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An anonymous reader quotes the BBC: British Columbia-based Carbon Engineering has shown that it can extract CO2 in a cost-effective way. It has now been boosted by $68m in new investment from Chevron, Occidental and coal giant BHP... With its new funding, the company plans to build its first commercial facilities. These industrial-scale direct air capture (DAC) plants could capture up to one million tonnes of CO2 from the air each year....

Carbon Engineering's process is all about sucking in air and exposing it to a chemical solution that concentrates the CO2. Further refinements mean the gas can be purified into a form that can be stored or utilised as a liquid fuel.... Carbon Engineering says the liquid can be used in a variety of engines without modification. "The fuel that we make has no sulphur in it, it has these nice linear chains which means it burns cleaner than traditional fuel," said Carbon Engineering's Dr Jenny McCahill. "It's nice and clear and ready to be used in a truck, car or jet."

CO2 can also be used to flush out the last remaining deposits of oil in wells that are past their prime. The oil industry in the US has been using the gas in this way for decades. It's estimated that using CO2 can deliver an extra 30% of crude from oilfields with the added benefit that the gas is then sequestered permanently in the ground... There is a big worry that with large investments from the fossil fuel industry, the focus of Carbon Engineering's efforts could be turned to producing more oil, not just tackling climate change. Carbon Engineering says that if governments want to invest in its process they are very welcome to do so. If they're not ready to stump up the cash, the company is happy to take funding from the energy industry as time is so short, and the need for the technology is so great.

dmoberhaus writes: On Wednesday, the United Nations convened its first ever round table on floating cities. WIRED was in attendance to hear about one specific proposal -- Oceanix City -- the creation of a co-founder of Blue Frontiers, the for-profit wing of the Thiel-backed Seasteading Institute. This project, he says, is less about libertarianism and more about survival. It sounds like paradise, but many technological, economic, and political hurdles will have to be overcome before it's a reality. "Oceanix City was designed by the renowned Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, along with dozens of experts from institutions like the UN and MIT," Wired reports. "According to Ingels, who lives on a houseboat himself, residents of the floating city will use 100 percent renewable energy, eat only plant-based food, produce zero waste, and provide housing affordable to all, not just the rich."

"At the core of Oceanix City is a 4.5-acre hexagonal floating platform that is meant to host up to 300 people," the report adds. "These platforms are modular, meaning they can be linked to form larger communities as they tessellate across the surface of the ocean. Each platform will be anchored to the ocean floor using biorock, a material that is harder than concrete and can be grown using minerals found in the ocean, which could make the anchor more secure over time. These anchors might also serve as the seeds of artificial reefs to rejuvenate aquatic ecosystems around the floating city." The community's needs and city's location will determine the design of each platform. For example, some could act as barriers to limit the impact of waves; while others could be dedicated to agriculture. Wired goes on to discuss the political and technological challenges associated with these floating cities.

"The plan for the first Oceanix City is to moor it about a mile off the coast of a major city," reports Wired. "If one of these ocean-top communities were to get parked near New York City, for example, the floating community could be treated as a new borough, or a separate city under the jurisdiction of the state..."

William Robinson writes: The Hayabusa2 Japanese spacecraft on Friday dropped an explosive on the Ryugu asteroid (named after an undersea palace in a Japanese folktale) to make a crater on its surface. The spacecraft safely evacuated and remained intact after dropping a "small carry-on impactor" made of copper onto the asteroid. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, said that they plan to send Hayabusa2 back to the site later, when the dust and debris settle, for observations from above and to collect samples from underground that have not been exposed to the sun or space rays. If successful, it would be the first time a spacecraft has taken such materials. In a 2005 "Deep Impact" mission to a comet, NASA observed fragments after blasting the surface but did not collect them.

Online retail giant Amazon and the governments of eight South American countries have been given a final deadline to reach an agreement over how to use the ".amazon" web address extension after a seven-year dispute. From a report: What will happen next? It's a name that evokes epic proportions: the world's largest rainforest; a global tech company; and now a diplomatic saga nearing its end. This is the battle of the Amazon and it starts back in 2012. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the body that polices the world wide web's address system, decided to expand its list of generic top-level domains (gTLD) - the bit that comes after the dot in a web address. The new rules allowed companies to apply for brand new extensions, offering internet users and businesses more ways to personalise their website name and addresses. But eight countries containing the Amazon rainforest objected to the retail giant's plans concerning the new .amazon domain name.

