T-Mobile has been asked to stop advertising its 5G network as more reliable than the competition by the National Advertising Review Board (NARB), which investigated T-Mobile's claims made primarily in an ad featuring celebrity scientist Bill Nye after complaints from Verizon earlier this year. From a report: But the NARB also says T-Mobile shouldn't have to mention the speed of its network when broadly discussing coverage superiority in future ads. T-Mobile has said it will comply with the recommendation. But it cast the recommendations as a partial win in a statement saying it "appreciates that the panel agreed that T-Mobile can continue to advertise its superior 5G coverage without qualification." T-Mobile's compliance is notable because telecom giants don't have to follow the recommendations offered by the NARB, which, as a self-regulatory body under the umbrella of a nonprofit organization, has no governmental regulatory power. For instance, AT&T flatly ignored a request it stop using its misleading "5G E" logo to reference a superior form of 4G.

Browser makers Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla, have banned a root certificate that was being used by the Kazakhstan government to intercept and decrypt HTTPS traffic for residents in the country's capital, the city of Nur-Sultan (formerly Astana). From a report: The certificate had been in use since December 6, 2020, when Kazakh officials forced local internet service providers to block Nur-Sultan residents from accessing foreign sites unless they had a specific digital certificate issued by the government installed on their devices. While users were able to access most foreign-hosted sites, access was blocked to sites like Google, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Netflix, unless they had the certificate installed. Kazakh officials justified their actions claiming they were carrying out a cybersecurity training exercise for government agencies, telecoms, and private companies. Officials cited that cyberattacks targeting "Kazakhstan's segment of the internet" grew 2.7 times during the current COVID-19 pandemic as the primary reason for launching the exercise. The government's explanation did, however, make zero technical sense, as certificates can't prevent mass cyber-attacks and are usually used only for encrypting and safeguarding traffic from third-party observers. After today's ban, even if users have the certificate installed, browsers like Chrome, Edge, Mozilla, and Safari, will refuse to use them, preventing Kazakh officials from intercepting user data.

After months of deliberation, congressional leaders reached a $900 billion coronavirus relief deal on Sunday, including billions in funding for broadband internet access. From a report: Congress' latest relief measure provides $7 billion in funding for broadband connectivity and infrastructure. That figure includes $3.2 billion for a $50-per-month emergency broadband benefit for people who are laid off or furloughed during the pandemic, according to a press release from Sen. Ron Wyden's (D-OR) office on Sunday. "Broadband connections are essential for Americans seeking to get new jobs, and to access school, health care and other government services," Wyden said in a statement Sunday night. "Ensuring working families can stay online will pay massive dividends for kids' education, helping people find jobs and jump starting the economic recovery next year."

The military news site Task and Purpose reports: The U.S. military's youngest branch, the Space Force, just trounced its sibling services, as well the United Kingdom's military, in the second annual Call of Duty Endowment Bowl.

The transatlantic Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War tournament pit eight teams from the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Marine Corps, along with the British Army, Royal Navy, and Royal Air Force, against each other. Each team was captained by a civilian gamer and popular streamer who offered guidance and tips to players in real-time as they vied for the top spot...

The tournament was put on by the Call of Duty Endowment, which has placed more than 77,000 veterans into full-time jobs since its inception in 2009. This year alone, the endowment placed 11,000 veterans in jobs amidst the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

"Space Force isn't even a year old so this may have been their very first win in anything competitive against any of the other services," Dan Goldenberg, the endowment's executive director said during the event, according to Business Insider. "So it's a heck of a great way to start off their history."

This week Google "quietly acquired a company called Neverware Inc. that sells software to transform old personal computers and Macs into Chromebook devices," reports SiliconANGLE: The acquisition was announced by Neverware on Twitter, and Google later confirmed the news in a statement. Google had taken part in the company's Series B funding round three years ago.

Neverware's software is called CloudReady OS, and though it's primarily aimed at schools and enterprises that want to transform fleets of machines into Chromebooks, there's also a free Home edition that anyone can use... Google's plan is to make CloudReady an official product. "We can confirm that the Neverware team is joining the Google Chrome OS team," Google said in a statement.

The MacRumors site writes: Facebook's recent criticism directed at Apple over an upcoming tracking-related privacy measure is "laughable," according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a non-profit organization that defends civil liberties in the digital world.

