An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Amazon is further relaxing its screening policies for marijuana, as it ramps up support for federal legislation to legalize the drug. In a blog post Tuesday, Amazon HR boss Beth Galetti wrote that the company has "reinstated the employment eligibility" for former employees and applicants who were fired or deferred during random or pre-employment marijuana screenings. "Pre-employment marijuana testing has disproportionately affected communities of color by stalling job placement and, by extension, economic growth, and we believe this inequitable treatment is unacceptable," Galetti said. Amazon first announced in June it would no longer screen some of its workers for marijuana. The only job candidates Amazon will screen for the drug are those applying for positions regulated by the Department of Transportation, such as truck drivers and heavy equipment operators. Amazon also said it would still do impairment checks on the job and will test for drugs and alcohol after any incident. The company relaxed its marijuana standards after recognizing that a growing number of U.S. states are legalizing cannabis, Galetti said. It also realized that doing so would help it lure more job applicants in an increasingly tight labor market. "Amazon's pace of growth means that we are always looking to hire great new team members, and we've found that eliminating pre-employment testing for cannabis allows us to expand our applicant pool," Galetti said. Amazon is also lobbying the federal government to legalize marijuana. The company in June said it supports the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, which aims to decriminalize cannabis at the federal level, expunge criminal records and invest in impacted communities. On Tuesday, Galetti said Amazon recently endorsed a similar bill, called the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act. In a letter to lawmakers about the bill this month, Amazon urged Congress to expunge federal nonviolent marijuana crimes and allow for resentencing of any person serving time in federal prison for those crimes, while pushing states to take similar steps.

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Apple is working on ways to help detect and diagnose conditions such as depression, anxiety and cognitive decline using an iPhone, WSJ is reporting. Techcrunch: Researchers hope that analysis of data such as mobility, sleep patterns and how people type could spot behaviors associated with those conditions, according to The Wall Street Journal. ther measurements could include facial expression analysis and heart and respiration rates. All of the processing would take place on the device, with no data sent to Apple servers. The company is working on research projects that could lead to the development of these features. The University of California, Los Angeles, is studying stress, anxiety and depression, with Apple Watch and iPhone data for 3,000 volunteers being tracked in a study that starts this year. A pilot phase that began in 2020 recorded data from 150 participants.

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Joe Biden called for cooperation in his first speech as US president to the UN General Assembly.

The European Commission will on Thursday present a legislative proposal for a common charger for mobile phones, tablets and headphones, a move likely to affect iPhone maker Apple more than its rivals, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing a person familiar with the matter. From the report: The European Union executive and EU lawmakers have been pushing for a common charger for over a decade, saying it would be better for the environment and more convenient for users. The Commission wants the sale of chargers to be decoupled from devices, and also propose a harmonised charging port, the person said. Apple, whose iPhones are charged from its Lightning cable, has said rules forcing connectors to conform to one type could deter innovation, create a mountain of electronic waste and irk consumers.

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More than 60 endangered African penguins were recently found dead, all with multiple bee stings and no other external injuries, according to officials in a coastal city in South Africa where the birds regularly migrate. From a report: Sixty-three dead African penguins were found Friday at the Boulders Penguin Colony, in Simon's Town, about 25 miles south of Cape Town, in the southwest of the country. All the penguins had multiple bee stings, and "many dead bees were found at the site where the birds had died," according to a statement from the South African National Parks. "Therefore preliminary investigations suggest that the penguins died because of being stung by a swarm of Cape honey bees." No external physical injuries were observed on any of the dead penguins, the statement said. The penguins migrate to the area annually. The bees found near the dead birds are native to the area, "usually coexist with wildlife" and "don't sting unless provoked," according to Dr. Alison Kock, a marine biologist at the South African National Parks. "We have never had a problem like this before," she said. The penguins had been stung around the eyes and on their flippers, areas not covered by feathers, Dr. Kock said.

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PayPal has been talking about its "super app" plans for some time, having recently told investors its upcoming digital wallet and payments app had been given a go for launch. Today, the first version of that app is officially being introduced, offering a combination of financial tools including direct deposit, bill pay, a digital wallet, peer-to-peer payments, shopping tools, crypto capabilities and more. From a report: The company is also announcing its partnership with Synchrony Bank for its new high-yield savings account, PayPal Savings. These changes shift PayPal from being largely a payments utility that's tacked on other offerings here and there, to being a more fully fleshed out finance app. Though PayPal itself doesn't aim to be a "bank," the new app offers a range of competitive features for those considering shifting their finances to neobanks, like Chime or Varo, as it will now also include support for paycheck Direct Deposits through PayPal's bank partners with two-day early access, bill pay and more.

