Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates spoke out against protectionism in technological research around topics like artificial intelligence, arguing that open systems will inevitably win out over closed ones. From a report: In conversation with Bloomberg News editor-in-chief John Micklethwait at the New Economy Forum in Beijing on Thursday, Gates was skeptical about the idea that ongoing U.S.-China trade tensions could ever lead to a bifurcated system of two internets and two mutually exclusive strands of tech research and development. "It just doesn't work that way," said the software pioneer. "AI is very hard to put back in the bottle," Gates said, and "whoever has an open system will get massively ahead" by virtue of being able to integrate more insights from more sources. Citing Microsoft's AI research in Beijing, Gates pondered the rhetorical question of whether it was producing Chinese AI or American AI. In the case of Microsoft's U.K. research campus in Cambridge and the findings it produces, he said that "almost every one of those papers is going to have some Chinese names on it, some European names on it and some Americans' names on it."

For several months, some Uber passengers in Texas have been recorded on video as they have been driven to their destinations. The video has been stored online and could have been reviewed by members of Uber's safety staff if the driver had reported a problem with the passenger. From a report: The video recordings are part of a broad initiative at the ride-hailing company to capture more objective data about what happens inside vehicles during Uber trips, where disputes between riders and drivers often play out without witnesses. Uber has experienced years of complaints about the safety of its riders and drivers, who are often left to sort out episodes without the help of the company, and it has settled lawsuits claiming that it does not do enough to protect passengers. But as Uber increases the practice of recording drivers and passengers, the company is facing new privacy pressures. "Uber already has this treasure trove of highly personal data about people," said Camille Fischer, a staff lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "When you pair surveillance during those trips, whether it's over the driver or over the passenger, you are getting a more fine-tuned snapshot of people's daily lives." Uber began the video recording program in Texas in July, and is conducting smaller tests of the program in Florida and Tennessee. In November, it announced a similar effort in Brazil and Mexico to allow riders and drivers to record audio during a trip.

A study published last week analyzed ridesharing's effects on binge drinking and found that it increased heavy drinking by around 20% and increased employment at bars and restaurants by an average of 2%. The Economist reports: A new study by three economists -- Jacob Burgdorf and Conor Lennon of the University of Louisville, and Keith Teltser of Georgia State University -- finds that the widespread availability of ride-sharing apps has indeed made it easier for the late-night crowd to binge. By matching data on Uber's availability with health surveys from America's Centers for Disease Control, the authors find that on average alcohol consumption rose by 3%, binge drinking -- where a person downs four or five drinks in two hours -- increased by 8%, and heavy drinking -- defined as three or more instances of binge drinking in a month -- surged by 9% within a couple of years of the ride-hailing company coming to town. Increases were even higher in cities without public transport, where the presence of Uber led average drinking to rise by 5% and instances of binge drinking to go up by around 20%. (Heavy drinking still rose by 9%.) Remarkably, excessive drinking was actually declining before Uber's appearance, giving further evidence that the firm's arrival affected behavior.

If people are likelier to drink a lot, but less likely to drive drunk, it is hard to say what the overall public-health impact of ride-hailing firms has been. That said, there is one group of individuals who clearly benefit from the presence of Uber, Lyft and others: bartenders. Messrs Burgdorf, Lennon and Teltser find that employment at bars and restaurants increases by an average of 2% whenever Uber enters the market.

Google said on Wednesday that it will stop giving advertisers the ability to target election ads using data such as public voter records and general political affiliations. Reuters reports: Google said on Wednesday it would start limiting audience targeting for election ads to age, gender and general location at a postal code level. Previously, verified political advertisers could also target ads using data such as whether the users were left-leaning, right-leaning or independent. Google said political advertisers can still do contextual targeting, such as serving ads to people reading a certain story or watching a particular video.

