Sony plans to produce far fewer units of its upcoming PlayStation 5 in its first year than it had for the previous-generation console's launch, Bloomberg reported Thursday. From the report: The Tokyo-based tech giant is limiting its initial production run in part because it expects the PS5's ambitious specs to weigh on demand by leading to a high price at launch, the people said, asking not to be identified because the subject is private. The global Covid-19 pandemic has affected Sony's promotional plans for the new device but not its production capacity, they added. The company has told assembly partners it would make 5 to 6 million units of the PS5 in the fiscal year ending March 2021, according to other people involved in the machine's supply chain. When Sony released the PlayStation 4 in November 2013, it sold 7.5 million units in its first two quarters.

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The way MacBook batteries charge is about to change. Apple has released a new developer preview of macOS Catalina 10.15.5, and as these releases often do, it contains a new feature: Battery Health Management. From a report: The new feature, which will only be available on Mac notebooks with Thunderbolt 3 ports, enables a new default approach to charging and discharging MacBook batteries. According to Apple, the feature is meant to reduce the rate of chemical aging of the MacBook's battery, thereby extending its long-term lifespan -- but without compromising on day-to-day battery life. The feature works by analyzing the temperature of the battery over time, as well as the charging pattern the laptop has experienced -- in other words, does the laptop frequently get drained most of the way and then recharged fully, or is it mostly kept full and plugged in? In the latter case, Battery Health Management is more likely to stop a bit short of full capacity in order to extend the battery's long-term lifespan. (All charging data is kept private on the MacBook unless the Mac has been opted in to share anonymous analytics data with Apple.) Charging a modern laptop battery to 100% and leaving it there for extended periods of time -- especially at warm temperatures -- can dramatically reduce the battery's usable life. This is hardly limited to laptops: I own an electric car, and the manufacturer makes it very clear that it should be routinely charged to only 80 percent to extend its battery lifespan.

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Zack Whittaker, reporting for TechCrunch: Since it exploded onto the scene in January after a newspaper expose, Clearview AI quickly became one of the most elusive, secretive, and reviled companies in the tech startup scene. The controversial facial recognition startup allows its law enforcement users to take a picture of a person, upload it, and match it against its alleged database of 3 billion images, which the company scraped from public social media profiles. But for a time, a misconfigured server exposed the company's internal files, apps and source code for anyone on the internet to find. Mossab Hussein, chief security officer at Dubai-based cybersecurity firm SpiderSilk, found the repository storing Clearview's source code. Although the repository was protected with a password, a misconfigured setting allowed anyone to register as a new user to log in to the system storing the code. The repository contained Clearview's source code, which could be used to compile and run the apps from scratch.

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The most famous paste site, used by hackers of all stripes to host lists of stolen passwords, announcements of data breaches, and malware has made it harder for security researchers to scrape it looking for that kind of information. From a report: And security researchers are pissed off. Pastebin is one of the most famous websites that allows anyone, even without being registered, to "paste" any kind of text and make it public. Over the years, it became a repository for all kinds of unsavory data, such as the personal details of people who got doxed by hackers, leaked passwords, hacker manifestos, and even malware payloads. Naturally, this meant it was a treasure trove for security researchers investigating data breaches or hunting hackers. On Tuesday, several security researchers complained on Twitter that they were unable to search Pastebin or scrape it using a special API, which they paid to get access to. (The lifetime subscription, which was required to scrape the site, cost $50.)

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Microsoft claims to have developed a system that correctly distinguishes between security and non-security software bugs 99% of the time, and that accurately identifies the critical, high-priority security bugs on average 97% of the time. From a report: In the coming months, it plans to open-source the methodology on GitHub, along with example models and other resources. Their work suggests that such a system, which was trained on a data set of 13 million work items and bugs from 47,000 developers at Microsoft stored across AzureDevOps and GitHub repositories, could be used to support human experts. It's estimated that developers create 70 bugs per 1,000 lines of code and that fixing a bug takes 30 times longer than writing a line of code, and that in the U.S., $113 billion is spent annually on identifying and fixing product defects. In the course of architecting the model, Microsoft says that security experts approved the training data and that statistical sampling was used to provide those experts a manageable amount of data to review. The data was then encoded into representations called feature vectors and Microsoft researchers designed the system using a two-step process, in which the model first learned to classify security and non-security bugs and then to apply severity labels -- critical, important, low-impact -- to the security bugs.

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A drought as bad as any in recorded history may be underway in the US.

Router vendor Linksys has locked user accounts on its Smart WiFi cloud service and is asking them to reset passwords after hackers have been observed hijacking accounts and changing router settings to redirect users to malware sites. From a report: Linksys' decision only impacts Smart WiFi accounts. Linksys Smart WiFi is a cloud-based account system that lets device owners connect to Linksys routers (and other equipment) over the internet to manage router settings. Smart WiFi is widely deployed across Linksys' router fleet, making it an ideal target for hackers who may want to hijack routers en-masse. According to a Bitdefender report published last month, this is exactly what's been recently happening. The cyber-security firm said it detected an organized campaign to break into D-Link and Linksys routers and change DNS settings.

