Three years after a class-action lawsuit was filed against Samsung for artificially boosting CPU and GPU performance to report inflated benchmark scores, a settlement has been reached to fine the company for its infraction. Android Police reports: Samsung finds itself on the hook for paying $13.4 million in damages, breaking down to $2.8 million for settlement costs and $10.6 million for injunction relief. Taking all Galaxy S4 sales into account, that $2.8 million for victims of the benchmark-rigging amounts to about $10 per person. In addition to this fine, Samsung is committing to refrain from manipulating benchmarks on its devices, but only for three years. Following this timeframe, Samsung can technically reactivate the code responsible for cheating benchmark applications; however, re-engaging in this behavior would most likely result in future litigation. Details as to how owners can claim their $10 payout have yet to be released.

dryriver shares a report from Euronews: Iraq's government shut off internet access, imposed curfews and deployed elite forces to secure key facilities on Wednesday amid widespread protests aimed at toppling the country's regime. Five people were killed and more than 200 were wounded in the largest display of public anger against Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi's year-old government. Domestic instability could prove to be the final nail in the coffin of Abdul Mahdi's fragile coalition government, sworn in last year as a compromise between rival factions after an inconclusive election.

Counter-terrorism troops were deployed to Baghdad airport where its men fired live ammunition and tear gas at protesters, preventing them from storming the facility. They were also deployed in the southern city of Nassiriya after police "lost control" when gunfights broke out between protesters and security forces, police sources said. Curfews were later imposed in Nassiriya and two other southern cities, Amara and Hilla, the police sources told Reuters, as protests that began on Tuesday over unemployment, corruption and poor public services escalated. Demands on Wednesday included the "fall of the regime" and government and political party buildings set ablaze in two other southern provinces. According to blockage observatory NetBlocks, internet connectivity has fallen below 70% in the capital Baghdad. Additionally, social media platforms Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, as well as WhatsApp, all appeared to have been disabled across Iraq except in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region which has a separate internet infrastructure.

A man in Florida has been arrested for cutting the brake lines on dozens of public scooters. The man has been identified by police as 59-year-old Randall Thomas Williams of Ford Lauderdale, though a possible motive has not yet been released. The BBC reports: According to Fort Lauderdale police, a surveillance operation was set up over the weekend after more than 140 scooters were vandalized. Randall Williams, 59, was captured on camera cutting brake lines over three days, police say. When Mr Williams was arrested on Sunday, he was found carrying two pairs of wire cutters and wearing one glove. He has been charged with criminal mischief as well as resisting arrest and "loitering or prowling."

"In the early morning hours on September 28, 2019... the defendant was observed walking around the neighborhood, hiding in the shadows, and utilizing the dark alleyways to conceal himself from public view," according to the police arrest report. It said he placed white stickers over the QR codes used by riders to activate the scooters. During his interrogation "the defendant failed to dispel officers' alarm as to why he was lurking in the shadows and using the alleyways behind closed business, which are not normal avenues of transport for law-abiding citizens," police said. The companies who owned the scooters have since removed the scooters in the vicinity to avoid rider injury.

Mike Bouma shares a post from MorphZone, detailing the latest update to the AmigaOS-like computer operating system known as MorphOS: The MorphOS development team is proud to announce the public release of MorphOS 3.12. This new version introduces brand new dual-monitor capabilities to various Powerbook laptops as well as G5 desktop systems, and features improved thermal management, fan control and dynamic CPU frequency switching, which provide increased energy efficiency and reduced noise levels. Additionally, the Helios Firewire stack has been fully integrated into the core OS and we added support for hundreds of modern printers and scanners. The installation and troubleshooting guides should be carefully read prior to installation. You can download MorphOS 3.12 here.

At Microsoft's annual Surface press event today, the company announced the Surface Earbuds to rival Apple's AirPods and Amazon's newly announced Echo Buds. What's unique about the Surface Earbuds is that, unlike the other two wireless earphones, they can be used with Alexa, Bixby, Google Assistant, Siri, or any other competitor -- not just with Cortana. VentureBeat reports: Like the Surface Headphones, the Surface Earbuds don't do anything until you pair them. Surface Earbuds communicate over Bluetooth 5.0 with an Android, iOS, or Windows 10 device. Once paired, you can tap and hold either of the buds to trigger the default assistant on your device. To use a different virtual assistant with the Surface Earbuds, just change the default assistant on the paired device.

