dryriver shares a report from ZDNet: Speaking with Bloomberg, Microsoft co-founder Gates said it is better to regulate big tech companies. Breaking them up will simply result in two companies indulging in bad behavior. "I don't know the last time a company was broken up but you have to really think, 'Is that the best thing if there's a way that a company's behaving that you want to get rid of?' Then you should just say, 'Hey, OK, that's a banned behavior,'" said Gates. "Splitting a company in two and having two people doing the bad thing, you know that doesn't seem like a solution," he added. Gates said it was a "pretty narrow set of things" where a break-up would be a suitable solution. "I was naive about this but that was a long time ago and I didn't realize that as Microsoft gets successful we'd come under scrutiny and we went through our thing back in the 1990s and that's made us more thoughtful about this kind of activity," he said. Gates also told the Financial Times that fossil fuel divestment has had zero impact on emissions.

Local authorities in Rachel, Nevada -- the location of a planned Aliengate festival that evolved out of a viral Facebook event -- are considering taking legal action to cover $250,000 the county plans to spend to prepare for the potential onslaught of visitors. Gizmodo reports: Matty Roberts created the "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us" Facebook event on June 27 as a joke, but the event went viral and evolved into an actual festival -- Alienstock -- which was planned for September 19-22 at the Little A'Le'Inn in Rachel, Nevada, near the US Air Force base known as Area 51. But just a few days before the event was supposed to begin, Roberts and his partners backed out, posting on their website that they "foresee a possible humanitarian disaster in the works" and after considering "the lack of infrastructure, planning, and risk management, along with concerns raised for the safety of the expected 10,000+ attendees, we decided to transition Alienstock away from the Rachel festival towards a safer alternative." That safer alternative is an "Area 51 Celebration" happening on Thursday night at the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center.

However, Little A'Le'Inn owner Connie West has made it very clear that she still plans to host her own Alienstock, despite Roberts' attorney sending her a cease-and-desist letter ordering her to stop using the name "Alienstock" since the event at that location was canceled. Lincoln County Sheriff Kerry Lee told Gizmodo that as of Wednesday morning, people had already started arriving at A'Le'Inn. "Matty Roberts is the one that started this on Facebook. So our district attorney, his opinion is that Matty Roberts and Facebook stand to be partially to blame for this" Lee told Gizmodo. "He's already told people that this is quote-unquote 'His event.' He told some of the other event promoters that this was his event. And so I guess if it's his event and he's taken ownership of it then we know where legal action should go toward. I'm not an attorney but that is what Lincoln County district attorney is saying." Facebook is protected from legal action regarding content created by one of its users under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, but it's possible that the district attorney may argue that this particular circumstance wouldn't be covered by those protections.

Two years after hackers first started targeting local government payment portals, attacks are still going on, with eight cities having had their Click2Gov payment portals compromised in the last month alone, security researchers from Gemini Advisory have revealed in a report shared with ZDNet today. From the news report: These new hacks have allowed hackers to get their hands on over 20,000 payment card details belonging to US citizens, which are now being traded on the dark web, the cyber-security firm said. Click2Gov is a web-based portal sold by Central Square, formerly known as Superion, to US and Canadian municipalities, small and large alike. It comes as a cloud-based offering and in a self-hosted version. Once up and running, Click2Gov provides a self-service portal where US citizens can pay taxes and bills. Such portals are widespread across the US and are not only used by locals, but also by Americans living across the country to pay bills and taxes for property they own in other cities or states. In 2017, a hacker group began targeting self-hosted Click2Gov portals that had been lagging behind with software patches.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BuzzFeed News: Dozens of top posts under the #opioidcrisis and #opioidaddiction hashtags contained comments touting Oxycontin, Percocet, Codeine, and other prescription opioids -- along with phone numbers and usernames for encrypted messaging accounts. A typical entry, under a video describing tens of thousands of deaths by drug overdose, offered "fast deals" on "Oxys, Roxy, Xans, Addy, codeine, perc...Available 24.7 for delivery." Social media's role in boosting the American opioid crisis, and the way dealers have used Instagram to connect with buyers, have long been known. Last year, the Washington Post described the service as "a sizable open marketplace for advertising illegal drugs." Instagram responded by cracking down on the drug-specific hashtags where many of these offers once lived.

