Starting pretty soon, some tickets at AMC locations are going to be getting cheaper and more expensive depending on where you sit as the movie theater chain introduces a new tiered pricing scheme called Sightline. From a report: Today, AMC announced its plans to roll out Sightline at AMC, a new pricing structure that will split auditorium seats into three differently priced tiers in theaters across the country beginning this Friday. In a statement about the new program, Eliot Hamlisch, AMC's chief marketing officer, described Sightline as an effort to get consumers thinking about buying movie tickets the same way they might events at "many other entertainment venues." Hamlisch also said that the new pricing structure is meant to give people who have particular seats they like a better shot at securing them and noted that some seats will become less expensive.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook, speaking on an earnings call that was mostly focused on holiday results, made an off-the-cuff remark that could be quite telling about the company's future. Cook was fielding a question about whether the iPhone's rising average sales price was sustainable. After all, a top-of-the-line model that cost $1,150 in 2017 (the iPhone X with 256 gigabytes of storage) now fetches $1,600 (the iPhone 14 Pro Max with 1 terabyte).

His response: The price increase is no problem. In fact, consumers could probably be persuaded to spend more. "I think people are willing to really stretch to get the best they can afford in that category," Cook said on the call, noting that the iPhone has become "integral" to people's lives. Consumers now use the device to make payments, control smart-home appliances, manage their health and store banking data, he said. While Cook wouldn't say if he anticipates further price increases, he made a good argument for why even more upscale iPhones could make sense -- especially if they deliver new features. Apple has internally discussed adding a higher-end iPhone to the top of its smartphone lineup.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Millions of Americans have used GoodRx, a drug discount app, to search for lower prices on prescriptions like antidepressants, H.I.V. medications and treatments for sexually transmitted diseases at their local drugstores. But U.S. regulators say the app's coupons and convenience came at a high cost for users: wrongful disclosure of their intimate health information. On Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission accused the app's developer, GoodRx Holdings, of sharing sensitive personal data on millions of users' prescription medications and illnesses with companies like Facebook and Google without authorization. [...]

From 2017 to 2020, GoodRx uploaded the contact information of users who had bought certain medications, like birth control or erectile dysfunction pills, to Facebook so that the drug discount app could identify its users' social media profiles, the F.T.C. said in a legal complaint. GoodRx then used the personal information to target users with ads for medications on Facebook and Instagram, the complaint said, "all of which was visible to Facebook." GoodRx also targeted users who had looked up information on sexually transmitted diseases on HeyDoctor, the company's telemedicine service, with ads for HeyDoctor's S.T.D. testing services, the complaint said. Those data disclosures, regulators said, flouted public promises the company had made to "never provide advertisers any information that reveals a personal health condition."

The company's information-sharing practices, the agency said, violated a federal rule requiring health apps and fitness trackers that collect personal health details to notify consumers of data breaches. While GoodRx agreed to settle the case, it said it disagreed with the agency's allegations and admitted no wrongdoing. The F.T.C.'s case against GoodRx could upend widespread user-profiling and ad-targeting practices in the multibillion-dollar digital health industry, and it puts companies on notice that regulators intend to curb the nearly unfettered trade in consumers' health details. [...] If a judge approves the proposed federal settlement order, GoodRx will be permanently barred from sharing users' health information for advertising purposes. To settle the case, the company also agreed to pay a $1.5 million civil penalty for violating the health breach notification rule.

During Samsung's Unpacked event on Wednesday where it unveiled its new Galaxy S23 smartphones, the company said it'll work with Google and Qualcomm on an upcoming mixed-reality platform. Samsung didn't mention any specific products or timeline. CNET reports: "It's more of a declarative announcement about how we are going to get it right in trying to build the XR ecosystem," TM Roh, president of Samsung's mobile division, said in an interview with CNET through a translator ahead of the event. "Google's been investing for a long time across both experiences and technology in AR and VR," Lockheimer said onstage. "Delivering this next generation of experiences requires cutting-edge advanced hardware and software. That's why our collaboration with Samsung and Qualcomm is so exciting."

Samsung has been relatively quiet about virtual reality aside from its Gear VR headset, which it launched several iterations of between 2015 and 2017. That device is a head-mounted holster for smartphone-powered VR experiences. Roh says there's been more demand from consumers for augmented and virtual reality, which is why the company chose this time to start discussing its plans. He says that the company has been researching the category for a while. "And now we believe that we have reached a certain threshold," he said.

