The Federal Bureau of Investigation sent a private industry notification (PIN) on Monday to partners in the US private sector about the dangers of continuing to use Windows 7 after the operating system reached its official end-of-life (EOL) earlier this year. From a report: "The FBI has observed cyber criminals targeting computer network infrastructure after an operating system achieves end of life status," the agency said. "Continuing to use Windows 7 within an enterprise may provide cyber criminals access in to computer systems. As time passes, Windows 7 becomes more vulnerable to exploitation due to lack of security updates and new vulnerabilities discovered. "With fewer customers able to maintain a patched Windows 7 system after its end of life, cyber criminals will continue to view Windows 7 as a soft target," the FBI warned. The Bureau is now asking companies to look into upgrading their workstations to newer versions of the Windows operating system.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Anthony Levandowski, the former Google engineer and serial entrepreneur who was at the center of a lawsuit between Uber and Waymo, has been sentenced to 18 months on one count of stealing trade secrets. Judge Alsup said that home confinement would "[give] a green light to every future brilliant engineer to steal trade secrets. Prison time is the answer to that." During court proceedings today, Levandowski also agreed to pay $756,499.22 in restitution to Google and a fine of $95,000.

"Today marks the end of three and a half long years and the beginning of another long road ahead. I'm thankful to my family and friends for their continued love and support during this difficult time," Levandowski said in a statement provided by his attorneys after the sentencing. The sentencing is the latest in a series of legal blows that have seen Levandowski vilified as a thieving tech bro, unceremoniously ejected from Uber, and forced into bankruptcy by a $179 million award against him. And yet, Levandowski is not skulking away. Even as he faced years in prison, the maverick engineer was plotting a comeback that could see him netting upwards of $4 billion from Uber.

TechCrunch has learned that Levandowski recently filed a lawsuit making explosive claims against Waymo and Uber that, if proven, could turn his fortunes around with a multi-billion dollar payout. Whether this is a last-ditch effort by a desperate man whose career has been upended by his own poor choices or a viable claim against a double-dealing tech titan, will be up to the courts to decide. This new lawsuit, filed as part of Levandowski's bankruptcy proceedings, mostly focuses on Uber's agreement to indemnify Levandowski against legal action when it bought his self-trucking company, Otto Trucking. It also includes new allegations concerning the settlement that Waymo and Uber reached over trade secret theft claims.

Honda is recalling 608,000 vans and SUVs because of faulty software that can, among other things, cause the backup camera to fail and the driver display to malfunction or reboot. The recalls will begin on September 23rd. The Verge reports: Certain 2018-2020 Odysseys, 2019-2020 Passports, and 2019-2021 Pilots were outfitted with "[i]ncorrect instrument panel control module software" that can cause the display to not show critical information like speed, engine oil pressure, and gear selector position until the car is turned off and on again. The displays can also randomly reboot, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The malfunctioning software can also prevent the backup camera feed from showing up. Honda will notify owners, but they'll have to get the software reprogrammed by a dealer. No easy over-the-air software fix here.

Another recall involves 500,000 of those same vehicles -- the 2019-2021 Pilots and the 2019-2020 Passports again, but only 2019-2020 Odysseys. These vehicles also have a problem with their "[i]ncorrect central network software programming" that can cause "several errors to occur that can delay or prevent the rearview camera image from displaying." The issue can also mess with the in-car audio. Owners of these cars will have the option of either downloading an over-the-air fix or visiting a dealer. Honda also announced two other recalls on Tuesday for some of these vehicles. Some 2019-2020 Odysseys were outfitted with faulty backup cameras that have developed distorted images over time, while 2018-2020 Odysseys may have a problem with the sliding door latching.

