An anonymous reader writes: Facebook unveiled a new compression technique they call 'Superpack compression.' In a blog post written by software engineer Sapan Bhatia, they claim that their compression improves Android app size by 20% over the default Zip compression used by Android. The post gives an overview of the compression ideas. The basis of these ideas is called out to be a key insight in Kolmogorov Complexity, that any data can be represented in the form of programs that generate that data. Facebook's tool, Superpack, mines out such small programs and optimizes them using compiler techniques.

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IT executives see the talent shortage as the most significant adoption barrier to 64% of emerging technologies, according to a new Gartner survey. From a report: Across compute infrastructure and platform services, network, security, digital workplace, IT automation, and storage and database, respondents cited a lack of qualified candidates as a leading factor impeding tech deployment at their companies. "The ongoing push toward remote work and the acceleration of hiring plans in 2021 has exacerbated IT talent scarcity, especially for sourcing skills that enable cloud and edge, automation, and continuous delivery," Gartner research VP Yinuo Geng said in a press release. "As one example, of all the IT automation technologies profiled in the survey, only 20% of them have moved ahead in the adoption cycle since 2020. The issue of talent is to blame here." The talent gaps are particularly acute for IT automation and digital workplace solutions, according to the executives surveyed -- a reflection of the demand for these technologies. According to McKinsey, nearly half of executives say their embrace of automation has accelerated, while digital and technology adoption is taking place about 25 times faster than before the pandemic. For example, Brain Corp reported that the use of robots to clean retail stores in the U.S. rose 24% in Q2 2020 year-over-year, and IBM has seen a surge in new users of its AI-driven customer service platform Watson Assistant.

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Apple has released security updates for a newly discovered zero-day vulnerability that affects every iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch. Citizen Lab, which discovered the vulnerability and was credited with the find, urges users to immediately update their devices. From a report: The technology giant said iOS 14.8 for iPhones and iPads, as well as new updates for Apple Watch and macOS, will fix at least one vulnerability that it said "may have been actively exploited." Citizen Lab said it has now discovered new artifacts of the ForcedEntry vulnerability, details it first revealed in August as part of an investigation into the use of a zero-day vulnerability that was used to silently hack into iPhones belonging to at least one Bahraini activist. Last month, Citizen Lab said the zero day flaw -- named as such since it gives companies zero days to roll out a fix -- took advantage of a flaw in Apple's iMessage, which was exploited to push the Pegasus spyware, developed by Israeli firm NSO Group, to the activist's phone. Pegasus gives its government customers near-complete access to a target's device, including their personal data, photos, messages and location.

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Ten thousand years after woolly mammoths vanished from the face of the Earth, scientists are embarking on an ambitious project to bring the beasts back to the Arctic tundra. From a report: The prospect of recreating mammoths and returning them to the wild has been discussed -- seriously at times -- for more than a decade, but on Monday researchers announced fresh funding they believe could make their dream a reality. The boost comes in the form of $15m raised by the bioscience and genetics company Colossal, co-founded by Ben Lamm, a tech and software entrepreneur, and George Church, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School who has pioneered new approaches to gene editing. The scientists have set their initial sights on creating an elephant-mammoth hybrid by making embryos in the laboratory that carry mammoth DNA. The starting point for the project involves taking skin cells from Asian elephants, which are threatened with extinction, and reprogramming them into more versatile stem cells that carry mammoth DNA. The particular genes that are responsible for mammoth hair, insulating fat layers and other cold climate adaptions are identified by comparing mammoth genomes extracted from animals recovered from the permafrost with those from the related Asian elephants. These embryos would then be carried to term in a surrogate mother or potentially in an artificial womb. If all goes to plan -- and the hurdles are far from trivial -- the researchers hope to have their first set of calves in six years.

