An anonymous reader shares a report: Brian Armstrong, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, revealed in a late September blog post that the company would prohibit employees from debating political or social issues, deeming this a "distraction" from the company's mission. Armstrong doubled down on his position during a virtual all-hands held on October 1, billed as an "AMA" (for "ask me anything"), from which Motherboard obtained audio. The AMA was meant to further explain the company's new "apolitical" direction for those who might consider accepting a severance package that was offered to any employee who felt "uncomfortable." Executives also explained when and where dissent would be appropriate, and explained why they required employees to delete specific political Slack messages. This, at a company that works with cryptocurrencies intended to replace government banking systems in order to create a more free world. During the meeting, Armstrong claimed there is a "silent majority" at Coinbase that agreed with his decision but feared reprisal from colleagues. Armstrong and Coinbase leadership, however, failed to soothe fears that this policy would police employees if they voiced opinions that did not align with Armstrong or this "silent majority."

One former Coinbase employee who left the company after the AMA and to whom Motherboard provided anonymity due to fear of industry reprisal said that these assurances were insufficient and workers feared surveillance and censorship. These fears are not unfounded. Emile Choi, Coinbase's chief operating officer, explained that at least two employees were asked to delete Slack posts, and that HR head L.J. Brock "proactively reached out to employees to explain why their posts would be taken down. He had a very productive conversation with both of them and they understood the context," she said. One employee asked if Coinbase leadership thought that this was "taking away employee power to start a discussion except with 300 character questions" in an AMA format. "It seems like Coinbase is stunting internal discussion." Choi said that the entire executive team was aligned on Armstrong's post and policy, and that the new "culture is focused on what unites us and what we face in the world, which is building toward our mission," Choi said. "The goal was not intended to be harsh, it wasn't intended to land in a way where people felt they were being policed."

schwit1 shares a report from UPI: NASA will fund a project by Nokia to build a 4G cellular communication network on the moon with $14.1 million, the space agency announced. That project was part of $370 million in new contracts for lunar surface research missions NASA announced Wednesday. Most of the money went to large space companies like SpaceX and United Launch Alliance to perfect techniques to make and handle rocket propellant in space. The space agency must quickly develop new technologies for living and working on the moon if it wants to realize its goal to have astronauts working at a lunar base by 2028, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a live broadcast.

Space traffic experts are tracking two pieces of orbital garbage that appear to be careening toward each other: A defunct Soviet satellite and a discarded Chinese rocket booster that are expected to nearly miss each other -- with a slight chance of colliding -- Thursday evening. CNN reports: No one knows for sure if the objects will collide, and near-misses happen in space all the time. But LeoLabs, a California-based startup that uses ground-based radars to track spaceborne objects, is putting the odds of collision at 10% or more. That's high, but not uncommon LeoLabs CEO Daniel Ceperley told CNN Business on Thursday. "Multiple times a week we're seeing dead satellites come within 100 meters of each other, moving at tremendous speeds," Ceperley said. The company decided to raise public awareness about this particular event, he said, because the two objects are both large -- and likely to create an enormous debris field if they collide -- and because they're in an area of orbit that's still relatively clean compared to nearby orbits. The company is also trying to raise more general public awareness about the debris problem, he said.

The Soviet satellite, which launched to space in 1989 and was used for navigation, weighs nearly 2,000 pounds and is 55 feet long, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. And the rocket booster, part of a Chinese Long March launch vehicle that likely launched in 2009, is about 20 feet long. Neither of the objects is still in use. If the rocket and satellite do collide, it would be the first time in more than a decade that two objects spontaneously collided in space -- a situation space traffic experts have hoped desperately to avoid.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: On Thursday, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said that the agency will seek to regulate social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter at the behest of the Trump administration's executive order signed earlier this year. "Members of all three branches of the federal government have expressed serious concerns about the prevailing interpretation of the immunity set for in Section 230 of the Communications Act. There is bipartisan support in Congress to reform the law," Pai said in a statement Thursday. "Social media companies have a First Amendment right to free speech. But they do not have a First Amendment right to a special immunity denied to other media outlets, such as newspapers and broadcasters."

On Thursday, Pai said that the commission's general counsel said that "the FCC has the legal authority to reinterpret Section 230." He continued, "Consistent with this advice, I intend to move forward with a rulemaking to clarify its meaning." "Pai's decision to move forward with rulemaking follows a series of moderation decisions on Wednesday made by Facebook and Twitter against a New York Post article regarding former Vice President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, who has been the subject of political attacks from the right throughout the 2020 presidential election," the report adds.

