An anonymous reader quotes a report from IEEE Spectrum: [Amber Case is a speaker and author of Calm Technology.] Case's book, inspired by the work of Xerox PARC researchers Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown, outlines eight principles for calm technology; examples include the idea that technology "should require the smallest possible amount of attention" while in use, and that it "should work even when it fails." The book's ideas gained the attention of major technology companies, including Microsoft and Amazon, and Case gave talks at TED and the Thinking Digital Conference, among others. "But that wasn't enough," says Case. While her ideas received plenty of interest, she noticed that interest didn't translate to concrete action. Companies designing new products were unclear on what was right, or wrong, and uncertain about how they might put calm technology ideals into practice.

So, Case decided on a new approach. She founded the Calm Tech Institute in May 2024 to develop and promote a Calm Tech certification. "A standard is a good way of rewarding that behavior," says Case. The certification includes 81 points that span six categories: attention, periphery, durability, light, sound, and materials. Some of the certification's specifications are quite stringent. It outlines minimum standards for user interface (UI) design, such as consistent use of icons and font typography, asks that all but the "most crucial" notifications be turned off by default, and requires an instruction booklet with a list of replacements and compatible parts.

The first handful of devices that earned the Calm Tech certification were announced at, or just before, CES 2025. This first batch included, for example, the reMarkable Paper Pro. Released on September 4, 2024, the Paper Pro looks like an iPad and has a color eInk display, but it's tightly focused on writing and organizing notes with the tablet's included stylus. ReMarkable purposefully constrains the device's features to maintain a distraction-free experience. Though it can sync notes online, the Paper Pro doesn't have an app store, a web browser, or widgets. It doesn't even display the time. [...]

Another early adopter was Mui Labs, creator of the Mui Board, a smart home device that looks like a piece of finely finished decorative wood but, when touched, illuminates to reveal a smart home interface. [...] Several other devices earned certification in late 2024. These include the AirThings View Plus, an air quality monitor with a simple eInk display that I highlighted during the 2021 wildfire season; the Daylight Computer, a portable PC with an eInk display and custom OS meant to reduce distractions; and Unpluq, a physical dongle that can lock apps on Android and iOS devices until the dongle is moved close to the device. Calm Tech Institute's certification is not yet publicly available, though it does hope to have it published "soon," says Case.

Spectrum notes that Calm is "also exploring research into calm technology and working with neuroscientists to study the 'cognitive need for dimensionality and texture' in user interfaces."

Leaders of the successful unionization drive at Amazon's warehouse in Staten Island have heard from workers at 100 other Amazon facilities in all 50 states, the union's president told AFP. "We are witnessing a revolution," he added Friday.

But meanwhile, "Amazon tipped its hand" this week on how it plans to try to defeat that vote, reports the Washington Post. Specifically, yesterday Amazon filed a list of 25 objections to the election with America's National Labor Relations Board — objecting mostly to the actions of the National Labor Relations Board: The company alleged that the regional office of the agency, based in Brooklyn, "created the impression" it was supporting the union by filing a lawsuit against Amazon before the vote. Amazon also alleged the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) delayed investigating "unmeritorious" unfair labor practice charges and understaffed the election. Amazon also alleges the independent Amazon Labor Union harassed employees who did not support the union, trespassed on Amazon's property and "misled employees by telling them that they would lose their benefits if they did not support the ALU," among other issues....

Labor lawyers say the company, which strongly opposed unionization, could try to delay the process of workers forming a union for years. "Amazon probably figures it has nothing to lose by exhausting every possible appeals process because time is on its side," said John Logan, chair of the labor and employment studies department at San Francisco State University.... A representative for the Amazon Labor Union said none of Amazon's objections had merit and called them a tactic to delay the union. "It's a blatant attempt by Amazon to interfere with and go around the democratic choice of their workforce," Amazon worker and labor organizer Connor Spence said....

The NLRB will need to certify the vote before the union can try to bargain a contract with Amazon. The objections could delay or even cancel that process, depending on what the NLRB decides. Amazon has many avenues to fight the vote results, including by refusing to bargain and forcing regulators to get involved.
The president of the Amazon warehouse's reminded AFP what happened after two Starbucks cafes in upstate New York voted to union in December.

