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HP

HP Outrages Printer Users With Firmware Update Suddenly Bricking Third-Party Ink (arstechnica.com) 199

Posted by BeauHD from the printers-suck dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: HP customers are showing frustration online as the vendor continues to use firmware updates to discourage or, as users report, outright block the use of non-HP-brand ink cartridges in HP printers. HP has already faced class-action lawsuits and bad publicity from "dynamic security," but that hasn't stopped the company from expanding the practice. Dynamic security is a feature used by HP printers to authenticate ink cartridges and prevent use of cartridges that aren't HP-approved. As the company explains: "Dynamic security relies on the printer's ability to communicate with the security chips or electronic circuitry on the cartridges. HP uses dynamic security measures to protect the quality of our customer experience, maintain the integrity of our printing systems, and protect our intellectual property. Dynamic security equipped printers are intended to work only with cartridges that have new or reused HP chips or electronic circuitry. The printers use the dynamic security measures to block cartridges using non-HP chips or modified or non-HP electronic circuitry. Reused, remanufactured, and refilled cartridges that reuse the HP chip or electronic circuitry are unaffected by dynamic security."

HP is set on continuing to use DRM to discourage its printer customers from spending ink and toner money outside of the HP family. "HP have updated their printers to outright ban 'non-HP' ink! They no longer shows the 'can't guarantee quality' message, but instead cancels your print completely until you inset a HP ink cartridge," Reddit user grhhull posted Tuesday. "After contacting HP, they advised 'this is due to the recent 'update' of all printers.'" It's unclear when HP issued updates for which model printers, but there are alleged customer complaints online stemming from late last year, showing plenty of customers surprised their printer no longer worked with non-HP ink cartridges after an update. Some pointed to third-party brands they had relied on for years.

HP community support threads include complaints about the OfficeJet 7740 and OfficeJet Pro 6970. HP lists both printers, as well as others, as able to circumnavigate dynamic security under specific conditions. However, HP's support page states this only applies to models manufactured before December 1, 2016. For more examples, there are comments on HP's support community suggesting that HP's OfficeJet 6978 and 6968 were recently affected. Both printers are discontinued, but HP's product pages make it clear that the fickle nature of dynamic security means that third-party ink could stop working at any time. And HP's dynamic security page also leaves the door open for the sudden bricking of functioning ink: "Firmware updates delivered periodically over the internet will maintain the effectiveness of the dynamic security measures," the page reads. "Updates can improve, enhance, or extend the printer's functionality and features, protect against security threats, and serve other purposes, but these updates can also block cartridges using a non-HP chip or modified or non-HP circuitry from working in the printer, including cartridges that work today."
Businesses

Middle East Unicorn Swvl's Spectacular Rise and 99% Stock Tumble (bloomberg.com) 22

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
A SPAC merger brought a global "Uber for bus" startup to the Nasdaq just as tech investment was about to dry up. From a report: In July 2021 the world's tallest tower, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, was briefly lit up in brilliant red, with animated electronic text scrolling up its height announcing "the Middle East's first $1.5 billion unicorn to list on Nasdaq." The splashy marketing was for Swvl, a company with lofty ambitions to become a hybrid of a ride-hailing app and bus service in cities across the globe. Twenty months later, the Dubai-based company's shares have dropped more than 99%. Its roughly $9 million market value is a shadow of the billion-dollar-plus valuation that once gave it so-called unicorn status.

A deal to buy Turkish transit company Volt Lines largely using Swvl shares fell apart in January. Once trumpeted by Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum as a symbol of the Middle East's startup spirit, Swvl Holdings has become another example of tech-sector overreach -- and how quickly investor money dried up once superlow interest rates went away. It also shows the perils of trying to build a business that straddles emerging markets vulnerable to currency shocks as the dollar rises. Swvl was co-founded in Cairo in 2017 by former Rocket Internet SE executive Mostafa Kandil along with Ahmed Sabbah and Mahmoud Nouh. The trio started the company as a solution for commuters who didn't want to rely on public transit but couldn't pay a premium for ride-share services. Their idea: buses and vans running along routes that users could book a ride on with an app.
Crime

YouTuber Sentenced To Over 5 Years and Ordered To Forfeit $30 Million in Large-Scale Cable Piracy Case (inquirer.com) 72

