Broadband use surged 30% to 40% during the COVID-19 pandemic in the US, and even reached 60% in some areas, an industry group has concluded. CNET reports: The Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group released data this week that it gathered from internet service providers, broadband analytics firms, and networking companies that help deliver data. We all consumed more downstream data -- the flow from the internet to the home -- but upstream use grew faster. That's an important consideration given that most cable and DSL services offer much higher downstream capacity. All those videoconferences for work meetings and online schooling likely were involved in the upstream data traffic. "Some networks saw more than 300% increase in the amount of video conferencing traffic from February to October 2020," the report said. Though the internet itself held up well overall, there are problems. "Rural and low-income households have struggled" with broadband access to online services, the report said, and some households suffered with older equipment that couldn't handle heavy traffic or the increase in networked devices in the home. If you're having problems at home, you should consider an Ethernet cable connection to your network router, upgrading to a mesh network with multiple network access points, upgrading your PC or phone, or paying for a faster internet connection if it's available.

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The joint international and Chinese mission organized by the World Health Organization on the origins of Covid released its report last week suggesting that for almost every topic it covered, more study was needed. What kind of study and who will do it is the question. From a report: The report suggested pursuing multiple lines of inquiry, focused on the likely origin of the coronavirus in bats. It concluded that the most likely route to humans was through an intermediate animal, perhaps at a wildlife farm. Among future efforts could be surveys of blood banks to look for cases that could have appeared before December 2019 and tracking down potential animal sources of the virus in wildlife farms, the team proposed. Critics of the report have sought more consideration of the possibility that a laboratory incident in Wuhan could have led to the first human infection. A loosely organized group of scientists and others who have been meeting virtually to discuss the possibility of a lab leak released an open letter this week, detailing several ways to conduct a thorough investigation. It called for further action, arguing that "critical records and biological samples that could provide essential insights into pandemic origins remain inaccessible." Much of the letter echoes an earlier release from the same group detailing what it saw as the failures of the W.H.O. mission. This second letter is more specific in the kind of future investigations it proposes. The group is seeking a new inquiry that would include biosecurity and biosafety experts, one that could involve the W.H.O. or a separate multination effort to set up a different process to explore the beginnings of the pandemic and its origins in China. Jamie Metzl, an author, senior fellow of the Atlantic Council, an international policy think tank and signer of the scientists' letter, said the renewed calls for a more thorough investigation reflected the need for greater monitoring of and restrictions on what viruses can be studied in labs around the world. "This is not about ganging up on China," Mr. Metzl said. Mr. Metzl's group was among those disappointed by the report issued last week, as it dismissed out of hand the possibility of a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, calling it extremely unlikely. Further reading: Data Withheld From WHO Team Probing COVID-19 Origins in China: Tedros.

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Twitter held talks in recent months to acquire Clubhouse, the buzzy audio-based social network, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The companies discussed a potential valuation of roughly $4 billion for Clubhouse, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private. Discussions are no longer ongoing, and it's unclear why they stalled, the people added. [...] Clubhouse is barely a year old but has drawn appearances from some of the biggest names in business and Hollywood. Established social media companies have quickly gone to work on their own versions of Clubhouse, including Twitter. Facebook is exploring one, too, and Microsoft's LinkedIn and Slack have also said they're working on similar features for their networks.

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Trade-in provider Gazelle exited the online trade-in business back in February, and now the company says it's changing its mind. From a report: Gazelle is back to accepting online trade-ins of iPhones, Samsung phones, Google Pixel devices, and iPads and other tablets on its website, the company confirms to The Verge. The program resumed accepting new offers on April 5th, a Gazelle representative clarified. "Earlier this year, we announced that we will no longer be offering our trade-in option on Gazelle. After careful consideration, including feedback from customers like you, we have decided to keep Gazelle Trade-In going. Today, we are happy to say, 'We're back, baby!'" reads an email Gazelle sent to prospective customers. "Gazelle Trade-In is a pioneer of the electronics trade-in space and we are happy to continue building on our legacy by offering a simple process and immediate payouts for those unwanted devices." Gazelle emerged as one of the leading trade-in providers of the smartphone era. But its business model didn't fare as well when the US mobile phone business underwent major shifts away from two-year contracts and outright device purchases and toward phone leasing and carrier and device maker trade-in programs like Apple's.

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A US government committee has described YouTube Kids as a "wasteland of vapid, consumerist content." From a report: In a letter to YouTube chief executive Susan Wojcicki, the US sub-committee on economic and consumer policy said the platform was full of "inappropriate... highly commercial content". Google launched YouTube Kids in 2015 as a safe place for children to view appropriate content. YouTube said it had worked hard to provide "enriching content for kids."

