After spending about 27 hours with Samsung's new rebooted Galaxy Fold, TechCrunch's Brian Heater noticed something unusual: "a brightly colored, amorphous blob [...] nestled between the lock screen's flapping butterfly wings." While it's nowhere near as severe as the blacked out screens many reviewers of the first wave of units experienced, "it's not a great look, considering that it wasn't dropped on concrete, dunked in water or stepped on," writes Heater. "And the placement smack dab in the center dampens the effect of a 7.3-inch screen." From the report: If I had to guess, I'd say it was pressing the display to close the device that did it. Samsung has since collected the device and will be taking it apart (likely in Korea) to find out what went wrong. We'll update accordingly. We can't say the company didn't warn us. As I noted the other day, Samsung issued a video prior to launch, advising users to "Just use a light touch," B/W the footnote, "Do not apply excessive pressure to it."

There was nothing inside the device while folded. I didn't get it wet or feed it after midnight, and there's no visible damage to the laminate layer, so I can't really say definitively what happened here. And while the screen is certainly still usable, I think I'd probably be irked if I had just paid $2,000 for a handset and had to deal with a large, rainbow colored blob in the exact center of the screen. Part of the white-glove service Samsung is rolling out here is a $149 screen replacement. We got a comment from Samsung on the matter, and it sounds like this particular issue might fall within normal use that wouldn't require an additional fee. Here's what the company has to say on the matter: "We have seen an enthusiastic response to the launch of the Galaxy Fold in several markets over the past few weeks, with thousands of consumers enjoying the unique experience it offers. The Galaxy Fold is a first-of-its-kind device, made with new materials and technologies that allow it to open and close just like a book. We encourage Galaxy Fold owners to read the care instructions included in the box and in the product manual available online. Products used within these guidelines are covered under warranty. If they have any questions, Galaxy Fold owners can consult with Samsung product specialists through the Galaxy Fold Premier Service any time, any day."

With more streaming services coming from WarnerMedia, Apple and Disney, it has people wishing for a single plan to get access to all of them. A new survey from Morning Consult in conjunction with The Hollywood Reporter polled consumers to see how much they'd be willing to pay for access to all their favorite video streaming services. The research reveals that most consumers would like to pay between $17 and $27. From the report: Many Americans who stream media pay for three services at a collective $37 per month, though the optimum price for wooing far more households to multiple streamers is a combined $21 a month, the poll finds. The acceptable range consumers would like to pay for all their streaming offerings is $17 to $27. (The poll uses the Van Westendorp model, which seeks to locate the sweet spot in pricing between what consumers deem "too good to be true" and "too expensive.") The results of the poll may be unwelcome news for WarnerMedia, since its coming product, dubbed HBO Max, is expected to cost consumers as much as $17 monthly, whereas Disney's service, called Disney+, will run only $7 monthly when it kicks off in November. (Netflix has an $8.99 basic plan and $12.99 standard plan.) The poll shows that consumers are willing to pay much more for their cable TV package than they are for streaming, as the poll indicates that 90 percent of U.S. subscribers pay more than $50 per month for their service.

"The poll also found that [...] 26 percent of adult Americans have heard nothing at all about Disney+," according to The Hollywood Reporter. "About 35 percent of American adults have heard nothing of Apple's upcoming product, while 40 percent haven't heard of WarnerMedia's plans and 46 percent haven't heard of NBCU's."

YouTube will reconsider its harassment policies and may update them, the company said in a new blog post. The statement was apparently prompted by public pressure on the company after a conflict between two YouTubers: Carlos Maza, who hosts for Vox, and Stephen Crowder, a conservative media personality. From a report: In response to backlash, YouTube has convened a blue-ribbon commission and appears to be hoping everyone will stop screaming. YouTube has promised to consult journalists, experts, creators, and those who have experienced harassment as the company tries to figure out how to update its policies. Last week, Maza tweeted a very viral thread about how Crowder had targeted him for harassment, calling him -- among other epithets -- a "lispy sprite," a "little queer," and a "gay Latino from Vox." Maza's target was YouTube; he wanted to know why the company hadn't responded to the derogatory remarks Crowder made about Maza's sexuality and ethnicity, as can be seen in a supercut posted by Maza.