The company will begin enforcing the new approach in the United Kingdom within a week, ahead of the country's general election on Dec. 12. It said it would begin enforcing it in the European Union by the end of the year and in the rest of the world starting on Jan. 6, 2020. "Given recent concerns and debates about political advertising, and the importance of shared trust in the democratic process, we want to improve voters' confidence in the political ads they may see on our ad platforms," Scott Spencer, vice president of product management for Google Ads, said in the blog post. Google added examples to its misrepresentation policy to show that it would not allow false claims about election results or the eligibility of political candidates. Google also added examples to its ad policies to clarify that it prohibits doctored and manipulated media.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Forbes: Denver-based PC manufacturer and Pop!_OS Linux developer System76 plans to follow-up its custom Thelio desktop PC with an in-house laptop beginning next year, according to founder and CEO Carl Richell. During a recent interview, Richell was quick to emphasize that the entire process of designing, prototyping and iterating the final product could take two to three years. But the company is eager to break into this market and put the same signature "stamp" on its laptop hardware that graces its custom-built Thelio desktop.

System76 sells an extensive lineup of laptops, but the machines are designed by the likes of Sager and Clevo. The company doesn't merely buy a chassis and slap Pop!_OS on it, but Richell tells me he's confident that with the experience gained from developing Thelio -- and the recent investment into a factory at the company's Denver headquarters -- System76 is capable of building a laptop from the ground up that meets market needs and carries a unique value proposition. Richell says the company's first priority is locking down the aesthetic of the laptop and how various materials look and feel. It will simultaneously begin working on the supply chain aspects and speaking with various display and component manufacturers. System76 will design and build a U-class laptop first (basically an Ultrabook form factor like the existing Darter and Galago) and then evaluate what it might do with higher-end gaming and workstation notebooks with dedicated graphics.

dryriver writes: Everybody seems to think these days that kids desperately need to learn how to code when they turn six years old. But this ignores a glaring fact -- the biggest shortage in the future labor market is not people who can code competently in Python, Java or C++, it is people who can actually discover or invent completely new and better ways of doing things, whether this is in CS, Physics, Chemistry, Biology or other fields. If you look at the history of great inventors, the last truly gifted, driven and prolific non-corporate inventor is widely regarded to be Nikola Tesla, who had around 700 patents to his name by the time he died. After Tesla, most new products, techniques and inventions have come out of corporate, government or similar structures, not from a good old-fashioned, dedicated, driven, independent-minded, one-person inventor who feverishly dreams up new things and new possibilities and works for the betterment of humanity.

How do you teach inventing to kids? By teaching them the methods of Genrikh Altshuller, for example. Seriously, does teaching five to seven year olds 50-year-old CS/coding concepts and techniques do more for society than teaching kids to rebel against convention, think outside the box, turn convention upside down and beat their own path towards solving a thorny problem? Why does society want to create an army of code monkeys versus an army of kids who learn how to invent new things from a young age? Or don't we want little Nikola Teslas in the 21st Century, because that creates "uncertainty" and "risk to established ways of doing things?"

According to CNET, Amazon is planning to announce a cloud gaming service next year, and it may offer integration with Twitch and its other services. From the report: It's begun recruiting people from large game companies like Microsoft to help with the launch, as well as hiring for jobs in a "new initiative" within its Amazon Web Services team, which sources said is involved in Amazon's future gaming service. "We believe the evolution that began with arcade communities a quarter at a time, growing to the live streams and e-sports of today, will continue to a future where everyone is a gamer and every gamer can create, compete, collaborate and connect with others at massive scales," one job posting this month showed. And in at least one other job posting, the company said it wants to "drive innovative new use cases like machine vision and game streaming."

Amazon said in yet another job posting that it plans to integrate its new initiative with Twitch and the company's other services. The Information earlier reported on Amazon's plans, citing a possible launch next year. Industry insiders believe Amazon's plans for a future video game service are a foregone conclusion, despite struggles in its game-making studios, which saw layoffs earlier this year. Instead, these people cite the company's sprawling $119 per year Prime subscription empire, which already includes music streaming, lauded video projects like The Man in the High Castle, free grocery delivery and more.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Uber will allow passengers and drivers in Brazil and Mexico to record audio of their rides as it attempts to improve its safety record and image, and eventually it hopes to launch the feature into other markets including the United States. The ride-hailing company plans to pilot the feature in cities in both countries in December, although it has no timeline for possible expansion in the US and other markets.

The feature will allow customers to opt into recording all or select trips. Recordings will be stored on the rider or driver's phone and encrypted to protect privacy, and users will not be able to listen to them. They can later share a recording with Uber, which will have an encryption key, if they want to report a problem. Whether the recording feature will deter violent behavior to help riders and drivers is unknown. But Uber stands to benefit because the recordings could help the company mitigate losses and rein in liability for incidents that flare up between drivers and passengers.