Facebook has claimed that Apple's new opt-in tracking policy will hurt small businesses who benefit from personalized advertising, but the EFF believes that Facebook's campaign against Apple is really about "what Facebook stands to lose if its users learn more about exactly what it and other data brokers are up to behind the scenes," noting that Facebook has "built a massive empire around the concept of tracking everything you do...." According to the EFF, a number of studies have shown that most of the money made from targeted advertising does not reach app developers, and instead goes to third-party data brokers like Facebook, Google, and lesser-known firms.

"Facebook touts itself in this case as protecting small businesses, and that couldn't be further from the truth," the EFF said. "Facebook has locked them into a situation in which they are forced to be sneaky and adverse to their own customers. The answer cannot be to defend that broken system at the cost of their own users' privacy and control."
"This is really about who benefits from the normalization of surveillance-powered advertising..." argues the EFF. And they ultimately come down in support of Apple's new privacy changes.

"Here, Apple is right and Facebook is wrong."

An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. military's Space Force branch celebrated its one-year anniversary Friday by announcing that its members would now be known as "guardians". But the name was not universally greeted with respect and appreciation. Gizmodo announced the news with a headline which read "Space Force Personnel Will Be Called 'Guardians' Because Sure, Whatever," in an article which jokingly asks how this will affect the other ranks of this branch of the military. "Does someone get promoted from Guardian to Sentinel to Space Paladin to Tython, The Secessionist King Of Mars or something?" (Their article also suggests other names the U.S. military could have considered — like "moon buddies" or "rocketeers" — even at one point proposing "starship troopers".)

Forbes wrote that "The mockery arrived instantly and in great rivers..." But there was an interesting observation from a British newspaper (which is in fact, named The Guardian). "As the Associated Press put it, delicately: 'President-elect Joe Biden has yet to reveal his plans for the space force in the next administration.'" In fact, New York magazine called the new name for members of Space Force the "strongest case yet for its demise," in an article headlined "Abolish the Space Force." ("Maybe 'stormtrooper' was too obvious...")

In an apparent bid to be taken more seriously, on Friday the Space Force also shared an official anniversary greeting they'd received from Lee Majors, the actor who'd played a cybernetically-enhanced Air Force colonel in the 1970s action series The Six Million Dollar Man (who, in later seasons, befriended Bigfoot and the alien community who'd brought him to earth).

But Mashable added sympathetically that "It's been a long year, though. If people want to draw some nerdy joy from a U.S. military branch inadvertently referencing comic books and video games, let them have their fun."

Long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares this report from Ars Technica: Amazon's competitor to SpaceX Starlink is moving through the prototype-development phase, with the company announcing yesterday that it has "completed initial development on the antenna for our low-cost customer terminal." Amazon said its "Ka-band phased-array antenna is based on a new architecture capable of delivering high-speed, low-latency broadband in a form factor that is smaller and lighter than legacy antenna designs" and the "prototype is already delivering speeds up to 400Mbps." Performance will get better in future versions, Amazon said.

Amazon in July received Federal Communications Commission approval to launch 3,236 low-Earth orbit satellites. The company says it plans to invest over $10 billion in its satellite-broadband division, which it calls Project Kuiper... Amazon didn't provide any updates on when Kuiper will be ready for customers. FCC rules give Amazon six years to launch and operate 50 percent of its licensed satellites, with a deadline date of July 30, 2026. Amazon would have to launch the rest of the licensed satellites by July 30, 2029. Amazon previously said it plans to offer broadband to customers "once the first 578 satellites are launched."
"Custom-built antenna architecture will allow Amazon to deliver a small, affordable customer terminal to connect unserved and underserved communities around the world," explains Amazon's announcement.

Facebook added banner ads criticizing Apple into some of its iOS apps, 9to5Mac reports, in its ongoing war against Apple's new privacy changes: By tapping the Learn More button, the app opens an article written by Facebook in which the company says Apple's policies announced at WWDC 2020 with iOS 14 will "harm the growth of business and the free internet." Facebook refers both to the new App Store privacy labels and also an option in iOS 14 that prevents apps from tracking users.

The fact that Facebook is now showing these messages in its iOS apps criticizing Apple demonstrates that the company is trying to get popular appeal to change Apple's mind about its new App Store privacy rules. That's because Facebook is one of the companies that will be most impacted by Apple's new privacy policies as its social networks rely heavily on ads and personal data from users.

