David Leonhardt won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2011. This week in a New York Times newsletter, he argues that early in the pandemic experts around the world mistakenly discouraged mask use because of "a concern that people would rush to buy high-grade medical masks, leaving too few for doctors and nurses. The experts were also [at the time] unsure how much ordinary masks would help."

But are they now spreading a similarly misguided pessimism about vaccines? Right now, public discussion of the vaccines is full of warnings about their limitations: They're not 100 percent effective. Even vaccinated people may be able to spread the virus. And people shouldn't change their behavior once they get their shots...

"It's going to save your life — that's where the emphasis has to be right now," Dr. Peter Hotez of the Baylor College of Medicine said. The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are "essentially 100 percent effective against serious disease," Dr. Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said. "It's ridiculously encouraging."

Here's my best attempt at summarizing what we know:

- The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines — the only two approved in the U.S. — are among the best vaccines ever created, with effectiveness rates of about 95 percent after two doses. That's on par with the vaccines for chickenpox and measles. And a vaccine doesn't even need to be so effective to reduce cases sharply and crush a pandemic.

- If anything, the 95 percent number understates the effectiveness, because it counts anyone who came down with a mild case of Covid-19 as a failure. But turning Covid into a typical flu — as the vaccines evidently did for most of the remaining 5 percent — is actually a success. Of the 32,000 people who received the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine in a research trial, do you want to guess how many contracted a severe Covid case? One.

Although no rigorous study has yet analyzed whether vaccinated people can spread the virus, it would be surprising if they did.
The article suggests less-positive messages are being conveyed in part because "As academic researchers, they are instinctively cautious, prone to emphasizing any uncertainty."

But the article ultimately concludes that in fact, "the evidence so far suggests that the vaccines are akin to a cure."

jyosim writes: Professors at the University of Florida are outraged that the university essentially put a "tattle" button on a campus safety app that lets students report if professors aren't teaching in person. Apparently more than 100 professors there have asked to teach online for health reasons but have been denied, and administrators worry that they'll just teach online anyway. Professors feel the app is akin to a "police state." "The university spokesperson said that administrators had heard that some professors 'would simply refuse to teach an in person class if that's what they were supposed to be doing,' so they added the feature, which rolled out this week as spring classes began," reports EdSurge. An email was sent to all students on Monday that encouraged them to use the app if they saw any 'inconsistencies' in course delivery."

In response, Daniel A. Smith, chair of the university's political-science department, wrote in a letter: "Emulation of police states is not a good look for a university devoted to the education of democratic citizens. What sort of message does this send to our students?" On Twitter, professor Lisa S. Scott said she was "more than a little disturbed" by the move, adding, "@UF do better. We've been working our asses off for you through all of this."

Just ahead of its launch for commercial PC-like devices, an install image of Windows 10X for single screens has leaked, giving us an early peek at Microsoft's new OS. And yes, it's just like Chrome OS. From a report: Let's just get that out of the way. Microsoft has been working for years on a Chromebook competitor, but it has been largely unsuccessful. Windows 10 S, which was originally called Windows 10 Cloud, was Terry Myerson's approach, and that, of course, crashed and burned, in part because it looked identical to Windows 10 but couldn't run downloaded Windows 10 desktop applications. And now we have Windows 10X. Microsoft tried to hide its true intent with this product by pretending last year that it was aimed at a new generation of dual-display PCs, but the software giant really created 10X to compete with Chrome OS on inexpensive single-display PCs. So after failing to get its container-based Windows desktop application compatibility solution to work, Microsoft scaled back and repositioned Windows 10X as was originally intended: It will now ship only on new traditional PCs aimed at education and other commercial markets.

The Linux Foundation has new courses to help you manage open-source projects and technical staff within your organization. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols writes via ZDNet: Previously, if you want to know how to run open-source well in your company, you had to work with OASIS Open or the TODO Group. Both are non-profit organizations supporting best open source and open standards practices. But, to work with either group, effectively, you already had to know a lot about open source. [...] This 7-module course series is designed to help executives, managers, software developers, and engineers understand the basic concepts for building effective open-source practices. It's also helpful to those in the C suite who want to set up effective open-source program management, including how to create an Open Source Program Office (OSPO).