Posted by msmash from the end-of-road dept.
A YouTube star who built a sizable following with slickly produced videos flaunting his fleet of luxury and sports cars, collection of diamond-encrusted bling, and his spacious Swedesboro home will be forced to give up nearly all of it after he was sentenced Tuesday to 5 and a half years in prison for the illegal business that allowed him to amass those trappings of success. From a report: Bill Omar Carrasquillo -- better known to his more than 800,000 online followers as "Omi in a Hellcat" -- pleaded guilty last year to running one of the most brazen and successful cable TV piracy schemes ever prosecuted by the U.S. government. As part of his sentencing Tuesday, he was ordered to forfeit more than $30 million in assets, including nearly $6 million in cash; cars including Lamborghinis, Porsches, Bentleys, and McLarens; and a portfolio of more than a dozen properties he'd amassed across Philadelphia and its suburbs.

"Thirty million dollars is a lot of money [but] tangible objects aren't everything," U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III said in announcing the punishment during a hearing in federal court. "You have a large following and there may be people who think if you can get away with it, they can too." Carrasquillo, 36, apologized to his family, his employees, and the cable companies he'd cheated through his business, which illegally sold content hijacked from cable boxes to thousands of online subscribers paying fees as low as $15 a month. "I really didn't know the significance of this crime until I was picked up [by the FBI] at my home," he said. "I feel like I let everybody down." But while prosecutors described Carrasquillo's crimes -- which included counts of conspiracy, copyright infringement, fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion -- as serious, much of Tuesday's hearing focused on Carrasquillo's remarkable rags-to-riches story.
Medicine

Moderna CEO Defends Pricing Plans for Covid-19 Shot (wsj.com) 128

Posted by msmash from the back-and-forth dept.
Moderna Chief Executive Stephane Bancel pushed back against criticism of the company's pricing plans for its Covid-19 vaccine at Wall Street Journal Health Forum. From the report: U.S. politicians including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Peter Welch (D., Vt.) have questioned the company's strategy around commercial pricing, which could be unveiled in the coming months. Moderna received funding from the U.S. government related to development of its Covid-19 vaccine. The chief executive said the company's mRNA platform was funded by investors, not the government, and the public funding accelerated development of the vaccine. "We didn't get a penny,â Mr. Bancel said of Moderna's fundraising efforts, adding that the company unsuccessfully sought funding in the first half of 2020 from countries and foundations to help with manufacturing. He said a company plant was built before the pandemic by private funding.

Moderna has said it is considering pricing its Covid-19 vaccine in a range of $110 to $130 a dose in the U.S. when it shifts from government contracting to commercial distribution of the shots. Mr. Bancel on Monday declined to say what the price will be. He said the company has plans so that the vaccine won't cost anything to individuals. After promising early-stage data of the shot came out, Moderna raised money, which it put toward manufacturing doses of the vaccine, still without knowing whether it would work, Mr. Bancel said. The company worked with suppliers to increase manufacturing, he said.
The Internet

ADHD Startups Are Exploding, and Now There's Even a Dedicated Browser (techcrunch.com) 98

Posted by BeauHD from the does-this-get-your-attention dept.
Mike Butcher writes via TechCrunch: SidekickWas it the pandemic? Did everyone follow too many ADHD TikTokers? Have smartphones fried our brains? Whatever the case, there is a boom in ADHD tech solutions, from online drug deliveries to web sites and apps. [...] Now there is a Sidekick, who's pitch is that it's a "productivity browser." Today it's launching a host of features geared to ADHD sufferers and the attention distracted more generally. The company claims users with ADHD noticed a "significant improvement" after using the browser. The Chromium-based browser was founded by Dmitry Pushkarev (a Stanford PhD in Molecular Biology, ex-Amazon exec and ADHDer).

So how does it work? To nullify distractions, the browser incorporates AdBlock 2.0; a Focus Mode Timer disables all sounds, badges and notifications for a selected time or indefinitely; a Task Manager organizes your day; and there's a built-in Pomodoro timer; it also claims to run 3x faster than Chrome, which, apparently, is important for ADHD sufferers. Suffice it to say, it has a number of other distraction-killing features; however, I'm not going to list them all here.

CEO and founder Dmitry Pushkarev said, in a statement, "Modern browsers are not designed for work, but for consuming web pages. This gap really hurts hundreds of millions of users. We are convinced that lowering web distraction reduces anxiety and increases the quality of people's work and the quality of their lives." He says the startup plans to make money via corporate subscribers, who will pay to get their ADHD-afflicted workers into a more productive mode.
United States

Biden's FCC Nominee Withdraws Name (thehill.com) 102

Posted by msmash from the tough-luck dept.
President Biden's nominee to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) withdrew her name Tuesday after two years of partisan gridlock delayed her confirmation, the White House confirmed. From a report: "We appreciate Gigi Sohn's candidacy for this important role. She would have brought tremendous talent, intellect and experience, which is why the president nominated her in the first place," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a briefing. "We also appreciate her dedication to public service, her talent and her years of work as one of the nation's leading public advocates on behalf of American consumers and competition," she added.

