An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Mercury News: Doctors at Stanford University are at the forefront of a global movement of health experts who are criticizing lockdowns to control COVID-19 and say schools and businesses should reopen, but with a focus on protecting the elderly and infirm who are most vulnerable to the virus. Called the Great Barrington Declaration after the western Massachusetts town where it was hatched this month at an economic policy think tank, their statement of purpose is the handiwork of three principal drafters who include Stanford medical professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. "As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists, we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies," the declaration states. "The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk." Though the arguments are not new, with more than 18,000 medical, science and public health practitioners among its more than 191,000 worldwide online signatories, it represents the largest public break among health experts from their peers' prevailing support for lockdowns since the pandemic began early this year. "Bhattacharya, who drafted the declaration with doctors Martin Kulldorff, a Harvard University medical professor, and Sunetra Gupta, an epidemiologist at Oxford University, has been at the center of the lockdown controversy from the start," the report notes. "In March, he co-authored a Wall Street Journal opinion column suggesting the new coronavirus may not be as deadly as many believe. The following month, he co-authored a Stanford study that indicated the virus was far more prevalent than presumed and as a result, the death rate far lower. That pre-peer-review study -- which was later revised -- drew withering criticism and even prompted Stanford to review the team's work, which Bhattacharya said he was confident would be vindicated."

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Disney is restructuring its media and entertainment divisions, as streaming becomes the most important facet of the company's business. From a report: On Monday, the company revealed that in order to further accelerate its direct-to-consumer strategy, it would be centralizing its media businesses into a single organization that will be responsible for content distribution, ad sales and Disney+. The move by Disney comes as the global coronavirus pandemic has crippled its theatrical business and ushered more customers towards its streaming options. As of August, Disney has 100 million paid subscribers across its streaming offerings, more than half of which are subscribers to Disney+. "I would not characterize it as a response to Covid," CEO Bob Chapek told CNBC's Julia Boorstin on CNBC's "Closing Bell" Monday. "I would say Covid accelerated the rate at which we made this transition, but this transition was going to happen anyway."

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sandbagger writes: A government-backed advert that encouraged people working in the arts to reskill by turning to a career in cybersecurity has been scrapped after the culture secretary described it as "crass." On Monday morning Oliver Dowden distanced himself from the Cyber First campaign, which resurfaced on the same day his department was celebrating awarding $338 million in funding to struggling venues and organisations. Dowden tweeted that the ad campaign, which is backed by the government and promotes retraining in tech, did not come from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), while reiterating that he wanted to "save jobs in the arts." The advert depicts a ballet dancer tying her shoes, with the caption "Fatima's next job could be in tech," which critics said was in bad taste considering thousands of jobs are being lost in the culture sector. The campaign promises to equip people "with the essential cyber skills needed to set you on a rewarding career path."

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My friend Peter Politi said of the new BingeWorthy watchlist: "A very useful feature as it allows someone with fleeting memory to create a list of shows that they may want to see in the future, based on others' recommendations."

I was writing enthusiastically about Clubhouse, then I stopped writing, because I stopped using it. At first, for no particular reason. I wasn't finding conversations that interested me, and when I started them myself, usually nothing happened. Then came the anti-Semitism meltdown. It was depressing to find out that fighting for equality, to the extent that it works, would not end the hatred for my people. After that I looked at every conversation there differently. Never spoke again. I still have the app, am still a member, so this all could change, but I thought it was good to update.

A blog should be a document, not a collection of documents.

Voting should be online, like banking.

