An anonymous reader shares a report: An exciting new vacancy has opened up that will likely tempt some IT leaders into freshening up their CV: the UK is recruiting a Government Chief Digital Officer (GCDO), who will be working at the highest levels of the Cabinet Office to lead the digital transformation of public services in the country. All of this and more, for 200,000 pound ($255,000) a year. The job is the biggest one in government tech so you'd expect the recruiters at the Cabinet Office to be deluged with applications from hyper-qualified aspiring GCDOs, who got tech goosebumps from just reading the role description. Yet strangely enough, the GCDO job has been open for almost a year now.

"We sought out candidates for a similar role last autumn," confirmed Alex Chisholm, the chief operating officer of the civil service, as he announced the new vacancy. And indeed, a similar vacancy went live last October albeit with a slightly different name -- Government Chief Digital Information Officer (GCDIO) -- but almost exactly the same responsibilities. In both versions of the job, the successful candidate is expected to "enhance Her Majesty's government's reputation as the world's most digitally-advanced government." This includes leading the Government Digital Service (GDS), a branch of the UK Cabinet Office dedicated to the digital transformation of government, and heading the 18,000-strong Digital, Data and Technology Profession department.

Beijing opposes a forced sale of TikTok's U.S. operations by its Chinese owner ByteDance, and would prefer to see the short video app shut down in the United States, Reuters reported Friday, citing three people with direct knowledge of the matter. From a report: ByteDance has been in talks to sell TikTok's U.S. business to potential buyers including Microsoft and Oracle since U.S. President Donald Trump threatened last month to ban the service if it was not sold. Trump has given ByteDance a deadline of mid September to finalise a deal. However, Chinese officials believe a forced sale would make both ByteDance and China appear weak in the face of pressure from Washington, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation. ByteDance said in a statement to Reuters that the Chinese government had never suggested to it that it should shut down TikTok in the United States or in any other markets. Two of the sources said China was willing to use revisions it made to a technology exports list on Aug. 28 to delay any deal reached by ByteDance, if it had to.

An anonymous reader writes: Newly released DOJ records show that multiple top members of Mueller's investigative team claimed to have "accidentally wiped" at least 15 phones used during the anti-Trump investigation after the DOJ OIG asked for the devices to be handed over.

rastos1 writes: Starting with Windows Insiders preview build 20211, WSL 2 will be offering a new feature: wsl --mount. This new parameter allows a physical disk to be attached and mounted inside WSL 2, which enables you to access filesystems that aren't natively supported by Windows (such as ext4).

Facebook sought to derail proposals by the Irish data protection watchdog that the tech giant warns could curb transfers of vast amounts of commercial data across the Atlantic. From a report: The social network giant said it sought a judicial review of the Irish Data Protection Commission's preliminary decision that the company may have to halt trans-Atlantic data transfers using the most commonly used EU tool still available to firms. "A lack of safe, secure and legal international data transfers would have damaging consequences for the European economy," Facebook said in a statement Friday. "We urge regulators to adopt a pragmatic and proportionate approach until a sustainable long-term solution can be reached." In an investigation into Facebook's data transfers, the Irish authority told the company that so-called standard contractual clauses "cannot in practice be used for EU-US data transfers," according to a blog post by Facebook this week.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Launched in 2009, AmazonBasics has grown to offer more than 5,000 products, according to the retailer. Its mission: identifying everyday items that Amazon can create at a similar or higher quality and lower price point when compared to existing name brands -- a strategy also employed by companies such as Costco and Target. A growing number of AmazonBasics products, which the company promotes heavily on its site, have become bestsellers since the line's inception, and many have ratings above four stars, according to Marketplace Pulse research. In recent months, the online retailer's sales have been soaring as millions of Americans have been staying at home -- and in many cases working remotely -- during the ongoing pandemic.

But consumers have raised serious safety concerns about AmazonBasics items in complaints to government regulators and in reviews posted on Amazon's own website. Since 2016, at least 1,500 reviews, covering more than 70 items, have described products exploding, catching on fire, smoking, melting, causing electrical malfunctions or otherwise posing risks, according to an analysis of AmazonBasics electronics and appliances listed on its website. The reviews identified represent a small fraction of the overall purchases of the products, and fires caused by consumer electronics are not unique to Amazon branded items. User error can also be a factor, as can faulty or aging wiring within a home or a defective device being used in conjunction with the product. But when well-made and used properly by consumers, electronics like those sold under the AmazonBasics name should rarely pose dangers, said electrical engineers interviewed by CNN.