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Mark Wilson writes: Microsoft has launched a preview version of its own distribution of Java, making it available for Windows, macOS and Linux. The company has named the release Microsoft Build of OpenJDK, and describes it as its "new way to collaborate and contribute to the Java ecosystem". The company has made available Microsoft Build of OpenJDK binaries for Java 11, which are based on OpenJDK source code. Microsoft says it is looking to broaden and deepen its support for Java, "one of the most important programming languages used today".

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Uber and Lyft said U.S. drivers on their ride-hail platforms were earning significantly more than before the pandemic as trip demand outstrips driver supply, prompting the companies to offer extra incentives. From a report: Uber on Wednesday said it would invest an additional $250 million to boost driver earnings and offer payment guarantees in an effort to incentivize new and existing drivers. Uber's Vice President of U.S. & Canada Mobility, Dennis Cinelli, in a blog post told drivers to take advantage of higher earnings before pay returns to pre-COVID-19 levels as more drivers return to the platform. Lyft on Tuesday said drivers in the company's top-25 markets were earning an average of $36 per hour compared to $20 per hour pre-pandemic. Those numbers include tips, but Lyft did not disclose the share of tips in earnings. Lyft is also offering additional incentives and promotions in select markets. Further reading: Uber and Lyft have a driver shortage problem, and itâ(TM)s costing them a lot of money

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After watching The Making of Sgt Pepper, I've listened to the album a few times, from beginning to end. They said it's a concept album, but it isn't. There are four songs that are in keeping with the Sgt Pepper theme, but the rest are Beatles songs. A few that could have been from the pre-Pepper Beatles. But the album made another statement that did mark a turning point for the Beatles and our culture. Basically it was this: We're going to try out new ideas. We're really going to do it, not just talk about doing it. We're going to take pop music to new places. We're going to use the remarkable place we're in to innovate. Further, this isn't about fame or wealth, it's about creativity, human expression. For the rest of their careers, as a group and individuals, they continued to try new ideas. They were creative and brave. And they inspired a generation of us to believe in our own ingenuity as much as any tech hero did, more I think (though I wasn't inspired by them, I was of them). The beauty of Pepper is the lives of the people who created it and their power to influence.

sciencehabit writes: A potential chink in physicists' understanding of fundamental particles and forces now looks more real. New measurements confirm a fleeting subatomic particle called the muon may be ever so slightly more magnetic than theory predicts, a team of more than 200 physicists reported this week. That small anomaly -- just 2.5 parts in 1 billion -- is a welcome threat to particle physicists' prevailing theory, the standard model, which has long explained pretty much everything they've seen at atom smashers and left them pining for something new to puzzle over. "Since the 1970s we've been looking for a crack in the standard model," says Alexey Petrov, a theorist at Wayne State University. "This may be it." But Sally Dawson, a theorist at Brookhaven National Laboratory, notes the result is still not definitive. "It does nothing for our understanding of physics other than to say we have to wait a little longer to see if it is real." For decades, physicists have measured the magnetism of the muon, a heavier, unstable cousin of the electron, which behaves like a tiny bar magnet. They put muons in a vertical magnetic field that makes them twirl horizontally like little compass needles. The frequency at which the muons twirl reveals how magnetic they are, which in principle can point to new particles, even ones too massive to be blasted into existence at an atom smasher like Europe's Large Hadron Collider. That's because, thanks to quantum uncertainty, the muon sits amid a haze of other particles and antiparticles flitting in and out of existence. These "virtual" particles can't be observed directly, but they can affect the muon's properties. Quantum mechanics and Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity predict the muon should have a certain basic magnetism. Familiar standard model particles flitting about the muon increase that magnetism by about 0.1%. And unknown particles lurking in the vacuum could add another, unpredictable increment of change.

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Poll: When Trump says Matt Gaetz never asked for a pardon, what percent chance is it he's telling the truth?

T-Mobile made a series of announcements Wednesday as part of its latest 'Un-carrier' initiative, including the official launch of its new home internet service, 5G phone offerings, and new investment in rural areas. From a report: T-Mobile Home Internet: After piloting a home internet service powered by its wireless network, T-Mobile Home Internet is now available to more than 30 million U.S. households. It costs $60 per month -- $10 more per month than the pilot program -- with average expected speeds of 100 Mbps for most customers and an included 4G/5G gateway device. T-Mobile Hometown: The Bellevue, Wash.-based company will build hundreds of new retail stores and create 5,000 jobs in small U.S. towns. It is also adding "Hometown Experts" to towns where it can't build a store, and committing $25 million over five years to fund community development projects in rural areas. 5G phones: T-Mobile said it will let postpaid customers trade in any old phone in working condition for a new Samsung Galaxy A32 5G smartphone for free after 24 monthly bill credits.

