The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Neel Kashkari, took a jab at Dogecoin (DOGE) last week by referring to the memecoin as a Ponzi scheme, upping his rhetoric against cryptocurrencies. Cointelegraph reports: Kashkari's comments were in response to a LinkedIn poll by Paul Grewal, the chief legal officer and corporate secretary of Coinbase, who asked his connections about the proper way to pronounce "Doge." "The right pronunciation is pon-zi," Kashkari quipped. This isn't the first time Kashkari has taken aim at cryptocurrencies. In February 2020, he said digital assets like Bitcoin (BTC) lack the basic tenants of a stable currency and praised the Securities and Exchange Commission for "cracking down" on initial coin offerings. Kashkari is not a member of this year's Federal Open Market Committee, the group responsible for setting United States monetary policy. The Minneapolis branch of the Fed will serve as an alternate FOMC member in 2022 before rotating back onto the committee as a voting member in 2023.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to leaker Evan Blass, OnePlus and Oppo are merging, with OnePlus becoming an Oppo sub-brand. OnePlus CEO Pete Lau made the announcement last week in a forum post, but Blass obtained a document that explains the integration in plainer terms. The Verge reports: "With the integration, OnePlus becomes a brand within Oppo, however will continue to function as an independent entity," reads the most pertinent answer. The memo also says that Lau's role as chief product officer at Oppo will make him responsible for the product strategies of both Oppo and OnePlus. [...] The memo confirms that this is essentially what's going to happen, removing any need to read between the lines. "With the merging of both the firms, we will have more resources at hand to create even better products," it says. "It will also allow us to be more efficient in our operations." OnePlus and Oppo had already merged their R&D departments around the turn of the year, so the further integration is more to do with streamlining day-to-day business operations. OnePlus customers shouldn't necessarily expect too much to change -- the shared ownership and supply chain meant that there have been similarities between Oppo and OnePlus phones for as long as OnePlus has existed. But now that OnePlus is acknowledging the relationship out loud instead of acting like it's a scrappy startup, all eyes will be on the company's next round of flagship phones.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Bitcoin continued its dramatic plunge to $32,281 Monday morning, down 17.65% from a week earlier as some of China's largest bitcoin mining farms were shut down over the weekend. The bitcoin mining facilities of Sichuan Province received an order on Friday to stop doing business by Sunday, according to Chinese state media outlet the Global Times. The Sichuan Provincial Development and Reform Commission and the Sichuan Energy Bureau issued an order to all electricity companies in the region on Friday to stop supplying electricity to any known crypto mining organizations, including 26 firms that had already been publicly identified, according to the Global Times. It seems that some local miners were optimistic that Sichuan's abundant hydroelectric energy would insulate the region from a cryptocurrency crackdown by authorities, but that optimism was obviously misplaced. "We had hoped that Sichuan would be an exception during the clampdown as there is an electricity glut there in the rainy season. But Chinese regulators are now taking a uniform approach, which would overhaul and rein in the booming Bitcoin mining industry in China," Shentu Qingchun, CEO of a Shenzhen crypto company told the Global Times. Videos on social media sites purported to show miners in Sichuan turning off their mining machines and packing up their businesses. Miners in China are now looking to sell their equipment overseas, and it appears many have already found buyers.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The highly contagious delta variant is the fastest and fittest coronavirus strain yet, and it will "pick off" the most vulnerable people, especially in places with low Covid-19 vaccination rates, World Health Organization officials warned Monday. From a report: Delta, first identified in India, has the potential "to be more lethal because it's more efficient in the way it transmits between humans and it will eventually find those vulnerable individuals who will become severely ill have to be hospitalized and potentially die," Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO's emergencies program, said during a news conference. Ryan said world leaders and public health officials can help defend the most vulnerable through the donation and distribution of Covid vaccines. "We can protect those vulnerable people, those frontline workers," Ryan said, "and the fact that we haven't, as Director-General (Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus) has said, again and again, is a catastrophic moral failure at a global level." The WHO said Friday that delta is becoming the dominant variant of the disease worldwide. The agency declared delta a "variant of concern" last month. A variant can be labeled as "of concern" if it has been shown to be more contagious, more deadly or more resistant to current vaccines and treatments, according to the health organization.