The inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, has joined the advisory board of hosted email service provider ProtonMail. From a report: In a statement, ProtonMail CEO and founder Andy Yen said the addition of Berners-Lee to the company's advisory board was aligned with its goal to "create an internet where people are in control of their information at all times. Our vision is to build an internet where privacy is the default by creating an ecosystem of services accessible to everyone, everywhere, every day," Yen said. Yen said the company already had a past relationship with Berners-Lee, explaining that the idea of ProtonMail was initially conceived at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, where the World Wide Web was created. The addition of Berners-Lee comes almost immediately after ProtonMail received flak for giving a climate activist's IP address to French authorities to comply with a Swiss court order. Addressing the logging of the IP address in a blog post earlier this week, Yen said all companies have to comply with laws, such as court orders, if they operate within 15 miles of land. "No matter what service you use, unless it is based 15 miles offshore in international waters, the company will have to comply with the law," Yen said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If you thought NFT mania was about to die off, think again: a bundle of 101 NFTs from Bored Ape Yacht Club just sold at Sotheby's for $24.4 million. A second bundle of 101 Bored Ape Kennel Club NFTs sold for $1.8 million. From a report: That puts the ape sale among the biggest in the NFT space. A bundle of nine CryptoPunks -- one of the earliest NFT projects -- sold for $16.9 million in May. And Beeple sold a collage of his works as an NFT for $69 million in March. While it's hard to directly compare all of these sales (there are 101 items in today's auctions versus one in Beeple's), the purchases show that the appetite for NFT art isn't dying down, and they suggest that buyers think there'll be high resale value as the market continues to grow.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft is shelving its plans to fully reopen its US offices next month. From a report: The software giant had planned to reopen its headquarters on October 4th, but the ongoing uncertainty of COVID-19 and the spike in cases has forced the company to delay its back to the office push. Microsoft isn't providing a new date to employees, though.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon said Thursday it will offer to pay 100% of college tuition for its 750,000 U.S. hourly employees. From a report: The e-commerce giant is following the lead of other large U.S. companies who are dangling perks like education benefits or more pay to woo workers in a tight job market. Starting in January 2022, Amazon said it will cover the cost of college tuition, fees and textbooks for hourly employees in its operations network after 90 days of employment. It will also begin covering high school diploma programs, GEDs and English as a second language certifications for employees. Operations workers include employees in Amazon's sprawling network of warehouses and distribution centers. The benefit will apply to hundreds of education institutions across the country, Amazon said. Amazon previously offered to pay for 95% of tuition, fees and textbooks for hourly associates through its career choice program. Rival retailers, including Walmart and Target, have also beefed up their education benefits in recent months. Target in August rolled out a program that covers the cost of associate and undergraduate degrees at select schools. Walmart in July said it would pay 100% of college tuition and books costs for associates of Walmart and Sam's Club.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Payment services company Mastercard has acquired blockchain analytics firm CipherTrace to bolster its own cyber security tools and to better comply with crypto regulatory guidelines, according to an announcement on Thursday. The amount offered for the acquisition remains undisclosed. From a report: "With the rapid growth of the digital asset ecosystem comes the need to ensure it is trusted and safe," said Ajay Bhalla, president of Cyber and Intelligence at Mastercard, in the statement. "Our aim is to build upon the complementary capabilities of Mastercard and CipherTrace to do just this." In addition to gathering data in the crypto space, CipherTrace publishes yearly reports about the trends in the crypto ecosystem and has built compliance tools for decentralized exchanges.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

2015: Why you must watch Bojack Horseman.

Facebook announced their long-awaited foray into the smart glasses space Thursday morning, launching the Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses in partnership with eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica. From a report: The svelte frames are some of the most low-profile yet available to consumers and will allow users to snap photos and videos with the two onboard 5 MP cameras, listen to music with in-frame speakers and take phone calls. The glasses need to be connected to an iOS or Android device for full functionality, though users can take and store hundreds of photos or dozens of videos on the glasses before transferring media to their phones via Facebook's new View app. The twin cameras will allow users to add 3D effects to their photos and videos once they upload them to the app. The lightweight glasses weigh less than 50 grams and come with a leather hardshell charging case. The battery lift is advertised as "all-day" which TechCrunch found to be accurate during our review of the frames. Users will be able to control the glasses with a couple physical buttons including a "capture" button to record media and an on-off switch. A touch pad on the right arm of the glasses will allow users to perform functions like swiping to adjust the volume or answering a phone call. An onboard white LED will glow to indicate to the people around the wearer that a video is being recorded. The glasses will start at $299, with polarized and transition lens options coming in at a higher price point.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I'm loving going through Rick and Morty for the second time. I've promoted it to my friends, but the comments I get back are a lot like the ones about Bojack Horseman. They're turned off by the fact that it's a cartoon. I don't mind it at all, myself, and it has the advantage that they can go places with their imaginations that real actors can't. That's esp important for a show like R&M. Also another thing I like is that there's no fourth wall at weird times. Rick talks like a game show host at times, about commercial breaks, and then talks about episodes, and seasons of R&M. I love it when writers are free to talk to us through the characters, quite literally, not through manipulation. I think it's a masterpiece, as I did with Bojack. Here's the thing, as kids we loved cartoons right? I know I did. I also loved movies. So now I like movies made for adults, why not cartoons for adults?

