Qbertino writes: The VW ID.3 (VW German Minisite and Configurator) is a compact car with a design loosely based on the very successful VW Golf line. The base model costs less than $33,000 with ranges of 330, 420, and 550 kilometers (or 205, 261 and 340 miles). Along with the car comes a new corporate identity with a newly designed logo reminiscent of the dawn of VW, signaling VW's transition into the electric era it announced with fanfare a while back. VW also isn't too shabby about giving credit where credit is due. "Without Elon Musk my job would be considerably harder," VW Chief Strategist Michael Jost was quoted as saying a few days ago. The base model of the ID.3 will only charge up to 50kW, but owners who want to charge faster (up to 100kW) can pay extra for that ability. "100kW charging will come standard on the midrange 58kWh version, while even faster 125kW charging will be available on the top-tier ID.3," reports The Verge. "The company is also offering an eight year / 160,000 kilometer warranty on the ID.3's battery pack."

Apple's Arcade video game subscription service is launching on September 19 for $4.99 per month for up to six members in your family. "There will be new games released every month, and will have perks like game guides and sneak peeks," reports Gizmodo. "In addition to a new Frogger, Apple also demoed new games Sayonara Wild Hearts and Shinsekai Into the Depths." From the report: Thanks to the little Apple did share ahead of its September 10 event, we knew that Arcade would launch with more than 100 different games, including a new Sonic the Hedgehog game and the revamped Frogger. Apple also said in March that Arcade wouldn't have ads or require additional purchases and that games would be available offline and playable on an iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, or Mac. And rather than releasing as a dedicated app, Arcade will release within the App Store as a new tab.

Before launching the new iPhones today, Apple announced the next-gen Apple Watch Series 5, featuring an always-on display, compass, emergency calling for international countries, and recycled aluminum or titanium finishes. It starts at $399 for the GPS model and $499 for the cellular connected version. The Verge reports: Apple says the Series 5 watch maintains the prior model's 18-hour battery life, even with the new always-on screen, thanks to a new low-temperature polysilicone and oxide display and low-power display driver. Watchfaces and workouts have been redesigned to take advantage of the new display option. The screen will be in a low-brightness mode until you move your wrist, where it will switch to full brightness in a similar fashion to how the current model turns on when your wrist is moved. In addition to the new always-on display feature, the Apple Watch Series 5 is now available in a recycled aluminum or titanium finishes. The stainless steel and ceramic options from prior models are also available. Apple says this is the widest number of finishes ever for the Apple Watch. You can order one starting today and they will be in stores starting on September 20th.

Period tracker apps are sending deeply personal information about women's health and sexual practices to Facebook, new research has found. From a report: UK-based advocacy group Privacy International, sharing its findings exclusively with BuzzFeed News, discovered period-tracking apps including MIA Fem and Maya sent women's use of contraception, the timings of their monthly periods, symptoms like swelling and cramps, and more, directly to Facebook. Women use such apps for a range of purposes, from tracking their period cycles to maximizing their chances of conceiving a child. On the Google Play store, Maya, owned by India-based Plackal Tech, has more than 5 million downloads. Period Tracker MIA Fem: Ovulation Calculator, owned by Cyprus-based Mobapp Development Limited, says it has more than 2 million users around the world. They are also available on the App Store. The data sharing with Facebook happens via Facebook's Software Development Kit (SDK), which helps app developers incorporate particular features and collect user data so Facebook can show them targeted ads, among other functions. When a user puts personal information into an app, that information may also be sent by the SDK to Facebook.

Uber has laid off 435 employees across its product and engineering teams, the company announced today. Combined, the layoffs represent about 8% of the organizations, with 170 people leaving the product team and 265 people leaving the engineering team. From a report: The layoffs had no effect on Eats, which is one of Uber's top-performing products, and Freight, according to a source familiar with the situation. Meanwhile, the company is lifting the hiring freeze on the product and engineering teams that has been in effect since early August, according to the source. "Our hope with these changes is to reset and improve how we work day to day -- ruthlessly prioritizing, and always holding ourselves accountable to a high bar of performance and agility," an Uber spokesperson told TechCrunch. "While certainly painful in the moment, especially for those directly affected, we believe that this will result in a much stronger technical organization, which going forward will continue to hire some of the very best talent around the world." Great timing to dump this announcement.

