Timothy B. Lee reports via Ars Technica: French news sites have prevailed in negotiations with Google over "neighboring rights," a new legal right granted by the 2019 EU Copyright Directive. An agreement between Google and the French news industry "establishes a framework within which Google will negotiate individual licensing agreements" with individual news organizations, according to Google. Under these deals, French news articles will be featured in a new Google product called News Showcase.

"The remuneration that is included in these licensing agreements is based on criteria such as the publisher's contribution to political and general information, the daily volume of publications, and its monthly internet traffic," according to the announcement. The agreement is particularly significant because it offers a model for other European countries that want to force Google to fork over cash to their own news sites. In the past, Google's hardball tactics deterred most European countries from trying to force Google to pay up. But with the passage of the EU copyright directive, European countries formed a united front against Google, making it much harder for Google to resist. Google's capitulation in France will weaken its bargaining position as other European countries pass their own versions of the French law and news organizations in other countries line up for their share of Google cash.

Beeper is a forthcoming app from the founder of Pebble that claims to be a hub for all your messaging services, including support for iMessage on Android. Gizmodo reports: Instead of managing half a dozen apps for keeping in touch with friends, family, and co-workers, Beeper allows you to funnel everything to one interface. According to its website, the app supports 14 external messaging platforms as well as its own Beeper network. But the company's claim that it brings iMessage to Android, Windows, or Linux devices could be a killer feature for anyone who's suffered through the embarrassment of the green bubble.

Apple likes to keep its in-house products exclusive to its own hardware, so this claim is a bit surprising, but Beeper says it's figured out a workaround. On its website, it explains: "Beeper has two ways of enabling Android, Windows and Linux users to use iMessage: we send each user a Jailbroken iPhone with the Beeper app installed which bridges to iMessage, or if they have a Mac that is always connected to the internet, they can install the Beeper Mac app which acts as a bridge. This is not a joke, it really works!"

Okay, the part about using an always-connected Mac as a bridge is not unprecedented, but the idea of sending users jailbroken upcycled iPhones is a little bonkers. Eric Migicovsky, founder of the Pebble smartwatch company and partner at Beeper, took to Twitter to insist that the jailbreak plan is legit and that he currently has 50 iPhone 4s ready for the task. In an update, Migicovsky tells Gizmodo that "Beeper encrypts all messages on the client before they reach our servers. We cannot decrypt any message contents."

The services compatible with Beeper include: Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, iMessage, Android Messages (SMS), Telegram, Twitter, Slack, Hangouts, Instagram, Skype, IRC, Matrix, Discord, Signal, and Beeper network.

Bluesky, Twitter's decentralized social networking effort, has announced its first major update since 2019. The Verge reports: The Bluesky team released a review of the decentralized web ecosystem and said it's hoping to find a team lead in the coming months. The review follows Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey discussing Bluesky earlier this month, when he called it a "standard for the public conversation layer of the internet." The review outlines a variety of known decentralized systems. It includes ActivityPub, known for powering the social network Mastodon; the messaging standard XMPP, which powers WhatsApp and the now-defunct Google Talk; and Solid, a decentralization project led by World Wide Web creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee. The report covers how these systems handle key social network elements like discoverability, moderation, and privacy, as well as how services based on them can scale up, interoperate, and make money.

This doesn't tell us how Bluesky itself might operate. If it results in a protocol, that system might be created from scratch, or it might build on an existing standard like ActivityPub â" a possibility Dorsey mentioned in 2019 upon unveiling the initiative. [...] However, the report offers a snapshot of who's been working on Bluesky. It was authored by Jay Graber, creator of event-organizing platform Happening. Other contributors include Mastodon developer Eugen Rochko, peer-to-peer Beaker Browser co-creator Paul Frazee, ActivityPub standard co-editor Christopher Lemmer Webber, and InterPlanetary File System project lead Molly Mackinlay.