Microsoft is planning on launching a new Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription that combines Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass into a single monthly charge. From a report: Twitter user h0x0d first revealed the new Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription, and it claims the service will be priced at $14.99 per month. The Verge understands that Microsoft will likely unveil this service alongside the company's new disc-less Xbox One S All-Digital edition later this month. The combination of Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Live subscriptions into a single monthly charge means Xbox owners will save around $5 per month compared to the $19.98 monthly subscription price for an existing combination of the two. It's not a massive savings, but the new Xbox Game Pass Ultimate offering will make a lot of sense for Microsoft's new disc-less Xbox One S since this console won't include a Blu-ray drive and will rely heavily on digital downloads and Xbox subscription services.

The United Kingdom is working on legislation that would hold social media executives liable for harmful content distributed on their platforms. The leaked white paper comes less than 24 hours after Australia passed sweeping legislation that threatens huge fines for social media companies and jail for their executives if they fail to rapidly remove "abhorrent violent material" from their platforms. From the report: Under plans expected to be published on Monday, the government will legislate for a new statutory duty of care, to be policed by an independent regulator and likely to be funded through a levy on media companies. The regulator -- likely initially to be Ofcom, but in the longer term a new body -- will have the power to impose substantial fines against companies that breach their duty of care and to hold individual executives personally liable.

The scope of the recommendations is broad. As well as social media platforms such as Facebook and search engines such as Google they take in online messaging services and file hosting sites. Other proposals in the online harm white paper include:

- Government powers to direct the regulator on specific issues such as terrorist activity or child sexual exploitation.
- Annual "transparency reports" from social media companies, disclosing the prevalence of harmful content on their platforms and what they are doing to combat it.
- Co-operation with police and other enforcement agencies on illegal harms, such as incitement of violence and the sale of illegal weapons. "Companies will be asked to comply with a code of practice, setting out what steps they are taking to ensure that they meet the duty of care -- including by designing products and platforms to make them safer, and pointing users who have suffered harm towards support," the report says. "The code of practice is also likely to include the steps companies will be expected to take to combat disinformation, including by using fact-checking services, particularly during election periods, and improving the transparency of political advertising. Regulated firms will be expected to comply with the code of practice -- or explain what other steps they are taking to meet the duty of care. However, many questions are left to the regulator to determine."

Last year, Google announced that YouTube Music would be the company's primary streaming service that would eventually replace Play Music. We have now learned that in anticipation of this change, Google will close the Google Play Artist Hub that musicians use to directly interact with the Play Store. 9to5Google reports: Smaller, indie artists that were not signed by labels could use the Google Play Artist Hub to manage their presence on the Play Store and upload/sell songs. In an email today, Google told these musicians that the Artist Hub is shutting down on April 30th. YouTube Music is cited as the reason by Google: "With the launch of YouTube Music last year, we eventually plan to replace Google Play Music with YouTube Music. In anticipation of this change, we are shutting down the Artist Hub."

This portal allowed smaller artists to directly interact with Google to see statistics, and get paid for streams/purchases. Musicians can still sell their content in the Play Store and have content available for streaming in Play Music, but must now sign-up with a third-party distributor to handle that entire process. At the end of this month, all existing songs and albums uploaded through the Google Play Artist Hub will "no longer appear in the Google Play Store or Google Play Music service (including the paid streaming and free radio service)." Artists that would still like to "make [their] music available for purchase/download" have to republish, with Google providing a list of "YouTube partners," including AWAL, Believe, CD Baby, DistroKid, Stem, and TuneCore.

U.S. authorities gathered information about Huawei through secret surveillance that they plan to use in a case accusing the Chinese telecom equipment maker of sanctions-busting and bank fraud, prosecutors said on Thursday. From a report: Assistant U.S. Attorney Alex Solomon said at a hearing in federal court in Brooklyn that the evidence, obtained under the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), would require classified handling. The government notified Huawei in a court filing on Thursday of its intent to use the information, saying it was "obtained or derived from electronic surveillance and physical search," but gave no details. The United States has been pressuring other countries to drop Huawei from their cellular networks, worried its equipment could be used by Beijing for spying. The company says the concerns are unfounded. Brian Frey, a former federal prosecutor who is not involved in the Huawei case, said FISA surveillance, which requires a warrant from a special court, is generally sought in connection with suspected espionage.

