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The USB Implementers Forum has simplified its labeling system for USB docking stations and cables, dropping technical terms like "USB4v2" in favor of straightforward speed ratings such as "USB 80Gbps" or "USB 40Gbps." The move follows criticism of previous complex naming conventions like "USB 3.2 Gen 2." The new logos will also display power transmission capabilities for cables, addressing consumer confusion over USB standards.

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It's sorted out (mostly), but European users had a manic Monday

Microsoft's multi-factor authentication (MFA) for Azure and Microsoft 365 (M365) was offline for four hours during Monday's busy start for European subscribers.…

Microsoft is raising Microsoft 365 subscription prices by up to 46% across six Asian markets to fund AI features. In Australia, annual Microsoft 365 Family subscriptions will increase to AU$179 ($110) from AU$139, while Personal subscriptions will jump to AU$159 ($98) from AU$109. The price hikes also affect New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand customers.

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U.S. companies are increasingly using AI to curb hiring plans, citing "cost avoidance" as a key metric to justify AI investments amid pressure to show returns. At software firm TS Imagine, AI-powered email sorting saves 4,000 work hours annually at 3% of employee costs, while Palantir reported AI reduced future headcount needs by 10-15%, according to company executives. The trend is most pronounced in software development and customer service sectors, where companies are deferring or scaling back hiring plans, said Gartner analyst Arun Chandrasekaran. This shift comes as long-term unemployment in the U.S. has risen more than 50% since late 2022, though tech sector unemployment dropped to 2% in December.

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'Sweden has changed,' PM warns as trio of warships join defense efforts

Sweden has committed to sending naval forces into the Baltic Sea following yet another suspected Russian attack on underwater cables in the region.…

One in five online job postings may be "ghost jobs" that companies never intend to fill, according to new data from hiring platform Greenhouse examining its clients' recruitment patterns in 2024. The analysis found that 18-22% of advertised positions across technology, finance, and healthcare sectors went unfilled, while nearly 70% of companies posted at least one ghost job in the second quarter of 2024. Construction, arts, food and beverage, and legal industries showed the highest rates of ghost listings. In response, Greenhouse and LinkedIn have introduced verification systems for job postings. LinkedIn reports more than half its listings are now tagged as "verified," indicating confirmed open positions. Companies maintain ghost listings for various reasons, including projecting growth, keeping options open for exceptional candidates, or meeting federal posting requirements, said Jon Stross, Greenhouse's president and co-founder.

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Plus: Man who tossed Bitcoin drive worth millions barred from digging in dump

A man of God is in the sin bin with Uncle Sam's prosecutors over a cryptocurrency investment business that he claims came to him in a dream.…

Nvidia has hit back at the outgoing Biden administration's AI chip tech export restrictions designed to tighten America's stranglehold on supply chains and maintain market dominance. From a report: The White House today unveiled what it calls the Final Rule on Artificial Intelligence Diffusion from the Biden-Harris government, placing limits on the number of AI-focused chips that can be exported to most countries, but allowing exemptions for key allies and partners. The intent is to work with AI companies and foreign governments to initiate critical security and trust standards as they build out their AI infrastructure, but the regulation also makes it clear that the focus of this policy is "to enhance US national security and economic strength," and "it is essential that ... the world's AI runs on American rails." Measures are intended to restrict the transfer to non-trusted countries of the weights for advanced "closed-weight" AI models, and set out security standards to protect the weights of such models. However GPU supremo Nvidia claims the proposed rules are so harmful that it has published a document strongly criticizing the decision.

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'New rule threatens to squander America's hard-won technological advantage' says GPU supremo

Nvidia has hit back at the outgoing Biden administration's AI chip tech export restrictions designed to tighten America's stranglehold on supply chains and maintain market dominance.…

FBI Director Christopher Wray, in his final interview before stepping down, warned that China poses the greatest long-term threat to U.S. national security, calling it "the defining threat of our generation." China's cyber program has stolen more American personal and corporate data than all other nations combined, Wray told CBS News. He said Chinese government hackers have infiltrated U.S. civilian infrastructure, including water treatment facilities, transportation systems and telecommunications networks, positioning themselves to potentially cause widespread disruption. "To lie in wait on those networks to be in a position to wreak havoc and can inflict real-world harm at a time and place of their choosing," Wray said. The FBI director, who is leaving his post nearly three years early after President-elect Donald Trump indicated he would make leadership changes, said China has likely accessed communications of some U.S. government personnel. He added that Beijing's pre-positioning on American civilian critical infrastructure has not received sufficient attention.

