Facebook has filed lawsuits today in both the US and the UK against MobiBurn, a UK software company that provided advertising tools for mobile app developers. From a report: In particular, MobiBurn provided an advertising software development kit (SDK) that allowed app developers to embed ads inside their applications and monetize user behavior. But in a lawsuit filed today, Facebook claims the SDK contained malicious code that illegally collected the personal data of Facebook users. Facebook said the data was collected when users installed any mobile app that contained the MobiBurn advertising SDK. When this happened, the code would activate and collect a person's name, time zone, email address, and gender. "Security researchers first flagged MobiBurn's behavior to us as part of our data abuse bounty program," said Jessica Romero, Facebook's Director of Platform Enforcement and Litigation.

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An anonymous reader shares an opinion piece from Wired, written by Kevin Xu and Jordan Schneider. Xu is the author of Interconnected, investor and advisor of open source startups at OSS Capital, and served in the Obama White House. Schneider is the author of the ChinaTalk newsletter and host of the ChinaTalk podcast, posted on Lawfare. From the report: Open source is a technology development and distribution methodology, where the codebase and all development -- from setting a roadmap to building new features, fixing bugs, and writing documentation -- is done in public. A governing body (a group of hobbyists, a company, or a foundation) publicly manages this work, which is most often done in a public repository on either GitHub or GitLab. Open source has two important, and somewhat counterintuitive, advantages: speed and security. These practices lead to faster technological developments, because a built-in global community of developers help them mature, especially if the technology is solving a real problem. Top engineers also prefer to work with and on open source projects. Wrongly cast as secretive automatons, they are more often like artists, who prefer to learn, work, collaborate, and showcase what they've built in public, even when they are barely compensated for that work. But doesn't keeping a technology's codebase open make it more vulnerable to attack? In fact, exposing the codebase publicly for security experts and hackers to easily access and test is the best way to keep the technology secure and build trust with end users for the long haul. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and open source is that sunlight in technology. Linux, the operating system, and Kubernetes, the cloud container orchestration system, are two of the most prominent examples. [...] Using open source technology is now the fastest way new products get built and legacy technologies get replaced. Yet as US policymakers develop their industrial policy to compete with China, open source is conspicuously absent. By leaning on the advantages of open source, policymakers can pursue an industrial policy to help the US compete in the 21st century in line with our broader values. The alternative is to continue a top-down process that picks winners and losers based on not just technology but also political influence, which only helps individual firms secure market share, not sparking innovation more broadly. A few billion more dollars won't save Intel from its technical woes, but a healthier ecosystem leveraging open source technology and community would put the US in a better position for the future. Open source technology allows for vendor-neutrality. Whether you're a country or a company, if you use open source, you're not locked in to another company's technical stack, roadmap, or licensing agreements. After Linux was first created in 1991, it was widely adopted by large companies like Dell and IBM as a vendor neutral alternative to Microsoft's Windows operating system. In the future, chip designers won't be locked into Intel or ARM with RISC-V. With OpenRAN, 5G network builders won't be forced to buy from Huawei, Nokia, or Ericsson. [...] By doubling down on open source, America not only can address some of our most pressing technological challenges faster and more securely, but also revive relationships with our allies and deepen productive collaborations with the tech sector.

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The shift to online shopping has accelerated in the COVID-19 pandemic, but today Amazon made a bold move that underscores its belief that physical stores will remain a key component of how consumers shop. From a report: In the Los Angeles neighborhood of Woodland Hills, the e-commerce giant today opened its first Amazon Fresh supermarke. This is the first of a series of Amazon Fresh stores that the company plans to open, with others so far confirmed in Oak Lawn, Illinois; Schaumburg, Illinois; Naperville, Illinois; Irvine; California; and North Hollywood, California. A blog post from Jeff Helbling, the head of Amazon Fresh Stores, notes that the store will open initially invitation-only, based on emails it will be sending out to locals, from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. PT.