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President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil is temporarily banning social media companies from removing certain content, including his claims that the only way he'll lose next year's elections is if the vote is rigged -- one of the most significant steps by a democratically elected leader to control what can be said on the internet. From a report: The new social media rules, issued this week and effective immediately, appear to be the first time a national government has stopped internet companies from taking down content that violates their rules, according to internet law experts and officials at tech companies. And they come at a precarious moment for Brazil. Mr. Bolsonaro has used social media as a megaphone to build his political movement and make it to the president's office. Now, with polls showing he would lose the presidential elections if they were held today, he is using sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to try to undermine the legitimacy of the vote, following the playbook of his close ally, former President Donald J. Trump. On Tuesday, Mr. Bolsonaro repeated his claims about the election to thousands of supporters in two cities as part of nationwide demonstrations on Brazil's Independence Day.

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I'm re-watching The Wire, after the death of Michael K Williams, the actor who played Omar. He was right about type-casting. His one great role was Omar. Once you get a part that good, and play it so well, and everyone else is that good, you just don't get to do that twice.

Don't assume they wanted advice.

New research by Mozilla Fellows Odanga Madung and Brian Obilo reveals that Kenyan journalists, judges, and other members of civil society are facing coordinated disinformation campaigns on Twitter -- and that Twitter is doing very little to stop it. Highlights of the investigation include: Disinformation campaigns are a lucrative business. One interviewee revealed that disinformation influencers are paid roughly between $10 and $15 USD to participate in three campaigns per day. Payments are made directly to the influencers through the mobile money platform MPESA. Twitter's trending algorithm is amplifying these campaigns, and Twitter is placing ads amid all this misinformation. Eight of the 11 campaigns examined reached the trending section of Twitter. The campaigners we spoke to told us that this is their number one target, as it affords them the amplification they seek. These campaigns run like a well-oiled machine. One of the influencers who researchers spoke to explained a complex system of using Whatsapp groups to coordinate and synchronize tweets and messaging. Anonymous organizers use these groups to send influencers cash, content, and detailed instructions. These campaigns are increasingly targeting individuals. No longer focusing on just broad issues and events, disinformation campaigns are increasingly identifying and targeting individuals, like members of the Linda Katiba movement and the Kenyan judiciary. This work is also beginning to border on incitement and advocacy of hatred, which is against Kenyan Law. Verified accounts are complicit. One influencer we spoke to claimed that the people who own coveted "blue check" accounts will often rent them out for disinformation campaigns. These verified accounts can improve the campaign's chances of trending.

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Olympus said in a brief statement that it is "currently investigating a potential cybersecurity incident" affecting its European, Middle East and Africa computer network. From a report: "Upon detection of suspicious activity, we immediately mobilized a specialized response team including forensics experts, and we are currently working with the highest priority to resolve this issue. As part of the investigation, we have suspended data transfers in the affected systems and have informed the relevant external partners," the statement said. But according to a person with knowledge of the incident, Olympus is recovering from a ransomware attack that began in the early morning of September 8. The person shared details of the incident prior to Olympus acknowledging the incident on Saturday. A ransom note left behind on infected computers claimed to be from the BlackMatter ransomware group. "Your network is encrypted, and not currently operational," it reads. "If you pay, we will provide you the programs for decryption." The ransom note also included a web address to a site accessible only through the Tor Browser that's known to be used by BlackMatter to communicate with its victims. Brett Callow, a ransomware expert and threat analyst at Emsisoft, told TechCrunch that the site in the ransom note is associated with the BlackMatter group.

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President Biden will nominate Georgetown University law professor Alvaro Bedoya to be a Democratic commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission, people familiar with the matter told Axios. From a report: Bedoya, founding director of the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown, will bring a bevy of experience on privacy issues to the FTC's work on tech. If confirmed, Bedoya will solidify the Democratic majority at the FTC with current commissioner Rohit Chopra set to leave the agency as Biden's nominee to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Bedoya previously was chief counsel of the Senate Judiciary privacy subcommittee and worked on issues including mobile location data and facial recognition.