"Out of the box, it just works," said Surface Earbuds product lead Mohammed Samji. "On PC, it launches Cortana. On iOS, it will launch Siri, unless you've changed it. And I think it might vary depending on the distribution of Android, but all the ones I've tested, the first time I do it, Android asks me what I want as my default." Surface Earbuds still offer a better experience with Cortana (although without the "Hey Cortana" wakeword), Samji made sure to emphasize. Surface Earbuds can do everything with Cortana that the Surface Headphones can do, like chit-chat, interact with your email, check your calendar, get your daily update, and create to-dos. Samji said his team created a more streamlined flow for all this Cortana functionality. It's called Surface Audio. One of the biggest new abilities with the Surface Earbuds is gestures. "Surface Earbuds' gestures include double tap (go in and out of the call, or play/pause), swipe up and down (control volume), or even swipe forward and back (switch tracks in music, switch slides in PowerPoint)," reports VentureBeat. "Specifically on Android, there's also a triple tap to launch Spotify under your phone's lockscreen -- you can triple-tap again to have Spotify to choose another song using its ML."

At an event today, where Microsoft announced the Surface Laptop 3, Windows 10X, and an Android smartphone, the company also unveiled refreshed editions of its laptop-tablet hybrids: the Surface Pro 7, and the Surface Pro X. About the Surface Pro 7, which features a USB-C port: The price tag has also changed slightly: The Surface Pro 7 starts at $749 ($150 less than its predecessor). It's available for preorder today and ships on October 22. Microsoft has simply replaced the Mini DisplayPort with USB-C. There is still a USB-A port for all your existing accessories. Adding a USB-C port finally puts the Surface Pro on par with the Surface Book 2 of two years ago and last year's Surface Go. Surface fans have long asked for USB-C ports and Microsoft has been very slowly delivering. Surface Pro 7 comes with 10th-generation Intel Core processors (upgradeable all the way up to quad-core) and starts at 128GB of SSD storage (upgradable to 1TB). Like its predecessor, the Surface Pro 7 still comes with 4GB, 8GB, or 16GB of RAM. Otherwise, the design is largely unchanged. The Surface Pro 7 still has a 12.3-inch display, 2736 x1824 resolution, and 267ppi. The Surface Pro 6 was available in black and silver, and so is the Surface Pro 7. About the Surface Pro X: Seattle tech giant unveiled the Surface Pro X, the spiritual successor to the Surface, the Surface 2, the Surface 3, and the Surface Go. It's ultra-slim and lightweight, with a bezel-to-bezel 13-inch display and an adjustable kickstand. And it's the first machine to ship with a custom-designed, ARM-based Microsoft SQ1 system-on-chip co-engineered with Qualcomm. The Surface Pro X will be available on November 5, starting at $999, and Microsoft will begin taking preorders today.

On the display front, you're looking at a PixelSense panel with 2880 x 1920 resolution with a 267-pixel-per-inch screen density and a 1400:1 contrast ratio. Microsoft says it has the thinnest bezels of any 2-in-1. Under the hood, the Surface Pro X sports the aforementioned 7-nanometer SQ1, which Microsoft says delivers more performance per watt than the chip in the Surface Pro 6. It's an octa-core processor Qualcomm-designed Kryo cores clocked at 3GHz and running at 7 watts maximum, sitting alongside a redesigned GPU and integrated AI accelerator. Altogether, it delivers 9 teraflops of computational power, with the graphics chip alone pushing 2.1 teraflops.

Microsoft today announced Windows 10X, a new flavor of Windows 10 designed for dual-screen PCs. Windows 10X will power dual-screen PCs from Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and of course Microsoft. From a report: But we won't see them until holiday 2020. Microsoft teased the Surface Neo running Windows 10X at its event today. Lenovo unveiled what it called "the world's first foldable PC" earlier this year. Windows 10X will support devices that have either two different panels with a hinge or one foldable piece of glass. The only requirement is that the device's two screens must each measure more than 9 inches diagonally. Windows 10X devices available next year will come with varying screen sizes, but the smallest will be 9 inches. Dual-screen PCs aside, Microsoft has been working to modularize Windows 10 for years. After all, the company's HoloLens, Surface Hub, and Xbox One all run a form of Windows 10. Adding support for the dual-screen PC form factor into Windows 10 has also been a multi-year journey. Further reading: Microsoft Announces the Surface Duo, a Dual-Screen Android Phone.