PayPal announced today it has agreed to acquire Honey Science Corporation, the makers of a deal-finding browser add-on and mobile application, for $4 billion, mostly cash. TechCrunch reports: The acquisition, which is PayPal's largest to date, will give the payments giant a foothold earlier in the customer's shopping journey. Instead of only competing on the checkout page against credit cards or Apple Pay, for example, PayPal will leap ahead to become a part of the deal discovery process, as well. Currently, Honey's 17 million monthly active users take advantage of its suite of money-saving tools to track prices, get alerts, make lists, browse offers and participate in an Ebates-like rewards program called Honey Gold. Its users tend to be younger, millennial shoppers, both male and female. PayPal aims to add Honey's technology to its own product line, expanding its reach to PayPal's 300 million users.

In addition, PayPal's network of 24 million merchant partners will gain the ability to offer targeted and more personalized promotions to consumers as a means of acquiring new business and driving increased sales. PayPal Credit may also be integrated into Honey to help finance larger purchases. [...] As a result of the acquisition, Honey co-founders George Ruan and Ryan Hudson will join PayPal where they'll work on product integrations and scaling the technology to a much larger user base. Also joining is Honey's predominantly L.A.-based team of 350 employees. The Honey team and headquarters will remain in L.A., where they've just signed a lease on a new office space with expansion goals in mind.

Google Earth is getting a new content creation feature set. From a report: You'll now be able to make presentations using Google's vast 3D Earth imagery and point-of-interest information. It's sort of like a geography-focused Powerpoint. Back in 2017, Google Earth was completely rebuilt from a desktop application to a WebGL-based browser app at earth.google.com/web. Starting today, on the left side of the website, you'll see a new "Projects" button, which will let you create a presentation. Just like a Google Doc or Sheet or Slide, these Google Earth Projects get saved as files on your Google Drive. And like a normal presentation, you can create slides and attach text, images, and videos.

An anonymous reader writes: It can be a bit difficult to wrap your brain around what exactly neural interface startup Ctrl-labs is doing with technology. That's ironic, given that Ctrl-labs wants to let your brain directly use technology by translating mental intent into action. We caught up with Ctrl-labs CEO Thomas Reardon at Web Summit 2019 earlier this month to understand exactly how the brain-machine interface works. Founded in 2015, Ctrl-labs is a New York-based startup developing a wristband that translates musculoneural signals into machine-interpretable commands. But not for long -- Facebook acquired Ctrl-labs in September 2019. The acquisition hasn't closed yet, so Reardon has not spoken to anyone at the social media giant since signing the agreement. He was, however, eager to tell us more about the neural interface technology so we could glean why Facebook (and the tech industry at large) is interested.

Android is built on top of the Linux kernel, but it has always used a heavily-modified version with changes from OEMs, chip manufacturers like Qualcomm and MediaTek, and Google. There have been efforts over the years to close the gap between the two kernels, but now Google is getting more serious about it. From a report: At this year's Linux Plumbers Conference, Google engineers held talks about the company's efforts to get Android as close as possible to the mainline Linux kernel. Not only would this reduce technical overhead for Google and other companies, because they would no longer have to merge thousands of changes into each new Linux kernel version (and Google would no longer have to support Linux kernel versions for six years), but it could also benefit the Linux project as a whole. For example, the growing number of ARM-based Linux phones and computers could see improved performance and battery life. The first stage of this process is merging as many of Android's modifications as possible back into the mainline Linux kernel.

As of Feburary 2018, the Android common kernel (which OEMs make additional changes to) has over 32,000 insertions and over 1,500 deletions compared to mainline Linux 4.14.0. That's an improvement from a few years ago, when Android added over 60,000 lines of code on top of Linux. To show off how much progress has been made, Tom Gall, the director of the Linaro Consumer Group, brought a Xiaomi Pocophone on stage that was running Android 10 on top of a mainline Linux kernel. He told the audience, "there are major, major props to be given to the Google Kernel Team in particular for getting their code upstream so that we can boot devices with a mainline kernel." It's likely that some of the phone's features were non-functional (the battery percentage in the picture reads as 0%), but it's still impressive.

