Miscellaneous Tech News
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Apple App Store faces coalition of unhappy developers
Several major developers have formed a coalition to fight Apple over its app store policies.
The Coalition for App Fairness counts Spotify, Epic Games and Tinder owner Match Group among its founding members. It claims Apple "taxes consumers and crushes innovation", criticising what it calls anti-competitive policies. Apple, which is embroiled in legal action with some of the members, has long denied these accusations. Google, which runs the Play app store on Android, is not mentioned in the group's launch statement but is named elsewhere on its website, and accused of similar policies. The coalition has been established as an independent non-profit organisation, and is open to other developers - regardless of size - to join. -
European Commission to challenge Apple tax bill verdict
The European Commission plans to appeal against a ruling that Apple does not have to pay 13bn euros (£11.6bn) in back taxes to Ireland.
The EU's General Court had ruled in July there was no evidence Apple had broken any rules on tax paid there. Ireland never disputed the arrangement but the European Commission, which brought the case, argued it enabled Apple to avoid taxes on EU revenues. The EU said paying the correct amount of tax was "a top priority". In 2016, a court ruled that Apple had indeed been given illegal tax breaks by Dublin - but this was overturned in July 2020. -
@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
European Commission to challenge Apple tax bill verdict
The European Commission plans to appeal against a ruling that Apple does not have to pay 13bn euros (£11.6bn) in back taxes to Ireland.
The EU's General Court had ruled in July there was no evidence Apple had broken any rules on tax paid there. Ireland never disputed the arrangement but the European Commission, which brought the case, argued it enabled Apple to avoid taxes on EU revenues. The EU said paying the correct amount of tax was "a top priority". In 2016, a court ruled that Apple had indeed been given illegal tax breaks by Dublin - but this was overturned in July 2020.Yeah, after Ireland sued the EU for tax fraud. It turns out it was the EU, not Apple, that was scamming the system and attempting to collect undue taxes!
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NHS Covid-19 app: 12m downloads - and lots of questions
The government says more than 12 million people across England and Wales have downloaded the NHS Covid-19 app since its launch on 24 September.
The Department for Health and Social Care has emphasised that using it is voluntary. It also says the guidance the app issues about whether to self-isolate or get a test is not enforceable by law. The app itself may look simple, but it has thrown up lots of questions about how it works and what its limits are. But people have noticed that while you can log in you cannot log out, and even if you soon leave the app thinks you are still there until midnight unless you log in somewhere else. The point however of the QR scan is just to register your presence at that location rather than your proximity to someone infectious, which is registered via the Bluetooth contact-tracing feature. If the location is later identified as a virus hotspot then an alert may be sent out to anyone who scanned a QR code there - not to self-isolate, but to be on the lookout for any symptoms of the virus. -
@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
NHS Covid-19 app: 12m downloads - and lots of questions
The government says more than 12 million people across England and Wales have downloaded the NHS Covid-19 app since its launch on 24 September.
The Department for Health and Social Care has emphasised that using it is voluntary. It also says the guidance the app issues about whether to self-isolate or get a test is not enforceable by law. The app itself may look simple, but it has thrown up lots of questions about how it works and what its limits are. But people have noticed that while you can log in you cannot log out, and even if you soon leave the app thinks you are still there until midnight unless you log in somewhere else. The point however of the QR scan is just to register your presence at that location rather than your proximity to someone infectious, which is registered via the Bluetooth contact-tracing feature. If the location is later identified as a virus hotspot then an alert may be sent out to anyone who scanned a QR code there - not to self-isolate, but to be on the lookout for any symptoms of the virus.Getting people to scan a QR code is likely going to be a bad thing in the whole scheme of trying to get this virus under control.
If the app simply used the Bluetooth tracking like has been discussed repeatedly, I suspect their results are going to be substantially better.
Think of the number of events that won't have a QR code to scan, or people who forget or say "screw it, this app requires to much personal effort"
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@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Facebook shuts down 150 fake Chinese accounts
Facebook has shut down a network of more than 150 fake profiles linked to China for "co-ordinated" interference in political discussions.
While mainly concerned with backing China's interests, some also posted about the US presidential election. It is only the second time that Facebook has identified such fake accounts as originating in China. The network had about 130,000 followers - although very few of these were in the US. The accounts starting appearing in 2016, and most of the information was related to China's influence in the Philippines and South-East Asia. They were traced back to individuals based in Fujan province, who were beginning to pay for advertisements in Chinese yuan, Facebook said. Much of the content was in support of the Chinese state - such as promoting its interests in the disputed South China Sea.So they weren't really Chinese?
