An anonymous reader shares a report: Four months ago, Netflix began its crackdown on password sharing by creating an "extra member" fee for users who share accounts with people they don't live with. The extra member fee of about $2 to $3 per month was implemented in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru, with Netflix saying it would evaluate the rollout before making changes in other countries. On Monday this week, Netflix announced a different kind of fee it will charge customers who share accounts.

The new one requires customers to pay for "extra homes" and will be charged starting August 22 in Argentina, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. "Beginning August 22, 2022, if your Netflix account is being used on a TV outside of your home, you will need to pay an extra $2.99 per month for each extra home. You will only be charged when you or someone who uses your account chooses to add an extra home -- this fee will NOT be automatically charged," Netflix says on its Honduras pricing page. The fee for each extra home is also $2.99 a month in the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, and Guatemala. In Argentina, the fee is 219 pesos per month (about $1.70 USD). Netflix apparently is aiming for a broader rollout of an account-sharing fee or fees by the end of this year.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Exactly 10 years ago today, Microsoft completed its $1.2 billion purchase of Yammer, an enterprise-focused social networking platform. Despite a big Yammer overhaul in 2019, Microsoft has been increasingly focused on Teams and its new Viva platform as the hubs of communication in workplaces. Microsoft is now launching Viva Engage today, a new Facebook-like app inside Teams that encourages social networking at work.

Viva Engage builds on some of the strengths of Yammer, promoting digital communities, conversations, and self-expression in the workplace. While Yammer often feels like an extension of SharePoint and Office, Viva Engage looks like a Facebook replica. It includes a storylines section, which is effectively your Facebook news feed, featuring conversational posts, videos, images, and more. It looks and feels just like Facebook, and it's clearly designed to feel similar so employees will use it to share news or even personal interests.

Federal investigators "disrupted" a North Korean state-sponsored hacking group that targeted US medical facilities and other health organizations, a top Justice Department official said Tuesday. From a report: The attacks included the targeting of a medical center in Kansas last year, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said, disabling the hospital's systems that store important data and run key equipment. Monaco said the government's investigation led to a public warning, with the Department of Homeland Security, about "Maui" ransomware targeting the health sector.

"The hospital's leadership faced an impossible choice: Give in to the ransom demand, or cripple the ability of the doctors and nurses to provide critical care," Monaco said at the International Conference on Cyber Security at Fordham University in New York. The Biden administration has increasingly warned of cyber threats from countries, including Russia, and has urged the private sector to do more to harden its security. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, for instance, has widely published tips it said could help deter and mitigate potentially disruptive attacks.

Google will start allowing the developers of non-gaming apps in the European Economic Area (EEA) to offer alternate payment systems. In a blog post, Google outlines its plans to comply with the Digital Markets Act (or DMA), a piece of legislation aimed at regulating big tech. From a report: The DMA passed through the European Parliament earlier this month, but it isn't expected to go into force until spring 2023. But Google is rolling out the changes ahead of time to make sure that its plans "serve the needs" of users.

The legislation requires "gatekeepers," or companies with a market capitalization of $75.8 billion or over, to follow a set of rules meant to promote competition among digital platforms. Failing to comply could lead to fines of up to 10 percent of a firm's global revenue or 20 percent in case of repeat offenses. Android developers who choose to use an alternate payment processor will still have to pay Google a service fee for each transaction on the first $1 million they make within one year. However, Google says it will reduce this fee by 3 percent, meaning the company will take a 12 percent or lower cut from every transaction. If developers make more than $1 million in one year, Google will charge developers a 27 percent fee on transactions (3 percent less than the standard 30 percent).

The UK is set to become home to the world's largest automated drone superhighway within the next two years. The drones will be used on the 164-mile Skyway project connecting towns and cities, including Cambridge and Rugby. From a report: It is part of a $328.3m funding package for the aerospace sector which will be revealed by Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng on Monday. Other projects include drones delivering mail to the Isles of Scilly and medication across Scotland. Mr Kwarteng is to announce the news at the Farnborough International Airshow -- the first to be held since 2019. He will say the funding will "help the sector seize on the enormous opportunities for growth that exist as the world transitions to cleaner forms of flight."

