Surprising absolutely nobody, Samsung officially announced the Galaxy Z Flip, its second stab at foldable phone, at its Unpacked event in San Francisco on Tuesday. From a report: The Z Flip is markedly different foldable than the Galaxy Fold, which launched to lukewarm reception and a whopping $1,980 price. Instead of a phone that unfolds open to a larger tablet-sized screen, the Galaxy Z Flip is a regular smartphone that folds closed into a smaller device. It's similar to the Motorola Razr. The Z Flip has a 6.7-inch OLED display that bends in half. Samsung says the "Infinity Flex Display" is the first one that is made of glass. Every foldable phone display has used plastic, which is more malleable, but less durable and scratch-resistant than glass. Underneath the folding screen, there's a Snapdragon 855+ chip. It's priced at $1,380 and starts shipping this Friday.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: New York City unveiled an ambitious plan Tuesday to bring universal internet access to its 8.5 million residents by partnering with private internet service providers, a move Mayor Bill de Blasio says will help close the digital divide. The Internet Master Plan would create partnerships between the city and ISPs to facilitate permitting processes and developing infrastructure, such as fiber optic cables.

The announcement doesn't mean New York will be creating its own internet service, which cities like Chattanooga, Tennessee, have done in order to attract young people and businesses. Instead, the mayor's office is hoping public-private partnerships will help address a problem that's dogging cities around the country. Market research shows almost a third of US households don't have broadband connections reaching even 25 megabits per second. Chattanooga's service, by contrast, is 40 times faster than that. More than a third of Bronx residents don't have broadband at home, and nearly half of all New Yorkers living in poverty lack home broadband access, the mayor's office said. What's more, 1.5 million New Yorkers have neither a home broadband connection nor a mobile connection on a phone or other device. That prevents residents from accessing job and employment opportunities, and holds back the economy, the mayor's office said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: [T]he U.S. has traditionally paid for the upkeep of its roads via direct taxation of gasoline and diesel fuel, which means that as our fleet becomes more fuel-efficient, that revenue will drop in relation to the total number of vehicle miles traveled each year. As a result, some states are starting to grapple with the problem of how to get drivers to pay for the roads they use in cars that use less or even no gas per mile. At the start of this year, Utah has begun a pilot Road Usage Charge program, coupled to an increase in registration fees for alternative fuel vehicles. Assuming a state gas tax of 30c/gallon and 15,542 miles/year driven, Utah says it collects $777 a year from a 6mpg heavy truck, $311 from a pickup getting 15mpg, $187 from a 25mpg sedan, $93 from a 50mpg hybrid, and nothing from anyone driving a battery EV.

So in 2020, Utah is increasing vehicle registration fees. In 2019, registering a BEV in Utah would cost $60; in 2020 that will be $90, increasing to $120 in 2021. PHEV fees were $26 in 2019, increasing to $39 this year and $52 in 2021, and not-plug-in hybrid fees have gone from $10 to $15, increasing to $20 next year. An extra $30 a year -- or even $60 a year -- is pretty small in the grand scheme of things, particularly considering how much cheaper an EV is to run. But Utahns with EVs have an alternative. Instead of paying that flat fee, they can enroll in the pilot program that involves fitting a telematics device to the car. The device tracks the actual number of miles driven on Utah's roads. These are billed at a rate of 1.5c/mile, but only until the total equals whatever that year's registration fee for the vehicle would have been; participating in the pilot means you could pay less than you would otherwise, but Utah's Department of Transportation says that participants would not ever be charged more than that year's registration fee. The data will be collected by a contractor called Emovis, which operates toll roads around the U.S. As for Oregon -- another state working to solve this problem, the state is increasing its state gas tax by 2c/gallon, and like Utah, it's also increasing vehicle registration fees. "Now, fees for registering your car in Oregon will depend on how many miles per gallon your car gets; a two-year registration for something that gets below 19mpg will cost $122, rising to $132 for a vehicle between 20â"39mpg, then $152 for a vehicle that gets 40mpg or better, and $306 for a BEV," reports Ars Technica.

