An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google is implementing major new Play Store rules for how Android's "SMS" and "Call Log" permissions are used. New Play Store rules will only allow certain types of apps to request phone call logs and SMS permissions, and any apps that don't fit into Google's predetermined use cases will be removed from the Play Store. The policy was first announced in October, and the policy kicks in and the ban hammer starts falling on non-compliant apps this week. Google says the decision to police these permissions was made to protect user privacy. SMS and phone permissions can give an app access to a user's contacts and everyone they've ever called, in addition to allowing the app to contact premium phone numbers that can charge money directly to the user's cellular bill. Despite the power of these permissions, a surprising number of apps ask for SMS or phone access because they have other, more benign use cases. So to clean up the Play Store, Google's current plan seems to be to (1) build more limited, replacement APIs for these benign use cases that don't offer access to so much user data and (2) kick everyone off the Play Store who is still using the wide-ranging SMS and phone permissions for these more limited use cases. Google provides a help page that helps explain the new rules and offer workarounds for some use cases.

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Victory clears major obstacle for Greece's approval of a deal to end Macedonia name dispute.

Implications of latest vote could ultimately prove greater for Labour – whose leadership placed its bets on ousting May.

YouTube has set stricter guidelines for "harmful and dangerous" prank and challenge videos. From a report: "We've always had policies to make sure what's funny doesn't cross the line into also being harmful or dangerous," reads the YouTube guidelines. "Our Community Guidelines prohibit content that encourages dangerous activities that are likely to result in serious harm, and today clarifying what this means for dangerous challenges and pranks." YouTube's guidelines now further detail which of these popular videos push the line, including challenges such as the Tide Pod challenge and the Fire challenge -- anything "that can cause death and/or have caused death in some instances." As for pranks, videos that make the victims believe they're in serious danger or cause severe emotional distress to children (further clarified with examples like faking the death of a parent) are no longer acceptable on the platform. Creators who host these types of videos on their channels will receive a grace period of two months to clean up their channel.

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Wednesday's fighting in Tripoli violated a UN-brokered ceasefire signed four months ago.

Thousands of educators strike for better wages and conditions, the same reasons many joined the last stoppage in 1989.

Prominent protest leader Mawarire arrested as part of security crackdown after clashes enter third day.

Federal prosecutors are pursuing a criminal investigation of China's Huawei for allegedly stealing trade secrets from U.S. business partners, including the technology behind a robotic device that T-Mobile used to test smartphones, WSJ reported Wednesday. From a report: The investigation grew in part out of civil lawsuits against Huawei, including one in which a Seattle jury found Huawei liable for misappropriating robotic technology from T-Mobile's Bellevue, Wash., lab, the people familiar with the matter said. The probe is at an advanced stage and could lead to an indictment soon, they said. The link to the source article may be paywalled; here's an alternative source.

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Former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo was arrested in Abidjan in 2011 and charged with crimes against humanity.

This week, Wikipedia celebrates its 18th birthday. If the massive crowdsourced encyclopedia project were human, then in most countries, it would just now be considered a legal adult. But in truth, the free online encyclopedia has long played the role of the Internet's good grown-up. From a story: Wikipedia has grown enormously since its inception: It now boasts 5.7 million articles in English and pulled in 92 billion page views last year. The site has also undergone a major reputation change. If you ask Siri, Alexa or Google Home a general-knowledge question, it will likely pull the response from Wikipedia. The online encyclopedia has been cited in more than 400 judicial opinions, according to a 2010 paper in the Yale Journal of Law & Technology. Many professors are ditching the traditional writing assignment and instead asking students to expand or create a Wikipedia article on the topic. And YouTube Chief Executive Susan Wojcicki announced a plan last March to pair misleading conspiracy videos with links to corresponding articles from Wikipedia. Facebook has also released a feature using Wikipedia's content to provide users more information about the publication source for articles in their feed.

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Prime Minister invites all opposition leaders for Brexit talks after narrowly escaping defeat with 325-306 margin.

Undeterred by Trump's threats and US policies, another group of refugees and migrants leave El Salvador.

Microsoft is making some big changes to Cortana in Windows 10. The company intends to decouple search and Cortana in the Windows 10 taskbar, allowing voice queries to be handled separately to typing in a search box to find documents and files. From a report: This change will be implemented in the next major Windows 10 update, currently scheduled for April. Windows 10 will direct you towards an built-in search experience for text queries, while Cortana will exist for voice queries instead of them both bundled together. "This will enable each experience to innovate independently to best serve their target audiences and use cases," explains Dona Sarkar, Microsoft's Windows Insider chief. "This change is one of several we've made throughout this release to improve your experience in this space, including updating the search landing page design, enhancing your search results, and integrating Microsoft To-Do with Cortana."

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The first stage of construction on what the government describes as a technological marvel is ending.

HRW says the PA suppresses dissent and online freedoms.