The program builds on the accumulated wisdom of many previous training modules on open-source best practices while adding fresh and updated content to explain all of the critical elements of working effectively with open source in enterprises. The courses are designed to be self-paced, and reasonably high-level, but with enough detail to get new open-source practitioners up and running quickly. Guy Martin, OASIS Open's executive director, developed these courses. Martin knows his way around open source. He has a unique blend of over 25 years' experience both as a software engineer and open-source strategist. Marin has helped build open-source programs at Red Hat, Samsung, and Autodesk. He was also instrumental in founding the Academy Software Foundation, the Open Connectivity Foundation, and has contributed to TODO Group's best practices and learning guides. The "Open Source Management & Strategy program" costs $499 and is available to begin immediately. A certificate is awarded upon completion.

Slashdot reader the_newsbeagle shares an article from IEEE Spectrum: Many associate XPrize with a $10-million award offered in 1996 to motivate a breakthrough in private space flight. But the organization has since held other competitions related to exploration, ecology, and education. And in November, they launched the Pandemic Response Challenge, which will culminate in a $500,000 award to be split between two teams that not only best predict the continuing global spread of COVID-19, but also prescribe policies to curtail it...

For Phase 1, teams had to submit prediction models by 22 December... Up to 50 teams will make it to Phase 2, where they must submit a prescription model... The top two teams will split half a million dollars. The competition may not end there. Amir Banifatemi, XPrize's chief innovation and growth officer, says a third phase might test models on vaccine deployment prescriptions. And beyond the contest, some cities or countries might put some of the Phase 2 or 3 models into practice, if Banifatemi can find adventurous takers.

The organizers expect a wide variety of solutions. Banifatemi says the field includes teams from AI strongholds such as Stanford, Microsoft, MIT, Oxford, and Quebec's Mila, but one team consists of three women in Tunisia. In all, 104 teams from 28 countries have registered. "We're hoping that this competition can be a springboard for developing solutions for other really big problems as well," Miikkulainen says. Those problems include pandemics, global warming, and challenges in business, education, and healthcare. In this scenario, "humans are still in charge," he emphasizes. "They still decide what they want, and AI gives them the best alternatives from which the decision-makers choose."

But Miikkulainen hopes that data science can help humanity find its way. "Maybe in the future, it's considered irresponsible not to use AI for making these policies," he says.
For the Covid-19 competition, Banifatemi emphasized that one goal was "to make the resulting insights available freely to everyone, in an open-source manner — especially for all those communities that may not have access to data and epidemiology divisions, statisticians, or data scientists."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: Waymo swears it's not out to pick nits and give us all an exercise in linguistics. The fact it will no longer use the term "self-driving" when describing its technology is about education and safety, Alphabet Inc.'s division devoted to the technology said Wednesday. Going forward, Waymo will call its technology "fully autonomous" to create, what it believes, is an important distinction. The company's argument rests entirely on how the public perceives "self-driving" as a term. Waymo points out, without naming names, that some automakers -- Tesla comes to mind -- toss the phrase around even though its technology doesn't fully drive a car on its own. Worse, Waymo said the proliferation of "self-driving" can lead to drivers taking their hands off the wheel when it's unsafe to do so.

By moving to the term "fully autonomous," Waymo hopes to lay the groundwork for standard industry terminology and help the public understand that "fully autonomous" means the car makes every decision, well, autonomously on its own accord. It also puts some space between Waymo's technology and companies that continue to brand their own systems as "self-driving." In the end, it's a bit of a branding exercise, but I think Waymo's heart is in the right place.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Torrent Freak: On December 21, 2020, Elsevier, Wiley, and American Chemical Society, filed a lawsuit hoping to have the court compel Indian ISPs to block both Sci-Hub and Libgen. Accusing the platforms of blatantly infringing their rights on a massive scale, the publishers said that due to the defiant nature of the platforms, ISP blocking is the only effective solution to hand. The massive complaint, which runs to 2,169 pages, was received by Sci-Hub with little time to review its contents. This not-insignificant issue was quickly pointed out to the Court, with counsel for Sci-Hub asking for an extension. After Sci-Hub assured the Court (pdf) that "no new articles or publications, in which the plaintiffs have copyright" would be uploaded to the site in advance of the next hearing, more time was granted to respond.

The case is set for a hearing tomorrow but in advance of that, interested parties are attempting to put the government under pressure to intervene by preventing a blockade that, according to them, would cause damage to education and society in India. Speaking on behalf of thousands of scientists, academics, teachers and students, the Breakthrough Science Society (BSS) is expressing dismay at the publishers' efforts to prevent the "free flow of information" between those who produce it and those who seek it. [...] Instead of demonizing Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan, the group describes her work as an effective solution to make research papers available to all for the benefit of humanity. As a result, the Breakthrough Science Society says it actually supports the work of Sci-Hub and Libgen, arguing that their work is not illegal and should continue unhindered.

