A newly instituted Google Play policy bans apps that use deceptive language or imagery to trick you into subscriptions. Engadget reports: Apps now have to be clear about a plan's cost, frequency and terms, including whether or not there will be an automatic renewal. They should also outline the features you can use without a subscription, and explain how you cancel service before your free period is over. The company has improved the Play Store's approach to subscriptions to match. You'll now get a email reminder before your trial or intro offer is over, as well as for any plans that last 3, 6 or 12 months. The checkout is now more transparent, and you'll be alerted if you delete an app with an active subscription.

The University of Oxford's Big Data Institute found that 56% of the general population, or 80% of current smartphone owners, would need to use a contact-tracing app for it to be effective in helping stop the coronavirus. The BBC reports: If there is lower uptake, academics say the app would still help slow the spread of Covid-19. They add that letting people self-diagnose the illness could be critical. The experts say "speed is of the essence", and that delaying contact tracing by even a day from the onset of symptoms could make the difference between epidemic control and resurgence. "There would be more people receiving notifications as a result of false warnings," explained Prof Christophe Fraser.

The team estimates that 56% of the general population must use the app to halt the outbreak. Prof Fraser said that equated to 80% of all existing smartphone owners, based on data from Ofcom. "That's a very ambitious target," the professor acknowledged. "It's not something that would typically happen for a new app - even an incredibly popular one - but if we can explain that this is a public health intervention, that will be new and different. [...] More than 80% of people surveyed said they were likely to or would install this app when it was explained in detail what it would be doing." Even if fewer people install the app, the team estimates that one infection will be averted for every one to two users.

India is the latest country to denounce videoconferencing software Zoom, calling it "not a safe platform." Reuters reports: "Zoom is a not a safe platform," the Cyber Coordination Centre (CyCord) of India's ministry of home affairs said in a 16-page advisory. The government body also provided guidelines on how to avoid unauthorized users from carrying out malicious acts while using the tool. Zoom's mobile app saw a sharp surge in downloads in India as the country enforced a nationwide lockdown late last month to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Even some Indian government officials have held discussions with industry executives to discuss coronavirus relief measures via Zoom. One media report this week said the Indian government was advising its ministers not to use third-party software for sensitive meetings.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Apple is developing over-ear wireless headphones with parts that can be swapped in and out, seeking to augment its AirPods business with a high-end audio product. The Cupertino, California-based tech giant is working on at least two variations, including a premium version with leather-like fabrics and a fitness-focused model that uses lighter, breathable materials with small perforations. Prototypes of the headphones have a retro look with oval-shaped ear cups that swivel and a headband connected by thin, metal arms. The arms stem from the top of the ear cups rather than the sides.

The ear pads and headband padding attach to the frame of the headphones magnetically so they can be replaced by the user. That approach is similar to some headphones from Master & Dynamic and Bowers & Wilkins, though those models only have magnetic ear pads. Apple's more modular design will allow users to customize their headphones like they do with the Apple Watch. The design may also mean the same set of headphones would be convertible from comfort to fitness use and back again. Apple plans to use similar wireless-pairing and noise-cancellation tech in its upcoming headphones to what is already in the AirPods Pro. The company aims to unveil the product later this year, however complications during final development or from the Covid-19 pandemic could affect the timing and features again.

Zack Whittaker, reporting for TechCrunch: Since it exploded onto the scene in January after a newspaper expose, Clearview AI quickly became one of the most elusive, secretive, and reviled companies in the tech startup scene. The controversial facial recognition startup allows its law enforcement users to take a picture of a person, upload it, and match it against its alleged database of 3 billion images, which the company scraped from public social media profiles. But for a time, a misconfigured server exposed the company's internal files, apps and source code for anyone on the internet to find.

Mossab Hussein, chief security officer at Dubai-based cybersecurity firm SpiderSilk, found the repository storing Clearview's source code. Although the repository was protected with a password, a misconfigured setting allowed anyone to register as a new user to log in to the system storing the code. The repository contained Clearview's source code, which could be used to compile and run the apps from scratch.

