Apple argued in court papers this week that appeals filings by Epic Games don't point to legal errors by a US District Court judge who ruled last year that the iPhone maker hadn't violated antitrust laws with its App Store. Instead, Apple cited the many times the judge said Epic had "failed to demonstrate," "failed to show" and "failed to prove" the facts of its case. From a report: "On the facts and the law, the court correctly decided every issue presented in Epic's appeal," Apple lawyers wrote in the company's filing. They repeated earlier arguments that Epic is attempting to fundamentally change the App Store. "While these appeals are both important and complex, resolving the issues should not be difficult: Applying settled precedent to the adjudicated facts requires ruling for Apple across the board." Apple's 135-page filing is the latest in the legal battle it's been fighting with Epic since August 2020. On the surface, the two companies are battling over who gets how much when consumers spend money on the App Store. Apple is fighting to maintain control of its App Store, which has become such a key feature of its iPhones that the company's ads saying "there's an app for that" are referenced in crossword puzzles and on the trivia TV show Jeopardy.

Over the past couple of years, though, Apple's runaway success with its App Store has been challenged. Epic, which makes the hit online battle game Fortnite, argued that Apple should loosen its control. In emails, court filings and public statements, Epic has said Apple should allow alternative app stores onto the iPhone and iPad, something it currently doesn't allow. Epic also says Apple should free developers to use alternative payment processors in their apps, rather than Apple's current rule requiring they use only its App Store, through which Apple takes a cut of in-app purchases on its devices.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: As Russia makes preparations to possibly disconnect from the global internet in a bid to control the narrative around the invasion of Ukraine, one secretive U.S. company is rushing to lay the final pieces of an unbreakable network that the Kremlin won't be able to take down. The company is Lantern, which says it has seen staggering growth inside Russia in the last four weeks for its app that allows users to bypass restrictions the Kremlin has put in place on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. But now the company is building something even more robust, an internal peer-to-peer network that will allow dissenting voices to continue to upload and share content even if the Kremlin pulls the plug on the internet.

Within the next week, the network will be fully operational, allowing opposition voices to use the Lantern app to post content like videos from protests or updates on the war in Ukraine directly to the Lantern network. This would allow users to share it with other Lantern users without fear that the content will be removed or blocked. [...] Lantern was founded in California in 2010 with the goal of keeping "the world's information, speech, expression, and finance uncensored." The free version of the app has a data cap of 500MB, but the pro version, which costs $32 a year, has no data cap. It has become hugely popular in China because of its ability to stay one step ahead of the government's censorship efforts, spreading mainly via word-of-mouth as it's not available via the Google or Apple app stores inside China. n Russia, like all new markets it enters, Lantern removed the data cap for all users. Despite this, some users still paid for the pro version.

YouTube is the latest company to offer free shows TV with ads. The video giant says you'll now be able to stream nearly 4,000 episodes of TV for free, as long as you're also willing to watch ads during the show. From a report: Shows available include Hell's Kitchen, Andromeda, and Heartland, and you'll be able to watch them in the US on the web, mobile devices, and "most connected TVs via the YouTube TV app," YouTube says in a blog post. With the new free TV shows, YouTube is taking on a number of major competitors. One is over-the-air television -- by offering free TV on demand, YouTube is likely hoping that you'll see what's available on its platform instead of channel surfing to see what else might be on. And there are already many options for streaming ad-supported TV for free, including Tubi, Xumo, Plex, Roku, and offerings from Vizio, and Samsung -- just to name a few -- so YouTube is late to the game.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine is suing Grubhub for deceptive business practices, saying its food delivery app covertly inflates prices for diners who order through it. The suit demands an end to a laundry list of allegedly illegal practices as well as financial restitution and civil penalties. The newly filed lawsuit (PDF) argues that Grubhub's promises of "free" online orders -- and "unlimited free delivery" for Grubhub Plus -- are misleading. While customers can make pickup orders for free, the company charges delivery and service fees for standard orders and service fees for Grubhub Plus orders, displaying the service fee until recently as part of a single line with sales taxes. "Grubhub misled District residents and took advantage of local restaurants to boost its own profits, even as District consumers and small businesses struggled during the COVID-19 pandemic," said Racine in a statement. "Grubhub charged hidden fees and used bait-and-switch advertising tactics -- which are illegal."