Padraig Belton from the BBC writes about how house hunters are using virtual-reality headsets to tour homes in the age of coronavirus. From the report: It's not for everyone as, at the moment, house hunters have to use their own headsets. But Giles Milner, marketing director at estate agent Chestertons, says he will sometimes send buyers headsets for new-build properties, if a development has multiple near-identical apartments with some still being built. "Developers are often selling off-plan, and it's hard to sell a product just on a 2D floor plan," he says. "So developers these days have virtual tours budgeted in from the start." Once you have a headset, it's a fairly simple process to find a virtual property on the estate agent's website, using a hand controller to work a virtual keyboard.

It's still a fairly limited option, at the moment just 8% of Zoopla's listings have an option for a virtual tour. But Zoopla says there was a surge of activity during the first month of lockdown, when virtual reality (VR) viewings of new-build properties tripled. [...] Virtual reality offers greater detail than the traditional photos on a website. It also saves time for estate agents and is safer for everyone: "The last thing you want is for your staff members to get struck down with Covid-19," Mr Shipside says. Growing adoption of VR viewing also makes life easier for clients moving internationally, when travel back and forth is hard. Buyers from mainland China looking at homes in Singapore have to observe the country's strict fortnight quarantine on nearly all arrivals. So it makes sense to treat buying a house "just like online shopping," says Christopher Wang, founder of Imme VR, a Singaporean virtual-reality property company.

A coming use of all this technology is letting prospective sellers find their property's value without estate agents visiting. Another will be letting possible buyers see a property as if it had their furniture already installed in the home. Having this record of your property's contents and their condition is especially beneficial if you ever have to submit an insurance claim -- for something stolen, or fire or flood damage. Another use will be in getting quotes from builders. Instead of contractors measuring and taking photos, going away and coming back with bids, a digital twin could instead let more contractors bid on the work -- giving power to the homeowner.

It was rumored last week and now it's official: the European Commission announced it is launching an in-depth antitrust investigation into Google's $2.1 billion bid for Fitbit. CNN reports: The European Union's top antitrust regulator said it is concerned that the takeover would further strengthen Google's market position in online advertising by "increasing the already vast amount of data that Google could use for personalization of the ads it serves and displays." Google announced it was buying Fitbit, the world's leading maker of wearable fitness activity trackers, in November. The deal, worth about $2.1 billion, is one of Google's largest acquisitions and represents an important step for the company into smartwatches and other wearable devices.

The Commission had already launched a preliminary investigation into the transaction. It said a commitment by Google not to use Fitbit data for advertising purposes was insufficient to address the concerns identified in the initial probe. The Commission's top antitrust official, Margrethe Vestager, said in a statement that the use of wearable devices by European consumers, as well as the data generated by them, is expected to grow significantly. "Our investigation aims to ensure that control by Google over data collected through wearable devices as a result of the transaction does not distort competition," Vestager said. In a blog post, Google Senior Vice President for Devices and Services Rick Osterloh said the deal "is about devices, not data," a market he said is full of competition. "We've been clear from the beginning that we will not use Fitbit health and wellness data for Google ads," Osterloh said. "We recently offered to make a legally binding commitment to the European Commission regarding our use of Fitbit data. As we do with all our products, we will give Fitbit users the choice to review, move or delete their data."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: The next generation of Amazon's Scout bots -- the fully-electric autonomous delivery devices the company is hoping to deploy soon -- is currently being designed and built by a team of mechanical engineers in Seattle, and not in the most orthodox of settings. Instead of working in sleek labs, Amazon's engineers have effectively resorted to re-arranging their homes and garages to accommodate the development of the sophisticated piece of technology the Scout bot is promising to be.

The cooler-sized bot is already deployed in a handful of US cities where it is being tested, albeit always accompanied by a human. And to make sure that Scout bots ever reach the next stage of development, Amazon's team had to work their way around the new restrictions suddenly imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, engineers need a lot more than a decent internet connection to be able to work remotely. In early March, therefore, Seattle-based Amazon mechanical engineer Jeff Gorges transformed his garage into an R&D lab of motors and wheels in anticipation of office closures. Since then, Gorges has been iterating the bot from his garage workbench, testing various new features by driving the device around his patio. The new Scout bot has now been assembled and debugged by Gorges, all from the comfort from his own home. Amazon's Canvas robotics team, which works on small autonomous carts that use spatial AI to move items through the company's fulfillment centers, moved their testing and manufacturing equipment from their office and lab space to several team members' homes.