Facebook reduced the reach of the story, while Twitter banned linking to the story entirely. "These moves from Facebook and Twitter incited an outcry over conservative bias from Republicans," reports The Verge.

Google has started to shut down parts of its 9-year-old music service as it transitions people to YouTube Music. Ars Technica reports: The gradual shutdown started on Monday with the death of the Google Play Music Store, which previously let you purchase music for playback and download, as opposed to the all-you-can-eat rental services that dominate the music landscape today. Google's Music store was a section of the Google Play Store, which now just shows a message saying the feature has been removed. Google is getting out of the business of selling music entirely and now only offers a rental service through YouTube Music.

The other big feature shutdown is music playback on Google Home and Nest Audio speakers. While the Google Music app still works and you can start a playback through Chromecast, you're no longer able to start music by voice through Google Assistant devices. If you dig into the Google Assistant settings (that means opening the Google app on your phone, then hitting "More," then "Settings," then "Google Assistant," "Services," and finally "Music") you'll find that the "Google Play Music" option has completely disappeared. Now the only supported services for voice commands are YouTube Music, Pandora, Deezer, and Spotify. [...] Google Music is scheduled to completely shut down sometime this month. Right now, the only thing left is streaming via the smartphone app and the Google Music website.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: If you've been hiding under a rock -- and who could blame you these days? -- you may have missed how totally Kubernetes now dominates container orchestration. One way to quickly get up to speed on Kubernetes is with Canonical's MicroK8s. This is an easy-to-run and install mini-version of Kubernetes. And now Canonical has added autonomous high availability (HA) clustering to it. [...] Now, with HA, MicroK8s is ready to move from Internet of Things (IoT) implementations, testing out Kubernetes implementations on a workstation, or simply learning Kubernetes to bigger, better cloud jobs.

With the new MicroK8s release, HA is enabled automatically once three or more nodes are clustered, and the data store migrates automatically between nodes to maintain a quorum in the event of a failure. Designed as a minimal conformant Kubernetes, MicroK8s installs, and clusters easily on Linux, macOS, or Windows. To work, a HA Kubernetes cluster needs three elements. Here's how it works in MicroK8s:

-There must be more than one worker node. Since MicroK8s uses every node as a worker node, there is always another worker available so long as there's more than one node in the cluster.
-The Kubernetes API services must run on one or more nodes so that losing a single node would not render the cluster inoperable. Every node in the MicroK8s cluster is an API server, which simplifies load-balancing and means we can switch instantaneously to a different API endpoint if one fails.
-The cluster state must be in a reliable datastore. By default, MicroK8s uses Dqlite, a high-availability SQLite, as its datastore.

There are reports of an unidentified person flying in a jetpack near Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) -- the second such incident in two months. The BBC reports: A China Airlines crew said it saw what appeared to be someone in a jetpack on Wednesday at 6,000ft (1,829m), seven miles (11km) north-west of LAX, the Federal Aviation Administration said. The FBI is investigating the incident, as well as a similar one in September. It is not clear if either incident posed any danger to aircraft.

The China Airlines flight reported what it believed to be a person flying in a jetpack at 13:45 local time (20:45 GMT) on Wednesday, the FAA said. It said it then alerted enforcement agencies, who are now investigating the incident. "The FBI is in contact with the FAA and is investigating multiple reports of what, according to witnesses, appeared to be an individual in a jetpack near LAX," FBI Los Angeles Field Office spokeswoman Laura Eimiller was quoted as saying by US media. The airport authorities have so far made no public comment on the issue.

Quest 2 is the first Oculus headset to require a Facebook account at launch. False positives from its account verification system may be leaving some buyers with no choice but to return it. UploadVR reports: We're seeing reports from Quest 2 buyers who aren't on Facebook finding difficulty creating an account. Facebook's account verification system -- reportedly administered by a machine learning agent -- may ask for photographic evidence of identity. That evidence seems to be reviewed by a human, since it can apparently take weeks to process. Others trying to re-activate old accounts to use their brand new Quest 2 also report instant suspensions. Trying to create a new account also fails.

If the review fails or your account is suspended, there appears to be no recourse for appeal. Multiple buyers called the system a "paperweight" in their emails to us about their interactions with customer service and what they feel like they can do with the latest VR headset on the market. In an emailed statement, a Facebook spokesperson said Quest 2 customers should contact Oculus Customer support to work through issues. Facebook claimed to only have "a very small number" of Oculus users running into login issues. Among the screenshots from Twitter and Reddit users reporting issues are Oculus Support agents supposedly saying they're unable to help with Facebook account issues.

