"Were it not for third-party components, the August Android Security Bulletin would have been the first report to be released with only a single critical vulnerability found," reports TechRepublic. "However, with the inclusion of Broadcom and Qualcomm components, there are seven in total."

Meanwhile, Forbes reports on what's being fixed in September's release of Android 10: 193 Android security vulnerabilities needed to be fixed, covering a broad swathe of elevation of privilege, remote code execution, information disclosure and denial of service categories. Two of these are in the Android runtime itself, another two in the library and 24 in the framework. The bulk, however, is split between the Android media framework with 68 vulnerabilities and the Android system with 97. All have been scored as "moderate" severity.

The good news is that all will be fixed by the default Android 10 patch level of 2019-09-01 on release of the new OS. Also on the positive news front, the security bulletin update stated that "we have had no reports of active customer exploitation or abuse of these newly reported issues."

"While many users are abandoning Facebook, fed up with what seems like a never-ending series of privacy violations, a small cohort find themselves in the opposite position," reports New York Times enterprise reporter Kashmir Hill. [Alternate source here.] "They've been kicked off the platform, and no matter how hard they try -- and they try really, really hard -- they can't get back on..." In Facebook's version of a justice system, users are told only that their accounts have been disabled for "suspicious activity." If they appeal -- via a terse form that will accept only a name, contact information and an image of an ID -- a mysterious review process begins. The wait can be endless, and the inability to contact a Facebook employee maddening. Increasingly agitated, Facebook castaways turn for help to Twitter, Reddit, Quora, message boards and, well, me. Because I have a history of writing about (and sometimes solving) people's troubles with the platform, profoundly addicted Facebook users have found their way to my inbox, emailing multiple times a day for updates about their cases, which I do not have...

With more than 2 billion active members, Facebook has long been criticized for allowing bad actors to proliferate on its platform, from violent extremists to identity thieves. In May, the company announced that it disabled more than 3 billion "fake accounts" over a six-month period. "Our intent is simple: find and remove as many as we can while removing as few authentic accounts as possible," wrote Alex Schultz, Facebook's vice president for analytics, in an accompanying post... But the number of people complaining about disabled Facebook accounts has been going up for years, according to data from the Federal Trade Commission, which tracked three such complaints in 2015, 12 in 2016, and more than 50 in each of the last two years.

Once Facebook disables an account, Mr. Schultz wrote, it keeps the person behind it from rejoining by deploying "advanced detection systems" that look for "patterns of using suspicious email addresses, suspicious actions, or other signals previously associated with other fake accounts we've removed...." When Facebook reviewed 14 disabled accounts belonging to users contacted by The New York Times, the company said that just five had been banned with cause. Facebook suggested that the others should simply go through the appeals process again; most did, but none of their accounts have been reactivated so far.
According to the article, Facebook's voicemail system tells callers to press one for phone support -- then plays a recording saying "Thank you for calling Facebook user operations. Unfortunately, we do not offer phone support at this time." Then it hangs up.

"Volkswagen issued a recall Friday of 679,000 vehicles for risk that they may roll away," reports the New York Daily News: Models recalled include certain 2011 through 2019 Beetles and Beetle convertibles, GTIs, Golfs, Golf SportWagens and Jettas that have automatic transmissions, manual hand brakes and keyless entry.

"In affected vehicles, a micro switch which indicates the position of the shift lever may fail, allowing the key to be removed from the ignition switch without the shift lever being in the in the "P" Park position," a spokesperson for the German automaker told the Daily News in an email. "If the ignition key is removed without the shift lever being in the "P" Park position, there is a risk the vehicle may roll away, resulting in a crash."

The spokesperson added that the company "is not aware of any crashes, injuries or fatalities related to this recall."

Remember the Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal? "In the end, after paying huge fines and seeing key executives head to prison, VW agreed to buy back nearly 380,000 of the offending cars in the United States, to fix or scrap," reports the New York Times.

But this week the director of industry analytics for online car marketplace CarGurus tells them that VW has now added more share in certified pre-owned sales than any other brand.

Jalopnik reports: The resulting used VWs are surprisingly compelling, which is why -- according to a report from the New York Times -- people can't get enough of them... That demand, the story says, is driven by the vehicles' impressive fuel economy, the warranty that the government required VW to offer on all re-sold vehicles, and the dearth of other diesel car options on the market... It's an interesting look at how these once vilified automobiles have once again fallen into favor thanks to what made the vehicles popular in the first place: They are just impressively fuel efficient. Oh, and the government-mandated warranty, too. That helps.
Aexecutive analyst at J.D. Power Valuation Services tells the Times that a used VW now costs about the same as a gas model.