The chief executive officers (CEOs) of 51 tech companies have signed and sent an open letter to Congress leaders today, asking for a federal law on user data privacy to supersede the rising number of privacy laws that are cropping up at the state level. From a report: The open-letter was sent on behalf of Business Roundtable, an association made up of the CEOs of America's largest companies. The CEOs of Amazon, AT&T, Dell, IBM, Qualcomm, SAP, Salesforce, Visa, Mastercard, JP Morgan Chase, State Farm, and Walmart, are just some of the execs who put their name on the dotted line. CEOs blamed a patchwork of differing privacy regulations that are currently being passed in multiple US states, and by several US agencies, as one of the reasons why consumer privacy is a mess in the US.

This patchwork of privacy regulations is creating problems for their companies, which have to comply with an ever-increasing number of laws across different states and jurisdictions. Instead, the 51 CEOs would like one law that governs all user privacy and data protection across the US, which would simplify product design, compliance, and data management. "There is now widespread agreement among companies across all sectors of the economy, policymakers and consumer groups about the need for a comprehensive federal consumer data privacy law that provides strong, consistent protections for American consumers," the open letter said.

Mozilla is resurrecting its recently expunged Test Pilot program with a renewed focus on privacy-focused tools and products. The Firefox developer today lifted the lid on the first product to emerge from the new Test Pilot, and it appears to be something akin to a virtual private network (VPN) in all but name. From a report: Firefox Private Network, as the new tool is called, is available in beta today for logged-in Firefox desktop users in the U.S. only, and is accessible through a browser extension. By way of a quick recap, Mozilla debuted Firefox Test Pilot a decade ago but then relaunched it back in 2016. Test Pilot went on to attain an average of 100,000 daily users, each looking to test Mozilla's latest developments -- including a price-tracking feature for online shoppers, content recommendations based on browsing activity, and more.

Some of these became full-fledged features within Firefox and others did not, but back in January Mozilla announced it was killing its Test Pilot program altogether. This came as something of a surprise given Mozilla's own statements about the success of the program. At the time, Mozilla said it was "evolving" its approach to experimentation and suggested it was looking to ideate more widely across the company. Fast-forward nine months, and Firefox Test Pilot is back for a third time.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Here's another reminder to be wary of what you share online: BuzzFeed News noticed on Monday that the way Instagram and its owner Facebook serve up media content allows for anyone who has access to a private photo or video to root around in the HTML code and copy-paste a direct link to it.

BuzzFeed wrote: "The hack -- which works on Instagram stories as well -- requires only a rudimentary understanding of HTML and a browser. It can be done in a handful of clicks. A user simply inspects the images and videos that are being loaded on the page and then pulls out the source URL. This public URL can then be shared with people who are not logged in to Instagram or do not follow that private user. According to tests performed by BuzzFeed's Tech + News Working Group, JPEGs and MP4s from private feeds and stories can be viewed, downloaded, and shared publicly this way.
...
Because all of this data is being hosted by Facebook's own content delivery network, the work-around also applies to private Facebook content. Here's an example of such a link to a private Instagram image, per the Verge: https://scontent-lax3-1.cdninstagram.com/vp/0907741760b14f49ebbb7d45f1e4871e/5E092026/t51.2885-15/e35/s1080x1080/67509661_124712232143789_4496164141880255274_n.jpg?_nc_ht=scontent-lax3-1.cdninstagram.com "

BuzzFeed is calling this a "hack," but what's really happening is Internet 101. When an authorized user loads a piece of content on Instagram in a browser, it's trivial to look in the HTML and find a direct URL to where the image or video is sitting on a server. This is not exactly uncommon for the content delivery networks (CDNs) that serve as the backbones of big websites; the simplest and least computationally expensive method of restricting unauthorized users from accessing the image or video in question is to make its URL very, very long.

U.S. prosecutors have charged a Chinese professor with fraud for allegedly taking technology from a California company to benefit Huawei, in another shot at the embattled Chinese telecommunications equipment maker. From the report: Bo Mao was arrested in Texas on Aug. 14 and released six days later on $100,000 bond after he consented to proceed with the case in New York, according to court documents. Bo Mao was arrested in Texas on Aug. 14 and released six days later on $100,000 bond after he consented to proceed with the case in New York, according to court documents. According to the criminal complaint, Mao entered into an agreement with the unnamed California tech company to obtain its circuit board, claiming it was for academic research.