More than 180 more Starbucks cafes launched unionization campaigns, and "On Friday, three more Starbucks cafes in upstate New York voted to unionize, taking the national total to 16."

On iOS, Apple wants all the browsers to run WebKit. Even Google Chrome is forced to use WebKit on iOS devices. Alex Russel, Google's engineer, in a blog post outlines his case: Apple's iOS browser (Safari) and engine (WebKit) are uniquely under-powered. Consistent delays in the delivery of important features ensure the web can never be a credible alternative to its proprietary tools and App Store. Alex has cited an example of this by mentioning Stadia and other cloud gaming services. Apple did not allow those services to be available on the App Store and pushed them to use the web instead, which requires Apple to allow gamepad APIs so controllers can be used with these new web apps. That is a function that other browsers have offered for a long time except on iOS. He writes: Suppose Apple had implemented WebRTC and the Gamepad API in a timely way. Who can say if the game streaming revolution now taking place might have happened sooner? It's possible that Amazon Luna, NVIDIA GeForce NOW, Google Stadia, and Microsoft xCloud could have been built years earlier. It's also possible that APIs delivered on every other platform, but not yet available on any iOS browser (because Apple), may hold the key to unlocking whole categories of experiences on the web. Blog WCCFTech adds: Alex has also talked about how iOS browsers are underpowered in several other places compared to the competition. For starters, iOS browsers lack push notifications, standardized Progressive Web App (PWA) install buttons, background sync, and numerous other tools that make it easier for developers to make fully functional web apps. Access to hardware such as Bluetooth, USB, and NFC are also not easily available. Last but not least, the royalty-free AV1 standard is also not available.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: The European Union unveiled strict regulations on Wednesday to govern the use of artificial intelligence, a first-of-its-kind policy that outlines how companies and governments can use a technology seen as one of the most significant, but ethically fraught, scientific breakthroughs in recent memory. The draft rules would set limits around the use of artificial intelligence in a range of activities, from self-driving cars to hiring decisions, bank lending, school enrollment selections and the scoring of exams. It would also cover the use of artificial intelligence by law enforcement and court systems -- areas considered "high risk" because they could threaten people's safety or fundamental rights.

Some uses would be banned altogether, including live facial recognition in public spaces, though there would be several exemptions for national security and other purposes. The108-page policy is an attempt to regulate an emerging technology before it becomes mainstream. The rules have far-reaching implications for major technology companies that have poured resources into developing artificial intelligence, including Amazon, Google, Facebook and Microsoft, but also scores of other companies that use the software to develop medicine, underwrite insurance policies and judge credit worthiness. Governments have used versions of the technology in criminal justice and the allocation of public services like income support. Companies that violate the new regulations, which could take several years to move through the European Union policymaking process, could face fines of up to 6 percent of global sales.

The European Union regulations would require companies providing artificial intelligence in high-risk areas to provide regulators with proof of its safety, including risk assessments and documentation explaining how the technology is making decisions. The companies must also guarantee human oversight in how the systems are created and used. Some applications, like chatbots that provide humanlike conversation in customer service situations, and software that creates hard-to-detect manipulated images like "deepfakes," would have to make clear to users that what they were seeing was computer generated. [...] Release of the draft law by the European Commission, the bloc's executive body, drew a mixed reaction. Many industry groups expressed relief that the regulations were not more stringent, while civil society groups said they should have gone further.

Nintendo of America has filed a lawsuit against an Amazon Nintendo Switch hack reseller -- the sort of litigation it's taken on in similar cases in the past. Nintendo's lawyers allege the Amazon seller, Le Hoang Minh, circumvents Nintendo's copyright measures in selling an RCM Loader, used to "jailbreak" the Nintendo Switch. From a report: The lawsuit was filed in a Seattle court last week, according to court documents obtained by Polygon. In the lawsuit, Nintendo outlines what it calls a "serious, worsening international problem" with video game software piracy. It details Nintendo's security systems, and how the RCM Loaders bypass those systems. The RCM Loader (which is essentially a USB device that plugs into the Nintendo Switch) allows the user to play so-called "pirated" or unauthorized games. According to the lawsuit, Nintendo sent a DMCA notice to the seller, to which a counterclaim was issued. Because of the counterclaim, Amazon was required to relist the RCM Loader, unless Nintendo filed an infringement lawsuit. And that's what it did. The company is looking for the courts to stop the seller, and award it $2,500 in damages for each infringement.