Now, though, as Facebook strives to highlight the way its services can connect addicts with recovery communities, these hubs are also valuable real estate for dealers. It's a significant oversight for the company, which is trying to show it can deal with the problem of drugs on its platforms to discourage legislation that would increase its liability for hosting such content. Eileen Carey, an activist and former tech industry executive who for years has kept a record of drug sales on social platforms, told BuzzFeed News that she approached [Facebook's head of global policy management Monika Bickert after a Senate hearing on Wednesday] and showed her the comments. "She thanked me for flagging," Carey said. A day later, however, the hashtag-located opioid markets remained open for business. "We do not allow the sale of illegal drugs on Instagram," a Facebook spokesperson wrote in a comment to BuzzFeed News. "It is against our policies to buy, sell or trade non-medical or pharmaceutical drugs on our platform -- including in comments. Inappropriate comments can and should be reported, and will be reviewed like posts or stories."

YouTube is rolling out changes to its verification program for creators, making it tougher for growing channels to earn a checkmark beside their name and removing verification badges from people who don't meet the heightened criteria. An anonymous Slashdot reader shares a report from The Verge: YouTube's current system allows anyone with more than 100,000 subscribers to be verified. Now, YouTube is emphasizing verifying prominent channels that have a "clear need for proof of authenticity," according to the company. This includes traditional YouTubers, musicians, comedians, and artists, among others. Verification is an extremely important feature for creators. It affects which creators get top recommendations when people search for something on YouTube. Channels that no longer meet the criteria and may have their badge removed will be notified today, YouTube confirmed to The Verge. Creators will have the option to appeal the decision before the change takes place in late October.

The criteria for verification due to prominence essentially looks at whether a creator or channel is recognizable enough both in and outside of YouTube that the company needs to authenticate them. The company's authenticity rules are pretty simple: a channel has to be owned and operated by the person or company it claims to be in order to get a checkmark or other verification mark. For example, Beyonce's official channel should get a new artist profile icon and a musical note beside her name to show people that the page belongs to the real Beyonce. Under the new policy, YouTube's team will handle verification on their end, according to a press release. Channels that meet the new requirements don't have to apply for verification as it will automatically be handed out.

Google's Wing drone-delivery company announced today that it would be partnering with FedEx and Walgreens to bring autonomous drone deliveries to the U.S. in October. "The pilot program will be launched in Christiansburg, Virginia, one of the two areas in the state that Wing has been testing its drone technology for years," reports Quartz. From the report: People expecting packages from FedEx will be able to choose to get their deliveries made via drone, assuming that they live in certain areas that Wing has designated it can safely deliver parcels in. Similarly, Walgreens customers will be able to order products, such as non-prescription medicine, and have them delivered by drone. Walgreens said in a release that 78% of the U.S. population lives within 5 miles of one of its stores. Wing said that its drones can currently make a round-trip flight of about 6 miles (9.7 km), traveling about 60 miles per hour (97 km per hour), and can carry around 3 lbs (1.4 kg) of payload. The company also said that it would be offering deliveries from a local Virginia retailer, Sugar Magnolia. Wing won't be charging for the delivery service itself during the trial.

Wing said on a call with journalists that it will soon be reaching out to members of the Christiansburg community to let them know if they will be able to accept deliveries. Wing's drones don't actually land on the ground when they make deliveries; instead, they hover about 23 ft (7 m) off the ground, lowering their packages down through a winch cable system. If anything happens to snag the cable as it's delivering a package, the drone can sense the tension in the cord and release it, hopefully flying away without incident. It still requires what it calls safe delivery zones, like a backyard or a front pathway outside a house, to be able to make a delivery.