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is calling on Microsoft to face the same antitrust scrutiny as other large tech platforms in a letter to the company Monday. From a report: In the letter, Jordan asks Microsoft president Brad Smith if he believes the company would be affected by the swath of antitrust bills introduced in the House earlier this month. There are five bills in total, spanning from offering up more money for antitrust enforcers to banning large tech platforms from buying up small competitors. The antitrust package came out of a yearslong investigation into Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. The measures focus on the anticompetitive behaviors of these four companies, and it's not as clear how they would affect other large companies like Microsoft. While Microsoft meets the standard laid out under these bills to be considered a "covered platform," like meeting the over $600 billion market cap and 50 million monthly active users, the bills don't target the company's specific lines of business. "Big Tech, including Microsoft, Inc., is out to get conservatives," Jordan said in his Monday letter. "It is unclear why Microsoft has avoided significant attention from House Democrats." Assumably, Microsoft would face the same proposed standards in acquiring companies, like taking on the burden of proof, and making the data it takes from users more portable and usable on other platforms. But whereas Amazon and Apple would face more structural changes, like selling off separate lines of business, Microsoft would likely not be subject to the rules.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As ransomware attacks surge, the FBI is doubling down on its guidance to affected businesses: Don't pay the cybercriminals. But the U.S. government also offers a little-noticed incentive for those who do pay: If you pay a ransom, it may be tax deductible. From a report, shared by a Slashdot reader: The Internal Revenue Service offers no formal guidance on ransomware payments, but multiple tax experts interviewed by the Associated Press said deductions of ransomeware payments as a cost of doing business are usually allowed under law and established guidance. Some called it a 'silver lining' for ransomware victims. Those looking to discourage payments are less sanguine. They fear the IRS deduction is a potentially problematic incentive that could entice businesses to pay ransoms against the advice of law enforcement. At a minimum, they say, the deductibility sends a discordant message to businesses under duress.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon marks millions of unsold products for destruction each year in the UK, according to a new investigation by British television program ITV News. From a report: ITV found stacks of boxes marked "destroy" that were filled with electronics, jewelry, books, and other new or gently used items in one warehouse's "destruction zone." The news outlet caught the practice on camera while going undercover at the Dunfermline fulfillment center in Scotland. It says it tracked some of the goods to recycling centers and a landfill. About 124,000 items at Dunfermline were labeled "destroy" during a single week in April, according to an internal document obtained by ITV News. Just 28,000 items were set aside for donations during the same period. About half of all the stuff that's trashed are things that people returned, a former Amazon employee told ITV. While the other half are "unopened and still in their shrink wrap," the ex-employee said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The seeds of a company's downfall, it is often said in the business world, are sown when everything is going great. It is hard to argue that things aren't going great for Google. Revenue and profits are charting new highs every three months. Google's parent company, Alphabet, is worth $1.6 trillion. Google has rooted itself deeper and deeper into the lives of everyday Americans. But a restive class of Google executives worry that the company is showing cracks. The New York Times: They say Google's work force is increasingly outspoken. Personnel problems are spilling into the public. Decisive leadership and big ideas have given way to risk aversion and incrementalism. And some of those executives are leaving and letting everyone know exactly why. "I keep getting asked why did I leave now? I think the better question is why did I stay for so long?" Noam Bardin, who joined Google in 2013 when the company acquired mapping service Waze, wrote in a blog post two weeks after leaving the company in February. "The innovation challenges," he wrote, "will only get worse as the risk tolerance will go down." Many of Google's problems, current and recently departed executives said, stem from the leadership style of Sundar Pichai, the company's affable, low-key chief executive. Fifteen current and former Google executives, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of angering Google and Mr. Pichai, told The New York Times that Google was suffering from many of the pitfalls of a large, maturing company -- a paralyzing bureaucracy, a bias toward inaction and a fixation on public perception. The executives, some of whom regularly interacted with Mr. Pichai, said Google did not move quickly on key business and personnel moves because he chewed over decisions and delayed action. They said that Google continued to be rocked by workplace culture fights, and that Mr. Pichai's attempts to lower the temperature had the opposite effect -- allowing problems to fester while avoiding tough and sometimes unpopular positions. "Google executives proposed the idea of acquiring Shopify as a way to challenge Amazon in online commerce a few years ago. Mr. Pichai rejected the idea because he thought Shopify was too expensive, two people familiar with the discussions said."