Thankfully, if you own a 40+mpg vehicle or a BEV, you can cut that two-year fee to $86 by enrolling in OReGO. However, you will need to fit your qualifying car with a telematics device to track the actual miles traveled on the state's roads. "Those are billed at 1.8c/mile -- Oregon evidently decided its roads are worth a little more than those in Utah -- but you can then get credited for any fuel tax you pay in the state," the report adds.

In an attempt to curb teen vaping, the FDA has officially banned most fruit- and mint-flavored, cartridge-based vaping products. Companies that manufacture, sell and distribute such products have 30 days to comply. Engadget reports: The new restrictions make some important exceptions. First, they permit tobacco- and menthol-flavored goods. They also apply only to cartridge-based products, which the FDA says are easier for teens to acquire and conceal. Tank-based vaping devices, like those sold in vape shops that typically cater to adult smokers, are not restricted by the new rules. The FDA says it is ready to take action against those who continue to manufacture and sell the unauthorized products. It will "prioritize enforcement" against those who target youth, whether they do so through kid-friendly labeling and advertising or promoting how easy it is to conceal or disguise their product. "The United States has never seen an epidemic of substance use arise as quickly as our current epidemic of youth use of e-cigarettes," said Department of Health and Human Service Secretary Alex Azar. The ban on fruit- and mint-flavored vape products is an attempt to ensure vaping products "don't provide an on-ramp to nicotine addiction for our youth" while also maintaining e-cigs as a potential off-ramp for adults using traditional tobacco products, Azar added.

Fireworks have long been a staple of New Year's Eve celebrations in Germany, with revelers setting off their own pyrotechnics in the annual reverie of booze and exuberance known in the country as "Silvester." But for the first time this year, Berlin will join dozens of other German cities and communities in instituting a partial ban on private fireworks, with three zones in the capital designated fireworks free on New Year's Eve. From a report: Most official and private fireworks displays will continue as normal -- including the spectacular show at Berlin's iconic Brandenburg Gate -- and skies over much of the country will still be alight, saturated with the sound of millions of tiny explosions. But as the decade comes to a close, Germany's commitment to one of its most enduring New Year's Eve traditions seems to be wavering. The reasons vary: Berlin's ban is focused on public safety, while Aachen, a town in western Germany that limited the use of high-flying fireworks, is worried about potential damage to its historic buildings. And some areas pointed to environmental and health concerns over the fine dust particles created by the explosions.

"It was the year of 'OK boomer,' and the generations were at each other's throats," argues the national features writer for The Washington Post, starting with a quote from New York University's Michael North, who studies ageism in the workplace.

"Age-based prejudice is the last acceptable form of prejudice. People are making age-based generalizations and stereotypes that you wouldn't be able to get away with about race or background..." People are getting away with it. This year, the baby boom was blamed for almost everything: the fate of the planet, Congress, college debt, plastic straws, the ending of "Game of Thrones." An entire generation was perceived to be operating as a giant monolith, mind-melded in its intention to make young people miserable for the rest of their long lives. Never mind that old people were once young, struggling, loaded with debt, facing a lousy job market, expensive housing, inflation. (Yes, there was something called inflation. It had to be whipped. Ask your parents.)

And, guess what, millennials? You are acquiring property. So, you know, patience.

The sewer of mockery flowed both ways, upstream and down. It was funny, except when it wasn't. If young folk derided the Olds for leaving an environmental and fiscal mess, the baby boom was happy to sling verbal mud in their direction. After "OK boomer" erupted, AARP senior vice president and editorial director Myrna Blyth said in an interview with Axios, "Okay, millennials, but we're the people that actually have the money." (AARP long stood for American Association of Retired Persons, but now a growing number of older Americans can't or won't retire....) What distinguishes these latest ageist salvos are their intensity and frequency. It's an intergenerational quipping contest, fueled by the rapid, reductionist and unrestrictive nature of social media, which makes it far too easy to cast verbal stones. "Social media amplifies previously latent sentiment," North says....

Any day now, boomers won't be blamed for everything that is not okay. This is the year -- can you feel it? -- that, according to Pew's analysis of census projections, millennials are scheduled to surpass the baby boom in sheer size, 73 million to 72 million, because of, well, death. By 2028, Gen X is also projected to be larger than the baby boom, so we'll probably start blaming them.

In the meantime, perhaps the generations need to be kinder to each other.