Last night, YouTube said Crowder's homophobic harassment didn't violate any of its policies, and that Crowder's videos would stay up. Earlier today, YouTube said that it would remove ads from Crowder's videos, a process known as "demonetization" among YouTubers. But Crowder's demonetization isn't permanent; according to YouTube, Crowder can once again make money from ads if he "addresses all of the issues with his channel."

Reader hackingbear shares a report: As soon as the European Southern Observatory released the black hole photo, under Creative Commons license, on April 10, Visual China Group (VCG), China's leading stock image provider that's compared to Getty Images, made the image available for sale in its library without attribution to the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration. "This is an editorial image. Please call 400-818-2525 or consult our customer service representative for commercial use," said a note for the black hole image on VCG's website. Internet users took to social media slamming VCG for monetizing a photo intended for free distribution among the human race. VCG swiftly revised the note to say the black hole photo should not be used for commercial purposes, but the incident sparked a plethora of comments on Weibo condemning VCG's opportunist business practice.

For example, the price tag of the national emblem image ranges from150 yuan ($22) to 1,500 yuan ($220.) "Copyrights protection should definitely be promoted. The question is, why is VCG allowed to price photos of the black hole and the likes out of the market? Why is it able to exploit loopholes?," Du Yu, a Beijing-based freelance technology journalist, said to TechCrunch. China's the cyberspace watchdog of Tianjin ordered the photo site to end its illegal, rule-breaking practices. "We have taken down all non-compliant photos and closed down the site voluntarily for a revamp in accordance with related laws," said VCG. Shares of VCG, whose executives are mainly American and Canadian citizens and filed 16 copyright lawsuits per day on average (in Chinese, Google translate), plummeted 10 percent Friday morning in Shanghai Stock Exchange.

Biting your tongue at yet another questionable article shared in your message group? Add artificial-intelligence fact-checker Meiyu, she will jump in with 'False.' From a report: The artificial-intelligence bot will interject in real time when she detects posts about the news, pointing out factual errors and alternative interpretations. The technology, created by Taiwanese developers, is a step ahead of most fact-checking apps, including versions offered in Brazil and Indonesia, which don't jump into conversations. Other popular fact-checkers, such as Snopes in the U.S., are public databases that users consult for reviews of news items. Meiyu quickly became hot in Taiwan, which had just gone through divisive local elections and is rife with rumors of China's interference in social media. The bot now has more than 110,000 users on the Japanese messaging app Line, which covers about 90% of the mobile-messaging market in Taiwan.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has asked a federal judge to hold CEO Elon Musk in contempt for breaking terms of a settlement agreement with a tweet. The SEC cited an "inaccurate" February 19 tweet about production. Musk tweeted alongside a photo: "4000 Tesla cars loading in SF for Europe." He replied to the tweet adding: "Tesla made 0 cars in 2011, but will make around 500k in 2019." Fast Company reports: It's that "will make around 500K in 2019" part that angered the SEC, which had this to say in legal papers filed with a Manhattan federal court: "He once again published inaccurate and material information about Tesla to his over 24 million Twitter followers, including members of the press, and made this inaccurate information available to anyone with Internet access." The SEC says the tweet violated an agreement that was part of a settlement Tesla made with the regulator last year. Musk promised to consult with Tesla's board before he made any statements on social media that could affect the stock price of the company. Tesla also agreed to pay $40 million in penalties and Musk agreed to step down as chairman of the board.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is defending the company's $479 million contract with the Pentagon to supply augmented reality headsets to the U.S. military. "We made a principled decision that we're not going to withhold technology from institutions that we have elected in democracies to protect the freedoms we enjoy," he told CNN Business at Mobile World Congress. "We were very transparent about that decision and we'll continue to have that dialogue [with employees]," he added during the exclusive interview. From the report: Microsoft was awarded the contract to supply "Integrated Visual Augmentation System" prototypes to the U.S. military in November. The company could eventually deliver over 100,000 headsets under the contract. Microsoft's HoloLens augmented reality technology allows users to see the world around them, but with virtual graphics overlaid. The Israeli military, which has taken delivery of some HoloLens headsets, says the technology can be used to help commanders visualize the battlefield and field medics to consult doctors. According to procurement documents, the U.S. military is seeking a single platform that provides its forces with "increased lethality, mobility and situational awareness" in combat. Microsoft employees have recently circulated a letter addressed to Nadella and Brad Smith, the company's president and chief legal officer, arguing that the company should not supply its HoloLens technology to the U.S. military. "It's not about taking arbitrary action by a single company, it's not about 50 people or 100 people or even 100,000 people in a company," he said. "It's really about being a responsible corporate citizen in a democracy."

