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Detections rates for stalkerware applications on Android and Windows devices are slowly improving, according to the findings of a seven-month research project carried out by independent antivirus testing lab AV-Comparatives and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. From a report: The study, published earlier this week, took place in two phases, with the first in November 2019, and the second in May 2020. Researchers looked at how 10 Android mobile antivirus apps and 10 Windows antivirus products detected some of today's most prevalent stalkerware strains. The stalkerware strains, 20 on Android and 10 on Windows, were chosen by AV-Comparatives together with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), based on their popularity in the US. The study discovered that many antivirus companies have improved their detection rates between the November 2019 scan and May 2020.

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You copied our technology! No, YOU copied our technology!

Google has accused Sonos of infringing five of its patents in an escalation of a spat that begun five months ago when the speaker slinger alleged the search giant infringed its own IP.…

Republican Federal Communications Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said he's unsure whether his agency has the authority to carry out President Trump's executive order targeting tech firms' legal protections. From a report: Trump's order seeks to have the FCC craft regulations limiting the scope of legal immunity that online platforms have under federal law. All three commission Republicans would need to support such regulations for them to pass, as the FCC's two Democrats are certain to oppose them. In an interview Wednesday for C-SPAN's "The Communicators," O'Rielly told Axios he sympathizes with the president's claims that conservatives have been unfairly stifled online, but "what we do about that is a different story. I have deep reservations they provided any intentional authority for this matter, but I want to listen to people," O'Rielly said, later adding, "I do not believe it is the right of the agency to read into the statute authority that is not there."

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Using machine learning to get rid of those awkward code breaks

Facebook researchers have applied recent advances they've made in the unsupervised machine translation of human languages to a source code conversion system.…

The New York attorney general's office has interviewed Amazon workers from a handful of facilities in the state, as claims of employee retaliation become a central focus of its investigation into the company's labor practices, CNBC reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: New York Attorney General Letitia James sent a letter to Amazon in April saying it was looking into whether the company violated federal employment law or broke the state's whistleblower laws when it fired a worker who organized a strike at its Staten Island facility. The worker, Chris Smalls, led a protest calling for Amazon to close the warehouse and put in place greater safety protections, echoing warehouse workers' concerns across the country. The letter calls on Amazon to reinstate Smalls and asks it to turn over all internal communications dating back to Feb. 1 related to workers' complaints, protests and efforts to organize. In late March, James' office began contacting Amazon workers from New York area warehouses. So far, it has spoken to workers from facilities in Staten Island, Queens and Bethpage, and is adding more facilities to its roster as it receives complaints, the people said. The conversations have touched on Amazon's safety practices during the coronavirus pandemic, including enforcement of social distancing rules, workers' access to personal protective equipment and its documentation of positive coronavirus cases at facilities.

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Networked devices work just fine, however

Windows 10 users woke up to borked printers following the monthly Microsoft bugfix party, Patch Tuesday.…

Zuck pauses plan to roll out topic moderation tools for its FB-for-biz

Facebook this week temporarily halted plans to roll out tools that would have allowed its Workplace customers to censor touchy topics, following a reported internal staff revolt.…

NASA has awarded Astrobotic of Pittsburgh $199.5 million to deliver NASA's Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) to the Moon's South Pole in late 2023. From a report: The water-seeking mobile VIPER robot will help pave the way for astronaut missions to the lunar surface beginning in 2024 and will bring NASA a step closer to developing a sustainable, long-term presence on the Moon as part of the agency's Artemis program. "The VIPER rover and the commercial partnership that will deliver it to the Moon are a prime example of how the scientific community and U.S. industry are making NASA's lunar exploration vision a reality," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. "Commercial partners are changing the landscape of space exploration, and VIPER is going to be a big boost to our efforts to send the first woman and next man to the lunar surface in 2024 through the Artemis program." VIPER's flight to the Moon is part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, which leverages the capabilities of industry partners to quickly deliver scientific instruments and technology demonstrations to the Moon. As part of its award, Astrobotic is responsible for end-to-end services for delivery of VIPER, including integration with its Griffin lander, launch from Earth, and landing on the Moon.

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ODMs in Far East make bank as public cloud slingers buy yet more infrastructure

Spending on data centre hardware and software dipped in Q1 as enterprises tightened their belts - the reasons for which are clear. As for the purveyors of public cloud, no such concerns existed.…

Google escalated a fight with Sonos over the wireless home-speaker market, filing a lawsuit that alleges patent infringement. From a report: The conflict between the two companies, which had been collaborating on incorporating some Google features in Sonos's speakers, erupted in January when Sonos sued Google for infringing its patents. The speaker maker is facing increased competition from tech giants such as Google and Amazon.com that are expanding into selling Internet-connected home gadgets, including less expensive wireless speakers. "Sonos has made false claims about the companies' shared work and Google's technology in the lawsuits," the Alphabet unit said in a complaint filed Thursday in San Francisco federal court. "While Google rarely sues other companies for patent infringement, it must assert its intellectual property rights here." Sonos, the Santa Barbara-based pioneer of wireless speakers, is using Google's patented technology for search, software, networking, audio processing and digital-media management and streaming, while refusing to pay a license, according to the lawsuit.