The complaint says Grubhub orders often cost more than ordering the same item at a restaurant and argues that the company fails to reasonably disclose this to consumers. "Because Grubhub already charges consumers several different types of fees for its services ... consumers expect that the menu prices listed on Grubhub are the same prices offered at the restaurant or on the restaurant's website," it says. Grubhub has also listed many restaurants without their permission to expand its service, routing orders through its services and taking a commission. The complaint says it listed "over a thousand" restaurants in DC that had no connection with the company, asserting that the unapproved listings often contained menu errors and resulted in orders that would "take longer to fill, would be filled incorrectly, would be delivered cold, or would eventually be cancelled altogether."

Grubhub -- which also operates Seamless and several other food delivery apps -- has made more elaborate attempts to insert itself into restaurant transactions as well. The lawsuit notes its launch of unsanctioned microsites that appear to be official restaurant sites, as well as custom phone numbers that let it charge fees when customers call restaurants, even when the calls didn't result in orders. The company also offered a "Supper for Support" promotion that required restaurants to foot the bill for a special discount; it offered restaurants $250 in compensation after a backlash. "During the past year, we've sought to engage in a constructive dialogue with the DC attorney general's office to help them understand our business and to see if there were any areas for improvement," said Katie Norris, director of corporate communications, in a statement. "We are disappointed they have moved forward with this lawsuit because our practices have always complied with DC law, and in any event, many of the practices at issue have been discontinued. We will aggressively defend our business in court and look forward to continuing to serve DC restaurants and diners."

According to The Verge, Grubhub "says the app no longer lists restaurants that haven't agreed to work with it, and it's retired its microsites and the Supper for Support program." It will also make it more clear to users that prices might be lower when ordering directly from the restaurant, "and it will specify in marketing that only pickup orders are free," adds The Verge. The company maintains that it "has not misrepresented its fees," however.

The Washington Post shares a story that hasn't been previously disclosed. "Russian agents came to the home of Google's top executive in Moscow to deliver a frightening ultimatum last September: take down an app that had drawn the ire of Russian President Vladimir Putin within 24 hours or be taken to prison." Google quickly moved the woman to a hotel where she checked in under an assumed name and might be protected by the presence of other guests and hotel security, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The same agents — believed by company officials to be from Russia's FSB, a successor to the KGB intelligence service — then showed up at her room to tell her the clock was still ticking.

Within hours, an app designed to help Russians register protest votes against Putin could no longer be downloaded from Google or Apple, whose main representative in Moscow faced a similarly harrowing sequence....

The unnerving encounters, which have not previously been disclosed, were part of a broader campaign that Putin intensified last year to erode sources of internal opposition — moves now helping him maintain his hold on power amid a global backlash over the invasion of Ukraine. In a single year, Putin had his political nemesis Alexei Navalny imprisoned after a poisoning attempt failed to kill him; pushed independent news outlets to the brink of extinction; orchestrated a Kremlin-controlled takeover of Russia's Facebook equivalent; and issued "liquidation" orders against human rights organizations.

Amid this internal offensive, Putin also moved to bring foreign technology companies to heel. Moscow deployed new devices that let it degrade or even block Russians' access to Facebook and Twitter, imposed fines totaling $120 million on firms accused of defying Kremlin censors, and ordered 13 of the world's largest technology companies to keep employees in Russia and thus exposed to potential arrest or other punishment for their employers' actions — a measure that U.S. executives refer to as the "hostage law."

On their own, these moves were seen as disparate signs of Russia' descent into authoritarianism. But they also laid the groundwork for the Soviet-style suppression of free expression now underway in Russia, much as the months-long military buildup set the stage for the invasion of Ukraine.
The article also notes "preliminary evidence that the suppression strategy is working. "Polls, whose reliability is always uncertain in Russia, show that a majority of Russians support the war. In interviews with Western journalists that have gone viral online, Russians who rely on state-controlled media have consistently echoed Kremlin falsehoods about eradicating alleged Nazism in Ukraine while seeming to be genuinely oblivious to the war's carnage."