Zorro shares a report from The Register: Older satnavs and such devices won't be able to use America's Global Positioning System properly after April 6 unless they've been suitably updated or designed to handle a looming epoch rollover. GPS signals from satellites include a timestamp, needed in part to calculate one's location, that stores the week number using ten binary bits. That means the week number can have 210 or 1,024 integer values, counting from zero to 1,023 in this case. Every 1,024 weeks, or roughly every 20 years, the counter rolls over from 1,023 to zero. The first Saturday in April will mark the end of the 1,024th week, after which the counter will spill over from 1,023 to zero. The last time the week number overflowed like this was in 1999, nearly two decades on from the first epoch in January 1980. You can see where this is going. If devices in use today are not designed or patched to handle this latest rollover, they will revert to an earlier year after that 1,024th week in April, causing attempts to calculate position to potentially fail. System and navigation data could even be corrupted, we're warned. U.S. Homeland Security explained the issue in a write-up this week. GPS.gov also notes that the new CNAV and MNAV message formats will use a 13-bit week number, so this issue shouldn't happen again anytime soon. The site recommend users consult the manufacturer of their equipment to make sure they have the proper updates in place.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Science Magazine: How far will Plan S spread? Since the September 2018 launch of the Europe-backed program to mandate immediate open access (OA) to scientific literature, 16 funders in 13 countries have signed on. That's still far shy of Plan S's ambition: to convince the world's major research funders to require immediate OA to all published papers stemming from their grants. Whether it will reach that goal depends in part on details that remain to be settled, including a cap on the author charges that funders will pay for OA publication. But the plan has gained momentum: In December 2018, China stunned many by expressing strong support for Plan S. This month, a national funding agency in Africa is expected to join, possibly followed by a second U.S. funder. Others around the world are considering whether to sign on. Plan S, scheduled to take effect on 1 January 2020, has drawn support from many scientists, who welcome a shake-up of a publishing system that can generate large profits while keeping taxpayer-funded research results behind paywalls. But publishers (including AAAS, which publishes Science) are concerned, and some scientists worry that Plan S could restrict their choices.

If Plan S fails to grow, it could remain a divisive mandate that applies to only a small percentage of the world's scientific papers. (Delta Think, a consulting company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, estimates that the first 15 funders to back Plan S accounted for 3.5% of the global research articles in 2017.) To transform publishing, the plan needs global buy-in. The more funders join, the more articles will be published in OA journals that comply with its requirements, pushing publishers to flip their journals from paywall-protected subscriptions to OA, says librarian Jeffrey MacKie-Mason, the chief digital scholarship officer at the University of California, Berkeley. North America isn't onboard. "The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was the first Plan S participant outside Europe, and another private funder may follow," the report says. "But U.S. federal agencies are sticking to policies developed after a 2013 White House order to make peer-reviewed papers on work they funded freely available within 12 months of publication."

Canada also isn't ready to change their joint 2015 OA policy. "Plan S is 'a bold and aggressive approach, which is why we want to make sure we've done our homework to ensure it would have the best effect on Canadian science," says Kevin Fitzgibbons, executive director of corporate planning and policy at Canada's Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council in Ottawa.

Outside Europe and North America, funders gave Science mixed responses about Plan S. "India, the third biggest producer of scientific papers in the world, will 'very likely' join Plan S, says Krishnaswamy VijayRaghavan in New Delhi, principal scientific adviser to India's government," reports Science. "But the Russian Science Foundation is not planning to join. South Africa's National Research Foundation says it 'supports Plan S in principle,' but wants to consult stakeholders before signing on. Jun Adachi of the National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo, an adviser to the Japan Alliance of University Library Consortia for E-Resources, says that despite interest from funders and libraries, OA has yet to gain much traction in his country."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Science Magazine: We know the menagerie of microbes in the gut has powerful effects on our health. Could some of these same bacteria be making a home in our brains? A poster presented here this week at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience drew attention with high-resolution microscope images of bacteria apparently penetrating and inhabiting the cells of healthy human brains. The work is preliminary, and its authors are careful to note that their tissue samples, collected from cadavers, could have been contaminated. But to many passersby in the exhibit hall, the possibility that bacteria could directly influence processes in the brain -- including, perhaps, the course of neurological disease -- was exhilarating.