The apocalyptic orange sky in San Francisco Wednesday was the talk of the town -- and well beyond. However, many people found their efforts to capture the surreal images stymied, as their iPhones "corrected" the smoke-filled sky to a more natural hue. Axios reports: Smartphone cameras do a great job in many situations thanks to software that automatically tries to improve a shot's composition, focus, and settings like white and color balance. But those adjustments can also get in the way of capturing what's unique about some of life's most vivid images. After waking up to the orange sky, I first tried to shoot out my back door, but found my iPhone was adjusting the sky to a much more common gray. On social media, I saw lots of others having the same experience with both still and video coming from their phones. In all cases I used the device's default settings. Bloomberg reporter Sarah Frier said she used the app Halide to avoid the iPhone's color correction. Halide, aware that many people were using the app yesterday to take photos of the orange skies, says: "It feels wrong to benefit from this, so we are donating yesterday's sales to our local Wildfire Relief Fund."

According to Engadget, Motorola's brand-new Razr sports an improved design, support for 5G, and corrects many of the issues the first model was notorious for. Chris Velazco writes: Motorola was always clear that the Razr is a "design-first" device, and it went to great lengths to recreate the visual vibe that its classic flip phones ran with for its first foldable. To pack some much-needed extras into this new model, though, Motorola had to make some changes: The new Razr is a little chubbier, and a features a "chin" that's a bit less prominent than the original's. Personally, these changes are enough to make the Razr just a little less visually striking, but they're worth it when you consider what Motorola could pack in here as a result.

For one, Motorola squeezed a better camera into the Razr's top half. My biggest gripe with the original Razr's 16-megapixel rear shooter wasn't that it was bad, per se -- it just wasn't great compared to every other camera you'd find in a similarly priced phone. In response, Motorola chose a 48-megapixel camera for this new model, which should improve photo quality substantially. The somewhat pokey Snapdragon 710 found in the first Razr also is gone, replaced here by a more modern Snapdragon 765G and 8GB of RAM. As I said, we're not working with flagship power here, but the new Razr has everything it needs to run much more smoothly this time around.

By now, it might sound like Motorola has improved this new Razr on all fronts, and that's very nearly true. There are only a few things Motorola didn't change here, like its 6.2-inch flexible internal display. It's the exact same panel they used last time, and while that's not necessarily a bad thing, I was still hoping a second-gen Razr screen would run at a resolution higher than 876 x 2,142. Maybe more curious is the fact that, in the United States anyway, Motorola just plans to call this phone the "Razr," and doesn't plan to differentiate it from the Verizon-only model it released earlier this year. "[I]t's still not a flagship phone, and at $1400 we're not sure it's a great deal either," Velazco says. "But for people who want an extremely pocket-friendly foldable that's also usable while closed, Motorola just might be on the right track."

Life is totally online -- we need ways to politely disconnect. From a report: I spend most Thursdays heads down writing. The task is one that, at least for me, requires absolute focus, a quality that I have to essentially beg some corner of my brain to extend to me for a few hours. This usually fails, making the draft take twice as long as it has to. Even now, my phone is lighting up with a text; several Twitter direct messages are awaiting my response; I have an email open in another tab that I actually want to answer. There are a number of things I could do, some of which I've suggested in other columns, like turning off notifications (off for everything but texts, at the moment) and setting an alarm that dictates when I can look at any social media (I usually do this by the hour). Both methods help, but there's a tool that, if more readily available and widely used, would make perhaps the biggest difference of all: away messages.

In the glory days of online communication (2002 to 2009, in my rough, highly personal estimation), away messages were popular on AOL's instant messaging service and acted a bit like digital Post-it notes stuck to a door: messages that would pop up next to a user's handle indicating that a person was unavailable to chat. Yet they've largely fallen to the wayside, foregone in favor of constant connectivity that's distracting and stressful. If I could easily apply away messages to iMessage, Twitter, and any other form of messaging app or social network, I'd rest easy while drafting, comforted by the fact that anyone trying to reach me will know by my away message that it'll be some time before I respond. Anything that makes it easier to disconnect and focus on work will help ensure that you're able to accomplish tasks in a more efficient manner and, ideally, get done earlier. As it stands, every distraction -- a text message, checking your email, whatever -- comes at a high cost, causing you to lose time that you could have spent on getting your shit done instead. Notifications and quick message checks can be highly distracting, because it takes time for your brain to fully focus on a task.

