An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: Record temperatures, devastating floods and superstorms are causing death and destruction across the planet but humans are failing to cut greenhouse gas emissions fueling the climate emergency, new US data shows. Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide -- the greenhouse gases emitted by human activity that are the most significant contributors to global heating -- continued to increase rapidly during 2022, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa).

Carbon dioxide levels rose by more than two parts per million (ppm) for the 11th consecutive year: the highest sustained rate of CO2 increases since monitoring began 65 years ago. Before 2013, scientists had never recorded three consecutive years of such high CO2 growth. Atmospheric CO2 is now 50% higher than pre-industrial levels. The 2022 methane rise was the fourth-largest since records began in 1983, following record growth in 2021 and 2022, and now stands at an average of 1,912 parts per billion (ppb). Methane is a potent greenhouse gas less abundant than CO2 but which warms the Earth's atmosphere much faster, and today is responsible for about 25% of the heat trapped by all greenhouse gases. "Methane levels in the atmosphere are now more than two and a half times their pre-industrial level," adds the Guardian. "The oil and gas sector is the largest industrial source of methane, which can also cause medical complications, fires and even engine failure leading helicopters to fall out of the sky."

"Levels of nitrous oxide, the third-most significant anthropogenic greenhouse gas, are now 24% higher than preâ"industrial levels, following a 1.25ppb rise last year." While fossil fuel-powered vehicles are a major source of nitrous oxide, the primary culprits behind the rising levels have been synthetic fertilizers and livestock manure from industrialized agriculture, says the report.

The NOAA report can be found here.

Academics in the US have developed an attack dubbed NUIT, for Near-Ultrasound Inaudible Trojan, that exploits vulnerabilities in smart device microphones and voice assistants to silently and remotely access smart phones and home devices. The Register reports: The research team -- Guenevere Chen, an associate professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, her doctoral student Qi Xia, and Shouhuai Xu, a professor at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs -- found Apple's Siri, Google's Assistant, Microsoft's Cortana, and Amazon's Alexa are all vulnerable to NUIT attacks, albeit to different degrees. In an interview with The Register this month, Chen and Xia demonstrated two separate NUIT attacks: NUIT-1, which emits sounds to exploit a victim's smart speaker to attack the same victim's microphone and voice assistant on the same device, and NUIT-2, which exploits a victim's speaker to attack the same victim's microphone and voice assistant on a different device. Ideally, for the attacker, these sounds should be inaudible to humans.

The attacks work by modulating voice commands into near-ultrasound inaudible signals so that humans can't hear them but the voice assistant will still respond to them. These signals are then embedded into a carrier, such as an app or YouTube video. When a vulnerable device picks up the carrier, it ends up obeying the hidden embedded commands. Attackers can use social engineering to trick the victim into playing the sound clip, Xia explained. "And once the victim plays this clip, voluntarily or involuntarily, the attacker can manipulate your Siri to do something, for example, open your door."

For NUIT-1 attacks, using Siri, the answer is yes. The boffins found they could control an iPhone's volume so that a silent instruction to Siri generates an inaudible response. The other three voice assistants -- Google's, Cortana, and Alexa -- are still susceptible to the attacks, but for NUIT-1, the technique can't silence devices' response so the victim may notice shenanigans are afoot. It's also worth noting that the length of malicious commands must be below 77 milliseconds -- that's the average reaction time for the four voice assistants across multiple devices.

In a NUIT-2 attack, the attacker exploits the speaker on one device to attack the microphone and associated voice assistant of a second device. These attacks aren't limited by the 77-millisecond window and thus give the attacker a broader range of possible action commands. An attacker could use this scenario during Zooms meeting, for example: if an attendee unmutes themself, and their phone is placed next to their computer, an attacker could use an embedded attack signal to attack that attendees phone. The researchers will publish their research and demonstrate the NUIT attacks at the USENIX Security Symposium in August.