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schwit1 writes: The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized the first rapid coronavirus test that doesn't need any special computer equipment to get results. The 15-minute test from Abbott Laboratories will sell for $5, giving it a competitive edge over similar tests that need to be popped into a small machine. The self-contained test is the size of a credit card and is based on the same technology used to test for the flu, strep throat and other infections. It's the latest cheaper, simpler test to hit the U.S. market, providing new options to expand testing as schools and businesses struggle to reopen and flu season approaches. The FDA also recently greenlighted a saliva test from Yale University that bypasses some of the supplies that have led to testing bottlenecks. Both tests have limitations and neither can be done at home. Several companies are developing rapid, at-home tests, but none have yet won approval. Abbott's new test still requires a nasal swab by a health worker, like most older coronavirus tests. The Yale saliva test eliminates the need for a swab, but can only be run at high-grade laboratories. And in general, rapid tests like Abbott's are less accurate than lab-developed tests.

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Amazon is getting into the health gadget market with a new fitness band and subscription service called Halo. From a report: Unlike the Apple Watch or even most basic Fitbits, the Amazon Halo band doesn't have a screen. The app that goes along with it comes with the usual set of fitness tracking features along with two innovative -- and potentially troubling -- ideas: using your camera to create 3D scans for body fat and listening for the emotion in your voice. The Halo band will cost $99.99 and the service (which is required for Halo's more advanced features) costs $3.99 per month. Amazon is launching it as an invite-only early access program today with an introductory price of $64.99 that includes six months of the service for free. The Halo service is a separate product that isn't part of Amazon Prime. The lack of a screen on the Halo band is the first indicator that Amazon is trying to carve out a niche for itself that's focused a little less on sports and exercise and a little more on lifestyle changes. Alongside cardio, sleep, body fat, and voice tone tracking, a Halo subscription will offer a suite of "labs" developed by partners. They're short challenges designed to improve your health habits -- like meditation, improving your sleep habits, or starting up basic exercise routines.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Windows 10 May 2020 Update, otherwise known as version 2004, was released in May with at least ten known issues. Microsoft later expanded the list of the problems and acknowledged that this feature update is also plagued with a bug that breaks Drive Optimize tool. After upgrading to Windows 10 version 2004, users observed that Optimize Drives (also known as defragmentation tool) is not correctly recording the last time a drive has been optimized. As a result, when you open the tool, you will see that your SSD drive says it 'Needs Optimization' even though you've manually optimized the drives already or automatic maintenance was run this morning. Since the last optimizations times are forgotten, Windows 10's built-in maintenance tool started defragging an SSD drive much more often when you restart Windows. With Windows 10 Build 19042.487 (20H2) for Insiders, Microsoft has finally resolved all problems with the Optimize Drives (also known as defragmentation tool).

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Walmart said it's teaming up with Microsoft in a bid for TikTok. From a report: The retail giant confirmed to CNBC that it's interested in buying the tech company. TikTok is nearing an agreement to sell its U.S., Canadian, Australian and New Zealand operations in a deal that's likely to be in the $20 billion to $30 billion range, sources say. It has not yet chosen a buyer, but could announce the deal in coming days, sources say. With Walmart's confirmation, it joins several others bidding on the tech company, including Oracle. Walmart is pursuing the acquisition at a time when it's trying to better compete with Amazon. It plans to launch a membership program, called Walmart+, soon. The subscription-based service is the retailer's answer to Amazon Prime, which includes original TV shows and movies. In a statement, the big-box retailer said TikTok's integration of e-commerce and advertising "is a clear benefit to creators and users in those markets." It did not say how it would use TikTok or whether it would be part of Walmart+.

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If you were black, and you saw this happening, you might be inspired to do more than say something like Black Lives Matter. Your rage and fear might overwhelm you. So the first thing I would say to a black person who said Black Lives Matter is thank you for containing the rage you must feel, that I would feel if I were in your shoes, that I feel in a small way on your behalf, at the cruelty and callousness of our system and culture. Then I'd ask if there was anything I could do to help.