In an effort to pressure the Indian government to intervene on behalf of the people, the Breakthrough Science Society has launched a petition, calling on everyone from scientists and academics to teachers and students, to declare that knowledge should be accessible to all, not just those who can afford to pay the publishers' rates. Dr. Ashwani Mahajan, an Associate Professor at the University of Delhi, who among other things describes himself as a policy interventionist, says that if the ISPs are compelled to block Sci-Hub and Libgen, Indian researchers' access to information will be seriously undermined. While acknowledging that the government spends large sums of money to subscribe to journals, Mahajan says that researchers and students are heavily reliant on Sci-Hub and Libgen for information that the publishing industry itself does not pay for.

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: In India, parents are being aggressively sold the idea that their children must start coding at 4 or 5 or be future failures, prompting Neelesh Misra [a writer, audio storyteller, and founder of a media and organic products company] to ask Do Children Really Need to Learn to Code? [Alternate URL here] In a New York Times Opinion piece that's sparked 1,000+ comments, Misra writes that "Aggressive campaigns pushing Indian parents and schools to embrace coding might help meet corporate targets, but they are creating a fear that a generation of children will lose out if their parents don't sign them up for these coding programs. Parents struggle to resist these shrewdly framed campaigns."
From the writer/storyteller/founder's piece: WhiteHat Jr., which operates in India and the United States, mounted an advertising blitzkrieg in India telling parents that our children need to learn coding from the age of 4, 5 or 6 — or they will fall behind in life. Indian celebrities promoted the brand and spread the fear of losing out among families... Although numerous experts advise against teaching children to code, a skill that will soon become redundant, the WhiteHat Jr. campaign taps into a parent's deepest fear: Will my child be left behind...?

Relentless advertising campaigns are telling Indian parents that coding is critical because making children code will develop their cognitive skills. Storytelling does all that too. And singing songs. And asking questions or being offered choices or visiting interesting places...

I realize that our world is about to change unrecognizably. Robotics, artificial intelligence and virtual and augmented reality shall soon be concepts and a way of living that will be second nature to our children. The future should excite us, not make our children feel afraid and ill equipped. The future should — and I am sure will — have a place for dreamers and doers, and not just those hunched forever over a computer.

theodp writes: According to an Amazon job listing for a contract position, the e-tailer is seeking a lead for a new Amazon Future Engineer program in India that's set to launch in 2021. "The initial research for Amazon Future Engineer in India," Amazon explains, "is currently underway and we look to the chosen candidate to dive deep into operationalizing the program to what is relevant for India and the student needs. The role involves working with local non-profits and government officials to deeply understand the needs of the students. They will utilize this research and feedback to build trust and implement a unique program addressing needs for different aged students, childhood to career. They will quickly diagnose any structural barriers with CS education policy/adoption by region, while also exercising a bias for action to get programs launched in 2021. This role will require strategic planning, ability to manage a budget and implement programs at a large scale."

In its press release celebrating record-breaking holiday sales in 2020, Amazon on Monday pointed out that its Amazon Future Engineer (AFE) program more than doubled its reach in the U.S. during the pandemic and is now serving more than 5,000 schools and 550,000 students in need with computer science coursework, largely by providing access to online courses from Edhesive.

Launched in 2018 with the goal of inspiring 10+ million kids each year to explore CS, Amazon explained that AFE is part of a $50 million commitment it made to CS and STEM education in 2017. Microsoft President Brad Smith later revealed in his 2019 book Tools and Weapons that the $50 million investments in CS+STEM education that Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Salesforce each committed to in 2017 were part of a $300 million private sector pledge that Smith indicated was needed to get Ivanka Trump to persuade her father to fund K-12 CS; the President ultimately issued an Executive Order requiring the U.S. Dept. of Education to spend $1 billion on K-12 CS+STEM education.

Bloomberg Editorial Board: Amid raging wildfires, rolling blackouts and a worsening coronavirus outbreak, it has not been a great year for California. Unfortunately, the state is also reeling from a manmade disaster: an exodus of thriving companies to other states. In just the past few months, Hewlett Packard Enterprise said it was leaving for Houston. Oracle said it would decamp for Austin. Palantir, Charles Schwab and McKesson are all bound for greener pastures. No less an information-age avatar than Elon Musk has had enough. He thinks regulators have grown "complacent" and "entitled" about the state's world-class tech companies. No doubt, he has a point. Silicon Valley's high-tech cluster has been the envy of the world for decades, but there's nothing inevitable about its success. As many cities have found in recent years, building such agglomerations is exceedingly hard, as much art as science. Low taxes, modest regulation, sound infrastructure and good education systems all help, but aren't always sufficient. Once squandered, moreover, such dynamism can't easily be revived. With competition rising across the U.S., the area's policy makers need to recognize the dangers ahead.