In an exclusive interview with Variety, legendary video game designer, Nintendo fellow and self-proclaimed "Mario's mom", Shigeru Miyamoto, said: "Mobile apps will not be the primary path of future Mario games." From the report: After two moderately successful but dwindling iOS games, plus another that shuttered after two years, Nintendo is pulling Mario away from the mobile market. Released in 2016, Super Mario Run grossed $60 million in its first year, while 2019's Mario Kart Tour has generated $300 million (compared to Mario Kart 8's $3 billion and counting). Without explanation, Nintendo removed 2019's Dr. Mario World from app markets two years after its release.

"First and foremost, Nintendo's core strategy is a hardware and software integrated gaming experience," said Miyamoto, who played a pivotal role in designing the Wii, among other Nintendo consoles. "The intuitiveness of the control is a part of the gaming experience. When we explored the opportunity of making Mario games for the mobile phone -- which is a more common, generic device -- it was challenging to determine what that game should be. That is why I played the role of director for Super Mario Run, to be able to translate that Nintendo hardware experience into the smart devices."

Elaborating on the merits of Run and Tour, Miyamoto continued, "Having Mario games as mobile apps expands the doorway for far more audience to experience the game, and also expands the Mario gaming experience, where you only need your thumb on one hand." Referencing the innovation of the Super Mario Maker series and Super Mario Odyssey, which Miyamoto called "the ultimate evolution of a Mario adventure game on a typical 3D platformer," the Nintendo exec laid out how the company begins to develop a Mario game: "We try to define what is the gameplay, what is the method, and then define what devices we go on." When asked when fans can expect the next mainline Mario game, Miyamoto chuckled and said: "All I can say is please stay tuned for future Nintendo Directs."

For $30, you can ship Best Buy a prepaid box filled with up to 15 pounds of unwanted electronics. CNET reports: Starting this month, two sizes of prepaid boxes are available on the Best Buy website: a 9-by-5-by-3-inch container that can carry up to 6 pounds for $23, and a larger, 18-by-14-by-4-inch box that can carry up to 15 pounds for $30. Once you've filled it up with approved electronics, you can take the box to a UPS location or arrange for a pickup.

The recycling-by-mail program is the latest salvo in Best Buy's campaign to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040. In April 2022, the company began offering a haul-away service that picks TVs, appliances and other products for recycling from customers' homes. You can also drop off unwanted electronics at Best Buy locations and trade in select merchandise for gift cards.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Late last month, UK regulators said they no longer believed a proposed Microsoft-owned Activision would bar Call of Duty games from PlayStation platforms, a reversal of earlier preliminary findings. Even if you grant that premise, though, Sony says that it's still worried Microsoft could give PlayStation owners a "degraded" version of new Call of Duty games in an effort to make the Xbox versions look better.

In a newly published response (PDF) to the UK's Competition and Markets Authority, Sony says the regulators' recent turnaround is "surprising, unprecedented, and irrational." The company takes specific issue with the regulators' "lifetime value" modeling, which Sony says heavily undervalues what an Xbox-exclusive Call of Duty would be worth to Microsoft. Beyond those technical concerns, though, Sony says it worries that Microsoft might subtly undermine PlayStation "simply by not making it as good as it could be." That could include small changes to the game's "performance [or] quality of play," but also secondary moves to "raise [Call of Duty's] price [on PlayStation], release the game at a later date, or make it available only on Game Pass." Microsoft would also "have no incentive to make use of the advanced features in PlayStation not found in Xbox," Sony says, an apparent reference to the PS5 controller's advanced haptics and built-in audio capabilities.

In its own newly filed response (PDF), Microsoft reiterated that it has "no intention to withhold or degrade access to Call of Duty or any other Activision content on PlayStation." That follows on a March filing where Microsoft promised Sony parity on Call of Duty's "release date, content, features, upgrades, quality, and playability." But Sony's response reflects a continued lack of trust in such promises. The company cites detailed analyses from the likes of Digital Foundry in saying that "the technical quality of Modern Warfare II was similar across platforms" in today's market. After a merger, though, Sony argues that "Microsoft would have different incentives because degrading the experience on PlayStation would benefit Xbox, PlayStation's 'closest rival.'" "This kind of 'partial foreclosure' strategy might 'trigger fewer gamer complaints' than full Xbox exclusivity for Call of Duty, Sony says, while also allowing Microsoft to 'still secure revenues from sales of Call of Duty on PlayStation for a transitional period,'" reports Ars. "But Sony says the long-term results of this kind of 'degraded' PlayStation version would be the same as a full PlayStation ban: Call of Duty players abandoning Sony and moving to Microsoft's platforms."

