An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Internet service providers are again urging the Federal Communications Commission to impose new fees on Big Tech firms and use the money to subsidize broadband network deployment and affordability programs. If approved, the request would force Big Tech firms to pay into the FCC's Universal Service Fund (USF), which in turn distributes money to broadband providers. The request was made on June 6 by USTelecom, a lobby group for AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink/Lumen, and smaller telcos. USTelecom has made similar arguments before, but its latest request to the FCC argues that the recent death of a broadband discount program should spur the FCC to start extracting money from Big Tech.

"Through focusing on the Big Tech companies who benefit most from broadband connectivity, the Commission will fairly allocate the burden of sustaining USF," USTelecom wrote in the FCC filing last week. The USF spends about $8 billion a year. Phone companies must pay a percentage of their revenue into the fund, and telcos generally pass those fees on to consumers with a "Universal Service" line item on telephone bills. The money is directed back to the telco industry with programs like the Connect America Fund and Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, which subsidize network construction in unserved and underserved areas. The USF also funds Lifeline program discounts for people with low incomes.

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel hasn't stated any intention to expand USF contributions to Big Tech. Separately, she rejected calls to impose Universal Service fees on broadband, leaving phone service as the only source of USF revenue. The USTelecom filing came in response to the FCC asking for input on its latest analysis of competition in the communications marketplace. USTelecom says the USF is relevant to the proceeding because "the Universal Service Fund is critical for maintaining a competitive marketplace and an expanded contributions base is necessary to sustain the fund." No changes to the USF would be made in this proceeding, though USTelecom's comments could be addressed in the FCC's final report.

At a New York Yankees baseball game, one fan discovered its concession stand doesn't accept cash. "An employee directed him to a kiosk that could convert his greenbacks into plastic," reports the Wall Street Journal, where the fan, "fed $200 into the reverse ATM, which subtracted a $3.50 fee and spat out a debit card with a balance of $196.50." Paying with cash used to be a way to get a discount. These days it can often cost an extra $1 to $6 — the sort of transaction fees once limited to swiping a credit card or using an out-of-network ATM. Reverse ATMs like those at Yankee Stadium are now common at cashless venues and restaurants across the country as a way to cater to those who prefer paying in cash. People who want to pay their parking tickets, tolls, taxes or phone bills in cash, meanwhile, often learn that government agencies and businesses have outsourced that option to companies that usually charge a fee.

All that can amount to a penalty on the people who prefer paying cash. Though it is more common to buy things with cards and mobile devices, cash remains the third-most popular way to pay, accounting for 16% of all payments in 2023, according to the Federal Reserve. That's down 2 percentage points from the year before, continuing a steady decline that accelerated during the pandemic. "It's unbelievable that we actually have to tell retailers, 'This is U.S. currency and it's something that should be accepted,' " said Jonathan Alexander, executive director of the Consumer Choice in Payment Coalition, a group of businesses and nonprofits lobbying for the continued acceptance of cash.

There aren't federal laws that require businesses to accept cash. States like Colorado and Rhode Island and cities like New York banned cashless retail establishments after many stores shifted to card-only transactions to reduce the spread of Covid-19, speed up transactions and cut back on theft. In 2023, lawmakers in the House of Representatives and the Senate introduced bills requiring that businesses accept cash for all in-person purchases under $500, unless they provide devices like a reverse ATM that don't charge fees. The bills haven't passed.

Cashless businesses can be a burden for older or lower-income shoppers who are less likely to have access to digital payments. They also pose challenges for younger people who haven't yet set up credit cards or bank accounts.
The article includes the story of an 18-year-old who earned cash by babysitting, then went to a hockey game and "was charged a 50-cent fee after putting $20 into a reverse ATM...to order chicken nuggets and a bottle of water." (Others who prefer cash "say paper money is anonymous, helps them keep spending under control and is better for tips," the article adds noting that roughly six in 10 Americans use cash for at least some of their purchases, according to Pew Research Center.)

The makers of one "reverse ATM" tell the Journal that whether or not someone gets charged a fee actually depends on what state they're in — and on the preferences of the venue that installed the ATM machine.