In recent years, San Francisco has seemed to be begging for companies to leave. In addition to familiar failures of governance -- widespread homelessness, inadequate transit, soaring property crime -- it has also imposed more idiosyncratic hindrances. Far from welcoming experimentation, it has sought to undermine or stamp out home-rental services, food-delivery apps, ride-hailing firms, electric-scooter companies, facial-recognition technology, delivery robots and more, even as the pioneers in each of those fields attempted to set up shop in the city. It tried to ban corporate cafeterias -- a major tech-industry perk -- on the not-so-sound theory that this would protect local restaurants. It created an "Office of Emerging Technology" that will only grant permission to test new products if they're deemed, in a city bureaucrat's view, to provide a "net common good." Whatever the merits of such meddling, it's hardly a formula for unbounded inventiveness.

These two traits -- poor governance and animosity toward business -- have collided calamitously with respect to the city's housing market. Even as officials offered tax breaks for tech companies to headquarter themselves downtown, they mostly refused to lift residential height limits, modify zoning rules or allow significant new construction to accommodate the influx of new workers. They then expressed shock that rents and home prices were soaring -- and blamed the tech companies. California's legislature has only made matters worse. A bill it enacted in 2019, ostensibly intended to protect gig workers, threatened to undo the business models of some of the state's biggest tech companies until voters granted them a reprieve in a November referendum. A new privacy law has imposed immense compliance burdens -- amounting to as much as 1.8% of state output in 2018 -- while conferring almost no consumer benefits. An 8.8% state corporate tax rate and 13.3% top income-tax rate (the nation's highest) haven't helped.

Apple this month announced a new Launch@Apple mentorship program that's designed for first-generation college students, with the program set to launch in early 2021. From a report: According to a PDF describing Launch@Apple, it is aimed at first-generation college freshmen and sophomores who are majoring in finance, mathematics, economics, business, data analytics, and accounting. It matches college students one-on-one with Apple mentors who are able to provide resources for learning and opportunities for professional growth, with the possibility of job shadowing, paid externships, and paid internships. Apple has not publicly announced Launch@Apple, and it's not entirely clear how the word is being spread. MyHealthyApple shared details this morning, and last week, a LinkedIn post highlighted the program. Ahead of when Launch begins in early 2021, Apple is accepting applications from students with a wide range of GPAs.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Earlier this month, more than 1,000 educators and students at City University of New York institutions petitioned their board of trustees to not renew its contract with the anti-plagiarism software company Turnitin. The board ultimately voted unanimously, with the student senate representative abstaining, to renew Turnitin's five-year contract for nearly $2 million. Five months earlier, CUNY had laid off nearly 3,000 adjunct faculty and part-time employees as a result of budget shortfalls. (The college system's chancellor has pushed back against that characterization). The protest against Turnitin is the latest high-profile effort in what has become a nationwide backlash in higher education against educational technology vendors. As schools moved online during the pandemic and confronted slimming budgets, they increasingly turned to a wide array of software companies for solutions. The ed tech industry has boomed, and the school experience has been transformed in ways that are sure to outlive the pandemic -- not necessarily for the better, many experts say.

The California Bar released data last week confirming that during its use of ExamSoft for the October Bar exam, over one-third of the nearly nine-thousand online examinees were flagged by the software. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is concerned that the exam proctoring software is incorrectly flagging students for cheating "due either to the software's technical failures or to its requirements that students have relatively new computers and access to near-broadband speeds." From the report: This is outrageous. It goes without saying that of the 3,190 applicants flagged by the software, the vast majority were not cheating. Far more likely is that, as EFF and others have said before, remote proctoring software is surveillance snake oil -- you simply can't replicate a classroom environment online, and attempting to do so via algorithms and video monitoring only causes harm. In this case, the harm is not only to the students who are rightfully upset about the implications and the lack of proper channels for redress, but to the institution of the Bar itself. While examinees have been searching for help from other examinees as well as hiring legal counsel in their attempt to defend themselves from potentially baseless claims of cheating, the California Committee of Bar Examiners has said "everything is going well" and called these results "a good thing to see" (13:30 into the video of the Committee meeting).

