Google is now backing a standard proposed by Apple engineers in January to create a default format for one-time passcodes (OTP) sent via SMS to users during the two-factor authentication (2FA) process. From a report: The standard, proposed by Apple engineers working on the Safari WebKit project, has now reached the status of official Web Platform Incubator Community Group (WICG) specification draft. "We've moved 'Origin-bound one-time codes delivered via SMS' to @wicg_, where we're working on a shared spec with our collaborators at Google. Please take a look! Updated explainer, and specification," wrote Apple's Ricky Mondello. The proposal aims to fix some issues with the current state of SMS 2FA/OTP codes, all of which have different formats, unique per the websites sending the codes.

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Samsung is killing its Smart View app for Android and iOS, which serves as a remote control for its older smart TVs. From a report: The company has updated the application's descriptions to announce that it will no longer be supported starting on October 5th. Android Police first spotted the changes and noted that, in addition to its capability as a remote control, Smart View can also beam music and media to the company's TVs. It's unclear how Samsung defines "older" -- hence which all models will be impacted.

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A few years ago, the kind of double-digit drop in oil and gas prices the world is experiencing now because of the coronavirus pandemic might have increased the use of fossil fuels and hurt renewable energy sources like wind and solar farms. That is not happening. From a report: In fact, renewable energy sources are set to account for nearly 21 percent of the electricity the United States uses for the first time this year, up from about 18 percent last year and 10 percent in 2010, according to one forecast published last week. And while work on some solar and wind projects has been delayed by the outbreak, industry executives and analysts expect the renewable business to continue growing in 2020 and next year even as oil, gas and coal companies struggle financially or seek bankruptcy protection. In many parts of the world, including California and Texas, wind turbines and solar panels now produce electricity more cheaply than natural gas and coal. That has made them attractive to electric utilities and investors alike. It also helps that while oil prices have been more than halved since the pandemic forced most state governments to order people to stay home, natural gas and coal prices have not dropped nearly as much. Even the decline in electricity use in recent weeks as businesses halted operations could help renewables, according to analysts at Raymond James & Associates. That's because utilities, as revenue suffers, will try to get more electricity from wind and solar farms, which cost little to operate, and less from power plants fueled by fossil fuels.

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Xbox co-creator Rob Wyatt has filed a lawsuit against Atari for failing to pay him for the design work he did in creating the Atari VCS console. From a report: Tin Giant, Wyatt's company, filed the lawsuit in federal court in Colorado, alleging breach of contract and defamation. Tin Giant said that Atari owes it in excess of $261,720. Wyatt, a co-creator of the Xbox and cofounder of The Last Gameboard, said in an interview last year that he quit as lead architect for Atari. He alleged that Atari did not pay his company, Tin Giant, for six months of work. Atari CEO Fred Chesnais declined to comment in a statement, saying that he had not received a copy of the lawsuit yet. Atari has not developed a game console for more than 20 years.

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The Facebook CEO promised Kevin Systrom independence, but a new book shows that the promise only lasted until Instagram started to look like the favorite son. From a report: By the end of 2016, just as Zuckerberg's company was facing its first controversies related to Donald Trump's election, Zuckerberg was focused on a different kind of threat. Typical Facebook users were posting fewer of their own thoughts and photos, and Zuckerberg suspected Instagram's successful copying of Snapchat Stories was to blame. (The success came as a surprise even to Zuckerberg, who unbeknownst to Systrom had again tried and failed to buy Snapchat shortly before Instagram Stories debuted.) He enlisted his most trusted data scientists to study whether Instagram was becoming a Facebook alternative and threatening its dominance. Zuckerberg thought the research showed that Instagram would start eating into Facebook's user base within six months. The word "cannibalization" started to creep into his management meetings. Systrom disagreed with Zuckerberg's assessment of the data. "This is not Instagram taking away from the Facebook pie to add to the Instagram pie," he told Zuckerberg at a weekly Monday leadership meeting. "The total pie is getting bigger." It wasn't just Instagram vs. Facebook. It was all of these Facebook properties vs. every other choice in the world, like Netflix, Snapchat, Twitter, and, you know, sleep. Others in the room sided with Systrom. They were puzzled by Zuckerberg's apparent jealousy of Instagram's success. Zuckerberg had always said Facebook should reinvent itself before a competitor got the chance and that the company should make the decisions about how to do so based on data. "If we don't create the thing that kills Facebook, someone else will," the booklet passed out at employee orientation reads. Yet Zuckerberg couldn't seem to bear the idea that Instagram might outshine Facebook. He told Systrom he believed Instagram Stories was successful not because of its design, but because they'd happened to release the feature ahead of Facebook Stories. Facebook had helped Instagram long enough, he decided. In 2018, Instagram would have to start giving back. Instagram users barely noticed Zuckerberg's first change. He ordered Systrom to build a prominent link within the Instagram app that would send his users to Facebook. Around the same time, he had his own engineers remove the prominent link to Instagram on Facebook's site. Zuckerberg's willingness to expand Instagram's team had waned, too. He balked at adding engineers to facilitate the release of IGTV, even though Instagram was on track to hit 1 billion users and $10 billion in revenue that year.

