At an event hosted by Slush, the Spotify CEO said: "I will devote 1 billion euro of my personal resources to enable the ecosystem of builders to achieve [the] European dream over the next decade." From a report: "I will do so by funding so-called moonshots focusing on the deep technology necessary to make a significant positive dent, and work with scientists, investors, and governments to do so," he added. The pledge came after Ek explained his desire to see more big European companies, saying "Europe needs to raise its ambition." When questioned on which areas he'll be investing in, Ek highlighted health care, education, machine learning, biotechnology, material sciences and energy. "The types of moonshots that I'm talking about, at least when I talk to the scientists and the entrepreneurs, they often face no [funding] options, because these ideas may be too early to bring in venture capital," he said, "so I definitely think we can do a lot more for those types of opportunities here."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Scientific American: Stomach ulcers and other gastric wounds afflict one in eight people worldwide, but common conventional therapies have drawbacks. Now scientists aim to treat such problems by exploring a new frontier in 3-D printing: depositing living cells directly inside the human body. [...] In their effort to treat stomach lesions less invasively, scientists in China wanted to develop a miniature bioprinting robot that could enter the human body with relative ease. The researchers used existing techniques for creating dexterous electronic devices, such as mechanical bees and cockroach-inspired robots, says the study's senior author Tao Xu, a bioengineer at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

The resulting micro robot is just 30 millimeters wide -- less than half the width of a credit card -- and can fold to a length of 43 millimeters. Once inside a patient's body, it unfolds to become 59 millimeters long and can start bioprinting. "The team has constructed clever mechanisms that make the system compact when entering the body yet unfurl to provide a large working area once past the tight constrictions at entry," says David Hoelzle, a mechanical engineer at the Ohio State University, who did not take part in the study. In their experiments, the researchers in China fitted the micro robot onto an endoscope (a long tube that can be inserted through bodily openings) and successfully snaked it through a curved pipe into a transparent plastic model of a stomach. There, they used it to print gels loaded with human stomach lining and stomach muscle cells (which were grown in culture by a commercial laboratory) onto a lab dish. The printed cells remained viable and steadily proliferated over the course of 10 days. "This study is the first attempt to combine micro robots and bioprinting together," Xu says. The study has been published in the journal Biofabrication.

sciencehabit writes: A mini-arms race is unfolding in the supposed field of quantum radar, spurred by press reports in 2016 that China had built one -- potentially threatening the ability of stealthy military aircraft to hide from conventional radars. Governments around the world have tasked physicists to look into the idea. Whereas a conventional radar searches for objects by detecting pulse of microwaves reflected from them, quantum radar would utilize pulses of microwaves linked by a quantum connection called entanglement. The system would retain one pulse and measure it in concert with the one reflected from the object. Correlations between the two would make it easier to spot an object through the glare of the surroundings. Or so researchers hoped. Groups have demonstrated elements of a quantum radar, but only in limited experiments that a nonquantum system can still match. And fundamental physical limits suggest the scheme can't beat ordinary radar for long-range detection. Even one of the inventors of the basic concept thinks it won't work when applied to radar.

Researchers will be able to gain a deeper understanding of what's considered the world's oldest surviving (digital) computer after its long-lost user manual was unearthed. Engadget reports: The Z4, which was built in 1945, runs on tape, takes up most of a room and needs several people to operate it. The machine now takes residence at the Deutsches Museum in Munich, but it hasn't been used in quite some time. An archivist at ETH Zurich, Evelyn Boesch, discovered the manual among her father's documents in March, according to retired lecturer Herbert Bruderer. Rene Boesch worked with the Swiss Aeronautical Engineering Association, which was based at the university's Institute for Aircraft Statics and Aircraft Construction. The Z4 was housed there in the early 1950s.

