An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Washington State lawmakers have voted to kill telecom-industry backed restrictions that limit the reach of community broadband. The Public Broadband Act (HB1336) passed the state Senate with a 27-22 vote on Sunday, after passing the House with a vote of 60-37 last February. State Representative Drew Hansen applauded the bill's passage on Twitter, stating it "reverses decades of bad policy" and opens the door to better, cheaper broadband. "Washington was one of only 18 states that restricted local governments from serving the public by providing public broadband," Hansen told Motherboard. "My bill eliminates that restriction." In Washington, a twenty-one year old law let some local governments build their own broadband networks, but prohibited local utilities from delivering broadband to customers directly. Hansen, who was also the primary sponsor of the state's new net neutrality law, says his bill finally eliminates those unnecessary limits entirely. "The Public Broadband Act broadly authorizes all local governments to provide broadband to anyone -- people who are totally unserved, people who have some internet access but it's not affordable or reliable -- any people at all," Hansen told Motherboard. "Under the Public Broadband Act, Washington governments have completely unrestricted authority to provide broadband to the public."

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If your heart stops en route to Mars, rest assured that researchers have considered how to carry out CPR in space. (One option is to plant your feet on the ceiling and extend your arms downwards to compress the patient's chest.) From a report: Astronauts, because of their age range and high physical fitness, are unlikely to suffer a stroke or have their appendix suddenly explode. That's good because, if it does happen, they're in the realm of what Jonathan Scott -- head of the medical projects and technology team at the European Space Agency -- describes as 'treatment futility.' In other words: there's nothing anyone can do about it. On the ISS, when medical incidents arise, astronauts can draw on the combined expertise of a host of medical experts at Nasa. "The patient is on the space station, the doctor is on the ground, and if there's a problem the patient consults the doctor," says Scott. By the time astronauts reach Mars, there'll be a 40-minute time lag in communications, if it's possible to make contact at all. "We have to begin preparing for not only being able to diagnose things in spaceflight but also to treat them as well," Scott says. Artificial intelligence is likely to be a part of the solution. If you're imagining the holographic doctor from Star Trek, downgrade your expectations, at least for the next few decades. Kris Lehnhardt, the element scientist for exploration medical capability at Nasa, says: "We are many, many, many years away from: please state the nature of the medical emergency." Emmanuel Urquieta is deputy chief scientist at the Translational Institute for Space Health (TRISH), a Nasa-funded program which conducts research into healthcare for deep space missions. While full AI may be a way off, Urquieta believes some form of artificial intelligence will still play a crucial role. "It's going to be essential for a mission to Mars," he says. While the crew for a mission to Mars will likely include a medical doctor, he explains: "No single physician can know everything." And, of course: "What happens if that astronaut gets sick?" Research projects funded by TRISH include Butterfly iQ, a handheld ultrasound device for use by non-medical personnel to make diagnoses that would otherwise require bulky equipment and a trained operator. VisualDx is an AI diagnostics tool originally developed to analyse images and identify skin conditions. The technology is now being adapted to help astronauts diagnose a wide range of conditions most commonly encountered in space, without an internet connection.

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Most business travellers in the UK will take fewer flights than they used to, according to a poll, thanks to increased use of video conferencing. Only a third expected to return to the same level of flying as before the coronavirus pandemic, once travel restrictions are lifted. From a report: The huge reduction in air travel caused by Covid-19 had no impact on the work life or productivity of the majority of the business flyers, the poll found, with one in five saying the shutdown had had a positive impact. Carbon emissions from aviation were growing at 5.7% a year before the pandemic, despite many countries committing to cut all emissions to net zero by 2050 to tackle the climate crisis. Green campaigners argue that the aviation shutdown provides an opportunity to put the sector on a sustainable trajectory. Business-class seats provide most of airlines' revenues but result in more emissions than those in the economy cabin because of the greater space occupied by each passenger. Business fliers also fly far more frequently than most holidaygoers, with 10% of those in the poll taking more than 10 flights in the year up to the first lockdown in March 2020. Bill Gates recently estimated that more than 50% of business travel would end as companies adopted online meetings and cut costs.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: The explosion and blackout at the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran over the weekend raised the specter of past sabotage -- including the Stuxnet cyberattack that took out some of Natanz's centrifuges between 2007 and 2010 as well as an explosion and fire that occurred there last July -- destroying about three-fourths of a newly opened plant for the assembly of centrifuges. Government officials and news reports gave conflicting accounts of what caused the latest blasts, the extent of damage, and Iran's capacity to quickly recover. Initial reports said there was no harm to the Natanz facility, but Iranian officials later acknowledged damage to its centrifuges. And while media accounts have suggested saboteurs focused on taking out the facility's electric supply, David Albright, founder and president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, D.C., believes the aim was to destroy centrifuges. Power is easy to restore even when electrical equipment is damaged, allowing enrichment work to quickly resume. But an abrupt blackout that also takes out backup power would have destroyed some centrifuges, Albright says, since they need to be powered down slowly. Failure to do so leads to vibrations that can cause centrifuge rotors and bellows to become damaged and in some cases disintegrate, which is what Albright suspects occurred.