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China was the biggest source of applications for international patents in the world last year, pushing the United States out of the top spot it has held since the global system was set up more than 40 years ago, the U.N. patent agency said on Tuesday. From a report: The World Intellectual Property Organization, which oversees a system for countries to share recognition of patents, said 58,990 applications were filed from China last year, beating out the United States which filed 57,840. China's figure was a 200-fold increase in just 20 years, it said. The United States had filed the most applications in the world every year since the Patent Cooperation Treaty system was set up in 1978. More than half of patent applications -- 52.4 % -- now come from Asia, with Japan ranking third, followed by Germany and South Korea. [...] According to the WIPO data, China's Huawei, the world's biggest maker of telecoms equipment, was the top corporate patent filer for the third consecutive year.

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The team behind the first image of a black hole reveals something else from that historic picture.

Microsoft has revealed details about a new project it has been working on for Linux kernel. From a report: Named Integrity Policy Enforcement -- or IPE -- the project is a Linux security module (LSM). LSMs are optional add-ons for the Linux kernel that enable additional security features. According to a documentation page published on Monday, IPE is Microsoft's attempt to solve the code integrity problem for Linux -- an operating system the company broadly uses in its Azure cloud service. On Linux systems where IPE is enabled, system administrators can create a list of binaries that are allowed to execute and then add the verification attributes the kernel needs to check for each binary before allowing it to run. If binaries have been altered by an attacker, IPE can block the execution of the malicious code.

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An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla today launched Firefox 75 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Firefox 75 includes a revamped address bar with significant search improvements, a few performance tweaks, and a handful of developer features. You can download Firefox 75 for desktop now from Firefox.com, and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. According to Mozilla, Firefox has about 250 million active users, making it a major platform for web developers to consider. When the coronavirus crisis took hold, millions found themselves spending more time in their browsers as they learn and work from home. But the crisis is also impacting software developers. Google was forced to pause its Chrome releases, which typically arrive every six weeks. Ultimately, Chrome 81 was delayed, Chrome 82 is being skipped altogether, and Chrome 83 has been moved up a few weeks. Microsoft has followed suit with Edge's release schedule, consistent with Google's open source Chromium project, which both Chrome and Edge are based on. Mozilla wants to make clear it is not in the same boat. The company took an indirect jab at Google and Microsoft today, saying: "We've built empathy into our systems for handling difficult or unexpected circumstances. These strengths are what allow us to continue to make progress where some of our competitors have had to slow down or stop work."

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I don't understand how this clip from The Dark Knight hasn't become viral, it's such a premonition of Trump. Where's the plan you ask? There is no plan. He's the dog who caught the car. He has no idea what to do with it.

Teachers at some schools across the country report that fewer than half of their students are participating in online learning. From a report: Chronic absenteeism is a problem in American education during the best of times, but now, with the vast majority of the nation's school buildings closed and lessons being conducted remotely, more students than ever are missing class -- not logging on, not checking in or not completing assignments. The absence rate appears particularly high in schools with many low-income students, whose access to home computers and internet connections can be spotty. Some teachers report that fewer than half of their students are regularly participating. The trend is leading to widespread concern among educators, with talk of a potential need for summer sessions, an early start in the fall, or perhaps having some or even all students repeat a grade once Americans are able to return to classrooms. Students are struggling to connect in districts large and small. Los Angeles said last week that about a third of its high school students were not logging in for classes. And there are daunting challenges for rural communities like Minford, Ohio, where many students live in remote wooded areas unserved by internet providers.

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Brian Krebs: In February, KrebsOnSecurity told the story of a private citizen auctioning off the dangerous domain corp.com for the starting price of $1.7 million. Domain experts called corp.com dangerous because years of testing showed whoever wields it would have access to an unending stream of passwords, email and other sensitive data from hundreds of thousands of Microsoft Windows PCs at major companies around the globe. This week, Microsoft agreed to buy the domain in a bid to keep it out of the hands of those who might abuse its awesome power.

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Coronavirus patients in areas that had high levels of air pollution before the pandemic are more likely to die from the infection than patients in cleaner parts of the country, according to a new nationwide study that offers the first clear link between long-term exposure to pollution and Covid-19 death rates. From a report: In an analysis of 3,080 counties in the United States, researchers at the Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that higher levels of the tiny, dangerous particles in air known as PM 2.5 were associated with higher death rates from the disease. For weeks, public health officials have surmised a link between dirty air and death or serious illness from Covid-19, which is caused by the coronavirus. The Harvard analysis is the first nationwide study to show a statistical link, revealing a "large overlap" between Covid-19 deaths and other diseases associated with long-term exposure to fine particulate matter. "The results of this paper suggest that long-term exposure to air pollution increases vulnerability to experiencing the most severe Covid-19 outcomes," the authors wrote.

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It's amazing how many podcasts suck for the simple reason that they put 15-20 minutes overhead up front. You keep waiting for them to start. My mainstays all have one thing in common, they start quickly.