"Such a move would 'seriously damage our reputation,' Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan told the CMA in a recent hearing. 'Our gamers would desert our platform in droves and network effects would exacerbate the problem. Our business would never recover.'"

Apple has been teasing plans for an India retail store since 2016. Seven years later, it's finally here. Quartz reports: The company finally released a picture of the barricade of its first ever Indian retail store in Mumbai, the country's financial hub, on Apr. 5. The store will be located in Jio World Drive -- the mall owned by India's richest man Mukesh Ambani -- in the upscale commercial hub called Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC). So far, Apple has only sold goods and offered services in India via authorized third-party retailers, or through online portals such as Amazon, Flipkart, and Paytm Mall.

Apple has chosen a prime location for its first retail outlet in India. Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), which is morphing into the city's main business district, houses offices for multinational companies and banks. BKC recently made headlines for hosting what is being touted as India's answer to the Met Gala: the opening of the multi-disciplinary Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Arts Centre (NMACC). The launch of the first-of-its-kind cultural arts space was flanked by both Bollywood and Hollywood celebrities -- from Shahrukh Khan to Zendaya. "Hello Mumbai," says Apple on their website. "We are getting ready to welcome you aboard our first store in India. And raring to see where your creativity takes you at Apple BKC."

The Apple Mumbai store promises to offer one-on-one support with a Specialist, expert service and support at the Genius Bar, and product exchanges for credit towards a future purchase.

Australia's financial regulator has cancelled the local financial services licence of the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance. The Guardian reports: Earlier this year, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic) found Binance had incorrectly classified hundreds of retail customers as wholesale investors. The Asic chair, Joe Longo, said the distinction was important because retail customers have access to more consumer protections under Australian law, including the right to dispute resolution. Binance's Australia's financial services (AFS) licence only allows it to provide derivatives products to sophisticated investors, rather than retail customers.

"It is critically important that AFS licensees classify retail and wholesale clients in accordance with the law," Longo said. "Retail clients trading in crypto derivatives are afforded important rights and consumer protections under financial services laws in Australia, including access to external dispute resolution through the Australian financial complaints authority. Our targeted review of these matters is ongoing, including focus on the extent of consumer harms."

From April 14, Binance clients will not be able to increase derivatives positions or open new positions. The exchange must close any remaining open positions by April 21. Binance can remain a member of the Australian financial complaints authority until April 8, 2024. "As we have said before, Asic supports a regulatory framework for crypto with a focus on consumer protection and market integrity. The final decision as to the regulatory settings is one for government," Longo said. Binance has been operating in Australia for many years but its now cancelled AFSL was with Oztures Trading, a company it acquired last year.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Embryos made from stem cells -- instead of a sperm and egg -- have been created from monkey cells for the first time. When researchers put these "synthetic embryos" into the uteruses of adult monkeys, some showed the initial signs of pregnancy. It's the furthest scientists have ever been able to take lab-grown embryos in primates -- and the work hints that it may one day be possible to generate fetuses this way. The team behind the research, Zhen Liu at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai and his colleagues, started with embryonic stem cells originally taken from macaque monkey embryos. These cells have been grown in labs for multiple generations and, given the right conditions, have the potential to develop into pretty much any type of body cell, including those that make up organs, blood, and nervous system.

The team used a set of lab conditions, which they tweaked and improved, to encourage embryonic stem cells to develop further. Over several days, the cells began developing in a very similar way to embryos. The resulting blobs of cells are called blastoids, because they look like early embryos, which are called blastocysts. After the blastoids had been growing in a dish for seven days, the researchers put them through a series of tests to figure out how similar they were to typical embryos. In one test, the team separated the individual cells in the blastoids and checked to see which genes were expressed in each one. The team analyzed over 6,000 individual cells this way.