Apple said it will ease some restrictions on developers of third-party apps, responding to news reports about the rise of in-house software that gets prized default status on iPhones and iPads. From a report: The Cupertino, California-based company plans to release a software update later this year that will help outside messaging applications work better with the Siri digital assistant. Right now, when iPhone users ask Siri to call or message a friend, the system defaults to Apple's Phone or iMessage apps. If you want to use WhatsApp or Skype, you have to specifically say that.

When the software refresh kicks in, Siri will default to the apps that people use frequently to communicate with their contacts. For example, if an iPhone user always messages another person via WhatsApp, Siri will automatically launch WhatsApp, rather than iMessage. It will decide which service to use based on interactions with specific contacts. Developers will need to enable the new Siri functionality in their apps. This will be expanded later to phone apps for calls as well.

At its Surface event in New York City today, Microsoft refreshed its Surface Laptop with updated specs, USB-C support, and AMD Ryzen 7. From a report: This is the first time a Surface device has been powered by AMD. Furthermore, while the Surface Laptop 2 only came in a 13.5-inch size, the Surface Laptop 3 is available in 13.5-inch and 15-inch flavors. The Surface Laptop 3 starts at $999 (same as the Surface Laptop 2 and the original Surface Laptop). The 15-inch version starts at $1,199. The Surface Laptop 3 is available for preorder today and ships on October 22. Panos Panay, head of engineering for all of Microsoft's devices, said the Surface Laptop has the highest customer satisfaction of any laptop in its class. He shared that the trackpad is 20% larger, the hard drive is removable, and the laptop is now available in a machined aluminum finish.

California senator and 2020 presidential candidate Kamala Harris has formally asked Twitter to suspend President Donald Trump's account, following Trump's attacks on a whistleblower and his claim that impeachment would start a civil war. From a report: In an open letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Harris says that Trump has used Twitter to "target, harass, and attempt to out" the person who filed an explosive complaint about Trump pressuring Ukraine to dig up dirt on rival candidate Joe Biden. Trump has been tweeting angrily about the complaint for several days now. Harris cites multiple messages where he calls the whistleblower "a spy" as well as a tweet where he called to arrest Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who has helped lead the investigation into Trump's actions, for "fraud and treason." Offline, Trump has arguably insinuated that the whistleblower should be executed for spying -- something Harris says makes his tweets more threatening. "These tweets should be placed in the proper context," she writes. Around the same time, Trump quoted a Fox News claim that "if the Democrats are successful in removing the president from office (which they will never be), it will cause a civil war-like fracture in this nation from which our country will never heal," which Harris also notes. "These tweets represent a clear intent to baselessly discredit the whistleblower and officials in our government who are following the proper channels to report allegations of presidential impropriety, all while making blatant threats that put people at risk and our democracy in danger," she writes. Twitter told The Verge that it has received the letter and plans to respond to Harris's concerns.

sombragris writes: TweetDeck, the popular tweet management console owned by Twitter, began experiencing several issues at about 18:00 EST. Currently it is down for many users worldwide. There is no yet comment from Twitter on the issue. UPDATE: Engadget reports users aren't seeing new DMs and/or may have trouble adding images, videos and polls. In a tweet, the company said it's working on a fix and that things "should be back to normal soon."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: According to Bloomberg, top Russian geneticists held a "secret meeting" this summer with government health officials in Moscow to debate a bid by a scientist there, Denis Rebrikov, to create babies genetically modified with the gene-editing technology CRISPR. The first such children were born in China last year as part of a project to make HIV-resistant humans. That undertaking was halted amid pointed criticism of its ethical failings and a criminal investigation. The question now is whether Russia will grab the CRISPR baton where China dropped it. Dmitry Peskov, the spokesman for Russia's leader, declined to give Bloomberg a position, saying gene editing is not "a presidential issue."

