On Sunday, a bipartisan group of Senators published draft text of a massive new bipartisan infrastructure bill, proposing more than a trillion dollars in spending and a vast array of far-reaching provisions. But a little-noticed section in the bill could have significant implications in the fight against drunk driving, eventually mandating a new in-car safety technology to actively prevent Americans from driving while impaired. The Verge reports: Introduced under the heading "Advanced Impaired Driving Technology," the provision would require the Department of Transportation to set a new standard for detecting and preventing impaired driving. The bill calls on the secretary of transportation to release a standard within three years, with the requirement taking effect for new cars three years after that. The specific provisions of the standard are vague, but it would require cars to "passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired" and "prevent or limit motor vehicle operation" if impairment is detected. The specific means of creating that system are still undetermined, but advocates say much of the technology is already available. Driver monitoring systems, which track a driver's face or eyelids to ensure they are alert and actively piloting the vehicle, are already offered in some models by Lexus, BMW, and Mercedes Benz. Systems like lane detection could also be used to detect impairment, creating an alert if the driver is consistently veering outside their lane. "Twenty years ago, this technology didn't exist," says Jason Levine of the Center for Auto Safety. "[But] we have the technology available now. We can install tech in vehicles that helps to monitor whether someone is impaired and stops that person from hurting themselves or others." Crucially, the new standard wouldn't be limited to drunk drivers. Because the systems measure impairment directly, they would be just as effective at detecting impairment from prescription drugs, emotional distress, or simple distraction. A longer-term effort would also seek to mandate passive alcohol monitoring systems, like those currently being developed by Volvo. While the provisions are aimed at creating a new mandatory requirement for automakers, such a requirement is still a long way off. Negotiations around the infrastructure bill are still in flux, and the provision could still be removed or altered by lawmakers. Even if it passes into law, the Department of Transportation will have wide leeway in how and when to implement the requirement and could easily delay it beyond the schedule set by Congress.

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The chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Tuesday called on Congress to give the agency more authority to better police cryptocurrency trading, lending and platforms, a "Wild West" he said is riddled with fraud and investor risk. Reuters reports: Gary Gensler said the crypto market involves many tokens which may be unregistered securities and leaves prices open to manipulation and millions of investors vulnerable to risks. "This asset class is rife with fraud, scams and abuse in certain applications," Gensler told a global conference. "We need additional Congressional authorities to prevent transactions, products and platforms from falling between regulatory cracks." The industry has been waiting with bated breath to see how Gensler, a Democratic appointee who took the SEC helm in April, will approach oversight of the market, which he has previously said should be brought within traditional financial regulation. On Tuesday, Gensler provided more insight on his thinking, saying he would like Congress to give the SEC the power to oversee cryptocurrency exchanges, which are not currently within the SEC's remit. He also called on lawmakers to give the SEC more power to oversee crypto lending, and platforms like peer-to-peer decentralized finance (DeFi) sites that allow lenders and borrowers to transact in cryptocurrencies without traditional banks. "If we don't address these issues, I worry a lot of people will be hurt."

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I went to a farm produce stand on 28 in Mt Tremper yesterday to get fresh local peaches, just now coming into season, and everyone was masked up. I think we're doing the wise thing in NY state. It's easy to put a mask on, much easier than being intubated and dying. The peaches are the best part of the year except for the apple harvest. On the other hand at the hardware store, I was the only one wearing a mask. So maybe it's not all peaches yet.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Amazon illegally prohibited an employee from giving workers pro-union literature, confiscated that literature, and gave workers the impression that their organizing activity was being surveilled at the company's Staten Island fulfillment center in New York, according to National Labor Relations Board charges and other documentation reviewed by Motherboard. An NLRB investigation found that Amazon illegally prohibited Connor Spence, a Staten Island employee involved in union organizing, from distributing pro-union literature in a break room on May 16 -- and then confiscated the literature -- also in violation of U.S. labor law, according to evidence provided by the NLRB to the union's attorney. Connor Spence, a 25-year-old warehouse worker in Amazon's JFK8 fulfillment center in Staten Island, who filed the unfair labor practice charge, told Motherboard that on May 16, he was in the break room distributing leaflets about unions and copies of a notice that Amazon had to post in a Queens warehouse for violating workers' union rights, when an Amazon security guard approached him and told him he did not have permission to distribute the leaflets. "He took the union literature away and wouldn't give it back," Spence told Motherboard. "I filed the charge so that there's accountability in place that prevents them from doing this in the future." [...] "Amazon is very obviously anti-union. They cross the line a lot when it comes to stopping workers from unionizing," Spence said. "Unfortunately labor law isn't very strong in our country, but I'm hoping Amazon cares about its image and these stains on their record." "The finding comes on the same day as an NLRB officer in Alabama released a report recommending the rerun of a union election in an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama," adds Motherboard. "The NLRB's report on the Bessemer election found that Amazon illegally discouraged labor organizing, in part by pushing post office officials to install a mailbox outside the warehouse where workers were urged to drop their mail-in ballots, which an NLRB officer wrote 'destroyed the laboratory conditions and justifies a second election.'" "The NLRB investigation also found that Amazon illegally created the impression of surveillance of workers' organizing activity at JFK8 on May 24."