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Facebook's Clubhouse competitor, Live Audio Rooms, is making its way stateside. From a report: The company announced today that some US-based public figures, as well as certain groups, can start hosting rooms through the main Facebook iOS app. (People can join, however, from both iOS and Android.) Anyone can be invited up as a speaker with up to 50 people able to speak at once. There's no cap on the number of listeners allowed in -- a major shot at Clubhouse, which imposes room size limitations. It's also introducing other nifty features, like notifications when your friends or followers join a room, as well as live captions. There will be a "raise a hand" button to request to join the conversation, and reactions will be available to to interact throughout the chat. Twitter Spaces, Twitter's live audio feature, includes captions, but Clubhouse still does not. Within groups, admins can control who's allowed to create a room: moderators, group members, or other admins. Public group chats will be accessible both in and outside the group, but private group chats will be restricted to members. Additionally, hosts can also select a nonprofit or fundraiser to support during their conversation with a button to directly donate showing up on the chat. Again, this feels like a feature directly built to address a key Clubhouse use case and make it frictionless. (Many Clubhouse creators have hosted fundraisers on the app but have to direct people to outside links in order to facilitate donations.)

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

For many professionals, Hawaii seems a dream spot for remote work. But pulling off remote work in the Aloha state takes more than a plane ticket and a laptop. From a report: The pandemic devastated the state's economy. According to the Hawaii Tourism Authority, visitor arrivals fell 97.6% between August 2019 and August the following year. Employment in the state's leisure and hospitality sector, which accounts for nearly one in five jobs, fell 53% between February and August 2020, according to the Pew Center. Thanks in part to state initiatives -- including pre-arrival coronavirus testing for visitors and marketing campaigns wooing remote workers -- tourism is on the rebound. In April, visitors reached nearly 500,000, compared with roughly 4,500 in April 2020. One program, called Movers and Shakas (named after the friendly Y-shaped hand gesture with extended thumb and pinkie that means "hang loose"), was launched in December with local business leaders. It offers free airfare to remote workers who commit to staying at least a month and participate in volunteer activities. The program's 50 spots attracted 90,000 applications. Applications for the second round will open this month. As it is elsewhere, reliable Wi-Fi is the litmus test for many. Some areas of the Hawaiian islands, especially rural regions, lack robust broadband or cellular infrastructure. Tomasz Janczuk, a 45-year-old based in the Seattle area who owns and operates a software-development firm, chose the three Big Island hotels that he and his family lived in for a month based on Wi-Fi strength. During an off-road excursion, Mr. Janczuk got a call from an employee about a service outage at his company. He pulled over and had to climb on top of his Jeep for sufficient reception to help troubleshoot the problem. "If there's no Wi-Fi, you have to fall back on cellphones, and that is quite spotty out there," said Mr. Janczuk, who also carried a hot spot. Some workers find that Hawaii's spectacular surroundings -- which drew them in the first place -- can be a distraction. Jasmyn Franks, a social-media strategist for an advertising agency in Kansas City, Mo., began working in mid-May from the palm-tree-filled backyard of her auntâ(TM)s house in Mililani, a mountainous city on Oahu. Ms. Franks, 30, said initially, the first five to 10 minutes of every conference call were taken up with colleagues admiring her background. "So, there was a point where I was just like, 'OK, let's just take this to the corner or something where it kind of looks like Iâ(TM)m at the house.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mark Wilson writes: Just a few days ago -- before it has even been officially announced -- Windows 11 leaked online and remains available to download from numerous sites. The Windows 11 ISO torrent spread like wildfire, and now Microsoft is fighting back. The company has issued a slew of DMCA takedown notices to various sites it says are distributing "a leaked copy of the unreleased Windows 11." Unsurprisingly, an article entitled "How to Download and Install Windows 11 Right Now" caught the eyes of Microsoft lawyers. The company has issued a slew of DMCA takedown notices to various sites it says are distributing "a leaked copy of the unreleased Windows 11." Unsurprisingly, an article entitled "How to Download and Install Windows 11 Right Now" caught the eyes of Microsoft lawyers.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Now that Clubhouse-like rooms are available in so many places, will Clubhouse itself develop text features to match? An opportunity to start from scratch, something simple and minimal, unlike the sprawling text trees of Twitter and Facebook. There's a position open here imho.