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The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Gary Gensler to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, putting in place a battle-tested Wall Street watchdog at a moment when Democrats are looking to rein in financial market risk. From a report: The Senate confirmed Gensler in a 53-45 vote. The MIT professor and former Goldman Sachs partner is returning to government after serving as a top regulator in the Obama administration, when he cracked down on big bank trading activities that fueled the 2008 global financial crisis. Gensler will lead work on sweeping new federal regulations that would require companies to disclose their contributions and exposure to climate change, which is poised to trigger a huge lobbying fight and is already stirring deep partisan tensions. The effort will be in focus next week when President Joe Biden holds an international climate summit. And following four years of light-touch regulation under Trump, Democrats are urging the SEC to step up oversight of major financial firms after a series of high-profile market snafus this year. In recent days, for example, international banks with operations in the U.S. suffered billions of dollars in losses after a little-known investment fund collapsed and sent shockwaves through the markets.

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Hello. My name is Dave and I'm addicted to Granny Smith apples.

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase opened trading on Wednesday at $381 per share, giving it a fully diluted market value of around $102 billion. From a report: This is a slight premium to the most recent private trades for Coinbase stock, and more than 50% higher than the reference price set last night by the Nasdaq. Coinbase's public listing has been among the most anticipated in recent years, with expectations it will garner a massive market cap. Further reading: Coinbase's blockbuster debut is a 'watershed' for crypto -- but there are risks ahead.

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The EU Commission has decided not to renew COVID-19 vaccine contracts next year with AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson (J&J), Italian daily La Stampa reported on Wednesday, citing a source from the Italian health ministry. Reuters: "The European Commission, in agreement with the leaders of many (EU) countries, has decided that the contracts with the companies that produce (viral vector) vaccines that are valid for the current year will not be renewed at their expiry," the newspaper reported. It added that Brussels would rather focus on COVID-19 vaccines using messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, such as Pfizer's and Moderna's. A spokesman for the EU Commission said it was keeping all options open to be prepared for the next stages of the pandemic, for 2022 and beyond.

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The EU Commission has decided not to renew COVID-19 vaccine contracts next year with AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson (J&J), Italian daily La Stampa reported on Wednesday, citing a source from the Italian health ministry. Reuters: "The European Commission, in agreement with the leaders of many (EU) countries, has decided that the contracts with the companies that produce (viral vector) vaccines that are valid for the current year will not be renewed at their expiry," the newspaper reported. It added that Brussels would rather focus on COVID-19 vaccines using messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, such as Pfizer's and Moderna's. A spokesman for the EU Commission said it was keeping all options open to be prepared for the next stages of the pandemic, for 2022 and beyond.

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Parallels today announced the release of Parallels Desktop 16.5 for Mac with full support for M1 Macs, allowing for the Windows 10 ARM Insider Preview and ARM-based Linux distributions to be run in a virtual machine at native speeds on M1 Macs. From a report: Parallels says running a Windows 10 ARM Insider Preview virtual machine natively on an M1 Mac results in up to 30 percent better performance compared to a 2019 model 15-inch MacBook Pro with an Intel Core i9 processor, 32GB of RAM, and Radeon Pro Vega 20 graphics. Parallels also indicates that on an M1 Mac, Parallels Desktop 16.5 uses 2.5x less energy than on the latest Intel-based MacBook Air. Microsoft does not yet offer a retail version of ARM-based Windows, with the Windows 10 ARM Insider Preview available on Microsoft's website for Windows Insider program members. The ability to run macOS Big Sur in a virtual machine is a feature that Parallels hopes to add support for in Parallels Desktop later this year as well.