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Three-and-half months after launching the Magic Keyboard with Touch ID, Apple is finally breaking it out from its iMac bundle. The accessory is now available as a standalone through Apple Stores and the company's site. From a report: There are two versions: the standard and a longer model with a numeric keypad (pretty much what the company offers with all of its Magic Keyboards), running $149 and $179, respectively. There's also a $99 version that keeps the new rounded, compact design, but drops the Touch ID in favor of a key that locks the system. But where's the fun in that? All of the models have keys devoted to Spotlight, Dictation, Do Not Disturb and Emoji.

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On Tuesday, Apple rolled out three new graphics card modules for the Intel-based Mac Pro, all based on AMD's Radeon Pro W6000 series GPU. From a report: (Apple posted a Mac Pro performance white paper [PDF] to celebrate.) The new modules (in Apple's MPX format) come in three variants, with a Radeon Pro W6800X, two W6800X GPUs, and the W6900X. Each module also adds four Thunderbolt 3 ports and an HDMI 2 port to the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro supports two MPX modules, so you could pop in two of the dual-GPU modules to max out performance. They can connect using AMD's Infinity Fabric Link, which can connect up to four GPUs to communicate with one another via a super-fast connection with much more bandwidth than is available via the PCIe bus.

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RoccamOccam writes: For the sixth-year, Rust is the most loved language, while Python is the most wanted language for its fifth-year in Stack Overflow's 2021 survey of 80,000 developers.

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Five social media giants failed to remove 84% of antisemitic posts in May and June -- and Facebook performed the worst despite announcing new rules to tackle the problem, a new report finds. Axios: The Center for Countering Digital Hatred (CCDH) notes in its study that it reported 714 posts containing "anti-Jewish hatred" to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube and TikTok -- which were collectively viewed 7.3 million times. These "clearly violated" company policies, according to the CCDH. "As a result of their failure to enforce their own rules, social media platforms like Facebook have become safe places to spread racism and propaganda against Jews," states the report, titled "Failure to Act." Facebook removed 14 out of 129 posts reported to it (10.9%); Twitter removed 15 of 137 reports (11%); TikTok took down 22 of 119 posts reported (18.5%); Instagram acted in 52 of 277 of cases (18.8%) and YouTube pulled 11 of the 52 posts it was alerted to (21.2%). "Extremist anti-Jewish hate is not acted on: platforms failed to act on 80% of posts containing Holocaust denial, 74% of posts alleging the blood libel, 70% of racist caricatures of Jewish people and 70% of neo-Nazi posts," per a statement from the CCDH, a nongovernmental organization based in the U.S. and United Kingdom.

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The NBA free agent season started last night. The Knicks are sticking mostly with the players that made last season so much fun.

Microsoft has informed employees that it will require proof of vaccination for anyone entering a Microsoft building in the US starting in September. From a report: Employees who have a medical condition or a protected reason, such as religion, that prevents them from getting a vaccine can get a special accommodation. The company has also pushed its full office reopening date from September to "no earlier than October 4th, 2021."

