[R]esearchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) have developed a new system (PDF) that can figure out when and where in-home appliances like hair dryers, stoves, microwaves and washing machines are being used, and they believe that info could help inform healthcare practitioners about the habits and challenges of people under their care. TechCrunch reports: The researchers devised a system called "Sapple" that uses just two sensors placed in a person's home to determine use patterns of devices including stoves, hair dryers and more. There's one location sensor that works using radio signals to figure out placement, with a user able to calibrate it to cover their area by simply walking the bounds of their space. A second sensor measures energy usage through the home, and combines that data with movement information to matching energy use signals with physical locations of specific applicants, to provide data both when a person is using the appliances around the house, and for how long.

This gets around a lot of the issues raised by similar systems, including more simple voltage meters used on their own. While appliances do tend to have specific energy use patterns that mean you can identify them just based on consumption, it's hard to tell when and how they're being used with that data on its own. This info can let health professionals know if a patient is taking proper care of hygiene, food preparation and intake and more.

White supremacists have reportedly built a website that names, shames, and effectively promotes violence against interracial couples and families -- "and it's been circulated in some of the darkest corners of the internet, including in neo-Nazi Discord servers and accelerationist Telegram channels," reports VICE News. An anonymous reader shares the report: The website was created in April but was taken offline after their initial hosting provider cut ties with them. They then found a home with one of Russia's largest domain registrars, R01. VICE News contacted R01 on Tuesday to ask whether the site violated their policies. An hour later, the site was taken offline, but as of Wednesday morning it was back up. Tatiana Agafonova, a spokesperson for R01, wrote in an email that the company would "diligently render its services to customers" unless a court rules otherwise or they're contacted by law enforcement. The owner of the website shields their identity and location through Cloudflare, a U.S.-based security company that protects customers from DDoS attacks (attempts to crash a website by overwhelming it with data). VICE News contacted Cloudflare to ask how this particular website squared with their policies. They declined to comment on individual websites but directed us to their blog from February 2019, where they "address complaints about content." Their bottom line was that Cloudflare is a security company, and content moderation isn't really their responsibility.

[O]ther online extremists have gotten very good at evading tech crackdowns by employing an ever-evolving shared language of memes and euphemisms used to signpost for the same racist views. The website in question uses the same strategy, which seems to be carefully crafted in an effort to shield the owner from liability. The owner even explicitly states on the site that they do not encourage violence -- all they're doing is listing names and social media accounts as part of a database of "white women who have an interest in black men." One section is titled "toll paid," and it lists women who have been in interracial relationships, and had something horrible happen to them, like death or injury. [...]

The owner of the website claims that the "toll paid" section is intended to catalog incidents where white women are victims of black violence, and isn't an incitement. But "all the disclaimers in the world" may not be enough to protect them from a lawsuit some day, especially if someone is harassed or harmed as a result, says Subodh Chandra, a former federal prosecutor who has handled high-profile civil rights cases, including a recent case against the Daily Stormer.

Two security researchers have published today details about a vulnerability in the Windows printing service that they say impacts all Windows versions going back to Windows NT 4, released in 1996. From a report: The vulnerability, which they codenamed PrintDemon, is located in Windows Print Spooler, the primary Windows component responsible for managing print operations. The service can send data to be printed to a USB/parallel port for physically connected printers; to a TCP port for printers residing on a local network or the internet; or to a local file, in the rare event the user wants to save a print job for later. In a report published today, security researchers Alex Ionescu & Yarden Shafir said they found a bug in this old component that can be abused to hijack the Printer Spooler internal mechanism. The bug can't be used to break into a Windows client remotely over the internet, so it's not something that could be exploited to hack Windows systems at random over the internet.

Google faces a data-protection complaint from Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems amid concerns it unlawfully monitors users and passes on the "tracking ID" to advertisers. From a report: Schrems's campaign group Noyb on Wednesday filed a complaint with the Austrian data protection authority, accusing Google of tracking users of Android phones through a unique ID that "allows Google and countless third-parties to" monitor users. The European Union's strict data protection rules, in force since May 2018, require people's consent before being tracked, the group said in a statement. Data regulators have the powers to levy fines of as much as 4% of a company's global annual sales for serious violations. "Google does not collect valid 'opt-in' consent before generating the tracking ID, but seems to generate these IDs without user consent," according to the statement.