ZDNet reports: Facebook has awarded a $100,000 prize to a team of academics from Germany for developing a new code isolation technique that can be used to safeguard sensitive data while it's being processed inside a computer. The award is named the Internet Defense Prize, and is a $100,000 cash reward that Facebook has been giving out yearly since 2014 to the most innovative research presented at USENIX, a leading security conference that takes place every year in mid-August in the US.
An anonymous reader writes: The new technique is called ERIM and leverages Intel's memory protection keys (MPKs) and binary code inspection to achieve both hardware and software-based in-process data isolation. The novelty of ERIM is that it has an near-zero performance overhead (compared to other techniques that induce a big performance dip), can be applied with little effort to new and existing applications, doesn't require compiler changes, and can run on a stock Linux kernel.

AmiMoJo quote the Verge: At least three smart June Ovens have turned on in the middle of the night and heated up to 400 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. The ovens' owners aren't sure why this happened, and June tells The Verge that user error is at fault...

The June Oven debuted in 2015 as a $1,495 countertop oven that uses a camera and computer vision to identify food that's been placed inside. The company raised nearly $30 million in funding and released its second-generation version in 2018 for $599. It's billed as "seven appliances in one": an air fryer, dehydrator, slow cooker, broiler, toaster, warming drawer, and convection countertop oven. It also pairs with an app that allows people to choose their temperature and cooking settings, as well as live stream their food as it cooks thanks to the built-in camera.
The company is planning an update that'll hopefully remedy the situation and prevent it from happening again, but that change isn't coming until next month.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Shabir Barzanjeh at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria and a few colleagues have used entangled microwaves to create the world's first quantum radar. Their device, which can detect objects at a distance using only a few photons, raises the prospect of stealthy radar systems that emit little detectable electromagnetic radiation. The device is simple in essence. The researchers create pairs of entangled microwave photons using a superconducting device called a Josephson parametric converter. They beam the first photon, called the signal photon, toward the object of interest and listen for the reflection. In the meantime, they store the second photon, called the idler photon. When the reflection arrives, it interferes with this idler photon, creating a signature that reveals how far the signal photon has traveled. Voila -- quantum radar!

The researchers go on to compare their quantum radar with conventional systems operating with similarly low numbers of photons and say it significantly outperforms them, albeit only over relatively short distances. That's interesting work revealing the significant potential of quantum radar and a first application of microwave-based entanglement. But it also shows the potential application of quantum illumination more generally. A big advantage is the low levels of electromagnetic radiation required. Then there is the obvious application as a stealthy radar that is difficult for adversaries to detect over background noise. The researchers say it could be useful for short-range low-power radar for security applications in closed and populated environments. The researchers detail their findings in a paper on arXiv.org.

Earlier today, it was reported that Tesla is working to resolve the lawsuit Walmart filed against the company earlier this week over defective solar panels. However, this story is far from over as Amazon has chimed in by saying it too has seen its Tesla solar panels catch fire. Bloomberg reports: On Friday, Amazon.com Inc. said a June 2018 blaze on the roof of one of its warehouses in Redlands, California, involved a solar panel system that Tesla's SolarCity division had installed. The Seattle-based retail giant said by email that it has since taken steps to protect its facilities and has no plans to install more Tesla systems. Tesla didn't immediately respond to a request for comment, but said earlier on Friday that it had discovered flaws in a part that the company had used in some of its systems. The part known as a "connector," manufactured by Amphenol Corp., led to "failures and disconnections at a higher rate than our standards allow," Tesla said in an emailed statement. The company has worked to replace it.

Netflix is testing an all-new recommendation system called "Collections" that relies on humans instead of neural networks. TechCrunch reports: While Netflix today already offers thematic suggestions of things to watch, based on your Netflix viewing history, Collections aren't only based on themes. According to Netflix, the titles are curated by experts on the company's creative teams, and are organized into these collections based on similar factors -- like genre, tone, story line and character traits.

