"Self-driving" vehicles could be allowed on UK roads by the end of this year, the government has said. The BBC reports: The Department for Transport said automated lane-keeping systems (ALKS) would be the first type of hands-free driving legalized. The technology controls the position and speed of a car in a single lane and it will be limited to 37mph (60km/h). Following a consultation last year, the government has now said that vehicles with ALKS technology can be legally defined as self-driving, "as long as they receive GB type approval and that there is no evidence to challenge the vehicle's ability to self-drive." The government confirmed that drivers will not be required to monitor the road or keep their hands on the wheel when the vehicle is driving itself. But the driver will need to stay alert and be able take over when requested by the system within 10 seconds. If a driver fails to respond, the vehicle will automatically put on its hazard lights to warn nearby vehicles, slow down and eventually stop. The Highway Code is now consulting on what rules will be put into new laws to make sure the technology is safely used. "ALKS as currently proposed by the government are not automated," cautions Matthew Avery, director of research at Thatcham Research. "They are assisted driving systems as they rely on the driver to take back control. Aside from the lack of technical capabilities, by calling ALKS automated our concern also is that the UK government is contributing to the confusion and frequent misuse of assisted driving systems that have unfortunately already led to many tragic deaths. Consumers will expect the car to do the job of a driver, which current models can't do."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Poll: How do you feel about Rudy G's upcoming perp walk?

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: For a decade, Bitcoin Fog has offered to obscure the source and destination of its customers' cryptocurrency, making it one of the most venerable institutions in the dark web economy. Now the IRS says it has finally identified the Russian-Swedish administrator behind that long-running anonymizing system and charged him with laundering hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bitcoins, much of which was sent to or from dark web drug markets. What gave him away? The trail of his own decade-old digital transactions. US authorities on Tuesday arrested Roman Sterlingov in Los Angeles, according to court records, and charged him with laundering more than 1.2 million bitcoins -- worth $336 million at the times of the payments -- over the 10 years that he allegedly ran Bitcoin Fog. According to the IRS criminal investigations division, Sterlingov, a citizen of Russia and Sweden, allowed users to blend their transactions with those of others to prevent anyone examining the Bitcoin blockchain from tracing any individual's payments. He took commissions on those transactions of 2 to 2.5 percent. In total, the IRS calculates, Sterlingov allegedly took home roughly $8 million worth of bitcoin through the service, based on exchange rates at the times of each transaction. That's before factoring in Bitcoin's massive appreciation over the past decade. Ironically, it appears that the 2011 transactions Sterlingov allegedly used to set up Bitcoin Fog's server hosting are what put the IRS on his trail. Of the $336 million the complaint accuses Bitcoin Fog of laundering, at least $78 million passed through the service to various narcotics-selling dark web markets like the Silk Road, Agora, and AlphaBay over the years that followed. The IRS also appears to have used undercover agents in 2019 to transact with Bitcoin Fog, in one case sending messages to Bitcoin Fog's administrator that explicitly stated that they hoped to launder proceeds from selling ecstasy. Bitcoin Fog completed that user's transactions without a response. Most remarkable, however, is the IRS's account of tracking down Sterlingov using the very same sort of blockchain analysis that his own service was meant to defeat. The complaint outlines how Sterlingov allegedly paid for the server hosting of Bitcoin Fog at one point in 2011 using the now-defunct digital currency Liberty Reserve. It goes on to show the blockchain evidence that identifies Sterlingov's purchase of that Liberty Reserve currency with bitcoins: He first exchanged euros for the bitcoins on the early cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox, then moved those bitcoins through several subsequent addresses, and finally traded them on another currency exchange for the Liberty Reserve funds he'd use to set up Bitcoin Fog's domain. Based on tracing those financial transactions, the IRS says, it then identified Mt. Gox accounts that used Sterlingov's home address and phone number, and even a Google account that included a Russian-language document on its Google Drive offering instructions for how to obscure Bitcoin payments. That document described exactly the steps Sterlingov allegedly took to buy the Liberty Reserve funds he'd used.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