Twitter is banning animated PNG image files (APNGs) from its platform, after an attack on the Epilepsy Foundation's Twitter account sent out similar animated images that could potentially cause seizures in photosensitive people. The Verge reports: Twitter discovered a bug that allowed users to bypass its autoplay settings, and allow several animated images in a single tweet using the APNG file format. "We want everyone to have a safe experience on Twitter," the company says in a tweet from the Twitter Accessibility handle. "APNGs were fun, but they don't respect autoplay settings, so we're removing the ability to add them to Tweets. This is for the safety of people with sensitivity to motion and flashing imagery, including those with epilepsy."

Tweets with existing APNG images won't be deleted from the platform, but only GIFs will be able to animate images moving forward. According to Yahoo, Twitter has further clarified that APNG files were not used to target the Epilepsy Foundation, but the bug meant such files could have been used to do so in the future had Twitter not moved to squash it. The attacks on the Epilepsy Foundation's Twitter handle occurred last month -- National Epilepsy Awareness Month -- with trolls using its hashtags and Twitter handle to post animated images with strobing light effects. It's not clear how many people may have been affected by the attack, but the foundation said it's cooperating with law enforcement officials and has filed criminal complaints against accounts believed to have been involved.

Europe's highest court on Thursday ruled that the exhaustion of copyright does not apply to e-books. "The court says that offering 'second-hand' e-books for sale qualifies as an unauthorized 'communication to the public' under the 2001 InfoSec Directive," reports World IP Review. Not only could this ruling have implications for the book industry, but for the digital film, gaming and music sectors too. From a report: The case involves a Dutch startup called Tom Kabinet, which has since 2014 been trying to make second-hand ebooks a thing. At first, it simply tried to run a second-hand ebook market, but publishers took it to court and won a ruling saying Tom Kabinet had to make sure it wasn't selling pirated copies of ebooks. So the firm rethought its strategy and morphed into a kind of book club. Now even that model has been ruled illegal.

Tom Kabinet's users "donate" the download links for the ebooks they have bought from standard retailers like Kobo and ebooks.com, in exchange for credits that can be used to buy other ebooks from Tom Kabinet. (Obviously this doesn't work with ebooks from Amazon, which does not use download links in its system.) The idea is that using the original links ensures the ebooks have been legitimately bought in the first place, and that the same copy isn't being placed on the platform multiple times. The Dutch publishing industry was still not impressed, and asked a district court in The Hague for an injunction against Tom Kabinet's activities. The district court asked the Court of Justice of the European Union for its opinion, which arrived Thursday. The EU court essentially said Tom Kabinet was breaking European copyright law.

Tom Kabinet's defense was that the so-called "rule of exhaustion" should apply when it comes to second-hand ebooks, as it does with paper books -- in other words, after the ebook has been sold the first time, the publisher no longer has a right to control how it is traded. (This is known as the "first sale doctrine" in the U.S.) The exhaustion principle is part of European copyright law, but the Court of Justice said the lawmakers had only intended it to apply to physical books. The court said the rule would be unfair in the ebook world, because "digital copies of ebooks do not deteriorate with use and are, therefore, perfect substitutes for new copies on any second-hand market."

The two biggest OS (operating system) makers in China announced plans last week to unite and jointly build a new "domestic operating system." From a report: The two companies are China Standard Software (CS2C) and Tianjin Kylin Information (TKC), two of China's largest software firms, with known ties to the Beijing government. Both companies are known on the local Chinese OS market. CS2C created "China's Windows XP clone," known as the NeoKylin OS, and TKC is the current steward of Kylin, China's first-ever homegrown operating system. CS2C and TKC plan to set up a new company in which they'll become investors, and through which the new joint OS will be developed. The new company will handle the new operating system's development, technological decisions, marketing, branding, financials, and sales. The current Kylin and NeoKylin operating systems will serve as a base for the new OS, the two said.