Two years ago, Google became the first company of its size to buy as much renewable electricity as the electricity it used. But as the company grows, so does its demand for power. To stay ahead of that demand, Google just made the largest corporate renewable energy purchase in history, with 18 new energy deals around the world that will help build infrastructure worth more than $2 billion. From a report: The projects include massive new solar farms in places like Texas and North Carolina where the company has data centers. "Bringing incremental renewable energy to the grids where we consume energy is a critical component of pursuing 24x7 carbon-free energy for all of our operations," Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in a blog post today. While most of the renewable energy the company has purchased in the past has come from wind farms, the dropping cost of solar power means that several of the new deals are solar plants. In Chile, a new project combines both wind and solar power, making it possible to generate clean energy for longer each day.

Apple's latest iPhone software, iOS 13, is now available -- but on Tuesday, you'll already be able to download the first update, iOS 13.1. And you'll be able to revitalize your iPad with Apple's software created for its tablets. From a report: Apple may be best known for its hardware, but it's really the seamless integration of its devices with its software that's set it apart from rivals. The company's ability to control every aspect of its products -- something that began when Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple in 1976 -- has been key in making Apple the most powerful company in tech. The company's mobile software, iOS, gets revamped every year and launches when its latest phones hit the market. Starting Tuesday, you'll also be able to download the first update to the software, as well as the new iPadOS software tailored for Apple's tablets. iOS 13 brings a dedicated dark mode, a new swipe keyboard and a revamped Photos app (complete with video editing tools). iOS 13.1 will bring bug fixes and will let you share your ETA with friends and family members through Apple Maps. Siri shortcuts can be added to automations, and you can set up triggers to run any shortcut automatically.

San Francisco-based non-profit is archiving billions of web pages in a bid to preserve web history. From a report: Since the 2016 US election, as fears about the power of fake news have intensified, the archive has stepped up its efforts to combat misinformation. At a time when false and ultra-partisan content is rapidly created and spread, and social media pages are constantly updated, the importance of having an unalterable record of who said what, when has been magnified. "We're trying to put in a layer of accountability," said founder Brewster Kahle. Mr Kahle founded the archive, which now employs more than 100 staff and costs $18m a year to run, because he feared that what was appearing on the internet was not being saved and catalogued in the same way as newspapers and books. The organisation is funded through donations, grants and the fees it charges third parties that request specific digitisation services.

So far, the archive has catalogued 330bn web pages, 20m books and texts, 8.5m audio and video recordings, 3m images and 200,000 software programs. The most popular, public websites are prioritised, as are those that are commonly linked to. Some information is free to access, some is loaned out (if copyright laws apply) and some is only available to researchers. Curled up in a chair in his office after lunch, Mr Kahle lamented the combined impact of misinformation and how difficult it can be for ordinary people to access reliable sources of facts. "We're bringing up a generation that turns to their screens, without a library of information accessible via screens," said Mr Kahle. Some have taken advantage of this "new information system", he argued -- and the result is "Trump and Brexit." Having a free online library is crucial, said Mr Kahle, since "[the public is] just learning from whateverâ...âis easily available."

From a report: Switzerland's National Council has passed amendments aimed at modernizing the country's copyright law to make it more fit for the digital age. While services that host pirate sites or distribute content can expect a tougher ride moving forward, users will still be able to download pirate content for personal use. Furthermore, Swiss Internet service providers will not be required to prevent their customers accessing pirate sites.

Technology firms must protect user privacy and prevent abuse of their platforms, India's IT minister said on Thursday, speaking as the government draws up a data privacy law and seeks to push companies to store more data locally. From a report: Federal Information and Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said he wanted Indians to have access to more technology platforms but said this should not undermine user privacy. "I have only one caveat -- it must be safe and secure, it must safeguard the privacy rights of the individual and you must make extra efforts that people don't abuse the system," Prasad told industry executives at a gathering organized by Alphabet's Google in New Delhi. India's 1.3 billion people and their massive consumption of mobile data has turned it into a key growth market for U.S. technology giants such as Google, Facebook and Amazon. India has already forced foreign payment firms such as Mastercard and Visa to store data locally.