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The Biden administration plans a fresh campaign against ransomware attacks through sanctions to cut off criminals' cryptocurrency pipelines, and it urged companies to report extortion attempts and better protect themselves from them. From a report: Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo told reporters that the sanctions would be imposed on Suex, a cryptocurrency transferring service that's registered in the Czech Republic. He said Suex had "facilitated transactions involving illicit proceeds for at least eight ransomware variants. He said "exchanges like Suex are critical to attackers' ability to extract profits," pointing out that this was the first such action by the Office of Foreign Assets Control against a virtual currency exchange. Both Adeyemo and Deputy National Security Adviser Anne Neuberger, who also briefed reporters in a conference call on Monday evening, underscored the importance of ransomware victims coming forward and vulnerable businesses and organizations taking steps to bolster their security. Adeyemo announced new Treasury Department guidance that makes "an express statement that the U.S. government strongly discourages the payment of cyber ransoms or extortion demands."

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1996: "How much happier we would be if instead of crippling each other with fear, we competed to empower each others' creativity."

Zapata, 1932.

Om Malik: "In increments the civilization is built. In haste it is dismantled."

On the day Apple released iOS 15, a Spanish security researcher disclosed an iPhone lock screen bypass that can be exploited to grant attackers access to a user's notes. From a report: In an interview with The Record, Jose Rodriguez said he published details about the lock screen bypass after Apple downplayed similar lock screen bypass issues he reported to the company earlier this year. "Apple values reports of issues like this with up to $25,000 but for reporting a more serious issue, I was awarded with $5,000," the researcher wrote on Twitter last week. [...] Because of the unprofessional way Apple handled his bug report, the researcher published today a variation of the same bypass, but this time one that uses the Apple Siri and VoiceOver services to access the Notes app from behind the screen lock. Further reading: Apple Pays Hackers Six Figures To Find Bugs in Its Software. Then It Sits On their Findings.

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Netflix said on Monday it is launching a free mobile plan in Kenya as the global streaming giant looks to tap the East African nation that is home to over 20 million internet users. From a report: The free plan, which will be rolled out to all users in Kenya in the coming weeks, won't require them to provide any payment information during the sign-up, the company said. The new plan is available to any user aged 18 or above with an Android phone, the company said. It will also not include ads. The company told Reuters that it is making about one quarter of its movies and television shows catalog available to users in the free plan in the East African nation.

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Have you tried Bose SleepBuds? What do you think?

Facebook has begun rolling out an update that is interfering with watchdogs monitoring the platform. From a report: The Markup has found evidence that Facebook is adding changes to its website code that foils automated data collection of news feed posts -- a technique that groups like NYU's Ad Observatory, The Markup, and other researchers and journalists use to audit what's happening on the platform on a large scale. The changes, which attach junk code to HTML features meant to improve accessibility for visually impaired users, also impact browser-based ad blocking services on the platform. The new code risks damaging the user experience for people who are visually impaired, a group that has struggled to use the platform in the past. The updates add superfluous text to news feed posts in the form of ARIA tags, an element of HTML code that is not rendered visually by a standard web browser but is used by screen reader software to map the structure and read aloud the contents of a page. Such code is also used by organizations like NYU's Ad Observatory to identify sponsored posts on the platform and weed them out for further scrutiny. Facebook did not respond to a request for comment before press time. Following the changes, the Citizen Browser project experienced a drop in data collection rates from early September, prompting the investigation that uncovered these changes to the code. At around the same time, users of certain ad blockers noticed a decrease in their effectiveness.

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Google employees have joined the slew of politicians and activists blasting the internet giant for pulling a voting app from Russia's opposition leader, a move critics say showed the company was caving in to the Kremlin. From a report: Staff members complained over the weekend about the Google's decision in internal forums and on memegen, a messaging board that has served as a breeding ground for protests within the company. Images circulating inside Google, which were viewed by Bloomberg News, spoofed its corporate creed about prioritizing users. One picture depicts a man reading a magazine below the slogan, "Putin the user first." These internal frustrations are the latest in a series of blows to Alphabet's Google operations in Russia, where the company is facing increased political pressure, fines and aggressive demands to police its influential internet services. So far, Google has decided those pressures are still worth operating in the multibillion dollar advertising market. Google and Apple on Friday removed a smart-voting app from Alexey Navalny, an imprisoned critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin. Google made the decision to remove the app from its online store in Russia after officials threatened to imprison local employees, according to a person close to the company.

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