In November Google agreed to pay Canadian news publishers $100 million annually "in order to be exempt from the Online News Act, which compels tech companies to enter into agreements with news publishers," writes the Canadian Press.

On Friday Google "named the organization it has selected to distribute the $100 million..." The Canadian Journalism Collective will be responsible for ensuring eligible news organizations get their share of the money. The collective is a federally incorporated non-profit organization that was created for this purpose. It was founded in May by a group of independent publishers and broadcasters... "We hope these next steps will be completed as quickly as possible, so Canadian publishers and journalists can soon begin to receive the proceeds of this new contribution model," Google said in a blog entry posted on their website Friday...

The money will be distributed proportionately based on how many full time-journalists the companies employ. Small print and digital outlets can expect to receive about $17,000 per journalist that they employ, an official with the Canadian Heritage Department has said.
Google's money will go to 1,520 news organizations, according to Google's blog post — which describes the arrangement as "addressing our concerns with the Online News Act" and "a viable path to an exemption at a clear and commercially acceptable commitment level..." As part of this transition, we have advised partners in our Google News Showcase program (our online news experience and licensing program for news organizations) will cease to operate in Canada later this year as we transition to this new contribution model. We will be maintaining some Google News Initiative programming in Canada. This includes a range of collaborative tools and resources that can support the advancement of quality journalism. However, with our monetary contribution in Canada now streamlined into the new single collective model, these investments will be non-monetary in nature.

America's Justice Department "indicted the creators of an application that helps people spend their bitcoins anonymously," writes Reason.com: They're accused of "conspiracy to commit money laundering." Why "conspiracy to commit" as opposed to just "money laundering"?

Because they didn't hold anyone else's money or do anything illegal with it. They provided a privacy tool that may have enabled other people to do illegal things with their bitcoin... What this tool does is offer what's known as a "coinjoin," a method for anonymizing bitcoin transactions by mixing them with other transactions, as the project's founder, Keonne Rodriguez, explained to Reason in 2022: "I think the best analogy for it is like smelting gold," he said. "You take your Bitcoin, you add it into [the conjoin protocol] Whirlpool, and Whirlpool smelts it into new pieces that are not associated to the original piece."
Reason argues that providing the tool isn't a crime, just like selling someone a kitchen knife isn't a crime: The government's decision to indict Rodriguez and his partner William Lonergan Hill is also an attack on free speech because all they did was write open-source code and make it widely available. "It is an issue of a chilling effect on free speech," attorney Jerry Brito, who heads up the cryptocurrency nonprofit Coin Center, told Reason after the U.S. Treasury went after the creators of another piece of anonymizing software...

The most important thing about bitcoin, and money like it, isn't its price. It's the check it places on the government's ability to devalue, censor, and surviel our money. Creators of open-source tools like Samourai Wallet should be celebrated, not threatened with a quarter-century in a federal prison.
Long-time Slashdot reader SonicSpike shared the article...

Last week America's energy secretary cheered the startup of a fourth nuclear reactor at a Georgia power plant, calling it "the largest producer of clean energy, and the largest producer of electricity in the United States" after a third reactor was started up there in December.

From the U.S. Energy Department's transcript of the speech: Each year, Units 3 and 4 are going to produce enough clean power to power 1 million homes and businesses, enough energy to power roughly 1 in 4 homes in Georgia. Preventing 10 million metric tons of carbon dioxide pollution annually. That, by the way, is like planting more than 165 million trees every year!

And that's not to mention the historic investments that [electric utility] Southern has made on the safety front, to ensure this facility meets — and exceeds — the highest operating standards in the world....

To reach our goal of net zero by 2050, we have to at least triple our current nuclear capacity in this country. That means we've got to add 200 more gigawatts by 2050. Okay, two down, 198 to go! In building [Unit] 4, we've solved our greatest design challenges. We've stood up entire supply chains.... And so it's time to cash in on our investments by building more. More of these facilities. The Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office stands ready to help, with hundreds of billions of dollars in what we call Title 17 loans... Since the President signed the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, companies across the nation have announced 29 new or expanded nuclear facilities — across 16 states — representing about 1,600 potential new jobs. And the majority of those projects will expand the domestic uranium production and fuel fabrication, strengthening these critical supply chains...