The Mate 30 series of smartphones from Huawei is now official, starting with the Mate 30 Pro and the Mate 30. From a report: The announcement of Mate 30 series comes at a difficult time for Huawei, whose presence on the USA's entity list prevents US companies from doing business with the Chinese firm. Google said last month that these phones won't ship with Google's apps and services, nor will they come with the Play Store pre-installed, which is how most Android users outside of China download their apps. Huawei's response to the problem has been to nurture its own ecosystem of apps that are available through the Huawei App Gallery. The company announced that rather than shipping with Google's services pre-installed, the Mate 30 Series would instead ship with the Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) Core, which it claims is already integrated with over 45,000 apps. The company announced that it was investing $1 billion into its software ecosystem with an investment that would be split across a development fund, a user growth fund, and a marketing fund. Here's what happens when you attempt to sideload an app developed by Google.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Google Assistant, the digital assistant from the global search giant, is available to users through their smartphones, laptops, and smart speakers. Earlier this year, the company partnered with KaiOS to bring Assistant to some feature phones with internet access. Now Google is going a step further: Bringing its virtual assistant to people who have the most basic cellphone with no internet access. It's starting this program in India. At an event in New Delhi on Thursday, the company announced a 24x7 telephone line that anyone in India on Vodafone and Idea telecom networks (or Vodafone-Idea telecom network; as Vodafone owns Idea) could dial to have their questions answered.

The company said it tested the phone line service with thousands of users across Lucknow and Kanpur before making it generally available. Users will be able to dial 000-800-9191-000 and they won't be charged for the call or the service. Manuel Bronstein, a VP at Google, said through this program the company is hoping to reach hundreds of millions of users in India who currently don't have access to smartphones or internet.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fast Company: In the future, your office might have an extra appliance next to the copy machine and the refrigerator: an algae bioreactor. Designed to fit inside offices and eventually sit on the rooftops throughout cities, it can capture as much carbon from the atmosphere as an acre of trees. And there's an initial prototype already at work. Inside the bioreactor, algae does the work. "What's amazing about algae is it's really cheap and it's easy to grow -- the core things it needs are sunlight, CO2, and water," says Ben Lamm, CEO and founder of Hypergiant Industries, an AI-focused tech company that developed a prototype of the device, called the Eos Bioreactor. Because algae grows much more quickly than trees, it can also sequester carbon more quickly; the company estimates that the device, which optimizes the algae's ability to capture CO2, can sequester around two tons of carbon out of the air each year.

The first version of the device, which is currently in operation, is three-by-three-by-seven feet. It's a closed system that works indoors, connecting with an HVAC system to reduce CO2 levels inside and release cleaner air. The closed system also makes it possible for the team to study how algae grows -- with sensors monitoring everything from light and heat and pH to the speed of growth and oxygen output -- and how the system can be tweaked to work best in different conditions outside on rooftops. "With the first generation Eos, we have precise control of every aspect of the algae's environment and life cycle," he says. "It's a photobioreactor, but it's also an experimentation platform. We'll be using this platform to better understand the environment that best suits biomass production under controlled circumstances, so that we can better understand how to design reactors for the variety of environmental conditions we're going to encounter in the wild." The team behind the device says they're working on mobile apps that can monitor and run the bioreactors autonomously. It's also "working on DIY plans that it will release next year so people can build the bioreactors at home," the report mentions.

A Navy official has confirmed that recently released videos of unidentified flying objects are real, but that the footage was not authorized to be released to the public in the first place. From a report: Joseph Gradisher, the spokesman for the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare, confirmed to TIME that three widely-shared videos captured "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena." Gradisher initially confirmed this in a statement to "The Black Vault" a website dedicated to declassified government documents. "The Navy designates the objects contained in these videos as unidentified aerial phenomena," Gradisher told the site.