"With the new tools set up in their apartment living rooms, hardware engineers were able to build and assemble the sub-components for the carts, and then to pass the prototypes onto an R&D technician's home, who set up test and safety systems from his garage," reports ZDNet. "The robots were then sent to a computer vision scientist who worked on calibrating the devices' cameras by reconstructing the carts' future surroundings in the fulfillment center in 3D. All in all, six robots circulated through seven team members home, with precautions taken to disinfect the devices on each transition."

A user shares a report from Electrek: Tesla's wiper controls through its touchscreen have been ruled illegal in Germany after someone crashed their Model 3 while using them and fought a fine and driving ban through the court system. A Tesla Model 3 driver got into an accident while using the touchscreen to adjust the speed of the automatic windshield wipers. In Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, Tesla didn't install normal windshield wiper settings through a steering wheel stalk. Instead, the automaker is detecting the rain through its Autopilot cameras and automatically adjusting the speed based on the strength of the rainfall. If the driver wants to adjust the speed, they need to do it through the center touchscreen. The driver in Germany was adjusting those settings when he lost control of the vehicle and crashed. A local district court gave him a fine and a one-month driving ban and that's where the problem started for Tesla. He decided to fight the punishment -- bringing the case to the Higher Regional Court (OLG). "It comes as no surprise that enlightened Germans would be the first to rule Tesla's poly engineered cars a road hazard," adds the Slashdot reader. "Touch screen interfaces have no place in cars."

In Disney's earnings call today, CEO Bob Chapek said there are now 60.5 million global subscribers to Disney+, reaching the 60 million-90 million range it told investors it would get to by 2024. Deadline reports: He also said today that Mulan, long in limbo amid the COVID-19 pandemic, will debut September 24 on Disney+ for $24.99, a new wrinkle for the streamer. Disney also announced it will launch a new streaming service internationally under its Star brand and using Disney's own content, starting in September. After rising from 54.5 million subscribers as of the beginning of May, Disney+ reached 57.5 million subscribers by the end of June before surpassing the 60M mark in the last couple of days.

The overall results came up short of Wall Street analysts' expectations of a loss of 64 cents per share and total revenue of $12.4 billion. Disney has already reached its five-year target for Disney+ global subscribers less than nine months after launching the $7-a-month service. While it is a far more targeted offering than Amazon Prime Video or Hulu, it has quickly vaulted into the No. 2 spot in the subscription streaming game after Netflix, which has nearly 193 million global subscribers. When the company reported its last batch of quarterly results in May, Disney said it had 54.5 million Disney+ subscribers, up from 33.5 million as of March 28. Hulu, which Disney has controlled since the spring of 2019, had 32.1 million total subscribers at the end of the March quarter. Hulu, the company said in its fiscal third-quarter earnings report, now has 35.5 million subscribers to its on-demand service and live TV bundle combined, while ESPN+ is now at 8.5 million, more than triple its level a year ago.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Twitter is facing a Federal Trade Commission probe and believes it will likely owe a fine of up to $250 million after being caught using phone numbers intended for two-factor authentication for advertising purposes. The company received a draft complaint from the FTC on July 28, it disclosed in its regular quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange commission. The complaint alleges that Twitter is in violation of its 2011 settlement with the FTC over the company's "failure to safeguard personal information."

That agreement included a provision banning Twitter from "misleading consumers about the extent to which it protects the security, privacy, and confidentiality of nonpublic consumer information, including the measures it takes to prevent unauthorized access to nonpublic information and honor the privacy choices made by consumers." In October 2019, however, Twitter admitted that phone numbers and email addresses users provided it with for the purpose of securing their accounts were also used "inadvertently" for advertising purposes between 2013 and 2019. In the filing, Twitter estimates the "range of probable loss" it faces in the probe is between $150 million and $250 million, although it adds that "the matter remains unresolved, and there can be no assurance as to the timing or the terms of any final outcome."