The article also notes how Apple is responding to Ukraine's crisis — but also includes this anecdote: Apple has similarly kept employees in Russia and taken other steps to placate the Kremlin. The company last year began configuring iPhones sold in Russia to promote Kremlin-backed social media companies, enabling users to activate them with a single click. It is an accommodation Apple has rarely made elsewhere and advances Putin's goal of migrating Russian people to platforms controlled by the government, according to Russia analysts.

"People around the world are using a new website to circumvent the Kremlin's propaganda machine by sending individual messages about the war in Ukraine to random people in Russia," reports the Wall Street Journal.

"The website was developed by a group of Polish programmers who obtained some 20 million cellphone numbers and close to 140 million email addresses owned by Russian individuals and companies."

A Tuesday report from the Daily Dot: Created by the hacking group known as Squad303, the tool, hosted at the domain 1920.in, loads a pre-written statement into a user's native SMS app that attempts to inform Russians about the ongoing conflict.

"Dear Russians, your media is being censored. The Kremlin is lying," the statement reads. "Find out the truth about Ukraine on the free internet and in the Telegram app. Time to overthrow dictator Putin!"

In a statement to the Daily Dot, a member of Squad303 described the effort as a "non-violent communication project" aimed at bypassing Russia's crackdown on independent news sources.

The domain name for the tool refers to Poland's surprise victory against Russian forces in 1920.

"We know that people wanted to get engaged to help Ukrainians. We wanted to deliver them a tool to start a dialog with Russians," the group said.... Squad303 claims that its tool has already been used to send out more than 6.3 million text messages, although the Daily Dot was unable to confirm the number.

BleepingComputer was recently contacted by an alleged "venture capitalist" firm that wanted to invest or purchase our site. However, as we later discovered, this was a malicious campaign designed to install malware that provides remote access to our devices. Lawrence Abrams from BleepingComputer writes: Last week, BleepingComputer received an email to our contact form from an IP address belonging to a United Kingdom virtual server company. Writing about cybersecurity for so long, I am paranoid regarding email, messaging, and visiting unknown websites. So, I immediately grew suspicious of the email, fired up a virtual machine and VPN, and did a search for Vuxner. Google showed only a few results for 'Vuxner,' with one being for a well-designed and legitimate-looking vuxner[.]com, a site promoting "Vuxner Chat -- Next level of privacy with free instant messaging." As this appeared to be the "Vuxner chat" the threat actors referenced in their email, BleepingComputer attempted to download it and run it on a virtual machine.

BleepingComputer found that the VuxnerChat.exe download [VirusTotal] actually installs the "Trillian" messaging app and then downloads further malware onto the computer after Trillian finishes installing. As this type of campaign looked similar to other campaigns that have pushed remote access and password-stealing trojans in the past, BleepingComputer reached out to cybersecurity firm Cluster25 who has previously helped BleepingComputer diagnose similar malware attacks in the past. Cluster25 researchers explain in a report coordinated with BleepingComputer that the Vuxner[.]com is hosted behind Cloudflare, however they could still determine hosting server's actual address at 86.104.15[.]123.

The researchers state that the Vuxner Chat program is being used as a decoy for installing a remote desktop software known as RuRAT, which is used as a remote access trojan. Once a user installs the Vuxner Trillian client and exits the installer, it will download and execute a Setup.exe executable [VirusTotal] from https://vuxner[.]com/setup.exe. When done, the victim will be left with a C:\swrbldin folder filled with a variety of batch files, VBS scripts, and other files used to install RuRAT on the device. Cluster25 told BleepingComputer that the threat actors are using this attack to gain initial access to a device and then take control over the host. Once they control the host, they can search for credentials and sensitive data or use the device as a launchpad to spread laterally in a network.

