A bipartisan pair of House lawmakers on Thursday unveiled a compromise bill aimed at thwarting the scourge of robocalls dialing up U.S. consumers, about one month after the Senate adopted its own anti-robocall bill. From a report: House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) and ranking member Greg Walden (R-Ore.) on Thursday announced the legislation, which differs from the Senate's version on some points but seems to have significant overlap. Pallone and Walden's Stopping Bad Robocalls Act would require phone carriers to implement technology to authenticate whether calls are real or spam, and allow carriers to offer call-blocking services. The legislation specifies the carriers should make sure that legal calls, such as those from doctors offices or creditors, are not blocked, while opening the door for the government to broaden its definition of what constitutes a "robocall."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Saudi minister Adel al-Jubeir criticises British court ruling that suspended new weapons export licenses to Riyadh.

Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are putting their bets on Trump's re-election to realise their vision for regional hegemony.

Israel uses a number of diplomatic and security tactics to counter the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.

UN's special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings calls for international investigation into Saudi journalist's killing.

Two countries downgraded to those that have failed to make significant anti-trafficking efforts.

The founder of online bank Current claims Facebook copied his company's logo for the social network's bid to reinvent the global financial system. From a report: Stuart Sopp, a Wall Street trader turned start-up CEO, told CNBC that he used a San Francisco-based design firm named Character to create his start-up's logo in 2016. That firm also worked on the secretive crypto project that Facebook unveiled this week, according to a LinkedIn post from Ben Pham, creative director for Character. Anthony Harrison, a spokesman for Facebook, declined to comment for this article. Character did not return calls and messages for comment. "This is a funny way to try and create trust in a new global financial system -- by ripping off another fintech firm," Sopp said in a phone interview. "Facebook has all the money and resources in the world. If they truly wanted to make banking more inclusive and fair, they should've come up with their own ideas and branding, like we have."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google's decided to step away from its self-made tablets and focus instead on the laptop form. From a report: To be clear, Google hadn't actually announced any tablet-specific products this year; the last such item that made its way to the market was the Pixel Slate in 2018. But, as I learned today, the company did have two smaller-sized tablets under development -- and earlier this week, it decided to drop all work on those devices and make its roadmap revolve entirely around laptops instead. A couple of clarifying points here: First, none of this has any impact on Pixel phones. Pixel phones and Pixel computers are two different departments, and the roadmap in question is related exclusively to the latter. And second, when Google talks about a "tablet," it means a device that detaches completely from a keyboard base or doesn't even have a physical keyboard in the first place -- not a swiveling two-in-one convertible like the Pixelbook. The Pixelbook, with its attached keyboard and 360-degree hinge, falls under Google's definition of "laptop." Blurred lines, baby. A Google spokesperson directly confirmed all of these details to me.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Many Russians are less interested in war rhetoric and international issues, and are much more focused on making ends meet.

The Pentagon owns 35 prohibitively expensive drones that Iran shot down in recent showdown.

One of our most powerful tools to fight biological obliteration is CRISPR, a burgeoning gene-editing technology that acts like a molecular blade, slicing DNA apart and allowing us to add and subtract genes at will. It's now being used to combat invasive species, destroy antibiotic-resistance bacteria and, controversially, edit the genes of human embryos. From a report: In fact, it's so exceptional at editing DNA that "de-extinction," the process of bringing extinct species back from the dead, is on the table. Science has already unraveled the DNA code of long-dead species such as the woolly mammoth, the passenger pigeon and Australia's iconic Tasmanian tiger -- and now, pioneering researchers are using CRISPR to remake modern-day descendants in the image of their ancient counterparts. Could we transform an Asian elephant into a woolly mammoth? We are marching toward that reality. "The CRISPR revolution is the whole reason why we've been having these conversations about de-extinction," says Ben Novak, a biologist working on restoring the extinct passenger pigeon. There are opponents of de-extinction, however. They point to our responsibilities with species already living on the edge of extinction and ensuring we allocate resources to save them. Others are concerned about the ethics of resurrecting ancient beasts and how they might fit into current ecosystems as the planet chokes under the heavy cloud of climate change. In this era, as the planet warms and biodiversity plummets, we're faced with a question. Should we resurrect the dead?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hundreds of Sudanese continue with protests, demanding ruling military council to cede power to civilians.

Al Jazeera says it's not required to register under FARA after Republican congressmen called for DOJ evaluation.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Out of habit, Nancy Carter, a retired federal employee, turned to Google for help one August evening. She ended the night wishing she hadn't. Ms. Carter had pulled into her Falls Church, Va., driveway and saw the garage door was stuck. The 67-year-old searched Google and found the listing of a local repair service she had used before. She phoned in a house call. Google's ubiquitous internet platform shapes what's real and what isn't for more than 2 billion monthly users. Yet Google Maps, triggered by such Google queries as the one Ms. Carter made, is overrun with millions of false business addresses and fake names, according to advertisers, search experts and current and former Google employees. The ruse lures the unsuspecting to what appear to be Google-suggested local businesses, a costly and dangerous deception. A man arrived at Ms. Carter's home in an unmarked van and said he was a company contractor. He wasn't. After working on the garage door, he asked for $728, nearly twice the cost of previous repairs, Ms. Carter said. He demanded cash or a personal check, but she refused. "I'm at my house by myself with this guy," she said. "He could have knocked me over dead." The repairman had hijacked the name of a legitimate business on Google Maps and listed his own phone number. He returned to Ms. Carter's home again and again, hounding her for payment of a repair so shoddy it had to be redone. Three years later, Google still can't seem to stop the proliferation of fictional business listings and aggressive con artists on its search engine. The scams are profitable for nearly everyone involved, Google included. Consumers and legitimate businesses end up the losers.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Five years ago, Slack officially launched out of the ashes of a failed gaming project. Now the company is worth more than $20 billion. From a report: Slack, the workplace communication tool popular in tech and media circles, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, making it the latest tech unicorn to race to Wall Street this year. But Slack took a more unconventional approach to going public. The company chose to list its existing shares directly on the stock exchange rather than raising money by issuing new shares to be sold to public investors. Slack opened at $38.50 a share on Thursday, a more than 50% increase from its $26 reference price -- not to be confused with an IPO price -- set on the eve of its market debut. At that price, Slack has a market value of roughly $23 billion.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.