The Senate on Wednesday blocked a bipartisan effort to shield Americans' internet browsing and search histories from warrantless surveillance. From a report: Lawmakers voted 59-37 on an amendment by Sens. Steve Daines (R-Mont) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) to a House-approved bill that would reauthorize domestic surveillance authorities. It was the first in a series of at least three amendment votes that senators agreed to in March. The intelligence tools expired on March 15 after senators left town without renewing key sections of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, amid objections from privacy hawks who said the compromise bill didn't go far enough to safeguard Americans' personal data and communications. Wyden, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, noted in a floor speech that Americans are relying on the internet more than ever due to the Covid-19 pandemic. "Don't those Americans deserve some measure of privacy?" he asked, arguing that without the amendment "it is open season on anybody's most personal information."

Google Chrome is rolling out a new feature to help you better manage all your open tabs. The company announced today the launch of "tab groups" for the beta version of its web browser, which will allow you to organize, label, and even color-code your tabs for easy access. The feature will make its way to the stable release of Chrome starting next week. From a report: To use the new feature, you can right-click on a tab and choose "Add tab to group." You can then select an existing group to move the tab to or create a new one, which you'll also name and label. The company had been testing this solution for several months before today's public release, as some had already spotted. Based on this early research, Google says it found that many people tended to organize their tabs by topic -- like a project they're working on or a set of shopping and review sites, for example. Others, however, would organize tabs by urgency -- labeling them things like "ASAP," "this week," or "later." Google also suggests tab groups can be used to help keep you focused on task progress, by grouping them into areas like "in progress," "need to follow up," and "completed."

Amazon plans to extend hazard pay for warehouse workers through the end of May, but it will return to normal pay rates in June, the company's top operations executive told Recode in an interview on Tuesday. From a report: The decision comes as Amazon faces intense scrutiny from progressive politicians, activist groups, and its own workforce over its treatment of its front-line employees who have kept working during the coronavirus pandemic. In mid-March, as the pandemic shut down businesses across the world that are deemed nonessential, Amazon started paying its warehouse and delivery employees in the US an additional $2 per hour as well as double overtime pay. It offered similar temporary pay increases for front-line staff in Canada, the UK, and some European countries.

Belkin International, the company that makes iPhone charging cables and home routers, has started making what it calls "low-cost" ventilators at manufacturing plants in Providence, Rhode Island. USA Today reports: These are sub-$200 units aimed for emergencies and less severe cases of COVID-19, compared to more full-featured units that cost in the tens of thousands of dollars. "This is one of the most urgent humanitarian crises we have experienced in our lifetimes and the number one responsibility for each of us in this moment is the care and compassion for others in need," said Chet Pipkin, CEO and founder of Belkin. "It was obvious there's a critical need for ventilators and not just for the short term," says Pipkin. "We have no excuse not to get prepared." It's looking to make at least 10,000 ventilators.

So how did it learn how to go outside of their zone to medical supplies? "We felt a responsibility to be helpful to others," he says, but acknowledges that Belkin didn't have the expertise to design a ventilator. "We reached out to the network," and found experts to guide the way. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Grainger College of Engineering had the design, and Belkin also consulted with Carle Health of Urbana, Illinois, for what's being called the FlexVent. It's under production now, but pending the review and approval of its Emergency Use Authorization application by the Food and Drug Administration. Belkin's pitch: the FlexVent will be used as a single-use emergency ventilator that can provide constant-flow, pressure-cycled ventilation automatically to patients in respiratory distress.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A proposed U.S. law would make it illegal for telecom providers to terminate Internet or phone service during the COVID-19 pandemic. The bill was submitted in the Senate today by Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). "Now -- as millions of Americans hunker down, work from home, and engage in remote learning -- would be the absolute worst time for Americans to lose a critical utility like Internet service," Merkley said in an announcement.