A new finding suggests Samsung is throttling the performance of thousands of Android apps on Galaxy smartphones, including Google and Samsung's first-party apps. XDA Developers reports: Samsung has an app called Game Optimization Service that comes preinstalled on many Galaxy phones. Although the name suggests the app helps improve gaming performance, it's apparently being used to limit the performance of non-gaming apps. Users on the Korean tech forum Meeco have posted a list of affected apps that are subject to performance throttling. The list includes 10,000 popular apps, including Instagram, TikTok, Netflix, Microsoft Office, Google Keep, Spotify, Snapchat, YouTube Music, and more. Samsung's own apps such as Samsung Pay, Secure Folder, Bixby, and others are also on the list. Notably, there are no benchmark apps on this blacklist.

A video posted by Korean YouTuber shows how blacklisted apps are subject to inferior performance while benchmark apps are given a free hand. In his test, the YouTuber changed the package name of the 3DMark benchmark app to Genshin Impact, one of the apps on the blacklist. The unmodified version of 3D Mark scored 2618 points in the Wild Life Extreme test. When he ran the same test with the spoofed version, there was a significant drop in the score -- 1141 points. In other words, the spoofed version performed 56% worse than the unmodified version. It's not immediately clear if the Game Optimization Service app is installed on every Galaxy phone. Samsung is reportedly aware of the issue and conducting an internal investigation. "While Samsung hasn't clarified why it's throttling Android apps, it's likely in an attempt to improve battery life," notes XDA.

The Wordle clones are back on the App Store, just a few weeks after Apple wiped out nearly all the copycat games in January. From a report: A quick glance at the top free apps on the App Store reveals at least two prominently placed Wordle-alikes, while diving into Apple's more specific word games category (or simply searching "Wordle") surfaces plenty of other copycats, many of which appear to have been part of Apple's first wave of takedowns a few months ago. None of the new games are actively passing themselves off as Wordle -- at least, not in name. Instead, the clones have creatively rebranded to "Wordus," "Word Guess," "Wordl," and other thinly veiled references to the original game. But all of them offer some variant on Wordle's gameplay, down to the same gameplay, UI, design, and color scheme.

Disney World's "Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser" hotel will be expensive and immersive, writes SFGate. ("For two adults, the starting price is about $5,000. For three adults and one child, it's nearly $6,000.")

And while the hotel doesn't open to paid guests until Tuesday, free previews have already been given to online influencers: Reviews so far are generally positive — particularly praised are the character actors who carry the experience — with a few caveats. Because the hotel itself, called the Halcyon, is supposed to be a luxury cruise ship in space, the biggest complaint is that rooms are small and cramped...

For some, the lack of windows may add to a sense of claustrophobia. Hotel rooms have a digital display showing outer space and no view of the real outside world. Folks needing some fresh air can, however, visit an outdoor communal space called a "climate simulator." Reporters from the YouTube channel Disney Food Blog, which has nearly 800,000 subscribers, were invited to the media preview. In their review of the hotel, they put it thusly: "Disney went all-in on an experience that seemingly puts only the wealthiest guests inside a windowless bunker for two full days."

But most reviewers agreed that guests will be spending minimal time in their room anyway. The two days are packed with lightsaber training, clandestine rendezvous, elaborate entertainment and exploration of the ship. Guests need to download an app for their smartphone to chat with characters on board, receive their missions and learn their storylines. This was the other major drawback: If you're an introvert, this may be the wrong trip for you.

Reviews of Valve's Steam Deck portable gaming PC are pouring in, but one surprise that has flown under the radar is Aperture Desk Job -- "a new bite-size experience set in the Portal universe that'll be a free download March 1st," reports The Verge. "It's designed to introduce new Steam Deck buyers to the handheld's incredible array of controls, and it involves... toilets and chairs." From the report: [H]ere's how Valve tries to thread the needle between our rampant desire for Valve to remember how to count to three and the potential disappointment that Valve has not yet managed it: "Aperture Desk Job reimagines the been-there-done-that genre of walking simulators and puts them in the lightning-spanked, endorphin-gorged world of sitting still behind things. You play as an entry-level nobody on their first day at work -- your heart full of hope and your legs full of dreams, eager to climb that corporate ladder. But life's got other plans, and they all involve chairs. Designed as a free playable short for Valve's new Steam Deck, Desk Job walks you through the handheld's controls and features, while not being nearly as boring as that sounds. Not Portal 3! Lower your expectations: This is not a sequel to Portal. Now get ready to raise them slightly, because it is in the expanded universe of those games."