The well-known three-arrows symbol doesn't necessarily mean that a product is actually recyclable. A new bill would limit the products allowed to feature the mark. From a report: The triangular "chasing arrows" recycling symbol is everywhere: On disposable cups. On shower curtains. On children's toys. What a lot of shoppers might not know is that any product can display the sign, even if it isn't recyclable. It's false advertising, critics say, and as a result, countless tons of non-recyclable garbage are thrown in the recycling bin each year, choking the recycling system. Late on Wednesday, California took steps toward becoming the first state to change that. A bill passed by the state's assembly would ban companies from using the arrows symbol unless they can prove the material is in fact recycled in most California communities, and is used to make new products. "It's a basic truth-in-advertising concept," said California State Senator Ben Allen, a Democrat and the bill's lead sponsor. "We have a lot of people who are dutifully putting materials into the recycling bins that have the recycling symbols on them, thinking that they're going to be recycled, but actually, they're heading straight to the landfill," he said. The measure, which is expected to clear the State Senate later this week and be signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom, is part of a nascent effort across the country to fix a recycling system that has long been broken. Though materials like paper or metals are widely recycled, less than 10 percent of plastic consumed in the United States is recycled, according to the most recent estimates by the Environmental Protection Agency. Instead, most plastic is incinerated or dumped in landfills, with the exception of some types of resins, like the kind used for bottled water or soda. For years, the United States also shipped much of its plastic waste overseas, choking local rivers and streams. A global convention now bans most trade in plastic waste, though U.S. waste exports have not completely ceased. This summer, Maine and Oregon passed laws overhauling their states' recycling systems by requiring corporations to pay for the cost of recycling their packaging. In Oregon, the law included plans to establish a task force that would evaluate "misleading or confusing claims" related to recycling. Legislation is pending in New York that would, among other things, ban products from displaying misleading claims.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Listen. There are plenty of famous delusional loudmouths. Why aren't there any sane loudmouths to balance them? I'll tell you why -- because being confident and outspoken is considered a sin among the sane. But! It's not a sin to communicate in a way more people understand.

Amazon is officially in the TV set business. From a report: After years of selling Fire TV devices that plug into third-party HDTVs and teaming with TV makers for Fire TV-based products, the ecommerce giant is rolling out the first-ever Amazon-built TVs: the Amazon Fire TV Omni Series ($410 and up), which provides hands-free Alexa voice navigation, and the value-priced 4-Series smart TV line ($370 and up). They're set to ship in October. In addition, Amazon is baking in new features to the overall Fire TV platform, including bringing TikTok content to the platform in the U.S. and Canada; letting users access Netflix's shuffle-mode feature via Alexa; and being able to ask Alexa for movie or TV show recommendations. The company also is bowing the new Fire TV Stick 4K Max ($55), which it says is more powerful than the prior-generation model and is Amazon's first streaming media player to launch with Energy Star certification and Wi-Fi 6 support.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I am very happy with the way Drummer testing is going. There have been some surprising contributions, really good questions, and plenty of people actually using the software. Enough people to keep it moving. And I'm not in a rush. As far as I'm concerned this is the whole game. I have no development plans beyond Drummer and the scriptable apps I've lined up to hook into it. I'm not sure why this time is different, but I'm not arguing.

I wonder when someone in journalism is going to break the Republican lie that we're all independent of each other, that somehow we don't need the help of others to eat, stay warm, stay alive. We don't live on the prairie in the old times, before railroads and medicine. If your house catches fire, my house will too. Once we establish that foundation, that we depend on each other, we can solve problems, but not as long as our political life is mired in this argument about what liberty means.

Liberty doesn't mean you can take a crap in the middle of the supermarket or burn down your own house.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: A Long Island man was charged on Wednesday with using his position as an I.T. supervisor for Suffolk County to mine cryptocurrency from government offices, costing the county thousands of dollars in electricity. Prosecutors said that Christopher Naples, 42, of Mattituck, L.I., had hidden 46 specialized devices used to mine Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in six rooms in the Suffolk County Center in Riverhead, including underneath floorboards and inside an unused electrical panel. Mr. Naples was charged with public corruption, grand larceny, computer trespass and official misconduct. If convicted of the top charge, he could face up to 15 years in prison. Mr. Naples had admitted that the devices belonged to him and that he had been operating them for at least several months before the district attorney's office was alerted to the scheme. Prosecutors said that at least 10 of Mr. Naples's machines had been running since February, costing Suffolk County more than $6,000. [...] [G]iven that 36 more machines had been discovered, it was likely that Mr. Naples had cost the county thousands more. [...] [O]ne room in which Mr. Naples had placed the devices had critically important computer servers and other equipment for the entire county, and that the temperature in that room in which the devices were placed had dropped 20 degrees shortly after they were disabled.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.