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Parallels today announced the release of Parallels Desktop 16.5 for Mac with full support for M1 Macs, allowing for the Windows 10 ARM Insider Preview and ARM-based Linux distributions to be run in a virtual machine at native speeds on M1 Macs. From a report: Parallels says running a Windows 10 ARM Insider Preview virtual machine natively on an M1 Mac results in up to 30 percent better performance compared to a 2019 model 15-inch MacBook Pro with an Intel Core i9 processor, 32GB of RAM, and Radeon Pro Vega 20 graphics. Parallels also indicates that on an M1 Mac, Parallels Desktop 16.5 uses 2.5x less energy than on the latest Intel-based MacBook Air. Microsoft does not yet offer a retail version of ARM-based Windows, with the Windows 10 ARM Insider Preview available on Microsoft's website for Windows Insider program members. The ability to run macOS Big Sur in a virtual machine is a feature that Parallels hopes to add support for in Parallels Desktop later this year as well.

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The Swedish government dropped today its investigation into the 2017 hack of its sports authority, citing legal constraints that would have prevented prosecutors from charging the Russian hackers responsible for the intrusion, which officials claimed were mere pawns operating on behalf of a "foreign power." From a report: This marks the first time that such a legal clause is cited by prosecutors investigating cyber-espionage hacking groups. Today's statement from the Swedish Prosecution Authority also marks the first time that Swedish officials formally blamed the Russian government for the 2017 hack of the Swedish Sports Confederation (SSC). Citing a recently-concluded investigation from the Swedish Security Service, which also involved foreign intelligence services, Swedish prosecutors said that one of Russia's military hacker groups breached its sports body between December 2017 and May 2018 and stole medical records for Swedish athletes.

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So many more examples. Like the VCs and RSS. They all lost all their money because they thought a format can be owned. None of them were interested in where I thought the products were, they all created the same product, badly -- and failed. Podcasting, more of the same. My partner, Adam Curry, thought I was just a programmer, and therefore fungible. I am a programmer, for sure -- but I think about things in a different way, there's a part of the stack almost no one else gets into. I see new media before it exists. I work at it. You can't just hire someone to do what I do. That's why my consistent drumbeat is Let's Work Together. Instead of stopping here, there's much more to do and no one gets to do it all. The interchange format isn't ownable. But most people don't get that, and when they bet money that they can, they lose it all.

I have to say, a consistent theme in my career has been, I create something, through a lot of hard work and trial and error, and years later it's out and people like it. And then people say thanks for doing that, now I'll take over. The first time I saw that in a huge way was with OPML. It came a couple of years after RSS's success, and a lot of people assumed OPML would be big and they could get rich if they owned it. I had a colleague at Harvard even tell me literally he was going to take over now. Those were the words he used. He had no idea what OPML was! I thought this is the height of ridiculousness. It got so awful I just dropped the project, to let them all fail, which is exactly what happened. These things aren't designed to get anyone rich. There is no lock-in possible so nothing to charge money for. How stupid can you be. Obviously, I learned the lesson that people can be very very very stupid. And unbelievably, larcenously, greedy. (BTW, the guy from Harvard was already very rich. He did not need more money. I had been to his house.)

A White House plan to rapidly shore up the security of the U.S. power grid will begin with a 100-day sprint, but take years more to transform utilities' ability to fight off hackers, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing a draft version of the plan confirmed by two people. From the report: The plan is the policy equivalent of a high-wire act: it provides incentives for electric companies to dramatically change the way they protect themselves against cyber-attacks while trying to avoid political tripwires that have stalled previous efforts, the details suggest. Among its core tenets, the Biden administration's so-called "action plan" will incentivize power utilities to install sophisticated new monitoring equipment to more quickly detect hackers, and to share that information widely with the U.S. government. It will ask utilities to identify critical sites which, if attacked, could have an outsized impact across the grid, according to a six-page draft of the plan, which was drawn up by the National Security Council and described in detail to Bloomberg News. And it will expand a partially classified Energy Department program to identify flaws in grid components that could be exploited by the country's cyber-adversaries, including Russia, Iran and China.

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