Dave Pankhurst, director of drones at BT, told the BBC that Skyway is about scaling up trials that have been taking place around the UK. BT is one of the partners involved in the collaboration. "This drone capability has existed for quite some time, but is in its infancy in terms of being actually part of our society and being a usable application," he said. "So for us, this is about taking a significant step towards that point. It's going to open up so many opportunities." Skyway aims to connect the airspace above Reading, Oxford, Milton Keynes, Cambridge, Coventry and Rugby by mid-2024, and will receive more than $14.4m. A total of $126.8m of the government's funding will be specifically for projects relating to "integrated aviation systems and new vehicle technologies", including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) such as drones.

Alphabet's Google and Meta Platforms's Facebook have submitted to Indonesian regulations that grant Jakarta sweeping powers to shut down content it deems undesirable and tax digital sales. From a report: The US giants were among the last of several internet media platforms that submitted official business registrations in Indonesia, effectively endorsing the new rules. Netflix, Spotify Technology, Meta Platforms' Instagram and ByteDance-owned TikTok have also registered, according to Indonesia's information ministry. Social media operators are facing increasing scrutiny from governments around the world as their market dominance grows. The Indonesia regulations allow the government to block services that fail to remove within 24 hours content that could potentially "incite unrest" or "disturb public order," such as those that promote child pornography or support terrorism. They also allow the government to levy a value-added tax on the sale of digital goods, from content to virtual items.

Having previously upset software developers by implementing a ban on the sale of open source software in its app store, Microsoft has reversed its decision. From a report: The company says that it has listened to feedback -- which was vocal and negative -- and has updated the Microsoft Stores Policies, removing references to open source pricing. Microsoft has also clarified just why it put the ban in place. The policy changes that effectively banned the sale of open source came into force last month, but Microsoft has already been forced to backtrack in the face of mounting criticism. In a series of tweets announcing the latest policy changes that remove this ban, Microsoft's Giorgio Sardo says that the previous policy was intended to "help protect customers from misleading product listings."

American Airlines has committed to making pre-delivery payments for 50 Vertical Aerospace VX4 electric VTOL aircraft. The Register reports: The commitment [PDF] comes just over a year after the aviation giant made a pre-order for 250 of the flying taxis, with an option for a further 100. Vertical Aerospace claims its VX4 will be 100x quieter than a helicopter and have a top speed of 202mph. Its range will be at least 100 miles and it can carry five people (including the pilot). Being electric, the aircraft will also have zero operating emissions, the company said.

In a recent letter to shareholders [PDF], Vertical Aerospace boasted that the prototype VX4 was nearly complete and would be kicking off its flight test program in the summer of 2022. It also talked up its pre-order book, which stands at up to 1,350 aircraft with a value of $5.4 billion, according to the company. However, it is the move by American Airlines to reserve its first 50 aircraft with a pre-delivery payment commitment that makes a fleet of eVTOL aircraft seem closer to reality than science fiction. The report notes that the VX4 still needs to be certified by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), and US Federal Aviation Agency (FAA).

Denmark is effectively banning Google's services in schools, after officials in the municipality of Helsingor were last year ordered to carry out a risk assessment around the processing of personal data by Google. TechCrunch reports: In a verdict published last week, Denmark's data protection agency, Datatilsynet, revealed that data processing involving students using Google's cloud-based Workspace software suite -- which includes Gmail, Google Docs, Calendar and Google Drive -- "does not meet the requirements" of the European Union's GDPR data privacy regulations. Specifically, the authority found that the data processor agreement -- or Google's terms and conditions -- seemingly allow for data to be transferred to other countries for the purpose of providing support, even though the data is ordinarily stored in one of Google's EU data centers.