The town of Brookline, Massachusetts, became the fifth municipality in the nation to ban its government agencies from using face surveillance. The passage of Article 25 comes as a new study from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) found that many of the world's top facial recognition algorithms are biased along lines of age, race, and ethnicity. The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports: Brookline joins nearby Somerville as the two Massachusetts municipalities to have banned face surveillance. The two Metro-Boston area municipalities have chosen to protect their residents now, rather than wait for the passage of state-level protections. Massachusetts is poised to become the first state in the nation to enact a state-level moratorium on all use of the technology.

Brookline's State Senator Cynthia Stone Creem sponsored a bill (S.1385) that would impose a moratorium on government use of the technology throughout the commonwealth. That moratorium would remain in place until state lawmakers enact an authorizing statute that clearly outlines what agencies are permitted to use the technology, requires audits, protects civil liberties, and establishes minimum accuracy rates to prevent disparate impact against women, people with darker skin, and young people. Polling from the ACLU of Massachusetts has indicated high levels of support for the statewide moratorium, with 79 percent of likely Massachusetts voters voting in favor.

Amazon's delivery drones may also be used to offer "surveillance as a service." According to The Verge, "Amazon was recently granted a patent that outlines how its UAVs could keep an eye on customers' property between deliveries while supposedly maintaining their privacy." From the report: The patent was originally filed in June 2015 and became public earlier this month. It describes how the company's drones could be hired to look out for open garage doors, broken windows, graffiti, or even a fire, before alerting the owner of the property. The patent was originally filed in June 2015 and became public earlier this month. It describes how the company's drones could be hired to look out for open garage doors, broken windows, graffiti, or even a fire, before alerting the owner of the property.

Amazon has been granted a patent that describes an "unmanned aerial vehicle with inflatable membrane" that would allow it to approach homes silently. The UAV "would have a balloon hidden inside the chasis," reports Slashgear. "That could be inflated using compressed gas, via a tank or chamber also carried on the drone. When the UAV roamed into an area where noise levels needed to be cut -- such as the delivery location, Amazon suggests -- the balloon could be inflated." From the report: In the process it would mean that the traditional drone propellers would have less work to do, since the UAV's buoyancy would be taken care of by the balloon. All the motors would be required for is general positioning. Amazon doesn't envisage flying the drone like a miniature zeppelin, however. Instead, the balloon system would be used to raise and lower the UAV to and from the delivery location. In that way it could help reduce the noise -- and energy -- involved in achieving a cruising altitude, whereupon the balloon would be deflated and gathered back into its dock.

The drone would proceed to the delivery destination, and then the balloon would be reinflated. That could be used to then gently lower the aircraft to the ground, to leave behind its package. Of course, having an inflating balloon near a system of fast-spinning propellers seems like a recipe for disaster, and so part of Amazon's patent outlines the retracting mechanism by which the two elements would be kept apart. The whole thing would be handled by an onboard autopilot, with the balloon reeled back into the storage area. The drone could either return the gas used for inflation to the compression chamber, or allow it to escape. Indeed, another possibility that Amazon suggests is a completely detachable balloon. That, the patent describes, might then float away, or biodegrade, rather than being reused.

In a recently published podcast, Andrew Yang, tech entrepreneur and founder of Venture for America, said he is vying for the Democratic party nomination to run for President of the United States. From a report: Yang outlines his radical policy agenda, which focuses on Universal Basic Income and includes a "freedom dividend." He talks about the very real and immediate threat of artificial intelligence, how new technologies are erasing millions of jobs before our eyes, and why we need to put humanity first. He also addresses "the big four" and what he plans to do about Amazon.