However, Bloomberg reports that the Moscow gene-editing conclave was attended by pediatric endocrinologist Maria Vorontsova, who is Putin's eldest daughter (although this has never publicly confirmed by the Kremlin). Second-hand reports have Vorontsova saying she doesn't think scientific progress can be slowed but that it should be controlled -- or instance, by limiting production of CRISPR babies to "state" institutions. Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova told Bloomberg that "an ethics committee will deal with this very complicated issue." MIT notes that Putin has in the past likened [CRISPR] technology to a nuclear bomb and cited the possibility of creating soldiers who feel no pain. According to Bloomberg, Putin last year directed $2 billion to be spent on genetic research that he said will "determine the future of the whole world."

According to The Wall Street Journal, Facebook plans to exempt opinion pieces and satire from its fact-checking program, as the social-media giant grapples with how to stop the spread of falsehoods while maintaining its own neutrality. From the report: As part of the new rules, Facebook will allow publishers of information found to be false by outside fact-checkers to appeal to the company, said the people familiar with the changes. Posts that Facebook deems to be either opinion or satire won't be labeled as false even if they contain information the fact-checkers determined was inaccurate, the people said. The new rules follow Facebook's acknowledgment last week that it will continue exempting politicians from fact-checks, on the grounds that such comments are newsworthy, as well as a recent controversy arising from a third-party fact checker's determination that an antiabortion group's video was false.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Docker, the technology, is the poster child for containers. But it appears Docker, the business, is in trouble. In a leaked memo, Docker CEO Rob Bearden praised workers -- despite the "uncertainty [which] brings with it significant challenges" and "persevering in spite of the lack of clarity we've had these past few weeks." Lack of clarity about what? Sources close to the company say it's simple: Docker needs more money.

Indeed, Bearden opened by saying: "We have been engaging with investors to secure more financing to continue to execute on our strategy. I wanted to share a quick update on where we stand. We are currently in active negotiations with two investors and are working through final terms. We should be able to provide you a more complete update within the next couple of weeks." Docker has already raised $272.9 million, but the company hasn't been profitable. It's venture-capitalist supporters -- ME Cloud Ventures, Benchmark, Coatue Management, Goldman Sachs, and Greylock Partners -- which have seen it through Series E financing, can't be happy, that after almost six-years, Docker still isn't close to an IPO. While the previous CEO, Steve Singh, promised in May 2019 that Docker would be cash-flow positive by the end of this fiscal year, that appears not to have been the case. Otherwise, Docker wouldn't need to seek additional capital. ZDNet's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols says the reason has to do with Docker's lack of a viable business plan.

"That's in part because Docker had hoped to make container orchestration, with Docker Swarm, its profit center," writes Vaughan-Nichols. "Then along came Kubernetes, and that was the end of that. Kubernetes has become the container orchestration of choice, leaving little room for others. And, indeed, Docker has adopted Kubernetes as well."

In anticipation for Google's upcoming Stadia cloud gaming service and Microsoft's Project xCloud, which enters open beta this month, Sony is lowering the price of PlayStation Now for PS4 and PC. "Monthly subscriptions are now available for $10, which is a considerable reduction from the previous $20 price point," reports GameSpot. "Quarterly subscriptions, meanwhile, will now cost $25, having previously been $45 in the U.S. and unavailable elsewhere. Finally, a year's PS Now membership is now $60, down from $100." From the report: The new price points are active right now; existing customers will see the new cost reflected in their upcoming bill. The price cut applies worldwide on the platform's catch-all subscription -- not on individual game rentals. Sony also revealed a number of new titles being added to the PS Now library. God of War (2018), Infamous: Second Son, Grand Theft Auto V, and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End are all now available as part of the service's subscription offering--but they will be removed on January 2, 2020, Sony said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Household appliances will become easier to repair thanks to new standards being adopted across the European Union. From 2021, firms will have to make appliances longer-lasting, and they will have to supply spare parts for machines for up to 10 years. The rules apply to lighting, washing machines, dishwashers and fridges. But campaigners for the "right to repair" say they do not go far enough as only professionals -- not consumers -- will be able carry out the repairs. The legislation has been prompted by complaints from consumers across Europe and North America infuriated by machines that break down when they are just out of warranty. Under the European Commission's new standards, manufacturers will have to make spares, such as door gaskets and thermostats, available to professional repairers. These parts will have to be accessible with commonly-available tools and without damaging the product. Manufacturers say they are only making the parts available for independent professionals because if consumers were allowed to buy spares and mend their own machines it would raise questions about risk and liability.