Separately, House Democratic leadership today unveiled a $3 trillion relief package that includes at least $4 billion for an "emergency broadband connectivity fund." That money, if approved, would be given to ISPs that provide discounts to low-income households and people who lose their jobs. Subsidies would be up to $50 a month for most low-income households and up to $75 for households in tribal areas. Another $1.5 billion would be allotted to Wi-Fi hotspots and other telecom equipment for schools and libraries. The relief package also includes a provision that "prohibits telephone and broadband service providers from stopping service to consumers unable to pay during the duration of the emergency," according to House Democrats.

According to new data from Adobe's Digital Economy Index, U.S. e-commerce jumped 49% in April, compared to the baseline period in early March before shelter-in-place restrictions went into effect. Online grocery helped drive the increase in sales, with a 110% boost in daily sales between March and April. Meanwhile, electronic sales were up 58% and book sales have doubled. TechCrunch reports: The data comes from Adobe's index of the digital economy, which analyzes more than one trillion online transactions across 100 million different SKUs. The company works with 80 of the top 100 U.S. online retailers to gather its data. The numbers indicate that consumers are willing to spend on products that will help them manage the COVID-19 crisis. This includes, in large part, online grocery pickup and delivery.

Meanwhile, the electronics category of online sales saw its first inflation in years. According to Adobe, online electronics prices have been experiencing deflation at a steady rate since 2014, but COVID-19 has led to electronics prices flattening. Computer prices even crept up in April, due to rising demand. Plus, sales of audio mixers, microphones, microphone cables and other audio equipment jumped 459% in April as would-be podcasters and various creatives set up their home studios. The overall electronics category also appears to now be on an upward trajectory.

In a landmark acknowledgment of the toll that content moderation takes on its workforce, Facebook has agreed to pay $52 million to current and former moderators to compensate them for mental health issues developed on the job. The Verge reports: In a preliminary settlement filed on Friday in San Mateo Superior Court, the social network agreed to pay damages to American moderators and provide more counseling to them while they work. Each moderator will receive a minimum of $1,000 and will be eligible for additional compensation if they are diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder or related conditions. The settlement covers 11,250 moderators, and lawyers in the case believe that as many as half of them may be eligible for extra pay related to mental health issues associated with their time working for Facebook, including depression and addiction.

Under the terms of the settlement, every moderator will receive $1,000 that can be spent however they like. But the companies intend for the money to be spent partly on medical treatment, covering the costs associated with seeking a diagnosis related to any mental health issues the moderator may be suffering. The amount of money a moderator will receive beyond the initial $1,000 will depend on their diagnosis. Anyone who is diagnosed with a mental health condition is eligible for an additional $1,500, and people who receive multiple concurrent diagnoses -- PTSD and depression, for example -- could be eligible for up to $6,000. In addition to payment for treatment, moderators with a qualifying diagnosis will be eligible to submit evidence of other injuries they suffered for their time at Facebook and could receive up to $50,000 in damages. The exact amount of the payout depends on how many members of the class apply for benefits, and it could shrink significantly if the majority of the class is found to be eligible for benefits. In the settlement, Facebook also agreed to roll out changes to its content moderation tools, such as muting audio by default and changing videos to black and white. These tools will be rolled out to 80 percent of moderators by the end of this year and 100 percent of moderators by 2021.

Additionally, "Moderators who view graphic and disturbing content on a daily basis will also get access to weekly, one-on-one coaching sessions with a licensed mental health professional," the report says. "Workers who are experiencing a mental health crisis will get access to a licensed counselor within 24 hours, and Facebook will also make monthly group therapy sessions available to moderators." Moderators working in California, Arizona, Texas, and Florida from 2015 until now are covered by this settlement.

phalse phace shares a report from The Wall Street Journal: Uber is seeking to acquire Grubhub in an all-stock deal that would unite two of the biggest players in meal delivery at a time when the coronavirus pandemic has sparked a surge in demand for their services. Uber, which in addition to its flagship ride business operates a big meal-delivery unit known as Uber Eats, earlier this year approached Grubhub with a takeover offer and the companies continue to discuss a possible combination, according to people familiar with the matter. Grubhub recently proposed a deal in which its shareholders would receive 2.15 Uber shares for each Grubhub share, some of the people said.