The most famous paste site, used by hackers of all stripes to host lists of stolen passwords, announcements of data breaches, and malware has made it harder for security researchers to scrape it looking for that kind of information. From a report: And security researchers are pissed off. Pastebin is one of the most famous websites that allows anyone, even without being registered, to "paste" any kind of text and make it public. Over the years, it became a repository for all kinds of unsavory data, such as the personal details of people who got doxed by hackers, leaked passwords, hacker manifestos, and even malware payloads. Naturally, this meant it was a treasure trove for security researchers investigating data breaches or hunting hackers. On Tuesday, several security researchers complained on Twitter that they were unable to search Pastebin or scrape it using a special API, which they paid to get access to. (The lifetime subscription, which was required to scrape the site, cost $50.)

The European Union said it will scrutinize Google and Apple's proposed contact-tracing technology to ensure it meets the bloc's new standards governing the deployment of Covid-19 apps. From a report: Officials from member states and the EU's executive arm will "seek clarifications on the solution proposed by Google and Apple," the European Commission said on Thursday as it issued guidelines aimed at making the various virus-tracking apps interoperable. Alphabet's Google and Apple late last week announced they would add technology to their platforms to alert users if they have come into contact with a person with the coronavirus. While the system is voluntary, it has the potential to monitor about a third of the world's population. In a video-conference earlier this week with Google CEO Sundar Pichai and YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, EU Industry Commissioner Thierry Breton "insisted on the need for all digital actors to develop apps to trace the spread of the virus in full respect of the privacy of individuals and ensuring interoperability and security of communications," the EU said.

Amazon said it will stop activity at its fulfillment centers in France for five days after a court order banned the sale of non-essential goods. Bloomberg reports: The world's largest online retailer is "temporarily" suspending sales from April 16 through April 20, a spokeswoman for the company said. The court concluded the retailer isn't doing enough to protect staff from the Covid-19 pandemic. The $1.1 trillion company was given 24 hours on Tuesday to comply with the ruling to sell only essential items such as food and hygiene products, and to upgrade its health-security procedures. The company faces fines of 1 million euros ($1.1 million) for each day's delay.

Amazon said the ruling left it "perplexed," and noted it has already taken extra steps to protect employee health. "The court gave categories that are very general and create ambiguity that would be too hard to implement," a spokeswoman for Amazon told Bloomberg News. "This is a complex business to run." Amazon must shut down "because of the terms and conditions of the court order, especially because of their ambiguity and the absence of definition," the e-commerce giant said in an internal memo that was seen by Bloomberg.

When it comes to appropriating images found online, the situation is understandably confusing. If an individual posts something on social media, does that give someone else the right to use it in a different forum? Most lawyers would likely answer, "Not so fast," and yet on Monday came a suggestive ruling perhaps otherwise from a New York federal court. From a report: The plaintiff in the case is Stephanie Sinclair, a professional photographer known for exploring gender and human rights issues around the world. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Time magazine and National Geographic. She uploaded one of her photographs -- an image of a mother and child in Guatemala -- to Instagram. Later, the news site Mashable contacted her because it wanted to reuse the image for a story on female photographers. Mashable offered $50. Sinclair declined. Mashable used the image anyway by embedding her Instagram post in its story. Sinclair claimed copyright infringement.

How would the case play out? Would it turn on application of the so-called "server test," where liability for direct infringement depends on where the infringing images are stored? Two years ago, in a case that involved an embedded image of NFL quarterback Tom Brady, a different New York federal judge rejected the server test and ruled that news websites could be liable for using embedded images. That ruling had throngs of lawyers expressing concern about a potential disruption to the online ecosphere. Oddly, that decision in Goldman v. Breitbart gets only a brief mention in Monday's opinion -- basically, a footnote to explain the embedding process. Instead, U.S. District Court Judge Kimba Wood decides to veer in a totally different direction, and in so doing, light potential fireworks. "Here, [Sinclair] granted Instagram the right to sublicense the Photograph, and Instagram validly exercised that right by granting Mashable a sublicense to display the Photograph," rules Wood.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: As schools across the country shut their doors indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic, millions of students are now adjusting to online learning. But for low income families who may not have access to WiFi, this transition is a problem. That's why the Austin Independent School District (ISD) has deployed 110 school buses now equipped with WiFi to neighborhoods and apartment complexes where the district identified the highest need for internet access.