The report also notes that "star ratings for the energy efficiency of appliances will be ratcheted up," which "could directly save 20 billion euros on energy bills per year in Europe from 2030 onwards -- equivalent to 5% of EU electricity consumption."

UPS said today that it is the first to receive the official nod from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to operate a full "drone airline," that will allow it to expand its current small drone delivery service pilots into a country-wide network. From a report: In its announcement of the news, UPS said that it will start by building out its drone delivery solutions specific to hospital campuses nationwide in the U.S., and then to other industries outside of healthcare. UPS racks up a number of firsts as a result of this milestone, thanks to how closely it has been working with the FAA throughout its development and testing process for drone deliveries. As soon as it was awarded the certification, it did a delivery for WakeMed hospital in Raleigh, N.C. using a Matternet drone, and it also became the first commercial operator to perform a drone delivery for an actual paying customer outside of line of sight thanks to an exemption it received from the government. This certification, officially titled FAA's "Part 135 Standard certification," offers far-reaching and broad license to companies who attain it -- much more freedom than any commercial drone operation has had previously in the U.S.

hackingbear writes: In a large military parade led by President Xi Jinping to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic, China's military has shown off a new hypersonic ballistic nuclear missile believed capable of breaching all existing anti-missile shields deployed by the United States and its allies. The DF-17, as the new missile is known, uses hypersonic glide vehicle technology also permits it to fly on a highly manoeuvrable trajectory, at extremely fast speed, at a much lower altitude just before delivering its warhead, defeating attempts to detect and intercept the weapon. The DF-17 is believed to be the first of its kind to reach operation status. In addition to DF-17, China also showed off a number of new weapons including the first official revealing of DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missile, with a reach of between 12,000 and 15,000 kilometers (7,400-9,320 miles), reportedly the longest in the world.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday affirmed that the Federal Communications Commission acted lawfully when it scrapped the U.S. government's net neutrality rules in 2017, but it opened the door for state and local governments to introduce their own regulations designed to treat all web traffic equally. From a report: In a nearly 200-page opinion, judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals largely sided with the FCC and its Republican chairman, Ajit Pai, who was appointed to his position by President Trump. While the agency must return to the drawing board on some elements of its repeal, the court upheld the legal underpinnings of the FCC's work, finding that net neutrality supporters had made "unconvincing" arguments in their efforts to override the FCC's deregulation of companies such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon. But the ruling still appeared to offer a lifeline to net neutrality supporters: It overruled an effort by the FCC to block states from adopting open-internet protections of their own. The FCC preempted those regulations as part of its prior repeal, but the court determined the telecom agency had overstepped its authority. In unwinding the agency's blockade on such protections, the judges opened the door for states such as California to forge ahead with their plans for regulation. More: Court rules the FCC can't block state net neutrality laws.

A former Yahoo software engineer pleaded guilty yesterday to hacking into the personal accounts of over 6,000 Yahoo users, in search of sexual images and videos. From a report: Reyes Daniel Ruiz, 34, of Tracy, California, worked for more than ten years for Yahoo!, where he served as a reliability engineer for the company's Yahoo! Mail service, among other roles. According to court documents, Ruiz used the access to Yahoo!'s internal network that his job provided to crack users' passwords and gain access to their email accounts. In total, he accessed about 6,000 accounts, most belonging to younger women, including personal friends and work colleagues. Once in, he searched and downloaded images and videos, which he stored at home on a hard drive. Ruiz also used access to the hacked Yahoo! email inboxes to compromise accounts at services like Apple iCloud, Facebook, Gmail, DropBox, and others, where the victims used the Yahoo! email address to register accounts. He did this by requesting password resets on the third-party sites, which he received inside the victim's Yahoo! inboxes. Ruiz then continued his search of personal images and videos on these new accounts.