Among Boesch's documents were notes on math problems the Z4 solved that were linked to the development of the P-16 jet fighter. "These included calculations on the trajectory of rockets, on aircraft wings, on flutter vibrations [and] on nosedive," Bruderer wrote in a Association of Computing Machinery blog post.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: T-Mobile US CEO Mike Sievert yesterday fired back at AT&T and Verizon, saying the carriers' complaints about T-Mobile obtaining more spectrum licenses show that they are afraid of competition. "The duopolists are scrambling to block this new competition any way they can... Suddenly in the unfamiliar position of not having a dominant stranglehold on the wireless market, and preferring not to meet the competitive challenge in the marketplace, AT&T and Verizon are urging the FCC to slow T-Mobile down and choke off our ability to compete fairly for added radio spectrum," Sievert wrote in a blog post. As we wrote Monday, Verizon and AT&T have urged the Federal Communications Commission to impose limits on T-Mobile's ability to obtain more spectrum licenses. AT&T complained that T-Mobile's acquisition of Sprint allowed it to amass "an unprecedented concentration of spectrum."

Verizon has the most spectrum of any US carrier "by far" but "has the anti-competitive instincts and sheer audacity to complain that a much smaller T-Mobile has too much," Sievert wrote. "After holding massive spectrum advantages over T-Mobile and others for decades, Verizon and AT&T just can't stand the idea of anyone else being ahead of them or having a fair shot in an auction where they plan to use their financial might to do what they have always done -- dominate." Sievert also wrote that the 600MHz spectrum T-Mobile is leasing was previously controlled by AT&T. "AT&T had won at auction the spectrum that Columbia Capital is now leasing to T-Mobile and -- guess what -- AT&T decided it didn't want it and sold it to Columbia," Sievert wrote. "Verizon, the ringleader in opposing this lease, never bothered to even show up and bid for any 600MHz spectrum. In short, we have AT&T and Verizon seeking to block T-Mobile from using spectrum that AT&T decided to jettison, and Verizon had no interest in pursuing. Now both companies are seeking to block T-Mobile from putting this spectrum to use for the benefit of American consumers."

mabu writes: National Voter Registration Day, earmarked to call attention to encouraging more people to register to vote, is a pinnacle of many state's voter registration drives. Unfortunately in the state of Louisiana, its secretary of state Kyle Ardoin, decided this was a great time to shut the web site down for "scheduled maintenance." As a result, people who tried to register to vote online, on one of the most visible days of the registration drive, were denied the ability. "Ardoin's apparent decision to shut down the website raises concerns about ongoing efforts to suppress voter turnout during a heated election season in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic," reports NOLA.com. New Orleans' mayor Latoya Cantrell called the move "Unacceptable."

"Ardoin, a Republican, has sparred with Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards over absentee voting -- both in federal court and in the court of public opinion," NOLA.com adds. "A federal judge in Baton Rouge recently overturned efforts by Ardoin and GOP lawmakers to roll back previously expanded absentee voting in Louisiana. The judge's ruling, if it stands, would allow Louisiana voters to cast absentee ballots if they are concerned about COVID-related health risks associated with voting in-person. The ruling effectively reinstates the absentee voting rules that applied to the statewide primaries held in July and August, which came off without a whiff of 'voter fraud.'"

According to The Verge, Twitter says they will be testing voice DMs soon, after rolling out audio tweets for iOS in June. From the report: Brazil will be the first country included in that test. "We know people want more options for how they express themselves in conversations on Twitter -- both publicly and privately," [Alex Ackerman-Greenberg, product manager for direct messages at Twitter, said in a 20-second voice message].

Similar to voice tweets, voice messages have a bare-bones, simple interface: there's just a play / pause button, and the sender's avatar pulsates as the message plays. The product team designed an "in-line recording experience to make it easier to send these messages as part of the natural conversation flow," so that's one difference from the current audio tweets interface. There's a "report message" option in the event that someone misuses voice DMs, which is always a fair concern with private audio.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: Gavin Newsom has just announced plans to abolish the internal combustion engine by 2035. In an executive order announced Wednesday, Newsom said sales of internal-combustion passenger vehicles and light trucks would be banned by 2035. Instead of gas and diesel vehicles, the mandate calls for the sale of zero-emission vehicles. Medium- and heavy-duty trucks will be given an extra decade to comply. "This is the most impactful step our state can take to fight climate change," Newsom said. "Our cars shouldn't make wildfires worse -- and create more days filled with smoky air. Cars shouldn't melt glaciers or raise sea levels threatening our cherished beaches and coastlines."