Starting on Monday, the district "strategically positions" the buses, which have WiFi capabilities up to a distance of 300 feet, every weekday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Students can connect to the WiFi using their school computers only, not personal devices, though they're not allowed to board the bus. While everyone is advised to stay inside, students may have to move closer to the bus to gain access to the WiFi, but must remain at least six feet apart from anyone else to follow social distancing guidelines. The WiFi equipped buses are funded through a $600,000 grant from Kajeet, an education technology provider. The district has also provided students in grades 3 to 7 who don't have computers with Chromebook laptops as well as WiFi hotspots if needed. Students in grades 8 to 12 have already been provided with devices from an existing school program.

Frontier Communications filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy yesterday, but the struggling telecom said its service to customers won't be affected by the financial restructuring. Ars Technica reports: "Frontier expects to continue providing quality service to its customers without interruption and work with its business partners as usual throughout the court-supervised process. The Company has sufficient liquidity to meet its ongoing obligations," Frontier said in last night's bankruptcy announcement. Frontier filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

Frontier offers Internet service in 29 states but expects to complete a $1.4 billion sale of operations in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana to Northwest Fiber by April 30. In the 25 remaining states where it will keep offering service, Frontier has 2.6 million Internet subscribers, with 1.4 million on DSL and 1.2 million on fiber. "The bankruptcy filing marks the end of an era during which Frontier Communications racked up roughly $17.5 billion in debt as part of an aggressive expansion campaign that turned it into one of the nation's largest telecom companies," The Wall Street Journal wrote today. Frontier expanded over the years in part by buying former Verizon and AT&T wireline operations. As part of its bankruptcy, Frontier said it will "reduce our debt by more than $10 billion" in an agreement that gives bondholders more equity in the company. Frontier also obtained $460 million in new financing and said it will have "significant financial flexibility to support continued investment in its long-term growth."

Chase, Capital One, PNC Bank and others across the U.S. have reported outages with online and mobile banking Wednesday -- the same day the coronavirus IRS stimulus checks are expected to hit bank accounts of those eligible. CNET reports: Banks including Chase, Capital One, PNC Bank, US Bank and Navy Federal, as well as the app Cash App have all reported outages or access issues on Twitter support pages or their websites. Web outage monitoring site Down Detector also shows a spike in outages for these and other online banking services. Over 80 million Americans who have set up direct deposit with the IRS are expected to receive their coronavirus stimulus payments of up to $1,200 by the end of the day. Everyone else will get their check in the mail.

The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), which is the organization that rates the content of video games, announced a new label today to indicate that a game will offer in-game purchases of loot boxes or similar types of items that provide a player with randomized rewards. The Verge reports: "This new Interactive Element, In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items), will be assigned to any game that contains in-game offers to purchase digital goods or premiums with real world currency (or with virtual coins or other forms of in-game currency that can be purchased with real world currency) for which the player doesn't know prior to purchase the specific digital goods or premiums they will be receiving (e.g., loot boxes, item packs, mystery awards)," according to the ESRB. The label will be applied to "loot boxes, gacha games, item or card packs, prize wheels, treasure chests, and more," the organization said.

The new label will sit below the game's content rating, as seen in the photo above. The ESRB originally introduced the "in-game purchases" label in February 2018, but that label was broad enough that it could be applied to any game that offered any sort of buyable digital good, including non-randomized items like subscriptions, season passes, or upgrades to disable ads.