An anonymous reader quotes a report: IEEE Spectrum got an exclusive look at General Motors' wireless battery management system. It's a first in any EV anywhere (not even Tesla has one). The wireless technology, created with Analog Devices, Inc., will be standard on a full range of GM EVs, with the company aiming for at least 1 million global sales by mid-decade. Those vehicles will be powered by GM's proprietary Ultium batteries, produced at a new US $2.3 billion plant in Ohio, in partnership with South Korea's LG Chem. Unlike today's battery modules, which link up to an on-board management system through a tangle of orange wiring, GM's system features RF antennas integrated on circuit boards. The antennas allow the transfer of data via a 2.4-gigahertz wireless protocol similar to Bluetooth but with lower power. Slave modules report back to an onboard master, sending measurements of cell voltages and other data. That onboard master can also talk through the cloud to GM.

The upshot is cradle-to-grave monitoring of battery health and operation, including real-time data from drivers in wildly different climates or usage cases. That all-seeing capability includes vast inventories of batteries -- even before workers install them in cars on assembly lines. GM can essentially plug-and-play battery modules for a vast range of EVs, including heavy-duty trucks and sleek performance cars, without having to redesign wiring harnesses or communications systems for each. That can help the company speed models to market and ensure the profitability that has eluded most EV makers. GM engineers and executives said they've driven the cost of Ultium batteries, with their nickel-cobalt-manganese-aluminum chemistry, below the $100 per kilowatt-hour mark -- long a Holy Grail for battery development. And GM has vowed that it will turn a profit on every Ultium-powered car it makes. The system features end-to-end encryption and the software and battery nodes can be reprogrammed over-the-air.

"Repurposing partially spent batteries also gets easier because there's no need to overhaul the management system or fiddle with hard-to-recycle wiring," the report adds. "Wireless packs can go straight into their new roles, typically as load-balancing workhorses for the grid."

On a call with reporters Wednesday, TikTok executives said they were revealing details of their algorithm and data practices to dispel myths and rumors about the company. Axios reports: TikTok's algorithm uses machine learning to determine what content a user is most likely to engage with and serve them more of it, by finding videos that are similar or that are liked by people with similar user preferences. When users open TikTok for the first time, they are shown 8 popular videos featuring different trends, music, and topics. After that, the algorithm will continue to serve the user new iterations of 8 videos based on which videos the user engages with and what the user does. The algorithm identifies similar videos to those that have engaged a user based on video information, which could include details like captions, hashtags or sounds. Recommendations also take into account user device and account settings, which include data like language preference, country setting, and device type.

Once TikTok collects enough data about the user, the app is able to map a user's preferences in relation to similar users and group them into "clusters." Simultaneously, it also groups videos into "clusters" based on similar themes, like "basketball" or "bunnies." Using machine learning, the algorithm serves videos to users based on their proximity to other clusters of users and content that they like. TikTok's logic aims to avoid redundancies that could bore the user, like seeing multiple videos with the same music or from the same creator.

TikTok concedes that its ability to nail users' preferences so effectively means that its algorithm can produce "filter bubbles," reinforcing users' existing preferences rather than showing them more varied content, widening their horizons, or offering them opposing viewpoints. The company says that it's studying filter bubbles, including how long they last and how a user encounters them, to get better at breaking them when necessary. Since filter bubbles can reinforce conspiracy theories, hoaxes and other misinformation, TikTok's product and policy teams study which accounts and video information -- themes, hashtags, captions, and so on -- might be linked to misinformation. Videos or creators linked to misinformation are sent to the company's global content reviewers so they can be managed before they are distributed to users on the main feed, which is called the "For You" page.

Google said it will block some autocomplete search suggestions to stop misinformation spreading online during the U.S. presidential election in November. From a report The autocomplete feature of the world's largest search engine regularly recommends full queries once users begin typing words. The company said on Thursday it will remove predictions that could be interpreted as claims for or against any candidate or political party. In addition, Google said it will pull claims from the autocomplete feature about participation in the election, including statements about voting methods, requirements, the status of voting locations and election security. For instance, if you type in "you can vote" into Google's search engine, the system may have suggested a full query that includes misleading or incorrect information. Typing those three words into Google on Thursday produced the full phrase "You can vote yourself into socialism" as the top recommended query.