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A database containing the phone numbers of more than half a billion Facebook users is being freely traded online, and Facebook is trying to pin the blame on everyone but themselves. From a report: A blog post titled "The Facts on News Reports About Facebook Data," published Tuesday evening, is designed to silence the growing criticism the company is facing for failing to protect the phone numbers and other personal information of 533 million users after a database containing that information was shared for free in low level hacking forums over the weekend, as first reported by Business Insider. Facebook initially dismissed the reports as irrelevant, claiming the data was leaked years ago and so the fact it had all been collected into one uber database containing one in every 15 people on the planet -- and was now being given away for free -- didn't really matter. So instead of apologizing for failing to keep users' data secure, Facebook's product management director Mike Clark began his blog post by making a semantic point about how the data was leaked. "It is important to understand that malicious actors obtained this data not through hacking our systems but by scraping it from our platform prior to September 2019," Clark wrote. This is the identical excuse given in 2018, when it was revealed that Facebook had given Cambridge Analytica the data of 87 million users without their permission, for use in political ads. Clark goes on to explain that the people who collected this data -- sorry, "scraped" this data -- did so by using a feature designed to help new users find their friends on the platform.

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Physicists may have just made a major breakthrough in our understanding of the Universe.

Software developer Stephen Diehl on Signal's move to introduce support for cryptocurrency: Many technologists viscerally felt yesterday's announcement as a punch to the gut when we heard that the Signal messaging app was bundling an embedded cryptocurrency. This news really cut to heart of what many technologists have felt before when we as loyal users have been exploited and betrayed by corporations, but this time it felt much deeper because it introduced a conflict of interest from our fellow technologists that we truly believed were advancing a cause many of us also believed in. So many of us have spent significant time and social capital moving our friends and family away from the exploitative data siphon platforms that Facebook et al offer, and on to Signal in the hopes of breaking the cycle of commercial exploitation of our online relationships. And some of us feel used. Signal users are overwhelmingly tech savvy consumers and we're not idiots. Do they think we don't see through the thinly veiled pump and dump scheme that's proposed? It's an old scam with a new face. Allegedly the controlling entity prints 250 million units of some artificially scarce trashcoin called MOB (coincidence?) of which the issuing organization controls 85% of the supply. This token then floats on a shady offshore cryptocurrency exchange hiding in the Cayman Islands or the Bahamas, where users can buy and exchange the token. The token is wash traded back and forth by insiders and the exchange itself to artificially pump up the price before it's dumped on users in the UK to buy to allegedly use as "payments." All of this while insiders are free to silently use information asymmetry to cash out on the influx of pumped hype-driven buys before the token crashes in value. Did I mention that the exchange that floats the token is the primary investor in the company itself, does anyone else see a major conflict of interest here? Let it be said that everything here is probably entirely legal or there simply is no precedent yet. The question everyone is asking before these projects launch now though is: should it be? I think I speak for many technologists when I say that any bolted-on cryptocurrency monetization scheme smells like a giant pile of rubbish and feels enormously user-exploitative. We've seen this before, after all Telegram tried the same thing in an ICO that imploded when SEC shut them down, and Facebook famously tried and failed to monetize WhatsApp through their decentralized-but-not-really digital money market fund project. The whole Libra/Diem token (or whatever they're calling its remains this week) was a failed Facebook initiative exploiting the gaping regulatory loophole where if you simply call yourself a cryptocurrency platform (regardless of any technology) you can effectively function as a shadow bank and money transmistter with no license, all while performing roughly the same function as a bank but with magic monopoly money that you can print with no oversight while your customers assume full counterparty risk. If that sounds like a terrible idea, it's because it is. But we fully expect that level of evil behavior from Facebookers because that's kind of their thing.

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If we want the Dems to stay in power, and we do -- they have to get a very simple idea.

The. Campaign. Never. Stops.

It used to be that fund-raising never stops, but now more is required.

Keep the connection between leadership and voters going all the time.

The good thing -- our current president gets this.

Biden is doing a fantastic job. Maybe his experience has something to do with it. Or maybe, as Nixon could open China, after being a rabid anti-communist, maybe Biden is uniquely capable of being a new LBJ or FDR, because he is known as a moderate. (As was LBJ, btw.)

BTW, add to this thread -- why has Lincoln Project stopped running ads? This happened the the HRC campaign in 2016. The election is over, that does not mean that campaigning is over. The support of the people is essential to governing and maintaining power.