In a statement, Sohn said she asked Biden to withdraw her nomination after discussions with her family and "careful consideration." She said the "unrelenting, dishonest and cruel attacks" on her character and career from cable and media lobbyists "have taken an enormous toll on me and my family. It is a sad day for our country and our democracy when dominant industries, with assistance from unlimited dark money, get to choose their regulators. And with the help of their friends in the Senate, the powerful cable and media companies have done just that."
AI

Sceptical Investors Worry Whether Advances in AI Will Make Money (ft.com) 46

Posted by msmash from the tussle-continues dept.
Silicon Valley VCs fearing a repeat of falling crypto values warn against pouring cash into hype-fuelled start-ups. From a report: Gordon Ritter, founder of San Francisco-based venture fund Emergence Capital, believes that recent developments in the field of artificial intelligence represent a significant technological advance. He just cannot see a way to make money out of them. "Everyone has stars in their eyes about what could happen," says Ritter, whose firm was an early investor in successful start ups such as Zoom. "There's a flow [of opinion that AI] will do everything. We're going against that flow." The scepticism reflects a tension among Silicon Valley VCs, who are caught between excitement over AI and a broader tech downturn that has led to falling investment in start-ups over the past year. But the recent launch of "generative AI" tools such as OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot, capable of answering complex questions with text in natural-sounding language, has resulted in fresh excitement over the potential emergence of a new group of industry-defining companies.

[...] Many VCs express caution, put off not only by eye-watering valuations, but also the huge amount of capital AI groups require as they build "foundation models" -- machine-learning systems that require huge amounts of data and computing power to operate. One investor said that, because of the huge amount of capital and computing resources required, recent leaps in generative AI were comparable to landing on the moon: a massively impressive technical achievement, only replicable by those with nation-state level wealth. "Companies are extremely overvalued and the only justifiable investment thesis is to get in incredibly early," said another veteran investor. "Otherwise you're only buying in because of FOMO."
The Internet

Roku Doesn't Support IPv6 and It Might Be a Big Deal (daringfireball.net) 121

Posted by BeauHD from the fading-into-obscurity dept.
As highlighted by Daring Fireball's John Gruber, Roku doesn't support IPv6 -- a next-gen Internet Protocol standard intended to eventually replace IPv4, the protocol many Internet services (including Roku) still use today. "DingleBog3899" writes on the Roku community forum: I work for a Native American tribe in the PNW. We scrambled to get the reservation reliable internet in the later part of 2019. We managed to cover most of the reservation with wi-max and wifi with a fiber back haul configuration. We are now slowly getting more stable and reliable fiber to the home(FttH) service installed to as many homes as we can, but it is slow process covering the mostly rural landscape doing all the work in house. Our tribal network started out IPv6, but soon learned we had to somehow support IPv4 only traffic. It took almost 11 months in order to get a small amount of IPv4 addresses allocated for this use. In fact there were only enough addresses to cover maybe 1% of population. So we were forced to create a very expensive proxy/translation server in order to support this traffic.

We learned a very expensive lesson. 71% of the IPv4 traffic we were supporting was from Roku devices. 9% coming from DishNetwork & DirectTV satellite tuners, 11% from HomeSecurity cameras and systems, and remaining 9% we replaced extremely outdated Point of Sale (POS) equipment. So we cut Roku some slack three years ago by spending a little over $300k just to support their devices. First off I despise both Apple and that other evil empire (house of mouse) I want nothing to do with either of them. Now with that said I am one of four individuals that suggested and lobbied 15 other tribal nations to offer a new AppleTV device in exchange for active Roku devices. Other nations are facing the same dilemma. Spend an exorbitant amount of money to support a small amount of antiquated devices or replace the problem devices at fraction of the cost. "Now if Roku cannot be proactive at keeping up with connectivity standards they are going to be wiped out by their own complacency," adds DingleBob3899. "Judging by the growing number of offers to replace their devices for free their competitors are already proactively exploiting that complacency. When we approached Apple to see about a discount to purchase a large number of their devices, for the exchange, they eagerly offered to supply their devices for free."
AI

