Senators are still concerned social networks aren't doing enough to protect children. The Washington Postreports Senators Marsha Blackburn and Richard Blumenthal have introduced a bill, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), that would give kids more control over their privacy and safety on social media while setting stricter guidelines for the companies in question.
Most notably, social media firms would have to give children under 16 tools to protect their data, turn off "addictive" features and bow out of algorithm-based recommendations. The "strongest settings" would have to be enabled by default, according to the bill. Parents would also get controls to help pinpoint harmful behavior, while both camps would receive a dedicated channel for reporting those harms affecting children.
Social networks, meanwhile, would have to "prevent and mitigate" exposure to inappropriate content, including self-harm, eating disorders, sexual exploitation and alcohol. They would also have to conduct yearly independent audits of their KOSA compliance and the risks to children. Similarly, the social sites would have to turn over "critical datasets" to academic and public interest researchers hoping to study child safety.
The bill is effectively a response to months of inquiries into tech giants' handling of child safety, with a particular focus on the testimony of Facebook (now Meta) whistleblower Frances Haugen. She called on the company to make multiple changes to protect children, including an end to algorithmic ranking, opening up its research and modifying the Communications Decency Act's Section 230 for more accountability. Senators also asked Instagram head Adam Mosseri to testify after concerns Meta might not have told the truth about hiding research into harmful effects on children.
We've asked Meta for comment. It has made changes in response to calls for greater child protections, including offers to share data and teen safety features like screen time tracking, break reminders and bulk content deletion.
There are no guarantees KOSA will pass the Senate, let alone become law. It would join existing legislation that includes COPPA, which protects internet privacy for children under 13. The bipartisan nature of the bill may help, though. Blumenthal is also tenacious in attempts to curb harmful online behavior. This is the second bill tackling Big Tech that Blumenthal has introduced in recent weeks, after reintroducing the controversial EARN IT Act.
A recent batch of SpaceX’s Starlink internet-beaming cubesats met with tragedy on February 3rd when a 49-member cohort of the newly-launched satellites encountered a strong geomagnetic storm in orbit.
“These storms cause the atmosphere to warm and atmospheric density at our low deployment altitudes to increase. In fact, onboard GPS suggests the escalation speed and severity of the storm caused atmospheric drag to increase up to 50 percent higher than during previous launches,” SpaceX wrote in a blog update last Wednesday. “The Starlink team commanded the satellites into a safe-mode where they would fly edge-on (like a sheet of paper) to minimize drag.” Unfortunately, 40 of the satellites never came out of safe mode and, as of Wednesday’s announcement, are expected to, if they haven’t already, fall to their doom in Earth’s atmosphere.
The NOAA defines geomagnetic storms as “a major disturbance of Earth's magnetosphere that occurs when there is a very efficient exchange of energy from the solar wind into the space environment surrounding Earth.” Solar winds, composed of plasma and high-energy particles, are ejected from the Sun’s outermost coronal layers and carry the same charge as the sun’s magnetic field, oriented either North or South.
When that charged solar wind hits Earth’s magnetosphere — moreso if it is especially energetic or carries a southern polarization — it can cause magnetic reconnection of the dayside magnetopause. This, in turn, accelerates plasma in that region down the atmosphere’s magnetic field lines towards the planet’s poles where the added energy excites nitrogen and oxygen atoms to generate the Northern Lights aurora effect. That extra energy also causes the magnetosphere itself to oscillate, creating electrical currents which further disrupt the region’s magnetic fields — all of which make up magnetic storms.
“Storms also result in intense currents in the magnetosphere, changes in the radiation belts, and changes in the ionosphere, including heating the ionosphere and upper atmosphere region called the thermosphere,” notes the NOAA. “In space, a ring of westward current around Earth produces magnetic disturbances on the ground.”
Basically, when the Sun belches out a massive blast of solar wind, it travels through space and smacks into the Earth’s magnetic shell where all that energy infuses into the planet’s magnetic field, causing electrical chaos while making a bunch of atoms in the upper reaches of the atmosphere jiggle in just the right way to create a light show. Behold, the majesty of our cosmos, the celestial equivalent of waving away a wet burp from the slob next to you at the bar.