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The launch of Boeing's Starliner crew capsule on an unpiloted test flight to the International Space Station was scrubbed Tuesday because of an undisclosed technical issue. Mission managers told the launch team to recycle for another attempt Wednesday at 12:57 p.m. ET, weather permitting. From a report: The launching atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket initially was planned for last Friday, but NASA ordered a delay while Russian space station engineers resolved problems with a newly arrived laboratory module. Over the weekend, the Starliner launch was reset for Tuesday. Forecasters monitoring Florida's typically stormy summer afternoon weather predicted a 60% chance of acceptable conditions then lowered the odds to 50-50. The team pressed ahead with fueling, but around 10:30 a.m., Boeing confirmed a scrub, tweeting, "We're confirming today's #Starliner Orbital Flight Test-2 launch is scrubbed. More details soon." The Starliner flight marks a major milestone for Boeing and NASA as the agency transitions from hitching rides aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft to fielding commercial crew ships built by Boeing and SpaceX. SpaceX, under a $2.6 billion NASA contract, launched its Crew Dragon spacecraft on a successful unpiloted test flight in 2019 and a piloted test flight last year. Since then, the California rocket builder has launched two operational flights to the space station carrying two long-duration crews to the outpost.

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Facebook is bulking up a team of artificial intelligence researchers, including a key hire from Microsoft, to study ways of analyzing encrypted data without decrypting it, the company confirmed to the Information. From the report: The research could allow Facebook to target ads based on encrypted messages on its WhatsApp messenger, or to encrypt the data it collects on billions of users without hurting its ad-targeting capabilities, outside experts say. Facebook is one of several technology giants, including cloud computing providers Microsoft, Amazon and Google, now researching an emerging field known as homomorphic encryption. Researchers hope the technology will allow companies to analyze personal information, including medical records and financial data, while keeping the information encrypted and protected from cybersecurity threats or, in Facebook's case, leaks to advertisers or other parties.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Five months after he was carjacked while driving for Uber, resulting in thousands of dollars in damage to his car, David Morrow finally received an offer of assistance from the company: $1,000, the amount of his insurance deductible. But there was a catch -- Morrow would need to sign a nondisclosure agreement promising to not sue Uber, disparage the company, or talk any further about his carjacking or the details of his settlement. The offer came a day after The Markup approached Uber and Lyft about an investigation into more than 100 carjackings of ride-hail drivers, including the February attack on Morrow in Atlanta. But Morrow didn't take the offer. "I would be signing all my rights away," said Morrow, who's 71 and has completed almost 5,000 Uber rides. "I would have no recourse." In 2018, Uber's chief legal officer, Tony West, announced the company was dropping the mandatory arbitration agreements and confidentiality provisions it had with drivers, riders, and employees for individual claims of sexual assault or harassment. Lyft quickly followed suit. But in the case of driver carjackings, both Uber and Lyft still appear to be using the tactic. The Markup is aware of a Lyft driver who signed a nondisclosure agreement after being carjacked.

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Activision Blizzard President J. Allen Brack is stepping down from the company after Blizzard was sued by the state of California last week for discriminating against women and fostering a "frat boy" culture that entailed sexual harassment and discrimination. He will be replaced by two executive vice presidents, who will serve as co-leaders. From a report: Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra, the former executive vice president of development and the former EVP and general manager of platform technology, respectively, will take the helm at Blizzard and share responsibility for development and operational accountability. The company is continuing to face an outpouring of stories of misconduct, and workers who organized a walkout have demanded a set of new rules for handling reports of sexism, harassment and discrimination.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: As part of the latest neurological breakthrough, researchers used a helmet that generates a magnetic field to shrink a deadly tumor by a third. The 53-year-old patient who underwent the treatment ultimately passed away due to an unrelated injury. But, an autopsy of his brain showed that the procedure had removed 31 percent of the tumor mass in a short time. The test marked the first noninvasive therapy for a deadly form of brain cancer known as glioblastoma. The helmet features three rotating magnets connected to a microprocessor-based electronic controller operated by a rechargeable battery. As part of the therapy, the patient wore the device for five weeks at a clinic and then at home with the help of his wife. The resulting magnetic field therapy created by the helmet was administered for two hours initially and then ramped up to a maximum of six hours per day. During the period, the patient's tumor mass and volume shrunk by nearly a third, with shrinkage appearing to correlate with the treatment dose. The inventors of the device -- which received FDA approval for compassionate use treatment -- claim it could one day help treat brain cancer without radiation or chemotherapy. "Our results... open a new world of non-invasive and nontoxic therapy...with many exciting possibilities for the future," said David S. Baskin, corresponding author and director of the Kenneth R. Peak Center for Brain and Pituitary Tumor Treatment in the Department of Neurosurgery at Houston Methodist Neurological Institute. Details of the procedure have been published in the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Oncology.

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