No they were Russian.
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@black3dynamite said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2020/09/edge-linux-missing-features
Basically, don't use Edge (anywhere, for any reason unless you hate yourself).
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Microsoft O365 appears to be down. We've got customers in the US that can't reach them, team in Bolivia sees them as down, and here in Texas their page won't even load for login. Must be something going on.
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Confirmed that MS is down...
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@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Microsoft O365 appears to be down. We've got customers in the US that can't reach them, team in Bolivia sees them as down, and here in Texas their page won't even load for login. Must be something going on.
Has been since 4pm CDT
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@DustinB3403 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@black3dynamite said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2020/09/edge-linux-missing-features
Basically, don't use Edge (anywhere, for any reason unless you hate yourself).
I've been using Edge a lot more than Chrome on Windows but I'm still an avid Firefox user.
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https://cockpit-project.org/blog/cockpit-228.html
cockpit-docker is deprecated in favor of cockpit-podman.
cockpit-machines support reverting to and deleting VM snapshotsYou can set up accounts with weak passwords.
Changes to remote host logins
Cockpit used to try to log into remote hosts with your initial login password when “Reuse my password for remote connections” was selected during login. This option has been removed, and Cockpit does not promote password reuse across accounts anymore. Instead, Cockpit now helps with setting up SSH keys for users that want automatic and password-less login to remote hosts. -
@JaredBusch said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Microsoft O365 appears to be down. We've got customers in the US that can't reach them, team in Bolivia sees them as down, and here in Texas their page won't even load for login. Must be something going on.
Has been since 4pm CDT
Starting to come back, but only partially.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/28/tech/microsoft-outage/index.html
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@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Microsoft O365 appears to be down. We've got customers in the US that can't reach them, team in Bolivia sees them as down, and here in Texas their page won't even load for login. Must be something going on.
It also affected Plex.
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@Grey said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Microsoft O365 appears to be down. We've got customers in the US that can't reach them, team in Bolivia sees them as down, and here in Texas their page won't even load for login. Must be something going on.
It also affected Plex.
Ah, I noticed that that was down. Apparently a broader Azure outage.
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@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@Grey said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Microsoft O365 appears to be down. We've got customers in the US that can't reach them, team in Bolivia sees them as down, and here in Texas their page won't even load for login. Must be something going on.
It also affected Plex.
Ah, I noticed that that was down. Apparently a broader Azure outage.
As I understand it - they rolled an update to their authentication mechanism that they had to roll back.
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@Dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@Grey said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Microsoft O365 appears to be down. We've got customers in the US that can't reach them, team in Bolivia sees them as down, and here in Texas their page won't even load for login. Must be something going on.
It also affected Plex.
Ah, I noticed that that was down. Apparently a broader Azure outage.
As I understand it - they rolled an update to their authentication mechanism that they had to roll back.
Yeah, something like that. I didn't see details but heard them talking about authentication volume problems from an update.
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Amazon One: Palm scanner launched for 'secure' payments
Amazon has announced a new payment system for real-world shops which uses a simple wave of the hand.
Its new Amazon One scanner registers an image of the user's palm, letting them pay by hovering their hand in mid-air "for about a second or so", it says. The product will be trialled at two of Amazon's physical stores in Seattle. But the company said it is "in active discussions with several potential customers" about rolling it out to other shops in the future. "In most retail environments, Amazon One could become an alternate payment or loyalty card option with a device at the checkout counter next to a traditional point of sale system," it said. Amazon also said the system could be used for "entering a location like a stadium" or scanning yourself into work instead of using an ID card. "We believe Amazon One has broad applicability beyond our retail stores," it added. -
Washington emergency responders first to use SpaceX’s Starlink internet in the field: ‘It’s amazing’
The Starlink satellite internet network that SpaceX is developing has been used in the field by Washington state emergency responders in recent weeks, the first early application of the company’s service to be disclosed.
Washington’s state military, which includes its emergency response division, began employing Starlink user terminals in early August to bring internet service to areas devastated by wildfires. User terminals are the small devices on the ground that connect to the satellites. The emergency division has seven Starlink user terminals, which it is deploying with early success.
