The new Lightyear One is a prototype electric car from a Netherlands startup that gets all it needs to run from the sun. It features a sleek, driver-friendly design and also boasts a range of 450 miles on a single charge. TechCrunch reports: The startup says that it has already sold "over a hundred vehicles" even though this isn't yet ready to hit the road, but Lightyear is aiming to begin production by 2021, with reservations available for 500 additional units for the initial release. You do have to pay around $136,000 USD to secure a reservation, however.

Lightyear One isn't just a plug-in electric with some solar sells on the roof: Instead it's designed from the ground up to maximize performance from a smaller-than-typical battery that can directly grab sun from a roof and hood covered with 16 square feet of solar cells, embedded in safety glass designed with passenger wellbeing in mind. The car can also take power directly from regular outlets and existing charging stations for a quick top-up, and again because it's optimized to be lightweight and power efficient, you can actually get around 250 miles on just one night of charging from a standard (European) 230V outlet.

YouTube is looking to send a message to content creators who step out of line by disabling ads on videos that infringe on the site's policies. The punishment is meant to revoke a key source of income, presenting a strong incentive for users to change their behavior. But, as Julia Alexander writes via The Verge, many creators make money through other platforms, rendering YouTube's punishment largely ineffective. From the report: Selling merchandise and subscriptions through other platforms isn't just a way for creators to make more money, it's also a way for creators to insulate themselves from YouTube's ever-mercurial rules and algorithms. And it means that if a creator's ads are cut off for whatever reason, they'll still have a source of revenue. Taking away a channel's ability to run ads is supposed to send a message that YouTube is punishing creators who severely step out of line. The company stated as much in a June 5th blog post, reiterating that channels repeatedly brushing up "against our hate speech policies will be suspended from the YouTube Partner program, meaning they can't run ads on their channel." Creators also won't be able to use alternative monetization techniques like Super Chat or channel memberships, according to YouTube.

For up-and-coming YouTubers reliant on that revenue, it can pose a huge problem. Many people just entering YouTube's Partner Program, a threshold that signifies a creator can start earning ad revenue, may rely on that advertising money as they start their career. Channels that face day-to-day monetization issues, one of the biggest issues within the community, are struggling to understand what works and what doesn't. But for larger creators, who still keep their ability to reach a huge number of subscribers, the punishment doesn't necessarily accomplish YouTube's goals. "YouTube isn't likely to ban high-profile channels, either," Alexander writes. "If a channel's content is borderline, meaning that it doesn't violate YouTube's rules but is considered harmful, moderators will allow videos to remain up. Demonetizing a channel's videos allows YouTube to appear to have taken a strong action, even if that action isn't always effective."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The former head of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC) was sentenced to five years in prison for defrauding investors. Elizabeth Ann Pierce was CEO of Quintillion, an Alaskan telecom company, when she lied to two investment firms in New York in order to raise $270 million to build a fiber network. She also defrauded two individual investors out of $365,000 and used a large chunk of that money for personal expenses. Pierce, 55, pleaded guilty and last week was given the five-year prison sentence in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman announced. Pierce was also "ordered to forfeit $896,698.00 and all of her interests in Quintillion and a property in Texas." She will also be subject to a restitution order to compensate her victims "at a later date." Pierce landed the top sot on Pai's broadband advisory committee in April 2017. "But she left Quintillion in July 2017 as her scheme unraveled, and she resigned from the FCC advisory panel," reports Ars. "Pai appointed a new chair for his committee two months later; he thanked Pierce for her service, saying she did 'an excellent job' chairing the committee and 'wish[ed] her all the best in her future endeavors.'"

According to Berman's announcement, Pierce forged contracts in order to raise $270 million from investors.

The US government announced a nationwide crackdown on illegal robocalls on Tuesday, targeting companies and individuals who have collectively placed over 1 billion unwanted calls for financial schemes and other services, according to the Federal Trade Commission. From a report: The crackdown involves nearly 100 cases, five of which are criminal enforcement actions. They were brought by the FTC, Justice Department, 15 states and a slew of local authorities. It marks the latest effort by regulators to battle back the tide of unwanted and illegal calls from telemarketers and scammers. Some of those targeted by the action were a major source of robocalls. Derek Jason Bartoli, a Florida man who allegedly developed, sold and used a form of software that allows millions of calls to be placed in quick succession, was responsible for 57 million calls to US phone numbers over six months in 2017, according to a federal complaint. [...] The joint action includes the states of Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia.