Google's Chromebook laptops, and by extension Google Workspace, are used in schools across Denmark. But Datatilsynet focused specifically on Helsingor for the risk assessment after the municipality reported a "breach of personal data security" back in 2020. While this latest ruling technically only applies to schools in Helsingor for now, Datatilsynet notes that many of the conclusions it has reached will "probably apply to other municipalities" that use Google Chromebooks and Workspace. It added that it expects these other municipalities "to take relevant steps" off the back of the decision it reached in Helsingor. The ban is effective immediately, but Helsingor has until August 3 to delete user data. A Google spokesperson told TechCrunch in a statement: "We know that students and schools expect the technology they use to be legally compliant, responsible, and safe. That's why for years, Google has invested in privacy best practices and diligent risk assessments, and made our documentation widely available so anyone can see how we help organizations to comply with the GDPR.

Schools own their own data. We only process their data in accordance with our contracts with them. In Workspace for Education, students' data is never used for advertising or other commercial purposes. Independent organizations have audited our services, and we keep our practices under constant review to maintain the highest possible standards of safety and compliance."

According to a new report from The Washington Post, congressional Democrats are expected to introduce a new bill codifying net neutrality in the coming weeks. The Verge reports: The Net Neutrality and Broadband Justice Act -- spearheaded by longtime Senate internet advocates Ed Markey (D-MA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) -- would reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service under Title II. This would give the Federal Communications Commission new enforcement powers over the internet, including the power to set rules against throttling, blocking, or paid prioritization. [...] The lawmakers could introduce the bill as early as August, a source familiar told The Verge on Monday. The measure would restore the FCC's authority over broadband and allow the agency to investigate consumer complaints and roll out new rules to promote broadband competition and close the digital divide, the source said.

In 2017, the Trump FCC, led by former chair Ajit Pai, rolled back the net neutrality provisions put in place under the former administration. The rules banned broadband providers from throttling and blocking certain lanes of traffic and offering paid fast lanes for specific services. Since the Trump reversal, congressional Democrats have vowed to codify net neutrality permanently. [...] Without an FCC Democratic majority, Markey's net neutrality bill may be the Biden administration's only means of reinstating the open internet regulations.

Russia has hit Google with a $373 million fine for failing to restrict access to "prohibited" material about the war in Ukraine and other content. The BBC reports: Roskomnadzor, the country's communications regulator, said the information included "fake" reports that discredited Russia's military and posts urging people to protest. It called the US tech giant a "systematic" violator of its laws. Google did not comment immediately.

The company's local subsidiary declared bankruptcy last month. The move came after Russian authorities seized its local bank account, allowing them to recover 7.2bn roubles that the firm had been ordered to pay for similar reasons last year. [...] The fine announced on Monday, which was calculated as a share of the firm's local revenue, marks the biggest penalty ever imposed on a tech company in Russia, according to state media.

After over a decade as a mobile-only service, Snapchat is coming to your desktop. CNBC reports: Snap, the parent of the popular photo and messaging app, said Monday that it's debuting Snapchat for Web, allowing users to send messages and make video calls to their contacts from their computers. The new desktop version of Snapchat will at first only be available to Australian and New Zealand users, in addition to Snapchat+ subscribers in the U.S., U.K. and Canada. Snap launched Snapchat+ in June, allowing users to pay $3.99 a month for more advanced features, like changing the style of their app icon and seeing who's viewed their content.

The web offering will be a more stripped-down version of the mobile app, primarily focusing on the app's messaging feature as opposed to its Stories feature. Like the core Snap app, messages will disappear after 24 hours, and any Snaps users watch from their desktop computers will delete right after viewing. Eventually, Snap says it will bring more features of the app to desktop version, including the ability for users to liven up their video calls with the use of Lenses. Currently, people will have to access Snapchat for Web via the Chrome browser, but the company said that it would soon support other browsers and could release a desktop app in the future.

