Microsoft is revealing more about its Windows 10X operating system today, which is designed for new dual-screen devices. From a report: The software giant has re-engineered this special variant of Windows 10 to install and update the operating system a lot faster. This will allow Windows 10X to download an OS update and simply switch to it at reboot, all within less than 90 seconds. That's a big difference from what we're used to with Windows 10 today, which involves the OS downloading an update and then applying it and rebooting. This takes minutes even on high-end systems currently, but Microsoft has developed a special state separation in Windows 10X to improve this radically.

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Mozilla today released Firefox 73 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Firefox 73 includes a default zoom level setting, a readability backplate option, and a handful of developer features.

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U.S. officials say Huawei can covertly access mobile-phone networks around the world through "back doors" designed for use by law enforcement [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; an alternative source was not immediately available.], as Washington tries to persuade allies to exclude the Chinese company from their networks. From a report: Intelligence shows Huawei has had this secret capability for more than a decade, U.S. officials said. Huawei rejected the allegations. The U.S. kept the intelligence highly classified until late last year, when American officials provided details to allies including the U.K. and Germany, according to officials from the three countries. That was a tactical turnabout by the U.S., which in the past had argued that it didn't need to produce hard evidence of the threat it says Huawei poses to nations' security. When telecom-equipment makers build and sell hardware such as switching gear, base stations and antennae to carriers -- who assemble the networks that enable mobile communication and computing -- they are required by law to build into their hardware ways for authorities to access the networks for lawful purposes. They are also required to build equipment in such a way that the manufacturer can't get access without the consent of the network operator. Only law-enforcement officials or authorized officials at each carrier are allowed into these "lawful interception interfaces," generally with the carrier's permission. Such access is governed by laws and protocols specific to each country. U.S. officials say Huawei has built equipment that secretly preserves the manufacturer's ability to access networks through these interfaces without the carriers' knowledge.

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Silicon Valley has a long history of unsubtly repackaging jobs that might otherwise be titled technical support, marketing or office management. But beyond the distinctive euphemisms, the thousands of jobs posted each week by tech behemoths, well-heeled startups and those trying to bridge the valley of death in between often hint at more dramatic economic shifts underway. News outlet Protocol rounded up a half dozen of the most intriguing current job openings in tech.: 1. Facebook: People Research Scientist, Leadership. 2. Joby Aviation: Stress Engineer -- Occupant Seats. 3. Oh My Green: Overnight Happiness Ambassador. 4. DoorDash: Dasher Experience Specialist. 5. Mondelez International: Social Listening & Consumer Foresights Lead. 6. Dyson: Scrum Master.

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The fossils of the predator, which stood around 8ft (2.4m) tall, were found by a farmer in Alberta.

Up to a fifth of the Amazon rainforest has become a net source of CO2, research suggests.

The six-wheeled robot survives the simulated conditions it'll experience on the Red Planet.

Surprising absolutely nobody, Samsung officially announced the Galaxy Z Flip, its second stab at foldable phone, at its Unpacked event in San Francisco on Tuesday. From a report: The Z Flip is markedly different foldable than the Galaxy Fold, which launched to lukewarm reception and a whopping $1,980 price. Instead of a phone that unfolds open to a larger tablet-sized screen, the Galaxy Z Flip is a regular smartphone that folds closed into a smaller device. It's similar to the Motorola Razr. The Z Flip has a 6.7-inch OLED display that bends in half. Samsung says the "Infinity Flex Display" is the first one that is made of glass. Every foldable phone display has used plastic, which is more malleable, but less durable and scratch-resistant than glass. Underneath the folding screen, there's a Snapdragon 855+ chip. It's priced at $1,380 and starts shipping this Friday.

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Trump loves Concord. No, not my Concord.