A new strain of malware is wiping the firmware of IoT devices in attacks reminiscent of the old BrickerBot malware that destroyed millions of devices back in 2017. From a report: Named Silex, this malware began operating earlier today, about three-four hours before this article's publication. The malware had bricked around 350 devices when this reporter began investigating its operations, and the number quickly spiked to 2,000 wiped devices by the time we published, an hour later. Attacks are still ongoing, and according to an interview with the malware's creator, they are about to intensify in the coming days. According to Akamai researcher Larry Cashdollar, who first spotted the malware earlier today, Silex works by trashing an IoT device's storage, dropping firewall rules, removing the network configuration, and then halting the device. It's as destructive as it can get without actually frying the IoT device's circuits. To recover, victims must manually reinstall the device's firmware, a task too complicated for the majority of device owners.

Oracle has sent the following email to customers of DYN service: Since Oracle acquired Dyn in 2016 (and subsequently acquired Zenedge), the engineering teams have been working diligently to integrate Dyn;s products and network into the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. With the completion of this upgrade to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Oracle is announcing the end-of-life for the free Standard DNS service in favor of the enhanced, paid subscription version on the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure platform. On May 31, 2020, the 'EOL Date', the Standard DNS will be retired and will no longer be available. The following capabilities are not currently supported in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure DNS: Webhop (HTTP redirect), Dynamic DNS, Zone transfer to external nameservers, and DNSSEC.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The most astonishing thing about cement is how much air pollution it produces. Manufacturing the stone-like building material is responsible for 7% of global carbon dioxide emissions, more than what comes from all the trucks in the world. And with that in mind, it's surprising that leading cement makers from LafargeHolcim in Switzerland to Votorantim Cimentos in Brazil are finding customers slow to embrace a greener alternative. Their story highlights the difficulties of taking greenhouse gases out of buildings, roads and bridges. After wresting deep cuts from the energy industry, policymakers looking to extend the fight against global warming are increasingly focusing on construction materials and practices as a place to make further reductions. The companies are working on solutions, but buyers are reluctant to pay more.

While architects and developers concentrate on the energy used by their buildings, it's actually the materials supporting the structure that embody the biggest share of its lifetime carbon footprint. Cement's contribution to emissions is especially immense because of the chemical process required to make it. About two-thirds of the polluting gases that come from cement production stem from burning limestone. Kilns are heated to more than 1,400 degrees Celsius (2,600 Fahrenheit), about four times hotter than a home oven set to the self-clean cycle. Inside the kiln, carbon trapped in the limestone combines with oxygen and is released as CO2, the most abundant greenhouse gas.

The world is increasingly at risk of "climate apartheid," where the rich pay to escape heat and hunger caused by the escalating climate crisis while the rest of the world suffers, a report from a UN human rights expert has said. From a report: Philip Alston, UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said the impacts of global heating are likely to undermine not only basic rights to life, water, food, and housing for hundreds of millions of people, but also democracy and the rule of law. Alston is critical of the "patently inadequate" steps taken by the UN itself, countries, NGOs and businesses, saying they are "entirely disproportionate to the urgency and magnitude of the threat." His report to the UN human rights council (HRC) concludes: "Human rights might not survive the coming upheaval."

The report also condemns Donald Trump for "actively silencing" climate science, and criticises the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, for promising to open up the Amazon rainforest to mining. But Alston said there were also some positive developments, including legal cases against states and fossil fuel companies, the activism of Greta Thunberg and the worldwide school strikes, and Extinction Rebellion.

An anonymous reader shares a report: You may recall that, thanks to an issue with faulty sensors in the Boeing 737 Max flight control systems, those planes have been grounded after multiple crashes were found to be related to the issue. Grounded planes are, by definition, not in the air, and as such need to be stored, on the ground, somewhere. In the case of Boeing's Renton Factory in Washington state, there's so many grounded planes that some of that ground has to be taken from Boeing's employee parking lots. [...] Seattle's King 5 News has some very comprehensive aerial footage of the factory, which gives a sense of just how many of these planes are parked at Boeing's factory right now.

Microsoft today announced OneDrive Personal Vault, a new security layer for protecting sensitive and important files. The feature is rolling out "soon" to the web, Android, iOS, and Windows 10 in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. From a report: Furthermore, the company is increasing OneDrive's cheapest storage plan from 50GB to 100GB at no additional cost. Office 365 subscribers are also getting new storage options. Personal Vault is a protected area in OneDrive that you can only access with the Microsoft Authenticator app or a second step of identity verification (fingerprint, face, PIN, or a code sent to you via email or SMS). Microsoft envisions OneDrive users saving travel, identification, vehicle, home, and insurance documents in their Personal Vault. You can use the OneDrive mobile app to scan documents, take pictures, or shoot video directly into your Personal Vault, keeping such items out of less secure areas like your camera roll.