The complaint, however, accuses an unidentified Chinese telecommunications conglomerate, which sources say is Huawei, of trying to steal the technology, and alleges Mao played a role in its alleged scheme. A court document also indicates the case is related to Huawei. Although Huawei has not been charged, the company said it views the case against Mao as the U.S. government's latest instance of "selective prosecution."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from New Atlas: Making artificial versions of the humble leaf has been an ongoing area of research for decades and in a new breakthrough, researchers from the Eindhoven University of Technology (TUE) have fine-tuned their artificial leaf design and used it to produce drugs for the first time. Natural leaves are clever little machines. They collect sunlight, and that energy is then used by chlorophyll molecules to power a chemical reaction that turns CO2 and water into glucose. The plant uses this glucose for energy, and expels oxygen as a waste product. Artificial leaves are designed to mimic this process. They're made of translucent materials that allow sunlight in and direct it towards tiny microfluidic channels running through the material like veins. A certain liquid is flowing through these channels, and the idea is that the energy from the sunlight triggers a chemical reaction in that liquid, turning it into something useful like a drug or fuel.

The new artificial leaf design from TUE builds on the team's previous prototype, presented in 2016. Back then, the device was made of silicon rubber, but in the new version that's been replaced with Plexiglas for several reasons. [The material is cheaper and easier to manufacturer in larger quantities, has a higher refractive index, and can contain more types of light-sensitive molecules.] The leaf has started to earn its keep, too. The team put it to the test and found that it was able to successfully produce two different drugs: artimensinin, which is effective against malaria, and ascaridole, which is used against certain parasitic worms. Given its small size and scalability, the team says that the artificial leaf could eventually be used to produce drugs and other molecules right where they're needed. The research was published in the journal Angewandte Chemie.

In a paper published in Nature Medicine today, researchers led by ETH Zurich describe how they modified an off-the-shelf prosthetic leg with sensors and electrodes to give wearers a sense of knee movement and feedback from the sole of the foot on the ground. Engadget reports: The researchers worked with two patients with above-the-knee, or transfemoral, amputations. They used an Ossur prosthetic leg, which comes with a microprocessor and an angle sensor in the knee joint, IEEE Spectrum explains. The team then added an insole with seven sensors to the foot. Those sensors transmit signals in real-time, via Bluetooth to a controller strapped to the user's ankle. An algorithm in the controller encodes the feedback into neural signals and delivers that to a small implant in the patient's tibial nerve, at the back of the thigh. The brain can then interpret those signals as feedback from the knee and foot.

The modified prosthetic helped the users walk faster, feel more confident and consume less oxygen -- an indication that it was less strenuous than traditional prosthesis. The team also tested activating the tibial nerve implant to relieve phantom limb pain. Both patients saw a significant reduction in pain after a few minutes of electrical stimulation, but they had to be connected to a device in a lab to receive the treatment. With more testing, the researchers hope they might be able to bring these technologies to more amputees and make both available outside of the lab.

Longtime Slashdot reader Merovech shares a report from ZDNet: Thousands of web servers have been infected and had their files encrypted by a new strain of ransomware named Lilocked (or Lilu). Infections have been happening since mid-July, and have intensified in the past two weeks, ZDNet has learned. Based on current evidence, the Lilocked ransomware appears to target Linux-based systems only. The way the Lilocked gang breaches servers and encrypts their content is currently unknown. A thread on a Russian-speaking forum puts forward the theory that crooks might be targeting systems running outdated Exim (email) software. It also mentions that the ransomware managed to get root access to servers by unknown means.

Lilocked doesn't encrypt system files, but only a small subset of file extensions, such as HTML, SHTML, JS, CSS, PHP, INI, and various image file formats. This means infected servers continue to run normally. According to French security researcher Benkow, Lilocked has encrypted more than 6,700 servers, many of which have been indexed and cached in Google search results. However, the number of victims is suspected to be much much higher. Not all Linux systems run web servers, and there are many other infected systems that haven't been indexed in Google search results. Why it should scare you:
- affects Linux servers
- so far the vector of infection / vulnerability is unknown
- you can craft a Google search to watch it spread!