It also hints at the fact that decentralization often isn't profitable. The report focuses on monetization options like membership fees and cryptocurrency microtransactions, but it also notes that "many decentralized projects run on volunteer work and donations" -- something that isn't ideal for a platform supporting commercial networks like Twitter.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: The DMC DeLorean has been out of production for almost 40 years, but now we've learned that the iconic vehicle might be coming back as an electric car. In 1995, Stephen Wynne bought the company's old inventory and trademark to relaunch the brand based in Texas. At first, the plan was to bring back the same vehicle with more modern technology in low volume. For the past 5 years, the company pushed for the adoption of new rules for low volume vehicle production with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). These new rules were finally recently adopted, but the delay was so long that it complicated DeLorean's plans. The engine that they plan to use is not going to be compliant with emission standards starting in 2022 and the landscape has changed significantly.

In a new blog post, the company is now hinting that going electric with the DeLorean: "That said, with EV's becoming more mainstream, we've been considering switching to an all-electric as the future. It certainly makes for an easier path through emissions maze which still looms large over any internal combustion engine. While an electric Cobra or Morgan may be a little extreme for their potential market, we've already seen that an EV DeLorean -- as we displayed at the 2012 New York International Auto Show -- is not such an 'out there' idea." The company hints at being in the process of looking to secure financing to bring an electric DeLorean and says "stay tuned."

As of December 8, Apple has been requiring developers to provide privacy label information to their apps, outlining the data that each app collects from users when it is installed. Many app developers have included the labels, but there's one notable outlier -- Google. schwit1 shares a report from MacRumors: Google has not updated its major apps like Gmail, Google Maps, Chrome, and YouTube since December 7 or before, and most Google apps have to date have not been updated with the Privacy Label feature. The Google Translate, Google Authenticator, Motion Stills, Google Play Movies, and Google Classroom apps do include privacy labels even though they have not been updated recently, but Google's search app, Google Maps, Chrome, Waze, YouTube, Google Drive, Google Photos, Google Home, Gmail, Google Docs, Google Assistant, Google Sheets, Google Calendar, Google Slides, Google One, Google Earth, YouTube Music, Hangouts, Google Tasks, Google Meet, Google Pay, PhotoScan, Google Voice, Google News, Gboard, Google Podcasts, and more do not display the information.

On January 5, Google told TechCrunch that the data would be added to its iOS apps "this week or the next week," but both this week and the next week have come and gone with no update. It has now been well over a month since Google last updated its apps. "To lightly paraphrase former Google CEO Eric Schmidt: If your data harvesting is something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place," adds schwit1.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The House Oversight and Reform Committee on Thursday asked the FBI to investigate the role Parler, a social media website and app popular with the American far right, played a role in the violence at the U.S. Capitol. Representative Carolyn Maloney, who chairs the panel, cited press reports that detailed violent threats on Parler against state elected officials for their role in certifying the election results before the Jan. 6 attack that left five dead. She also noted numerous Parler users have been arrested and charged with threatening violence against elected officials or for their role in participating in the attack.

Maloney asked the FBI to review Parler's role "as a potential facilitator of planning and incitement related to the violence, as a repository of key evidence posted by users on its site, and as a potential conduit for foreign governments who may be financing civil unrest in the United States." Maloney asked the FBI to review Parler's financing and its ties to Russia after she noted the company had re-emerged. Maloney cited Justice Department charges against a Texas man who used a Parler account to post threats regarding the riots that he would return to the Capitol on Jan. 19 "carrying weapons and massing in numbers so large that no army could match them." The Justice Department said the threats were viewed by other social media users tens of thousands of times. While Parler has reappeared online thanks to a cloud services company based in Russia, it doesn't appear to be hosted via Amazon Web Services anytime soon. According to NPR, a U.S. district judge sided with Amazon, arguing "that it is within Amazon's right to punish the company over its refusal [to remove posts that threatened public safety]." Slashdot reader fropenn first shared the story.