For years, companies like Oracle and IBM invested heavily to build new markets in China for their industry-leading databases. Now, boosted in part by escalating U.S. tensions, one Chinese upstart is stepping in, winning over tech giants, startups and financial institutions to its enterprise software. From a report: Beijing-based PingCAP already counts more than 300 Chinese customers. Many, including food delivery giant Meituan, its bike-sharing service Mobike, video streaming site iQIYI and smartphone maker Xiaomi are migrating away from Oracle and IBM's services toward PingCAP's, encapsulating a nation's resurgent desire to Buy China. PingCAP's ascendancy comes as the U.S. cuts Huawei off from key technology, sending chills through the country's largest entities while raising questions about the security of foreign-made products. That's a key concern as Chinese companies modernize systems in every industry from finance and manufacturing to healthcare by connecting them to the internet.

Hackers broke into the systems of more than a dozen global telecom firms and stole huge amounts of data in a seven-year spying campaign, researchers from a cyber security company said, identifying links to previous Chinese cyber-espionage activities. From a report: Investigators at U.S.-Israeli cyber firm Cybereason said on Tuesday the attackers compromised companies in more than 30 countries and aimed to gather information on individuals in government, law-enforcement and politics. The hackers also used tools linked to other attacks attributed to Beijing by the United States and its Western allies, said Lior Div, chief executive of Cybereason. "For this level of sophistication it's not a criminal group. It is a government that has capabilities that can do this kind of attack," he told Reuters. Div later presented a step-by-step breakdown of the breach at a cybersecurity conference in Tel Aviv in the same session that the heads of U.S. and British cyber intelligence units and the head of Israel's Mossad spy agency spoke.

An anonymous reader shares a report from CNBC: A bipartisan team of senators introduced a bill Monday to require social media companies to disclose more information about the data they collect and monetize from their consumers. The Dashboard Act, which stands for Designing Accounting Safeguards to Help Broaden Oversight And Regulations on Data, aims to help consumers understand the price of using social media services that are free on face value. The bill seeks to require "commercial data operators" with more than 100 million monthly active users to disclose the type of data they collect from users and give them "an assessment of the value of that data," according to a press release announcing the bill. It also would require the companies to file an annual report disclosing third-party contracts involving data collection and give users the right to delete some or all of their collected data.

Google announced this morning it's expanding its two-year-old digital safety and citizenship curriculum for children, "Be Internet Awesome," to now include media literacy -- specifically, the ability to identify so-called "fake news" and other false content. "The company is launching six new media literacy activities for the curriculum that will help teach kids things like how to avoid a phishing attack, what bots are, how to verify that information is credible, how to evaluate sources, how to identify disinformation online, spot fake URLs, and more," reports TechCrunch. From the report: The courses offer kids not only instruction, but also a combination of activities and discussion starters aimed at helping them develop critical thinking skills when it comes to pursuing online resources. Its overall theme, the course material explains, is to help kids understand that the content they find online isn't necessarily true or reliable -- and it could even involve malicious efforts to steal their information or identity.

The kids learn how phishing works, why it's a threat, and how to avoid it. They then practice their anti-phishing skills by acting out and discussing reactions to suspicious online texts, posts, friend requests, pictures, and emails. In the following media literacy sections, kids learn what a credible source is, how to figure out what a source's motives are, and learn that "just because a person is an expert on one thing doesn't make them an expert on everything." In a related classroom activity, the kids pick a question related to something they've seen online or are learning in class and try to get the answers online, while figuring out if the sources are credible. They also learn to fact check credible sources with other credible sources as a way to look for a variety of sources.

In response to Spotify's antitrust complaint, Apple claims that Spotify has greatly exaggerated how much money is being taken by the App Store. "Apple says that it's currently taking a 15 percent cut of subscription fees for around 680,000 Spotify subscribers, representing 0.5 percent of Spotify's total subscribers, and that Spotify is not paying a 30 percent cut on anything," reports The Verge, citing Der Spiegel. From the report: The takeaway message is supposed to be that Spotify is blowing its complaint way out of proportion, but those small numbers don't tell the full story -- they basically don't matter, because Spotify gave up on App Store subscriptions years ago. Spotify only offered subscriptions through the App Store between 2014 and 2016. That means subscription numbers have had years to dwindle. In 2016, Apple also reduced the cut it takes from subscriptions after they've been active for more than a year, bringing it down from 30 percent to 15 percent. That means Apple is only taking the lower number from Spotify, because Spotify hasn't signed up any new subscribers in years. The complaint that Spotify filed in March with the EU's antitrust arm says that Apple requires it to "pay a 30 percent tax on purchases" made through iOS. Even if Spotify isn't currently paying 30 percent because it stopped offering subscriptions through iOS in order to avoid the fee, that 30 percent tax is still true.