In a statement to 9to5Mac, Apple said it doesn't want to force Facebook to change its business model, but the company expects Facebook to be more transparent about how it collects data from users and let them choose whether or not to offer such data.

Slashdot reader destinyland writes: The U.S. Space Force celebrated its one-year anniversary Friday with a new announcement: that members of this branch of the military will be referred to as "guardians." They're describing it as "A name chosen by space professionals, for space professionals." The site Space.com notes that the phrase is a nod to the original long-standing "Space Command" branch of the Air Force (founded in 1982), whose motto had been "Guardians of the High Frontier."

In other news, the Space Force now has one member who is actually in outer space — astronaut Michael Hopkins. Launched by SpaceX to the International Space Station in the Crew-1 capsule, Hopkins agreed to join the Space Force in a ceremony in space which a Space Force official said would "spotlight the decades-long partnership" between NASA and America's Defense Department (which oversees its armed forces).

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine pointed out that 60% of the astronaut corps comes from the military, according to Space.com, which adds that "At least one other member of NASA's active astronaut corps, Air Force Col. Nick Hague, has also requested to transfer to the Space Force."

Boeing officials "inappropriately coached" test pilots during recertification efforts after two fatal 737 MAX crashes killed 346 people, according to a lengthy congressional report released on Friday. Reuters reports: The report from the Senate Commerce Committee Republican staff said testing this year of a key safety system known as MCAS tied to both fatal crashes was contrary to proper protocol. The committee concluded Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Boeing officials "had established a pre-determined outcome to reaffirm a long-held human factor assumption related to pilot reaction time ... It appears, in this instance, FAA and Boeing were attempting to cover up important information that may have contributed to the 737 MAX tragedies."

The report citing a whistleblower who alleged Boeing officials encouraged test pilots to "remember, get right on that pickle switch" prior to the exercise that resulted in pilot reaction in approximately four seconds, while another pilot in a separate test reacted in approximately 16 seconds. The report also noted Southwest Airlines was able to operate more than 150,000 flights carrying 17.2 million passengers on jets without confirmation that required maintenance had been completed. The Senate report said the Southwest flights "put millions of passengers at potential risk." Boeing said Friday it takes "seriously the committee's findings and will continue to review the report in full."

Apple, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla have teamed up to block the Kazakhstan government's attempts to force its citizens to install a "national security certificate" on every internet-capable device in the country. "That government-issued root certificate would allow authorities to keep tabs on people's online traffic, essentially becoming a back door to access citizens' data," reports Engadget. From the report: In its announcement, Mozilla said it was recently informed that ISPs in Kazakhstan have recently started telling customers that they're required to install the digital certificate to be able to access foreign websites. ZDNet reported earlier this month that Kazakh IPS have been cutting people's access to websites like Google, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Netflix unless they install the certificate.

When users in Kazakhstan who complied with their ISPs' demand try to access websites on their devices, they'll get an error telling them that the certificate shouldn't be trusted. The companies are also encouraging those users to research the use if VPN or the Tor Browser for web browsing and to change the passwords for their accounts. The Kazakhstan's government made a similar attempt back in 2015 and then again in 2019, but tech giants did what they're doing now to put a stop to those plans.

The Justice Department's antitrust lawsuit against Google likely won't go to trial until late 2023, Judge Amit Mehta said at a status hearing on Friday. Both parties agreed that seemed like a likely timeline and the judge set September 12, 2023, as a tentative date to start the trial. CNBC reports: The proposed timeline shows just how long Google (and likely Facebook) will be fighting antitrust challenges from the U.S. government. Google now faces three lawsuits from different groups of states and the DOJ, some of which could be consolidated before the same judge. That means both that scrutiny of Google's business is likely to remain in the spotlight for several years, and that any changes potentially ordered by the court would also take a long time. In the short-term, that's good news for investors, who don't have to worry about immediate structural changes that could hurt the company's value, such as spin-offs of key business units. But it also means that Google will be facing a major distraction, and could be tentative about entering new business areas and making big acquisitions, for years to come.