It will finally be slightly easier to share files, images, links, and other content between Android devices. Google is launching a new Android feature called "Nearby Share" that enables direct sharing between any device running Android 6 and up. Nearby Share is already available on some Pixel and Samsung phones, and Google says it'll arrive on other devices "over the next few weeks." From a report: Nearby Share works very much like Apple's AirDrop feature for the iPhone: you simply select the Nearby Share button on the share menu and then wait for a nearby phone to appear. Then whatever thing you're sharing is sent directly over your transfer method of choice to the other phone. As with AirDrop, you can set your preferred visibility for Nearby Share to different levels of contacts: all, some, or stay hidden. Google says it's even possible to "send and receive files anonymously." (Welcome to AirSlothing, Android users.) Nearby Share also shares files directly via whatever method your two phones deem is fastest: "Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy, WebRTC or peer-to-peer Wi-Fi," which Google says should allow it to work offline.

Apple announced on Tuesday that longtime marketing boss Phil Schiller will step down from his role and be replaced by one of his deputies, Greg Joswiak, who now has Schiller's former title of vice president of worldwide marketing. From a report: Schiller will continue to work at Apple as an "Apple Fellow," the company said, and will continue his role as the boss of Apple's App Store and company events. Schiller will also continue to report to Apple CEO Tim Cook. Schiller has worked at Apple since 1987. "I'll keep working here as long as they will have me, I bleed six colors, but I also want to make some time in the years ahead for my family, friends, and a few personal projects I care deeply about," Schiller said in a statement. Schiller's departure from his formal role on Apple's leadership team comes following several other notable departures over the last couple years, including head of design Jony Ive, PR boss Steve Dowling and retail boss Angela Ahrendts. But Apple also made an addition to its exec team in that time period with John Giannandrea, the head of artificial intelligence.

An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla today started rolling out Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP) 2.0 in Firefox. While the company technically launched Firefox 79 for Windows, Mac, and Linux last week, it only unveiled its marquee feature today. Firefox 79 by default blocks redirect tracking, also known as bounce tracking, and adds a handful of new developer features. [...] Since enabling Enhanced Tracking Protection by default, Mozilla says it has blocked 3.4 trillion tracking cookies. But the company notes the ad industry has since created workarounds and new ways to collect user data as you browse the web.

The last dance is looming for Google Play Music, the subscription service that will be fully subsumed into YouTube Music by December 2020, the internet company announced. From a report: In streamlining its music offerings, Google is coming down the home stretch of a months-long migration of users from Google Play Music -- which will start shutting down in September -- to the YouTube Music app. In May, the company launched a migration tool (available at music.youtube.com/transfer) that lets Google Play Music customers transfer their music libraries to YouTube Music. Starting in September 2020 in New Zealand and South Africa -- and in October for all other global markets -- users will no longer be able to stream from or use the Google Play Music app. However, according to Google, it will retain users' playlists, uploads, purchases, likes and other data until December 2020 to give them time to transfer to YouTube Music. After the end of the year, Google Play Music libraries will no longer be available.

AmiMoJo writes: Starting at the end of July, Microsoft has begun detecting HOSTS files that block Windows 10 telemetry servers as a 'Severe' security risk. Windows 10 users are reporting that Windows Defender had started detectingmodified HOSTS files as a 'SettingsModifier:Win32/HostsFileHijack' threat. So it seems that Microsoft had recently updated their Microsoft Defender definitions to detect when their servers were added to the HOSTS file. Users who utilize HOSTS files to block Windows 10 telemetry suddenly caused them to see the HOSTS file hijack detection. Users who intentionally modify their HOSTS file can allow this 'threat,' but it may enable all HOSTS modifications, even malicious ones, going forward.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: As promised, popular weather app Dark Sky ended support for Android and Wear OS over the weekend. Android Dark Sky users report that the app is no longer working and that it presents the user with a message saying that the "app has shut down." The impending shutdown was first announced when Apple acquired the company in March of this year. Despite the end of support for the world's most popular mobile operating system, Dark Sky's developers wrote in a blog post announcing the acquisition that joining Apple means they could "reach far more people, with far more impact, than we ever could alone."