The collaboration makes sense since Samsung, Google and Qualcomm already work together to develop smartphones. Samsung builds the hardware of its Galaxy phones, while Qualcomm supplies the processor and Google manages the software's underlying Android operating system. Roh said Google and Qualcomm will play similar roles in the development of this upcoming XR platform, although they will likely overlap in certain areas. Even though Qualcomm would supply the processor, for example, Samsung might make some optimizations, just as it's done for the chip inside the Galaxy S23 lineup. "Each player is taking leadership in each category, and then we will be working very closely together across the different categories," Roh said.

A new Biden administration report describes Apple and Google as "gatekeepers" of mobile app stores and suggests legislation is needed to spur competition and give app makers and consumers more choices. From a report: The White House is pushing for tech antitrust action in the new Congress, with a new Department of Commerce report laying out what it sees as a harmful app store environment for both consumers and app makers. The report, from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, is the Biden administration's fullest effort to lay out concerns about the app store ecosystem.

There is "real potential harm for consumers" in the way Apple and Google run their app stores, with the companies "inflating prices and reducing innovation," Alan Davidson, NTIA administrator, said in a call with reporters. "We're looking forward to seeing what legislation gets introduced on Capitol Hill.... Our hope is that this analysis can inform how people are thinking about these issues," he said. "We have a real opportunity to make progress on tech and competition in this Congress," said Bharat Ramamurti, deputy director of the National Economic Council. "We're highly committed to reform in this space and we will work closely with Congress to see whatever is possible."

As nations around the world scramble to secure crucial semiconductor supply chains over fears about relations with China, the U.K. is falling behind. From a report: The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the world's heavy reliance on Taiwan and China for the most advanced chips, which power everything from iPhones to advanced weapons. For the past two years, and amid mounting fears China could kick off a new global security crisis by invading Taiwan, Britain's government has been readying a plan to diversify supply chains for key components and boost domestic production. Yet according to people close to the strategy, the U.K.'s still-unseen plan -- which missed its publication deadline last fall -- has suffered from internal disconnect and government disarray, setting the country behind its global allies in a crucial race to become more self-reliant.

A lack of experience and joined-up policy-making in Whitehall, a period of intense political upheaval in Downing Street, and new U.S. controls on the export of advanced chips to China, have collectively stymied the U.K.'s efforts to develop its own coherent plan. The way the strategy has been developed so far "is a mistake," said a former senior Downing Street official. During the pandemic, demand for semiconductors outstripped supply as consumers flocked to sort their home working setups. That led to major chip shortages -- soon compounded by China's tough "zero-COVID" policy. Since a semiconductor fabrication plant is so technologically complex -- a single laser in a chip lithography system of German firm Trumpf has 457,000 component parts -- concentrating manufacturing in a few companies helped the industry innovate in the past. But everything changed when COVID-19 struck.

The International Data Corporation has the latest numbers for worldwide smartphone sales in Q4 2022, and it's a disaster. Shipments declined 18.3 percent year-over-year, making for the largest-ever decline in a single quarter and dragging the year down to an 11.3 percent decline. With overall shipments of 1.21 billion phones for the year, the IDC says this is the lowest annual shipment total since 2013. Ars Technica reports: In the top five for Q4 2022 -- in order, they were Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo -- Apple was, of course, the least affected, but not by much. Apple saw a year-over-year drop of 14.9 percent for Q4 2022, Samsung was down 15.6 percent, and the big loser, Xiaomi, dropped 26.5 percent. For the year, Samsung still took the No. 1 spot with 21.6 percent market share, Apple was No. 2 with 18.8 percent, and Xiaomi took third place at 12.7 percent.

The IDC also notes consumers are keeping smartphones longer than ever now, with "refresh rates" or the time that passes before people buy a new phone 'climb[ing] past 40 months in most major markets.' The report closes saying: "2023 is set up to be a year of caution as vendors will rethink their portfolio of devices while channels will think twice before taking on excess inventory. However, on a positive note, consumers may find even more generous trade-in offers and promotions continuing well into 2023 as the market will think of new methods to drive upgrades and sell more devices, specifically high-end models."

The EU's proposed Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), which aims to "bolster cybersecurity rules to ensure more secure hardware and software products," could have severe unintended consequences for open source software, according to leaders in the open source community. From a report: The proposed Act can be described as CE marking for software products and has four specific objectives. One is to require manufacturers to improve the security of products with digital elements "throughout the whole life cycle." Second is to offer a "coherent cybersecurity framework" by which to measure compliance. Third is to improve the transparency of digital security in products, and fourth is to enable customers to "use products with digital elements securely."