Bottom line is, in short, we are determined to build a world-class nuclear industry in the United States, and we're putting our money where our mouth is.
America's Energy Secretary told the Washington Post that "Whether it happens through small modular reactors, or AP1000s, or maybe another design out there worthy of consideration, we want to see nuclear built." The Post notes the Energy department gave a $1.5 billion loan to restart a Michigan power plant which was decommissioned in 2022. "It would mark the first time a shuttered U.S. nuclear plant has been reactivated."

"But in this country with 54 nuclear plants across 28 states, restarting existing reactors and delaying their closure is a lot less complicated than building new ones." When the final [Georgia] reactor went online at the end of April, the expansion was seven years behind schedule and nearly $20 billion over budget. It ultimately cost more than twice as much as promised, with ratepayers footing much of the bill through surcharges and rate hikes...

Administration officials say the country has no choice but to make nuclear power a workable option again. The country is fast running short on electricity, demand for power is surging amid a boom in construction of data centers and manufacturing plants, and a neglected power grid is struggling to accommodate enough new wind and solar power to meet the nation's needs...

As the administration frames the narrative of the plant as one of perseverance and innovation that clears a path for restoring U.S. nuclear energy dominance, even some longtime boosters of the industry question whether this country will ever again have a vibrant nuclear energy sector. "It is hard for me to envision state energy regulators signing off on another one of these, given how badly the last ones went," said Matt Bowen, a nuclear scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, who was an adviser on nuclear energy issues in the Obama administration.
The article notes there are 19 AP1000 reactors (the design used at the Georgia plant) in development around the world. "None of them are being built in the United States."

An anonymous reader shares a report: Two senior officials working for anti-terror police in Bangladesh allegedly collected and sold classified and personal information of citizens to criminals on Telegram, TechCrunch has learned. The data allegedly sold included national identity details of citizens, cell phone call records and other "classified secret information," according to a letter signed by a senior Bangladeshi intelligence official, seen by TechCrunch.

The letter, dated April 28, was written by Brigadier General Mohammad Baker, who serves as a director of Bangladesh's National Telecommunications Monitoring Center, or NTMC, the country's electronic eavesdropping agency. Baker confirmed the legitimacy of the letter and its contents in an interview with TechCrunch. "Departmental investigation is ongoing for both the cases," Baker said in an online chat, adding that the Bangladeshi Ministry of Home Affairs ordered the affected police organizations to take "necessary action against those officers." The letter, which was originally written in Bengali and addressed to the senior secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs Public Security Division, alleges the two police agents accessed and passed "extremely sensitive information" of private citizens on Telegram in exchange for money.

Online marketplace behemoth eBay said it plans to no longer accept American Express, citing what the company says are "unacceptably high fees." CNBC: It's a notable blow to American Express, whose customers are often the most attractive among merchants and spend the most money per month on their cards. But it's not the first time merchants have voiced opposition to AmEx's business practices by walking away, most notably the warehouse chain Costco nearly a decade ago.

[...] Overland said that eBay customers have become aware of new ways to pay for items, making payments more competitive than ever before, and AmEx was no longer a necessary partner for eBay. eBay has increasingly been offering customers buy now, pay later options on purchases through Apple Pay, PayPal and other companies like Klarna and Affirm as well.

Cailey Gleeson reports via Forbes: A group backed by more than two dozen investors -- including Citadel Securities and BlackRock -- is planning to start its own stock exchange in Texas, it said Wednesday, in an attempt to compete with the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. The Texas Stock Exchange (TXSE) -- owned by TXSE Group Inc. and founded in 2023, per its LinkedIn -- will be a "fully electronic national securities exchange" that seeks to expand access to markets for all investors and those seeking access to public capital, according to Wednesday's press release.

The TXSE aims to have primary listings, dual listings and exchange-traded products, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news. The stock exchange has raised $120 million in capital and plans to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission later this year, according to the press release, while it will also have a physical headquarters in Dallas, and the company will employ about 100 people, The Dallas Morning News reported. It plans to start facilitating trades in 2025 and host its first listing the following year, multiple outlets reported. The Wall Street Journal notes that past attempts at regional stock exchanges have failed, such as the Chicago Stock Exchange and Philadelphia Stock Exchange -- both of which combined with the NYSE and Nasdaq.

