Alphabet's Google on Friday fired scientist Margaret Mitchell, she said in a Twitter post, after weeks of being under investigation for moving thousands of files outside the company amid a battle over research freedom and diversity. From a report: Google's ethics in artificial intelligence research unit has been under scrutiny since December's dismissal of scientist Timnit Gebru, which prompted protest from thousands of Google workers.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

All Boeing 737 Max flights around the world are being tracked by U.S. regulators who are keeping watch on the plane after its 20-month grounding. From a report: The Federal Aviation Administration is using a network of satellites capable of tracking planes in even the most remote regions as if they were under surveillance by local radars, according to the agency. The data is being provided by Virginia-based Aireon, the FAA said in an emailed statement on Friday. Aireon, which reached an agreement in November to provide the FAA with expanded flight data, is tracking Max flights for unusual events, such as rapid descents, said Vincent Capezzuto, the company's chief technology officer. The monitoring began Jan. 29, Capezzuto said during a Feb. 12 webinar hosted by Aviation Week. "Recently, we engaged with them on a 737 Max monitor," he said. "You can literally monitor it on a situational awareness display." If any unusual events occur on the plane, "safety engineers and inspectors will use the early notification to further analyze the incident," the FAA said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The share of Americans working more than one job to make ends meet has been growing over the past two decades, and the pay from second jobs make up a substantial share of workers' earnings, according to a paper published by the U.S. Commerce Department on Wednesday. From a report: An estimated 7.8% of U.S. workers had more than one job as of the first quarter of 2018, up from 6.8% in 1996, according to new data unveiled by the Census bureau, which provides a more detailed analysis of multiple job holders than was previously available. The findings were based on data from 18 states. The earnings from the workers' second jobs make up an average 28% of their total earnings, showing that workers are likely relying on that pay, researchers said. In general, women were more likely to have multiple jobs than men, with 9.1% of women holding multiple jobs as of 2018, compared with 6.6% of men. They also noted that multiple-job holding occurred at all levels of income, but was more common for low-wage workers. Those juggling more than one occupation earned less, on average, than people who had only one job.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

How much carbon am I emitting with this tweet?

Her birth represents the first cloning of an endangered species native to North America, and may bring needed genetic diversity to the species. From a report: Last year, Ben Novak drove across the country to spend New Year's Eve with a black-footed ferret. Elizabeth Ann had just turned 21 days old -- surely a milestone for any ferret but a particularly meaningful one for Elizabeth Ann, the first of any native, endangered animal species in North America to be cloned. Mr. Novak, the lead scientist of the biotechnology nonprofit Revive & Restore, bought a trailer camper to drive his wife and identical twin toddlers from North Carolina to the National Black-footed Ferret Conservation Center near Fort Collins, Colo. (They made one pit stop in Texas to see Kurt, the first cloned Przewalski's horse.) Mr. Novak spent less than 15 minutes with Elizabeth Ann, whose black mask, feet and tail were just beginning to show through her downy white fur. "It felt like time stopped," Mr. Novak said. Thankfully, time has not stopped for Elizabeth Ann, who now looks bigger, browner and considerably more like a ferret. Her successful cloning is the culmination of a yearslong collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Revive & Restore, the for-profit company ViaGen Pets & Equine, San Diego Zoo Global and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Cloned siblings are on the way, and potential (cloned) mates are already being lined up. If successful, the project could bring needed genetic diversity to the endangered species. And it marks another promising advance in the wider effort to use cloning to retrieve an ever-growing number of species from the brink of extinction. The black-footed ferret, the first species to be reintroduced to former habitats with the help of artificial insemination, has long been a model species for new conservation technologies. So it is fitting that the ferrets have become the second species to be cloned for this type of genetic rescue. (Elizabeth Ann follows in the footsteps of Kurt the horse.) "Pinch me," joked Oliver Ryder, the director of conservation genetics at San Diego Zoo Global, over a Zoom call. "The cells of this animal banked in 1988 have become an animal."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Comcast is delaying a plan to enforce its 1.2TB data cap and overage fees in the Northeast US until 2022 after pressure from customers and lawmakers in multiple states. From a report: "[W]e are delaying implementation of our new data plan in our Northeast markets until 2022," Comcast said in an announcement yesterday. "We recognize that our data plan was new for our customers in the Northeast, and while only a very small percentage of customers need additional data, we are providing them with more time to become familiar with the new plan." Comcast has enforced the data cap in 27 of the 39 states in which it operates since 2016, but not in the Northeast states where Comcast faces competition from Verizon's un-capped FiOS fiber-to-the-home service. In November 2020, Comcast announced it would bring the cap to the other 12 states and the District of Columbia starting in January 2021. But with yesterday's announcement, no one in those 12 states and DC will be charged overage fees by Comcast in all of 2021.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee has said Australia's plan to make tech giants pay for journalism could render the internet as we know it "unworkable." From a report: The inventor of the World Wide Web claimed that proposed laws could disrupt the established order of the internet. "Specifically, I am concerned that that code risks breaching a fundamental principle of the web by requiring payment for linking between certain content online," Berners-Lee told a Senate committee scrutinizing a bill that would create the New Media Bargaining Code. If the code is deployed globally, it could "make the web unworkable around the world," he said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nasa releases an astonishing image of its new Mars robot taken just moments before touchdown.