With a large part of the working world doing jobs from home when possible these days, the focus right now is on how best to recreate the atmosphere of an office virtually, and how to replicate online essential work that used to be done in person. Today, LinkedIn announced a couple of big new feature updates that point to how it's trying to play a part in both of these. From a report: It's launching a new Polls feature for users to canvas opinions and get feedback; and it's launching a new "LinkedIn Virtual Events" tool that lets people create and broadcast video events via its platform. Despite now being owned by Microsoft, interestingly it doesn't seem that the Virtual Events service taps into Teams or Skype, Microsoft's two other big video products that it has been pushing hard at a time when use of video streaming for work, education and play is going through the roof. The polls feature -- you can see an example of one in the picture below, or respond to that specific poll here -- is a quick-fire and low-bar way of asking a question and encouraging engagement: LinkedIn says that a poll takes only about 30 seconds to put together, and responding doesn't require thinking of something to write, but gives the respondent more of a 'voice' than he or she would get just by providing a "like" or other reaction.

Some Twitter employees will never return to their office. From a report: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey emailed employees on Tuesday telling them that they'd be allowed to work from home permanently, even after the coronavirus pandemic lockdown passes. Some jobs that require physical presence, such as maintaining servers, will still require employees to come in. "We've been very thoughtful in how we've approached this from the time we were one of the first companies to move to a work-from-home model," a Twitter spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. "We'll continue to be, and we'll continue to put the safety of our people and communities first."

Twitter encouraged its employees to start working from home in early March as the coronavirus began to spread across the US. Several other tech companies did the same, including Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. That month, Twitter human resources head Jennifer Christie told BuzzFeed News the company would "never probably be the same" in the structure of its work. "People who were reticent to work remotely will find that they really thrive that way," Christie said. "Managers who didn't think they could manage teams that were remote will have a different perspective. I do think we won't go back."

Facebook is working behind the scenes to help launch a new political advocacy group that would combat U.S. lawmakers and regulators trying to rein in the tech industry, escalating Silicon Valley's war with Washington at a moment when government officials are threatening to break up large companies. From a report: The organization is called American Edge, and it aims through a barrage of advertising and other political spending to convince policymakers that Silicon Valley is essential to the U.S. economy and the future of free speech, according to three people familiar with the matter as well as documents reviewed by The Washington Post. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the group because it hasn't officially been announced. In December, American Edge formed as a nonprofit organization, and last month, it registered an accompanying foundation, according to incorporation documents filed in Virginia. The setup essentially allows it to navigate a thicket of tax laws in such a way that it can raise money, and blitz the airwaves with ads, without the obligation of disclosing all of its donors. Many powerful political actors -- including the National Rifle Association -- similarly operate with the aid of "social welfare" groups.

An anonymous reader shares a report: When President Donald Trump urged Americans last month to "LIBERATE VIRGINIA" on Twitter, a private Facebook group named "Boogaloo Enthusiasts: CORONAPOCALYPSE" welcomed the tweet. "Did Trump just call for boogaloo?," one member wrote, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. "Well, you heard the man! Let's go bois," another responded. Membership in Facebook groups focused on violent anti-government uprisings in the U.S. has doubled in recent weeks as the coronavirus pandemic has spread and governments impose restrictions aimed at slowing the contagion.

To get their message across, these groups are exploiting loopholes in Facebook anti-violence policies -- using satire, code words and other tactics that mask their motives, according to experts who follow fringe groups on social media. One of the more common such phrases is "boogaloo," which can refer to a kind of music but more recently has come to describe a pending civil war. The boogaloo groups, and other extremist groups deploying similar tactics, pose yet another test for the Menlo Park, California-based social media giant, as it tries to strike a workable balance between allowing free discourse and curbing disinformation or those encouraging violence and law breaking.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Operated by Bruno Gustavo Januario, the 'Jorge Dejorge' channel is packed with technology-focused videos offering reviews, unboxing videos, tips and tutorials, most of which are entirely non-problematic. However, a decision to publish advice on how to obtain TV channels via pirate IPTV services attracted the attention of ABTA, the powerful Brazilian Pay TV Association. ABTA, which represents the main cable TV and channel operators in the country, including Globosat, Sky, NBC Universal, Fox and Discovery, filed a lawsuit against Bruno Gustavo claiming that his instructional videos infringed their rights.

