Intel CEO Bob Swan is set to step down effective Feb. 15. From a report: VMWare CEO Pat Gelsinger will take over the position, sources told CNBC. Intel's stock was up about 13% in premarket trading following the news. VMWare's stock was down nearly 5%. Swan was named CEO in January 2019 after serving as interim CEO for seven months. During Swan's tenure, Intel has suffered blows from competitors. Over the summer, Intel reported that its latest generation chips would be delayed while AMD's were already shipping inside laptops. Apple announced in the fall that it would use its own proprietary chips in its Mac computers, breaking a 15-year partnership with Intel for its chip supplies.

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The Environmental Protection Agency is creating higher barriers for regulating the emissions that contribute to climate change, setting new rules that effectively block the federal government from imposing new restrictions on several heavy industries. From a report: The agency, which first introduced a proposal to create the higher bar in August, packaged these new standards in a rule making it issued Tuesday. The rule, to be published in the Federal Register Wednesday, sets new criteria for what is considered a significant contributor of greenhouse-gas emissions. In the rule the agency says that determination is required by law and finds that oil and gas producers, refiners, steelmakers and other heavy industries don't meet the criteria, prohibiting the EPA from regulating their emissions under the Clean Air Act. Tuesday's action may not have staying power, however. President-elect Joe Biden's team has announced plans to freeze and potentially undo any new regulations, such as this one, that are still pending when it takes power next week. The Biden transition team didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Mr. Biden, however, has criticized the Trump administration for rolling back environmental regulations aimed at arresting climate change. President Trump has pushed for ways to check expanding environmental regulations, saying they hurt U.S. businesses like manufacturers and energy producers.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: WhatsApp has published a new FAQ page to its website outlining its stances on user privacy in response to widespread backlash over an upcoming privacy policy update. The core issue relates to WhatsApp's data-sharing procedures with Facebook, with many users concerned an updated privacy policy going into effect on February 8th will mandate sharing of sensitive profile information with WhatsApp's parent company. That isn't true -- the update has nothing to do with consumer chats or profile data, and instead the change is designed to outline how businesses who use WhatsApp for customer service may store logs of its chats on Facebook servers. That's something the company feels it is required to disclose in its privacy policy, which it's now doing after previewing the upcoming changes to business chats back in October. But a wave of misinformation on social media, not helped by Facebook's abysmal track record on privacy and its reputation for obfuscating changes to its various terms of service agreements, has resulted in a full-blown WhatsApp backlash that has users fleeing to competitors like Signal and Telegram. [...] WhatsApp executives, as well as Instagram chief Adam Mosseri and Facebook AR / VR head Andrew "Boz" Bosworth, are now trying to set the record straight, perhaps to little avail at this point. "We want to be clear that the policy update does not affect the privacy of your messages with friends or family in any way. Instead, this update includes changes related to messaging a business on WhatsApp, which is optional, and provides further transparency about how we collect and use data," the company writes on the new FAQ page. It also stresses in the FAQ that neither Facebook nor WhatsApp read users' message logs or listen to their calls, and that WhatsApp doesn't store user location data or share contact information with Facebook. (It's also worth noting that data sharing with Facebook is extremely limited for European users due to stronger user privacy protections in the EU.) WhatsApp chief Will Cathcart also took to Twitter a few days ago to post a thread (later shared by Bosworth in the tweet above) trying to cut through the confusion and explain what's actually going on. "With end-to-end encryption, we cannot see your private chats or calls and neither can Facebook. We're committed to this technology and committed to defending it globally," Cathcart wrote. "It's important for us to be clear this update describes business communication and does not change WhatsApp's data sharing practices with Facebook. It does not impact how people communicate privately with friends or family wherever they are in the world."

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fahrbot-bot shares a report from Phys.Org: A team of astronomers led by the University of Arizona has observed a luminous quasar 13.03 billion light-years from Earth -- the most distant quasar discovered to date. Dating back to 670 million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was only 5% its current age, the quasar hosts a supermassive black hole equivalent to the combined mass of 1.6 billion suns. In addition to being the most distant -- and by extension, earliest -- quasar known, the object is the first of its kind to show evidence of an outflowing wind of super-heated gas escaping from the surroundings of the black hole at a fifth of the speed of light. In addition to revealing a strong quasar-driven wind, the new observations also show intense star formation activity in the host galaxy where the quasar, formally designated J0313-1806, is located. The researchers will present their findings, which have been accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Letters, during a press conference and a scientific talk at the 237th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society, which will be held virtually Jan. 11-15.