Question: Is there a movie you’ve watched a dozen or more times, that you’d watch right now if it were on? Lots of responses.

I just cancelled Fubo and YouTube TV. I was able to replace both for much less money by re-hooking up with Spectrum, my cable provider. So cutting the cord is not economic. That word should get around. When you look at the set top box and think "I can save money by getting rid of that," that's probably wrong. This is an ever more divided space, where big media companies use their content to keep you in their networks. And since many of them also own movie companies, and the pandemic has destroyed their distribution system, they;'re all trying, cautiously, to use their streaming services to unclog their new movie pipelines. I guess because of history, the cable providers can offer the best deals? Not sure why it is that way but it is. YouTube TV still has the most comfortable UI in this category, btw. Spectrum's is awkward, but I'm guessing I'll get used to it.

One of the reasons I'm so sympathetic with Donald McNeil is that I have a friend whose career was ruined by something not all that different from what happened to McNeil. And unlike McNeil, he's still got a number of productive years before retirement, and has three children who need to be provided for, and more important deserve to look up to their father.

There are some people whose loyalty is so valued that no matter what happens I'll stand by them. There aren't many in my life. There was a time in 2002 when I was really sick, and had a long recovery in front of me. I made it is because of the help of three friends. And one of them is this person, who I'm not going to name, because I think there's a chance doing so would make it worse for him, and that's the last thing I want.

This is something "the left" does, and it's real. They're pretending they don't do it. But they do. It's just as awful imho as the people who attacked the Capitol, at least they had the guts to try to ruin things out in the open. The people who attacked my friend had nothing against him. It was all laid out in a Medium post, crafted to make no specific charges, just to phrase things that made him seem like a Harvey Weinstein type, when he is nothing of the sort.

Anyway another friend who reads my blog pointed this out. You are taking a lot of notice of McNeil, she said in a phone conversation. It's true. I love what McNeil did during the early days of the pandemic. I will miss his commentary as we go forward, but hopefully he can find another path to the podcast universe. I also like the rapport he had with Michael Barbaro, and I guess that's gone. I think the NYT is a lost cause.

But friendship, that's still the whole thing. The personal connection. The knowing your friend is deeply flawed but still he's your friend. I can openly advocate for McNeil without much risk, but the issue is much bigger than McNeil and the NY Times.