With Covid-19 restrictions lifting, more people are booking trips and hotels online, which is very good for Google's advertising business. Google's employees, however, are working from home and not traveling as much on the company dime -- and that's also good for its business. From a report: During the first quarter, Google parent Alphabet saved $268 million in expenses from company promotions, travel and entertainment, compared to same period a year earlier, "primarily as a result of COVID-19," according to a company filing. On an annualized basis, that would be more than $1 billion. Indeed, Alphabet said in its annual report earlier this year that advertising and promotional expenses dropped by $1.4 billion in 2020 as the company reduced spending, paused or rescheduled campaigns, and changed some events to digital-only formats due to the pandemic. Travel and entertainment expenses fell by $371 million. The savings offset many of the costs that came with hiring thousands more workers. And the pandemic prudence allowed the company to keep its marketing and administrative costs effectively flat for the first quarter, despite boosting revenue by 34%.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

More game developers have had projects delayed than in past years due to COVID-19, according to a recent state of the industry survey from Game Developer Conference organizers. From a report: Delays are an inevitable part of development, but there's been a noticeable jump since pandemic's arrival. According to GDC's findings, 44 percent of the over 3,000 respondents polled said their games have been subject to delays. Compare that to last year's responses at 33 percent. The impact of working from home ranges from lost collaboration opportunities, to the added pressures of childcare.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

DigitalOcean has emailed customers warning of a data breach involving customers' billing data, TechCrunch has learned. From the report: The cloud infrastructure giant told customers in an email on Wednesday, obtained by TechCrunch, that it has "confirmed an unauthorized exposure of details associated with the billing profile on your DigitalOcean account." The company said the person "gained access to some of your billing account details through a flaw that has been fixed" over a two-week window between April 9 and April 22. The email said customer billing names and addresses were accessed, as well as the last four digits of the payment card, its expiry date, and the name of the card-issuing bank. The company said that customers' DigitalOcean accounts were "not accessed," and passwords and account tokens were "not involved" in this breach. "To be extra careful, we have implemented additional security monitoring on your account. We are expanding our security measures to reduce the likelihood of this kind of flaw occuring [sic] in the future," the email said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A prototype deep sea mining machine is lying stranded on the floor of the Pacific Ocean.

Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky said today it discovered new malware that appears to have been developed by the US Central Intelligence Agency. From a report: Kaspersky said it discovered the malware in "a collection of malware samples" that its analysts and other security firms received in February 2019. While an initial analysis did not find any shared code with any previously-known malware samples, Kaspersky has recently re-analyzed the files and said it found that "the samples have intersections of coding patterns, style and techniques that have been seen in various Lambert families." Lamberts is the internal codename that Kaspersky uses to track CIA hacking operations. Four years ago, after WikiLeaks exposed the CIA hacking capabilities to the public in a series of leaks known as Vault7, US security firm Symantec publicly linked the Vault7 hacking tools to the CIA and the Longhorn APT (another industry name for Lamberts).

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An astronaut who flew on one of the most famous space missions of all time has died. From a report: Michael Collins, 90, was part of the three-member crew on Apollo 11, the first lunar landing mission in 1969. Unlike Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, he never walked on the moon. Collins stayed behind and piloted the command module as it circled above. Because of that, Collins is often called the 'forgotten astronaut'. Collins had been battling cancer. In a statement released by his family, "He spent his final days peacefully, with his family by his side. Mike always faced the challenges of life with grace and humility, and faced this, his final challenge in the same way." NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk said the nation lost a true pioneer, "NASA mourns the loss of this accomplished pilot and astronaut, a friend of all who seek to push the envelope of human potential. Whether his work was behind the scenes or on full view, his legacy will always be as one of the leaders who took America's first steps into the cosmos. And his spirit will go with us as we venture toward farther horizons." When Neil Armstrong first stepped on the moon and uttered the famous phrase, "Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed," Collins was in orbit, 60 miles above, just as busy, and just as excited, telling the team back in Houston he was listening to communications with his comrades, and it was "fantastic." Aldrin and Armstrong were on the lunar surface just under 22 hours. The world was transfixed. Seeing them bunny-hop along, take pictures and collect lunar samples during their single, short moonwalk. All the while, Collins circled the moon. Looking down at the barren lunar landscape and peering back at the Earth. "The thing I remember most is the view of planet Earth from a great distance," he said later. "Tiny. Very shiny. Blue and white. Bright. Beautiful. Serene and fragile."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

They're totally throwing Rudy under the bus. He's going to be blamed for everything. Perfect. Rudy the garbage can.