The European Central Bank (ECB) is better suited than private companies to protect user privacy for the eventual adoption of a digital euro, according to an executive board member. From a report: In an interview with the Financial Times on June 14 and published Sunday, Fabio Panetta said his institution had no commercial interest in storing, managing or monetizing user data. The issue over privacy in the digital euro is a focal point for Europeans as are concerns of security, according to a recent survey by the ECB. "If the central bank gets involved in digital payments, privacy is going to be better protected," said Panetta. "We're not like private companies." The banker also said people felt safer when their information was handled by a public institution, adding the bank would do a better job. "There are many ways in which we can protect confidential data while allowing the checks foreseen by law to avoid illicit transactions, such as those linked to money laundering, the financing of terrorism or tax evasion," said Panetta.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If you have a few minutes to read, yesterday's installment of Scripting News was one of the best ever.

"In 2016 North Korean hackers planned a $1bn raid on Bangladesh's national bank," reports the BBC, "and came within an inch of success — it was only by a fluke that all but $81m of the transfers were halted, report Geoff White and Jean H Lee... "It all started with a malfunctioning printer..." It was located inside a highly secure room on the 10th floor of the bank's main office in Dhaka, the capital. Its job was to print out records of the multi-million-dollar transfers flowing in and out of the bank. When staff found it wasn't working, at 08:45 on Friday 5 February 2016, "we assumed it was a common problem just like any other day," duty manager Zubair Bin Huda later told police. "Such glitches had happened before." In fact, this was the first indication that Bangladesh Bank was in a lot of trouble. Hackers had broken into its computer networks, and at that very moment were carrying out the most audacious cyber-attack ever attempted. Their goal: to steal a billion dollars. To spirit the money away, the gang behind the heist would use fake bank accounts, charities, casinos and a wide network of accomplices.... When the bank's staff rebooted the printer, they got some very worrying news. Spilling out of it were urgent messages from the Federal Reserve Bank in New York — the "Fed" — where Bangladesh keeps a US-dollar account. The Fed had received instructions, apparently from Bangladesh Bank, to drain the entire account — close to a billion dollars. The Bangladeshis tried to contact the Fed for clarification, but thanks to the hackers' very careful timing, they couldn't get through... The bank's HQ in Dhaka was beginning two days off. And when the Bangladeshis began to uncover the theft on Saturday, it was already the weekend in New York... And the hackers had another trick up their sleeve to buy even more time. Once they had transferred the money out of the Fed, they needed to send it somewhere. So they wired it to accounts they'd set up in Manila, the capital of the Philippines. And in 2016, Monday 8 February was the first day of the Lunar New Year, a national holiday across Asia... They had had plenty of time to plan all of this, because it turns out the Lazarus Group had been lurking inside Bangladesh Bank's computer systems for a year... Once inside the bank's systems, Lazarus Group began stealthily hopping from computer to computer, working their way towards the digital vaults and the billions of dollars they contained... But they still had one final hurdle to clear — the printer on the 10th floor. Bangladesh Bank had created a paper back-up system to record all transfers made from its accounts. This record of transactions risked exposing the hackers' work instantly. And so they hacked into the software controlling it and took it out of action. With their tracks covered, at 20:36 on Thursday 4 February 2016, the hackers began making their transfers — 35 in all, totalling $951m, almost the entire contents of Bangladesh Bank's New York Fed account. There's more to the story — it's a whole episode on a 10-episode BBC World Service podcast which they're calling an example of "the new front line in a global battleground: a murky nexus of crime, espionage and nation-state power-mongering. And it's growing fast." The story has a surprise ending — but alongo the way, the BBC's article points out that the consequences for the bank's governor were almost instant. "He was asked to resign," says U.S.-based cyber-security expert Rakesh Asthana. "I never saw him again."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.