It takes more than gasoline to make a racecar run. It requires money. And money requires sponsors. And sponsors require spectators who they hope will become customers. Which became a problem for motorsports when Covid-19 shut down tracks worldwide early last year. The cash drought put teams, tracks and race series in danger of extinction. From a report: The industry turned to an emerging phenomenon -- simulated racing. In these highly realistic video games, cars obey the laws of physics and race on reproductions of real-life tracks that are accurate down to the last pavement seam. In an experiment, NBC and Fox replaced the canceled races with sim races. No one knew if digital cars would draw viewers and pay off for sponsors. Traditionally, racecars served as high-speed billboards leading consumers to clamor for the engine oil proved superior by the winning car. Could a sim car sell engine oil, having neither an engine nor oil?

Ten months into the experiment, sim races seem to be paying off, as television and web audiences helped to salvage the 2020 season. And now sim racing gives teams a new source of revenue, gives sponsors a more accountable form of marketing and has interested a young audience that motorsports have struggled to capture. Soon sim racing will face the real test: Can it retain fans and sponsors when real cars are back on real tracks and real spectators are in the stands?

Instacart plans to terminate about 1,900 employees' jobs, including the only unionized positions in the U.S., representing a fulsome embrace of the gig economy. From a report: The grocery delivery company already classifies most of its workers as independent contractors, whose ranks have ballooned to more than 500,000 during the coronavirus pandemic. But starting in 2015, the company hired a small subset of workers as employees, who under U.S. law are entitled to protections like minimum wage and can be subject to more direction and training by their boss. "What we found is that our shoppers require training and supervision, which is how you improve the quality of the picking," Instacart Chief Executive Officer Apoorva Mehta said at the time. "You can't do that when they are independent contractors."

Now, Instacart is moving in the other direction, eliminating 1,877 employees' positions, including those of 10 workers in Illinois who last year became the first in the country to vote to unionize at the company. The company said it's doing this as part of a shift toward new models, like providing its technology to retailers to have their own workers prepare customers' orders.

We're following the state of play with Intel's new CEO, Pat Gelsinger, very closely. Even as an Intel employee for 30 years, rising to the rank of CTO, then taking 12 years away from the company, his arrival has been met with praise across the spectrum given his background and previous successes. He isn't even set to take his new role until February 15th, however his return is already causing a stir with Intel's current R&D teams. From a report: News in the last 24 hours, based on public statements, states that former Intel Senior Fellow Glenn Hinton, who lists being the lead architect of Intel's Nehalem CPU core in his list of achievements, is coming out of retirement to re-join the company. (The other lead architect of Nehalem are Ronak Singhal and Per Hammerlund - Ronak is still at Intel, working on next-gen processors, while Per has been at Apple for five years.)

Hinton is an old Intel hand, with 35 years of experience, leading microarchitecture development of Pentium 4, one of three senior architects of Intel's P6 processor design (which led to Pentium Pro, P2, P3), and ultimately one of the drivers to Intel's Core architecture which is still at the forefront of Intel's portfolio today. He also a lead microarchitect for Intel's i960 CA, the world's first super-scalar microprocessor. Hinton holds more than 90+ patents from 8 CPU designs from his endeavors. Hinton spent another 10+ years at Intel after Nehalem, but Nehalem is listed in many places as his primary public achievement at Intel. [...]

The US National Security Agency has issued a security advisory this month urging system administrators in federal agencies and beyond to stop using old and obsolete TLS protocols. From a report: "NSA recommends that only TLS 1.2 or TLS 1.3 be used; and that SSL 2.0, SSL 3.0, TLS 1.0, and TLS 1.1 not be used," the agency said. "Using obsolete encryption provides a false sense of security because it seems as though sensitive data is protected, even though it really is not," the agency added. Even if TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3 are deployed, the NSA warns against configuring these two protocols with weak cryptographic parameters and cipher suites.