"The NYSE considered relocating its electronic trading systems to the Dallas-Fort Worth area in late 2020, amid a proposed financial transaction tax on stocks in New York," adds Forbes. "But the move did not go through, nor the proposed tax,."

Nvidia has reached a market cap of $3 trillion, surpassing Apple to become the second-largest public company behind Microsoft. CNBC reports: Nvidia's milestone is the latest stunning mark in a run that has seen the stock soar more than 3,224% over the past five years. The company will split its stock 100-for-1 later this month. Apple was the first U.S. company to reach a $3 trillion market cap during intraday trading in January 2022. Microsoft hit $3 trillion in market value in January 2024. Nvidia, which was founded in 1993, passed the $2 trillion valuation in February, and it only took roughly three months from there for it to pass $3 trillion.

Nvidia's surge in recent years has been powered by the tech industry's need for its chips, which are used to develop and deploy big AI models such as the one at the heart of OpenAI's ChatGPT. Companies such as Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and OpenAI are buying billions of dollars worth of Nvidia's GPUs.

A federal court jury in Seattle has ruled against Boeing in a lawsuit brought by failed electric airplane startup Zunum and awarded $81 million in damages -- which the judge has the option to triple. From a report: Zunum alleged that Boeing, while ostensibly investing seed money to get the startup off the ground, stole Zunum's technology and actively undermined its attempts to build a business. It accused Boeing of "a targeted and coordinated campaign" to gain access to its "business plan, market and technological analysis, and other trade secrets and proprietary information," then using that to develop its own hybrid-electric plane design.

Zunum also accused Boeing of sabotaging its efforts to attract funding from aerospace suppliers Safran and United Technologies. The jury found that Boeing had misappropriated Zunum's trade secrets and breached its contract with the startup. It also found that Boeing's actions were "willful and malicious," which opens the door for the judge to award triple damages plus legal costs in a case that has already been running for more than four years.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBC News: Online streaming services operating in Canada will be required to contribute five percent of their Canadian revenues to support the domestic broadcasting system, the country's telecoms regulator said on Tuesday. The money will be used to boost funding for local and Indigenous broadcasting, officials from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) said in a briefing. "Today's decision will help ensure that online streaming services make meaningful contributions to Canadian and Indigenous content," wrote CRTC chief executive and chair Vicky Eatrides in a statement.

The measure was introduced under the auspices of a law passed last year designed to make sure that companies like Netflix make a more significant contribution to Canadian culture. The government says the legislation will ensure that online streaming services promote Canadian music and stories, and support Canadian jobs. Funding will also be directed to French-language content and content created by official language minority communities, as well as content created by equity-deserving groups and Canadians of diverse backgrounds. The release also said that online streaming services will "have some flexibility" to send their revenues to support Canadian television directly. [...]

The measure, which will start in the 2024-2025 broadcasting year, would raise roughly $200 million annually, CRTC officials said. It will only apply to services that are not already affiliated with Canadian broadcasters. The CMPA was among 20 screen organizations from around the world that signed a statement in January asking governments to impose stronger regulations on streaming companies operating in local markets. One of the demands was a measure that would force companies profiting from their presence in those markets to contribute financially to the creation of new local content."We are disappointed by today's decision and concerned by the negative impact it will have on Canadian consumers. We are assessing the decision in full, but this onerous and inflexible financial levy will be harmful to consumer choice," a spokesperson for Prime Video wrote to CBC News in a statement.

TorrentFreak's Ernesto Van der Sar recalls the rise and fall of Napster, the file-sharing empire that kickstarted a global piracy frenzy 25 years ago. Here's an excerpt from his report: At the end of the nineties, technology and the Internet were a playground for young engineers and 'hackers'. Some of them regularly gathered in the w00w00 IRC chatroom on the EFnet network. This tech-think-tank had many notable members, including WhatsApp founder Jan Koum and Shawn Fanning, who logged on with the nickname Napster. In 1998, 17-year-old Fanning shared an idea with the group. 'Napster' wanted to create a network of computers that could share files with each other. More specifically, a central music database that everyone in the world could access.