Amazon's Big Dreams for Alexa Fall Short (ft.com) 58

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
It has been more than a decade since Jeff Bezos excitedly sketched out his vision for Alexa on a whiteboard at Amazon's headquarters. His voice assistant would help do all manner of tasks, such as shop online, control gadgets, or even read kids a bedtime story. But the Amazon founder's grand vision of a new computing platform controlled by voice has fallen short. From a report: As hype in the tech world turns feverishly to generative AI as the "next big thing," the moment has caused many to ask hard questions of the previous "next big thing" -- the much-lauded voice assistants from Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft and others. A "grow grow grow" culture described by one former Amazon Alexa marketing executive has now shifted to a more intense focus on how the device can help the ecommerce giant make money. "If you have anything you can do that you might be able to directly monetise, you should do it," was the recent diktat from Amazon leaders, according to one current employee on the Alexa team.

Under new chief executive Andy Jassy's tenure this change of focus has resulted in significant lay-offs in Amazon's Alexa team late last year as executives scrutinise the product's direct contribution to the company's bottom line. The belt-tightening came as part of broader cuts that have seen the ecommerce giant slash 18,000 jobs across the group amid pressure to improve profits during a global tech downturn. At Microsoft, whose chief executive Satya Nadella declared in 2016 that "bots are the new apps," it is now acknowledged that voice assistants, including its own Cortana, did not live up to the hype. "They were all dumb as a rock," Nadella told the Financial Times last month. "Whether it's Cortana or Alexa or Google Assistant or Siri, all these just don't work. We had a product that was supposed to be the new front-end to a lot of [information] that didn't work." Nadella can afford to be blunt: Microsoft's recent introduction of AI chatbot ChatGPT to its Bing search engine means the company is now seen as a leader in the field, having previously been mostly forgotten by the majority of internet users. ChatGPT's ability to understand complex instructions left existing voice assistants looking comparatively stupid, said Adam Cheyer, the co-creator of Siri, the voice assistant acquired by Apple in 2010 and introduced to the iPhone a year later.
Government

Texts from Binance Reveal Plan to Elude US Authorities (livemint.com) 78

Posted by EditorDavid from the made-in-China dept.
Reuters writes: Binance, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, developed a plan to avoid the threat of prosecution by U.S. authorities as it started an American entity in 2019, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.
The Wall Street Journal reports: Any lawsuit from U.S. regulators would be like "nuclear fall out" for Binance's business and its officers, a Binance executive warned colleagues in a 2019 private chat. Worried about the threat of prosecution, Binance set out on a plan to neutralize U.S. authorities, according to messages and documents from 2018 to 2020 reviewed by The Wall Street Journal as well as interviews with former employees.

The strategy centered on building a bare-bones American platform, Binance.US, that would license Binance's technology and brand but otherwise appear to be wholly independent of Binance.com. It would shield from U.S. regulators' scrutiny the larger Binance.com exchange, which would exclude U.S. users. But Binance and Binance.US have been much more intertwined than the companies have disclosed, mixing staff and finances and sharing an affiliated entity that bought and sold cryptocurrencies, according to the interviews and the messages and documents reviewed by the Journal. Binance developers in China maintained the software code supporting Binance.US users' digital wallets, potentially giving Binance access to U.S. customer data.

If U.S. regulators conclude that these links mean Binance has control over a U.S. company, they could claim the power to police Binance's entire business, which, to many investors, has been a black box since the start. This would also put Binance's billionaire founder and chief executive, Changpeng Zhao, and his finances under closer scrutiny.... Developers in Shanghai maintained key software functions at Binance.US at least through the summer of 2021, the Journal has reported. The Shanghai developers' contracts were with Binance, not with the U.S. platform, according to a person familiar with the agreements.
The Almighty Buck

Netflix Fights Attempt To Make Streaming Firms Pay For ISP Network Upgrades 38

Posted by BeauHD from the greedy-ISPs dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters spoke out against a European proposal to make streaming providers and other online firms pay for ISPs' network upgrades. "Some of our ISP partners have proposed taxing entertainment companies to subsidize their network infrastructure," Peters said in a speech Tuesday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (transcript). The "tax would have an adverse effect, reducing investment in content -- hurting the creative community, hurting the attractiveness of higher-priced broadband packages, and ultimately hurting consumers," he argued. [...] "ISPs claim that these taxes would only apply to Netflix. But this will inevitably change over time as broadcasters shift from linear to streaming," Peters said at MWC. Sandvine data suggests that nearly half of global Internet traffic is sent by Facebook, Amazon, Google, Apple, Netflix, and Microsoft. Online video accounts for 65 percent of all traffic, and Netflix recently passed YouTube as the top video-traffic generator.