He tells TIME that he was "surprised" by the press coverage surrounding his statement to the site, particularly around his classification of the incursions as "unidentifiable," but says that he hopes that leads to UAP's being "de-stigmatized." "The reason why I'm talking about it is to drive home the seriousness of this issue," Gradisher says. "The more I talk, the more our aviators and all services are more willing to come forward." Gradisher would not speculate as to what the unidentified objects seen in the videos were, but did say they are usually proved to be mundane objects like drones -- not alien spacecraft. "The frequency of incursions have increased since the advents of drones and quadcopters," he says. The three videos of UFOs were published by the New York Times and "To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science," a self-described "public benefit corporation" co-founded by Tom DeLonge, best known as the vocalist and guitarist for the rock band, Blink-182.

A new report from Data and Society raises doubts about automated solutions to deceptively altered videos, including machine learning-altered videos called deepfakes. Authors Britt Paris and Joan Donovan argue that deepfakes, while new, are part of a long history of media manipulation -- one that requires both a social and a technical fix. Relying on AI could actually make things worse by concentrating more data and power in the hands of private corporations. The Verge reports: As Paris and Donovan see it, deepfakes are unlikely to be fixed by technology alone. "The relationship between media and truth has never been stable," the report reads. In the 1850s when judges began allowing photographic evidence in court, people mistrusted the new technology and preferred witness testimony and written records. By the 1990s, media companies were complicit in misrepresenting events by selectively editing out images from evening broadcasts. In the Gulf War, reporters constructed a conflict between evenly matched opponents by failing to show the starkly uneven death toll between U.S. and Iraqi forces. "These images were real images," the report says. "What was manipulative was how they were contextualized, interpreted, and broadcast around the clock on cable television."

Today, deepfakes have taken manipulation even further by allowing people to manipulate videos and images using machine learning, with results that are almost impossible to detect with the human eye. Now, the report says, "anyone with a public social media profile is fair game to be faked." Once the fakes exist, they can go viral on social media in a matter of seconds. [...] Paris worries AI-driven content filters and other technical fixes could cause real harm. "They make things better for some but could make things worse for others," she says. "Designing new technical models creates openings for companies to capture all sorts of images and create a repository of online life."

On Monday night, unionizing employees at Kickstarter filed a complaint with the National Labor Review Board (NLRB) for allegedly wrongfully terminating two employees. Both of the employees were on the Kickstarter United organizing campaign. Motherboard reports: Kickstarter told Motherboard that the workers, Clarissa Redwine and Taylor Moore, were fired over performance issues within the past two weeks. But employees at Kickstarter are accusing the company of "discharging employees" because "they joined or supported a labor organization and in order to discourage union activities," according to the NLRB complaint, which was first reported and obtained by Slate's April Glaser. A third employee and member of the Kickstarter United organizing committee, Travis Brace, was informed on Thursday that he would no longer be needed in his role.

In a September 12 email obtained by Motherboard, Aziz Hasan, the CEO of Kickstarter, wrote to employees, "There have been allegations that we are retaliating against union organizing. Those allegations are not true. No Kickstarter employee has been or ever will be fired for union organizing." Redwine says the company complained to her in recent months that she was not satisfactorily working with her managers. She claims that she was not given specific guidance on how she could improve. "Suddenly, after becoming a public union organizer, I started to get very strong negative feedback," Redwine told Motherboard. "After my best quarter at the company, I was told I was being put on a Performance Improvement Plan for slippery reasons like not building trust with my managers. I asked how progress would be tracked over and over and only received answers akin to 'just trust us.' I assume they never crafted the Performance Improvement Plan because they couldn't come up with anything concrete for me to improve." Redwine and Moore are asking for back pay and to be reinstated to their positions. In response to the complaint, Kickstarter said: "We'll be providing the NLRB with information about these firings and supporting documentation."

Kickstarter told Motherboard that it "recently terminated two employees for performance reasons. A third was working on a service we shut down, so his role was eliminated, and there were no other positions here that would be a strong fit. That staff member will be transitioning out of the company. All three of these employees were members of the organizing committee, but this has nothing to do with their departures. (We have fired three other people who were not organizers since March.)"