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YouTube has taken action against President Donald Trump and barred new videos from being uploaded to his channel for at least seven days, citing violations of its policies and "concerns about the ongoing potential for violence." NBC News reports: It's the latest action against Trump after last week's deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. Twitter and Facebook have both also suspended or blocked the president's accounts. YouTube issued "a strike" to Trump's channel, and said comments would also be disabled indefinitely. The company also said it removed new content posted Tuesday.

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An anonymous reader quotes Ars Technica: Russia's legislative body, the State Duma, is considering fines for individuals and companies in the country that use Western-based satellite Internet services. The proposed law seeks to prevent accessing the Internet by means of SpaceX's Starlink service, OneWeb, or other non-Russian satellite constellations under development. According to a recent report in the Russian edition of Popular Mechanics, the recommended fines range from 10,000 to 30,000 rubles ($135-$405) for ordinary users, and from 500,000 to 1 million rubles ($6,750 to $13,500) for legal entities who use the Western satellite services. In the Russian-language article, translated for Ars by Robinson Mitchell, members of the Duma assert that accessing the Internet independently would bypass the country's System of Operational Search Measures, which monitors Internet use and mobile communications. As part of the country's tight control on media and communications, all Russian Internet traffic must pass through a Russian communications provider. It is not surprising that Russia would take steps to block Starlink service -- the country's space chief, Dmitry Rogozin, views SpaceX as a chief rival in spaceflight.

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Razer has created a concept reusable N95 respirator called Project Hazel, featuring Chroma RGB LEDs and microphones and amplifiers to project your voice. The Verge reports: It's a concept design with a glossy outside shell made of waterproof and scratch-resistant recycled plastic, which is transparent to allow for lip-reading and seeing facial cues when you chat with people. Currently, there isn't a price or release date attached. Razer refers to Project Hazel as a surgical N95, but it hasn't yet earned any of the necessary approvals and certifications from the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or Occupational Safety and Health Administration. In a statement to The Verge, Razer said it is working with a team of medical experts and scientists who are helping to develop the mask. The main features of this mask lie within its two circular zones that flank your mouth. They're used for ventilation, giving the device an almost futuristic gas mask look. Razer claims Project Hazel will use active disc-type ventilators, filtering air that's breathed in, as well as the CO2 that's being exhaled. The company adds that it will be certified to filter 95 percent of airborne particles, including the COVID-19 virus and other common pathogens. [...] Microphones and amplifiers embedded in the ventilators will project your voice through the mask, so you won't have to worry about sounding muffled. Razer told us that it's working with THX sound engineers to find a balance in terms of how loud the speakers should be for accessibility purposes. [...] Each of the respirator-meets-amplifier rings can glow in the color of your choosing. And when it gets dark, a set of LEDs activate automatically to shine light on your mouth so others can still see you talk. The company also envisions that each mask will include a large charging case that sterilizes the mask with UV light when it's not in use.

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According to Reuters, the CDC is expected to sign an order on Tuesday requiring nearly all international air travelers to test negative for COVID-19 within 72 hours of departure. Those under 2 and passengers connecting through the UK are exempt. From the report: The new rules are to take effect two weeks from the day they are signed by CDC Director Mark Redfield, which would be Jan. 26. The CDC has been urgently pressing for an expansion of the requirements with the Trump administration for weeks. One remaining issue is how to address some countries that have limited testing capacity and how the CDC would address travel to those countries, the sources said. At a White House meeting on Monday, Redfield again made an urgent case to adopt the testing requirements as new strains of COVID-19 are identified in different parts of the world. He raised concerns that vaccines could potentially not be effective against new strains, sources said. U.S. officials do not plan to drop restrictions that were adopted starting in March that ban most non-U.S. citizens who have been in most of Europe, the United Kingdom and Brazil as soon as possible, the sources said. They added that public health officials are sympathetic to the push to lift the restrictions that apply only to a limited number of countries.