Peters cited Nielsen data showing that "Netflix accounts for under 10 percent of total TV time" in the US and UK while "traditional local broadcasters account for over half of all TV time." Live sports account for much of that. "As broadcasters continue the shift away from linear to streaming, they will start to generate significant amounts of Internet traffic too -- even more than streamers today based on the current scope and scale of their audiences," Peters said. "Broadband customers, who drive this increased usage, already pay for the development of the network through their subscription fees. Requiring entertainment companies -- both streamers and broadcasters -- to pay more on top would mean ISPs effectively charging twice for the same infrastructure." Telcos that receive new payments wouldn't be expected to lower the prices charged to home Internet users, Peters said. "As the consumer group BEUC has pointed out, there is no suggestion these levies would be passed onto consumers in the form of 'lower prices or better infrastructure,'" he said.

Peters said Netflix's "operating margins are significantly lower than either British Telecom or Deutsche Telekom. So we could just as easily argue that network operators should compensate entertainment companies for the cost of our content -- exactly as happened under the old pay-TV model." While telcos claim companies like Netflix don't pay their "fair share," Peters pointed out that Netflix has spent a lot building its own network that reduces the amount of data sent over traditional telecom networks. "We've spent over $1 billion on Open Connect, our own content delivery network, which we offer for free to ISPs," he said. "This includes 18,000 servers with Netflix content distributed across 6,000 locations and 175 countries. So when our members press play, instead of the film or TV show being streamed from halfway around the world, it's streamed from around the corner -- increasing efficiency for operators while also ensuring a high-quality, no-lag experience for consumers." Peters also touted Netflix's encoding technology that cut bit rates in half between 2015 and 2020. While Internet traffic has increased about 30 percent a year, "ISPs have managed this increased consumer usage efficiently while their costs have remained stable," Peters said. "Regulators have highlighted this, too, calling out that infrastructure costs are not sensitive to traffic and that growing consumption will be offset by efficiency gains."
Businesses

Amazon Pauses Construction On 2nd Headquarters In Virginia (apnews.com) 6

Posted by BeauHD from the cost-cutting-measures dept.
Amazon is pausing construction of its second headquarters in Virginia following the biggest round of layoffs in the company's history and its shifting plans around remote work. The Associated Press reports: The Seattle-based company is delaying the beginning of construction of PenPlace, the second phase of its headquarters development in northern Virginia, Amazon's real estate chief John Schoettler said in a statement. He said the company has already hired more than 8,000 employees and will welcome them to the Met Park campus, the first phase of development, when it opens this June. "We're always evaluating space plans to make sure they fit our business needs and to create a great experience for employees, and since Met Park will have space to accommodate more than 14,000 employees, we've decided to shift the groundbreaking of PenPlace (the second phase of HQ2) out a bit," Schoettler said.

He also emphasized the company remains "committed to Arlington" and the local region, which Amazon picked -- along with New York City -- to be the site of its new headquarters, known as HQ2, several years ago. More than 230 municipalities had initially competed to house the projects. New York won the competition by promising nearly $3 billion in tax breaks and grants, among other benefits, but opposition from local politicians, labor leaders and progressive activists led Amazon to scrap its plans there. In February 2021, Amazon said it would build an eye-catching, 350-foot Helix tower to anchor the second phase of its redevelopment plans in Arlington. The new office towers were expected to welcome more than 25,000 workers when complete. Amazon spokesperson Zach Goldsztejn said those plans haven't changed and the construction pause is not a result -- or indicative of -- the company's latest job cuts, which affected 18,000 corporate employees.