Google is rolling out a way to directly message photos and chat with another user or users within the Google Photos app. From a report: The addition will allow users to quickly and easily share those one-off photos or videos with another person, instead of taking additional steps to build a shared album. The feature itself is simple to use. After selecting a photo and tapping share, you can now choose a new option "Send in Google Photos." You can then tap on the icon of your most frequent contacts or search for a user by name, phone number of email. The recipient will need a Google account to receive the photos, however, because they'll need to sign-in to view the conversation. That may limit the feature to some extent, as not everyone is a Google user. But with now a billion some Google Photos users out there, it's likely that more of the people you want to share will have an account, rather than not.

If you just bought a smart TV on Black Friday or plan to buy one for Cyber Monday tomorrow, the FBI wants you to know a few things. From a report: Smart TVs are like regular television sets but with an internet connection. With the advent and growth of Netflix, Hulu and other streaming services, most saw internet-connected televisions as a cord-cutter's dream. But like anything that connects to the internet, it opens up smart TVs to security vulnerabilities and hackers. Not only that, many smart TVs come with a camera and a microphone. But as is the case with most other internet-connected devices, manufacturers often don't put security as a priority. That's the key takeaway from the FBI's Portland field office, which just ahead of some of the biggest shopping days of the year posted a warning on its website about the risks that smart TVs pose. "Beyond the risk that your TV manufacturer and app developers may be listening and watching you, that television can also be a gateway for hackers to come into your home. A bad cyber actor may not be able to access your locked-down computer directly, but it is possible that your unsecured TV can give him or her an easy way in the backdoor through your router," wrote the FBI. The FBI warned that hackers can take control of your unsecured smart TV and in worst cases, take control of the camera and microphone to watch and listen in.

Plans to introduce a nationwide age verification system for online pornography have been abandoned by the government after years of technical troubles and concerns from privacy campaigners. From a report: The climbdown follows countless difficulties with implementing the policy, which would have required all pornography websites to ensure users were over 18. Methods would have included checking credit cards or allowing people to buy a "porn pass" age verification document from a newsagent. Websites that refused to comply with the policy -- one of the first of its kind in the world -- faced being blocked by internet service providers or having their access to payment services restricted. The culture secretary, Nicky Morgan, told parliament the policy would be abandoned. Instead, the government would instead focus on measures to protect children in the much broader online harms white paper. This is expected to introduce a new internet regulator, which will impose a duty of care on all websites and social media outlets -- not just pornography sites.

The Hong Kong government is banning masks and face paint in an attempt to stop the pro-democracy protests that have been raging since June. "The new 'emergency' order was announced by Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam at a press conference today and will go into effect at midnight local time, 12:00 pm ET," reports Gizmodo. From the report: The new law bans "any facial covering that is likely to prevent identification," during public demonstrations. Anyone arrested under the new rule will face up to a year in prison and a fine of roughly $3,200 U.S. "We believe that the new law will create a new deterrence effect against masked violent protesters and rioters," Lam said at a press conference that was carried live online. "Hong Kong is not in a state of emergency," Lam assured citizens. "But we are indeed in a location of serious danger."

Hong Kong protesters, upset about Beijing's political incursion into the region, wear masks primarily for three reasons. First, protesters want to keep from being identified by cameras around the city that use facial recognition software. Second, the protesters don't want to be identified by police forces on the ground, allowing authorities to target them later when they arrive home. And third, the masks can shield protesters from teargas, which has become a common weapon deployed by police. Lam said at today's press conference that bans on face coverings were "something which has already been introduced in a number of jurisdictions around the world" and defended the move as something that could help to restore peace and order in the region. Lam notes that the new law is exempt for people who need to cover their faces for their jobs. What this means is that police will likely be allowed to wear masks, while the average civilian will not.

Goldsmiths, a part of the University of London, is fighting climate change by taking beef off the menu. "[The university] will no longer serve beef burgers, beef burritos and the like on its campus," reports CBS News. From the report: Goldsmiths will take beef products off the menu starting in September, it announced Monday. The effort is part of a mission to become carbon neutral by 2025. Removing beef products on campus isn't the only action the university is taking. It also plans to install more solar panels, switch to a 100% clean energy supplier, plant more trees and make climate change education more accessible to students. Perhaps the biggest change the university is making aside from the elimination of beef is a fee of 10 pence (12 cents) on bottled water and single-use plastic cups. The goal is to "discourage use, with the proceeds directed into a green student initiative fund," the college's new warden, Professor Frances Corner, said.