Recently released Canalys data shows the global PC market climbed 12.7% from a year ago to reach 79.2 million units in Q3 2020 as it continued to benefit hugely from the COVID-19 crisis. From a report by the research firm: This is the highest growth the market has seen in the past 10 years. After a weak Q1, the recovery in Q2 continued into Q3 this year, and it even grew on top of a strong market the previous year. Global notebook shipments touched 64 million units (almost as much as the record high of Q4 2011 when notebook shipments were 64.6 million) as demand continued to surge due to second waves of COVID-19 in many countries and companies continued to invest in longer-term transitions to remote working. Shipments of notebooks and mobile workstations grew 28.3% year-on-year. This contrasted with desktop and desktop workstations, which saw shipments shrink by 26.0%. Lenovo regained top spot in the PC market in Q3 with growth of 11.4% and shipments surpassed the 19 million mark. HP posted a similarly impressive growth of 11.9% to secure second place with 18.7 million units shipped. Dell, in third, suffered a small decline of 0.5% in shipments from a year ago. Apple and Acer rounded out the top five rankings, posting stellar growth of 13.2% and 15.0% respectively.

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A recently released tool is letting anyone exploit an unusual Mac vulnerability to bypass Apple's trusted T2 security chip and gain deep system access. The flaw is one researchers have also been using for more than a year to jailbreak older models of iPhones. But the fact that the T2 chip is vulnerable in the same way creates a new host of potential threats. Worst of all, while Apple may be able to slow down potential hackers, the flaw is ultimately unfixable in every Mac that has a T2 inside. From a report: In general, the jailbreak community haven't paid as much attention to macOS and OS X as it has iOS, because they don't have the same restrictions and walled gardens that are built into Apple's mobile ecosystem. But the T2 chip, launched in 2017, created some limitations and mysteries. Apple added the chip as a trusted mechanism for securing high-value features like encrypted data storage, Touch ID, and Activation Lock, which works with Apple's "Find My" services. But the T2 also contains a vulnerability, known as Checkm8, that jailbreakers have already been exploiting in Apple's A5 through A11 (2011 to 2017) mobile chipsets. Now Checkra1n, the same group that developed the tool for iOS, has released support for T2 bypass. On Macs, the jailbreak allows researchers to probe the T2 chip and explore its security features. It can even be used to run Linux on the T2 or play Doom on a MacBook Pro's Touch Bar. The jailbreak could also be weaponized by malicious hackers, though, to disable macOS security features like System Integrity Protection and Secure Boot and install malware. Combined with another T2 vulnerability that was publicly disclosed in July by the Chinese security research and jailbreaking group Pangu Team, the jailbreak could also potentially be used to obtain FileVault encryption keys and to decrypt user data. The vulnerability is unpatchable, because the flaw is in low-level, unchangeable code for hardware. "The T2 is meant to be this little secure black box in Macs -- a computer inside your computer, handling things like Lost Mode enforcement, integrity checking, and other privileged duties," says Will Strafach, a longtime iOS researcher and creator of the Guardian Firewall app for iOS. "So the significance is that this chip was supposed to be harder to compromise -- but now it's been done."

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Razer has unveiled its fall lineup of gaming products for its base of hardcore gamers, including new laptops and an ergonomic gaming chair. The company unveiled the gear at its first annual RazerCon weekend-long event, a virtual festival filmed at the company's Las Vegas store. The event includes concerts with artists such as Deadmau5, DragonForce and Friends, Sabaton, and Speaker Honey. From a report: More than a million people were watching at the outset of RazerCon as Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan took the stage. He noted that Razer donated more than a million masks during the pandemic and that fans donated 75,000. He said Razer also created a $15 million COVID-19 relief fund and the company is supporting green product design with its products and packaging. Tan also announced a partnership with Conservation International to fund the protection of trees worldwide. Razer announced the latest version of its Razer Blade Stealth 13 laptop with an "ultrabook" design. It has an 11th Gen Intel Core i7-1165G7 processor running at up to 4.7GHz (base performance of 2.8GHz), a full HD OLED touch display option, and THX Spatial Audio. It also has an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Ti graphics chip (the same as the prior model with 4GB GDDR6 memory, which gives it 10% faster graphics performance) and is 2.7 times better at content creation than the previous version. The display has an option for operating at a 120-hertz refresh rate. Razer marketing manager Eugene Kuo said in a press briefing that the laptop is the company's first to combine the OLED screen with the faster refresh rate. The laptop runs at 28 watts and can produce darker images and contrast ratios. Razer acquired THX, which was founded by filmmaker George Lucas, and is now adding the THX Spatial Audio technology to its peripherals and computers. For gaming, Razer claims the spatial audio offers a competitive edge, as you can hear which direction enemies are coming from. The Razer Blade Stealth 13 will be available this month at $1,800 on Razer.com, as well as through select retailers this fall.