During the interview, Yang called out governments inability to address large scale problems and the challenges that technology is creating in modern American society. "I believe that we need to start owning these realities [of automation and artificial intelligence taking away jobs] and these challenges as a people, as a country, and as a society, and start being honest. I'm running for president to solve the big problems and to show that these things are not beyond us," Yang says. Yang's own plan to address the increasing power tech companies are wielding in the world involves something called a "freedom dividend", which would paid for by a value-added tax. The revenue from that tax (levied on "gains from the big four") would be redistributed via the "freedom dividend" to citizens, Yang says.

Amazon's cloud-computing unit says that one day it will rely solely on renewable power. But Greenpeace reports that a ramp-up in data-center construction in Virginia, where electricity comes mostly from coal and nuclear plants, makes that goal elusive. From the report: Apple, Google, Facebook, and newcomer Switch are taking some of the greatest strides towards 100% renewable energy, while companies such as Netflix, Amazon Web Services, and Samsung are lagging. The findings in Greenpeace USA's report outlines the energy footprints of large data center operators and nearly 70 of the most popular websites and applications. "Amazon continues to talk a good game on renewables but is keeping its customers in the dark on its energy decisions. This is concerning, particularly as Amazon expands into markets served by dirty energy," said Greenpeace USA Senior IT Analyst, Gary Cook. "Like Apple, Facebook, and Google, Netflix is one of the biggest drivers of the online world and has a critical say in how it is powered. Netflix must embrace the responsibility to make sure its growth is powered by renewables, not fossil fuels and it must show its leadership here," continued Cook.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Satellite operator DigitalGlobe is teaming up with Amazon, the venture arm of the CIA, and NVIDIA to make computers watch the Earth from above and automatically map our roads, buildings, and piles of trash. MIT Technology Review reports: "In a joint project, DigitalGlobe today released satellite imagery depicting the whole of Rio de Janeiro to a resolution of 50 centimeters. The outlines of 200,000 buildings inside the city's roughly 1,900 square kilometers have been manually marked on the photos. The SpaceNet data set, as it is called, is intended to spark efforts to train machine-learning algorithms to interpret high-resolution satellite photos by themselves. DigitalGlobe says the SpaceNet data set should eventually include high-resolution images of half a million square kilometers of Earth, and that it will add annotations beyond just buildings. DigitalGlobe's data is much more detailed than publicly available satellite data such as NASA's, which typically has a resolution of tens of meters. Amazon will make the SpaceNet data available via its cloud computing service. Nvidia will provide tools to help machine-learning researchers train and test algorithms on the data, and CosmiQ Works, a division of the CIA's venture arm In-Q-Tel focused on space, is also supporting the project." "We need to develop new algorithms for this data," says senior vice president at DigitalGlobe, Tony Frazier. He goes on to say that health and aid programs are to benefit from software that is able to map roads, bridges and various other infrastructure. The CEO of Descartes Labs, Mark Johnson, a "startup that predicts crop yields from public satellite images," says the data that is collected "should be welcome to startups and researchers," according to MIT Technology Review. "Potential applications could include estimated economic output from activity in urban areas, or guiding city governments on how to improve services such as trash collections, he says."

An anonymous reader writes: Amazon is looking to expand its business into the realms of virtual reality (VR), according to a recent job site posting looking for someone to lead the new project. The ad, posted to Amazon's Glassdoor page, is for a 'Senior Software Development Manager' who will be responsible for 'the Virtual Reality experience within Amazon Video.' The posting outlines that 'basic qualifications' must include a degree in computer science, at least 15 years of relevant experience in engineering, seven years of technical experience and an additional five years of experience as a software development manager. The job posting elaborates: 'The Virtual Reality team will explore and create the platform and interface for immersive storytelling. This will include an ingestion and playback platform for Virtual Reality experiences.'

angry tapir writes with news of a report presented Friday at Hack In The Box which outlines a counterintuitive fact about Tor: Identifying users who access Tor hidden services — websites that are only accessible inside the Tor anonymity network — is easier than de-anonymizing users who use Tor to access regular Internet websites. That's because the addresses of the Hidden Service Directories (HSDirs) used to index those Tor-network-only sites, though shuffled daily, can be predicted (and hijacked) with cheap brute-force techniques. "The researchers managed to place their own nodes as the 6 HSDirs for facebookcorewwwi.onion, Facebook's official site on the Tor network, for the whole day on Thursday. They still held 4 of the 6 spots on Friday. Brute-forcing the key for each node took only 15 minutes on a MacBook Pro and running the Tor relays themselves cost US$62 on Amazon's EC2 service.