In an opinion article published last week on Wired, New York City Mayor and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Bill de Blasio said as president he would issue a robot tax for corporations displacing humans and would create a federal agency to oversee automation. CNET reports: "The scale of automation in our economy is increasing far faster than most people realize, and its impact on working people in America and across the world, unless corralled, will be devastating," de Blasio wrote. De Blasio would call the new regulator the Federal Automation and Worker Protection Agency, which would safeguard jobs and communities. In addition, his proposed "robot tax" would be imposed on large companies that eliminate jobs as they become more automated. The tax would be equal to five years of payroll taxes for each employee eliminated, according to De Blasio.

Several popular YouTubers -- including including Logan Paul, Marques Brownlee, and Emma Chamberlain -- have launched podcasts in the last year, "proving YouTube is a bonafide podcast network," writes Alex Castro via The Verge. "They're all available through traditional audio platforms, like Apple Podcasts and Spotify, but many also offer video versions that live on dedicated YouTube channels where they've become incredibly popular." From the report: These creators have figured out how to make podcasts work on a platform that wasn't designed for them, leveraging YouTube's search algorithm to meet new audiences, make more money, and expand into a medium that's expected to grow rapidly in the coming years. Some of the top podcasts on YouTube are pulling in millions of views every few days or weeks. Top shows, like Ethan and Hila Klein's H3 Podcast or Joe Rogan's Joe Rogan Experience, have dedicated audiences who use YouTube notifications as an RSS feed, letting them know when a new episode is available to watch. While the podcasts are also distributed via Spotify and Apple Podcasts, YouTube acts as a first stop.

To reach even bigger audiences, YouTubers have figured out that they can break their show into pieces and spread it across multiple channels. H3 Podcast, Cody Ko and Noel Miller's Tiny Meat Gang, and The Joe Rogan Experience run as full-length episodes on their main podcast channel, but those episodes are then broken down into tiny individual cuts. These cuts, often referred to as clips or highlights, exist on a completely separate channel. They're also arguably more important when it comes to using YouTube as a way to grow the podcast. The H3 Podcast uses one of the most popular takes on the "YouTube podcast" format. Ethan and Hila Klein have three channels: H3H3 Productions (6 million subscribers), H3 Podcast (2 million subscribers), and H3 Podcast Highlights (1.3 million subscribers). The main channel is used for longer commentary pieces, special collaborations, and comedic sketches, but the latter two are solely dedicated to the podcast. Creating a separate channel for clips lets podcasters take advantage of YouTube's recommendation algorithm, which surfaces content on specific subjects a viewer is already interested in.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Scraping a public website without the approval of the website's owner isn't a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, an appeals court ruled on Monday. The ruling comes in a legal battle that pits Microsoft-owned LinkedIn against a small data-analytics company called hiQ Labs. HiQ scrapes data from the public profiles of LinkedIn users, then uses the data to help companies better understand their own workforces. After tolerating hiQ's scraping activities for several years, LinkedIn sent the company a cease-and-desist letter in 2017 demanding that hiQ stop harvesting data from LinkedIn profiles. Among other things, LinkedIn argued that hiQ was violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, America's main anti-hacking law.

This posed an existential threat to hiQ because the LinkedIn website is hiQ's main source of data about clients' employees. So hiQ sued LinkedIn, seeking not only a declaration that its scraping activities were not hacking but also an order banning LinkedIn from interfering. A trial court sided with hiQ in 2017. On Monday, the 9th Circuit Appeals Court agreed with the lower court, holding that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act simply doesn't apply to information that's available to the general public. [...] By contrast, hiQ is only scraping information from public LinkedIn profiles. By definition, any member of the public has authorization to access this information. LinkedIn argued that it could selectively revoke that authorization using a cease-and-desist letter. But the 9th Circuit found this unpersuasive. Ignoring a cease-and-desist letter isn't analogous to hacking into a private computer system. "The CFAA was enacted to prevent intentional intrusion onto someone else's computer -- specifically computer hacking," a three-judge panel wrote. The court notes that members debating the law repeatedly drew analogies to physical crimes like breaking and entering. In the 9th Circuit's view, this implies that the CFAA only applies to information or computer systems that were private to start with -- something website owners typically signal with a password requirement.