One of the biggest trends coming out of this year's CES wasn't something people will necessarily notice at first glance unless they look closely. From a report: After enduring years of cramped, "widescreen" laptop displays, it looks like we're finally starting to say goodbye to the 16:9 aspect ratio. [...] The aspect ratios you'll typically see on laptops are 16:9, 3:2, 16:10 (which, for whatever reason, is called 16:10 rather than 8:5), and (occasionally) 4:3. 16:9 is the most common option and also the one with the lowest amount of vertical space relative to its horizontal space. [...] But this CES showed that 16:10 and 3:2 displays are inching closer to the mainstream. These are some of the biggest laptops announced at the show that are offering non-16:9 display options:

HP Elite Folio (1920 x 1280, 3:2)
Dell Latitude 9420 2-in-1 (2560 x 1600, 16:10)
Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 (2560 x 1600, 16:10)
Lenovo Legion 7 and Legion 5 Pro (2560 x 1600, 16:10)
LG Gram 17 and Gram 16 (2650 x 1600, 16:10)
Lenovo IdeaPad 5 Pro (2560 x 1600, 16:10)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga (2256 x 1504, 3:2)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 and X1 Yoga Gen 6 (up to 3840 x 2400, 16:10)
Lenovo ThinkPad X12 Detachable (1920 x 1280, 3:2)
Asus ROG Flow X13 (up to 3840 x 2400, 16:10)


That doesnâ(TM)t mean there are no 16:9 displays left â" plenty of laptops still use it, and probably will for the foreseeable future. And some of these devices, like the LG Grams, were 16:10 already. But it's significant that a large number of the flagships we'll be seeing in the first half of 2021 will be either 16:10 or 3:2. In fact, when you include MSI's 16:10 Summit E13 Flip and Razer's 16:10 Razer Book 13 (both of which were announced prior to CES), I can't think of a mainstream consumer laptop company that isn't now selling a non-16:9 flagship-level machine. It's clear that companies across the board are moving toward laptops with taller aspect ratios, and I fully expect to see more of them in the years to come.

New Atlas reports on ag-tech company Vertical Field's efforts to produce soil-based indoor vertical farms grown at the very location where food is consumed. From the report: The Vertical Field setup retains many of the advantages of hydroponic vertical farms, but instead of the plants growing in a nutrient-packed liquid medium, the container-based pods treat their crops to real soil, supplemented by a proprietary mix of minerals and nutrients. The company says that it opted for geoponic production "because we found that it has far richer flavor, color, and quality."

The recycled and repurposed 20- or 40-ft (6/12-ft) shipping containers used to host the farms can be installed within reach of consumers, such as in the parking lot of a restaurant or out back at the grocery store. Growers can also scale up operations to more than one pod per site if needed, and the external surfaces could be covered in a living wall of decorative plants to make them more appealing. The vertical urban farms are claimed capable of supporting the production of a wide range of fruits and veggies -- from leafy greens and herbs to strawberries and mushrooms, and more. And it's reported to use up to 90 percent less water than a traditional farming setup.

Unlike some high-tech farming solutions, staff won't need special training to work with the vertical farm as the automated growing process monitors, irrigates, and fertilizes the crops as they grow thanks to arrays of sensors that continually feed data on climate, soil condition, LED lighting and so on to management software. Each vertical farm unit has its own Wi-Fi comms technology installed to enable operators to tap into the system via a mobile app. The company told us that, by way of example, one container pilot farm offered a growing space of 400 sq ft (37 sq m) and yielded around 200 lb (90 kg) of produce per month, harvested daily. Lighting remained on for 16 hours per day. We assume that the pods are completely powered from the grid at their respective locations, though the company says that it is looking at ways to make use of solar panels as well as making more efficient use of water.