Truth Social, a new social media platform backed by former President Donald Trump, sat at the top of Apple's free apps download charts as of Tuesday morning. CNBC reports: The platform unveiled a soft launch late Sunday, according to Reuters, with many users prompted to join a waitlist. Some who tried to sign up reported glitches when attempting to create an account, though such issues are common in early app releases. Truth Social has been delayed several times. The full launch was first planned for Feb. 21, but that date has been pushed back to March 31.

The app is a product of the Trump Media & Technology Group, led by former Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. The company has planned to go public via merger with the Digital World Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition corporation, or SPAC, with a market cap of more than $3 billion. DWAC disclosed in December that two financial regulators had opened probes into communications with Trump's firm prior to the deal announcement. [...] The platform aims to distinguish itself through its content moderation philosophy, with the website calling it "America's 'Big Tent' social media platform that encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating against political ideology." Even so, Nunes previously told Fox Business the company will have content moderation to ensure it remains a "family-friendly" space.

Google is continuing to give its document editing suite a more modern makeover. The latest update to Google Docs makes pageless documents available to all users after the company announced the feature last May. It also adds new features such as AI-generated document summaries, inline Google Maps previews, and the ability to draft emails with other users before transferring them over to Gmail. Most of those features are launching today, while email drafting will roll out in the "coming weeks." From a report: The update may be seen as part of a broader effort to compete with startups such as Notion and Coda, which are reimagining document editing around free-flowing, dynamic pages. Those products have also caught the attention of Microsoft, which announced an entirely new document editing app called Loop last November. While Google isn't fundamentally reinventing Docs in response, it's leaning on its ecosystem of other apps and services to make documents feel more dynamic and less like the printed page.

For most Google Docs users, the most striking change will be the new pageless format, which extends whitespace to both edges of the screen and dispenses with the page markers used for printing purposes. It also allows for a fully-responsive design, in which documents reflow when users adjust the size of their browser window. (Pagination will still be the default, but users can switch to pageless formatting under File > Setup.) Other changes won't be as immediately noticeable, but speak to where Google Docs -- and the Workspace suite as a whole -- are headed. Document summaries created using AI technology, for instance, will appear in a sidebar view where users can accept them or modify their text. When users hover over links to another document that includes a summary, it'll appear inside a pop-up preview window. [...] Google's also adding a way to draft Gmail messages inside Docs, so users can collaborate on messaging before passing the contents off to Gmail proper. And a recently-added Meeting Notes feature lets users pull in contacts, action items, and other details from Google Calendar events.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: The most insufferable part of every Super Bowl Sunday has historically, without fail, been the ads. This year was no exception, with an unrelenting barrage of ads trying to manifest the metaverse, convince viewers they're missing out on crypto, and lure new blood to online and physical casinos. Results were mixed. Coinbase, in one ad named WAGMI ("we're all going to make it"), crafted an advertisement that bounced a QR code around the screen, changing colors each time it hit the edge like an old-school DVD menu. Scanning the QR codewhich immediately forfeits your right to enter heaventakes the user to this page, where Coinbase offers $15 in Bitcoin for signing up as well as a chance to enter a contest to win one of three prizes for $1 million worth of Bitcoin. The linked webpage went down almost immediately thanks to the increased traffic from the ad, and ridicule at the idea of paying millions of dollars to send millions of viewers to a down site poured in from around the web.

To Coinbase, though, the ad was a success. In a blog post congratulating itself on the advertisement and interviewing Coinbase Chief Marketing Officer Kate Rouch about why the ad was so good, the company revealed it saw "20M+ hits on our landing page in one minute" which "led to us temporarily throttling our systems." Chief executive Brian Armstrong took to Twitter to gloat about the ad: ranked #1 by AdWeek and peaking at #2 in the Apple App Store, just ahead of apps for the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show and the NFL. As it turns out, putting up nothing but a QR code in the middle of a widely-watched sports event and offering free money as well as a chance to win $3 million is a good way to build interest in your app. When Motherboard reached out to Coinbase about the ad, the company directed Motherboard to Rouch's blog post and reiterated its main points.

