At CES on Monday, Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda said the Japanese auto giant will transform a 175-acre site of a former car factory into a "prototype city of the future" where it can test autonomous vehicles, innovative street design, smart home technology, robotics, and new mobility products on real people who would live there full-time. "The site, which will be designed by famed Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, will house up to 2,000 people and will break ground in 2021," reports The Verge. "Toyota is calling the site 'Woven City.'" The plan is reminiscent of Sidewalk Labs' efforts to build a digital city on Toronto's Eastern waterfront. However, it's almost certainly going to face less pushback from the local government, as Toyota is a Japanese company and collects considerably less data than Sidewalk Labs' parent company Alphabet, which has been caught in a battle over information privacy.

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At CES 2020, Samsung debuted "The Sero" (translates to vertical in Korean) -- a 4K TV that automatically rotates on its stand so you can more easily watch vertical content that's been recorded on phones or uploaded to apps like TikTok or Instagram. Pocket-lint reports: The new TV is a relatively modest 43-inches in size, but it's not aimed at those who might have the space and money to go and grab a 65-incher (yes, you've guessed it, it's aimed at the "mobile generation" according to Samsung). As well as being 4K, while there are 60W speakers for bouncy audio. The Sero is going to launch this year although it's already available in South Korea. Content casts from your Samsung Galaxy device but it'll work with other phones and tablets, too and will have Apple's AirPlay so you can use it with iOS. The TV flips on demand depending on the orientation of your phone. Samsung also says it'll be available on wheels so you can move it from room-to-room. Variety reports that Sero will launch in several global markets. Samsung didn't announce pricing, but in Korea, the Sero TV has sold for around $1,600.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On the heels of the killing of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps General Qassem Soleimani by a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper strike on January 2, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned of potential cyberattacks against critical infrastructure by Iran. That warning probably didn't apply to the website of the Federal Deposit Library Program, operated by the U.S. Government Printing Office -- which was defaced on January 4 with a pro-Iranian message and an image of a bloodied President Donald Trump being punched by an Iranian fist. The FDLP website is no stranger to defacement attacks. As a brief analysis of the attack by a security researcher with the Twitter username @sshell_ noted, the site has been defaced twice in the last 10 years -- most recently in 2014, when it was replaced with an electronic dance music video featuring a dancing cat. Based on a fingerprint of the site's files, the site -- based on the Joomla content management system -- had not had its code updated since 2012. And the site had modules that used a version of Joomla's RSForm that had been flagged 11 months ago as being vulnerable to a SQL Injection attack. While the image depicting Trump had no metadata attached to it, another image with text had Exchangeable Image File Format (EXIF) data indicating it had been created with Adobe Photoshop CS 6 for Windows in 2015. As sshell_ noted, the image was used in a defacement reported to the "cybercrime archive" Zone-H by a user identifying themselves as IRAN-CYBER on December 2, 2015. A DHS spokesperson for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said that "there is no confirmation that this was the action of Iranian state-sponsored actors."

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Sometimes on FB people say the kind of stuff you hear on CNN from opinioneers whose job it is to say something even when there isn't anything to say. You listen to these people, and it's just a word salad of non-sentences that have absolutely no meaning. Then the host that you somewhat admire (e.g. Tapper, Melber) says that's an excellent point, Pete or that gets you thinking Gloria, and you realize they're just filling time with words that really have no meaning, and you're just wasting your time, you could learn more watching a Law & Order rerun for the 18th time. At least they're getting paid to do it. But on FB, there's just no call for it.

I write about my blog on Twitter. I write about Facebook on my blog. I refuse to give up on the open web.

Joan Walsh: "If Bolton says he'll comply with a Senate subpoena, on what grounds could he refuse a House subpoena?"

If Bolton were a patriot, imho, he'd arrange to give testimony in the House asap.