Newsom also called on the state Legislature to ban the controversial oil extraction method known as fracking, "setting up what could be a contentious political fight when lawmakers reconvene in Sacramento next year," reports The Los Angeles Times.

Yesterday, U.S. Senators Rand Paul (R-KY), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Gary Peters (D-MI) introduced the bipartisan ''Unplug the Internet Kill Switch Act of 2020'' (S. 4646), which would help protect Americans' First and Fourth Amendment rights by preventing a president from using emergency powers to unilaterally take control over or deny access to the internet and other telecommunications capabilities. Slashdot reader SonicSpike shares an excerpt from the announcement: In a World War II-era amendment to Section 706 of the Communications Act of 1934, Congress gave the Executive sweeping authority to put under direct government control or even shut down "any facility or station for wire communication" should a president "[deem] it necessary in the interest of the national security and defense" following a proclamation "that there exists a state or threat of war involving the United States." Cause for alarm over such power has only increased across the decades with the technological revolution, which has included email, text messages, and the internet, as well as the expansion of television, radio, and telephone networks.

The Unplug the Internet Kill Switch Act would amend Section 706 to strip out this "Internet Kill Switch" and help shut the door to broader government surveillance or outright control of our communications channels and some of Americans' most sensitive information. The legislation would also reassert a stronger balance of power during a national emergency between the Executive Branch and the people's representatives in Congress. You can read the "Unplug the Internet Kill Switch Act of 2020" here (PDF).

America's most famous spy agency has a major competitor it can't quite seem to beat: Silicon Valley. From a report: The CIA has long been a place cutting-edge technology is researched, developed, and realized -- and it wants to lead in fields like artificial intelligence and biotechnology. However, recruiting and retaining the talent capable of building these tools is a challenge on many levels, especially since a spy agency can't match Silicon Valley salaries, reputations, and patents. The agency's solution is CIA Labs, a new skunkworks that will attempt to recruit and retain technical talent by offering incentives to those who work there.

Under the new initiative, announced today, CIA officers will be able for the first time to publicly file patents on the intellectual property they work on -- and collect a portion of the the profits. The agency will take the rest of the balance. Dawn Meyerriecks, who heads the agency's science and technology directorate, says the best-case scenario is that the agency's research and development could end up paying for itself. "This is helping maintain US dominance, particularly from a technological perspective," says Meyerriecks. "That's really critical for national and economic security. It also democratizes the technology by making it available to the planet in a way that allows the level of the water to rise for all."

Software engineer Cal Paterson writes: Mozilla recently announced that they would be dismissing 250 people. That's a quarter of their workforce so there are some deep cuts to their work too. The victims include: the MDN docs (those are the web standards docs everyone likes better than w3schools), the Rust compiler and even some cuts to Firefox development. Like most people I want to see Mozilla do well but those three projects comprise pretty much what I think of as the whole point of Mozilla, so this news is a a big let down. The stated reason for the cuts is falling income. Mozilla largely relies on "royalties" for funding. In return for payment, Mozilla allows big technology companies to choose the default search engine in Firefox - the technology companies are ultimately paying to increase the number of searches Firefox users make with them. Mozilla haven't been particularly transparent about why these royalties are being reduced, except to blame the coronavirus. I'm sure the coronavirus is not a great help but I suspect the bigger problem is that Firefox's market share is now a tiny fraction of its previous size and so the royalties will be smaller too - fewer users, so fewer searches and therefore less money for Mozilla.

The real problem is not the royalty cuts, though. Mozilla has already received more than enough money to set themselves up for financial independence. Mozilla received up to half a billion dollars a year (each year!) for many years. The real problem is that Mozilla didn't use that money to achieve financial independence and instead just spent it each year, doing the organisational equivalent of living hand-to-mouth. Despite their slightly contrived legal structure as a non-profit that owns a for-profit, Mozilla are an NGO just like any other. In this article I want to apply the traditional measures that are applied to other NGOs to Mozilla in order to show what's wrong. These three measures are: overheads, ethics and results.