This human-led curation is different from how Netflix typically makes its recommendations. The streaming service is famous for its advanced categorization system, where there are hundreds of niche categories that go beyond broad groupings like "Action," "Drama," "Sci-Fi," "Romance" and the like. These narrower subcategories allow the streamer to make more specific and targeted recommendations. Netflix also tracks titles that are popular and trending across its service, so you can check in on what everyone else is watching, as well. The feature is currently in testing on iOS devices and can be found at the top right of the app's homepage, if you've been opted in to the test.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: Researchers from the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University of Vienna have experimentally demonstrated what was previously only a theoretical possibility. Together with quantum physicists from the University of Science and Technology of China, they have succeeded in teleporting complex high-dimensional quantum states. The research teams report this international first in the journal Physical Review Letters. In their study, the researchers teleported the quantum state of one photon (light particle) to another distant one. Previously, only two-level states ("qubits") had been transmitted, i.e., information with values "0" or "1". However, the scientists succeeded in teleporting a three-level state, a so-called "qutrit." In quantum physics, unlike in classical computer science, "0" and "1" are not an 'either/or' -- both simultaneously, or anything in between, is also possible. The Austrian-Chinese team has now demonstrated this in practice with a third possibility "2".

The quantum state to be teleported is encoded in the possible paths a photon can take. One can picture these paths as three optical fibers. Most interestingly, in quantum physics a single photon can also be located in all three optical fibers at the same time. To teleport this three-dimensional quantum state, the researchers used a new experimental method. The core of quantum teleportation is the so-called Bell measurement. It is based on a multiport beam splitter, which directs photons through several inputs and outputs and connects all optical fibers together. In addition, the scientists used auxiliary photons -- these are also sent into the multiple beam splitter and can interfere with the other photons. Through clever selection of certain interference patterns, the quantum information can be transferred to another photon far from the input photon, without the two ever physically interacting. The experimental concept is not limited to three dimensions, but can in principle be extended to any number of dimensions, as Erhard emphasizes.

Last month, FairTube -- a collaboration between a group that calls itself the "YouTubers Union" and Europe's largest trade union, IG Metall -- sent Google a list of demands to achieve better working conditions. The letter gave YouTube with a deadline of August 23 to respond or else it would face "a shitstorm," according to Jorg Sprave, the founder of the YouTubers Union. On the last day, hours before the deadline, Google Germany sent a formal letter back to FairTube that said it had "a strong interest in the success and satisfaction of Youtube Creators" and "for this reason, we appreciate the recently expressed interest of the trade unions in supporting YouTube Creators." Motherboard reports: Sprave told Motherboard that Google wanted to "'discuss some fundamental questions about the future of work and won't negotiate our demands. Well, those demands will certainly play an important role anyway as they are designed to make sure that this 'future of work' will be transparent and fair for the workers." Christiane Benner, IG Metall's chairwoman, said in a statement "the pressure we have made together with the YouTubers Union on Google and YouTube, has paid off. We have succeeded to bring Google to the table."

FairTube's attempt to improve working conditions for YouTubers hinges on the GDPR, using the European Union regulation that ensures a person's right to access their personal data. With the GDPR, FairTube hopes to shine a light on how YouTube chooses which videos to prioritize or demonetize, and change YouTube's support system from an automated one to one staffed by humans. A Youtube spokesperson told Motherboard that "we explained to the union in great detail what YouTube is doing in terms of transparency and support for YouTubers. But we have also made clear that we are not going to negotiate their demands."

According to The Verge, citing a report from the Irish Examiner, Apple used human contractors to listen to an arduous 1,000 Siri recordings every day to help make the digital assistant better at giving you what you want. Some of those recordings included personal data and snippets of conversations, one contractor says. An anonymous reader shares the report: Apple's Siri assistant currently records and sends snippets of your voice requests back to Apple to be studied so that Apple can try to make Siri better at giving you what you want. In July, The Guardian reported that contractors also hear some rather personal things, like "confidential medical information, drug deals, and recordings of couples having sex." A contractor that spoke with the Irish Examiner said his job involved noting when Siri could actually help or if Siri was triggered accidentally. The Guardian said contractors "regularly" hear confidential information, but the contractor speaking with the Irish Examiner said the recordings "occasionally" had "personal data or snippets of conversations." There's a reason why we're likely learning more details about the contractors' work now: they may be out of a job. Apple has temporarily stopped using contractors to listen to Siri conversations, and the Irish Examiner reports that Apple no longer needed the services of Cork, Ireland-based contracting company GlobeTech, which employed the contractor who spoke to the Irish Examiner.