The draft legislation includes an impact assessment that says "for software developers and hardware manufacturers, it will increase the direct compliance costs for new cybersecurity requirements, conformity assessment, documentation and reporting obligations." This extra cost is part of a total cost of compliance, including the burden on businesses and public authorities, estimated at EUR 29 billion ($31.54 billion), and consequent higher prices for consumers. However, the legislators foresee a cost reduction from security incidents estimated at EUR 180 to 290 billion annually. The question is though: how can free software developers afford the cost of compliance, when lack of funding is already a critical issue for many projects? Mike Milinkovich, director of the Eclipse Foundation, said it is "deeply concerned that the CRA could fundamentally alter the social contract which underpins the entire open source ecosystem: open source software provided for free, for any purpose, which can be modified and further distributed for free, but without warranty or liability to the authors, contributors, or open source distributors. Legally altering this arrangement through legislation can reasonably be expected to cause unintended consequences to the innovation economy in Europe."

European Commission: Have you ever struggled to understand whether you were buying directly from Google or from a different brand, or had difficulty finding information about final costs? In order to further align its practices with EU law -- mainly on lack of transparency and clear information to consumers -- Google has committed to introduce changes in several of its products and services. Following a dialogue started in 2021 with the Consumer Protection Cooperation Network (CPC), coordinated by the European Commission and led by the Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets and the Belgian Directorate-General for Economic Inspection, Google has agreed to address issues raised by the authorities and to introduce changes in Google Store, Google Play Store, Google Hotels and Google Flights to ensure compliance with EU consumer rules.

Following the dialogue, Google has committed to limit its capacity to make unilateral changes related to orders when it comes to price or cancellations, and to create an email address whose use is reserved to consumer protection authorities, so that they can report and request the quick removal of illegal content. Moreover, Google agreed to introduce a series of changes to its practices, such as:

Google Flights and Google Hotels:
1. Make clear to consumers whether they contract directly with Google or whether it is simply acting as an intermediary;
2. Clarify the price used as a reference when discounts are advertised on the platform, as well as the fact that reviews are not verified on Google Hotels;
3. Accept the same transparency commitments as other big accommodation platforms as regards the way it presents information to consumers, for example, on prices or availability.

Google Play Store and Google Store:
1. Provide clear pre-contractual information on delivery costs, right of withdrawal and availability of repair or replacement options. Furthermore, Google will facilitate also information on the company (e.g. legal name and address) and direct and effective contact points (e.g. a live telephone agent);
2. Clarify how to browse different country versions of the Google Play Store and inform developers about their obligations under the Geo-blocking Regulation to make their apps accessible EU-wide, as well as enable consumers to use means of payment from any EU country.

The Federal Trade Commission has ordered personal finance company Credit Karma to pay $3 million to customers the agency alleges were deceived into applying for products they weren't eligible for. From a report: Credit Karma used "dark patterns" to trick consumers into thinking they were "pre-approved" for credit card offers that they usually did not qualify for, the FTC said in a news release announcing the settlement. "Dark patterns" refer to website and app interface designs that can be used to manipulate or mislead consumers. "For many of these offers, almost a third of consumers who received and applied for 'pre-approved' offers were subsequently denied based on the financial product companies' underwriting review," the agency said in a previously issued consent decree.

Credit Karma, which provides users with tools to monitor their credit scores and reports, told some users that they had "90% odds" of being approved for credit products, according to the FTC. Such practices wasted consumers' time and could have damaged their credit scores, the agency said. Credit Karma disputed the FTC's claims in a strongly worded statement to CBS MoneyWatch.

Google is revising its business agreements with phonemakers and other partners in India and making a series of other changes in the South Asian market to comply with the local antitrust watchdog's directions in a major shift that could invite regulators in other regions to make similar suggestions. From a report: The Android-maker, which was slapped with a $161 million fine by the Competition Commission of India last year and was ordered to make a series of changes in its business practices, said Wednesday that it will allow smartphone vendors in India to license individual apps for pre-installation on their Android-powered devices. Google will also give consumers the ability to change search engine and use third-party billing options for apps and games purchases on Play Store starting next month, it said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ArsTechnica: Google is still reeling from the biggest layoff in company history last Friday. Earlier cost cuts over the past six months have resulted in several projects being shut down or deprioritized at Google, and it's hard to fire 12,000 people without some additional projects taking a hit. The New York Times has a report about which divisions are being hit the hardest, and a big one is Google's future OS development group, Fuchsia. While the overall company cut 6 percent of its employees, the Times pointed out that Fuchsia saw an outsize 16 percent of the 400-person staff take a hit. While it's not clear what that means for the future of the division, the future of Fuchsia's division has never really been clear.