Solar flares occur with varying frequency depending on where the Sun is in its 11-year solar cycle with fewer than one happening each week during solar minimums to multiple flares daily during the maximal period. Their intensities oscillate similarly, though if the electromagnetic storm of 1859 — the largest such event on record, dubbed the Carrington Event — were to occur today, its damage to Earth’s satellite and telecom systems is estimated to run in the trillions of US dollars, requiring months if not years of repairs to undo. The event pushed the Northern aurora borealis as far south as the Caribbean and energized telegraph lines to the point of combustion. A similar storm in March of 1989 was only as third as powerful as Carrington but it still managed to straight up melt an electrical transformer in New Jersey as well as knock out Quebec’s power grid in a matter of seconds, stranding 6 million customers in the dark for nine hours until the system’s equipment could be sequentially checked and reset.
"A worst-case solar storm could have an economic impact similar to a category 5 hurricane or a tsunami," Dr. Sten Odenwald of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said in 2017. "There are more than 900 working satellites with an estimated replacement value of $170 billion to $230 billion, supporting a $90 billion-per-year industry. One scenario showed a 'superstorm' costing as much as $70 billion due to a combination of lost satellites, service loss, and profit loss."
Most importantly to SpaceX, solar storms can increase the amount of drag the upper edges of the atmosphere exert upon passing spacecraft. There isn’t much atmosphere in low Earth orbit where the ISS and a majority of satellites reside but there is enough to cause a noticeable amount of drag on passing objects. This drag increases during daylight hours as the Sun’s energy excites atoms in lower regions of the atmosphere pushing them higher into LEO and creating a higher-density layer that satellites have to push through. Geomagnetic storms can exacerbate this effect by producing large short-term increases in the upper atmosphere’s temperature and density.
NOAA
“There are only two natural disasters that could impact the entire US,” University of Michigan researcher, Gabor Toth, said in a press statement last August. “One is a pandemic. And the other is an extreme space weather event.”
"We have all these technological assets that are at risk," he continued. "If an extreme event like the one in 1859 happened again, it would completely destroy the power grid and satellite and communications systems — the stakes are much higher."
Austin Brenner, University of Michigan
In order to extend the time between a solar eruption and its resulting winds slamming into our magnetosphere, Toth and his team have worked to develop the Geospace Model version 2.0 (which is what the NOAA currently employs) using state-of-the-art computer learning systems and statistical analysis schemes. With it, astronomers and power grid operators are afforded a scant 30 minutes of advanced warning before solar winds reach the planet — just enough time to put vital electrical systems into standby mode or otherwise mitigate the storm’s impact.
Toth’s team relies on X-ray and UV data “from a satellite measuring plasma parameters one million miles away from the Earth,” he explained, in order to spot coronal mass ejections as they happen. “From that point, we can run a model and predict the arrival time and impact of magnetic events," Toth said.
NASA has developed and launched a number of missions in recent years to better predict the tumultuous behavior of our local star. In 2006, for example, the space agency launched the STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) mission in which a pair of observatories measured the “flow of energy and matter” from the Sun to Earth. Currently, NASA is working on two more missions — Multi-slit Solar Explorer (MUSE) and HelioSwarm — to more fully understand the Sun-Earth connection.
“MUSE and HelioSwarm will provide new and deeper insight into the solar atmosphere and space weather,” Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA, said in a February news release. “These missions not only extend the science of our other heliophysics missions—they also provide a unique perspective and a novel approach to understanding the mysteries of our star.”
MUSE aims to study the forces that heat the corona and drive eruptions in that solar layer. “MUSE will help us fill crucial gaps in knowledge pertaining to the Sun-Earth connection,” Nicola Fox, director of NASA’s Heliophysics Division, added. “It will provide more insight into space weather and complements a host of other missions within the heliophysics mission fleet.”
The HelioSwarm, on the other hand, is actually a collection of nine spacecraft tasked with taking “first multiscale in-space measurements of fluctuations in the magnetic field and motions of the solar wind.”
"The technical innovation of HelioSwarm's small satellites operating together as a constellation provides the unique ability to investigate turbulence and its evolution in the solar wind," Peg Luce, deputy director of the Heliophysics Division, said.