Talking hoarsely above the din of the exhibit hall on Tuesday evening, neuroanatomist Rosalinda Roberts of The University of Alabama in Birmingham (UAB), told attendees about a tentative finding that, if true, suggests an unexpectedly intimate relationship between microbes and the brain. Her lab looks for differences between healthy people and those with schizophrenia by examining slices of brain tissue preserved in the hours after death. About 5 years ago, neuroscientist Courtney Walker, then an undergraduate in Roberts's lab, became fascinated by unidentified rod-shaped objects that showed up in finely detailed images of these slices, captured with an electron microscope. Roberts had seen the shapes before. "But I just dismissed them, because I was looking for something else," she says. "I would say 'Oh, here are those things again.'" But Walker was persistent, and Roberts started to consult colleagues at UAB. This year, a bacteriologist gave her unexpected news: They were bacteria. Her team has now found bacteria somewhere in every brain they've checked -- 34 in all -- about half of them healthy, and half from people with schizophrenia.

Millions of security cameras, DVRs, and NVRs contain vulnerabilities that can allow a remote attacker to take over devices with little effort, security researchers have revealed today. From a report: All vulnerable devices have been manufactured by Hangzhou Xiongmai Technology Co., Ltd. (Xiongmai hereinafter), a Chinese company based in the city of Hangzhou. But end users won't be able to tell that they're using a hackable device because the company doesn't sell any products with its name on them, but ships all equipment as white label products on which other companies put their logo on top. Security researchers from EU-based SEC Consult say they've identified over 100 companies that buy and re-brand Xiongmai devices as their own. All of these devices are vulnerable to easy hacks, researchers say. The source of all vulnerabilities is a feature found in all devices named the "XMEye P2P Cloud." The XMEye P2P Cloud works by creating a tunnel between a customer's device and an XMEye cloud account. Device owners can access this account via their browser or via a mobile app to view device video feeds in real time. SEC Consult researchers say that these XMEye cloud accounts have not been sufficiently protected. For starters, an attacker can guess account IDs because they've been based on devices' sequential physical addresses (MACs). Second, all new XMEye accounts use a default admin username of "admin" with no password.

An anonymous reader writes: Thursday the humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research held their 28th annual ceremony recognizing the real (but unusual) scientific research papers "that make people laugh, then think." And winning this year's coveted Literature prize was a paper titled "Life Is Too Short to RTFM: How Users Relate to Documentation and Excess Features in Consumer Products," which concluded that most people really, truly don't read the manual, "and most do not use all the features of the products that they own and use regularly..."

"Over-featuring and being forced to consult manuals also appears to cause negative emotional experiences."

Another team measured "the frequency, motivation, and effects of shouting and cursing while driving an automobile," which won them the Ig Nobel Peace Prize. Other topics of research included self-colonoscopies, removing kidney stones with roller coasters, and (theoretical) cannibalism. "Acceptance speeches are limited to 60 seconds," reports Ars Technica, "strictly enforced by an eight-year-old girl nicknamed 'Miss Sweetie-Poo,' who will interrupt those who exceed the time limit by repeating, 'Please stop. I'm bored.' Until they stop."
You can watch the whole wacky ceremony on YouTube. The awards are presented by actual Nobel Prize laureates -- and at least one past winner of an Ig Nobel Prize later went on to win an actual Nobel Prize.