These tests revealed close similarities between the stem-cell-derived embryos and conventional monkey embryos. Some of the blastoids were grown for longer -- up to 17 days. These structures looked very much like typical embryos, the researchers say, although other scientists not involved in the study say more evidence is needed to prove just how similar they are. The only way to find out how embryo-like these blastoids really are is to test whether they can develop in a monkey's uterus. So the team put between eight and 10 seven-day-old blastoids into the uteruses of each of eight adult monkeys. The researchers then monitored the transferred blastoids for three weeks. The researchers believe that in three of these monkeys, the blastoids successfully implanted in the uterus and appeared to generate a yolk sac -- one of the very first signs of pregnancy. These monkeys also had elevated levels of pregnancy hormones. In other words, they would have had a positive pregnancy test. But within 20 days of transfer, the monkey blastoids stopped developing and seemed to come apart, say Liu and colleagues, who published their results in the journal Cell Stem Cell. The results suggest that blastoids still aren't perfect replicas of normal embryos. "That might be because a typical embryo is generated from an egg, which is then fertilized by sperm," reports MIT Technology Review. "A blastoid made from stem cells might express genes in the same way as a normal embryo, but it may be missing something crucial that normally comes from an egg."

"There's also a chance that the team might have seen more progress if the experiment had been done in more monkeys. After all, of the 484 blastoids that were developing at day seven, only five survived to day 17."

Apple's slowing growth and cash-rich balance sheet are again fueling speculation that the world's most valuable company should make a big acquisition. From a report: Entertainment giant Disney recently joined a long list of potential acquisition targets that over the years has grown to include Netflix, Tesla, Peloton and Sonos. They all have one thing in common: Anyone betting that Apple would buy them has so far been sorely disappointed. "You're probably missing the value of the business if you think the key catalyst for investment is a major acquisition," said Kevin Walkush, portfolio manager at Jensen Investment Management. "It's a low-probability bet." Apple is famous for eschewing splashy acquisitions in contrast with peers like Microsoft and Amazon, which have continued to make deals despite increasing scrutiny by regulators. Instead, Apple favors buying small startups to augment its home-grown pushes into new markets even if those efforts take many years to bear fruit.

Further adding to the excitement of the upcoming Linux 6.4 merge window is the mainline kernel seeing the Device Tree (DT) additions for Apple's current M2 devices including the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac Mini systems. From a report: The upstream kernel still has more work to go around the M1/M2 support compared to the downstream state with Asahi Linux, but at least now with this DT support will provide some basic level of upstream kernel support for the Apple M2. Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin today sent in the Apple SoC DT updates targeting the Linux 6.4 cycle for queuing into the SoC tree ahead of the merge window opening around the end of the month. The main addition with this pull request is adding the Apple M2 Device Tree series.

Android users who want to tap into some AI as they type on their phones can now do so with help from Microsoft. Released this week, the latest flavor of the Microsoft SwiftKey Beta keyboard integrates the Bing AI bot to bring some smarts to your typing. From a report: Confirming the beta release in a tweet posted on Wednesday, Pedram Rezaei, Microsoft Chief Technology Officer for the Mobile and Commerce Division, asked: "Did we just add major AI functionality to @SwiftKey?" and then followed up by saying: "Slowly rolling out. Get yourself onto the Beta channel to taste the future." By selecting the new SwiftKey beta as the keyboard on your Android device, you can search for information via Bing, ask the AI to rewrite certain text, and chat with it to generate specific content. If you already have the current regular release of SwiftKey, you can keep that one, install the beta, and just switch back and forth.

Microsoft is making its DALL-E-powered AI image generator "available on desktop for Edge users around the world." From a report: The company announced it'd be coming last month when it integrated the image generation tech into its Bing chatbot, but this move could make it available to a much wider audience. When it rolls out, the "Image Creator" will live in Edge's sidebar. Using it should be pretty simple; you type in what you want to see, and Bing will generate several images that match the prompt. Then, you can download the ones you like and use them however you need. In a Thursday blog post, Microsoft pitches the feature as a way to create "very specific" visuals when they're working on social media posts or slideshows and documents. While this has been possible in a variety of ways before -- you could use OpenAI's DALL-E, Microsoft's Bing image creator site, the built-in image generator in Bing Chat, or one of the many other image generators -- putting it right in Edge's sidebar makes it much easier to ask an AI to make you some pictures while you're doing something else on the web.