This idea never left the mind of the young developer. Fanning stopped going to school and flanked by his friend Sean Parker, devoted the following months to making his vision a reality. That moment came on June 1, 1999, when the first public release of Napster was released online. Soon after, the software went viral. Napster was quickly embraced by millions of users, who saw the software as something magical. It was a gateway for musical exploration, one that dwarfed even the largest record stores in town. And all for free. It sounds mundane today, but some equated it to pure technological sorcery. For many top players in the music industry, Napster's sorcery was pure witchcraft. At the time, manufacturing CDs with high profit margins felt like printing money and Napster's appearance threatened to ruin the party. [...]

At the start of 2001, Napster's user base reached a peak of more than 26.4 million worldwide. Yet, despite huge growth and backing from investors, the small file-sharing empire couldn't overcome the legal challenges. The RIAA lawsuit resulted in an injunction from the Ninth Circuit Court, which ordered the network to shut down. This happened during July 2001, little more than two years after Napster launched. By September that year, the case had been settled for millions of dollars. While the Napster craze was over, file-sharing had mesmerized the masses and the genie was out of the bottle. Grokster, KaZaa, Morpheus, LimeWire, and many others popped up and provided sharing alternatives, for as long as they lasted. Meanwhile, BitTorrent was also knocking on the door. "Napster paved the way for Apple's iTunes store, to serve the demand that was clearly there," notes Ernesto. "This music streaming landscape was largely pioneered by a Napster 'fan' from Sweden, Daniel Ek."

"Like many others, Ek was fascinated by the 'all you can play' experience offered by file-sharing software, and that planted the seeds for the music streaming startup Spotify, where he still serves as CEO today. In fact, Spotify itself used file-sharing technology under the hood to ensure swift playback."

After growing concerned about potential stock manipulation, E*Trade is "considering telling meme-stock leader Keith Gill he can no longer use its platform," reports the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter. Gill, known online as "Roaring Kitty," gained notoriety for his role in the 2020 meme stock frenzy, where he encouraged amateur investors to buy GameStop shares, significantly driving up the stock price and challenging hedge funds. Just hours ago, Roaring Kitty announced he bought $116 million worth of GameStop options and stocks.

Developing...

"There is one big thing holding the United States back from a pollution-free electricity grid running on wind, solar and battery power," writes the Washington Post. "Not enough power lines... the nation's sagging, out-of-date power lines are being overwhelmed — slowing the transition to clean energy and the fight against climate change." But experts say that there is a remarkably simple fix: installing new wires on the high-voltage lines that already carry power hundreds of miles across the United States. Just upgrading those wires, new reports show, could double the amount of power that can flow through America's electricity grid...

Most of America's lines are wired with a technology that has been around since the early 1900s — a core steel wire surrounded by strands of aluminum. When those old wires heat up — whether from power passing through them or warm outdoor temperatures — they sag. Too much sag in a transmission line can be dangerous, causing fires or outages. As a result, grid operators have to be careful not to allow too much power through the lines. But a couple of decades ago, engineers designed a new type of wire: a core made of carbon fiber, surrounded by trapezoidal pieces of aluminum. Those new, carbon-fiber wires don't sag as much in the heat. That means that they can take up to double the amount of power as the old lines. According to the recent study from researchers at UC-Berkeley and GridLab, replacing these older steel wires could provide up to 80 percent of the new transmission needed on the electricity grid — without building anything new. It could also cost half as much as building an entirely new line and avoid the headaches of trying to get every state, city and even landowner along the route to agree to a new project...

If stringing new lines is so easy — and cheap — why hasn't it been done already? Part of the problem, experts say, is that utilities profit more from big infrastructure projects. Routine maintenance or larger-scale upgrades of the electricity grid don't help utilities make a lot of cash compared with building new transmission lines... Duncan Callaway, a professor of energy and resources at UC-Berkeley and one of the authors of the recent study, said that many transmission engineers are not used to thinking of rewiring as one of their tools. "But it's a much faster way," he said. Some changes are already underway to encourage this approach. For a long time, utilities had to undergo lengthy environmental reviews if they were rewiring a line longer than 20 miles. Earlier this month, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission announced that those would no longer be necessary if utilities are simply replacing wires.