Google has announced that paid Chrome extensions will no longer be available and will be phased out over the next year. 9to5Google reports: Following a temporary suspension on paid extensions this year due to fraudulent transactions, Google will pull the plug on paid extensions entirely over the next several months. Developers haven't been able to submit new paid extensions since March, but this week's announcement confirms that paid extensions won't be coming back at all. Further, the free trial option offered by the Chrome Web Store will go away on December 1. On February 21, 2020, all paid Chrome extensions will lose access to payments through the Web Store. Sometime later in the year, too, Google will pull the plug on its licensing API that enables developers to verify that a user has actually paid for the extension.

For developers who still want to monetize their extensions, Google says they'll need to migrate to both another payment processor and a new licensing API: "The Chrome Web Store payments system is now deprecated and will be shut down over the coming months. There are many other ways to monetize your extensions, and if you currently use Chrome Web Store payments, you'll need to migrate to one of them."

seoras shares a report from the BBC: The mystery of why an entire village lost its broadband every morning at 7am was solved when engineers discovered an old television was to blame. An unnamed householder in Aberhosan, Powys, was unaware the old set would emit a signal which would interfere with the entire village's broadband. After 18 months engineers began an investigation after a cable replacement program failed to fix the issue. The embarrassed householder promised not to use the television again. The village now has a stable broadband signal. The engineers used a spectrum analyzer to help pinpoint the "electrical noise" that was causing the problem.

"At 7am, like clockwork, it happened," said engineer Michael Jones. "It turned out that at 7am every morning the occupant would switch on their old TV which would, in turn, knock out broadband for the entire village."

In addition to promising a $25,000 Tesla, Elon Musk unveiled its Model S Plaid, the new highest performance version of its flagship sedan. Electrek reports: The electric car is going to have over 520 miles of range, 200 mph top speed, and 0 to 60 mph acceleration in less than two seconds. The automaker lists the following features on its website:

- Quickest 0-60 mph and quarter-mile acceleration of any production car ever
- Acceleration from 0-60 mph: less than 2.0 s
- Quarter mile: less than 9.0 s
- Tri Motor All-Wheel Drive

In a quick video, Tesla briefly revealed the latest Model S Plaid prototype design. This new prototype appears to be significantly toned down versus the prototype unveiled last week and looks closer to the current Model S. Tesla is now taking orders for the vehicle, and it unveiled the price. It starts at $139,990 before options. Musk said that Tesla brought the Model S Plaid prototype to the Laguna Seca racetrack last weekend, and they achieved a 1:30 lap time. Last year, Tesla completed a lap in 1:36.55 with the prototype Model S Plaid. What about the $25,000 Tesla? Well, thanks to its various battery innovations, "We're confident we can make a very, very compelling $25,000 electric vehicle, that's also fully autonomous," Musk said. "And when you think about the $25,000 price point you have to consider how much less expensive it is to own an electric vehicle. So actually, it becomes even more affordable at that $25,000 price point."

At Tesla's Battery Day Event today, the company unveiled plans to develop a "tabless" battery cell that will make their EV batteries five times more energy dense, six times more powerful, and enable a 16 percent range increase for the company's vehicles. These new "tabless" cells, which Tesla is calling 4860 cells, are "close to working" at the pilot plant level, Musk said. The Verge reports: The company will produce its new batteries in-house, which Tesla CEO Elon Musk predicts will help dramatically reduce costs and allow the company to sell electric vehicles for the same price as gasoline-powered ones. The battery is expected to lower Tesla's cost per kilowatt-hour, the unit of energy most commonly used to measure the capacity of the battery packs in modern electric vehicles. Many experts believe that lowering these costs would allow Tesla to dramatically lower the price of its cars, thereby making them far more accessible. Musk's announcement that Tesla will begin manufacturing its own batteries should help with the shortages the company has experienced in the past with Panasonic and its other suppliers.

With that said, Tesla won't stop purchasing those batteries anytime soon. "In the run-up to Battery Day, Musk tweeted that the company would continue to use batteries supplied by Panasonic, China's CATL, LG Chem, and others," notes The Verge. "Not only that, but Tesla would buy more batteries from its suppliers than normal."