Following the official release of Android 11 earlier this week, Google also has some updates in store for the stripped-down version of Android designed for phones with lower specs. From a report For Android 11 (Go Edition), the most important upgrade is just generally speedier performance, with Google claiming that apps will launch 20% faster in Android 11 Go compared to Android 10 Go. Meanwhile, when it comes to messaging, Android 11 Go is also getting a dedicated section for conversations in the notification tray, so you can see all your ongoing texts in one place, regardless of the specific app. On top of that, Android 11 Go is also getting Google's gesture-based navigation just like vanilla Android 11. Instead of a row of buttons along the bottom of the screen, you can swipe up to go home, swipe in from either side to go back, or swipe up and hold to see your recently used apps.

Also, with digital privacy becoming increasingly important, Google is giving Android 11 Go more granular security settings including the ability to grant apps access to hardware like cameras, microphones, or GPS on a one-time basis. And when it comes to apps you haven't used in a long time, Android 11 Go will automatically reset app permissions to prevent old settings that you've probably forgotten about from comprising your security. But perhaps the biggest change for Android 11 Go is that previously, Go Editions of Android were limited to phones with 1GB of RAM. However, with smartphone memory becoming cheaper and more accessible, Android 11 Go has been updated to support phones with up to 2GB of RAM.

Facebook is getting back to its roots as a college-focused social network. The company announced today the launch of a new social networking platform, Facebook Campus, which offers college students a private place to connect with classmates, join groups, discover upcoming campus events, get updates from their school's administration and chat with other students from their dorm, clubs or any other campus group. From a report: The new platform requires a school email address (@.edu) to join and will live within a dedicated section of the Facebook app. It will be accessible from a tab at the bottom of the screen or from the "More" menu alongside sections like Watch, Dating, Gaming, News, Marketplace and others. "We wanted to create a product where it was easy for classmates to meet each other, foster new relationships and also easily start conversations," explains Facebook Campus Product Manager Charmaine Hung. "And we really think that Campus is more relevant than ever right now. With COVID-19, we see that many students aren't returning to campus in the fall. Now, classes are being held online and students are trying to react to this new normal of what it's like to connect to clubs and organizations that you care about, when you're not together," she added.

Huawei has announced the second version of its HarmonyOS operating system and detailed plans to bring it to a wider range of devices, including smartphones. Consumer business CEO Richard Yu made the announcement today at Huawei's developer conference in Shenzhen, China. From a report: Huawei will make a beta version of the HarmonyOS 2.0 SDK available to developers today, though it'll initially only support smartwatches, car head units, and TVs. A smartphone version of the SDK will follow in December 2020, and Yu hinted that phones running HarmonyOS might appear next year. Huawei is also kicking off its OpenHarmony project, which allows developers to build upon an open-source version of the OS -- similar to what AOSP is to Android. As of today the project only supports devices with 128MB of RAM or below, but that'll expand to 4GB in April of next year, and the memory limit will be removed completely by October 2021.

Future cars will, by and large, say goodbye to analog gauges as digital clusters and more screens become mainstream. CNET reports: Big screens at least 12 inches large, virtual assistants powered by artificial intelligence and both video and game streaming will all trickle down to hundreds of millions of cars by 2030, ABI Research believes. We don't want to know what this will do the average cost of a new vehicle. With the advanced technologies, cars will become even more like rolling computers, the researchers believe. A single ECU will, in the future, control everything from front and rear seat infotainment, advanced driver assist functions, the digital instrument cluster and more. ABI Research named a few companies, Nvidia, Qualcomm and others, that will likely shine as automakers tap them for powerful processors to handle so many tasks. And not only that, but they'll have reserves to ensure there's extra computing power for features rolled out via over-the-air software updates.

The United States can generate affordable electricity without producing carbon dioxide emissions by 2035 by deploying hydrogen or carbon capture technology, according to a report released on Wednesday by a climate policy think tank. Reuters reports: The report by California-based Energy Innovatihere which researches ways to combat global warming, highlighted five scenarios for the United States to generate 100% clean energy in 15 years, without raising power costs. Three rely on the deployment of green hydrogen technology and two rely on capturing CO2 emissions from existing power plants. "These are real technologies that are not yet deployed at scale, but they are not a fantasy. We have 15 years to get there," said Sonia Aggarwal, one of the report's authors. The analysis builds on a report produced by Energy Innovation earlier this year with the University of California Berkeley that said power-sector emissions can be cut 90% by 2035 by deploying more solar, wind, and battery storage. A Reuters review of the plans of the country's top power producers showed many are relying on natural gas-fired power to supplement increased reliance on renewables. Aggarwal said its analysis shows no new gas power plants are needed.