At least pause for a moment before replying and ask yourself why this person is saying Black Lives Matter. Of course they know and agree that all lives matter. But that isn't what they're saying. They're saying that Black Lives Matter not because they're more important than white lives or cop lives, which seems to be how you're interpreting it, but because a lot of black people are being killed and the justice system does not seem to care.

If when someone says Black Lives Matter you quickly respond with All Lives Matter then I have a few things I want to say to you.

The chip maker was selected for an Energy Department project meant to show American tech independence. But problems at Intel have thrown a wrench into the effort. From a report: When it selected Intel to help build a $500 million supercomputer last year, the Energy Department bet that computer chips made in the United States could help counter a technology challenge from China. Officials at the department's Argonne National Laboratory predicted that the machine, called Aurora and scheduled to be installed at facilities near Chicago in 2021, would be the first U.S. system to reach a technical pinnacle known as exascale computing. Intel pledged to supply three kinds of chips for the system from its factories in Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico. But a technology delay by the Silicon Valley giant has thrown a wrench into that plan, the latest sign of headwinds facing government and industry efforts to reverse America's dependence on foreign-made semiconductors. It was also an indication of the challenges ahead for U.S. hopes to regain a lead in critical semiconductor manufacturing technology. Intel, which supplies electronic brains for most personal computers and web services, has long driven miniaturization advances that make electronic devices smaller, faster and cheaper. But Robert Swan, its chief executive, warned last month that the next production advance would be 12 months late and suggested that some chips for Aurora might be made outside Intel factories. Intel's problems make it close to impossible that Aurora will be installed on schedule, researchers and analysts said. And shifting a key component to foreign factories would undermine company and government hopes of an all-American design. "That is part of the story they were trying to sell," said Jack Dongarra, a computer scientist at the University of Tennessee who tracks supercomputer installations around the world. "Now they stumbled."

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Visa said it has developed a more advanced artificial intelligence system that can approve or decline credit and debit transactions on behalf of banks whose own networks are down. From a report: The decision to approve or deny a transaction typically is made by the bank. But bank networks can crash because of natural disasters, buggy software or other reasons. Visa said its backup system will be available to banks who sign up for the service starting in October. The technology is "an incredible first step in helping us reduce the impact of an outage," said Rajat Taneja, president of technology for Visa. The financial services company is the largest U.S. card network, as measured both by the number of cards in circulation and by transactions. The new service reflects the growing use of AI in banking. Banks are expected to spend $7.1 billion on AI in 2020, growing to $14.5 billion by 2024, on initiatives such as fraud analysis and investigation, according to market research firm International Data Corp. The service, Smarter Stand-In Processing, uses a branch of AI called deep learning that roughly mimics neurons in the human brain and is an underlying technology powering self-driving cars, voice-enabled digital assistants and facial recognition.

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TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer has left the Chinese-owned video app firm just three months since joining, and only days since the company sued the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump over an executive order effectively banning it in the United States. He will be replaced by U.S. General Manager Vanessa Pappas on an interim basis, TikTok said in a statement. From a report: The resignation comes at a tricky time for super-fast growing TikTok as it tries to persuade both the United States and India that it is not a security threat, while at the same time holding discussions with prospective buyers following a second U.S. order demanding the sale of its U.S. operations. Mayer was Walt Disney's top streaming executive before becoming chief executive officer of TikTok and chief operating officer of parent ByteDance on June 1. "In recent weeks, as the political environment has sharply changed, I have done significant reflection on what the corporate structural changes will require, and what it means for the global role I signed up for," Mayer said in a letter to employees.

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Good ventilation could be key to avoiding coronavirus this autumn as people spend more time indoors.

There are just 53 members of the Greater Andamanese tribe left- 10 have contracted the virus.