In his response, the channel owner described himself as an "ordinary person" with a YouTube channel and denied that he'd named any of the TV operators in his videos. In any event, he argued, they were informative in nature and did not aim to instruct people on how to break the law. Nevertheless, in April 2018 a judge at a Sao Paulo court handed down an order that required hosting and search companies, including Google, to remove the videos in question and Bruno Gustavo was told to stop publishing such content in the future. Failure to comply would result in a fine equivalent to $1,740 for each offense. However, according to a Globo report, the judge held back from compensating the TV companies as he believed their trademarks had not been infringed. This resulted in an appeal from both sides to the Court of Justice of Sao Paulo which was heard in April 2020. In its ruling, the Court found that the operator of the Jorge Dejorge channel must pay compensation to ABTA for breaching its members' rights with his "fraudulent" videos. "The Court found that the videos improperly reproduced the channels' trademarks, infringed their copyrights, and amounted to unfair competition against ABTA's members," reports TorrentFreak. The Court says 10% of any revenues earned by the channel since the illegal content was first published in February 2017, must be handed over to the TV companies.

"The Jorge Dejorge operator must also pay $8,721 in compensation to the broadcasters adjusted for interest at the rate of 1% per month from the publishing of the first content in February 2017," the report adds. "In addition, the defendant was ordered not to publish any more content that infringes on the rights of the pay-TV stations and was told to pay the costs of the lawsuit plus attorney fees." Gustavo's legal team is planning an appeal.

An anonymous reader writes: If you take out The Office's physical interactions between characters and try to tell the same jokes over Slack, does The Office still work? It's a question that creative collective MSCHF set to find out, recreating all 201 episodes of the series over Slack. Viewers will join a live Slack, where different channels are dedicated to various departments, including accounting, warehouse, and a general office room. Viewers are requested to avoid posting in the "company" channels, but are encouraged to pop in and out of channels to keep up with the episodes as they don't all play in one. Since it is a live Slack, inappropriate messages and images do pop up, but the MSCHF team has a number of moderators working to keep it as troll-free as possible, a representative told The Verge. It could take roughly two to three weeks for each episode to "air" over Slack, so settle in.

Paul L. Vasquez, the burly mountain man whose awestruck reaction upon seeing a double rainbow propelled him to internet stardom and turned him into a folk hero, has died in Central California. He was 57. Time Magazine reports: Vasquez, who called himself Yosemitebear on social media, died early Saturday at a hospital emergency room, the Mariposa County coroner's office told the Modesto Bee. The cause of death has not been released. Vasquez had recently posted on his Facebook page that he had gone to get tested for COVID-19 but learned about another unspecified ailment.

In January 2010, Vasquez posted on YouTube a video shot from his mountainside house of a set of rainbows overlooking the Yosemite valley. He notes in the caption that the camera couldn't capture the rainbows' intensity and brightness. But that wasn't what led to 46 million views of the video. It was Vasquez's reaction. Over the course of the 3-minute video, he repeatedly said "whoa," laughed and even sobbed as he marveled at the sight of the rainbows. "It's a double rainbow all the way across the sky!" he exclaimed. He went on to ponder: "What does it all mean?"

An anonymous reader quotes a report from AnandTech: Today alongside with the launch of the Xiaomi Redmi K30 5G Racing Edition, Qualcomm is announcing the new Snapdragon 768G SoC which powers the device. The new SoC is a direct follow-up to the Snapdragon 765G announced last December, and the two chips are very likely the same silicon design, with the new variant increasing the clock frequencies.

The new chip features the same Cortex-A76 cores in a 1+1 configuration (one Prime high-clocked core, and one medium clocked core), alongside 6 Cortex-A55 cores. The difference in CPU performance lies in the frequencies of the big cores which are now at up to 2.8GHz and 2.4GHz for the Performance and Middle core -- a more notable uplift from the 2.4 and 2.2GHz clocks of the Snapdragon 765G. GPU clock frequencies have also been increased, resulting in at 15% performance boost over the Snapdragon 765. The rest of the chip is seemingly identical to the Snapdragon 765 series.