"We expect all employees -- including union organizers -- to be able to perform in their role and set up their teams and colleagues for success. We use a range of approaches -- twice-a-year performance reviews, peer feedback, manager feedback, one-on-one coaching and, in some cases, mediation -- to ensure that employees have the support they need to meet those expectations. When someone has been through this process and we have sufficient evidence that they are not meeting expectations, we must unfortunately part ways with them," the company continued.

On Friday, Apple applied for a U.S. Trademark on "Slofie," a made-up name for slow-motion selfies, a feature that's new to the iPhone 11 models. "The phones' front camera can now record video at 120 frames per second, which when slowed down, results in a crisp slow-motion effect," writes Jacob Kastrenakes for The Verge. "The results are neat, though I'm not convinced they'll turn into the Animoji-like phenomenon Apple may be hoping for." From the report: Apple is applying for a trademark on slofies in connection with "downloadable computer software for use in capturing and recording video." That means this trademark seems to be more about preventing other companies from making slofie-branded camera apps than it is about limiting popular usage of this totally made-up word. Apple has reason to want to prevent the creation of knock-off slofie apps, too, since slofies are meant to be exclusive to the new iPhones.

Despite the focus on apps, Apple doesn't actually offer a slofie app or a slofie mode on the new iPhones. The feature is just called "slo-mo" in Apple's camera app, and the company's current usage of slofie refers exclusively to the resulting videos, not the app or mode used to capture them. Apple seems to be hoping slofies will be a fun selling point for its new phones. The feature is mentioned across Apple's website, and Apple presented a slofie ad during the phones' launch event. It wouldn't be surprising to see a lot more airing in the coming weeks once the phones are out.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Facebook, which has managed to transcend geographic borders to draw in a population equal to roughly a third of all human life on Earth, has made its final charter for a "Supreme Court" of Facebook public. The company pledges to launch this initiative by November of next year. The new Oversight Board will have five key powers, according to a charter (PDF) Facebook released yesterday. It can "request that Facebook provide information" it needs in a timely manner; it can make interpretations of Facebook standards and guidelines "in light of Facebook's articulated values"; and it can instruct the company to allow or remove content, to uphold or reverse a decision leading to content being permitted or removed, and to issue "prompt, written explanations of the board's decisions."

"If someone disagrees with a decision we've made, they can appeal to us first, and soon they will be able to further appeal this to the independent board," company CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a letter (PDF). "As an independent organization, we hope it gives people confidence that their views will be heard and that Facebook doesn't have the ultimate power over their expression." The board will launch with at least 11 members and should eventually get up to 40. The entity will contract its services to Facebook. Participants will serve a maximum of three three-year terms each and will be paid for their time. Their decisions will "be made publicly available and archived in a database of case decisions," with details subject to certain data or privacy restrictions. Facebook can also contact the board for an "automatic and expedited review" in exceptional circumstances, "when content could result in urgent real world consequences," such as, for example, if a mass-murderer is livestreaming his crimes. The panel's decisions will be binding, Facebook added, and the company will implement its findings promptly, "unless implementation of a resolution could violate the law."

The FBI tried to force the owner of an encrypted phone company to put a backdoor in his devices, Motherboard has learned. From the report: The company involved is Phantom Secure, a firm that sold privacy-focused BlackBerry phones and which ended up catering heavily to the criminal market, including members of the Sinaloa drug cartel, formerly run by JoaquÃn "El Chapo" Guzman. The news signals some of the tactics law enforcement may use as criminals continue to leverage encrypted communications for their own ends. It also comes as Canadian media reported that a former top official in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), who has been charged with leaking state secrets, offered to sell information to Vincent Ramos, Phantom's CEO.

"He was given the opportunity to do significantly less time if he identified users or built in/gave backdoor access," one source who knows Ramos personally and has spoken with him about the issue after his arrest told Motherboard. A backdoor is a general term for some form of technical measure that grants another party, in this case the FBI, surreptitious access to a computer system. What exactly the FBI was technically after is unclear, but the desire for a backdoor was likely to monitor Phantom's clients.