Scientists from a trio of universities have combined satellite imagery with deep learning to detect elephants from space. The goal is to help protect these endangered species from poachers or habitat destruction. Their study was published in the journal Ecology and Conservation. Interesting Engineering reports: The team's method proved comparable to human detection accuracy and could help solve a number of existing challenges, such as cross-border limits, and cloud coverage, among others. The team used Maxar WorldView-3 satellite imagery, which is capable of collecting more than one million acres (5,000 km2) imagery in one go in just a few minutes. This allows for fast repeat imaging when necessary, and minimizes the risk of double counting as it's so rapid.

Then the team leveraged deep learning to process the vast amount of imagery it collected from Maxar's WorldView-3 satellite. In a matter of hours, the team collected its relevant data. This process usually takes months when sorting out by hand. On top of speed, the deep learning algorithms also provided consistent results less prone to error, as well as false negatives and false positives. In order to develop this method, the team created a customized training dataset of over 1,000 elephants, and then fed it into a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). After trials, the team concluded that its CNN can detect elephants in satellite imagery with as high an accuracy as human detection capabilities.

Hyundai Motor, the parent automaker of Hyundai and Kia, will task the Kia division with Apple Car work. The brand also said on Wednesday it's looking at cooperation with foreign firms surrounding self-driving and electric vehicles. CNET reports: Kia made no mention of Apple, though the comment follows the reported connections to the tech giant. Earlier this month, various reports pegged the Apple Car as alive and well inside the tech company and said we could see a final vehicle in 2024 at the earliest. A separate report said the company may show a prototype of the vehicle next year. Interestingly, one of the reports last month also named Kia's factory in Georgia as the rumored home for Apple Car production, which coincides with news of Kia's possible involvement in the latest round of rumors.

Reportedly, Apple is hard at work on breakthrough EV battery technology and automated driving systems to help usher in a game changing car. Choosing an established automaker to handle final production seems simple, since Apple has zero history of building cars. If you need an example of how difficult it is to build cars, take a look at Tesla's relatively short history in the business.

TSMC is to start making Intel's Core i3 on its 5nm process in 2H21 says TrendForce. From a report: Market analyst Trendforce reports that foundry TSMC is to start making Intel's Core i3 process later in the year on a 5nm process. This follows Intel's well documented problems with its leading edge process technology at 10nm and 7nm. The Core i3 move to a 5nm process is set to be followed by mid-range and high-end CPUs being produced for Intel by TSMC on a 3nm process in 2H22. TrendForce did not give a source for the information, simply referencing "investigations." Intel has long outsourced production significant amounts of its non-CPU chips to TSMC and UMC -- about 15 to 20 percent of its output, according to TrendForce. This is partly because it has often acquired fabless startups that had brought products to market using foundry. It was usually not worthwhile to re-engineer such products to Intel processes. It is also because Intel has wanted to focus on leading-edge specialist processes, although with less success in recent years. That 15 to 20 percent outsource was likely worth $10.5 billion to $14 billion in 2020, given Intel's annual revenue of $70bn.

Google artificial intelligence researcher Margaret Mitchell has been locked out of corporate systems, making her the second outspoken critic at the company to be sidelined after colleague Timnit Gebru departed in acrimonious circumstances last month. From a report: The Alphabet unit has an Ethical AI team, led by Mitchell, and a set of principles for developing the technology in a socially responsible manner. Gebru tweeted on Tuesday that Mitchell's "corp access is now locked" and that the researcher had been told she would remain locked out "for at least a few days."

Investments into clean-energy technologies totaled more than $500 billion for the first time ever, according to a BloombergNEF report released Tuesday. Axios reports: Technologies making energy and other material cleaner needs to expand rapidly if the world is to adequately address climate change in the coming decades. Global investment in the low-carbon energy transition was $501.3 billion in 2020, up 9% from 2019 despite the pandemic driving the world into a recession. This tally includes investments in renewables, energy storage, electric vehicle charging stations, hydrogen production, carbon capture projects and more. The largest areas of investment are renewable energy and electrified transportation.