While taking a victory lap for the apparent success of its ad, Coinbase took the time to explain why this is definitely not at all like the dotcom bubble, which many critics have said is an apt comparison for Sunday's ads. "There have been a lot of comparisons to the dot.com era and speculation that many of the crypto companies advertising in this year's Super Bowl will inevitably fail," said Rouch in Coinbase's blog post. "We don't think about it that way and judging from the early response we've seen, Super Bowl viewers don't either." Rouch insisted that the sheer number of crypto ads in the Super Bowl was "yet another signal that crypto is bursting into the mainstream, and at the center of the cultural zeitgeist." Further reading: This Year's Super Bowl Broadcast May Seem 'Crypto-Happy'. But the NFL Isn't

MoviePass, the defunct discount ticketing service, will return this summer without the firm that ran it into the ground, says co-founder Stacy Spikes. The Verge reports: The company, recently bought by Spikes after his unceremonious ouster from MoviePass in 2018, held its launch event today at the Walter Reade Theater Lincoln Center in NYC. Spikes began by wasting absolutely no time addressing the Helios and Matheson Analytics-shaped elephant in the room. The firm is now infamous for being the parent company of MoviePass that managed to blow the entire thing up shortly after the firm bought the startup, which became famous for offering unlimited movie tickets for a monthly fee.
"A lot of people lost money, a lot of people lost trust," Spikes said, claiming he was among those who were hurt by the company's mismanagement. During the opening moments of the event, Spikes oscillated between addressing the disappointment of being pushed out of his company, joking about MoviePass' loyal consumers -- as well as its power users, who Spikes cracked are the reason the company went out of business -- and finally, the process of snapping the company back after its parent company went bankrupt in 2020. "We're looking at this from another point of view," Spikes said of the company's relaunch, adding that he now plans to run the business like a "co-op." Spikes added that MoviePass users will be able to hold partial ownership of the company, with its most premium tier inclusive of a lifetime subscription.

The company's original engineering team is returning for the business's relaunch, according to Spikes, and the service will launch this summer. Under the new model, MoviePass will run on tradable credits that roll over month to month. Subscribers will also be able to use their credits to bring a friend, a markedly different approach from the single-user card system that MoviePass used previously, which could prove annoying for non-cardholders. MoviePass 2.0 will also work on a tiered system, Spikes said. Spikes shared images of a beta version of the new app and the credit-based system, which will vary based on things like peak moviegoing hours. MoviePass' ambitions for subscribers are, charitably, ambitious. Spikes wants to claim 30 percent of the moviegoer market by 2030, MoviePass' "moonshot" goal. Somewhat unsurprisingly, MoviePass will incorporate aspects of Spikes' existing business PreShow, a technology that has been used to allow gamers to trade ad views for in-game currency. [...] Spikes told attendees at the event that MoviePass' most loyal fans will be "deputized" to beta users and will be able to use the experience for its first year for free. At some point during the summer, these users will be contacted about the beta programming.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bitcoin Magazine: Users of Block's mobile payments platform Cash App can now make instant and free bitcoin payments through the Lightning Network, the company tweeted on Monday. The integration of Bitcoin's second-layer protocol for faster and cheaper transactions was made possible by the Lightning Development Kit, an open-source project developed by another company owned by Block, Spiral. The Lightning Development Kit (LDK) is a flexible Lightning implementation geared towards developers who want to integrate Bitcoin's Lightning Network into their applications frictionlessly. It abstracts away complexities of Lightning, enabling developers to integrate the network easier and faster into their apps.