Some app developers are concerned that frequent iOS 13 notifications will scare users away. From a report: "'Facebook' has used your location 107 times in the background over the past 3 days. Do you want to continue to allow background location use?" Such pop-up notifications are frequent for many iPhone users who have downloaded Apple's iOS 13. They arrive every few days for each app that tracks location while not in use and includes maps. Apple touted the new notifications as a way to make users more mindful of how much tracking goes on even when they aren't using their phones. Each notification gives users the option to let the app use their location data only when it is in use or if they agree for the app to track their locations at all times. Since iOS 13 was released in September, tens of millions of people have moved to block apps' ability to track their locations when not in use, according to an estimate from Location Sciences, a company that verifies mobile location data. Some app developers, particularly the ones whose business models rely on being able to access users' locations at all times, are concerned that the iOS 13 notifications will hurt their apps' adoption. Seven of them signed an email to Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook addressing these concerns in August. The signatories included Life360, an app that lets family members track one another's location and can summon an ambulance immediately in the event of an auto accident, and Tile, a maker of tracking devices for items like wallets and keys. Both Life360 and Tile rely on constantly tracking all their users and compete with Find My, a preinstalled Apple app that helps users locate a lost iPhone -- and isn't subject to the same notifications. [...] Apple's iOS 13 location-tracking changes have hit the supply of mobile location data available for advertising and analytics, said Jason Smith, chief business officer of Location Sciences. He said the amount of location data gathered by apps while not in use had dropped by 70% since iOS 13 was released.

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Careful mate, that foreigner wants your cookie!

Mahdokht Shaibani at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and her colleagues have developed a battery with a capacity five times higher than that of lithium-ion batteries. From a report: The battery maintains an efficiency of 99 per cent for more than 200 cycles, and a smartphone-sized version would be able to keep a phone charged for five days. To date, the problem with lithium-sulphur batteries has been that the capacity of the sulphur electrode is so large that it breaks apart over cycles of charging and discharging, and the energy advantage rapidly disappears, says Shaibani. "The electrode will fall apart, and then the battery dies fast." That happens because the sulphur electrode expands and contracts as it cycles, with a volume change of about 78 per cent. Volume change also occurs in electrodes in the lithium-ion batteries that power electric cars and smartphones, but is about eight times smaller. To prevent the electrode disintegrating in their lithium-sulphur battery, the researchers gave the sulphur particles more space to expand and contract. Usually, lithium-sulphur batteries have materials added that bind the particles together inside so the battery doesn't crack as it expands. Shaibani and her team used a smaller amount of a polymer binding material in their electrode, and created more spaced-out structures between the sulphur particles.

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An anonymous reader writes: NextMind is developing a brain-computer interface that translates signals from the visual cortex into digital commands. VentureBeat tried NextMind's device, which lets you input commands into computers and AR/VR headsets with your visual attention. Eventually, the Paris-based startup wants to let you do the same with your visual imagination. The outlet spoke with NextMind CEO Sid Kouider ahead of CES 2020, where his company is unveiling a dev kit shipping to select developers and partners this month for $399. After the early access period, a second limited run (waitlist) of dev kits will begin shipping in Q2 2020.