Brad McQuaid, best known as a formative hand in the creation of EverQuest, has passed away at the age of 51. From a report: McQuaid's death was reported by the official Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen Twitter account, which is the MMO he was working on until his death. A message was also left on the Pantheon MMO forums by user BenD -- Visionary Realms' director of comms Benjamin Dean -- who writes that McQuaid passed away in his home. "Brad was a visionary, a mentor, an artist, a trailblazer, a friend, a husband, a father," the message reads. "He touched thousands of lives with his dreams and concepts. He changed the landscape of video games forever. He will be deeply missed and forever remembered in life and in Pantheon. Thank you, Brad, for bringing us together through your worlds. Rest in peace, Aradune. All of us at Visionary Realms offer our deepest condolences to Brad's family and during this most difficult time, we kindly ask that you respect the privacy of Brad's family."

Known as Aradune in the MMO community, McQuaid joined Sony Online Entertainment in 1996 as a lead programmer and later producer on EverQuest, before later becoming chief creative officer. In 2002 he left SOE and founded Sigil Games, which shipped the MMO Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. Sigil Games was eventually purchased by SOE. He briefly rejoined SOE in 2012-2013 before going independent. Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen was successfully Kickstarter funded in 2014.

Password data and other personal information belonging to as many as 2.2 million users of two websites -- one a cryptocurrency wallet service and the other a gaming bot provider -- have been posted online, according to Troy Hunt, the security researcher behind the Have I Been Pwned breach notification service. Ars Technica reports: One haul includes personal information for as many as 1.4 million accounts from the GateHub cryptocurrency wallet service. The other contains data for about 800,000 accounts on RuneScape bot provider EpicBot. The databases include registered email addresses and passwords that were cryptographically hashed with bcrypt, a function that's among the hardest to crack.

The person posting the 3.72GB Gatehub database said it also includes two-factor authentication keys, mnemonic phrases, and wallet hashes, although GateHub officials said an investigation suggested wallet hashes were not accessed. The EpicBot database, meanwhile, purportedly included usernames and IP addresses. Hunt said he selected a representative sample of accounts from both databases to verify the authenticity of the data. All of the email addresses he checked were registered to accounts of the two sites. [...] While there were 2.2 million unique addresses in the two dumps, it's possible that corresponding password hashes or other data isn't included with each one.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: The Justice Department said on Monday that it planned to overturn antitrust-related movie distribution rules from the early days of Hollywood (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source), citing an entertainment landscape that has been radically reshaped by technology. "We cannot pretend that the business of film distribution and exhibition remains the same," Makan Delrahim, the antitrust chief at the Justice Department, said at an American Bar Association conference in Washington. "Changes over the course of more than half a century also have made it unlikely that the remaining defendants can reinstate their cartel."

The film distribution rules, known as the Paramount consent decrees, were enacted in 1949, a year after the United States Supreme Court ruled that Hollywood's eight largest studios could not own theaters, and thus control the film business. The regulations made it illegal for studios to unreasonably limit the number of theaters in one geographical area that could play a movie. They also banned "block booking," a bundling practice where studios forced theaters to play their bad movies along with their good ones or not play any. But that was when "metropolitan areas generally had a single movie theater with one screen that showed a single movie at a time," Mr. Delrahim said. "Today, not only do our metropolitan areas have many multiplex cinemas showing films from different distributors, but much of our movie-watching is not in theaters at all." In essence, he was saying that the regulations are obsolete because of technological advancements, most recently streaming. The National Association of Theater Owners said that abolishing the consent decrees could result in a return to block booking, which many smaller theater owners could not survive.

"If distributors can engage in block booking, exhibitors may be forced to pack their screens with global tentpoles at the expense of targeted programming," the association said in its submitted comments, referring to blockbuster films that now dominate the box office. "Consumers will face increasingly limited choices at the box office, and, without the possibility of a theatrical run, many films will no longer be made, limiting the availability of choices through home entertainment platforms as well."

Chairman Ajit Pai is pressing for a public auction of wireless frequencies in the C-band spectrum (the 4GHz to 8GHz range often used by satellite companies) for the sake of 5G service. Engadget reports: This would help the FCC clear up "significant" frequency space in a quick fashion, generate money for the government and "ensure continued delivery" of existing services, Pai argued. He hoped to auction off a 280MHz slice while leaving the upper 200MHz available. An FCC official told the Wall Street Journal that the regulator hoped to bring the C-band auction up for a vote in 2020 and start the auction by the end of that year.