The New York Times, owner of the once-viral, word game Wordle, is suing a geography-based spinoff called Worldle, accusing its similar name of "creating confusion" and attempting to capitalize on "the enormous goodwill" associated with its own brand. Worldle's creator, Kory McDonald, vows to fight back. The BBC reports: "There's a whole industry of [dot]LE games," he told the BBC. "Wordle is about words, Worldle is about the world, Flaggle is about flags," he pointed out. The New York Times disagrees. Worldle is "nearly identical in appearance, sound, meaning, and imparts the same commercial impression to... Wordle," it says in its legal document. The paper told the BBC it had no further comment to make beyond the contents of its legal submission.

British inventor Josh Wardle developed Wordle in 2021 as a side project to keep his girlfriend entertained. But since then it has become a behemoth, reaching millions of people worldwide. By contrast, around 100,000 people play Worldle every month, according to Mr McDonald, who is based in Seattle. It is not available as an app and can only be played via a web browser. It contains ads, with an option to play ad-free for 10 pounds per year but Mr McDonald says that most of the money he makes from the game goes to Google because he uses Google Street View images, which players have to try to identify. Other popular [dot]LE games include:
- Quordle, a set of four words to guess at the same time
- Nerdle, a maths-based challenge
- Heardle, which is based on identifying music

"There's even another game called Worldle, which involves identifying countries by their outlines," notes the BBC. "The New York Times declined to say whether it intended to pursue them as well."

The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which provided monthly internet bill credits for low-income Americans, will officially end on June 1 due to a lack of additional funding from Congress. This termination threatens nearly 60 million Americans with increased financial hardship, as the program's lapse leaves them without the subsidies that made internet access affordable. CNN reports: The 2.5-year-old ACP provided eligible low-income Americans with a monthly credit off their internet bills, worth up to $30 per month and as much as $75 per month for households on tribal lands. The pandemic-era program was a hit with members of both political parties and served tens of millions of seniors, veterans and rural and urban Americans alike. Program participants received only partial benefits in May ahead of the ACP's expected collapse. [...]

On Friday, Biden reiterated his calls for Congress to pass legislation extending the ACP. He also announced a series of voluntary commitments by a handful of internet providers to offer -- or continue offering -- their own proprietary low-income internet plans. The list includes AT&T, Comcast, Cox, Charter's Spectrum and Verizon, among others. Those providers will continue to offer qualifying ACP households a broadband plan for $30 or less, the White House said, and together the companies are expected to cover roughly 10 million of the 23 million households relying on the ACP. "The Affordable Connectivity Program filled an important gap that provider low-income programs, state and local affordability programs, and the Lifeline program cannot fully address," said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in a statement, referring to the name of another, similar FCC program that subsidizes wireless and home internet service. "The Commission is available to provide any assistance Congress may need to support funding the ACP in the future and stands ready to resume the program if additional funding is provided."

Long before people develop dementia, they often begin falling behind on mortgage payments, credit card bills and other financial obligations, new research shows. The New York Times: A team of economists and medical experts at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Georgetown University combined Medicare records with data from Equifax, the credit bureau, to study how people's borrowing behavior changed [PDF] in the years before and after a diagnosis of Alzheimer's or a similar disorder. What they found was striking: Credit scores among people who later develop dementia begin falling sharply long before their disease is formally identified. A year before diagnosis, these people were 17.2 percent more likely to be delinquent on their mortgage payments than before the onset of the disease, and 34.3 percent more likely to be delinquent on their credit card bills. The issues start even earlier: The study finds evidence of people falling behind on their debts five years before diagnosis.