Neither Apple nor GlobeTech is denying that there may have been layoffs: GlobeTech merely referred the Irish Examiner to a statement that said it ended a "client project" early. Apple said in a statement to the paper that it is "working closely with our partners" as it reviews its processes around grading Siri conversations. Apple has not replied to a request for comment from The Verge. The work Siri contractors reportedly did sounds similar to how Microsoft contractors transcribe Cortana recordings to help train Microsoft's voice assistant. One of the Cortana contractors told Motherboard that contractors are expected to transcribe and classify roughly three "tasks" every minute. For the Siri contractors, transcribing 1,000 voice commands means they likely had to do about two per minute, assuming they were working an eight-hour day.

Facebook has banned advertising from The Epoch Times, the Falun Gong-related publication and conservative news outlet, as the social network struggles to implement a consistent political advertising policy. The New York Times reports: Facebook issued the ban on Friday after NBC News published a report this week that said The Epoch Times had obscured its connection to recent Facebook ads promoting President Trump and conspiracy content. The Epoch Times, started in 2000 by a group of Chinese-Americans affiliated with the religious group Falun Gong, has in recent years ridden the wave of conservative, pro-Trump social media popularity to build a large social media following. On its website, it advances conspiracy content such as anti-vaccination theories, while its YouTube channels promote the pro-Trump fringe movement QAnon and other topics.

The Epoch Times's official Facebook accounts were banned by the social network in July. But according to the NBC report, it then ran new Facebook ads without disclosing that they were associated with the outlet. The ads ran under page names such as "Honest Paper" and "Pure American Journalism" and purchased by MarketFuel Subscription Services and Perpetual Market, which are decoy names for The Epoch Times, according to NBC News. Facebook introduced political advertising transparency rules in 2018 that require political advertisers to divulge the name of organizations responsible for the ads. But The Epoch Times was apparently able to sidestep those rules before being caught. Stephen Gregory, publisher of The Epoch Times, said in a statement that Facebook did not earlier respond to requests for clarification on why its ads were taken down, so it began "publishing its advertising on a number of other, new Facebook pages." He added that "these ads were overtly Epoch Times advertisements for our subscription."

Qualcomm has won a partial stay against the enforcement of a sweeping antitrust ruling in a lawsuit brought by the FTC. "The company on May 21 lost in an antitrust lawsuit and has been fighting to have the ruling put on hold while it pursued an appeal," reports Reuters. "The San Diego-based company argued that letting the ruling stand could upend its talks with phone makers over chips for 5G, the next generation of wireless data networks." From the report: In the ruling issued on Friday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals put on hold the provisions of the earlier ruling that required Qualcomm to grant patent licenses to rival chip suppliers and end its practice of requiring its chip customers to sign a patent license before purchasing chips. The earlier ruling would have required Qualcomm to renegotiate all of its existing chip and patent deals, as well as make new deals conform to the requirements. The stay granted Friday puts on hold the effect of parts of the ruling while the appeals process, which could take a year or more, plays out. The company has not formally filed its appeal in the FTC lawsuit. After Qualcomm files its arguments, the appeal will take place in January.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Walmart and Tesla are actively negotiating to resolve the lawsuit Walmart filed against Tesla earlier this week over defective solar panels, the two companies said in a joint statement sent out on Thursday evening. "Walmart and Tesla look forward to addressing all issues and re-energizing Tesla solar installations at Walmart stores, once all parties are certain that all concerns have been addressed," the statement said. The companies say they're both committed to a "sustainable energy future" as well as safety and efficiency. Spokespeople for Tesla and Walmart declined to provide any further details about the state of the negotiations, but it's not hard to guess what happened. The optics of Walmart suing Tesla over multiple fires on its store roofs were not good for Tesla. Tesla wants the public -- and potential customers -- to know that it's now working to address Walmart's concerns. Walmart filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against Tesla accusing the company of supplying solar panels that were responsible for fires at about seven of its stores. "This is a breach of contract action arising from years of gross negligence and failure to live up to industry standards by Tesla with respect to solar panels that Tesla designed, installed, and promised to operate and maintain safely on the roofs of hundreds of Walmart stores," Walmart said in the court filing.

Ukrainian authorities are investigating a potential security breach at a local nuclear power plant after employees connected parts of its internal network to the internet so they could mine cryptocurrency. From a report: The investigation is being led by the Ukrainian Secret Service (SBU), who is looking at the incident as a potential breach of state secrets due to the classification of nuclear power plants as critical infrastructure. Investigators are examining if attackers might have used the mining rigs as a pivot point to enter the nuclear power plant's network and retrieve information from its systems, such as data about the plant's physical defenses and protections. According to authorities, the incident took place in July at the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant, located near the city of Yuzhnoukrainsk, in southern Ukraine. It's unknown how the scheme was discovered, but on July 10 the SBU raided the nuclear power plant, from where it seized computers and equipment specifically built for mining cryptocurrency.