Amazon is joining the race to provide broadband internet access around the globe via thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit, newly uncovered filings show. From a report: The effort, code-named Project Kuiper, follows up on last September's mysterious reports that Amazon was planning a "big, audacious space project" involving satellites and space-based systems. The Seattle-based company is likely to spend billions of dollars on the project, and could conceivably reap billions of dollars in revenue once the satellites go into commercial service. It'll take years to bring the big, audacious project to fruition, however, and Amazon could face fierce competition from SpaceX, OneWeb and other high-profile players.

Project Kuiper's first public step took the form of three sets of filings made with the International Telecommunications Union last month by the Federal Communications Commission on behalf of Washington, D.C.-based Kuiper Systems LLC. The ITU oversees global telecom satellite operations and eventually will have to sign off on Kuiper's constellation. The filings lay out a plan to put 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit -- including 784 satellites at an altitude of 367 miles (590 kilometers); 1,296 satellites at a height of 379 miles (610 kilometers); and 1,156 satellites in 391-mile (630-kilometer) orbits. In response to GeekWire's inquiries, Amazon confirmed that Kuiper Systems is actually one of its projects.

SpaceX successfully ignited the onboard engine of its next-generation spacecraft, the Starship, for the first time today. "The ignition was a test known as a static fire, meant to try out the engine while the vehicle remained tethered to the Earth," reports The Verge. "However, today's test marked the first time this vehicle lit up its engine, and it could pave the way for short 'hop' flights in the near future." From the report: This particular vehicle, referred to as "Starhopper," is meant to test out the technologies and basic design of the final Starship vehicle -- a giant passenger spacecraft that SpaceX is making to take people to the Moon and Mars. The stainless steel Starship is supposed to launch into deep space on top of a massive booster called the Super Heavy, which will be capable of landing back on Earth after takeoff just like SpaceX's current Falcon 9 rocket fleet. And when complete, the Starship/Super Heavy combo should be capable of putting up to 220,000 pounds (100,000 kilograms) into low Earth orbit, according to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, making it one of the most powerful rockets ever made.

SpaceX is currently building the first Starship spacecraft at the company's launch site and test facility in Texas, Musk said on Twitter. But before that vehicle sees space, SpaceX first plans to conduct a few hover flights with the Starhopper. These tests involve igniting the engine (or engines) attached to the bottom of the vehicle. Though these flights won't take the ship to space, they will test out SpaceX's new powerful Raptor engine -- a critical piece of hardware that will be used to power the future Starship and Super Heavy booster. SpaceX fired up a full-scale version of the Raptor engine for the first time in February. And for the last four months, SpaceX has been building the Starhopper at its Boca Chica facility, an area that the company plans to turn into a commercial launch site. Workers transported the vehicle to a test launchpad at the beginning of March and then recently attached a Raptor engine to its bottom.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Machine learning has been used to create basil plants that are extra-delicious. While we sadly cannot report firsthand on the herb's taste, the effort reflects a broader trend that involves using data science and machine learning to improve agriculture. The researchers behind the AI-optimized basil used machine learning to determine the growing conditions that would maximize the concentration of the volatile compounds responsible for basil's flavor. The study appears in the journal PLOS One today.

The basil was grown in hydroponic units within modified shipping containers in Middleton, Massachusetts. Temperature, light, humidity, and other environmental factors inside the containers could be controlled automatically. The researchers tested the taste of the plants by looking for certain compounds using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry. And they fed the resulting data into machine-learning algorithms developed at MIT and a company called Cognizant. The research showed, counterintuitively, that exposing plants to light 24 hours a day generated the best taste. The research group plans to study how the technology might improve the disease-fighting capabilities of plants as well as how different flora may respond to the effects of climate change.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Goldman Sachs is planning to release on GitHub some of the code that its traders and engineers use to price securities and analyze and manage risk. "The bank also is offering $100,000 in annual funding for engineers to build new applications using the bank's code," the report adds. "Goldman will own the resulting intellectual property, plus get an early look to invest in promising technology." From the report: It is Goldman's latest move to shed some of its trademark secrecy and share its once closely guarded technology. It is part of a broader shift at Wall Street firms to emulate Silicon Valley giants like Google and Facebook, which have opened up their technology to a community of enthusiastic developers. By letting outsiders tinker with its code, Goldman hopes to crowdsource new uses for it and earn the loyalty of computer-driven "quant" traders who have taken the investing world by storm.