"The results are striking in both their clarity and their consistency," said Carole Roan Gresenz, a Georgetown University economist who was one of the study's authors. Credit scores and delinquencies, she said, "consistently worsen over time as diagnosis approaches, and so it literally mirrors the changes in cognitive decline that we're observing." The research adds to a growing body of work documenting what many Alzheimer's patients and their families already know: Decision-making, including on financial matters, can begin to deteriorate long before a diagnosis is made or even suspected. People who are starting to experience cognitive decline may miss payments, make impulsive purchases or put money into risky investments they would not have considered before the disease.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Best Buy is set to post its tenth consecutive quarter of sales decline on Thursday when the U.S. electronics retailer reports quarterly results, as spending on big-ticket electronics remains pressured despite easing inflation. Although results from big-box retailers Walmart and Target indicate that consumers have resumed spending on less-expensive discretionary items such as apparel and accessories, they are still hesitant to go for TVs and washing machines. UPDATE 5/30/24: Best Buy's quarterly profit exceeded Wall Street estimates due to improved demand in its computing category, cost-saving efforts, and a successful membership program, leading to a 10% rise in shares. "Demand for artificial intelligence-enabled laptops as well as higher-end televisions is helping Best Buy regain lost ground on sales in the country as consumers look to upgrade or replace their gadgets after more than two years of restraint on spending on electronics," reports Reuters. "The company is also banking on the launch of Microsoft's AI-powered Copilot+ PCs, which are expected to go on sale on June 18."

"Best Buy CEO Corie Barry said on a post-earnings call that the company expects to have more than 40% of the product assortment at launch exclusive to the company. The company has also benefited from people signing up for its two-tiered membership program, which it refreshed last year, helping the top electronics retailer in the United States retain shoppers and drive better margins."

The free online tax filing program known as IRS Direct File will be made permanent for the 2025 tax season, with all 50 states and Washington D.C. invited to participate. Axios reports: Treasury announced earlier this month that more than 140,000 people participated in the Direct File pilot program in a dozen states claiming more than $90 million in refunds. The pilot exceeded its 100,000-person target during this past tax season.

"President Biden is committed to saving Americans time and money and ensuring families receive the tax benefits they're owed," Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement. "Providing a free tool to all Americans who want the option to file directly with the IRS is key to achieving those goals." The pilot program targeted people with simple tax returns based on W-2 forms. In her remarks today Yellen said that over the next few years they will expand Direct File to support more situations. The announcement from the Treasury Department comes a week after the IRS' Free File program was extended through 2029.

"Free file is where some of your tax dollars go to create the bridges between 3rd parties and the IRS filing system," notes Slashdot reader slack_justyb. "Direct file is the taxpayer to IRS direct system that we got a taste of this year. We want to keep on the direct file path, but the free file path helps breakup the larger entities out there that lobby hard to keep the return-free system from ever getting started."

If you contact Spotify's customer service with a valid receipt, the company will refund your Car Thing purchase. That's the latest development reported by Engadget. When Spotify first announced that it would brick every Car Thing device on December 9, 2024, it said that it wouldn't offer owners any subscription credit or automatic refund. From the report: Spotify has taken some heat for its announcement last week that it will brick every Car Thing device on December 9, 2024. The company described its decision as "part of our ongoing efforts to streamline our product offerings" (read: cut costs) and that it lets Spotify "focus on developing new features and enhancements that will ultimately provide a better experience to all Spotify users."

TechCrunch reports that Gen Z users on TikTok have expressed their frustration in videos, while others have complained directed toward Spotify in DMs on X (Twitter) and directly through customer support. Some users claimed Spotify's customer service agents only offered several months of free Premium access, while others were told nobody was receiving refunds. It isn't clear if any of them contacted them after last Friday when it shifted gears on refunds.

Others went much further. Billboard first reported on a class-action lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on May 28. The suit accuses Spotify of misleading Car Thing customers by selling a $90 product that would soon be obsolete without offering refunds, which sounds like a fair enough point. It's worth noting that, according to Spotify, it began offering the refunds last week, while the lawsuit was only filed on Tuesday. If the company's statement about refunds starting on May 24 is accurate, the refunds aren't a direct response to the legal action. (Although it's possible the company began offering them in anticipation of lawsuits.) Editor's note: As a disgruntled Car Thing owner myself, I can confirm that Spotify is approving refund requests. You'll just have to play the waiting game to get through to a Spotify Advisor and their "team" that approves these requests. You may have better luck emailing customer service directly at support@spotify.com.