Mehta had indicated at previous status hearings that he wants to keep the case moving along quickly. But the proposed timeframe shows that even a relatively fast process can take years. A lawyer for the DOJ estimated the trial could last ten to 12 weeks, though a lawyer for Google said he expected it would take much less time assuming the case goes to trial. Mehta said he was setting "the over/under" line at five and a half weeks.

An anonymous reader shares an investigative report by LA Times: The plane had begun its descent into Boston. Inside the cockpit, the captain was slumped in his seat. Sitting beside him, copilot Eric Tellmann was starting to pass out. Tellmann managed to strap on his oxygen mask, then grabbed the captain's arm and forced him to follow suit. Reviving slowly, the captain looked at Tellmann through his mask, and his eyes grew wide with fear. A strange smell had permeated the plane that day. Passengers and flight attendants were coughing and wiping teary eyes. The pilots briefly lifted their masks and could still smell the odor as the runway drew nearer. Tellmann and the captain parked the Airbus A319 at the gate. But they had no memory of landing or taxiing Spirit Airlines Flight 708. Tellmann went to the hospital for treatment and spent the next week at home in bed, vomiting and shaking and feeling "like a freight train had run over us," he said in a letter to his union about the July 2015 event. A mysterious smell. Strange symptoms. A trip to the emergency room. The signs were all there: Something had gone seriously wrong with the plane's air supply.

The air you breathe on airplanes comes directly from the jet engines. Known as bleed air, it is safe, unless there is a mechanical issue -- a faulty seal, for instance. When that happens, heated jet engine oil can leak into the air supply, potentially releasing toxic gases into the plane. For decades, the airline industry and its regulators have known about these incidents -- called fume events -- and have maintained that they are rare and that the toxic chemical levels are too low to pose serious health risks. But a Times investigation found that vapors from oil and other fluids seep into planes with alarming frequency across all airlines, at times creating chaos and confusion: Flight attendants vomit and pass out. Passengers struggle to breathe. Children get rushed to hospitals. Pilots reach for oxygen masks or gasp for air from opened cockpit windows. Such events are documented in airport paramedic records, NASA safety reports, federal aviation records and other filings reviewed by The Times. Tellmann, the Spirit Airlines pilot, was one of hundreds of airline crew members and passengers who reported being sickened or impaired on flights in recent years. A Times analysis of NASA safety reports from January 2018 to December 2019 identified 362 fume events that airline crew members reported to the agency, with nearly 400 pilots, flight attendants and passengers receiving medical attention. During at least 73 of those flights, pilots used emergency oxygen. Four dozen pilots were described as impaired to the point of being unable to perform their duties. Because they're made voluntarily, the NASA safety reports are the "tip of the iceberg," according to a recent study by a researcher from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

There's a narrative that the tech industry's future lies in Texas and Florida. That tech workers and executives -- sick of California's oppressive policies and sky-high real estate costs -- are moving en masse to Miami and Austin this year. That these cities are building dominant talent foundations that will persist for years due to the pandemic. That narrative is wrong. From a report: The story crumbles when placed next to new LinkedIn data showing where tech workers are actually moving in 2020. The key beneficiaries of this year's tech migration are less buzzy cities like Madison, Wisconsin; Richmond, Virginia; and Sacramento, California. These places don't get much play in the news, but they're attracting tech talent at significantly higher rates than they were last year. Austin, conversely, is gaining tech workers more slowly. The new LinkedIn data, which Big Technology is first publishing here, examines several hundred thousand tech workers in the U.S. It breaks down the ratio at which they're moving into a city vs. moving out, something LinkedIn calls the inflow/outflow ratio. The data ranges from April to October, comparing 2020 with 2019. It encompasses the core months people left their cities due to the pandemic.

The country's biggest tech migration increase took place in Madison. The city was gaining 1.02 tech workers for each one that left last year, and it's now gaining 1.77, a 74% jump. Sacramento and Richmond, meanwhile, were losing tech workers before the pandemic and have turned it around. Sacramento was adding a fraction of a tech worker -- 0.87 -- for each one that left last year, and now it's adding 1.02. Richmond was adding 0.95 last year, and it's adding 1.06 this year. Other Midwest cities, including Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Cleveland, Ohio, have significantly reduced the rate at which tech workers were leaving their cities.