A new court filing has revealed that, as part of the ongoing legal battle between Apple and Epic Games, Apple subpoenaed Valve Software in November 2020, demanding it provide huge amounts of commercial data about Steam sales and operations going over multiple years. From a report: Apple subpoenaed Valve under the basic argument that certain Steam information would be crucial to building its case against Epic, which is all about competitive practices. Yesterday a joint discovery letter was filed to the District court in Northern California relating to the subpoena, which contains a summary of the behind-the-scenes tussles thus far, and both sides' arguments about where to go from here. [...] Apple wants Valve to provide the names, prices, configurations and dates of every product on Steam, as well as detailed accounts of exactly how much money Steam makes and how it is all divvied-up. Apple argues that this information is necessary for its case against Epic, is not available elsewhere, and "does not raise risk of any competitive harm." Needless to say, Valve does not agree. Its counter-argument to the above says that Valve has co-operated to what it believes to be a reasonable extent -- "Valve already produced documents regarding its revenue share, competition with Epic, Steam distribution contracts, and other documents" -- before going on to outline the nature of Apple's requests: "that Valve (i) recreate six years' worth of PC game and item sales for hundreds of third party video games, then (ii) produce a massive amount of confidential information about these games and Valve's revenues." In a masterpiece of understatement, Valve's legal counsel writes: "Apple wrongly claims those requests are narrow. They are not." Apple apparently demanded data on 30,000+ games initially, before narrowing its focus to around 600. Request 32 gets incredibly granular, Valve explains: Apple is demanding information about every version of a given product, all digital content and items, sale dates and every price change from 2015 to the present day, the gross revenues for each version, broken down individually, and all of Valve's revenues from it. Valve says it does not "in the ordinary course of business keep the information Apple seeks for a simple reason: Valve doesn't need it." Valve's argument goes on to explain to the court that it is not a competitor in the mobile space (this is, after all, a dispute that began with Fortnite on iOS), and makes the point that "Valve is not Epic, and Fortnite is not available on Steam." It further says that Apple is using Valve as a shortcut to a huge amount of third party data that rightfully belongs to those third parties. The conclusion of Valve's argument calls for the court to throw Apple's subpoena out. "Somehow, in a dispute over mobile apps, a maker of PC games that does not compete in the mobile market or sell 'apps' is being portrayed as a key figure. It's not. The extensive and highly confidential information Apple demands about a subset of the PC games available on Steam does not show the size or parameters of the relevant market and would be massively burdensome to pull together. Apple's demands for further production should be rejected."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The price of Bitcoin (BTC) has reached a new all-time high of $53,670, pushing the coin's total market capitalization above $1 trillion, according to crypto metrics platform CoinGecko. Market capitalization is the total number of coins currently in circulation multiplied by their current market price -- basically, the combined worth of all existing BTC. From a report: By various estimations, the value of all money in the world is around $95 trillion -- and now Bitcoin represents about 1% of that. While it's not totally fair to compare Bitcoin to money (it can be seen as an asset instead), it provides one way to put it in perspective. Speaking to Decrypt, Quantum Economics analyst Jason Deane noted that for people who were involved in the crypto space from its early days, the $1 trillion BTC market capitalization may have been a long time coming but it was inevitable.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

IBM is exploring a potential sale of its IBM Watson Health business, WSJ is reporting, citing people familiar with the matter, as the technology giant's new chief executive moves to streamline the company and become more competitive in cloud computing. From a report: IBM is studying alternatives for the unit that could include a sale to a private-equity firm or industry player or a merger with a blank-check company, the people said. The unit, which employs artificial intelligence to help hospitals, insurers and drugmakers manage their data, has roughly $1 billion in annual revenue and isn't currently profitable, the people said. Its brands include Merge Healthcare, which analyzes mammograms and MRIs; Phytel, which assists with patient communications; and Truven Health Analytics, which analyzes complex healthcare data. It isn't clear how much the business might fetch in a sale, and there may not be one. IBM, with a market value of $108 billion, has been left behind as cloud-computing rivals Microsoft and Amazon.com soar to valuations more than 10 times greater. The Armonk, N.Y., company has said it's focused on boosting its hybrid-cloud operations while exiting some unrelated businesses. IBM last year signaled its new focus with the appointment of Arvind Krishna, who had run the company's cloud and cognitive-software division, to succeed longtime CEO Ginni Rometty.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.