The Dark Sky Android app is not the only popular service on the chopping block as a result of the acquisition. Several app developers on both iOS and Android have used Dark Sky's API for weather data for a while now, but like Android support, that's going away. There's a little more time in that case, though: developers have until the end of next year to find and implement alternative data sources. When the acquisition was first announced, Dark Sky was slated to stop working on Android on July 1. That deadline was extended by one month, but it went into effect as planned on August 1. The Web version of Dark Sky was scheduled to end today, but Apple has extended that deadline, though embeds have been disabled. A new date for the Web shutdown has not been specified. That version will remain an option for Android users for now until it, too, stops working.

The Federal Aviation Administration said on Monday that it is proposing requiring four key Boeing 737 MAX design changes to address safety issues seen in two crashes that killed 346 people and led to the plane's grounding in March 2019. Al Jazeera reports: The agency is issuing a proposed airworthiness directive to require updated flight-control software, revised display-processing software to generate alerts, revising certain flight-crew operating procedures, and changing the routing of some wiring bundles. The announcement is significant, but there are still other major steps, including finalizing pilot-training procedures, that must be completed before the 737 MAX can resume flights. The public has 45 days to comment on the changes, and it is still unclear if flights will resume before the end of 2020.

The FAA said in a separate 96-page report released on Monday that it "has preliminarily determined that Boeing's proposed changes to the 737 MAX design, flight crew procedures and maintenance procedures effectively mitigate the airplane-related safety issues" in the two fatal crashes. The airworthiness directive seeks to require Boeing changes. The FAA said the changes minimize "dependence on pilot action and the effect of any potential single failure."

Christine Ro from the BBC writes about the private agents in Japan, called "wakaresaseya," that you can hire to seduce your spouse or their partner. From the report: The industry is still serving a niche market. One survey showed around 270 wakaresaseya agencies advertising online. Many are attached to private-detective firms, similar to private investigators in other countries (who can also become entangled in relationship dissolution). "Wakaresaseya service costs quite a lot of money," acknowledges [Yusuke Mochizuki, an agent of the "farewell shop" First Group], so clients tend to be well-off. Mochizuki, a former musician who has turned his lifelong interest in detective work into a career, says that he might charge 400,000 yen for a relatively straightforward case in which there's plenty of information about the target's activities, but more if the target is, for example, a recluse. Fees can go as high as 20 million yen if a client is a politician or a celebrity, requiring the highest level of secrecy. (While Mochizuki says that his firm has a high success rate, a consultancy that provides advice on the industry points out that potential clients should be sceptical of such claims, and prepared for possible failure.)

Although some features of the wakaresaseya industry are unique to Japan, similar services exist around the world. They may be less formalized honeytrap or con-artist arrangements, or they may be part of the private-investigations industry. Conventionally "the Western perspective was to sensationalize the industry and almost exoticise it. There's this false exoticisation of Japan that occurs in the West quite frequently." It's difficult to gain a full understanding of the people affected by the wakaresaseya industry, because according to Scott, "people are very reluctant to be seen as associated with it, let alone a victim of it." The industry has a seedy reputation.