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The German Research Vessel Polarstern returns to port after drifting for a year in Arctic sea-ice.

Project xCloud, the Microsoft game-streaming service that comes packed as a bonus in certain Xbox Game Pass subscription plans, may finally have a path to working on Apple's range of iOS devices -- well after a public row between the tech giants that put the possibility into question. From a report: The news comes from a report by Business Insider, which claimed that an internal Microsoft meeting on Wednesday included a vote of confidence from Xbox chief Phil Spencer. "We absolutely will end up on iOS," Spencer reportedly said about getting its streamed Project xCloud game content onto iOS devices in "2021." Previously, Apple shot down existing versions of both Project xCloud (which has since been rolled into the "Xbox Game Pass" app) and Google Stadia as iOS apps. Their public statements hinged on "reviewing" the games included in the subscription against App Store guidelines, though the issue could also stem from in-app purchases within both Xbox and Stadia's offerings. Eventually, Apple offered a revised stance on such apps, but this onerous "approval for every separate game" proposal comes with its own headaches, as opposed to a clear path toward a simple subscription service (as you'll find in popular iOS media apps like Netflix and Amazon Video).

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EU regulators are drawing up a "hit list" of up to 20 large internet companies, likely to include Silicon Valley giants such as Facebook and Apple, that will be subject to new and far more stringent rules aimed at curbing their market power. From a report: Under the plans, large platforms that find themselves on the list will have to comply with tougher regulation than smaller competitors, according to people familiar with the discussions, including new rules that will force them to share data with rivals and an obligation to be more transparent on how they gather information. The list will be compiled based on a number of criteria, including market share of revenues and number of users, meaning the likes of Facebook and Google are likely to be included. Those deemed to be so powerful that rivals cannot trade without using their platforms could also be added. The move to gain new powers is part of a growing effort in Brussels to force big technology companies to change their business practices without a full investigation or any finding that they have broken existing laws. It follows complaints that the current regulatory regime has resulted in weak and belated action, which has done little to foster competition. The number of companies and the precise criteria for the list is still being discussed, but it is the latest indication of how serious the EU is about coming up with powers to limit the power of platforms seen as "too big to care."

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A coalition of technology companies used a federal court order unsealed Monday to begin dismantling one of the world's most dangerous botnets in an effort to preempt disruptive cyber-attacks before next month's U.S. presidential election. From a report: The takedown is a highly coordinated event, spearheaded by the software giant Microsoft and involving telecommunications providers in multiple countries. If the operation succeeds, it will disable a global network of infected computers created by a popular malicious software known as Trickbot. Beginning early Monday, Trickbot operators are expected to began losing communication with the millions of computers they had painstakingly infected over a period of months, even years. The loss of the botnet -- as a network of infected computers is known -- will make it more difficult for Russian-based cybercriminals and other digital marauders to do their work. It will likely take months or years for the criminals to recover, if at all. By dramatically dismantling Trickbot's network, Microsoft and its partners believe they will likely head-off ransomware attacks that could compromise voting systems before the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 3, said Tom Burt, vice president of Microsoft's customer security and trust division. "They could tie-up voter registration roles, election night reporting results and generally be extremely disruptive," Burt said. "Taking out one of the most notorious malware groups, we hope, will reduce the risk of ransomware's impact on the election this year." Coordinated takedowns like the one Monday have become increasingly common in the last several years, although the legal and technical hurdles involved are substantial. In this case, Microsoft and its partners were able to obtain a federal court order founded on Trickbot's infringement of Microsoft's trademarks, but ultimately aimed at disconnecting communications channels the attackers use to control the malicious software.

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