Fuchsia has been a continuous mystery inside Google since it first saw widespread press coverage in 2017. Google rarely officially talks about it, leaving mostly rumors and Github documentation for figuring out what's going on. The OS isn't a small project, though -- it's not even based on Linux, opting instead to use a custom, in-house kernel, so Google really is building an entire OS from scratch. Google actually ships the OS today to consumers in its Nest smart displays, where it replaced the older Cast OS. The in-place operating system swap was completely invisible to consumers compared to the old OS, came with zero benefits, and was never officially announced or promoted. There's not much you can do with it on a locked-down smart display, so even after shipping, Fuchsia is still a mystery.

"Thousands of people who use Norton password manager began receiving emailed notices this month alerting them that an unauthorized party may have gained access to their personal information," reports CNET, "along with the passwords they have stored in their vaults.

"Gen Digital, Norton's parent company, said the security incident was the result of a credential-stuffing attack rather than an actual breach of the company's internal systems." Gen's portfolio of cybersecurity services has a combined user base of 500 million users — of which about 925,000 active and inactive users, including approximately 8,000 password manager users, may have been targeted in the attack, a Gen spokesperson told CNET via email....

Norton's intrusion detection systems detected an unusual number of failed login attempts on Dec. 12, the company said in its notice. On further investigation, around Dec. 22, Norton was able to determine that the attack began around Dec. 1. "Norton promptly notified both regulators and customers as soon as the team was able to confirm that data was accessed in the attack," Gen's spokesperson said.

Personal data that may have been compromised includes Norton users' full names, phone numbers and mailing addresses. Norton also said it "cannot rule out" that password manager vault data including users' usernames and passwords were compromised in the attack....

Norton is also offering access to credit monitoring services for affected users, according to its letter to customers.

74.48% of developers use Microsoft's Visual Studio Code, according to one survey conducted by StackOverflow. And besides GitHub Copilot, there's over 40,000 other extensions in the VSCode Marketplace.

Unfortunately, InfoWorld reports, "Researchers at Aqua Nautilus say they have found that attackers could easily impersonate popular extensions and trick unknowing developers into downloading them." It can be challenging to distinguish between malicious and benign extensions, and the lack of sandbox capabilities means that extensions could install ransomware, wipers, and other malicious code, Aqua security researcher Ilay Goldman wrote in a January 6 blog post. ["In fact, it can access and even alter all the code that you have locally and even use your SSH key to change the code in all your organization's repositories."] VS Code extensions, which provide capabilities ranging from Python language support to JSON file editing, can be downloaded from Microsoft's Visual Studio Code Marketplace.

Aqua Nautilus uploaded an extension masquerading as the Prettier code formatter and saw more than 1,000 installs in less than 48 hours, from around the world. The spoof extension has been removed.

Goldman noted that the Visual Studio Code Marketplace runs a virus scan for each new extension and subsequent updates, and removes malicious extensions when it finds them. Users can report suspicious-looking extensions via a Report Abuse link.
"While the media is full of stories about malicious packages that have been uploaded to popular package managers such as NPM and PyPI, there is very little information about malicious VSCode extension," the blog post notes. Yet it points out that a blue checkmark on a VSCode extension "merely means that whoever the publisher is has proven the ownership of a domain. That means any domain."

And even Microsoft acknowledged to InfoWorld that social engineering techniques have been used to persuade victims to download malicious extensions — though they point out that Microsoft confirms that each extension has a Marketplace certificate and verifiable signature before being installed. "To help make informed decisions, we recommend consumers review information, such as domain verification, ratings and feedback to prevent unwanted downloads."

Karl Bode, reporting for TechDirt: Recently, New York State passed a new law demanding that regional broadband providers (Verizon, Charter Spectrum, and Altice) provide low-income consumers $15, 25 Mbps broadband tiers to help them survive COVID. The goal: to try and help struggling Americans afford the high cost of broadband during an historic health crisis. Under the proposal ISPs are also allowed to offer $20, 200 Mbps tiers, with any price increases capped at two percent per year. U.S. Regulators engaging in anything even close to price regulation of regional monopolies is, again, said monopolies' worst nightmare.

