According to a new study, China's video-sharing app TikTok is now the most downloaded app in the world. Nikkei Asia reports: ByteDance launched the international version of TikTok in 2017, and has since overtaken Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger -- all of which are Facebook owned -- in downloads, even in the U.S. Some believe that personal information shared with TikTok is not secure. In 2020, former President Donald Trump called on the company to sell off its U.S. operations or be banned. The app's popularity nevertheless grew during the pandemic, when it became the leading download in Europe, South America and the U.S. Joe Biden, Trump's successor, withdrew the presidential executive order, but uncertainties remain elsewhere. While The Financial Times reported on Sunday that ByteDance has revived plans to go public in the coming months, a spokesperson told Nikkei Asia on Monday that the article was "inaccurate," insisting the company has no current plans for a stock market listing.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Oregon Live: For the next five years, an Oregon high school diploma will be no guarantee that the student who earned it can read, write or do math at a high school level. Gov. Kate Brown had demurred earlier this summer regarding whether she supported the plan passed by the Legislature to drop the requirement that students demonstrate they have achieved those essential skills. But on July 14, the governor signed Senate Bill 744 into law. Through a spokesperson, the governor declined again Friday to comment on the law and why she supported suspending the proficiency requirements. Charles Boyle, the governor's deputy communications director, said the governor's staff notified legislative staff the same day the governor signed the bill. Boyle said in an emailed statement that suspending the reading, writing and math proficiency requirements while the state develops new graduation standards will benefit "Oregon's Black, Latino, Latina, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Tribal, and students of color." "Leaders from those communities have advocated time and again for equitable graduation standards, along with expanded learning opportunities and supports," Boyle wrote. The requirement that students demonstrate freshman- to sophomore-level skills in reading, writing and, particularly, math led many high schools to create workshop-style courses to help students strengthen their skills and create evidence of mastery. Most of those courses have been discontinued since the skills requirement was paused during the pandemic before lawmakers killed it entirely. The state's four-year graduation rate is 82.6%, up more than 10 points from six years ago. However, it still lags behind the national graduation rate averages, which is 85 percent. Oregon's graduation rates currently rank nearly last in the country. But it's complicated because states use different methodologies to calculate their graduation rates, making some states appear better than others.

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Microsoft has released today a security update that will change the default behavior of the "Point and Print" feature to mitigate a severe security issue disclosed last month. From a report: First added in Windows 2000, the Point and Print feature works by connecting to a print server to download and install necessary print drivers every time a user creates a connection to a remote printer without providing installation media. Earlier this year, Jacob Baines, a reverse engineer for Dark Wolf Solutions, found that threat actors inside a company's network could abuse the Point and Print feature to run a malicious print server and force Windows systems to download and install malicious drivers. Since Point and Print ran with SYSTEM privileges, the feature effectively provided threat actors with an easy way to gain admin rights inside any large corporate or government network. Microsoft initially tried to patch the issue -- tracked as CVE-2021-34481 -- last month, but the patches were deemed incomplete. Today, the company took another approach. Since the vulnerability is exploiting a design flaw, Microsoft chose today to change the default behavior of the Point and Print feature.

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Twitter has suspended Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's account for one week following another violation of the platform's rules, the company said Tuesday. From a report: Greene tweeted on Monday that the Food and Drug Administration "should not approve the covid vaccines." She also claimed the vaccines were "failing" and that they were ineffective at reducing the virus's spread. In response, Twitter labeled the tweet as misleading and prevented Greene from tweeting for one week. The tweet, a company spokesperson said, "was labeled in line with our COVID-19 misleading information policy. The account will be in read-only mode for a week due to repeated violations of the Twitter Rules."

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A new AI system can read written instructions in conversational language and transform it into working computer code. From a report: The model is the latest example of progress in natural language processing (NLP), the ability of AIs to read and write text. But it also points towards a future where coders will be able to offload some of their work to AIs, and where ordinary people may be able to code without actually learning how to code. Today OpenAI is releasing an improved version of its Codex AI model and releasing it for developers for private developers through its API. Codex is a descendant of OpenAI's massive text-generating model GPT-3, which was released last summer. But while GPT-3 was trained on a huge quantity of language data taken from the internet -- enabling it to read and then complete text prompts submitted by a human user -- Codex was trained on both language and billions of lines of publicly available computer code.

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Cross-chain decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Poly Network was attacked on Tuesday, with the alleged hacker draining roughly $600 million in crypto. From a report: Poly Network, a protocol launched by the founder of Chinese blockchain project Neo, operates on the Binance Smart Chain, Ethereum and Polygon blockchains. Tuesday's attack struck each chain consecutively, with the Poly team identifying three addresses where stolen assets were transferred. At the time that Poly tweeted news of the attack, the three addresses collectively held more than $600 million in different cryptocurrencies, including USDC, wrapped bitcoin (WBTC), wrapped ether (WETH) and shiba inu (SHIB), blockchain scanning platforms show. "We call on miners of affected blockchain and crypto exchanges to blacklist tokens coming from the above addresses," the Poly team tweeted. The $600 million figure would place the Poly Network hack among the largest in crypto history. Tether froze approximately $33 million in relation to the hack, Tether CTO Paul Adroino tweeted. About one hour after Poly announced the hack on Twitter, the hacker tried to move assets including USDT through the Ethereum address into liquidity pool Curve.fi, records show. The transaction was rejected.