Prominent tourist and religious sites in Nepal are putting up "No TikTok" signs to keep creators from shooting at the premises. From a report: They come in hordes, strike funny poses, dance to loud music, trample over crops, and often stir up unmanageable crowds that cause traffic jams. TikTok creators in Nepal have earned a reputation for disrespecting religious and historic places in their quest to create viral videos, and are now facing a backlash. Over the last two years, several prominent tourist and religious sites in Nepal have erected "No TikTok" signs to keep creators from shooting at the premises.

These sites include the Buddhist pilgrimage site Lumbini, Kathmandu's famous Boudhanath Stupa, Ram Janaki Temple in Janakpur, and Gadhimai temple in Bara, among others. According to authorities, officials keep a close eye at these places and rule-breakers are warned or asked to leave. "Making TikTok by playing loud music creates a nuisance for pilgrims from all over the world who come to the birthplace of Gautama Buddha," Sanuraj Shakya, a spokesperson for the Lumbini Development Trust, which manages the shrines in Lumbini, told Rest of World. "We have banned TikTok-making in and around the sacred garden, where the main temples are located."

Images of a canceled mid-range version of the Surface Duo have appeared online thanks to an archived eBay listing. Dubbed as a Surface Duo 2 "dev unit" on eBay.com, the listing (which has since been deleted) provides us with a first look at what appears to be a "lite" version of the Surface Duo 2. From a report: The images reveal the device to have a smaller camera bump, slightly more rounded external design with a matte finish, and flat displays similar to the Surface Duo 1. Unfortunately, the eBay listing provides no details other than images of the handset. I had come across the eBay listing last month but was unsure if it was legitimate. By the time I was able to verify, the device had been sold to an unknown buyer and the listing was removed. I've since been able to confirm that the listing and device were indeed real.

"Facebook has started to use a different URL scheme for site links," writes the technology blog Ghacks, "to combat URL stripping technologies that browsers such as Firefox or Brave use to improve privacy and prevent user tracking." Some sites, including Facebook, add parameters to the web address for tracking purposes. These parameters have no functionality that is relevant to the user, but sites rely on them to track users across pages and properties. Mozilla introduced support for URL stripping in Firefox 102, which it launched in June 2022. Firefox removes tracking parameters from web addresses automatically, but only in private browsing mode or when the browser's Tracking Protection feature is set to strict. Firefox users may enable URL stripping in all Firefox modes, but this requires manual configuration. Brave Browser strips known tracking parameters from web addresses as well....

It is no longer possible to remove the tracking part of the URL, as Facebook merged it with part of the required web address.

On July 7th Art News explained how 95-year-old Austrian artist Herbert W. Franke "has recently become a sensation within the art world the crypto space," describing the digital pioneer as a computer artist using algorithms and computer programs to visualize math as art. Last month, the physicist and science fiction writer was behind one of the most talked about digital artworks at a booth by the blockchain company Tezos at Art Basel. Titled MONDRIAN (1979), the work paid tribute to artist Piet Mondrian's iconic geometric visuals using a program written on one of the first home computers.

Days before this, Franke, who studied physics in Vienna following World War II and started working at Siemens in 1953, where he conducted photographic experiments after office hours, launched 100 images from his famed series "Math Art" (1980-95) as NFTs on the Quantum platform. The drop was meant to commemorate his birthday on May 14 and to raise funds for his foundation. The NFTs sold out in 30 seconds, with the likes of pioneering blockchain artist Kevin Abosch purchasing a few.
In one of his last interviews, Franke told the site that blockchain "is a totally new environment, and this technology is still in its early stages, like at the beginning of computer art. But I am convinced that it has opened a new door for digital art and introduced the next generation to this new technology." It echoed something he'd said in his first book, published in 1957, which he later quoted in the interview (a full 65 years later). "Technology is usually dismissed as an element hostile to art. I want to try to prove that it is not..."

This morning, long-time Slashdot reader Qbertino wrote: The German IT news site heise reports (article in German) that digital art pioneer, SF author ("The Mind Net") and cyberspace avantgardist Herbert W. Franke has died at age 95. His wife recounted on his Twitter account: "Herbert loved to call himself the dinosaur of computer art. I am [...] devastated to announce that our beloved dinosaur has left the earth.