As a result, the broadband industry quickly sued New York, insisting that the state is forbidden from passing such a law thanks in part to the Trump administration's net neutrality repeal (which basically attempted to lobotomize state consumer protection authority in addition to killing popular net neutrality rules). As the case heads to court, it could have broader implications for other state efforts to mandate lower costs for consumers (in times of crisis or not): "The industry fear is that other states might impose requirements far more onerous than what New York requires, such as by further lowering the price, raising the speed requirements, or expanding the eligibility pool to make broadband affordable for middle-class customers," added Levin.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft's Windows 10 operating system has been available on the retail market for over seven years and was superseded by Windows 11 in October 2021. However, despite its age, Windows 10 remains the most popular version of Windows, with a global market share of 67.95% in December 2022 compared to 16.97% for Windows 11, according to StatCounter. But it now looks like Microsoft is ready to put the brakes on issuing new Windows 10 licenses to everyday consumers. Microsoft's official product pages for Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro now include the following disclaimer: "January 31, 2023 will be the last day this Windows 10 download is offered for sale. Windows 10 will remain supported with security updates that help protect your PC from viruses, spyware, and other malware until October 14, 2025."

The forest carbon offsets approved by the world's leading provider and used by Disney, Shell, Gucci and other big corporations are largely worthless and could make global heating worse, according to a new investigation. The Guardian: The research into Verra, the world's leading carbon standard for the rapidly growing $2bn voluntary offsets market, has found that, based on analysis of a significant percentage of the projects, more than 90% of their rainforest offset credits -- among the most commonly used by companies -- are likely to be "phantom credits" and do not represent genuine carbon reductions.

The analysis raises questions over the credits bought by a number of internationally renowned companies -- some of them have labelled their products "carbon neutral," or have told their consumers they can fly, buy new clothes or eat certain foods without making the climate crisis worse. But doubts have been raised repeatedly over whether they are really effective. The nine-month investigation has been undertaken by the Guardian, the German weekly Die Zeit and SourceMaterial, a non-profit investigative journalism organisation. It is based on new analysis of scientific studies of Verra's rainforest schemes. It has also drawn on dozens of interviews and on-the-ground reporting with scientists, industry insiders and Indigenous communities. The findings -- which have been strongly disputed by Verra -- are likely to pose serious questions for companies that are depending on offsets as part of their net zero strategies.

Music streaming service Spotify, along with other media firms such as Deezer, urged the European Commission to take action against Apple for anticompetitive and unfair practices, in a joint industry letter on Wednesday. From a report: The letter, addressed to the European Union antitrust regulator's Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager, demanded the Commission to act fast for the welfare of European consumers. Spotify has for years accused Apple of abusing its market position using its App Store rules to stifle competition. It has previously submitted antitrust complaints against Apple in various countries, alleging the 30% charge Apple requires developers to pay on its App Store has forced Spotify to "artificially inflate" its own prices. "We are writing to you to call for swift and decisive action by the European Commission against anticompetitive and unfair practices by certain global digital gatekeepers, and Apple in particular," read the letter, which was signed by chief executives of media firms Schibsted, Proton and Basecamp.

Russia's attacks on Ukraine's electrical grid are straining the war-torn country's mobile-telephone network, leading to a global hunt for batteries and other equipment critical for keeping the communications system working. From a report: Ukraine's power outages aren't just putting out the lights. The electricity shortages also affect water supplies, heating systems, manufacturing and the cellular-telephone and internet network, a vital communications link in a nation where fixed-line telephones are uncommon. Consumers can charge their cellphones at cafes or gas stations with generators, but the phones have to communicate with base stations whose antennas and switching equipment need large amounts of power. With rolling blackouts now a regular feature of life in Ukraine, the internet providers are relying on batteries to keep the network going.

The stakes are high, since Ukrainian officials are using positive news of the war, speeches by President Volodymyr Zelensky and videos distributed by cellphone to maintain popular support for fighting Russia. First responders and evacuees rely on the mobile network, and a long-term loss of communications in major cities would compound the existing problems of electrical, heating and water outages, the companies say. Labor shortages have exacerbated the mobile-network issues as many Ukrainians have been displaced by the war or gone to the front to fight. In December, the chief executive of Ukraine's Lifecell mobile operator, Ismet Yazici, went into the field himself to wheel in a generator and restore backup power at a cell tower, according to the company. But the biggest problem is power equipment.

England will ban businesses from selling and offering a variety of single-use plastics, including plates and cutlery, by the end of the year, the UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs announced on Saturday. From a report: The government will begin enforcing the legislation in October 2023. In addition to some plastics, the ban will cover single-use trays and certain types of polystyrene cups and food containers but will exempt plates, trays and bowls included with supermarket-ready meals; the government intends to target those through a separate plan that incentives manufacturers to meet higher recycling standards.

According to one estimate cited by the environment ministry, English consumers use about 2.7 billion items of single-use cutlery every year, and only about 10 percent of those are recycled. The department said 95 percent of people it consulted before today's announcement were in favor of a ban. "We have listened to the public and these new single-use plastics bans will continue our vital work to protect the environment for future generations," said Environment Secretary Therese Coffey.