The court notes that when the CFAA was first enacted in the 1980s, it only applied to certain categories of computers that had military, financial, or other sensitive data. "None of the computers to which the CFAA initially applied were accessible to the general public," the court writes. "Affirmative authorization of some kind was presumptively required."

A pedophilia scandal compelled YouTube to vow to suspend comments on videos with kids age 13 and younger. Six months later, comments are still easy to find. From a report: YouTube is about to reposition how its massive online video service treats clips for children. Following a record $170 million penalty, announced Wednesday, for violating kids' data privacy, Google's YouTube pledged to disable comments, notifications and personalized ads on all videos directed at children. And its machine learning will police YouTube's sprawling catalog to keep kids videos in line, the company said. One problem: YouTube's machine learning was supposed to be suspending comments on videos featuring young minors already. It hasn't.

Comment-enabled videos prominently depicting young kids are still easy to find on YouTube. A single YouTube search for one kids-focused subject -- "pretend play" -- returned more than 100 videos with comments enabled, all prominently featuring infants, preschoolers and other children young enough to still have their baby teeth. After CNET contacted YouTube with a list of these videos, comments were disabled on nearly half of them.

Attorneys general for 50 U.S. states and territories today officially announced an antitrust investigation of Google, embarking on a wide-ranging review of a company that Democrats and Republicans said may threaten competition and consumers. From a report: The bipartisan group, led by Ken Paxton, the Republican attorney general of Texas, referred to Google as an "online search juggernaut," on the steps of the Supreme Court. State regulators from California, where Google is based, and Alabama did not join the probe. In a blog post published on Friday, Google senior vice president of global affairs Kent Walker wrote, "We have always worked constructively with regulators and we will continue to do so."States have the ability to levy fines or receive damages from companies found to be engaging in anticompetitive practices but, according to Matt Stoller, a fellow at the Open Markets Institute, the most important aspect of the investigation is that it will reveal how exactly Google works. "The trial is the remedy. Exposing the deals and how the companies use customer data, etc, will have a salutary effect," Stoller told BuzzFeed News.

If you requested money from Equifax for leaking your personal data, you'll need to provide more information by October 15th. From a report: The Equifax settlement administrator sent an email with details over the weekend. It asks consumers to confirm that they're actually signed up for credit monitoring, which is a prerequisite for requesting the money. If they can't do that, they can amend their claim to request free credit monitoring. Otherwise, the claim will be denied. Equifax settled with the Federal Trade Commission for up to $700 million in July, and it set aside $31 million for consumers who were affected by the breach. Consumers could request four years of monitoring or a $125 check. But because the total payout was fixed, the FTC soon warned that people would receive far less money.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Last November, Google made a promise to do better. More than 20,000 employees around the world had walked out of the company's offices to protest that Google had paid out over $100 million to multiple executives accused of sexual harassment in the workplace. In response, the tech giant apologized and said it would overhaul its sexual misconduct policies and that it would be more supportive of workers who raise concerns about problems at work. But almost a year after the historic walkout, a dozen current and former Google employees told Recode that many employees are still justifiably afraid to report workplace issues because they fear retaliation. They say the company continues to conceal rather than confront issues ranging from sexual harassment to security concerns, especially when the problems involve high-ranking managers or high-stakes projects.

And in a previously unreported internal document obtained by Recode, dozens more employees say that when they filed complaints with Google's human resources department, they were retaliated against by being demoted, pushed out, or placed on less desirable projects. A spokesperson for Google said the company is aware of the document but declined to comment on it or any specific cases of alleged retaliation. In a statement to Recode, Google Vice President of People Operations Eileen Naughton defended how the company handles misconduct claims.

Almost three years after launching its desktop version, cross-platform browser Vivaldi has finally released its mobile app today. From a report: The brainchild of Opera's co-founder Jon von Tetzchner published an Android beta version today that brings swipe gesture for navigation, built-in note-taking functionality, and privacy controls including a no-tracking option. While the browser is in beta, I've been using it for a few days, and I haven't faced any major hiccups. Here are some of the features I enjoyed in the new mobile version: Easy bookmark management, easy navigation, plenty of option for tab management, and dark mode, screen capture, notes, and no-tracking features.