Google is temporarily lowering the video quality of its Nest security cameras to "conserve internet resources" during the COVID-19 pandemic. "The adjustment is rolling out over the next few days, and Google says anyone who has their quality settings adjusted will get a notification in the Nest app," reports TechCrunch. From the report: While Nest cameras aren't inherently using more bandwidth right now than they otherwise might, each camera already used a good amount of bandwidth day to day. A Nest Cam IQ, for example, uses roughly 400GB of data per month at its highest settings; cutting this down to medium high shaves that down to 300GB. Google confirmed their plans with TechCrunch, with a Google spokesperson adding: "To answer the global call to prioritize internet bandwidth for learning and working, in the next few days we're going to be making a few changes. We believe these changes have the potential to help make it easier for communities to keep up with school, work, and everything in between."

While they're automatically making the change on behalf of the user (a move some owners are complaining is an overstep), Google notes that you're able to bump your cameras back up to their highest settings should you see fit. They're not capping the quality, instead just lowering settings by default -- so if you've got a camera in a setting where every pixel counts, know that you're going to need to adjust accordingly.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Two dozen state attorneys general are asking the Trump administration to crack down on Defense Distributed's Defcad site for selling 3D-printed gun files. In a letter sent today, they urged the Justice Department and State Department to enforce rules against exporting weapons and making undetectable firearms. "If the federal government fails to act, these files will be distributed widely with potentially grave consequences for our national and domestic security," warns the letter. Attorneys general argue that Defcad is violating export control regulations and the Undetectable Firearms Act, which bans manufacturing, owning, and selling guns that don't trigger metal detectors. Anyone who downloads files could "automatically manufacture functional weapons that cannot be detected by a standard metal detector and, furthermore, are untraceable because they lack serial numbers," says the letter. "Continued dissemination of these files will increase the risk of terrorist attacks and gun violence across the United States." Defcad has well-established problems with ITAR, but the letter doesn't explain how it violates the Undetectable Firearms Act beyond asserting that files "enable the automatic manufacture of functional plastic weapons."

Microsoft's relatively new Chromium-based Edge browser is going to be retired in mid-2021. Softpedia reports: News of Microsoft supporting Edge on Windows 7 until at least July 2021 first surfaced earlier this year, but now the software giant has updated its official documentation with more specifics about this date. "We will continue to support Microsoft Edge on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 until July 15, 2021. These operating systems are out of support and Microsoft recommends you move to a supported operating system such as Windows 10," the company explains. "While Microsoft Edge helps keep you more secure on the web, your PC may still be vulnerable to security risks. In order for IE mode to be supported on these operating systems the devices will need to have the Extended Security Updates for Windows 7. Without the Windows 7 Extended Security updates Internet Explorer functionality will be vulnerable to security risks. Additionally, IE mode functionality may cease to work without the continued servicing through the extended security updates."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Security researcher Trammell Hudson analyzed the AirSense 10 -- the world's most widely used CPAP -- and made a startling discovery. Although its manufacturer says the AirSense 10 would require "significant rework to function as a ventilator," many ventilator functions were already built into the device firmware. Its manufacturer, ResMed, says the $700 device solely functions as a continuous positive airway pressure machine used to treat sleep apnea. It does this by funneling air into a mask. ResMed says the device can't work as a bilevel positive airway pressure device, which is a more advanced machine that pushes air into a mask and then pulls it back out. With no ability to work in both directions or increase the output when needed, the AirSense 10 can't be used as the type of ventilator that could help patients who are struggling to breathe. After reverse-engineering the firmware, Hudson says the ResMed claim is simply untrue.

To demonstrate his findings, Hudson on Tuesday is releasing a patch that he says unlocks the hidden capabilities buried deep inside the AirSense 10. The patch is dubbed Airbreak in a nod to jailbreaks that hobbyists use to remove technical barriers Apple developers erect inside iPhones and iPads. Whereas jailbreaks unlock functions that allow the installation of unauthorized apps and the accessing of log files and forensic data, Airbreak allows the AirSense 10 to work as a bilevel positive airway pressure machine, a device that many people refer to as a BiPAP. "Our changes bring the AirSense S10 to near feature parity with BiPAP machines from the same manufacturer, boost the maximum pressure output available, and provide a starting point to add more advanced emergency ventilator functionality," Hudson and other researchers wrote on their website disclosing the findings. The researchers say Airbreak isn't ready to be used on any device to treat a patient suffering from COVID-19 -- it's simply to prove that the AirSense 10 does have the ability to provide emergency ventilator functions, and to push ResMed to release its own firmware update that unlocks the ventilator functions.