"He passed away knowing there is a community of artists and art enthusiasts deeply caring about his art and legacy." Among much pioneering work he founded one of the worlds first digital art festivals "Ars Electronica" in Austria in 1979.
Franke's wife is still running the Art Meets Science web site dedicated to Franke's work. Some highlights from its biography of Franke's life: Herbert W. Franke, born in Vienna on May 14, 1927, studied physics and philosophy at the University of Vienna and received his doctorate in 1951... An Apple II was his first personal computer which he bought 1980. He developed a program as early as 1982 that used a midi interface to control moving image sequences through music....

Only in recent years has "art from the machine" begun to interest traditional museums as a branch of modern art. Franke, who from the beginning was firmly convinced of the future importance of this art movement, has also assembled a collection of computer graphics that is unique in the world, documenting 50 years of this development with works by respected international artists, supplemented by his own works....

As a physicist, Franke was predestined to bring science and technology closer to the general public in popular form due to his talent as a writer, which became apparent early on. About one-third of his nearly fifty books, as well as uncounted journal articles...

Franke's novels and stories are not about predicting future technologies, nor about forecasting our future way of life, but rather about the intellectual examination of possible models of our future and their philosophical as well as ethical interpretation. In this context, however, Franke attaches great importance to the seriousness of scientific or technological assessments of the future in the sense of a feasibility analysis. In his opinion, a serious and meaningful discussion about future developments can basically only be conducted on this basis. In this respect, Franke is not a typical representative of science fiction, but rather a visionary who, as a novelist, deals with relevant questions of social future and human destiny on a high intellectual level.

The Washington Post reports: In the frantic first weeks of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. tech companies that control the world's largest information hubs sprang into action. Responding to pressure from Western governments, social media apps such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube banned or throttled Russian state media accounts, beefed up their fact-checking operations, curtailed ad sales in Russia and opened direct lines to Ukrainian officials, inviting them to flag Russian disinformation and propaganda to be taken down.

As the war grinds toward its sixth month, however, Russian propaganda techniques have evolved — and the tech firms haven't kept up.

Ukrainian officials who have flagged thousands of tweets, YouTube videos and other social media posts as Russian propaganda or anti-Ukrainian hate speech say the companies have grown less responsive to their requests to remove such content. New research shared with The Washington Post by a Europe-based nonprofit initiative confirms that many of those requests seem to be going unheeded, with accounts parroting Kremlin talking points, spewing anti-Ukrainian slurs or even impersonating Ukrainian officials remaining active on major social networks. As a result, researchers say, Kremlin-backed narratives are once again propagating across Europe, threatening to undermine popular support for Ukraine in countries that it views as critical to its defense....

With big state media accounts suspended or muffled, researchers say Russian leaders and influencers have shifted to the semiprivate messaging app Telegram to direct information campaigns via swarms of smaller accounts.
The Post reports that Google-owned YouTube hasn't returned emails for almost two months, according to the deputy head of the Ukrainian government's Strategic Communications and Information Security center. And the Post notes that researchers found LinkedIn "removed fewer than half of the posts that Ukrainian officials flagged as examples of Russian propaganda justifying the war....

"On the positive side, the researchers found that Facebook had removed all 98 of the posts the Ukrainian government and its partners flagged as containing anti-Ukrainian hate speech, though many of the accounts responsible remained active."

In April ZDNet called its beta "the cutest Linux distro you'll ever use," praising the polished "incredible elegance" of Debian-based Cutefish OS, with its uncluttered, MacOS-like "Cutefish DE" desktop.

But now CutefishOS.com times out, with at least one Reddit user complaining "their email is not responding" and seeking contributors for a fork.

But meanwhile, the technology site DebugPoint.com shares another update: It looks like the OpenMandriva project is already continuing with the development of the Cutefish DE (not the OS) for its own OS. For more details, visit the Matrix discussion page.