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General Motors unveiled a new electric van and revealed potential plans to delve into flying cars, sending its stock soaring by as much as 8.8% to $48.95 a share. CNBC reports: The EV600 electric van is scheduled to go on sale later this year through a new commercial business unit of GM's called BrightDrop. The division is planning a full portfolio of electric products, not just vehicles, including a delivery pallet that was unveiled Tuesday. The potential foray into "personal air mobility" was announced as part of Cadillac's portfolio of luxury and EV vehicles. It included an autonomous shuttle and an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, or more commonly known as a flying car or air taxi. Michael Simcoe, vice president of GM global design, said each concept reflected "the needs and wants of the passengers at a particular moment in time and GM's vision of the future of transportation." "This is a special moment for General Motors as we reimagine the future of personal transportation for the next five years and beyond," Simcoe said. The flying vehicle is designed to hold one passenger and travel roughly 56 mph between rooftops and other urban destinations, according to the company. A GM spokeswoman confirmed GM has designed models of both autonomous concepts, but computer renderings were simulated during the presentation. She declined to provide other details. Despite uncertainties around personal air mobility, Morgan Stanley expects the autonomous urban aircraft market may be worth $1.5 trillion by 2040.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: At least several users of the far-right social network Parler appear to be among the horde of rioters that managed to penetrate deep inside the U.S. Capitol building and into areas normally restricted to the public, according to GPS metadata linked to videos posted to the platform the day of the insurrection in Washington. The data, obtained by a computer hacker through legal means ahead of Parler's shutdown on Monday, offers a bird's eye view of its users swarming the Capitol grounds after receiving encouragement from President Trump -- and during a violent breach that sent lawmakers and Capitol Hill visitors scrambling amid gunshots and calls for their death. GPS coordinates taken from 618 Parler videos analyzed by Gizmodo has already been sought after by FBI as part of a sweeping nationwide search for potential suspects, at least 20 of whom are already in custody. Gizmodo has mapped nearly 70,000 geo-located Parler posts and on Tuesday isolated hundreds published on January 6 near the Capitol where a mob of pro-Trump supporters had hoped to overturn a democratic election and keep their president in power. The data shows Parler users posting all throughout the day, documenting their march from the National Mall to Capitol Hill where the violent insurrection ensued. The precise locations of Parler users inside the building can be difficult to place. The coordinates do not reveal which floors they are on, for instance. Moreover, the data only includes Parler users who posted videos taken on January 6. And the coordinates themselves are only accurate up to an approximate distance of 12 yards (11 meters). The red dot just south of the Capitol Rotunda's center on the map above is linked to a video Gizmodo verified that shows rioters in red MAGA hats shouting obscenities about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose office is a short walk to the west. But other dots nearby could indicate videos captured in adjacent offices, stairwells, or hallways leading toward the House and Senate chambers. A second video successfully linked to the Parler data belongs to a rioter who filmed a mob in the Rotunda chanting, "Whose House? Our House?" (while facing the Senate side of the building). Other coordinates pulled from Parler point to users roaming the north side of the building near the Senate chamber, either near leadership offices or the press gallery, depending on which floor they were on. Other location data from outside the Capitol follows the precise route the crowd took from the National Mall shortly after a speech by President Trump...

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When a user attempts to load a Flash game or content in a browser such as Chrome, the content now fails to load and instead displays a small banner that leads to the Flash end-of-life page on Adobe's website. While this day has long been coming, with many browsers disabling Flash by default years ago, it is officially the end of a 25-year era for Flash, first introduced by Macromedia in 1996 and acquired by Adobe in 2005. Mac Rumors reports: "Since Adobe will no longer be supporting Flash Player after December 31, 2020 and Adobe will block Flash content from running in Flash Player beginning January 12, 2021, Adobe strongly recommends all users immediately uninstall Flash Player to help protect their systems," the page reads. Adobe has instructions for uninstalling Flash on Mac, but note that Apple removed support for Flash outright in Safari 14 last year. Adobe first announced its plans to discontinue Flash in 2017. "Open standards such as HTML5, WebGL, and WebAssembly have continually matured over the years and serve as viable alternatives for Flash content," the company explained. Adobe does not intend to issue Flash Player updates or security patches any longer, so it is recommended that users uninstall the plugin.