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During an internal presentation at Facebook on Wednesday, the company debuted features for Facebook Workplace, an intranet-style chat and office collaboration product similar to Slack. From a report: On Facebook Workplace, employees see a stream of content similar to a news feed, with automatically generated trending topics based on what people are posting about. One of the new tools debuted by Facebook allows administrators to remove and block certain trending topics among employees. The presentation discussed the "benefits" of "content control." And it offered one example of a topic employers might find it useful to blacklist: the word "unionize." Facebook Workplace is currently used by major employers such as Walmart, which is notorious for its active efforts to suppress labor organizing. The application is also used by the Singapore government, Discovery Communications, Starbucks, and Campbell Soup Corporation. The suggestion that Facebook is actively building tools designed to suppress labor organizing quickly caused a stir at the Menlo Park, California-based company. Facebook employees sparked a flurry of posts denouncing the feature, with several commenting in disbelief that the company would overtly pitch "unionize" as a topic to be blacklisted.

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♫ Now don't go wasting my precious time! Pay the ransom quickly and we'll be just fine ♫ (no, don't)

The Maze ransomware gang has struck again – this time targeting an American M&A practice which counts former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham as one of its clients.…

Intel has published a news release on its website stating that Jim Keller has resigned from the company, effective immediately, due to personal reasons. From a report: Jim Keller was hired by Intel two years ago to the role as Senior Vice President of Intel's Silicon Engineering Group, after a string of successes at Tesla, AMD, Apple, AMD (again), and PA Semiconductor. As far as we understand, Jim's goal inside Intel was to streamline a lot of the product development process on the silicon side, as well as providing strategic platforms though which future products can be developed and optimized to market. We also believe that Jim Keller has had a hand in looking at Intel's manufacturing processes, as well as a number of future products. Intel's press release states that Jim Keller is leaving the position on June 11th due to personal reasons. However, he will remain with the company as a consultant for six months in order to assist with the transition.

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We're gonna need it if we ever live up there – and it looks like a tempting option right now

Pittsburgh-based space robot specialist Astrobotic has been picked by NASA to drop a rover onto the surface of the Moon.…

Three U.S. lawmakers asked Zoom to clarify its data-collection practices and relationship with the Chinese government after the firm said it had suspended user accounts to meet demands from Beijing. From a report: The California-based firm has come under heavy scrutiny after three U.S. and Hong Kong-based activists said their accounts had been suspended and meetings disrupted after they tried to hold events related to the anniversary of China's Tiananmen Square crackdown. Zoom said on Friday it was notified of the events and asked to take action by the Chinese government in May and early June. It said it suspended one account in Hong and two in the United States but has now reinstated these accounts and will not allow further requests from China to affect users outside the country. "We did not provide any user information or meeting content to the Chinese government," Zoom said in a statement. "We do not have a backdoor that allows someone to enter a meeting without being visible." The online meeting platform, which has surged in popularity as the COVID-19 pandemic has forced millions around the world indoors, has seen its downloads soar in China.

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An anonymous reader writes: FreeBSD has has adopted a new LLVM-derived code of conduct. The code of conduct requires users to: be friendly and patient, be welcoming, be considerate, be respectful, be careful in the words that you choose and be kind to others, when we disagree, try to understand why. This isn't an exhaustive list of things that you can't do. Rather, take it in the spirit in which it's intended - a guide to make it easier to communicate and participate in the community. This code of conduct applies to all spaces managed by the FreeBSD project. This includes online chat, mailing lists, bug trackers, FreeBSD events such as the developer meetings and socials, and any other forums created by the project that the community uses for communication. It applies to all of your communication and conduct in these spaces, including emails, chats, things you say, slides, videos, posters, signs, or even t-shirts you display in these spaces. In addition, violations of this code outside these spaces may, in rare cases, affect a person's ability to participate within them, when the conduct amounts to an egregious violation of this code.

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Ex-TalkTalk CEO fails to convince public everything's going swimmingly

Comment When something as serious as the UK government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic is being openly mocked on social media, it's clear all is not well.…

The Internet Archive's National Emergency Library is finished. The non-profit repository for digital preservation, which began offering millions of e-books for free to address the closure of libraries during the pandemic, buckled under a joint lawsuit filed by major publishers including Penguin Random House and HarperCollins. From a report: Publishers said lending out books without compensation was "mass copyright infringement." The digital library will close next week. The archive of books was initially invite-only and only allowed a given file to be downloaded a limited number of times at once, with each rental limited to 14 days. But then the pandemic hit and libraries closed, so the Internet Archive responded by making all the books accessible to everyone, with no limits.

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They were served at Maccie Ds, which will enrage mobility scooter punter who was turned away – twice!

Wheezing Brits' neck rolls up and down the country quivered with delight this week as American fast-food chains were among the first businesses to emerge from the UK's coronavirus lockdown – but future coronary patients are only to be served from the safety of their cars.…

Qi charging and ANC for those constant videoconferences from home

Review With more of us taking part in remote meeting and webinars than ever, there's been a mad scrabble for a decent mic and headphones by those of us overusing the captions feature on Google meetings and Zoom.…