Goldsztejn said the company is expecting to move forward with what he called pre-construction work on the construction in Virginia later this year, including applying for permits. He said final timing for the second phase of the project is still being determined. [...] Suzanne Clark, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, said state officials are not concerned about Amazon filling its commitments. The total of 8,000 workers now employed at the new headquarters is already running about 3,000 ahead of what was expected at this point, she said. She said no incentive money has been paid out yet to Amazon.
Businesses

Crypto Companies Behind Tether Used Falsified Documents and Shell Companies To Get Bank Accounts (wsj.com) 30

Posted by msmash from the more-you-know dept.
In late 2018, the companies behind the most widely traded cryptocurrency were struggling to maintain their access to the global banking system. Some of their backers turned to shadowy intermediaries, falsified documents and shell companies to get back in, documents show. WSJ: One of those intermediaries, a major tether trader in China, was trying to "circumvent the banking system by providing fake sales invoices and contracts for each deposit and withdrawal," Stephen Moore, one of the owners of Tether Holdings, said in an email viewed by The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Moore said it was too risky to continue using the fake sales invoices and contracts, which he had signed, and recommended they abandon the efforts to open the accounts, the emails show. "I would not want to argue any of the above in a potential fraud/money laundering case," he wrote.

Tether runs tether, the $71 billion stablecoin that is the most widely traded cryptocurrency, and a sister company runs Bitfinex, one of the world's largest crypto exchanges. Losing access to the banking system was "an existential threat" to their business, the companies said in a lawsuit. A cache of emails and documents reviewed by the Journal show a long-running effort to stay connected to the financial system. The companies often hid their identities behind other businesses or individuals. Using third parties occasionally caused problems, including hundreds of millions of dollars of seized assets and connections to a designated terrorist organization. Tether has been under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department, according to a person familiar with the matter. The investigation has been overseen by the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office.
United Kingdom

UK Now Seen As 'Toxic' For Satellite Launches, MPs Told (theguardian.com) 72

Posted by BeauHD from the change-of-plans dept.
Britain's failed attempt to send satellites into orbit was a "disaster" and MPs are being urged to redirect funding to hospitals, with the country now seen as "toxic" for future launches. The Guardian reports: Senior figures at the Welsh company Space Forge, which lost a satellite when Virgin Orbit's Start Me Up mission failed to reach orbit, said a "seismic change" was needed for the UK to be appealing for space missions. Lengthy delays by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), as well as the launch failure, had left Space Forge six months behind its competition in the race to be the first company to bring a satellite back down to Earth, when it had been six months ahead, the science and technology committee heard.

Patrick McCall, a non-executive director at Space Forge, said: "The CAA is taking a different approach to risk, and a bit to process and timing as well. But I think unless there is, without wanting to be too dramatic, a seismic change in that approach, the UK is not going to be competitive from a launch perspective. I think the conclusion I've reached is right now it's not a good use of money, because our regulatory framework is not competitive." He added that the UK ought to consider spending the money it was investing in launch capability on other areas, such as hospitals.

Greg Clark, the chair of the committee, said it was a "disaster" that an attempt to show what the UK was capable of had turned "toxic for a privately funded launch." "We had the first attempted launch but the result is that you as an investor in space are saying there is no chance of investors supporting another launch from the UK with the current regulator conditions." Dan Hart, the CEO of Virgin Orbit, told MPs he had expected the CAA to work more similarly to the Federal Aviation Authority in the US but he had found the UK regulator more conservative. The company has since ended its contract with Spaceport Cornwall at Newquay airport but said it was still hoping to launch from the site in the future. Sir Stephen Hillier, the chair of the CAA, said: "Our primary duty is to ensure that the space activity in the UK is conducted safely. The CAA licensed in advance of technical readiness."
Biotech

US Regulators Rejected Neuralink's Bid To Test Brain Chips In Humans, Citing Safety Risks (reuters.com) 68

Posted by BeauHD from the safety-first dept.
According to Reuters, Elon Musk's medical device company, Neuralink, was denied permission last year to begin human trials of a revolutionary brain implant to treat intractable conditions such as paralysis and blindness. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) outlined dozens of issues the company must address before human testing can begin, according to seven current and former employees. From the report: The agency's major safety concerns involved the device's lithium battery; the potential for the implant's tiny wires to migrate to other areas of the brain; and questions over whether and how the device can be removed without damaging brain tissue, the employees said. A year after the rejection, Neuralink is still working through the agency's concerns. Three staffers said they were skeptical the company could quickly resolve the issues -- despite Musk's latest prediction at a Nov. 30 presentation that the company would secure FDA human-trial approval this spring.

Neuralink has not disclosed details of its trial application, the FDA's rejection or the extent of the agency's concerns. As a private company, it is not required to disclose such regulatory interactions to investors. During the hours-long November presentation, Musk said the company had submitted "most of our paperwork" to the agency, without specifying any formal application, and Neuralink officials acknowledged the FDA had asked safety questions in what they characterized as an ongoing conversation. Such FDA rejections do not mean a company will ultimately fail to gain the agency's human-testing approval. But the agency's pushback signals substantial concerns, according to more than a dozen experts in FDA device-approval processes.