These ongoing research efforts to better comprehend our place in the solar system and how to be neighborly with the massive nuclear fusion reactor down the celestial block are sure to prove vital as humanity’s telecommunications technologies continue to mature. Because, no matter how hardened our systems, we simply cannot afford a repeat of 1859.
The existing Privacy Sandbox is itself a set of proposals that would eventually grow into a set of open standards Google hopes the industry will adopt. Last year, one of the primary approaches Google was putting forward was FLoC (or Federated Learning of Cohorts) that would group people with thousands of other users with similar browsing histories. That was replaced last month by Topics API, which let Chrome use your browsing history to serve publishers a list of five subjects it determines you're interested in, again based on your browsing history.
What that demonstrates is the current fluidity of Privacy Sandbox, which is a collection of ideas at the moment. In today's announcement, vice president of product management for Android security and privacy Anthony Chavez wrote that "these solutions will limit sharing of user data with third parties and operate without cross-app identifiers." That would include advertising IDs. Chavez said "we're also exploring technologies that reduce the potential for covert data collection, including safer ways for apps to integrate with advertising SDKs."
Cherlynn Low / Engadget
But there are no real concrete methods actually being executed right now, and Google is in the design and testing stage. Starting today, the company said developers can "review our initial design proposals and share feedback on the Android developer site." It is planning to "release developer previews over the course of the year, with a beta release by the end of the year." Google also promised "regular updates on designs and timelines."
In the meantime, the company said it will continue to "support existing ads platform features for at least two years, and we intend to provide substantial notice ahead of any future changes."
Google also referenced Apple's approach on iOS today (without naming the iPhone maker), acknowledging that "other platforms have taken a different approach to ads privacy." But Chavez described that approach as "bluntly restricting existing technologies used by developers and advertisers." The company believes it still needs to provide a way for businesses to serve targeted ads to users and to make sure those ads are relevant.
Chavez added that "we know this initiative needs input from across the industry in order to succeed," and the company included statements from many partners in its news post today. These include Snap, Duolingo, Rovio, Activision Blizzard and seven other app makers, who each expressed similar sentiments about respecting the privacy needs of Android app users. Google's Privacy Sandbox has already faced regulatory scrutiny from the EU and the UK, with the latter's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) having accepted Google's latest proposals last week.
Clearly, there is a lot of work to be done while the internet's giants and the ad industry figure out how best to balance personalized ads with user privacy, and Google's inclusion of Android in its considerations is happening not a moment too soon.
The explosion of true wireless earbuds has finally settled down in recent years. However, this has also meant they’re all starting to look and behave pretty similarly.
Sony’s latest experiment — its new Linkbuds — shakes that up with an open-ear design made for ambient sound. The company has attempted to nail open-design buds since 2017, and rival Samsung, to its credit, also tried something similar with its beanish Buds Live.
The LinkBuds, according to Engadget’s Billy Steele, almost nail the concept. There are a lot of cool features built into these tiny things. The Linkbuds will mute audio when they detect you’re talking, and motion sensors mean you don’t have to tap the device to manually pause or skip tracks, which is nice to see – I hate whacking something inside my ear to adjust other in-ear buds. “Wide-area tap” covers the area in front of your ear. Sadly, there’s no noise cancellation (and even if there was, this open design would inevitably let noises through), but Sony’s design seems built for background listening. Check out our full verdict here.
Netflix says it's teaming up with 2K and Take-Two Interactive for a film adaptation of the BioShock series. No other details are available as yet, but based on the image Netflix shared in its announcement, it wouldn't be a surprise to see it tackling the first game.
2007’s BioShock may translate well to the big screen. The original game has a striking Art Deco/underwater setting and an unforgettable story. No spoilers, promise.
A multi-camera miracle that falls short of greatness.
I’ve been playing with Logitech’s multi-camera Mevo Start pack. It consists of three wireless cameras you can network together to create a livestream studio. You can transition between cameras or get the companion app to do it for you. For streamers looking to elevate their broadcasts, there’s a lot of potential here. The learning curve is steep, however, and connectivity can be a little temperamental.
Last summer, Microsoft teased Clippy would return to Office and a handful of other apps as part of a broader update to more than 1,800 emoji. The new characters reflect the company’s Fluent design language, and you can now check them out in Microsoft Teams.