The new effort by the Federal Trade Commission will require all five big technology companies to provide information about the smaller players they've purchased over the past 10 years, including documents for deals that may not have been large enough to warrant deep, closer inspection by government watchdogs at the time. From a report: The records the FTC amasses could ultimately influence its thinking about Silicon Valley and its size, sparking investigations, resulting in tough punishments or prompting the commission to seek further enforcement powers from Congress once it concludes its work. "This initiative will enable the Commission to take a closer look at acquisitions in this important sector, and also to evaluate whether the federal agencies are getting adequate notice of transactions that might harm competition," FTC Chairman Joe Simons said in a statement. The inquiry announced Tuesday differs from a traditional investigation: Using its so-called 6(b) authority, the FTC can embark on wide-ranging reviews of entire industries without necessarily bringing a law-enforcement action. The agency in the past has invoked such powers to delve deep into drug prices, alcohol ads and gas gouging, experts said, often ushering about major changes in the markets and companies it studies. With big tech, the FTC is particularly interested in the smaller startups purchased by Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft. Such deals typically aren't large enough to require companies under law to report them to agencies like the FTC, which would then review them for competition concerns. The document demands sent to all five tech giants require them to demystify these transactions, explaining their acquisition strategies and the ways they ingested startups -- and the data they amassed -- into their own services.

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Students at Lambda School say the program hasn't delivered on its promise. From the report: Bethany Surber was sleeping on friends' couches and living out of her car when she first heard about Lambda School, a buzzy coding bootcamp that promised world-class instructors and a top-tier curriculum. Best of all, it wouldn't cost a cent -- at least not up front. The school encouraged students to defer tuition until they landed a stable job, then pay back a share of their income. Surber and her boyfriend, an instructor at the local community college, quickly started making plans. She'd quit her job as a patient services representative at the hospital in Tacoma, Washington, and they'd move in together while she took classes. Then, when she got a high-paying tech gig, she'd renovate his house, maybe take herself on a vacation. Lambda offered Surber a chance at a life she'd never had -- one of job opportunities, tech money, prestige. She'd watched as companies like Amazon and Microsoft changed the fabric of the Seattle area, bringing massive new developments and six-figure salaries that sucked talent from nearby Tacoma. Now, she finally had a chance to be part of that change. From the beginning, however, the online class wasn't what Surber or her classmates had expected. The instructors changed week to week and often seemed to have no idea what the students had already covered. The curriculum advertised on the website never fully materialized. The online portal where they were supposed to find their homework assignments rarely matched up with what they were learning. Some of the changes were things Lambda students had requested. (The school prides itself on being incredibly responsive to user feedback.) But the constant state of flux proved difficult for first-time designers. By January 2020, six months into the program, Surber's group was in revolt. The program wasn't worth the money, they wrote in a letter to Lambda's leadership. They felt like test subjects in a lab. Many asked to get out of the income-sharing agreements (ISAs) they'd signed, which stipulated that they had to hand over 17 percent of their income once they started making $50,000 or more until their $30,000 tuition was paid off.

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Experts are hailing a British Airways flight as the fastest subsonic New York to London journey. From a report: The Boeing 747-436 reached speeds of 825 mph (1,327 km/h) as it rode a jet stream accelerated by Storm Ciara. The four hours and 56 minutes flight arrived at Heathrow Airport 80 minutes ahead of schedule on Sunday morning. According to Flightradar24, an online flight tracking service, it beat a previous five hours 13 minutes record held by Norwegian. The BBC has been unable to independently verify the record as no complete database of flight times was available. Aviation consultant and former BA pilot Alastair Rosenschein said the aeroplane reached a "phenomenal speed." "The pilot will have sat their aircraft in the core of the jet stream and at this time of year it's quite strong. Turbulence in those jet streams can be quite severe, but you can also find it can be a very smooth journey."

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This is weird. If you do a Google search for What makes a weblog a weblog? it links to a page on blogs.harvard.edu that's a Miley Cyrus fan blog. It was last updated in 2008. It's a wonder to me how this site came to have that URL. Anyway, the original piece, intended to last for a long time, is still present, even though Google doesn't know about it. Written in 2003, by yours truly, it was an attempt to put a marker down. This is what we were doing way back when. To the future, you know how it turned out. We had no idea.

Microsoft will no longer forcibly make Bing the default search engine in Chrome for Office 365 ProPlus customers. A tech community post from Microsoft announced the change. From a report: Microsoft states that people will have the choice to opt-in to have the Microsoft Search in Bing browser extension installed. Microsoft was going to install the Microsoft Search Bing extension onto any system with Office 365 ProPlus that didn't already have Bing set as the default search engine. This would have effectively forced Bing onto Office 365 ProPlus customers. The move set off waves of backlash around the web, which caused Microsoft to change its plans.

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Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.