Michael Collins stayed in orbit as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon in 1969.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the White House's chief medical adviser, has said countries have failed to unite to provide an adequate global response to prevent the "tragic" coronavirus outbreak from overwhelming India, and singled out wealthier nations for failing to provide equitable access to healthcare around the world. From a report: Speaking to Guardian Australia from the US, Fauci said the situation in India had highlighted global inequality. "The only way that you're going to adequately respond to a global pandemic is by having a global response, and a global response means equity throughout the world," Fauci said. "And that's something that, unfortunately, has not been accomplished. Often when you have diseases in which there is a limited amount of intervention, be it therapeutic or prevention, this is something that all the countries that are relatively rich countries or countries that have a higher income have to pay more attention to." India recorded 360,960 new cases in the 24 hours to Wednesday morning according to health ministry data, another new daily global record. The ministry also said that India's total number of fatalities had passed 200,000 to stand at 201,187. The latest epidemiological update from the World Health Organization (WHO) issued on Tuesday said Covid-19 cases increased globally for the ninth consecutive week, with nearly 5.7m new cases reported. India accounts for the majority of cases, with 2,172,063 new cases reported in the past week -- a 52% increase.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

BTW, I am mostly over the stomach bug. I went for an hour-long bike ride yesterday, and it felt wonderful. And look at all the writing I did today! Not wanting to return to development yet, the break has been worthwhile. I have been tending my todo list, and plotting out next steps. I left the software in a good place, it seems. I'm not worried about it at this time. More glad to have recovered my health.

I wrote about Basecamp's controversy yesterday, and since then more has come out. The company kept a list of customers with "funny" names, for years. Assuming this is true, they deserve all the grief they get. I understand that non-founders do stuff like that, I've seen it, I've fought against it -- it's the job of the founder to take the side of the users. And make it clear that showing anything but love and admiration for all customers, every damn one of them, is not only not optional, but will get you fired after not too many offenses. It's very hard to keep user-disrespect from taking over companies, so you always have to watch for it and be a complete fucking asshole about it. People who wade through all the confusion of the market and figure out that your product is the best are geniuses. They are your lifeblood. Also, I certainly would have been on their list. I have a "funny" last name. I know it. A product of Ellis Island. But I am not a customer of theirs.

New submitter oblom writes about Mighty, a new approach to web browsing: In short, server-side web navigation, with client-side rendering. Per Y Combinator founder Paul Graham: "Usually when people talk about grand things like changing "the future of computing," they're full of it. But not this time. Suhail [founder of Mighty] has been working on this for 2 years. There's a good chance it's the new default infrastructure. Suhail writes in a blog post: After 2 years of hard work, we've created something that's indistinguishable from a Google Chrome that runs at 4K, 60 frames a second, takes no more than 500 MB of RAM, and often less than 30% CPU with 50+ tabs open. This is the first step in making a new kind of computer. [...] When you switch to Mighty, it will feel like you went out and bought a new computer with a much faster processor and much more memory. But you don't have [to] buy a new computer. All you have to do is download a desktop app. To make Mighty work, we had to solve a lot of complex engineering problems, including designing a custom server to keep costs low, building a custom low-latency networking protocol, forking Chromium to integrate directly with various low-level render/encoder pipelines, and making the software interoperate with a long list of macOS features. We are working hard at ramping up server capacity across the world as we roll it out to users. You might be thinking: "Yeah but what about the lag?" Lag would have been a real problem 5 years ago, but new advances since then have allowed us to eliminate nearly all of it: 5 Ghz WiFi bands, H.265 hardware-accelerated low-latency encoders, widespread 100 Mbps Internet, and cheaper, more powerful GPUs. We also designed a new low-latency network protocol, and we locate servers as close to users geographically as possible. As a result, a user with 100 Mbps internet will rarely notice lag while using Mighty. Watch this demo video and see for yourself.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.