Besides, it's worth mentioning that Arch Linux already have the Cutefish desktop packages in the community repo. You can even install it as a standalone desktop environment in Arch Linux with easy steps. As you can see, it is easier to maintain the desktop environment to continue its development because the structure is already out there.

I have tested and reviewed hundreds of distros for years, and Cutefish OS is the promising one with its stunning desktop environment. It was written from the ground up with QML and C++ and took advantage of KWin. It would have been an attractive desktop as a separate component and could have been another great option besides KDE Plasma or GNOME.

Many open-source projects are born and die every year, and it's unfortunate to see the situation of Cutefish OS. I hope an official fork comes up soon, and we all can contribute to it.

"As many as 100 people could be looking at the board and see something different," reports the Michigan news site MLive.com. "Look up at a Detroit Metropolitan Airport departure board and you could see a personalized travel itinerary."

Delta's site features a trippy video showing the screen with a different greeting depending on where the camera is positioned.

"Hello Liz!"
"Hello Albert!"
"Hello Cora!"

The maker's of the technology envision it someday being used in theme parks, stadiums, and convention centers. But what exactly is happening here? MLive explains: In late June, Delta Airlines launched a beta version of its new Parallel Reality technology that allows dozens of people to simultaneously see unique content on the same digital screen. Detroit is the first, and currently only, airport in the country to experiment with the futuristic technology developed by Misapplied Sciences, based in California...

Delta passengers can scan their boarding pass, select a language and test out the system. Using "multi-view pixels and proprietary technology," the board then shows personal flight information, boarding time or even standby status, a news release said... Delta Senior Vice President of Customer Experience Ranjan Goswami said the new system means "customers will no longer have to search for flight and gate information."

"This technology truly must be seen to be believed," Goswami said in an announcement. The Parallel Reality displays project up to millions of light rays that can be directed to a specific person. Non-biometric sensors then reportedly track passengers who can see the display even if they move....

Delta says the Parallel Reality experience will "always be opt-in" and customer information is not stored.
"If this new technology can make finding your gate and departure information quicker and easier, we're not just showing customers a magic trick — we're solving a real problem," said Delta's senior VP of customer experience. "Customers already rely on personalized navigation via their mobile devices, but this is enabling a public screen to act as a personal one — removing the clutter of information not relevant to you to empower a better journey."

The company's statement adds that Delta "is also investing in digital identity technology, which allows customers to move through the airport using facial recognition, eliminating the need to show a boarding pass or government ID." The technology is already available at airports in Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles, and New York, "and will eventually be activated in all of Delta's U.S. hubs."

"TikTok is resisting calls to preserve and hand over access to its content for war crime investigations," reports the Financial Times, "as lawyers and activists warn that the Chinese-owned app is a major data challenge in prosecuting atrocities in Russia's invasion of Ukraine." The video app's popularity with young Ukrainians and Russians posting footage of the war has made it a trove of digital intelligence that investigators are attempting to mine and archive as evidence of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and illegal acts of violence in Ukraine....

"I have concerns about the security of data there, and it is not fully clear where the interest and influence in the company is coming from," said Dia Kayyali, associate director for advocacy at Mnemonic, a nonprofit that archives digital documentation of human rights violations. "It is especially concerning that China could directly have access to that data...." Since early 2022, TikTok has met with human rights lawyers, activists, and others involved in Ukraine war crime investigations. However, it has yet to introduce any changes to its process or the product itself.

Criminal prosecutors are increasingly relying on social media posts from TikTok and others as a way to "bring the crime scene to the courtroom," said Karim Khan, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. "Any effective investigation anywhere in the world now really requires a very effective harnessing of social media," said Khan. "People... recording killings or attacks or the consequences of attacks in real time, it can have absolutely fantastic probative value...."

TikTok said it regularly meets with organizations, government bodies, and third-party experts to gather feedback and is committed to cooperating with law enforcement while respecting the privacy of its users.