An anonymous reader shares an opinion piece from The New York Times, written by Neil Shister, author of "Radical Ritual: How Burning Man Changed the World." Here's an excerpt: In perhaps the ultimate test of whether the internet can satisfyingly replicate the real world, Burning Man has gone online this year. The notion isn't as much of a mismatch as it might seem. Larry Harvey, who helped start Burning Man on a San Francisco beach in 1986 and was its guiding luminary until his death in 2018, saw himself as a social engineer. He envisioned a landscape of limitless possibility where people could, at least temporarily, liberate themselves from the numbing confines of commodified art, entertainment and even lifestyle. What has more limitless possibility -- in theory, anyway -- than the internet? Indeed, a community famous for innovation (some trace the origins of maker culture to Burning Man) and deeply endowed with tech wizardry (Elon Musk famously said Burning Man "is Silicon Valley") adapted to the pandemic by creating a virtual Burning Man known as the Multiverse. The weeklong assemblage of eight digital platforms, which anyone can view free, went live at 12:01 a.m. on the last Monday in August, the traditional time Black Rock City (the name of the makeshift town where Burning Man takes place) opens its gates with a burst of fireworks.

The Multiverse maintains much of the energy, abundance and wonder of the real thing. One's cursor wanders among detailed renditions of Black Rock City that, for anyone who has been there, are eerily familiar: the layout of the camps, the signature structures and the cracked desert floor. Hover over an icon on the screen and the avatar of a Burner appears playing music he or she programmed. Digital art pieces installed by Burners surface when you click on planted flags. Visitors move through the Temple, an island of spiritual contemplation amid the playa's cacophony, by connecting glowing colored orbs into meditative patterns. You can attend workshops, which often include chat rooms for serendipitous encounters. But what's missing are adequate simulations of the vulnerability, discomfort and gratitude so central to Burning Man's existential qualities. Those fabled personal transformations typically arise from reappraisals of the self-image you brought to Black Rock City. You discover more creativity, self-reliance, flexibility, generosity -- even love -- than you thought you possessed. Or less. "You don't always get the Burn you want," a playa adage goes, "but you always get the Burn you need."

Black Rock City continually serves up opportunities to examine one's internal guidance system. The Multiverse doesn't offer this kind of introspection. There's no app that replicates the dread of loneliness or the relief of forgiveness -- familiar emotions at Burning Man. Which isn't to say that won't happen someday. As artificial-reality techniques advance, as the psychodynamics of cyberspace become more sophisticated in integrating the brain with virtual technology, it may one day be possible to elicit feelings associated with the self-governance, communal trust, gifting and fun that make Burning Man such a singular experience.

TikTok's Chinese parent, ByteDance, is discussing with the U.S. government possible arrangements that would allow the popular video-sharing app to avoid a full sale of its U.S. operations, WSJ reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. From a report: Discussions around such an option, under way for months, have assumed increased urgency since the Chinese government took steps that make a sale more difficult, the people said. They take place against a fast-approaching deadline that President Trump imposed for TikTok to agree to a sale of its U.S. operations or else be shut down, and as geopolitical wrangling over the app intensifies. A number of options remain on the table, the situation is fluid and a sale is still a possibility, the people said. Even if there isn't a full sale, the outcome would likely involve some sort of restructuring of TikTok, one of the people said. The main concern for government officials involved in the talks has been the security of TikTok's data and keeping it out of reach of the Chinese government, said people familiar with the negotiations.

Walmart said on Wednesday it would run a pilot project for delivery of grocery and household products through automated drones, along with end-to-end delivery firm Flytrex, as the U.S. retailer looks to beef up its delivery business. CNBC reports: Bentonville, Arkansas-based Walmart said the test would start on Wednesday in Fayetteville, North Carolina, with cloud-controlled drones picking up and dropping off select items. "We know that it will be some time before we see millions of packages delivered via drone. That still feels like a bit of science fiction," Tom Ward, senior vice-president, customer products, said in a statement.