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Speaking of Chromebooks, David Ruddock, opines at AndroidPolice: Chrome OS' problems really became apparent to me when Android app compatibility was introduced, around five years ago. Getting Android apps to run on Chrome OS was simultaneously one of the Chrome team's greatest achievements and one of its worst mistakes. In 2019, two things are more obvious than ever about the Android app situation on Chrome. The first is that the "build it and they will come" mantra never panned out. Developers never created an appreciable number of Android app experiences designed for Chrome (just as they never did for Android tablets). The second is that, quite frankly, Android apps are very bad on Chrome OS. Performance is highly variable, and interface bugs are basically unending because most of those apps were never designed for a point-and-click operating system. Sure, they crash less often than they did in the early days, but anyone saying that Android apps on Chrome OS are a good experience is delusional. Those apps are also a crutch that Chrome leans on to this day. Chrome OS doesn't have a robust photo editor? Don't worry, you can download an app! Chrome doesn't have native integration with cloud file services like Box, Dropbox, or OneDrive? Just download the app! Chrome doesn't have Microsoft Office? App! But this "solution" has basically become an insult to Chrome's users, forcing them to live inside a half-baked Android environment using apps that were almost exclusively designed for 6" touchscreens, and which exist in a containerized state that effectively firewalls them from much of the Chrome operating system. As a result, file handling is a nightmare, with only a very limited number of folders accessible to those applications, and the task of finding them from inside those apps a labyrinthine exercise no one should have to endure in 2019. This isn't a tenable state of affairs -- it's computing barbarism as far as I'm concerned. And yet, I've seen zero evidence that the Chrome team intends to fix it. It's just how it is. But Android apps, so far as I can tell, are basically the plan for Chrome. Certainly, Linux environment support is great for enthusiasts and developers, but there are very few commonly-used commercial applications available on Linux, with no sign that will change in the near future. It's another dead end. And if you want an even more depressing picture of Chrome's content ecosystem, just look at the pitiable situation with web apps.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook is one of the nicest pieces of laptop hardware I've touched in a very long time. Not since Google's 2017 Pixelbook has there been a ChromeOS device this good looking, this powerful, or -- here's the rub -- this expensive. Available sometime in the first quarter, the Galaxy Chromebook starts at $999 and could go much higher if you fully upgrade its RAM and storage. The central conceit of this laptop is that there really is demand for a high-end Chromebook, and while that may be more true in 2020 than it was in 2017, it's not a sure thing. Chrome OS still has a nagging inability to do some of the things you'd want a device that costs more than a thousand dollars to do: run full desktop apps, easily edit photos and video, or play more premium games. Despite those limitations, Google and Samsung are looking for ways to get Chromebooks to escape the classroom and start appearing in boardrooms. The Galaxy Chromebook could be part of a revitalized effort to do just that. Running down the specs of the Galaxy Chromebook is like hitting a laundry list of the things you might want in a top-tier Windows ultrabook. It has a 13.3-inch 4K AMOLED display and an Intel 10th-gen Core-i5 Processor. There's a fingerprint sensor for unlocking, two USB-C ports, and expandable storage via microSD. The screen rotates 360-degrees and there's an included S-Pen stylus that can be stored in a silo on the device itself. It's built out of aluminum instead of plastic, has a large trackpad, and is less than 10mm thick.

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This cartoon comes closest to describing the dismay of people who did not vote for Trump about people who did. No matter what you may believe, how could crashing the country possibly be better than trying to work together? I'm not talking about parties working together, or news networks, I'm talking about people, American-to-American.

1997: "The press only knows three stories, Apple is dead, Microsoft is evil, and Java is the future." In 2020, Apple is alive, no one worries about Microsoft's character, and Java is no longer the future.

But Facebook? According to journalism, Facebook is a bad place. Facebook is a place you don't want to go. Reality is as the great Yogi Berra said: "No one goes there anymore, it's too crowded." That's Facebook. It isn't any one thing, it's everything.

The scale of Facebook is hard to imagine. To say Facebook is like a low-life bar (something one of my correspondents on Twitter said) would be like saying NYC is a low-life bar -- ridiculous -- NYC has 8.6 million people. It has art museums, libraries, great restaurants, office buildings, millions of homes and families to go with them. Two baseball stadiums. Two airports. Dozens of schools and universities. It's a big place but Facebook is much much much bigger. Let's say Facebook has a billion users. That means it's 125 times the size of NYC. The people who go to Facebook are not low-lifers, they're your friends and family, colleagues, classmates, people in power, retired people, rich and poor, from every continent. What is happening on Facebook? Does anyone have the slightest idea? Even the Facebook company probably only has a very aggregated view of what goes on there.

I have a hunch that Facebook is where journalism is rebooting. I know we're supposed to scoff at the idea of people doing it for themselves, helping each other get the info they need, but if there's going to be a local news desert, something has to fill the gap. Just because professional journalism is leaving localities (which includes non-geographic locales like industries and professions), does that mean we must live without journalism? I think not. We need journalism, and we'll have it, imho.

Professional journalism does not respect online. Look at Farhad Manjoo's latest. What a trip. Some of my friends in Woodstock don't use Facebook for the reasons he outlines. Why? Because they heard it from him, or another NYT reporter or columnist, and believed it. My friends didn't find this out themselves, because if they looked, asked for pointers from friends (for example me), they would have found their people there. If they hang out with evil people, that's probably what they'd find. Or if they live with aging hippies (as in the place I live now) then that's what they'd find. Billions of people can't all be as bad and stupid as a columnist in the NYT says they are. And remember that Manjoo has reasons to want you not to like Facebook. His salary depends on it.