Google has added a new feature that lets you figure out what song is stuck in your head by humming, whistling or singing -- a much more useful version of the kind of song-matching audio feature that it and competitors like Apple's Shazam have offered previously. From a report: As of today, users will be able to open either the latest version of the mobile Google app, or the Google Search widget, and then tap the microphone icon, and either verbally ask to search a song or hit the 'Search a song button' and start making noises. The feature should be available to anyone using Google in English on iOS, or across over 20 languages already on Android, and the company says it will be growing that user group to more languages on both platforms in the future. Unsurprisingly, it's powered behind the scenes by machine learning algorithms developed by the company. Google says that it's matching tech won't require you to be a Broadway star or even a choir member -- it has built-in abilities to accommodate for various degrees of musical sensibility, and will provide a confidence score as a percentage alongside a number of possible matches. Clicking on any match will return more info about both artist and track, as well as music videos, and links that let you listen to the full song in the music app of your choice.

U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said the agency will consider President Donald Trump's request to weaken legal protections for social media companies such as Twitter. From a report: The FCC will begin a rulemaking to "clarify" the meaning of a law that gives broad legal immunity to social media companies for their handling of users' posts, Pai said in an emailed statement. The action follows a request by the Trump administration for regulators to dilute the decades-old law that Facebook, Twitter and Google say is crucial. The request was called for in an executive order that Trump signed in May. Tech trade groups, civil liberties organizations and legal scholars have slammed the action and said it isn't likely to survive a court challenge.

A ransomware gang going by the of Egregor has leaked data it claims to have obtained from the internal networks of two of today's largest gaming companies -- Ubisoft and Crytek. An anonymous reader writes: Data allegedly taken from each company has been published on the ransomware gang's dark web portal on Tuesday. Details about how the Egregor gang obtained the data remain unclear. Ransomware gangs like Egregor regularly breach companies, steal their data, encrypt files, and ask for a ransom to decrypt the locked data. However, in many incidents, ransomware gangs are also get caught and kicked out of networks during the data exfiltration process, and files are never encrypted. Nevertheless, they still extort companies, asking victims for money to not leak sensitive files. Usually, when negotiations break down, ransomware gangs post a partial leak of the stolen files on so-called leak sites. On Tuesday, leaks for both Crytek and Ubisoft were posted on the Egregor portal at the same time, with threats from the ransomware crew to leak more files in the coming days.

Amazon will not have to pay the UK's new digital services tax on products it sells directly to consumers but small traders who sell products on its site will face increased charges. From a report: The tax, which aims to get tech companies such as Amazon, Google and Facebook to pay more tax in the UK, is forecast to eventually bring in about $645 million annually to the exchequer. Amazon has already stated that the 2% tax on revenues made in the UK will be passed on to sellers but it will not be adding the charge to the cost of advertising on its platform.

According to a report in the Times, Amazon, which paid only $18.5 million in corporation tax on total UK revenues of $17.7 billion last year, will not have to pay the tax on goods it sells directly. The new tax is not being levied on sales, which would also penalise online retailers such as Tesco and John Lewis, but on the service fees that companies such as Amazon and Google charge third parties. With Amazon's third-party sellers facing a 2% rise in the amount they pay, the US retailer is effectively getting a price advantage on competing goods it sells directly to consumers. "This seems to me to be absolutely outrageous," said Lord Leigh of Hurley, the Conservative peer and former party treasurer, in the House of Lords. "It is clear that the UK government is not taxing Amazon properly and is allowing it to avoid tax on its own sales through the marketplace."

Commercial rocket ventures including Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin should get a clearer path to space under new regulations that oversee non-government launches. From a report: The Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday announced it is replacing decades-old rules as it adapts to rapid growth in the industry to propel satellites and, eventually, private citizens into space. "This rule paves the way for an industry that is moving at lightning speed," FAA Administrator Steve Dickson said in a press release. "We are simplifying the licensing process and enabling industry to move forward in a safe manner." In addition to SpaceX and Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic and Virgin Orbit, companies founded by Richard Branson, are also trying to cash in on space tourism and small satellite launches. Other companies include Northrop Grumman, United Launch Alliance and Rocket Lab.