Drone operating system startup Airware, which has appeared in a number of stories over the years, announced today that it will be shutting down immediately despite having raised $118 million from investors. " The startup ran out of money after trying to manufacture its own hardware that couldn't compete with drone giants like China's DJI," reports TechCrunch. "The company at one point had as many as 140 employees, all of which are now out of a job." From the report: Founded in 2011 by Jonathan Downey, the son of two pilots, Airware first built an autopilot system for programming drones to follow certain routes to collect data. It could help businesses check rooftops for damage, see how much of a raw material was coming out of a mine, or build constantly-updated maps of construction sites. Later it tried to build its own drones before pivoting to consult clients on how to most efficiently apply unmanned aerial vehicles. While flying high, Airware launched its own Commercial Drone Fund for investing in the market in 2015, and acquired 38-person drone analytics startup Redbird in 2016. In this pre-crypto, pre-AI boom, Airware scored a ton of hype from us and others as they tried to prove drones could be more than war machines. But over time, the software that shipped with commercial drone hardware from other manufacturers was good enough to make Airware irrelevant, and a downward spiral of layoffs began over the past two years, culminating in today's shutdown. Demonstrating how sudden the shut down is, Airware opened a Tokyo headquarters alongside an investment and partnership from Mitsubishi just four days ago. As for the employees, they "will get one week's severance, COBRA insurance until November, and payouts for unused paid time off," reports TechCrunch.

An anonymous reader shares a report: This is the first time FIFA, soccer's governing body, has allowed video replay to be used to make penalty calls in a World Cup. And while fans of basketball and American football are used to the referees stopping the game to consult video footage, soccer purists say it's ruining everything. The major complaint is that it's making the matches much longer than the typical 90-minute games. Martin Rogers, a sports columnist for USA Today, says Video Assistant Referee (or VAR) is "slow, clunky and unpredictable." Over the phone from Russia, where he's reporting on the World Cup, he jokes, "I remember back in the day, when if a game kicked off at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, you'd be all wrapped up by 4:45."

Rogers says this type of technology works well for American football and basketball. "When you look at the calls that are used for replay, in basketball for example, it's normally factual. It's based on, 'Did a player get a shot off before the clock expired?' It's easy. You know. It's black and white." But soccer, Rogers says, is different. He's referring to one of the most hated and beloved qualities of the game: the endless drama. It's a thespian sport.

A new government proposal included in Road to Zero, a report on climate-change related policies, would require all new homes to be fitted with electric car charging points. It follows a commitment made last year by the UK to end sales of new gasoline and diesel cars by 2040. The Drive reports: "It is our intention that all new homes, where appropriate, should have a charge point available," a government statement said. "We plan to consult as soon as possible on introducing a requirement for charge point infrastructure for new dwellings in England."

To help achieve that goal, the U.K. will reportedly establish a 400-million-pound ($531 million) fund for companies that manufacture and install charging stations. The government is also reportedly looking at integrating charging stations with newly-installed streetlights, as well as wireless-charging technology. A new Automated and Electric Vehicles bill will also give the government power to mandate installation of charging infrastructure at highway service stations.

oldgraybeard shares a report from Mashable: A new survey (PDF) released Tuesday by the American Automobile Association found that 73 percent of American drivers are scared to ride in an autonomous vehicle. That figure is up 10 percent from the end of last year. The millennial demographic has been the most affected, according to the survey of more than 1,000 drivers. From that age group, 64 percent said they're too afraid to ride in an autonomous vehicle, up from 49 percent -- making it the biggest increase of any age group surveyed. "There are news articles about the trust levels in self-driving cars going down," writes oldgraybeard. "As a technical person, I have always thought the road to driverless cars would be longer than most were talking about. What are your thoughts? As an individual with eye problems, I do like the idea. But technology is not as good as some think."

The Mashable article also references a separate study from market research company Morning Consult "showing increased fear about self-driving vehicles following the deadly March crashes in the Bay Area and Arizona." Another survey from car shopping site CarGurus set to be released Wednesday found that car owners aren't quite ready to trade their conventional vehicles for self-driving ones. "Some 84 percent of the 1,873 U.S. car owners surveyed in April said they were unlikely to own a self-driving car in the next five years," reports Mashable. "79 percent of respondents said they were not excited about the new technology."

Catalin Cimpanu, writing for BleepingComputer: The US Food & Drug Administration plans to ask Congress for more funding and regulatory powers to improve its approach towards medical device safety, including on the cybersecurity front. An FDA document released this week reveals several of the FDA's plans, including the desire to force device makers to include mandatory update systems inside products for the purpose of delivering critical security patches.

In addition, the FDA also plans to force device makers to create a document called "Software Bill of Materials" that will be provided for each medical device and will include software-related details for each product. Hospitals, healthcare units, contractors, or users will be able to consult the medical device's bill of materials and determine how it functions, what software is needed for what feature, and what technologies are used in each device.