To enable the emoji, navigate to the app’s settings menu, then head over to the About section and click Public Preview. Microsoft’s goal, it said, was to design characters that better reflect how people work in the 21st century. That means dinosaur emoji.
It can output 4K 10-bit or external ProRes RAW video at up to 60 fps.
OM Digital Solutions has unveiled the Micro Four Thirds OM-1, its first mirrorless camera since purchasing Olympus. It packs a new sensor and technology that gives it a big leap in performance over the last flagship Olympus models. This could, however, be the last Olympus-branded model.
The vehicle body and battery platform are assembled as one.
The Polestar 5 will be cut from a different cloth than its predecessors when it launches at the end of 2024. Polestar announced on Tuesday its upcoming electric performance sedan will ride atop an entirely new, lightweight bonded aluminum platform. This time-saving design has already borne results, enabling the company to produce and deliver an early series of prototypes, just 18 months after the start of development.
White Castle has announced it’ll be bringing Flippy 2, a robot chef that can essentially perform the same tasks as a team of fry cooks, to 100 more locations this year. This amounts to roughly a third of White Castle restaurants nationwide. It’s unlikely the average White Castle patron will notice the new robots. Since Flippy 2 is designed to perform “back-of-the-house” kitchen functions, that’s where you’ll find it. This might just be the start: Miso Robotics has come out with a wing-making version of Flippy. Buffalo Wild Wings is currently testing it out.
Ericsson's chief executive officer Borje Ekholm has told Swedish newspaper Dagens Industri that the company may have made payments to the Islamic State (ISIL/ISIS) terrorist organization for its operations in Iraq. According to Bloomberg, the CEO said the telecoms giant has identified "unusual expenses dating back to 2018." While the final recipient of those payments has yet to be identified, Ekholm has admitted that they're seeing records of purchased transport routes "through areas that have been controlled by terrorist organizations, including ISIS."
Ekholm's admission comes after Ericsson issued a statement in which it said it continues to "invest significantly" into an investigation regarding compliance concerns surrounding its Iraq-based business. In that statement, Ericsson said that unusual expense claims triggered an internal investigation in 2019, which led to the discovery of "serious breaches of compliance rules" in the conduct of its employees, vendors and suppliers in Iraq. Regarding those purchased transport routes in particular, Ericsson said they were used in "connection with circumventing Iraqi Customs." The company wrote:
"Ericsson invested significant time and resources to understand these matters. The investigation could not identify that any Ericsson employee was directly involved in financing terrorist organizations."
After Ericsson released its statement, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) revealed that the company spoke to address the wrongdoing the consortium uncovered as part of a global investigation. The ICIJ also said that it will publish its own findings "soon."
Ericsson has been landing massive 5G contracts around the world in the past couple of years, in part because some countries need to replace banned Huawei equipment used in their networks. This isn't the first time the telecoms giant has been caught in a corruption scandal, however. It was previously charged with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act between 2000 and 2016 for bribing officials and falsifying records. In 2019, Ericsson settled with the US Justice Department and the SEC for $1.1 billion to leave it mostly free of criminal convictions, sanctions and penalties. But US prosecutors determined last year that it violated the terms of the settlement by failing to provide certain documents and information related to it.
Snapchat on Wednesday unveiled a new partnership with Ticketmaster that will make staying updated on shows and inviting friends a little bit easier. The in-app Mini — a sort of micro-app inside the Snapchat app — functions a little bit like a dating service and can curate a selection of local shows tailored to individual users' interests.
Users are first asked to take a small survey, which allows the app to compile a list of artists and events they might like. They can then swipe right or left depending on if the show sparks an interest, and see if any of their Snapchat friends also liked the event. Snap Maps will also display upcoming concerts and events that are nearby.
Snapchat’s popularity with the under-25 demographic gives it a unique advantage in the live music space. Snap Inc. had a recent boost in popularity, gaining 13 million new users in the last quarter of 2021. The platform has already gotten its feet wet in the music space, partnering with Universal Music Group last year to launch a music discovery tool. Snapchat rivals only TikTok as the Gen Z app of choice, but the latter has stood out with its ability to make both new and old songs go viral. Given that Snapchat’s strength lies in connecting people in more intimate networks, a tool that matches users to shows and allows them to invite friends makes more sense.