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According to founder and CEO Pavel Durov, Telegram gained 25 million new users in the last 72 hours as it smashed past the 500 million active monthly user mark. Android Police reports: For comparison, the app averaged around 1.5 million new users per day in 2020, which was impressive enough already. Durvov says that this is down to his company's simple privacy and security promise, above all else. The bulk of the new users are coming from Asia (38%), Europe (27%), and Latin America (21%), with around 8% signing up from the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa). Although not explicitly noted in Durov's post, there is likely a good number of Parler orphans joining Telegram -- although there are differences between the functions of the two apps, there's talk that former Parler users are heading to encrypted messaging apps in search of a more private platform. Signal has seen a similar rise in popularity for the same reason.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Associated Press: German prosecutors said Tuesday that they have taken down what they believe was the biggest illegal marketplace on the darknet and arrested its suspected operator. The site, known as DarkMarket, was shut down on Monday, prosecutors in the southwestern city of Koblenz said. All sorts of drugs, forged money, stolen or forged credit cards, anonymous mobile phone SIM cards and malware were among the things offered for sale there, they added. German investigators were assisted in their months-long probe by U.S. authorities and by Australian, British, Danish, Swiss, Ukrainian and Moldovan police. The marketplace had nearly 500,000 users and more than 2,400 vendors, prosecutors said. They added that it processed more than 320,000 transactions, and Bitcoin and Monero cryptocurrency to the value of more than 140 million euros ($170 million) were exchanged. The suspected operator, a 34-year-old Australian man, was arrested near the German-Danish border. Prosecutors said a judge has ordered him held in custody pending possible formal charges, and he hasn't given any information to investigators. More than 20 servers in Moldova and Ukraine were seized, German prosecutors said. They hope to find information on those servers about other participants in the marketplace. The move against DarkMarket originated from an investigation of a data processing center installed in a former NATO bunker in southwestern Germany that hosted sites dealing in drugs and other illegal activities.

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For all the personal technology introduced and popularized in 2020 -- upscale fitness bikes, at-home Covid tests, game consoles new and old -- the personal computer lands on the list with a bit of a thud. PCs lack the novelty of other gadgets, but they're practical, essential even, in a year when work, school and social life have come to rely heavily upon them. From a report: While modern, ever more efficient computers are selling better than they have in years, vintage computers -- impractical old devices in need of repairs and out-of-production parts -- are also in demand on sites like eBay. Collectors also flock to message boards, subreddits and Discord servers to buy, sell and trade parts. People are buying these PCs not necessarily for daily use, but for the satisfaction they get from rebuilding them. It's a trend one might chalk up to quarantine boredom, though it's been gaining traction for years. Retrocomputing, the hobby is called, is hardly just a way to pass the time. Instead, as enthusiasts see it, it's a means of communing with the past. "You get into this mind-set of what it must've been like to be somebody in the late '70s, having spent thousands of dollars on this thing that barely does anything more than a calculator," said Clint Basinger, 34, who runs the YouTube channel Lazy Game Reviews. (The devices do allow retrocomputers to make art and music using software unavailable on new computers and to play 8-bit games, but not much else beyond that.) "It's like a time machine to me," Mr. Basinger added. Before the pandemic, there were several vintage computing conventions located around the United States, to which collectors brought their computers to show off. Attendees bought and traded hardware at these events, as well as meet the friends they've made online.

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The PC was supposed to die 10 years ago, but it's just experienced its first big growth in a decade. From a report: Market research firm Canalys reports that PC shipments reached 297 million units in 2020, up an impressive 11 percent from 2019. IDC puts the year at 302 million shipments, up 13.1 percent year over year. Gartner also agrees that 2020 was a big year for PCs and the biggest growth we've seen since 2010. PC shipments are up thanks to demand related to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Supply constraints made it difficult to buy a new laptop halfway through the year, and demand continued throughout 2020. "Demand is pushing the PC market forward and all signs indicate this surge still has a way to go," says IDC's Ryan Reith. While home working and remote learning have been big drivers, people are also turning to PCs and laptops for entertainment.