That is not how we see it. These flags have triggered concern for hundreds, if not thousands, of test takers, most of whom had no idea that they were flagged until recently. Many only learned about the flag after receiving an official "Chapter 6 Notice" from the Bar, which is sent when an applicant is observed (supposedly) violating exam conduct rules or seen or heard with prohibited items, like a cell phone, during the exam. In a depressingly ironic introduction to the legal system, the Bar has requested that students respond to the notices within 10 days, but it would appear that none of them have been given enough information to do so, as Chapter 6 Notices contain only a short summary of the violation. These summaries are decidedly vague: "Facial view of your eyes was not within view of the camera for a prolonged period of time"; "No audible sound was detected"; "Leaving the view of the webcam outside of scheduled breaks during a remote-proctored exam." Examinees do not currently have access to the flagged videos themselves, and are not expected to receive access to them, or any other evidence against them, before they are required to submit a response. The report goes on to say that some of these flags are technical issues with ExamSoft. For example, Lenovo laptops appear to have been flagged en masse for an issue with the software's inability to access the internal microphone.

Other flags are likely due to the inability of the software to correctly recognize the variability of examinees' demeanors and expressions. "We implore the California Bar to rethink its plans for remotely-proctored future exams, and to work carefully to offer clearer paths for examinees who have been flagged by these inadequate surveillance tools," the EFF says in closing. "Until then, the Bar must provide examinees who have been flagged with a fair appeals process, including sharing the videos and any other information necessary for them to defend themselves before requiring a written response."

Leaked Nintendo documents have revealed a frightening surveillance operation carried out against a hacker who was researching exploits for the 3DS handheld. TorrentFreak reports: During the past 24 hours, various Twitter accounts (1,2) have been posting snippets from documents that were recently leaked from Nintendo. While there are numerous items of interest, the most shocking revelations involve Neimod, a hacker who several years ago developed exploits for the 3DS handheld console. [T]he scale of the operation, which is revealed in detail in the leaked documents, shows just how far the gaming giant was prepared to go to stop his work. For example, the leak reveals personal profiling that dug deeply into Neimod's education status, listed details of his working life, while offering evidence of physical snooping on his daily lifestyle. What time he could be found at home, who came to see him there, and even when he visited places like banks and restaurants are all included. While this kind of surveillance is creepy in its own right, additional documents reveal a detailed plan to use the gathered intelligence to physically confront Neimod in order to pressurize him into complying with the company's demands.

According to Nintendo's planning, the operation would begin around April 15, 2013, with its team meeting at a local hotel to discuss and finalize their plans. Following a review of Neimod's movements of the previous week, the team would then decide where and when contact would be made -- after work or at home, for example. With an undercover investigator monitoring Neimod to discover what time he left work, Neimod was to be approached by a 'contact team,' who were instructed to approach their target "in a friendly, non-threatening, professional, and courteous manner." "Provide a business card," the instructions read. After Neimod had been engaged in conversation, the team was instructed to flatter the hacker by "acknowledging his engineering/programming aptitude." They were also told to reference his stated aim of not "facilitating piracy" with his hacks but point out Nintendo's concerns that a release of his hack could do just that.

Whether Neimod complied or resisted, Nintendo prepared for both eventualities. The following slide, posted to Twitter by Eclipse-TT, shows a flow chart that begins with instructions for the "Knock and Talk Team," details a staging area, rules of engagement, and plans for what should happen when things go to plan -- or otherwise. The Nintendo "Final Enforcement Proposal" document describes a "carrot and stick" approach, with the stick being a laundry list of potential offenses committed by Neimod under Belgian law and the carrot representing a number of sweeteners that might be of interest to the hacker. If cooperation was achieved, Nintendo suggested it could refrain from filing a criminal complaint. It may also enter into a "bounty" contract with Neimod with payments made for finding and documenting exploits. Within certain parameters, his discoveries could still be announced to the public, allowing him to retain "bragging rights." This could help Nintendo's image, the company wrote.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed a bill Tuesday suspending the use of facial recognition and other kinds of biometric technology in schools in New York, also directing a study of whether its use is appropriate in schools. The legislation places a moratorium on schools purchasing and using biometric identifying technology until at least July 1, 2022 or until the report is completed and the state Education Department commissioner authorizes its use. The rule applies to both public and private schools in New York.

In a statement, ACLU said. "This is a victory for student privacy and students of color, who are disproportionately harmed by this flawed and biased technology. New York has led the way, and now other states should follow."