Saint Aardvark writes If, like me, you administer FreeBSD systems, you know that (like Linux) there is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to filesystems. GEOM, UFS, soft updates, encryption, disklabels — there is a *lot* going on here. And if, like me, you're coming from the Linux world your experience won't be directly applicable, and you'll be scaling Mount Learning Curve. Even if you *are* familiar with the BSDs, there is a lot to take in. Where do you start? You start here, with Michael W. Lucas' latest book, FreeBSD Mastery: Storage Essentials. You've heard his name before; he's written Sudo Mastery (which I reviewed previously), along with books on PGP/GnuPGP, Cisco Routers and OpenBSD. This book clocks in at 204 pages of goodness, and it's an excellent introduction to managing storage on FreeBSD. From filesystem choice to partition layout to disk encryption, with sidelong glances at ZFS along the way, he does his usual excellent job of laying out the details you need to know without every veering into dry or boring. Keep reading for the rest of Saint Aardvark's review.

gregrolan writes "Evans's Trousers Of Reality series attempts to understand the interplay between neurology, psychology, and sociology in the context of finding a better path through working life. I previously reviewed the first book in the series, Working Life a few years ago, and the second volume The Ingenious Engine Of Reality has now been published. While the first volume outlined the themes for the series and focused on work-life balance, this second volume digs deeper into the science behind knowledge, learning, and mental models.It then uses this background to explore the relationship between knowledge, behavior, and process in a software project setting." Keep reading for the rest of Greg's review.

Rambo Tribble writes "This new, third edition of Sobell's book brings enhancements that add to the text's value as both a learning tool and a reference. This has always been a foundation book for those wanting a professional level of familiarity with Linux. The addition of chapters to introduce the Python language and MySQL database serves to offer the reader practical insights into additional Linux-related technologies." Read below for the rest of Rambo's review.

brothke writes:"The book Digital Assassination: Protecting Your Reputation, Brand, or Business Against Online Attacks says businesses that take days to respond to social media issues are way behind the curve. Social media operates in real-time, and responses need to be almost as quick. In a valuable new book on the topic, Securing the Clicks Network Security in the Age of Social Media, Gary Bahadur, Jason Inasi and Alex de Carvalho provide the reader with a comprehensive overview on how not to be a victim of social media based security problems." Read on for the rest of Ben's review.

CoryFoy writes "As someone who has been closely involved in both the 'agile software' movement as well as the 'Software Craftsmanship' movement, I have been following the work of Robert Martin for some time. So I was quite interested when I got my copy of his latest book Clean Coder where he 'introduces the disciplines, techniques, tools and practices of true software craftsmanship.' Would his book live up to being a guide for the next generation of developers, or would it go on my shelf as another interesting book that I had read, once?" Read below for the rest of Cory's review.

KuanH writes "Amazon SimpleDB Developer Guide is billed as a complete guide to using Amazon's SimpleDB database API. It's most detailed for PHP. It's helpful for Python. But the Java code and explanations aren't up to the standard of the others. It includes a primer on using Amazon S3 with SimpleDB: files stored on S3, file metadata stored in SimpleDB — again, less good for Java. It also covers tuning to reduce usage costs, caching using memcached, and ways to batch-update and make serial or parallel requests to SimpleDB. However, it's missing some information that beginners might need, and it's perhaps not quite advanced enough for the more experienced. Downloadable example code is available only for PHP." Keep reading for the rest of Kuan's review.

Trevor James writes "Drupal 7 is currently at beta 1 stage with 11 critical issues remaining to be fixed before an official release version. The question arises whether we should all be writing about Drupal 7 now and so soon, when it's still in its beta phase. I argue we should be writing about it. It can only help introduce new users to the Drupal application and the Drupal community and get new people involved to help test Drupal 7. This will ultimately help improve the software for its official release and on. This helps to build the Drupal community of users and developers. It helps spread the word to everyone about this flexible and robust content management system. We want Drupal to be used. So this is one way of getting it out there and in the public sphere." Read on for the rest of Trevor's review.