Jack Dorsey said in a fireside chat last week with Michael Saylor, the CEO of software intelligence company MicroStrategy, that having Cash App integrate Lightning through the Spiral's work was one of the proudest moments of his career. [...] Despite critics saying that Bitcoin cannot be used as a means of exchange due to its base layer's slow settlements, Lightning empowers Bitcoin to handle the smallest of payments for little to no cost. Now, all Cash App users can also leverage Lightning to send small payments instantly and for free. However, it seems that Cash App cannot yet receive Lightning transactions itself -- only send them.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: There is hope for users of Google's "legacy" free G Suite accounts. Last week, Google announced a brutal policy change -- it would shut down the Google Apps accounts of users who signed up during the first several years when the service was available for free. Users who had a free G Suite account were given two options: start paying the per-user monthly fee by July 2022 or lose your account. Naturally, this move led to a huge outcry outside (and apparently inside) Google, and now, the company seems to be backing down from most of the harsher terms of the initial announcement. First, Google is launching a survey of affected G Suite users -- apparently, the company is surprised by how many people this change affected. Second, it's promising a data-migration option (including your content purchases) to a consumer account before the shutdown hits.

The support page detailing the shutdown has quietly been updated (for some reason, Google is not making a big deal of the changes yet). First, if (and only if) you're signed in with a free G Suite account, you'll see a link to this survey, which is aimed at free G Suite admins with 10 users or fewer using the service for "non-business" purposes. Google says users filling out the survey will receive "updates on more options for your non-business legacy account in the coming months." It's a sign that Google had no idea how many people this change would affect, and now, the company wants to hear from you.

The ideal situation, if the custom domain option has to shut down, would be the option to port your free G Suite account to a consumer Google account, with all the purchases, data, email, and other features intact. You would naturally have to pick a new account name and email address, but minimal disruption to other services would seem like the least Google could do, and it sounds like the company is building something like that. There's now a new section on the support page titled: "If I don't want to upgrade to a paid subscription, can I transfer my data?" [...] This is the option everyone has been asking for, as it specifically references "non-Google Workspace paid content," which presumably would mean all your app, game, and media purchases made through Google Play and YouTube. The support article doesn't offer any additional details yet, only saying to wait for further updates, but Google promises the option will be ready before July, which is when the account disruptions start happening.

Mail2World hosts mailboxes for 2,150,000 different domains, according to its web site, offering both "free, reliable email for everyone" and a $29.99-a-year "premium" service with a terabyte of storage (instead of the free level's 25 gigabytes), an ad-free inbox, and "premium"-level support.

"We appreciate your understanding as we work to fully restore email service as soon as possible," reads their most-recent tweet — from Thursday.

Slashdot reader C4st13v4n14 is not a happy customer: Since Tuesday evening local time, I haven't been able to access my primary email account. This is an alumni email account I've had for the last 22 years that's tied to all my accounts ranging from not only social media and IOT devices, but also banking, access to health services and contact with local and countrywide government authorities.

My country is highly digitised and virtually everything from taxes to buying or selling a house, paying bills, access to health records and correspondence with hospitals and GPs, driving licences, applying for welfare, and starting a business are online. I don't even get snail mail anymore, everything is sent to a digital mailbox I can access through a browser or app with two-factor authentication. Fortunately, all access control for public-facing services is via two-factor authentication or smartcards with secure certificates for the highly sensitive stuff.

Regardless, the ordeal has been quite distressing as I was unable to find any information about the outage; a little detective work was only giving vague ERR_CONNECTION_RESET and DNS errors. My main thought was that my account had somehow been compromised and even more worryingly, there were no reports online about it. Turning to Reddit, I was able to gather that the provider, Mail2World, had suffered a ransomware attack but had been very uncommunicative about the event. In terms of news coverage, there was basically none. Only one random news site had a short article about it. During the days without access, I was painstakingly moving accounts to my Gmail address and updating contact information for the really important stuff like governmental services. This morning, I got a tip that Jesse over at BlueScreen Computer had reached out to Mail2World and has been documenting the outage.

Since then, some email has started to show up in my mobile app and I'm able to access the web portal again, but I can't help but feel like the damage has been done. This is an account that I pay an annual fee for and have trusted to work until now. I also find being kept in the dark about something so fundamental in today's world like email to be both very concerning and completely unacceptable. In that regard, I'm hoping this will bring some coverage to the event.