GitHub today announced that all of its core features are now available for free to all users, including those that are currently on free accounts. TechCrunch reports: That means free unlimited private repositories with unlimited collaborators for all, including teams that use the service for commercial projects, as well as up to 2,000 minutes per month of free access to GitHub Actions, the company's automation and CI/CD platform. Teams that want more advanced features like code owners or enterprise features like SAML support will still have to upgrade to a paid plan, but those now start at $4 per month and user for the Teams plans instead of the previous $9, with the Enterprise plan starting at $21 per month and user.

Slashdot reader and managing director of Adafruit, Phillip Torrone, a.k.a. ptorrone, writes: Tom's Hardware talked to Adafruit about what it's like to switch from selling tech to selling protective gear, and when hobbyists can expect things to return to normal. In March of 2020, Adafruit was deemed an essential service and business for critical manufacturing in NYC by executive order 202.6, making face shields and making/shipping critical components and electronics for COVID-19 related efforts and testing. "We've always needed to make essential electronics for people," Torrone said, stressing that this isn't new for them. "When this hit, there was a very specific short term need. And that was for face shields. And because we have 3D printers, we have laser cutters, we have production capabilities, [when] New York City put out the call, our name came up right away because that's one of the things we do."

On top of that, "we can make components for ventilators," Torrone added: "We can make components for the fast track FDA medical devices that people are trying to get out as fast as possible, from testing equipment to you name it, any type of temperature sensing or pressure sensing...We make electronic components that are used in many, many things. So no matter what, we would still need to be making those components for medical devices...electronics are electronics, so this temperature sensor that we used to use for other things, is going to be used for this now. This barometric pressure sensor, or that barometric pressure sensor [is going to be used for other things]...So for us, it was like 'Oh, this is just going in a different type of box for different types of application.'"

Since Adafruit's shift to essential medical and protective gear, the company's other products are now shipping out on a "when we can do it" basis. Tom's Hardware notes that the company "is still selling to select university and military researchers, but all others will have to wait until an unspecified time in the future to buy their usual Adafruit tech." Thankfully, Torrone says the customer response to the delay of normal business has been largely positive. "We've always been a good cause and a good business with a really good community. So our customers said, 'I'm still going to order and just ship it when you can.' So for regular orders for our customers, they've been fantastic."

According to The New York Times, the Trump administration has reached an agreement in principle with major airline companies over a $25 billion bailout to prop up the struggling industry. From the report: The terms of the agreement were not disclosed on Tuesday. The Treasury Department said that Alaska Airlines, Allegiant Air, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Frontier Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, JetBlue Airways, United Airlines, SkyWest Airlines and Southwest Airlines will be participating in the payroll support program, which was created as part of the economic stabilization package that Congress passed last month. The administration has been haggling with the airlines over the terms of the bailout, with Mr. Mnuchin pushing the airlines to agree to repay 30 percent of the money over a period of five years. The Treasury Department also has been seeking warrants to purchase stock in the companies that take money. Airlines have complained that Treasury was effectively turning the grants into loans by requiring repayment.

Last week, the Treasury Department said that it would not require airlines that receive up to $100 million in bailout money to give the government equity stakes or other compensation. The government had received over 200 applications from American airlines seeking payroll support and Treasury said that the majority of those were asking for less than $10 million. Airlines for America, an industry lobbying group, said that as of April 9, American airline carriers had idled 2,200 aircraft and that passenger volume was down 95 percent from a year ago. The industry expects global passenger revenues to fall by $252 billion this year.