The report also reflects another broader trend, which is that investment often lags in technologies beyond renewable electricity and electric cars. This includes carbon capture and most industrial processes like cement, according to the International Energy Agency.

On his final night in office, President Trump granted clemency to a total of 143 people, ranging from former adviser Stephen K. Bannon to rapper Lil Wayne. One name in particular that stands out in the tech community is none other than Anthony Levandowski, the former Google engineer that was sentenced to 18 months in prison for stealing trade secrets from Google.

"Levandowski left Google in 2016 to start his own self-driving truck company, which was quickly acquired by Uber for $680 million," reports CNET. "These actions set off a chain of events that led to Google's autonomous vehicle unit, Waymo, suing Uber over alleged theft of self-driving car trade secrets."

Why would this tech executive be pardoned you may ask? The Press Secretary writes: "This pardon is strongly supported by James Ramsey, Peter Thiel, Miles Ehrlich, Amy Craig, Michael Ovitz, Palmer Luckey, Ryan Petersen, Ken Goldberg, Mike Jensen, Nate Schimmel, Trae Stephens, Blake Masters, and James Proud, among others..."

schwit1 shares a report from Penn State University: Range anxiety, the fear of running out of power before being able to recharge an electric vehicle, may be a thing of the past, according to a team of Penn State engineers who are looking at lithium iron phosphate batteries that have a range of 250 miles with the ability to charge in 10 minutes. "We developed a pretty clever battery for mass-market electric vehicles with cost parity with combustion engine vehicles," said Chao-Yang Wang, William E. Diefenderfer Chair of mechanical engineering, professor of chemical engineering and professor of materials science and engineering, and director of the Electrochemical Engine Center at Penn State. "There is no more range anxiety and this battery is affordable." The researchers also say that the battery should be good for 2 million miles in its lifetime.

They report today (Jan. 18) in Nature Energy that the key to long-life and rapid recharging is the battery's ability to quickly heat up to 140 degrees Fahrenheit, for charge and discharge, and then cool down when the battery is not working. The battery uses a self-heating approach previously developed in Wang's center. The self-heating battery uses a thin nickel foil with one end attached to the negative terminal and the other extending outside the cell to create a third terminal. Once electrons flow it rapidly heats up the nickel foil through resistance heating and warm the inside of the battery. Once the battery's internal temperature is 140 degrees F, the switch opens and the battery is ready for rapid charge or discharge. [...] Because of the self-heating, the researchers said they do not have to worry about uneven deposition of lithium on the anode, which can cause lithium spikes that are dangerous.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Global sales of electric cars accelerated fast in 2020, rising by 43% to more than 3 million, despite overall car sales slumping by a fifth during the coronavirus pandemic. Tesla was the brand selling the most electric cars, delivering almost 500,000, followed by Volkswagen. Sales of electric cars more than doubled in Europe, pushing the region past China as the world's biggest market for them, according to data published on Tuesday by EV-volumes.com, a Sweden-based consultancy.

Sales of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) made up 4.2% of the global car market, up from 2.5% in 2019. The rising sales are being driven by government policies to reduce carbon emissions, but a key factor is that electric cars are simply a better technology, said Viktor Irle, sales and marketing analyst at EV-volumes.com. Sales of electric cars did fall below 2019's levels from March to June, at the height of the Covid-19 lockdowns, but recovered strongly after that and by December were at double the level in December 2019.

There are about 150 new BEV and PHEV models expected on the market in 2021. This indicates that 2021 will see continued growth, said Irle, who estimates sales of about 4.6m electric cars by the end of the year. The EV-volumes.com data showed the five highest national sales were in China (1.3m), Germany (0.4m), the US (0.3m), France and the UK (both 0.2m). However, growth in the US was only 4% in 2020, due to few new models being available.