Google is the U.K.'s first big post-Brexit antitrust target as regulators opened a probe into the company's planned changes to curb publishers' collection of advertising data. From a report: The Competition and Markets Authority said it's investigating Google's so-called privacy sandbox changes that could "undermine the ability of publishers to generate revenue and undermine competition in digital advertising, entrenching Google's market power." The probe adds to Google's legal headaches around the world. The Mountain View, California-based company faces lawsuits from the U.S. Department of Justice and multiple states over allegedly anticompetitive practices. The U.K. probe focuses on Google's decision last year to phase out third-party cookies that help advertisers monitor customers' browsing habits and pinpoint the effectiveness of different advertising. Google's Chrome is the dominant web browser and the changes will be followed by rival products based on Google technology, such as Microsoft's Edge.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Krebs On Security: The ongoing breach affecting thousands of organizations that relied on backdoored products by network software firm SolarWinds may have jeopardized the privacy of countless sealed court documents on file with the U.S. federal court system, according to a memo released Wednesday by the Administrative Office (AO) of the U.S. Courts. The judicial branch agency said it will be deploying more stringent controls for receiving and storing sensitive documents filed with the federal courts, following a discovery that its own systems were compromised as part of the SolarWinds supply chain attack. That intrusion involved malicious code being surreptitiously inserted into updates shipped by SolarWinds for some 18,000 users of its Orion network management software as far back as March 2020. "The AO is working with the Department of Homeland Security on a security audit relating to vulnerabilities in the Judiciary's Case Management/Electronic Case Files system (CM/ECF) that greatly risk compromising highly sensitive non-public documents stored on CM/ECF, particularly sealed filings," the agency said in a statement published Jan. 6. "An apparent compromise of the confidentiality of the CM/ECF system due to these discovered vulnerabilities currently is under investigation," the statement continues. "Due to the nature of the attacks, the review of this matter and its impact is ongoing." The AO declined to comment on specific questions about their breach disclosure. But a source close to the investigation told KrebsOnSecurity that the federal court document system was "hit hard," by the SolarWinds attackers, which multiple U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies have attributed as "likely Russian in origin." The source said the intruders behind the SolarWinds compromise seeded the AO's network with a second stage "Teardrop" malware that went beyond the "Sunburst" malicious software update that was opportunistically pushed out to all 18,000 customers using the compromised Orion software. This suggests the attackers were targeting the agency for deeper access to its networks and communications. The report notes that AO's court document system "may contain highly sensitive information, including intellectual property and trade secrets, or even the identities of confidential informants." While it doesn't hold documents that are classified for national security reasons, "the system is full of sensitive sealed filings -- such as subpoenas for email records and so-called 'trap and trace' requests that law enforcement officials use to determine with whom a suspect is communicating via phone, when and for how long."

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phalse phace shares a report from The Wall Street Journal: Boeing Co. will pay $2.5 billion to resolve a Justice Department investigation and admit employees misled aviation about safety issues linked to two deadly crashes of its 737 MAX jet, U.S. authorities said. Federal prosecutors had been investigating the role of two Boeing employees who interacted with the Federal Aviation Administration about the design of the 737 MAX and how much pilot training would be required for the new model. The settlement includes a $243 million fine as well as $2.2 billion in compensation to airline customers and families of the 346 people who perished in two MAX crashes. The plane maker was charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S., but will avoid prosecution on that charge as long as it avoids legal trouble for a period of three years. The deal also calls for Boeing to comply with any ongoing investigations, including probes by foreign law-enforcement and regulatory authorities, and to beef up compliance programs, according to its agreement with prosecutors.