The Senate Judiciary Committee plans to issue a subpoena on Tuesday to Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey after the social-media company blocked a pair of New York Post articles that made new allegations about Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, which his campaign has denied. From a report: The subpoena would require the Twitter executive to testify on Oct. 23 before the committee, according to the Republicans who announced the hearing. GOP lawmakers are singling out Twitter because it prevented users from posting links to the articles, which the Post said were based on email exchanges with Hunter Biden, the Democratic candidate's son, provided by allies of President Trump. Those people in turn said they received them from a computer-repair person who found them on a laptop, according to the Post.

"This is election interference, and we are 19 days out from an election," Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), a committee member who discussed the subpoena with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), told reporters. "Never before have we seen active censorship of a major press publication with serious allegations of corruption of one of the two candidates for president."

An anonymous reader shares a report: Back in January, Google Health, the branch of Google focused on health-related research, clinical tools, and partnerships for health care services, released an AI model trained on over 90,000 mammogram X-rays that the company said achieved better results than human radiologists. Google claimed that the algorithm could recognize more false negatives -- the kind of images that look normal but contain breast cancer -- than previous work, but some clinicians, data scientists, and engineers take issue with that statement. In a rebuttal published today in the journal Nature, over 19 coauthors affiliated with McGill University, the City University of New York (CUNY), Harvard University, and Stanford University said that the lack of detailed methods and code in Google's research "undermines its scientific value."

Science in general has a reproducibility problem -- a 2016 poll of 1,500 scientists reported that 70% of them had tried but failed to reproduce at least one other scientist's experiment -- but it's particularly acute in the AI field. At ICML 2019, 30% of authors failed to submit their code with their papers by the start of the conference. Studies often provide benchmark results in lieu of source code, which becomes problematic when the thoroughness of the benchmarks comes into question. One recent report found that 60% to 70% of answers given by natural language processing models were embedded somewhere in the benchmark training sets, indicating that the models were often simply memorizing answers. Another study -- a meta-analysis of over 3,000 AI papers -- found that metrics used to benchmark AI and machine learning models tended to be inconsistent, irregularly tracked, and not particularly informative.

Two days after Facebook announced that it would block posts that deny the Holocaust, Twitter decided to do the same. Bloomberg reports: Twitter's policy doesn't explicitly state that denying violent events is against the rules, but the spokeswoman confirmed that "attempts to deny or diminish" violent events, including the Holocaust, would be removed based on the company's interpretation of the policy. "We strongly condemn anti-semitism, and hateful conduct has absolutely no place on our service," she said in a statement. "We also have a robust 'glorification of violence' policy in place and take action against content that glorifies or praises historical acts of violence and genocide, including the Holocaust."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google and Intel are warning of a high-severity Bluetooth flaw in all but the most recent version of the Linux Kernel. While a Google researcher said the bug allows seamless code execution by attackers within Bluetooth range, Intel is characterizing the flaw as providing an escalation of privileges or the disclosure of information. The flaw resides in BlueZ, the software stack that by default implements all Bluetooth core protocols and layers for Linux. Besides Linux laptops, it's used in many consumer or industrial Internet-of-things devices. It works with Linux versions 2.4.6 and later. So far, little is known about BleedingTooth, the name given by Google engineer Andy Nguyen, who said that a blog post will be published "soon." A Twitter thread and a YouTube video provide the most detail and give the impression that the bug provides a reliable way for nearby attackers to execute malicious code of their choice on vulnerable Linux devices that use BlueZ for Bluetooth.

Intel, meanwhile, has issued this bare-bones advisory that categorizes the flaw as privilege-escalation or information-disclosure vulnerability. The advisory assigned a severity score of 8.3 out of a possible 10 to CVE-2020-12351, one of three distinct bugs that comprise BleedingTooth. "Potential security vulnerabilities in BlueZ may allow escalation of privilege or information disclosure," the advisory states. "BlueZ is releasing Linux kernel fixes to address these potential vulnerabilities." Intel, which is a primary contributor to the BlueZ open source project, said that the most effective way to patch the vulnerabilities is to update to Linux kernel version 5.9, which was published on Sunday. Those who can't upgrade to version 5.9 can install a series of kernel patches the advisory links to. Maintainers of BlueZ didn't immediately respond to emails asking for additional details about this vulnerability. Ars Technica points out that since BleedingTooth requires proximity to a vulnerable device, there's not much reason for people to worry about this vulnerability. "It also requires highly specialized knowledge and works on only a tiny fraction of the world's Bluetooth devices," it adds.