Terence Eden: I am concerned that -- despite the hard work of the AC -- Google has limited interest in that goal. When I joined, I wondered whether I could make a difference. I hope that I have been a critical friend. The AC has encouraged AMP to think more about user needs -- rather than Google's needs. And changes to the search carousel were also a concern of the committee which have been partly addressed.

Google's thesis is that the mobile-web is dying and people prefer to use apps -- therefore making the web faster and more app-like will retain users. Google doesn't publish data about this, so I can't directly criticise their motives. But I do not think AMP, in its current implementation, helps make the web better. I remain convinced that AMP is poorly implemented, hostile to the interests of both users and publishers, and a proprietary & unnecessary incursion into the open web. I am glad that I tried to make it better, but I'm sad to have failed.

Earlier this week, a team of researchers announced that they successfully teleported qubits of photons across approximately 27 miles of fiber-optic cable. Engadget reports: While other scientists have worked on similar projects, this group is the first to beam quantum information across such a great distance. What's more, they did so across two separate networks and with a fidelity greater than 90 percent. One of the researchers on the team told Motherboard they built the networks using "off-the-shelf" components, and that their tech is compatible with existing telecommunications equipment.

In PRX Quantum, where the team published its findings, they say their work provides "a realistic foundation for a high-fidelity quantum Internet with practical devices." They added, "this is a key achievement on the way to building a technology that will redefine how we conduct global communication." Experts believe a quantum internet could revolutionize a variety of computing fields, including cryptography and search. [...] With two 13-mile networks under their belts, the Caltech and Fermilab teams plan to build a city-scale network called the Illinois Express Quantum Network in Chicago next.

Google plans to shut down Android Things, a stripped-down version of Android designed for smart home devices. The OS never really got off the ground, so this isn't all that much of a loss, but it is yet another entry in Google's expansive graveyard of shut-down projects. The Verge reports: The smart home project got its start in 2015 under the name Brillo, which was meant to provide the "underlying operating system for the internet of things." In 2016, Google revamped Brillo and relaunched the initiative as Android Things, which was likewise meant to run on products like connected speakers, security cameras, and routers. By relying on Android, the OS was supposed to be familiar to developers and easy to get started with. Then nothing happened. In 2018, some initial smart speakers and smart displays came out using the underlying OS. It seems no other companies were interested, because in February 2019, Google announced it was "refocusing" Android Things to cater specifically to smart speakers and smart displays.

Nearly two years later, and Android Things is now on track to be shut down. The Android Things Console, which lets developers push updates to their devices, will stop accepting new non-commercial projects starting January 5th, 2021. A year later, on January 5th, 2022, "the console will be turned down completely and all project data will be permanently deleted." That essentially means developers have a year to wind down any Android Things projects they already have set up.

A bipartisan coalition of states sued Alphabet's Google Thursday alleging broad antitrust violations in the online search market, marking the third U.S. case against the search giant in two months. From a report: The lawsuit, led by Colorado, Iowa and other states, marks the latest escalation of the antitrust battle against Google. It comes a day after 10 Republican state attorneys general led by Texas sued the company for anticompetitive practices, and follows an October complaint by the Justice Department. "Combined with the other recent lawsuits filed against Google, never before have so many states and the federal government come together to challenge a company with such power," Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said a statement. "Google has more data on consumers, and more variety of information, than perhaps any entity in history." The lawsuit, filed by 38 attorneys general, accuses Google of illegally monopolizing internet search and search advertising through a series of anticompetitive contracts and conduct, hurting consumers and advertisers in the process.

Google won European Union approval for its $2.1 billion takeover of health tracker Fitbit, days after regulators proposed tougher rules to curb powerful technology firms' push into new services. From a report: The European Commission said Google's pledge to maintain access for rival health and fitness apps and device makers for 10 years removed its concerns about the U.S. tech giant's move into health data and devices. Smaller rivals previously complained that the company's promises might not go far enough to stop Google shutting off access in future to rival products or services.

"The commitments will determine how Google can use the data collected for ad purposes, how interoperability between competing wearables and Android will be safeguarded and how users can continue to share health and fitness data, if they choose to," Margrethe Vestager, the EU's antitrust chief, said in a statement Thursday. Approval comes in a harsh climate when Google and others are facing mounting scrutiny of acquisitions that help them push into new areas. Google announced its plans to buy Fitbit in November 2019, describing the bid for the smartwatch maker as a boost to its lagging hardware business.