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Sonos Chief Executive Patrick Spence stepped down on Monday, following a tumultuous period marked by a botched app rollout that angered customers and hurt sales of its new headphones. Board member Tom Conrad, a former Pandora chief technology officer, will serve as interim CEO while the audio equipment maker searches for a permanent replacement, the company said. Spence's departure comes eight months after Sonos released a revamped app that launched with missing features and technical problems, leading to widespread customer complaints and necessitating an extensive fix-it effort. The company will pay Spence, who joined Sonos in 2012 as chief commercial officer, a $1.875 million severance package. He will remain as a strategic advisor until June 30, earning $7,500 monthly, according to a regulatory filing.

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'Codefinger' crims on the hunt for compromised keys

A new ransomware crew dubbed Codefinger targets AWS S3 buckets and uses the cloud giant's own server-side encryption with customer provided keys (SSE-C) to lock up victims' data before demanding a ransom payment for the symmetric AES-256 keys required to decrypt it.…

Software snafu can fry computer components for owners of Musk's electric buggies

Days after the US's Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) began an investigation into the company's Actually Smart Summon technology, Tesla is is now recalling almost a quarter of a million vehicles over a separate issue – glitches with rearview cameras on some models.…

Government adopts all 50 venture capitalist recommendations but leaves datacenter energy puzzle unsolved

Britain's government is adopting all 50 recommendations made by a venture capitalist to use AI to drive economic recovery, without even acknowledging the resulting energy challenge this strategy likely poses.…

"Neuralink Corp.'s brain-computer device has been implanted in a third patient," reports Bloomberg, "and the company has plans for about 20 to 30 more implants in 2025, founder Elon Musk said." In an interview streamed on X.com, Musk says "We've got now three humans with Neuralinks implanted and they're all working well," according to The Times of India: "We upgraded the devices, they'll have more electrodes, basically higher bandwidth, longer battery life and everything. So, expect 20 or 30 patients this year with the upgraded Neuralink devices...." "[O]ur next part will be Blindsight devices where even if somebody has lost both eyes or has lost the optic nerve, we can interface directly with the visual cortex in the brain and enable them to see. We already have that working in monkeys," Musk added.

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Vehicle subsystem concerns blamed for scrub

Blue Origin has given up on today's lift-off attempt for its New Glenn rocket, confirming that it was standing down a little more than two hours into the vehicle's launch window.…

Think you're good at spotting trends? Try these on for size

Opinion This column may be out of date two days after publication. That's when the US Supreme Court decides whether the Constitutional right to free speech overrides the laws against online porn adopted by many southern states.…

Unauthorized activity detected, but no backdoors found

UK domain registrar Nominet is investigating a potential intrusion into its network related to the latest Ivanti zero-day exploits.…

Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project designation could tear down more restrictions

Britain's planning system is still seen as a significant barrier to the development of datacenters.…

"Oracle has informed us they won't voluntarily withdraw their trademark on 'JavaScript'." That's the word coming from the company behind Deno, the alternative JavaScript/TypeScript/WebAssembly runtime, which is pursuing a formal cancellation with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. So what happens next? Oracle "will file their Answer, and we'll start discovery to show how 'JavaScript' is widely recognized as a generic term and not controlled by Oracle." Deno's social media posts show a schedule of various court dates that extend through July of 2026, so "The dispute between Oracle and Deno Land could go on for quite a while," reports InfoWorld: Deno Land co-founder Ryan Dahl, creator of both the Deno and Node.js runtimes, said a formal answer from Oracle is expected before February 3, unless Oracle extends the deadline again. "After that, we will begin the process of discovery, which is where the real legal work begins. It will be interesting to see how Oracle argues against our claims — genericide, fraud on the USPTO, and non-use of the mark." The legal process begins with a discovery conference by March 5, with discovery closing by September 1, followed by pretrial disclosure from October 16 to December 15. An optional request for an oral hearing is due by July 8, 2026. Oracle took ownership of JavaScript's trademark in 2009 when it purchased Sun Microsystems, InfoWorld notes. But "Oracle does not control (and has never controlled) any aspect of the specification or how the phrase 'JavaScript' can be used by others," argues an official petition filed by Deno Land Inc. with the United States Patent and Trademark Office: Today, millions of companies, universities, academics, and programmers, including Petitioner, use "JavaScript" daily without any involvement with Oracle. The phrase "JavaScript" does not belong to one corporation. It belongs to the public. JavaScript is the generic name for one of the bedrock languages of modern programming, and, therefore, the Registered Mark must be canceled. An open letter to Oracle discussing the genericness of the phrase "JavaScript," published at https://javascript.tm/, was signed by 14,000+ individuals at the time of this Petition to Cancel, including notable figures such as Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript, and the current editors of the JavaScript specification, Michael Ficarra and Shu-yu Guo. There is broad industry and public consensus that the term "JavaScript" is generic. The seven-page petition goes into great detail, reports InfoWorld. "Deno Land also accused Oracle of committing fraud in its trademark renewal efforts in 2019 by submitting screen captures of the website of JavaScript runtime Node.js, even though Node.js was not affiliated with Oracle."

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