China is considering banning the export of technologies used to produce high-performance rare earth magnets deployed in electric vehicles, wind turbine motors and other products, citing "national security" as a reason, it has been learned. From a report: With the global trend toward decarbonization driving a shift toward the use of electric motors, China is believed to be seeking to seize control of the magnet supply chain and establish dominance in the burgeoning environment sector.

Beijing is currently in the process of revising its Catalogue of Technologies Prohibited and Restricted from Export -- a list of manufacturing and other industrial technologies subject to export controls -- and released a draft of the revised catalog for public comment in December. In the draft, manufacturing technologies for high-performance magnets using such rare earth elements as neodymium and samarium cobalt were added to the export ban. The solicitation of comments ceased late January and the revisions are expected to be adopted as early as this year.

Meta has announced an AI model called the Segment Anything Model (SAM) that can identify individual objects in images and videos, even those not encountered during training. From a report: According to a blog post from Meta, SAM is an image segmentation model that can respond to text prompts or user clicks to isolate specific objects within an image. Image segmentation is a process in computer vision that involves dividing an image into multiple segments or regions, each representing a specific object or area of interest. The purpose of image segmentation is to make an image easier to analyze or process. Meta also sees the technology as being useful for understanding webpage content, augmented reality applications, image editing, and aiding scientific study by automatically localizing animals or objects to track on video.

Typically, Meta says, creating an accurate segmentation model "requires highly specialized work by technical experts with access to AI training infrastructure and large volumes of carefully annotated in-domain data." By creating SAM, Meta hopes to "democratize" this process by reducing the need for specialized training and expertise, which it hopes will foster further research into computer vision. In addition to SAM, Meta has assembled a dataset it calls "SA-1B" that includes 11 million images licensed from "a large photo company" and 1.1 billion segmentation masks produced by its segmentation model. Meta will make SAM and its dataset available for research purposes under an Apache 2.0 license. Currently, the code (without the weights) is available on GitHub, and Meta has created a free interactive demo of its segmentation technology.

While Chrome 112 just shipped this week and Chrome 113 only in beta, there is already a big reason to look forward to that next Chrome web browser release: Google is finally ready to ship WebGPU support. From a report: WebGPU provides the next-generation high performance 3D graphics API for the web. With next month's Chrome 113 stable release, the plan is to have WebGPU available out-of-the-box for this new web graphics API. Though in that version Google is limiting it to ChromeOS, macOS, and Windows... Yes, Google says other platforms like Linux will see their roll-out later in the year. The WebGPU API is more akin to Direct3D 12, Vulkan, and Metal compared with the existing WebGL being derived from OpenGL (ES). From Google's blog post: WebGPU is a new API for the web, which exposes modern hardware capabilities and allows rendering and computation operations on a GPU, similar to Direct3D 12, Metal, and Vulkan. Unlike the WebGL family of APIs, WebGPU offers access to more advanced GPU features and provides first-class support for general computations on the GPU. The API is designed with the web platform in mind, featuring an idiomatic JavaScript API, integration with promises, support for importing videos, and a polished developer experience with great error messages.

This initial release of WebGPU serves as a building block for future updates and enhancements. The API will offer more advanced graphics features, and developers are encouraged to send requests for additional features. The Chrome team also plans to provide deeper access to shader cores for even more machine learning optimizations and additional ergonomics in WGSL, the WebGPU Shading Language.

India amended its IT law on Thursday to prohibit Facebook, Twitter and other social media firms from publishing, hosting or sharing false or misleading information about "any business" of the government and said the firms will be required to rely on New Delhi's own fact-check unit to determine the authenticity of any claim in a blow to many American giants that identify the South Asian market as their largest by users. From a report: Failure to comply with the rule, which also impacts internet service providers such as Jio and Airtel, risks the firms losing their safe harbour protections. The rule, first proposed in January this year, gives a unit of the government arbitrary and overbroad powers to determine the authenticity of online content and bypasses the principles of natural justice, said New Delhi-headquartered digital rights group Internet Freedom Foundation.