On August 7, 2019, Linux Journal laid off all staff members and was left with no operating funds to continue in any capacity. Today, the technology magazine announced that they've secured a deal to keep the site alive indefinitely under the ownership of Slashdot Media. Linux Journal writes: We will begin publishing digital content again as soon as we can. If you're a former Linux Journal contributor or a Linux enthusiast that would like to get involved, please contact us and let us know the capacity in which you'd like to contribute. We're looking for people to cover Linux news, create Linux guides, and moderate the community and comments. We'd also appreciate any other ideas or feedback you might have. Right now, we don't have any immediate plans to resurrect the subscription/issue model, and will be publishing exclusively on LinuxJournal.com free of charge. Our immediate goal is to familiarize ourself with the Linux Journal website and ensure it doesn't ever get shut down again.

We're ecstatic to be able to take the helm at Linux Journal, and ensure that this legendary Linux resource and community not only stays alive forever, but continues to grow and improve. Reach out if you'd like to get involved!

Microsoft suffered a rare cyber-security lapse earlier this month when the company's IT staff accidentally left one of Bing's backend servers exposed online. From a report: The server was discovered by Ata Hakcil, a security researcher at WizCase, who exclusively shared his findings with ZDNet last week. According to Hakcil's investigation, the server is believed to have exposed more than 6.5 TB of log files containing 13 billion records originating from the Bing search engine. The Wizcase researcher was able to verify his findings by locating search queries he performed in the Bing Android app in the server's logs. Hakcil said the server was exposed online from September 10 to September 16, when he notified the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC), and the server was secured again with a password. Reached out for comment last week, Microsoft admitted to the mistake.

YouTube said Tuesday that it has updated its technology to enable the tech giant to better enforce its age restriction policies. From a report: The company has been criticized and penalized for its policies and architecture that displayed harmful content to kids and violated children's data privacy. The company is announcing three new changes: It will begin using machine learning to automatically apply age restrictions to content on its platform around the world. It's using technology to identify age-restrictive content so that when viewers discover age-restricted videos embedded on most third-party websites, they will now be required to log in to watch those videos in order to verify their age. It will start to request that some users in Europe verify their age with a valid ID or credit card, in response to new EU regulations, like the Audiovisual Media Services Directive.

Microsoft today announced that it will exclusively license GPT-3, one of the most powerful language understanding models in the world, from AI startup OpenAI. From a report:> In a blog post, Microsoft EVP Kevin Scott said that the new deal will allow Microsoft to leverage OpenAI's technical innovations to develop and deliver AI solutions for customers, as well as create new solutions that harness the power of natural language generation. "We see this as an incredible opportunity to expand our Azure-powered AI platform in a way that democratizes AI technology, enables new products, services and experiences, and increases the positive impact of AI at scale," Scott wrote. "The scope of commercial and creative potential that can be unlocked through the GPT-3 model is profound, with genuinely novel capabilities -- most of which we haven't even imagined yet. Directly aiding human creativity and ingenuity in areas like writing and composition, describing and summarizing large blocks of long-form data (including code), converting natural language to another language -- the possibilities are limited only by the ideas and scenarios that we bring to the table." The implications of the licensing agreement weren't immediately clear, but Microsoft says that OpenAI will continue to offer GPT-3 and other models via its Azure-hosted API, launched in June.

Millions of employees now commute from their bed to a desk at home. After the initial euphoria of skipping smog-filled traffic jams and cramped train compartments, a new reality has dawned in which the work day blends into the rest of life, like a never-ending video conference call. Microsoft has a solution for this. From a report: The company's Teams collaboration software is adding the ability to schedule a "virtual commute." It won't start your car or ride the subway for you, but it will remind users about the end of the work day, suggest tasks to help workers wind down and create a little mental space before kids' homework, dinner, laundry and other obligations come crashing in. For example, Teams will prompt users to list tasks as completed or add them to tomorrow's to-do list, while asking workers to rate how their day went and suggesting guided meditation, through an integration with the Headspace app. Pandemic-related burnout and difficulty separating work and personal life has become a surprisingly common concern among Microsoft's corporate customers, according to Chief Marketing Officer Chris Capossela. "The thing we didn't predict that we've learned is now at the top of customers' mind is really the well-being of their employees," he said.