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South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor said it's in the early stages of discussions with Apple over potentially working together to develop a self-driving car. CNBC reports: "We understand that Apple is in discussion with a variety of global automakers, including Hyundai Motor. As the discussion is at its early stage, nothing has been decided," a representative from Hyundai Motor told CNBC's Chery Kang. The statement followed a local report from the Korea Economic Daily that said Apple suggested the tie-up and Hyundai Motor was reviewing the terms. The report said both electric vehicle production as well as battery development were included in the proposal, and that the car could potentially be released in 2027. The news from Hyundai comes just days after Reuters reported that Apple is aiming to begin producing a car as early as 2024. However, it contrasts a Bloomberg report suggesting development work is still at an early stage and it will take Apple at least half a decade to launch an autonomous, electric vehicle.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from New Atlas: One of the most remarkable "sixth" senses in the animal kingdom is magnetoreception -- the ability to detect magnetic fields -- but exactly how it works remains a mystery. Now, researchers in Japan may have found a crucial piece of the puzzle, making the first observations of live, unaltered cells responding to magnetic fields. Many animals are known to navigate by sensing the Earth's magnetic field, including birds, bats, eels, whales and, according to some studies, perhaps even humans. However, the exact mechanism at play in vertebrates isn't well understood. One hypothesis suggests it's the result of a symbiotic relationship between the animals and magnetic field-sensing bacteria. But the leading hypothesis involves chemical reactions induced in cells through what's called the radical pair mechanism. Essentially, if certain molecules are excited by light, electrons can jump between them to their neighbors. That can create pairs of molecules with a single electron each, known as a radical pair. If the electrons in those molecules have matching spin states, they will undergo chemical reactions slowly, and if they're opposites the reactions occur faster. Since magnetic fields can influence electron spin states, they could induce chemical reactions that change an animals' behavior. In the living cells of animals with magnetoreception, proteins called cryptochromes are thought to be the molecules that undergo this radical pair mechanism. And now, researchers at the University of Tokyo have observed cryptochromes responding to magnetic fields for the first time. The research was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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The 28 fastest days on record (since 1960) all occurred in 2020, with Earth completing its revolutions around its axis milliseconds quicker than average. Live Science reports: That's not particularly alarming -- the planet's rotation varies slightly all the time, driven by variations in atmospheric pressure, winds, ocean currents and the movement of the core. But it is inconvenient for international timekeepers, who use ultra-accurate atomic clocks to meter out the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) by which everyone sets their clocks. When astronomical time, set by the time it takes the Earth to make one full rotation, deviates from UTC by more than 0.4 seconds, UTC gets an adjustment. Until now, these adjustments have consisted of adding a "leap second" to the year at the end of June or December, bringing astronomical time and atomic time back in line. These leap seconds were tacked on because the overall trend of Earth's rotation has been slowing since accurate satellite measurement began in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Since 1972, scientists have added leap seconds about every year-and-a-half, on average, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The last addition came in 2016, when on New Year's Eve at 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds, an extra "leap second" was added. However, according to Time and Date, the recent acceleration in Earth's spin has scientists talking for the first time about a negative leap second. Instead of adding a second, they might need to subtract one. That's because the average length of a day is 86,400 seconds, but an astronomical day in 2021 will clock in 0.05 milliseconds shorter, on average. Over the course of the year, that will add up to a 19 millisecond lag in atomic time.

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BBVA today told users of Simple -- the pioneering mobile and online banking app that it acquired for $117 million in 2014 -- that it is planning to shut down the service, moving accounts to BBVA's USA business in the process. TechCrunch reports: The move is part of an ongoing effort at BBVA -- which had been an active investor and acquirer of startups -- to streamline its business as it works on closing a merger with PNC. The latter bank announced in November last year that it would acquire the U.S. business of BBVA for $11.6 billion. In a note Simple sent out earlier today to users -- being shared on Twitter by a number of them -- the bank said that it will be transitioning their accounts to be serviced by BBVA USA, which already housed the accounts. "BBVA USA has made the strategic decision to close Simple," the note reads. "There is no immediate impact to your accounts at Simple and nothing you need to do at this time. Since your deposits are already housed at BBVA USA, they will remain in FDIC-insured accounts there, up to the applicable limits. In the future, your Simple account will become exclusively serviced by BBVA USA, but until then you can continue to access your account and your money through the Simple app or online at Simple.com. Users will receive more details in the future about the transition to BBVA, the note continued. It is unclear how many users Simple has currently. It had around 100,000 users when it was acquired back in 2014, and some might say that the startup was ahead of its time.

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Facebook has dropped the "likes" tally from public pages used by artists, public officials and brands as part of a new redesign. The New York Post reports: Those pages will now only show follower count, which Facebook says is intended to make things simpler. "Unlike Likes, Followers of a Page represent the people who can receive updates from Pages, which helps give public figures a stronger indication of their fan base," the company said in a blog post. Facebook has also redesigned pages to have their own dedicated News Feeds, where they will be able to "discover and join conversations, follow trends, interact with peers and engage with fans."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Frontier Communications has agreed to expand its fiber-to-the-premises network and improve its poor service quality as part of a bankruptcy settlement in California. Frontier committed to deploy fiber to 350,000 homes and businesses within six years on a schedule that would require the first 100,000 by the end of 2022, 250,000 by the end of 2024, and the full 350,000 by year-end 2026. The settlement, filed in late December, is pending approval by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). Frontier agreed to the terms with the Communications Workers of America (CWA), a union that represents Frontier employees; The Utility Reform Network (TURN), a consumer-advocacy group; and Cal Advocates, the public advocate office at CPUC. To ensure that Frontier doesn't build only in wealthy areas, the 350,000-location deployment must include 150,000 customer locations where Frontier estimates it would receive less than a 20 percent "internal rate of return." For those 150,000 locations, Frontier will have to consult with the CWA, TURN, Cal Advocates, and tribal government leaders "to discuss the potential areas for deployment, including tribal lands and tribal communities," the settlement said. "As part of the proposed settlement, Frontier will be required to spend at least $1.75 billion over the next four years on service quality and network enhancement projects, as well as provide a detailed plan with input from CWA, TURN and Cal Advocates that identifies needs like plant repair, maintenance, hiring, and how Frontier intends to address them," the CWA said in a press release last week. The union said it also "secured a commitment from Frontier to maintain its total employee technician staffing in California over the next three years, and to maintain ten call center locations across the state." Another settlement clause requires Frontier to spend $11.6 million over four years to deploy 25Mbps download speeds at 4,000 additional locations on tribal lands. The required upload speeds for this buildout are only 2Mbps, so it likely wouldn't involve fiber-to-the-home. But tribal areas should get some fiber as part of Frontier's requirement to deploy at 150,000 low "rate of return" areas. Frontier agreed to temporary price controls, as it "will not increase residential rates for copper-based standalone voice services, fiber-based standalone basic voice service, copper-based broadband services, and copper-based voice/broadband bundles through December 31, 2021," the settlement said. Frontier will also have to "provide a host of detailed, recurring reports" on network spending, service quality, and broadband commitments to help advocacy groups and the state monitor the company's compliance.