Chinese state-owned telecom firms are developing a $500 million undersea fiber-optic internet cable network that would link Asia, the Middle East and Europe to rival a similar U.S.-backed project, four people involved in the deal told Reuters. From the report: The plan is a sign that an intensifying tech war between Beijing and Washington risks tearing the fabric of the internet. China's three main carriers -- China Telecommunications Corporation (China Telecom), China Mobile Limited and China United Network Communications Group (China Unicom) -- are mapping out one of the world's most advanced and far-reaching subsea cable networks, according to the four people, who have direct knowledge of the plan.

Known as EMA (Europe-Middle East-Asia), the proposed cable would link Hong Kong to China's island province of Hainan, before snaking its way to Singapore, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and France, the four people said. They asked not to be named because they were not allowed to discuss potential trade secrets. The cable, which would cost approximately $500 million to complete, would be manufactured and laid by China's HMN Technologies, a fast-growing cable firm whose predecessor company was majority-owned by Chinese telecom giant Huawei, the people said.

In every copy of macOS that has shipped since 2018, Apple has included the original Bitcoin whitepaper by Satoshi Nakamoto, and no-one seems to know why. From a report: The baffling discovery (or rediscovery - see below) was recently made by developer and waxy.org writer Andy Baio, who stumbled upon the PDF document while trying to fix a problem with his printer. Anyone with a Mac running macOS Mojave or later can see the PDF for themselves by typing the following command into Terminal:

open /System/Library/Image\ Capture/Devices/VirtualScanner.app/Contents/Resources/simpledoc.pdf

If you're running macOS 10.14 or later, the 184 KB Bitcoin PDF should immediately open in Preview. The document can also be located via Finder: Navigate to Macintosh HD -> System -> Library -> Image Capture -> Devices, then open the Contents -> Resources folder. The whitepaper titled "simpledoc.pdf" should be in there.

Google plans to add conversational artificial-intelligence features to its flagship search engine, Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai said, as it deals with pressure from chatbots such as ChatGPT and wider business issues. From a report: Advances in AI would supercharge Google's ability to answer an array of search queries, Mr. Pichai said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. He dismissed the notion that chatbots posed a threat to Google's search business, which accounts for more than half of revenue at parent Alphabet. "The opportunity space, if anything, is bigger than before," Mr. Pichai, who also heads Alphabet, said in the interview Tuesday.

Google has long been a leader in developing computer programs called large language models, or LLMs, which can process and respond to natural-language prompts with humanlike prose. But it hasn't yet used the technology to influence the way people use search -- something Mr. Pichai said would change. "Will people be able to ask questions to Google and engage with LLMs in the context of search? Absolutely," Mr. Pichai said. With Microsoft already deploying the technology behind the ChatGPT system in its Bing search engine, Mr. Pichai is dealing with one of the biggest threats to Google's core business in years as he also faces investor pressure to cut costs. In January, Alphabet said it would eliminate about 12,000 jobs, or 6% of staff, its largest layoffs to date. Inflation and recession concerns have spurred other tech companies to cut back.

Mr. Pichai said Google hasn't yet achieved a goal of becoming 20% more productive, a target he set in September. He said the company was comfortable with its pace of change, though he wouldn't directly address the prospects of another round of layoffs. [...] When asked why the company didn't release a chatbot earlier, Mr. Pichai said Google was still trying to find the right market. "We were iterating to ship something, and maybe timelines changed, given the moment in the industry," he said. Google will continue to improve Bard with new AI models, Mr. Pichai said, while declining to comment on when the product would become freely available without a wait list.