I would also like any input you Slashdotters have on migrating to and navigating Gmail. The interface is unfamiliar to an old-school user like me who still uses Eudora to check and save a backup of everything.

By the way, I'd should also like to point out that both POP and SMTP are handled by servers at pangia.biz, and their website has also been unreachable during this. Instead of Gmail, maybe you would recommend a different provider or service altogether? My work email is fortunately completely separate as of a couple years ago and handled by one.com as they host my website. It works, but they aren't anything special really.
It's interesting to imagine the scope of this particular outage. "Our company's growing list of customers includes prominent organizations from around the world," brags the Mail2World web site, "such as publicly-traded corporations, leading academic institutions and some of the largest and most-recognized service providers."

But long-time Slashdot reader OtisSnerd has experienced even worse: This happened with Newsguy.com's email and NNTP offerings back in early September. I had my email address with them for 25 years, and my wife's email for almost 22. It turns out that Newsguy went chapter 7. Luckily we were using pop3 with MS Outlook, so we both still have all the old email. I already had another email account elsewhere, but my wife didn't. Took days to get all her changes made.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Humble, the bundle-centric games retailer that launched with expansive Mac and Linux support in 2010, will soon shift a major component of its business to Windows-only gaming. The retailer's monthly subscription service, Humble Choice, previously offered a number of price tiers; the more you paid, the more new games you could claim in a given month. Starting February 1, Humble Choice will include less choice, as it will only offer a single $12/month tier, complete with a few new game giveaways per month and ongoing access to two collections of games: Humble's existing "Trove" collection of classic games, and a brand-new "Humble Games Collection" of more modern titles.

But this shift in subscription strategy comes with a new, unfortunate requirement: an entirely new launcher app, which must be used to access and download Humble Trove and Humble Games Collection games going forward. Worse, this app will be Windows-only. Current subscribers have been given an abrupt countdown warning (as spotted by NeoWin). Those subscribers have until January 31 to use the existing website interface to download DRM-free copies of any games' Mac or Linux versions. Starting February 1, subscription-specific downloads will be taken off the site, and Mac and Linux versions in particular will disappear altogether. Interestingly, the current Trove library consists of 79 games, but Humble says that the Trove collection will include "50+ games" starting February 1. This week's warning to Humble's Mac and Linux subscribers notes that "many" of the current Trove games will appear on the Humble Launcher, which is likely a nice way of saying that some of the existing games will not -- perhaps around 20 or so, based on the aforementioned numbers. Despite these changes, Trove's selection of games will remain DRM-free. FAQs about the Humble Launcher suggest that subscribers can download Trove files and continue accessing them in DRM-free fashion, no Humble Launcher or ongoing subscription required. The same promise has not been made for the more modern game collection found in the new Humble Games Collection.

It's been 518 days since Apple kicked Fortnite off of the App Store after Epic Games tried to bypass its payment system. Now the popular free-to-play battle royale is once again playable on iPhones, sort of. From a report: Starting next week, Fortnite will be available on iOS by way of streaming, as part of an upcoming closed beta for Nvidia's GeForce Now game streaming program. "Fortnite on GeForce NOW will launch in a limited-time closed beta for mobile, all streamed through the Safari web browser on iOS and the GeForce NOW Android app," Nvidia announced on its blog today. "The beta is open for registration for all GeForce NOW members, and will help test our server capacity, graphics delivery and new touch controls performance."

GeForce Now, subscriptions for which range from free to $200 a year for the premium tier, lets users stream games they already own to PCs, tablets, and smartphones. It's one way to make blockbuster PC games portable, or to play them on rigs with beefier specs than the ones people already have at home. In Fortnite's case, GeForce Now subscribers will soon be able to stream the shooter to iOS devices and play it using touch controls via Apple's Safari. The browser workaround is one way companies like Microsoft have been able to get their game streaming platforms on iPhones despite Apple's ban on allowing them inside its App Store. Now its bringing back the game that kicked off a massive, messy, year-long legal battle that's still raging to this day.