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Japan's NEC Corp. says face marks aren't an obstacle to its facial recognition tech. Mashable reports: The Japanese company claims its new facial recognition system can identify people with face masks in less than one second, with an accuracy rate higher than 99.9 percent. The system works by closely examining the parts of a person's face not covered by a mask, such as the eyes and surrounding areas. It does require the person to submit a photo in advance, though. The idea is for the system to be used at security checkpoints in office buildings, airports, etc., so mask-wearers can go through without removing their masks. NEC is also testing the technology out for automated payments at an unmanned convenience store in the company's headquarters in Tokyo. The company has sold the system to Lufthansa and Swiss International Airlines.

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Shopify has removed stores affiliated with President Trump from its platform, citing a violation of its policies that prohibit users from promoting or supporting organizations that foment violence. CNET reports: "Shopify does not tolerate actions that incite violence," a spokesperson said in a statement. "Based on recent events, we have determined that the actions by President Donald J. Trump violate our Acceptable Use Policy, which prohibits promotion or support of organizations, platforms or people that threaten or condone violence to further a cause." Earlier today, Facebook blocked Trump's account indefinitely. Twitter, Snapchat, and Twitch also disabled Trump's accounts.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Apple will take at least half a decade to launch an autonomous, electric vehicle because development work is still at an early stage, according to people with knowledge of the efforts. The Cupertino, California-based technology giant has a small team of hardware engineers developing drive systems, vehicle interior and external car body designs with the goal of eventually shipping a vehicle. That's a more ambitious goal than in previous years when the project mostly focused on creating an underlying self-driving system. The company has also added more ex-Tesla Inc. executives to the project. Still, some Apple engineers on the project believe the company could release a product in five to seven years if Apple goes ahead with its plans. The car is nowhere near production stage, the people said, though they did warn timelines could change. They asked not to be identified discussing sensitive, internal work. The majority of the team is currently either working from home or at the office for limited time, slowing the company's ability to develop a full vehicle. [...] Reuters recently reported that Apple is aiming to begin producing a car as early as 2024.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Somehow, it's already been two decades since Microsoft first announced the Xbox, its foray into console gaming. Specifically, the Xbox was unveiled at CES in 2001 -- to commemorate that launch, Bloomberg has published an in-depth oral history of how the console came to be. It's a fascinating read, but one particular passage stands out: details on Microsoft's efforts to secure games for the brand-new console. While the company implored third-party developers to work on the Xbox, Microsoft also considered using its considerable financial might to buy developers. And Microsoft set its sights high, approaching Nintendo about an acquisition. Microsoft was laughed out of the room, says Kevin Bachus, a director for third-party relations on the Xbox project. "They just laughed their asses off," Bachus said to Bloomberg. "Like, imagine an hour of somebody just laughing at you. That was kind of how that meeting went." Microsoft's specific pitch did make some amount of sense. At the time, Nintendo was lagging behind Sony badly from a hardware perspective. So Microsoft figured it could take on hardware production and leave Nintendo to focus on the software. "We actually had Nintendo in our building in January 2000 to work through the details of a joint venture where we gave them all the technical specs of the Xbox," said head of business development Bob Mcbreen. "The pitch was their hardware stunk, and compared to Sony PlayStation, it did. So the idea was, 'Listen, you're much better at the game portions of it with Mario and all that stuff. Why don't you let us take care of the hardware?â(TM) But it didn't work out."