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HP is announcing two new Chrome OS computers for its consumer-focused lineup. From a report: The first is the Chromebase AiO, an all-in-one desktop computer with a screen that can rotate from landscape to portrait. The second is the Chromebook x2 11, a lightweight detachable that can easily shift from laptop to tablet modes. The company is also announcing a new Works With Chromebook-certified 24-inch USB-C monitor. All three new products are designed for students, families, and general consumers. The Chromebase AiO will be available at HP, Amazon, and Best Buy this month, while the Chromebook x2 11 will be available from Best Buy this month and from HP's website in October. Both computers start at $599.99 for base configurations. The M24fd USB-C monitor will be available in October from HP directly for $249.99.

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WIth the release of Firefox 91 on Tuesday, Mozilla has introduced a bigger hammer for smashing the cookies that websites, advertisers and tracking companies can use to record your online behavior. From a report: The new feature, called enhanced cookie clearing, is designed to block tracking not just from a website, but also from third parties whose code appears on the site. The technology is designed to let you clear cookies for a particular website but also the more aggressive "supercookies" designed to evade lesser privacy protections. The feature is an option if you enable Firefox's strict mode for cookie handling, which partitions website data into separate storage containers. "You can easily recognize and remove all data a website has stored on your computer, without having to worry about leftover data from third parties embedded in that website," Mozilla said in a blog post.

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3-minute podcast. Maybe enough with the pleading for people to get vaccinated. The fear of getting sick is building, dig in on that. You do have something to fear. This thing is trying to kill you. Don't be a fool.

Twitter is now complying with India's new IT rules, New Delhi told a court Tuesday, in a move that is expected to ease months-long tension between the American social media network and the government of the key overseas market. From a report: A lawyer representing the Indian government told the Delhi High Court that Twitter's recent steps -- appointment of chief compliance officer, nodal contact person and resident grievance officer in the country -- have made the social network "prima facie" compliant with the new law. India's new IT rules, which were unveiled in February this year, mandates significant social media firms, among other things, to appoint officials to address on-ground concerns in the country.

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I've been reading books this year by black cultural figures. Really informative, perspective exploding stuff. Some great writing, like Alice Walker. And she narrates so beautifully. An interesting side-effect is that I embrace my own cultural heritage with more confidence.

Oleamide increases the creatures' respiration rate, indicating excitement, researchers say.

AMC Entertainment said Monday it will start accepting bitcoin as payment for movie tickets and concessions if purchased online at all of its U.S. theaters. From a report: CEO Adam Aron said during an earnings call Monday that the movie theater chain will have the IT systems in place to take the cryptocurrency as payment by the end of 2021. The move marks a marriage of two highly speculative assets -- bitcoin, known for its wild volatility, and AMC, which became a meme stock star favored by retail traders on Reddit's infamous WallStreetBets forum. The price of bitcoin swung drastically in recent weeks, last trading around $46,000 after falling below $30,000 last month. The recent rebound came amid optimism that a cryptocurrency compromise will be included as part of the bipartisan infrastructure package. The Senate ultimately failed to advance the deal.

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Salesforce is the latest tech giant to venture into video streaming with the launch of a new service aimed at business professionals called Salesforce+, the company's chief marketing officer Sarah Franklin tells Axios. From the report: The service is part of a greater effort to transition Salesforce's marketing approach from paid customer acquisition to owned and operated media. Franklin says the hope is that the content will help people refine their skills, while also creating an emotional connection to Salesforce, driving users to "want to use our products and want to engage more with us." Salesforce+, which will debut globally during Salesforce's annual mega-conference Dreamforce in September, is a free service that will feature original programming from Salesforce and eventually, content created by its clients. The content will be available on-demand 24/7, but it will also feature live event programming, starting with Dreamforce.

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Apple's next iPhone lineup will get at least three major new camera and video-recording features, which the company is betting will be key enticements to upgrade from earlier models. From a report: The new handsets will include a video version of the phone's Portrait mode feature, the ability to record video in a higher-quality format called ProRes, and a new filters-like system that improves the look and colors of photos, according to people familiar with the matter. Beyond the camera enhancements, the new iPhones will get relatively modest upgrades. Last year, Apple revamped the iPhone design, added 5G wireless networking and updated the camera hardware. For this year, the company will retain the same 5.4-inch and 6.1-inch regular sizes and 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch Pro screen dimensions, as well as their designs. The new phones will include a faster A15 chip and a smaller notch, also known as the display cutout, in addition to new screen technology that could enable a faster refresh rate for smoother scrolling.

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