As TV and radio producer Mai Nishiyama comments; "There's a market for everything in Japan." This includes a variety of relationship-based services like renting faux family members and the additional services offered by wakaresaseya firms, such as assistance with romantic reconciliation, separating a child from an unsuitable girlfriend or boyfriend or preventing revenge porn. Agents can also be hired to gather evidence that will help a wronged spouse collect consolation money, which is compensation for the dissolution of a relationship. Although the Yamagami International Law Office hasn't worked with wakaresaseya agents, lawyer Shogo Yamagami notes that some clients do work with private agents more generally to obtain evidence of adultery. The consolation payment system means that hiring wakaresaseya agents can be beneficial not just emotionally, but also in practical monetary terms.

schwit1 writes: President Trump announced the removal of Tennessee Valley Authority's chair James Thompson and board member Richard Howoth and called for the removal of their CEO Bill Johnson. This was in response to the company laying off employees and hiring H1-B visa holders. [TVA announced it would outsource 20% of its technology jobs to companies based in foreign countries, which could cause more than 200 highly skilled American tech workers in Tennessee to lose their jobs to foreign workers, according to the White House.] During the round table discussion, it was announced the company is willing to reverse course and rehire previously laid off employees. The president also said he would not ban the TikTok app if Microsoft or another company bought it before September 15th. "The TVA is a federally owned corporation created in 1933 to provide flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing and economic development to the Tennessee Valley, a region that was hard hit by the Great Depression," reports The Associated Press. "The region covers most of Tennessee and parts of Alabama, Mississippi and Kentucky as well as small sections of Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia."

Trump said the new chief executive officer must "[put] the interests of Americans first," adding: "The new CEO must be paid no more than $500,000 a year. We want the TVA to take action on this immediately. [...] Let this serve as a warning to any federally appointed board: If you betray American workers, you will hear two words: 'You're fired.'"

The announcement was made as Trump signed an executive order to require all federal agencies to complete an internal audit to prove they are not replacing qualified American workers with people from other countries. According to the White House, the order will help prevent federal agencies from unfairly replacing American workers with lower cost foreign labor.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: You won't be able to use Sony's DualShock 4 or other third-party PS4 gamepads to play PlayStation 5 games, Sony confirmed in a blog post today. Those older gamepads will still work with "supported PS4 games" running on the PS5, Sony said, and PS5 software will work with "specialty peripherals" designed for the PS4 -- including "officially licensed racing wheels, arcade sticks, and flight sticks." Those caveats highlight the fact that there's no technical limitation or communication protocol mismatch stopping the upcoming hardware from communicating with legacy controllers.

But Sony says it "believe[s] that PS5 games should take advantage of the new capabilities and features we're bringing to the platform, including the features of DualSense wireless controller." Those features include what Sony is calling "haptic feedback and dynamic trigger effects" and a built-in microphone (last month, Geoff Keighley hosted what is, thus far, the only public hands-on impressions of these new controller features). The DualSense compatibility decision casts Sony in contrast to Microsoft, which is promising that "your Xbox One gaming accessories come into the future with you, too" with the coming Xbox Series X. While that promise doesn't extend to the defunct Kinect camera, it does include specialty pads like the Xbox Elite Controller and Xbox Adaptive Controller. "We believe that your investments in gaming should move with you into the next generation," Microsoft wrote in a blog post last month. PlayStation Move controllers -- first released in 2010 for use with the PS3—will continue to work with PlayStation VR games on the PS5, Sony said. The PS4's existing PlayStation Camera accessory will also work on the PS5, though it will require an adaptor that Sony says it will be providing to users for free.

Garmin has reportedly paid a ransom to receive a decryption key to recover its files, after they were hit by the WastedLocker Ransomware last month. Digital Trends reports: [BleepingComputer] found that the attackers used the WastedLocker Ransomware and reported that they demanded $10 million as a ransom. Now, it also uncovered that Garmin is using a decryption key to regain access to its files, suggesting that the company may have paid that ransom demand or some other amount. The WastedLocker software uses encryption which has no known weaknesses, so the assumption is that to break it, the company must have paid the attackers for the decryption key. [...] The company reassured customers that no customer data was stolen, and that no payment information from the Garmin Pay payment system was accessed or stolen either.

On Twitter, the company announced last week, "We are happy to report that many of the systems and services affected by the recent outage, including Garmin Connect, are returning to operation. Some features still have temporary limitations while all of the data is being processed."