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The world's cryptocurrency is now worth more than $1 trillion, with bitcoin accounting for a large majority of the value. The price of the oldest virtual currency has risen above $40,000, pushing the value of all bitcoins in circulation up to more than $700 billion. From a report: Ether, the cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network, is now worth more than $140 billion. Then there's a long list of less valuable cryptocurrencies, including Tether at $22 billion, Litecoin at $11 billion, and Bitcoin Cash at $8 billion. Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto is believed to own around 1 million bitcoins. Most of these were mined in the first two years of Bitcoin's existence when there was little competition. If he still has copies of the private keys that control these coins, that would give him a net worth of nearly $40 billion -- enough to make him among the 40 wealthiest people on the planet. Nakamoto has never publicly revealed his true identity and has not communicated publicly since 2014.

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Sony is probably the most storied TV brand still standing and while it's no longer a top 5 seller, it remains a powerhouse among high-end models -- aka TVs that cost a lot of money. Its 2021 lineup of new sets, announced in advance of CES, includes lots of impressive technology and will likely cost a pretty penny too. From a report: The highest-end new Sony has 8K resolution, but the most interesting TV to video quality nerds is the new Master Series A90J OLED TV with higher peak brightness -- marking the first time in years an OLED TV maker has touted brighter panels. Brightness is important for HDR and for making an image pop in bright rooms, and it's the one major area where OLED traditionally lags LCD. Sony is also the first company to officially announce a new size of OLED: 83 inches, the largest 4K OLED to date. (If you're keeping track, LG has an 88-inch 8K OLED for, cough, $30,000.) And if that's not big enough for ya, the successor series to my favorite Sony (for the money) of 2020 includes a 100-inch model. Less exciting (to me) than bigger, brighter TVs is something Sony calls "cognitive" processing, available on all of its 2021 TVs. [...] More welcome was the news that all of the models detailed below include HDMI 2.1 gaming extras, namely 4K/120fps input and variable refresh rate (the latter available via a firmware update), which were previously reserved for just one 2020 model, the X900H.

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Chinese search giant Baidu plans to make electric vehicles with help from Geely, the country's largest private automaker, according to a new report from Reuters. From a report: It's the latest Chinese conglomerate to venture into the flourishing electric vehicle market, following shopping giant Alibaba and ride-hailing behemoth Didi Chuxing. Making electric vehicles would also represent a broadening of Baidu's ambition to branch into transportation. Baidu has already spent years working on self-driving technology and is the leading Chinese company in the autonomous vehicle space. Baidu will likely form a new joint venture with Geely for the EV effort, Reuters reports, and will develop software for the vehicle while Geely focuses on the hardware.

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Bitcoin surged to $40,000 for the first time, doubling in value in less than a month and pushing the total market value of cryptocurrencies beyond $1 trillion. From a report: Cryptocurrencies hit the milestone after a fivefold climb in market value in the past year, data from tracker CoinGecko shows. Strategists have cited demand from speculative retail traders, trend-following quant funds, the rich and even institutional investors as among the reasons for the surge. Bitcoin rose as much as 11% on Thursday to $40,065 and has more than quadrupled in the past year, according to a composite of prices compiled by Bloomberg. It accounts for about two-thirds of cryptocurrency market value, followed by Ether at about 13%, according to CoinGecko data.

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Signal, an encrypted messaging app that competes with other services including Facebook's WhatsApp, said Thursday that verification codes used to create new accounts were delayed because of a flood of new users. From a report: "We are working with carriers to resolve this as quickly as possible," the non-profit foundation said in a tweet. "Hang in there." The surge came just hours after Elon Musk endorsed the service and amid reported changes to WhatsApp's terms of service.

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Facebook will ban President Donald Trump's account from posting for at least the remainder of his term in office and perhaps "indefinitely," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a blog post on Thursday. From a report: "We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great," Zuckerberg wrote in the post. "Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete." The decision marks a major escalation by Facebook as it and other platforms have come under intense pressure from advocacy groups and prominent figures to ban Trump following his inflammatory rhetoric encouraging insurrection. Facebook and Twitter took the extraordinary step on Wednesday of temporarily locking President Donald Trump's account on their platforms after his supporters stormed the Capitol building to protest the election.

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Elon Musk just became the richest person in the world, with a net worth of more than $185 billion. From a report: Thursday's increase in Tesla's share price pushed Musk past Jeff Bezos, who had been the richest person since 2017 and is currently worth about $184 billion. Musk's wealth surge over the past year marks the fastest rise to the top of the rich list in history -- and marks a dramatic financial turnaround for the famed entrepreneur who just 18 months ago was in the headlines for Tesla's rapid cash burn and his personal leverage against Tesla's stock. Musk started 2020 worth about $27 billion, and was barely in the top 50 richest people. Tesla's rocketing share price -- which has increased more than nine-fold over the past year -- along with his generous pay package have added more than $150 billion to his net worth.

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