Google is cracking down on predatory loan apps by cutting off their access to "sensitive" data including debtors' contacts, photos and location, after growing criticism that unscrupulous lenders are tapping the contents of borrowers' smartphones for harassment and blackmail. From a report: The tech company said on Wednesday it would update policies for financial services apps listed on the Google Play store at the end of May, so that "apps aiming to provide or facilitate personal loans may not access user contacts or photos." Details provided to app developers for Google's Android mobile system also show that lending apps will, for the first time, be restricted from requesting access to users' precise location, phone numbers and videos. The new policy covers apps offering personal, payday and peer-to-peer loans, but not mortgages, car loans or credit cards. Studies have found hundreds of apps available through Google Play that have required prospective customers to grant them access to the most intimate information on their devices in order to proceed with an application. Consent is often obtained on the grounds that these details are needed to conduct a credit check or risk assessment.

The recently introduced RESTRICT Act, otherwise known as the "TikTok ban," is a dangerous substitute for comprehensive data privacy legislation, writes the Electronic Frontier Foundation in a blog post. From the post: As we wrote in our initial review of the bill, the RESTRICT Act would authorize the executive branch to block 'transactions' and 'holdings' of 'foreign adversaries' that involve 'information and communication technology' and create 'undue or unacceptable risk' to national security and more. We've explained our opposition to the RESTRICT Act and urged everyone who agrees to take action against it. But we've also been asked to address some of the concerns raised by others. We do that here in this post. At its core, RESTRICT would exempt certain information services from the federal statute, known as the Berman Amendments, which protects the free flow of information in and out of the United States and supports the fundamental freedom of expression and human rights concerns. RESTRICT would give more power to the executive branch and remove many of the commonsense restrictions that exist under the Foreign Intelligence Services Act (FISA) and the aforementioned Berman Amendments. But S. 686 also would do a lot more.

EFF opposes the bill, and encourages you to reach out to your representatives to ask them not to pass it. Our reasons for opposition are primarily that this bill is being used as a cudgel to protect data from foreign adversaries, but under our current data privacy laws, there are many domestic adversaries engaged in manipulative and invasive data collection as well. Separately, handing relatively unchecked power over to the executive branch to make determinations about what sort of information technologies and technology services are allowed to enter the U.S. is dangerous. If Congress is concerned about foreign powers collecting our data, it should focus on comprehensive consumer data privacy legislation that will have a real impact, and protect our data no matter what platform it's on -- TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, or anywhere else that profits from our private information. That's why EFF supports such consumer data privacy legislation. Foreign adversaries won't be able to get our data from social media companies if the social media companies aren't allowed to collect, retain, and sell it in the first place. EFF says it's not clear if the RESTRICT Act will even result in a "ban" on TikTok. It does, however, have potential to punish people for using a VPN to access TikTok if it is restricted. In conclusion, the group says the bill is similar to a surveillance bill and is "far too broad in the power it gives to investigate potential user data."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: Americans have grown so fond of working from home that many are are willing to sacrifice pay for the privilege of skipping the office. So found a recent survey by recruiting firm Robert Half, which polled thousands of U.S. employees and hiring managers about their attitudes toward remote work. Some workers said they're willing to take a pay cut -- with an average reduction of 18% -- to remain fully remote, Paul McDonald, a Robert Half senior executive director, told CBS News. Overall, roughly one in three workers who go into the office at least one day a week said they were willing to earn less for the opportunity to work remotely.

Antarctica's melting ice sheet could retreat much faster than previously thought, new research suggests. The BBC reports: The evidence comes from markings on the seafloor off Norway that record the pull-back of a melting European ice sheet thousands of years ago. Today, the fastest withdrawing glaciers in Antarctica are seen to retreat by up to 30m a day. But if they sped up, the extra melt water would have big implications for sea-level rises around the globe. Ice losses from Antarctica caused by climate change have already pushed up the surface of the world's oceans by nearly 1cm since the 1990s. The researchers found that with the Norwegian sheet, the maximum retreat was more than 600m a day.

"This is something we could see if we continue with the upper estimates for temperature rise," explained Dr Christine Batchelor from Newcastle University, UK. "Although, worryingly, when we did the equations to think about what would be needed to instigate such retreat in Antarctica, we actually found there are places where you could get similar pulses of withdrawal even under the basal melt rates we know are happening at the moment," she told BBC News. The findings have been published in the journal Nature.