Companies are constantly patenting strange things they have no intention of developing. From a report: Amazon is putting humans in cages to protect them from machines! Facebook is selling your face to advertisers so it can CGI you into ads! Sony has a system where you can skip ads if you stand up and yell the brand's name! None of these things are technically true -- they're headlines driven by patents filed by these companies. In each case, the company has not developed these technologies. And it's likely that they never will. And yet, head-scratching and sometimes hilarious patents continue to populate the patent office and generate headlines. So why are there so many strange, somewhat terrifying patents that companies will likely never act on?

There are lots of reasons to patent something. The most obvious one is that you've come up with a brilliant invention, and you want to protect your idea so that nobody can steal it from you. But that's just the tip of the patent strategy iceberg. It turns out there is a whole host of strategies that lead to "zany" or "weird" patent filings, and understanding them offers a window not just into the labyrinthine world of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and its potential failings, but also into how companies think about the future. And while it might be fun to gawk at, say, Motorola patenting a lie-detecting throat tattoo, it's also important to see through the eye-catching headlines and to the bigger issue here: Patents can be weapons and signals. They can spur innovation, as well as crush it.

Uber imposed a $1-per-ride surcharge it called a "Safe Rides Fee" in 2014, but it was a just a play for profit. From a report: The money collected by the company from the fee -- estimated at around $500 million -- was never earmarked specifically for safety and was "devised primarily to add $1 of pure margin to each trip," according to New York Times . At the time, Uber was facing rising costs from insurance and background checks, so the company came up with the idea of imposing a safety fee to help boost its margins. Meanwhile, its actual safety program consisted of little more than a short video course for drivers. It wasn't until years later that Uber began adding safety features to its app, such as an emergency button to call 911. Safe ride fees varied from market to market, but they generally amounted to a buck and some change. In San Francisco, riders were charged $1.35 per trip. Philadelphians paid $1.25, while riders in Los Angeles paid $1.65.

President Trump said Friday U.S. companies were "hereby ordered" to start looking for alternatives to doing business in China after Beijing said it would impose tariffs on $75 billion worth of additional U.S. products. From a report: "Our Country has lost, stupidly, Trillions of Dollars with China over many years," Mr. Trump wrote in a series of tweets [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source]. "They have stolen our Intellectual Property at a rate of Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year, & they want to continue. I won't let that happen! We don't need China and, frankly, would be far better off without them." Mr. Trump's comments came in response to China's plan, laid out Friday, to impose tariffs of 5% and 10% on almost all the remaining U.S. imports on which it has yet to impose punitive taxes, including vehicles and car parts, in retaliation against U.S. moves to slap punitive tariffs on an additional $300 billion of Chinese goods.

The president demanded that U.S. companies "immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA." The sharp escalation in the prolonged trade conflict between the two countries comes weeks after Mr. Trump said he would impose the fresh tariffs on Chinese goods and Beijing had vowed to retaliate. China's new levies on U.S. goods are set to go into effect on Sept. 1 and Dec. 15, timed with the next two rounds of U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods. Chinese tariffs on U.S. automotive goods are set to begin Dec. 15.

An anonymous reader shares a report: In 2018, Facebook announced a partnership to provide data to academics to "help people better understand the broader impact of social media on democracy -- as well as improve our work to protect the integrity of elections." In April of this year, the first batch of winning proposals was announced. "The urgency of this research cannot be overstated," wrote the founders of Social Science One, the entity that operates the program. It describes itself as "an LLC operating on a not-for-profit basis." But as of today, many of the academic teams remain on hold because Facebook has yet to provide key data required to conduct research into sharing patterns of fake and polarized news, Facebook interactions related to the 2018 Italian election, and disinformation campaigns in the recent German election, among other projects. Facebook has also declined to provide some of the data it originally said it would offer, citing privacy concerns.

As frustrations mount, researchers and the major foundations that fund their work fear that the ambitious project may not survive, multiple people told BuzzFeed News. A source with knowledge of discussions between the key parties involved in the project said the funders -- which include the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the Children's Investment Fund Foundation, the Democracy Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Charles Koch Foundation, Omidyar Network, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation -- are now discussing ways to increase the pressure on the social media giant.