The rejection also raises the stakes and the difficulty of the company's subsequent requests for trial approval, the experts said. The FDA says it has approved about two-thirds of all human-trial applications for devices on the first attempt over the past three years. That total rose to 85% of all requests after a second review. But firms often give up after three attempts to resolve FDA concerns rather than invest more time and money in expensive research, several of the experts said. Companies that do secure human-testing approval typically conduct at least two rounds of trials before applying for FDA approval to commercially market a device.
Bitcoin

Bank May Go Bust Due To FTX Collapse (cnn.com) 39

Posted by BeauHD from the FTX-fallout dept.
Longtime Slashdot reader smooth wombat writes: Late Wednesday night, Silvergate Capital informed the SEC it won't be able to file its annual report on time, and is determining if it can continue to operate. Unlike most traditional banks which have steered clear of crypto, Silvergate is a dominant lender to the crypto industry.

The La Jolla, California-based bank reported a $1 billion loss for the fourth quarter as investors panicked over the collapse of FTX, the exchange founded by Sam Bankman-Fried that is now at the center of a massive federal fraud investigation.

FTX's collapse in November rippled through the digital asset sector, forcing several firms to halt operations and even declare bankruptcy as liquidity dried up and investors fled. But unlike FTX, BlockFi, Celsius, Voyager and other crypto companies that folded last year, Silvergate is a traditional, federally-insured lender that has positioned itself as a gateway to the crypto sector. Coinbase, the largest U.S. crypto exchange, severed ties with Silvergate. The company tweeted: "Out of an abundance of caution, Coinbase is no longer accepting or initiating payments to or from Silvergate."

Galaxy Digital, a crypto financial services company, issued a similar statement: "In light of recent developments, Galaxy has stopped accepting or initiating transfers to Silvergate. As a firm, we continue to have no material exposure to Silvergate, and this action was taken out of an abundance of caution."
News

Free Weebly Legacy Plans With Custom Domains Are Being Discontinued. Now Pay Up. (weebly.com) 23

Posted by FirehoseFavorites from the like-tears-in-the-rain dept.
mmiscool writes: Email notices went out today to legacy users of Weebly's free web site hosting service. In the early days of Weebly (before being gobbled up a credit card processing company only concerned about money) you could create a very basic web site for free and point your own custom domain at Weebly to have a relatively painless web site. Now there were lots of add-ons and extra features you could pay for like shopping carts or interactive forms but you were never required to pay for the basic web hosting. Over the years they stopped allowing new sites to be registered using the free option but they did continue to honor the old legacy free plans for existing users. That ends now. An email sent out today to legacy site holders reads

This is an official notification from the Weebly account team in regards to the account under this email address. You currently have a free Weebly website published on a custom domain (or vanity URL) and are not subscribed to a paid Weebly hosting plan. As of March 28, 2023, sites connected to custom domains are required to have a Weebly hosting service plan to remain published. What does this mean for you? To keep your site published on a custom domain, you will need to purchase a paid Weebly service plan subscription. If you take no action and choose to remain on a free Weebly plan, your account information and all associated site content will remain intact and accessible to you within Editor, but your site will be unpublished on March 28, 2023 and will no longer be visible to visitors or connected to your custom domain. You will need to republish your site on a free Weebly subdomain to make it publicly visible again (ex: my-name.weebly.com).

Message received. Pay up or else.
Crime

FTX Ex-Engineering Chief Nishad Singh Pleads Guilty To Criminal Charges (cnbc.com) 19

Posted by BeauHD from the latest-developments dept.
FTX ex-engineering head Nishad Singh pleaded guilty to criminal charges in New York on Tuesday, becoming the latest member of Sam Bankman-Fried's former leadership team to agree to a deal. CNBC reports: The six charges against Singh include conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws. FTX spiraled into bankruptcy in November after the crypto exchange, founded by Bankman-Fried, couldn't meet customers' withdrawal demands.

"Today's guilty plea underscores once again that the crimes at FTX were vast in scope and consequence," Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement. "They rocked our financial markets with a multibillion dollar fraud. And they corrupted our politics with tens of millions of dollars in illegal straw campaign contributions. These crimes demand swift and certain justice and that is exactly what we are seeking in the Southern District of New York."

The Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission both filed related civil complaints against Singh on Tuesday. The SEC said in a release that Singh is cooperating with the agency's ongoing investigation, and he has separately agreed to settle with the CFTC. Two of the criminal charges against Singh are related to wire fraud and another is conspiracy to commit commodities fraud.
Piracy

Amazon Removes Books From Kindle Unlimited After They Appear On Pirate Sites (torrentfreak.com) 74

Posted by BeauHD from the authors-caught-in-the-middle dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Several independent publishers have had their books removed from Kindle Unlimited because they breached an exclusivity agreement with Amazon. The actions of the book giant are covered by the mutually agreed terms. However, in many cases, it's not the authors who breached the agreement, but pirate sites who copied them, as pirates do. [...] Over the past few weeks, several authors complained that Amazon had removed their books from Kindle Unlimited because they violated their agreement. The piracy angle is front and center, raising plenty of questions and uncertainty.

Raven Kennedy, known for The Plated Prisoner Series, took her frustration to Instagram earlier this month. The author accused Amazon of sending repeated "threats". This eventually resulted in the removal of her books from Kindle Unlimited, ostensibly because these were listed on pirate sites. "Copyright infringement is outside of my control. Even though I pay a lot of money to a company to file takedown notices on my behalf, and am constantly checking the web for pirated versions, I can't keep up with all the intellectual theft. "And rather than support and help their authors, Amazon threatens me. The ironic thing is, these pirates are getting the files FROM Amazon," Kennedy added. A similar experience was shared by Carissa Broadbent, author of The War of Lost Hearts Trilogy. Again, Amazon removed a book from Kindle Unlimited for an issue that the author can't do much about. "A few hours ago, I got a stomach-dropping email from [Amazon] that Children of Fallen Gods had been removed from the Kindle store with zero warning, because of content 'freely available on the web' -- IE, piracy that I do not have any control over," Broadbent noted.

These and other authors received broad support from their readers, and sympathy from the general public. A Change.org petition launched in response has collected nearly 35,000 signatures to date, with new ones still coming in. Author Marlow Locker started the petition to send a wake-up call to Amazon. According to her, Amazon should stand behind its authors instead of punishing them for the fact that complete strangers have decided to pirate their books. Most authors will gladly comply with the exclusivity requirements, but only as far as this lies within their control. Piracy clearly isn't, especially when it happens on an almost industrial scale. "Currently, many automated systems use Amazon as a place to copy the e-files that they use for their free websites. It's completely absurd that the same company turns around and punishes an author by removing their book from KDP Select," the petition reads. From the commentary seen online, several authors have been able to resolve their issues with Amazon. And indeed, the books of Broadbent and Kennedy appear to be back online. That said, the exclusivity policy remains in place. Amazon notes that the books removed from Kindle Unlimited still remain for sale on Amazon's regular store. They also stress that authors are issued a warning with an extended timeline to try and resolve the issue before any action is taken.

"The problem is, of course, that individual authors can't stop piracy," adds TorrentFreak. "If it was that easy, most authors would be happy to do so. However, if billion-dollar publishing companies and the U.S. Government can't stop it, Amazon can't expect independent authors to 'resolve' the matter either."
Security

LinkedIn Scammers Step Up Sophistication of Online Attacks (ft.com) 22

Posted by msmash from the PSA dept.
LinkedIn has been hit by a rise in sophisticated recruitment scams, as fraudsters seek to take advantage of the trend towards remote working and widespread lay-offs across the tech sector. From a report: Jobseekers on the world's largest professional network are being defrauded out of money after taking part in fake recruitment processes set up by scammers who pose as employers, before obtaining personal and financial information. "There's certainly an increase in the sophistication of the attacks and the cleverness," Oscar Rodriguez, vice-president of product management at LinkedIn told the Financial Times "We see websites being set up, we see phone numbers with a seemingly professional operator picking up the phone and answering on the company's behalf. We see a move to more sophisticated deception," he added.

The warning comes as the Microsoft-owned social media company said it has sought to block tens of millions of fake accounts in recent months, while US regulators warn of an increase in jobs-related cons. Last month, cyber security company Zscaler revealed a scam that targeted jobseekers and a dozen US companies, where fraudsters approached people through LinkedIn's direct messaging feature InMail. Scammers identified businesses that were already hiring, including enterprise software company Zuora, software developer Intellectsoft and Zscaler itself. They then created "lookalike" websites with similar job ads and, via LinkedIn's InMail feature, invited jobseekers to enter personal information into the websites, before conducting remote interviews via Skype.

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