Seventy-three suspected cheaters, one critical mistake. Dozens of cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point were caught cheating on a calculus final exam in May after they all made the same errors on the test, according to officials. From a report: Instructors at the Army's premier training ground for officers revealed the academic scandal on Monday, saying it's the worst they've seen since the 1970s. So far, 59 cadets out of a suspected 73 have admitted to taking part in the scam in which the students "shared answers and made the same mistakes," Lt. Col. Chris Ophardt, a West Point spokesman told NPR. The test was administered remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic. Four cadets have resigned and another eight, who say they're innocent of any wrongdoing, will face a full hearing led by seniors at the academy. The cases against two others initially implicated in the scheme have been dismissed for lack of evidence..

After months of deliberation, congressional leaders reached a $900 billion coronavirus relief deal on Sunday, including billions in funding for broadband internet access. From a report: Congress' latest relief measure provides $7 billion in funding for broadband connectivity and infrastructure. That figure includes $3.2 billion for a $50-per-month emergency broadband benefit for people who are laid off or furloughed during the pandemic, according to a press release from Sen. Ron Wyden's (D-OR) office on Sunday. "Broadband connections are essential for Americans seeking to get new jobs, and to access school, health care and other government services," Wyden said in a statement Sunday night. "Ensuring working families can stay online will pay massive dividends for kids' education, helping people find jobs and jump starting the economic recovery next year."

theodp writes: Q. How many AP Computer Science Principles 'exam takers' would you have if you cancelled the AP CSP exam due to the coronavirus? A. More than 116,000!

That's according to the math behind a new College Board press release, which boasts, "In 2020, more than 116,000 students took the AP CSP Exam -- more than double the number of exam takers in the course's first year, and a 21% increase over the previous year. In 2020, 39,570 women took the AP CSP exam, nearly three times the number who tested in 2017." Which is somewhat confusing, since the College Board actually cancelled the 2020 AP CSP Exam last spring, explaining to students, "This year, there will be no end-of-year multiple-choice exam in Computer Science Principles [the exam was to have counted for 60% of students' scores] -- your AP score will be computed from the Create and Explore performance tasks only."

Still, Sunday's Washington Post reported the good PR news, as did tech-bankrolled College Board partner Code.org, which exclaimed, "Young women set records in computer science exams, again!" In 2018, Code.org lamented that many students enrolled in AP CSP wouldn't get college credit for the course "because they don't take the exam", so perhaps an increase in AP CSP scores awarded -- if not AP CSP exams taken -- should be added to the list of silver linings of the pandemic.

This week, Google acquired a company called Neverware that allows users to turn their old PCs and Macs into a Chromebook with its CloudReady software. Now, Google is planning to make CloudReady into an official Chrome OS release. Engadget reports: When that happens, Neverware says its existing users will be able to seamlessly upgrade to the updated software. Moreover, once that transition is complete, Google will support CloudReady in the same way that it currently does Chrome OS. In the immediate future, Neverware says it's business as usual. The Home Edition of CloudReady isn't changing, and the company says it's committed to supporting its existing education and enterprise customers. Moreover, there's no plan to change pricing at the moment, and Google will honor any current multi-year licenses.

Not only does this acquisition make a lot of sense from Google's perspective, but it's hard to see a downside for CloudReady users. The fact the operating system wasn't officially supported by Google was one of the few downsides to the software. It meant you couldn't install Android apps on CloudReady devices, even though it's based on Chromium OS. With this acquisition, support for Android apps becomes much more likely. Direct support from Google will also make the software more appealing to schools and businesses since they can get help directly from the company if they have any technical issues.

The hectic M&A cycle we have seen throughout 2020 continued this weekend when Vista Equity Partners announced it was acquiring Pluralsight for $3.5 billion. From a report: That comes out to $20.26 per share. The company stock closed on Friday at $18.50 per share on a market cap of over $2.7 billion. With Pluralsight, Vista gets an online training company that helps educate IT professionals, including developers, operations, data and security, with a suite of online courses. As the pandemic has taken hold, it has breathed new life into edtech, but even before that, there was a market for upskilling IT Pros online. This trend certainly didn't escape Monti Saroya, co-head of the Vista Flagship Fund and senior managing director at Vista. "We have seen firsthand that the demand for skilled software engineers continues to outstrip supply, and we expect this trend to persist as we move into a hybrid online-offline world across all industries and interactions, with business leaders recognizing that technological innovation is critical to business success," he said in a statement.