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The European Union said it will scrutinize Google and Apple's proposed contact-tracing technology to ensure it meets the bloc's new standards governing the deployment of Covid-19 apps. From a report: Officials from member states and the EU's executive arm will "seek clarifications on the solution proposed by Google and Apple," the European Commission said on Thursday as it issued guidelines aimed at making the various virus-tracking apps interoperable. Alphabet's Google and Apple late last week announced they would add technology to their platforms to alert users if they have come into contact with a person with the coronavirus. While the system is voluntary, it has the potential to monitor about a third of the world's population. In a video-conference earlier this week with Google CEO Sundar Pichai and YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, EU Industry Commissioner Thierry Breton "insisted on the need for all digital actors to develop apps to trace the spread of the virus in full respect of the privacy of individuals and ensuring interoperability and security of communications," the EU said.

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Yvonne spotted an Oakland A's mask at Costco in Richmond.

A key piece of the federal government's stimulus efforts to help small businesses and their employees has run out of money, shutting out thousands of potential borrowers who were seeking aid amidst the coronavirus-driven economic plunge. From a report: The U.S. Small Business Administration said Thursday morning the Paycheck Protection Program wouldn't be accepting any more applications for the $349 billion program. The agency reported approving more than 1.6 million Paycheck Protection Program loan applications totaling more than $339 billion from over 4,900 lending institutions. While that money has been approved, most borrowers are still waiting for those loans to be funded -- and for money to even show up in their accounts. "America's small businesses are on the brink, trying desperately to keep their doors open and support their employees," said Brad Close, president of the National Federation of Independent Business, an advocacy group in Washington, D.C. "We've been hearing from our members, every day, worried the $349 billion lending program would run dry before help gets to them. Today, their worries became a reality."

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I just completed signing up for Medicare including a Medicare Advantage Plan. My two cents. When Bernie says "Medicare for All" -- no I don't think so. It's a bastard child. So incredibly complicated and convoluted. Obviously something that has been fought over endlessly in Congress. And in the end, after getting educated, and coming back again and again, I did what everyone seems to do, shrug their shoulders, pick a plan and hope for the best.

The medical system should work like this.

1. You need health care.
2. You get health care.
3. That's it.

Medicare isn't that. It's way better than I what I've had up till now, ObamaCare, which was a vast improvement over what I had before that (I'd call it Maybe I'm Covered We'll Find Out When I Need It-care). It feels like graduating, finally I get treated like I matter, a little. And I'm pretty sure that if I get in deep shit medically I wll be helped.

But why should you have to wait until you're 65 to get that?

PS: I'm not 65 yet, but soon.

The United Nations has backtracked on a pact with the Chinese telecommunications giant Tencent Holdings to provide videoconferencing and text services for the international organization's 75th anniversary, following backlash from U.S. officials and lawmakers as well as human rights groups. From a report: Critics claim the arrangement rewards a company that has enabled Beijing's digital surveillance efforts and stifled free speech on the internet in China. Late last month, the U.N. sparked a political firestorm when it announced plans to enlist the help of the Chinese social media and video game giant to serve as a platform for an online discussion with millions of netizens around the world on the future of the U.N. in the run-up to its 75th anniversary observance. Over the following weeks, U.S. lawmakers and human rights advocates pressed the U.N. to ditch the deal, saying it would tarnish the international organization's reputation as a champion of free expression and human rights.

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In his annual shareholder letter, Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos said that a next step for the company could be regularly testing its employees for the coronavirus, even if they show no symptoms. From a report: "Regular testing on a global scale, across all industries, would both help keep people safe and help get the economy back up and running," he wrote Thursday. Amazon first discussed the concept of developing its own testing capabilities last week. Bezos' public support for this initiative follows a similar push on Wednesday from banking and financial services leaders, who told President Donald Trump in a conference call that more widespread coronavirus testing is needed before the public would feel comfortable going out regularly again, The Wall Street Journal reported. This work is part of early-stage discussions by the White House, state governments and business leaders on how they will start reopening the economy following weeks of restrictive stay-at-home orders and mandated store closures. Along with far more testing, calls for people to regularly use face masks in public places are gaining more traction.

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Lots more info about running Glitch apps here.

BTW, so far the only big limit I've learned about with Glitch is the inability to map an IP address to an app. But this may not be a problem because I use Hover as my registrar and DNS, and they can map a top level domain using a CNAME. So you could say make mydomain.com point to a Glitch app. That was incorrect. Apparently they don't map a sub-domain to the app, so if you want a non-Glitch address, even if you're paying them for the service, you have to set up a server outside of Glitch to delegate requests. Or so it seems.

Verizon announced Thursday that it's buying BlueJeans as part of a push into the unified communications market. From a report: Verizon said BlueJeans will be "deeply integrated" into its 5G product roadmap, becoming part of Verizon Business and sold as a secure communications system for areas such as telemedicine, distance learning and field service work. Verizon's ambitions aside, the acquisition is yet another sign that videoconferencing software is having a moment. The novel coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the need for collaboration and videoconferencing software, as millions of employees work from home and increasingly rely on software tools to stay connected.

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