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Nvidia's Ampere architecture is going mobile. The company revealed its plans and partnerships to bring GeForce RTX 30-series GPUs to more than 70 laptops throughout 2021. From a report: This includes notebooks with the RTX 3060, RTX 3070, and RTX 3080 all using Nvidia's mobile-optimized Max-Q technology. "After taking the desktop market by storm, our Nvidia Ampere architecture is now powering the world's fastest laptops," Nvidia Geforce OEM general manager Kaustubh Sanghani said. "Nowhere does power efficiency matter more than in gaming laptops, a market that's grown [sevenfold] in the past seven years. These new thin and light systems are based on our Max-Q technologies, where every aspect -- CPU, GPU, software, PCB design, power delivery, thermals -- is optimized for power and performance." Laptops with RTX 3070 and 3080 processors will begin launching later this month. RTX 3060 laptops will follow later. RTX 3060 laptops start at $1,000. RTX 3070 laptops starts at $1,300, and Nvidia claims this is ideal for 90 frames per second at 1440p. RTX 3080 laptops, which use 16GB of GDDR6 memory instead of 10GB GDDR6x, start at $2,000.

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Advanced Micro Devices showed off some impressive Ryzen 5000 mobile processors today and teased the performance of its 3rd Gen Epyc server chips. From a report: Those chips are aimed at keeping AMD's performance lead over its rival Intel in the mobile and server markets. AMD CEO Lisa Su showed off the new chips in a keynote speech at CES 2021, the online-only tech trade show. AMD is launching its Ryzen 5000 Series mobile processors for gaming laptops and thin-and-light notebooks. These eight-core x86 chips are built with a 7-nanometer manufacturing process (where the circuits are 7 billionths of a meter apart). They are also based on the Zen3 design for processor cores, which can process instructions 19% faster per clock cycle than Zen2 cores. The H-Series focuses on top performance in laptops for gamers and content creators, while the U-Series focuses on thin-and-light notebooks with great battery life. The chips have four to eight cores and they range in power consumption from 15 watts to 45 watts. AMD said the 5000 Series will be available in PCs in February, and we'll see more than 150 systems using it. That compares to 100 systems for the Ryzen 4000 Series and 70 for the Ryzen 3000.

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NASA's InSight lander on Mars and the Juno orbiter at Jupiter have new leases on life. From a report: The spacecraft are expected to continue gathering data about their respective planetary targets during their newly extended missions, allowing scientists to learn more about seismic activity on Mars and turn their attention to the moons of Jupiter. Juno's mission has been extended to September 2025 or whenever its life ends with a crash into Jupiter's atmosphere. InSight will continue its mission to study Mars' geology and seismic activity from the Martian surface through December 2022. Both missions are expected to make good use of their extended time at Jupiter and Mars. InSight's extra two years will see the spacecraft collect more data on marsquakes to help create a long-term dataset that scientists can refer to for years to come, according to NASA. Juno will broaden the scope of its studies to observe Jupiter's rings and moons including flybys of Ganymede, Europa and Io.

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Amazon and Facebook have warned staff about threats to their safety amid fears of a backlash against "big tech." From a report: Amazon Web Services (AWS) employees were told to "be vigilant" after the firm removed Parler from its web-hosting service. The app is popular with some supporters of President Donald Trump. Facebook staff were also instructed not to wear company-branded clothing in public following its ban of the US President's account. The companies cited the deadly siege on US Congress and civil unrest as reasons for concern. "In light of recent events, and to err on the side of caution, global security is encouraging everyone to avoid wearing or carrying Facebook-branded items at this time," an internal Facebook memo obtained by The Information, said. According to an email reviewed by Business Insider, AWS vice-president Chris Vonderhaar urged his team to "be safe, be vigilant" and report any unusual activity related to the company's data centres. Amazon "continues to closely monitor civil unrest in the United States," the email added. "We all need to [be] vigilant during this time to keep one another and our facilities safe," the email said. "If you see something, say something -- no situation or concern is too small or insignificant."

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Netflix will release 70 original movies in 2021, the company said in a statement Tuesday, touting the streaming service's most ambitious slate yet as the theatrical movie business remains stuck in limbo. From a report: Netflix's lineup of movies includes one of its most expensive to date, "Red Notice," an action movie starring Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot, as well as sequels to its hit romantic comedies "The Kissing Booth" and "To All the Boys I've Loved Before." The streaming service has also commissioned more than a dozen dramas, including the directorial debut of Halle Berry and a feature starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence. Once a naughty word among filmmakers loyal to movie theaters, Netflix is now one of the few reliable studios in town. Netflix is increasing its output as theaters remain closed in much of the world. The pandemic has made it hard for rival studios to release their projects, and many of them have delayed most of their top titles until more theaters are open.

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