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Submission + - Maryland To Become First State To Tax Online Ads Sold By Facebook And Google. (npr.org)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: With a pair of votes, Maryland can now claim to be a pioneer: it's the first place in the country that will impose a tax on the sale of online ads.

The House of Delegates and Senate both voted this week to override Gov. Larry Hogan's veto of a bill passed last year to levy a tax on online ads. The tax will apply to the revenue companies like Facebook and Google make from selling digital ads, and will range from 2.5% to 10% per ad, depending on the value of the company selling the ad. (The tax would only apply to companies making more than $100 million a year.)

Proponents say the new tax is simply a reflection of where the economy has gone, and an attempt to have Maryland's tax code catch up to it. The tax is expected to draw in an estimated $250 million a year to help fund an ambitious decade-long overhaul of public education in the state that's expected to cost $4 billion a year in new spending by 2030. (Hogan also vetoed that bill, and the Democrat-led General Assembly also overrode him this week.)

Still, there remains the possibility of lawsuits to stop the tax from taking effect; Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh warned last year that "there is some risk" that a court could strike down some provisions of the bill over constitutional concerns.

Submission + - Tesla Wins Lawsuit Against Whistleblower Accused of Hacks (cnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The US District Court of Nevada awarded Tesla a win in its lawsuit against a former employee, filed two years ago. You may recall CEO Elon Musk referred to this incident in a previously leaked email calling on employees to be "extremely vigilant." Martin Tripp, who worked at the company's Nevada Gigafactory, was accused of hacking the automaker and supplying sensitive information to unnamed third parties. Reuters reported Friday the court ruled in Tesla's favor and dismissed Tripp's motion to file another reply to the court. Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but according to Reuters, the court will grant Tesla's motion to seal the case.

Submission + - DuckDuckGo Is Growing Fast (bleepingcomputer.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: DuckDuckGo, the privacy-focused search engine, announced that August 2020 ended in over 2 billion total searches via its search platform. While Google remains the most popular search engine, DuckDuckGo has gained a great deal of traction in recent months as more and more users have begun to value their privacy on the internet. DuckDuckGo saw over 2 billion searches and 4 million app/extension installations, and the company also said that they have over 65 million active users. DuckDuckGo could shatter its old traffic record if the same growth trend continues. Even though DuckDuckGo is growing rapidly, it still controls less than 2 percent of all search volume in the United States. However, DuckDuckGo's growth trend has continued throughout the year, mainly due to Google and other companies' privacy scandal.

Submission + - Why passenger jets could soon be flying in formation (cnn.com)

Submitted by ragnar_ianal
ragnar_ianal writes: Look at the V-shaped formations of migrating ducks and scientists have long surmised that there are aeronautical efficiencies at play. Aerbus is examining this in a practical manner to see if fuel efficiency can be enhanced.

Building on test flights in 2016 with an Airbus A380 megajet and A350-900 wide-body jetliner, fello'fly hopes to demonstrate and quantify the aerodynamic efficiencies while developing in-flight operational procedures. Initial flight testing with two A350s began in March 2020. The program will be expanded next year to include the involvement of Frenchbee and SAS airlines, along with air traffic control and air navigation service providers from France, the UK, and Europe.

"It's very, very different from what the military would call formation flight. It's really nothing to do with close formation," explained Dr. Sandra Bour Schaeffer, CEO of Airbus UpNext, in an interview with CNN Travel.
Bitcoin

Bitcoin Transactions Lead To Arrest of Major Drug Dealer (techspot.com) 169

Posted by EditorDavid from the bitcoin-and-beards dept.
"Drug dealer caught because of BitCoin usage," writes Slashdot reader DogDude. TechSpot reports: 38-year-old French national Gal Vallerius stands accused of acting as an administrator, senior moderator, and vendor for dark web marketplace Dream Market, where visitors can purchase anything from heroin to stolen financial data. Upon arriving at Atlanta international airport on August 31, Vallerius was arrested and his laptop searched. U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents allegedly discovered $500,000 of Bitcoin and Bitcoin cash on the computer, as well a Tor installation and a PGP encryption key for someone called OxyMonster...

In addition to his role with the site, agents had identified OxyMonster as a major seller of Oxycontin and crystal meth. "OxyMonster's vendor profile featured listings for Schedule II controlled substances Oxycontin and Ritalin," testified DEA agent Austin Love. "His profile listed 60 prior sales and five-star reviews from buyers. In addition, his profile stated that he ships from France to anywhere in Europe." Investigators discovered OxyMonster's real identity by tracing outgoing Bitcoin transactions from his tip jar to wallets registered to Vallerius. Agents then checked his Twitter and Instagram accounts, where they found many writing similarities, including regular use of quotation marks, double exclamation marks, and the word "cheers," as well as intermittent French posts. The evidence led to a warrant being issued for Vallerius' arrest.
U.S. investigators had been monitoring the site for nearly two years, but got their break when Vallerius flew to the U.S. for a beard-growing competition in Austin, Texas. He now faces a life sentence for conspiracy to distribute controlled substances.

Comment Re:Chrome produces high battery life on Mac (Score 1) 212

You people slay me. I really don't care that a reality TV star became president. But nice cherry picking, why not use one of his other labels like "billionaire" or "successful businessman"? Doesn't sound as bad does it? If you want to turn people against trump, you need to convince them trump is bad, you don't do that by writing something so biased and opinionated that the people you're arguing against see right through you.

Comment Hillary need not worry (Score 0) 421

by jmorris42 (#52325915) Attached to: DNC Hacker Releases Trump Opposition File

She has already admitted to multiple felonies related to mishandling classified information. Nothing happened. It is hard to imagine anything that Wikileaks could dump that would harm her at this point. There will be no criminal charges so long as Obama holds the Presidency and obviously none should Hillary win, and should she lose Trump won't waste the political capital to bring her to justice either.

Her voters already know she is a criminal, they are not voting for her in spite of the knowledge, but because of it. It demonstrates she possesses the Will to Power they consider a requirement in a leader.

Comment Re:Buying the bakery (Score 1) 185

by canistel (#51955151) Attached to: Ford Spent $200,000 To Dissect a Limited-Edition Tesla Model X
No they didn't. Palm pilot treo 600, blackberry etc. A number of vendors did it long before apple. Apple refined the UI (full touch, no stylus, and sexy / lots of eye candy), not the idea of a smartphone itself. Heck the first iphone didn't even have copy and paste, lol. The iphone was not more usable as a smart phone, just very pretty.

Comment Re:Quality was never the problem (Score 1) 565

What a load of crap. The majority of people use windows, so it's natural to expect that majority of developers will too. That doesn't mean MS VS is the best tool. As a professional developer, I have used java on linux exclusively since 2004 sometime. Netbeans / IntellIJ are just as competitive as visual studio in terms of features. I'll take the entire java ecosystem over any of the crap that MS puts out.

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