Last month, Japan's high-speed rail network suffered a massive power outage that cancelled a total of 26 trains and delayed an estimated 12,000 passengers. The cause of the outage? A single, small slug. CNN reports: During a later inspection of the network's electrical equipment, the company's engineers discovered a dead slug, measuring about 2 to 3 centimeters (0.7 to 1.1 inches) long. According to a company spokesman, the slug had burned to death after touching an electrical cable leading to the mass power failure. Although it was discovered on May 30, shortly after the outage, the reason for the disruption wasn't revealed for more than a month.

The Raspberry Pi is a small single-board computer that's exploded in popularity over the years thanks to its wide array of uses. While it was originally designed to promote the teaching of basic computer science in schools and in developing countries, the computers have been adapted to be used for robotics, media, game and print servers, and even as replacements for traditional desktop PCs. That last one may be even more of a popular use case with the Raspberry Pi 4, the newest version announced today featuring a more powerful quad-core 64-bit ARM processor, up to 4GB of LPDDR4 SDRAM, and dual monitor support at resolutions up to 4K. For those of you with a Raspberry Pi, what do you use it for? Do you have any plans to upgrade to the $35 Raspberry Pi 4?

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Over the weekend, Germany's auto regulator told Daimler that it would have to recall 42,000 Mercedes-Benz diesel vehicles after the group discovered illegal software on the cars that would reduce the effectiveness of the emissions-control system. Daimler said Sunday night that it would take a one-time charge of hundreds of millions of euros against the upcoming quarter's earnings to deal with the new accusations, but it disputed the government regulator's determination that the software in question was illegal. According to the Wall Street Journal, Daimler plans to formally object to the claims.

Today, the Daimler vehicles in question are Mercedes-Benz-brand vehicles that are only sold in the EU. According to a WSJ source, the issue relates to a coolant thermostat in the cars that protects parts of the engine. The related software is found on vehicles made between 2012 and 2015. The WSJ says the type of coolant thermostat used on the diesel vehicles in question is generally found on cars with catalytic converters that don't use selective catalytic reduction, an emissions-reduction technique that uses urea to reduce nitrogen oxides to less-harmful forms. But the GLK 220 CDI 4MATIC Mercedes-Benz models that must be recalled do appear to use selective catalytic reduction. The latest regulatory action is reminiscent of the accusations lobbed against VW Group in 2015, where the U.S. EPA accused the automaker of including illegal software on its diesel vehicles to ensure that the diesels would pass emissions limits imposed by the U.S.

During the social network's heyday, multiple Myspace employees abused an internal company tool to spy on users, in some cases including ex-partners, Motherboard reported on Monday. From the report: Named 'Overlord,' the tool allowed employees to see users' passwords and their messages, two former employees said. While the tool was originally designed to help moderate the platform and allow MySpace to comply with law enforcement requests, multiple sources said the tool was used for illegitimate purposes by employees who accessed Myspace user data without authorization to do so. "It was basically an entire backdoor to the Myspace platform," one of the former employees said of Overlord. (Motherboard granted five former Myspace employees anonymity to discuss internal Myspace incidents.) The abuse happened about a decade ago, closer to the height of the platform's popularity, according to multiple sources. In fall 2006, the platform signed up its 100 millionth user. Around this time, Myspace was the second most popular website in the U.S., and ranked higher than Google search. Further reading: MySpace Has Reportedly Lost All Photos, Videos and Songs Uploaded Over 12 Years Due To Data Corruption During a Server Migration Project (March, 2019).

The US has responded to a recent rise in Iranian cyber-activity and the shooting of an unarmed drone last week by launching cyber-attacks against Iran's military IT systems. From a report: The cyber-attacks were carried out by US Cyber Command with the direct approval of US President Donald Trump, the Associated Press reported on Sunday, citing two inside sources, and confirming the report through a third Pentagon official. US Cyber Command targeted the Iran military's computer systems used to control some of the country's rocket and missile launchers. The systems are managed by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a branch of Iran's Armed Forces, which the US Presidency designated as a terrorist organization last year. The AP reported that the US cyber-attacks were the second go-to measure after President Trump backed off from launching a military strike against Iranian military and radar bases last week, on Thursday.