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Epic Games filed a notice of appeal Sunday following a judge's decision in its antitrust lawsuit against Apple. From a report: U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers mostly sided with Apple, rejecting Epic's claims that the iPhone maker is a monopoly. She also didn't rule that Apple needs to restore Fortnite, Epic's hit game at the center of the lawsuit, to the App Store or Epic's Apple developer account. She also rejected the need for third-party App Stores and didn't force Apple to lower its App Store revenue cut of 15% to 30%. The judge, however, said that Apple has engaged in some anticompetitive conduct and she ordered the Cupertino, California-based technology giant to allow all app and game developers to steer consumers to outside payment methods on the web. All developers for the first time could be able to include a button in their apps to let users pay for transactions online, circumventing Apple's fees. She also ordered Epic to pay at least $4 million in damages to Apple for breach of contract, which included collecting payments outside of Apple's in-app-purchase system.

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Mozilla has quietly made it easier to switch to Firefox on Windows recently. From a reporrt: While Microsoft offers a method to switch default browsers on Windows 10, it's more cumbersome than the simple one-click process to switch to Edge. This one-click process isn't officially available for anyone other than Microsoft, and Mozilla appears to have grown tired of the situation. In version 91 of Firefox, released on August 10th, Mozilla has reverse engineered the way Microsoft sets Edge as default in Windows 10, and enabled Firefox to quickly make itself the default. Before this change, Firefox users would be sent to the Settings part of Windows 10 to then have to select Firefox as a default browser and ignore Microsoft's plea to keep Edge. Mozilla's reverse engineering means you can now set Firefox as the default from within the browser, and it does all the work in the background with no additional prompts. This circumvents Microsoft's anti-hijacking protections that the company built into Windows 10 to ensure malware couldn't hijack default apps. Microsoft tells us this is not supported in Windows.

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Major cryptocurrencies gave back their advances after Walmart denied having an agreement to use Litecoin for purchases. From a report: Litecoin -- which rose as much as 33% at one point -- erased all its gains. Bitcoin, the largest digital asset, was down 2.9% as of 10:24 a.m. in New York after earlier having advance roughly 4% on the news. Other digital assets also retreated, with Bitcoin Cash, Ether and EOS all declining. A Walmart spokesperson said the statement on Litecoin was "inauthentic." Meanwhile, a verified Litecoin Twitter account deleted a tweet that linked to a press release announcing the partnership.

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A third of U.S. consumers who used "buy now, pay later" services have fallen behind on one or more payments, and 72% of those said their credit score declined, a new study published by personal finance company Credit Karma showed. From a report: The study, conducted by software firm Qualtrics, surveyed 1,044 adult consumers in the United States last month to measure their interest in buy now pay later (BNPL) and found 44% had used these services before. The usage figure was slightly up from a similar survey conducted by Credit Karma for Reuters in December, while missed payments was down from 38%. The latest survey found younger consumers were more likely to miss payments. More than half of Gen Z or millennial respondents -- those born between the early 1980s and mid-to-late 1990s-- said they had missed at least one payment. That compares with 22% of Gen X, who were born in the early 1960s to early 1980s, and 10% of Baby Boomers, those born between the mid-1940s and 1980. There has been a surge in usage of BNPL services, which allow consumers to easily split payments for purchases into installments. The boom in volumes by providers such as Klarna, Affirm, AfterPay and PayPal, has been driven in part by online shopping growth during the coronavirus pandemic. The explosive growth has led to more dealmaking and competition. Earlier this week PayPal announced it would acquire Japanese buy now, pay later firm Paidy, while last month rival Square agreed to acquire AfterPay.

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Chrome has done something insidious to break the web a little more. They do this so often, breaking the web seems to be Google's business model.

Here's what they changed.

• If you type a domain name into the address bar of the browser, the protocol is hidden. This isn't new, or particularly bad, until they made the next change.
• Now instead of automatically generating http as the protocol in the URL, they generate https.
• So sites that are running fine appear to be broken.

It happened on a placeholder site to me just now. I was fooled, I immediately thought a server had gone down, and started looking for the outage. Then I was reminded of this trickery Google is doing. I was reminded of how much I hate what Google is doing to the web. They're fighting with me, and weakening the web in a way they have no right to. My site is a perfectly functional web site. It's just a placeholder. No one needs to worry about a "man in the middle" interference. There are no ads on this site. I don't know how else to say it. My choice of protocols is none of Google's business.

That's basically a protection racket. If mobsters were doing it. "Nice little website you have there, be a shame if people couldn't reach it because Google broke the web.