smartwatches of infringing several Apple Watch patents. From a report: The two lawsuits said Masimo copied Apple's technology while seeking bans on sales and imports of Apple Watches in earlier intellectual-property cases against the tech giant in California and at a U.S. trade tribunal. Apple said Masimo "carefully studied Apple's IP" during those cases and claimed a Masimo spinoff received confidential information about the Apple Watch. Apple accused Masimo of trying to use the litigation to remove Apple's watches from the market to "make way for Masimo's own watch." Irvine, California-based Masimo said in a statement that Apple's lawsuits are "retaliatory" and "appear to be an attempt to avoid the court in which the parties have been litigating their dispute for the past three years." Masimo, which specializes in health-monitoring devices for medical patients, sued Apple in California federal court in 2020.

UK regulator Ofcom proposed changes to net neutrality rules carried over from the European Union to give telecommunications and internet providers more flexibility. From a report: Internet service providers should be allowed to offer a broader range of premium packages on a wider variety of parameters such as latency, and could include discounted tariffs during off-peak hours, according to proposals from the watchdog published Friday. "The net neutrality rules constrain the activities of broadband providers, and could be restricting their ability to develop new services and manage their networks," Ofcom said in the report.

Net neutrality is shorthand for rules that intend to ensure traffic carried over telecom networks is treated equally, without favoring certain services or content. Debates over such regulations often prove controversial due to tensions over what constitutes an open and free internet and fears consumers could suffer if it becomes harder to compare prices. The report proposed that telecom providers be allowed to not charge a customer's overall allowance for certain services, like public health advice.

Amazon says over half a dozen hardware vendors have indicated that they cannot enter into a TV manufacturing relationship with the e-commerce group over fear of retaliation from Google, escalating tension with the search giant with whom it competes on several businesses. From a report: The revelation, officially shared by Amazon for the first time, was made by the company's unit in India to the Competition Commission of India as part the antitrust watchdog's years-long investigation into Google over claims that it abuses the dominant position in Android. Google does abuse its dominant position in Android, the regulator said Thursday in a statement, slapping a $162 million fine on Thursday.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: A good fall TV run comes to an end on Sunday when HBO airs its House of the Dragon season one finale, a week or so after Amazon wrapped up the first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. The shows aren't done yet providing content, though. Both Amazon and HBO offer companion podcasts to keep fans engaged, and both devised wildly different approaches for their audio. The podcasts offer behind-the-scenes chats with cast and crew and strive to become the definitive place to hear conversations around their respective programming. The shows' similarities end there, however.

HBO, for example, released three episodes of The Official Game of Thrones Podcast: House of the Dragon before the actual TV series aired, choosing to hype listeners up for the debut through an interview George R.R. Martin, as well as an "everything we know"-style show. Since then, the program has been released weekly alongside new episodes of the series on Sunday evenings. Michael Gluckstadt, director of podcasts for HBO and HBO Max, says the podcast will continue even after the series breaks between seasons. "There's no end date for this in sight," he said, which is atypical for podcasts the network has released in the past, including for Succession and The Gilded Age. [...] The podcast is available on all platforms, as well as on YouTube and the HBO Max app.

Meanwhile, Amazon didn't release any episodes of its The Official The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Podcast until the season finale. Marshall Lewy, chief content officer at Amazon's Wondery, said the team wanted the streaming series to "speak for itself." Wondery has created companion podcasts before, namely for its own podcasts that were adapted for streaming, like Dr. Death and WeCrashed, but this marks the first time the team has worked in coordination with an Amazon series. "This is really our first opportunity to do a partnership like this connected to Prime Video," Lewy said. The podcast now receives front-and-center promotion ahead of each streaming video episode, which is the first time the coveted space has promoted something other than a Prime video series, he said. A promotion for The Official The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Podcast that surfaces on Prime Video. The podcast is only available on Amazon Music, the Wondery app and Audible, a critical difference from HBO's strategy. Lewy said this decision made sense given that anyone watching the show is a Prime subscriber and can freely access Amazon Music. "The effort put into these podcasts not only speaks to the need to increase fan engagement with the programming but to create an ongoing dialogue with viewers so they don't drop off from season to season," writes Bloomberg's Ashley Carman. "A person's podcast time likely differs from their streaming time, which in theory minimizes the risk of cannibalizing the hours that viewers could be spending on other Amazon or HBO series."

"The video services want more than just sixty minutes of their viewers' attention once a week -- they want to be a part of their day and part of their conversations with friends for as long as possible."

Two state legislators in New Jersey are proposing a bill that would ban car companies from "[offering consumers] a subscription service for any motor vehicle feature" that "utilizes components and hardware already installed on the motor vehicle at the time of purchase." The Drive reports: The bill has one stipulation, however. The subscription would only be unlawful if there was no "ongoing expense to the dealer, manufacturer, or any third-party service provider." In other words, if an automaker or other associated party can prove that it costs money to maintain the feature and/or service in question, then it'd be legally allowed. This would include services like OnStar and such.

The way "ongoing expense" is interpreted is going to be key here, assuming the bill makes it into law. This, obviously, is not guaranteed. In theory, a car company could claim that over-the-air updates and their associated data costs constitute an ongoing expense. That means anything to do with connected features could theoretically be charged for. Since a car needs an internet connection in order to purchase subscriptions, well, that might make this particular piece of legislation worthless. On the other hand, if the core value of the subscription is derived from the pre-installed hardware as opposed to the data connection itself, then there is probably a case to be made.

Besides heated seats, the bill also mentions "driver assistance." That could be a problem for systems like Tesla's autopilot or General Motors' Super Cruise, both of which are going to a subscription model. Both of these systems cost money to maintain, though, especially Super Cruise. The system requires enabled highways to be scanned with Lidar. Tesla's AutoPilot and "Full Self-Driving" are also actively updated and maintained, which costs money. If automakers don't comply, they risk "civil penalties of up to $20,000 per violation," notes the report.