Sony is still struggling to keep up with the demand for the PlayStation 5 due to the global chip shortage issue affecting companies across industries. It even recently dropped its sales forecast and told analysts that the company expects the console to continue to be in short supply this year, especially in the first half. Indeed, retailers' PS5 listings often show that it's "Out of Stock" or "Currently Unavailable" most of the time, and catching a restock is a race against scalpers and other fans also on the lookout for a unit. Now, Sony has launched a contest that gives you (the semblance of) a chance to finally get your hands on a PS5.
Over the next few weeks until March 7th 10AM PST/1PM EST, Sony will be releasing 14 unique codes resembling the PlayStation controller through various means. It will post some online, on its social media channels, but it will also release them through high-profile events in sports, gaming, film and music. In other words, you'll have to keep their eyes peeled and maybe even make friends to turn the hunt into a group effort. Finding them doesn't automatically mean you win a console, after all.
Nope — each code will only give you the opportunity to win a draw for the PS5. You'll have to enter the code in the dedicated page for the promo and then answer a question relevant to where the code was shown before you can be eligible. Oh, and the promo is only open to residents of participating territories:
Argentina, Canada, Chile, Mexico and United States, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, New Zealand, Poland, United Kingdom.
At least you'll have 14 chances to win if you can find all the codes (and live in the right country,) but you may have a better chance just refreshing the PS5's Best Buy listing over and over again.
Google Drive's "search chips" designed to making it easier to find files are rolling out to all Workspace users, The Verge has reported. The new feature first arrived in beta late last year, letting you limit results by file type, modification date, location, people involved and other parameters.
Google
Using the new feature is pretty easy, luckily. When you execute a normal search, you'll see a list of six chips with dropdown menus: Location, File Type, People, Last Modified, Title Only and To do. Clicking or tapping on one of those will filter your search results by a relevant person in the case of people, or a date (Today, Last 7 days, Last 30 days, etc.).
Google Drive already offered a way to filter files, but hid that feature behind a sub-menu on the right-most icon on the search bar — so many users likely weren't aware of its existence. The search chips are thus more of a (welcome) UI experience improvement than an all-new feature.
Just last month the original Baby Shark video and its impossibly catchy song set a record with 10 billion views on YouTube. Now, Baby Shark is going to become a movie with a release date planned for 2023, Paramount announced.
The film will be produced by Nickelodeon Animation and creator The Pinkfong company, but there are no details about the script, plot, etc. The character has been seen in the cinema before, as Pinkfong and Baby Shark’s Space Adventure had a limited run when it came to Netflix. However, that ran for just an hour, while Paramount described the upcoming release as a "feature-length film."
Baby Shark was also developed into a Korean TV series called Baby Shark's Big Show, which debuted on Nickelodeon in December of 2020. The show was announced by Paramount Plus as part of an upcoming slate of kids/youth programs, including a Dora the Explorer series, new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies and three new films in the SpongeBob SquarePants Universe.
Uber users have long been able to see their average ratings from drivers. Starting today, they can see how many one-star and five-star ratings they're getting as well.
The platform's Privacy Center, which debuted last month, shows riders and drivers a breakdown of their ratings. You can access the Privacy Center from the privacy section of the settings menu. From there, swipe to the right, select the “would you like to see a summary of how you use Uber” tile, scroll to "browse your data" and then tap "view my ratings."
Alongside the ratings breakdown, Uber has revealed which major US cities have the highest and lowest average rider ratings. Drivers typically dish out higher ratings in San Antonio, St Louis and Nashville. Riders tend to get the lowest ratings in New York City (perhaps unsurprisingly), followed by Seattle and Washington, DC.
Uber
Meanwhile, Uber has offered some tips, which are based on safety and common decency, to help you bump up your average. It suggests being ready to go when the driver shows up, buckling up and taking your garbage with you. Drivers often give riders a lower rating if they slam the doors, so be careful when you're getting in and out of vehicles.
Uber can boot riders with very low ratings off the platform, but as long as you're respectful (and leave fair tips), that shouldn't be an issue for you.