In a tweet, Elon Musk announced that Tesla will further cut the price of its Model S "Long Range" sedan to $69,420. "This pricing wasn't done on a whim and a joint," adds TechCrunch. "The price cut is likely in response to Lucid undercutting Tesla on pricing a few hours ago." From the report: Elon Musk declares that "The gauntlet has been thrown down." Earlier today, Lucid announced that its entry level sedan will cost $77,400 minus a $7,500 U.S. tax credit. Since most buyers qualify for the credit, that brings the effective price down to $69,900. You see where this is headed, right?

With a new starting price of $69,420, this would be the second Model S price cut this week. Roadshow by CNET reported yesterday the automaker quietly cut $3,000 off the Model S earlier this week, potentially in a bid to outdo Lucid before its announcement today. Earlier this year, Tesla cut $2,000 off the starting price of the Model 3.

Microsoft co-founder and former CEO Bill Gates told CNBC on Wednesday morning he had been naive about the government scrutiny that comes with getting large when he was running Microsoft and said the chance of Big Tech antitrust regulation is "pretty high." CNBC reports: "Whenever you get to be a super-valuable company, affecting the way people communicate and even political discourse being mediated through your system and higher percentage of commerce -- through your system -- you're going to expect a lot of government attention," Gates said in the "Squawk Box" interview. Last week, the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust released a report concluding that Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google hold monopoly power.

"I was naive at Microsoft and didn't realize that our success would lead to government attention," Gates said, referring to Microsoft's antitrust challenges from more than 20 years ago. "And so I made some mistakes -- you know, just saying, 'Hey, I never go to Washington, D.C.' And now I don't think, you know, that naivete is there." Gates stepped down as Microsoft CEO in the middle of the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust case, which charged the company had tried to monopolize the web browser market when it bundled Internet Explorer with Windows. The company settled with the DOJ in 2001.

"The rules will change somewhat," Gates said in contrast about the possibility of future regulation. "I'd say the chances of them doing something is pretty high." "We have to get the particulars," said Gates when asked about the risk of additional regulation cutting down on innovation. "Is there some rule about acquisition? Is there some rule about splitting parts of the companies, either -- to create open availability of those resources?" Anti-competitive "killer acquisitions" was one of the House subcommittee's concerns, and the report looked into whether Facebook acquired Instagram to eliminate a competitor. Splitting up such acquisitions may be one possibility of future regulation. "We're in uncharted territory here," said Gates.

Wojtek Borowicz interviews David Heinemeier Hansson, the creator of the popular Ruby on Rails web development framework: Wojtek Borowicz: Software methodology is an industry of its own. There is Scrum, and Agile, and coaches, and books, and all of that. But you and your team at Basecamp don't follow these practices. Why?

DHH: First of all, our approach to software development is heavily inspired by the Agile Manifesto and the Agile values. It is not so much inspired by the Agile practices as they exist today. A lot of Agile software methodologies focus on areas of product development that are not where the hard bits lie. They are so much about the procedural structures. Software, in most cases, is inherently unpredictable, unknowable, and unshaped. It's almost like a gas. It can fit into all sorts of different openings from the same basic idea. The notion of trying to estimate how long a feature is going to take doesn't work because you don't know what you're building and because humans are terrible at estimating anything. The history of software development is one of late or cancelled projects. If you were to summarize the entire endeavor of software development, you'd say: 'The project ran late and it got canceled.' Planning work doesn't work, so to speak.

What we do at Basecamp we chose to label Shape Up, simply because that is where we find the hard work to be. We're trying to just accept the core constraint that it is impossible to accurately specify what software should do up front. You can only discover what software should do within constraints. But it's not like we follow the idea that it's done when it's done, either. That's an absolute abdication of product management thinking. What we say instead is: don't do estimates, do budgets. The core of Shape Up is about budgets. Not how long is something going to take but what is something worth. Because something could take a week or four months. What is it worth? [...]

Wojtek Borowicz: So the problem with those methodologies is they put too much focus on estimating, which is inherently impossible with software?

DHH: I'd go even further and say that estimation is bullshit. It's so imprecise as to be useless, even when you're dealing with fixed inputs. And you're not. No one is ever able to accurately describe what a piece of software should do before they see the piece of software. This idea that we can preemptively describe what something should do before we start working on it is bunk. Agile was sort of onto this idea that you need running software to get feedback but the modern implementations of Agile are not embracing the lesson they themselves taught.