Satellite companies, however, might not be so happy. Industry giants like Intelsat and SES haven't been averse to selling their spectrum, but they've wanted a private auction to share the money they make and have claimed the FCC isn't allowed to take in-use spectrum without paying them. A public auction flies in the face of that. The C-Band Alliance, a group representing the satellite firms, has hinted at "protracted litigation" if the FCC pushes forward. Carriers are also of mixed opinions. AT&T, which owns DirecTV, has called C-band an "opportunity" but also wanted compensation and a "reasonable transition plan" to avoid disruptions. Verizon (Engadget's parent company and Pai's former employer) likewise wanted "appropriate incentives and protections" to ensure a quick process.

Yesterday, Valve announced Half-Life: Alyx, the first new game in the acclaimed Half-Life series in well over a decade. And unlike the previous Half-Life installments, this game will be playable exclusively in virtual reality. The Verge reports: We don't currently have any details beyond the tweet from Valve above, which appears to be the first tweet from a new, Twitter-verified Valve Software account established in June. But clearly, we'll be learning more on Thursday, presumably from this social media account, at 10am PT. Despite being some of the most influential and critically acclaimed PC games ever made, Valve has famously never finished either of its Half-Life supposed trilogies of games. After Half-Life and Half-Life 2, the company created Half-Life: Episode 1 and Half-Life: Episode 2, but no third game in the series. The closest we've come to knowing anything about where Half-Life was headed was this thinly veiled fanfic from former Valve writer Marc Laidlaw.

dryriver writes: In an episode of the BBC's Tomorrow's World broadcasted all the way back in 1984, a presenter shows hands-on how a laser hologram of a real-world object can be recorded onto a transparent plastic medium, erased again by heating the plastic with an electric current, and then re-recorded differently. The presenter states that computer scientists are very interested in holograms because the future of digital data storage may lie in them. This was 35 years ago. Holographic data storage for PCs, smartphones, etc. still is not available commercially. Why is this? Are data storage holograms too difficult to create? Or did nobody do enough research on the subject, getting us all stuck with mechanical hard disks and SSDs instead? Where are the hologram drives that appeared "so promising" three decades ago?

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) on Monday introduced a bill that would curtail the flow of sensitive information about people in the U.S. to China through large tech companies like Apple and TikTok. Hawley's legislation would place new and wide-reaching limitations on companies with ties to China such as TikTok, the mega-popular social media platform owned by a Chinese firm, and Apple, an American company that builds many of its components in mainland China.

The bill, called the National Security and Personal Data Protection Act, would subject a litany of companies with ties to countries of "national security concern," including Russia and China, to a new privacy regime. Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) also signed onto the bill on Monday. Hawley's bill would apply to tech companies that are subject to Chinese or Russian law, or are under the jurisdiction of those countries in a way that would allow those governments to access user data without "respect for civil liberties and privacy," according to the bill. Those companies would not be allowed to collect private data beyond what is required to run their services or transfer data on U.S. users to countries of concern. They would also be required to store information on U.S. users in the United States itself, and would have to submit a yearly report proving their compliance with the law once a year to the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. attorney general, and all state attorneys general.

Many Disney+ users who have had their accounts stolen and put up for sale on the dark web say that Disney has yet to sort their problems. The firm says it does not believe its systems have been compromised, suggesting that members' details have been stolen by other means. The BBC reports: On November 12, its first day live, people had technical problems and many complained on social media. Others said they were locked out of their accounts, and since they contacted Disney they have not heard back. According to an investigation by ZDNet, thousands of user accounts went on sale on the dark web. Only hours after the service launched, hackers were selling Disney+ accounts for as little as $3. A subscription to the service costs $7 a month. With the help of a cyber-security researcher, the BBC also found several hacked customer accounts for sale on the dark web.

Many say they used unique userIDs and passwords to access the streaming platform. But Jason Hill, a lead researcher with CyberInt, says it looks like many were stolen because people use the same passwords for different sites. Mr Hill said that hackers can lift someone's password from a different site which has previously been hacked and then try it on a new site, like Disney+. If it works, they steal the account. The streaming service does not have two-factor authentication. Others are concerned because they can use their Disney+ login to access other products the company provides, like the Disney store and its recreation parks.