Goldman's proprietary trading engine, known as SecDB, once made its traders the smartest on Wall Street. It is credited with helping the firm weather the 2008 financial meltdown better than rivals. But a postcrisis ban on proprietary trading has made it more valuable as a service offered to clients than an in-house moneymaker. Over the past five years, Goldman has been building SecDB's capabilities into a web application called Marquee, which now has about 13,000 users roughly split between Goldman employees and clients. The code coming to GitHub will allow users to interact directly with Marquee's data feeds, pricing engines and other tools.

Kaspersky Lab said today it would start flagging stalkerware as malicious, and warn people through its Android app when stalkerware is installed on their phones. In 2018 Kaspersky Lab detected stalkerware on 58,487 mobile devices. From a report: Stalkerware is frequently used by stalkers and abusers to spy on people through their phones. It essentially turns victims' phones into surveillance devices, letting an attacker track a person's every step and listen in on every word. Stalkerware is quietly installed on people's devices, and then accesses personal data including GPS location, text messages, photos and microphone feeds. You don't have to be an expert to get your hands on it -- stalkerware is sold online, for as little as a few hundred dollars. Some purveyors offer subscription plans for $68 a month, according to Kaspersky Lab.

Kaspersky Lab said it was motivated to start flagging stalkerware apps after speaking with Eva Galperin, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's head of cybersecurity. "As a result, we now flag commercial spyware with a specific alert which warns users of the dangers stalkerware poses," Alexey Firsh, a security researcher at Kaspersky Lab, said in a statement. "We believe users have a right to know if such a program is installed on their device."

Amazon is planning a vast expansion of its free streaming service on its Fire TV devices and has asked marketers to commit millions of dollars to support new channels and expanded content offerings, multiple people who held discussions with the company told Cheddar. From a report: Amazon has talked to executives at media companies and advertising agencies about its plans to include more ad-supported streaming channels to compete with Roku and Pluto TV, which offer free access to TV shows and movies with commercials. Advertisers are reluctant to pledge millions of dollars before they know what content Amazon would make available on the new channels, sources said. Some buyers said Amazon is asking for as much as a large cable network for advertising commitments. Since contracts for shows and movies to appear on the new services Amazon is planning are still being negotiated, there's little guaranteed programming to advertise against.

The Justice Department has warned the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that its potential rule changes limiting the eligibility of Netflix and other streaming services for the Oscars could raise antitrust concerns and violate competition law. From the report: According to a letter obtained by Variety, the chief of the DOJ's Antitrust Division, Makan Delrahim, wrote to AMPAS CEO Dawn Hudson on March 21 to express concerns that new rules would be written "in a way that tends to suppress competition." "In the event that the Academy -- an association that includes multiple competitors in its membership -- establishes certain eligibility requirements for the Oscars that eliminate competition without procompetitive justification, such conduct may raise antitrust concerns," Delrahim wrote. The letter came in response to reports that Steven Spielberg, an Academy board member, was planning to push for rules changes to Oscars eligibility, restricting movies that debut on Netflix and other streaming services around the same time that they show in theaters. Netflix made a big splash at the Oscars this year, as the movie "Roma" won best director, best foreign language film and best cinematography.

Delrahim cited Section 1 of the Sherman Act that "prohibits anticompetitive agreements among competitors." "Accordingly, agreements among competitors to exclude new competitors can violate the antitrust laws when their purpose or effect is to impede competition by goods or services that consumers purchase and enjoy but which threaten the profits of incumbent firms," Delrahim wrote. He added, "if the Academy adopts a new rule to exclude certain types of films, such as films distributed via online streaming services, from eligibility for the Oscars, and that exclusion tends to diminish the excluded films' sales, that rule could therefore violate Section 1." An Academy spokesperson said, "We've received a letter from the Dept. of Justice and have responded accordingly. The Academy's Board of Governors will meet on April 23 for its annual awards rules meeting, where all branches submit possible updates for consideration."

Air passengers at a growing number of U.S. airports will no longer need to remove electronics, liquids, and other items from their carry-on luggage at security checkpoints as the Transportation Security Administration rolls out new technology. From a report: The TSA took a major step in a broader plan to revamp its overall screening process with faster, more advanced technology when it signed a contract Thursday for hundreds of new carry-on baggage screening machines, Administrator David Pekoske said on a press call Friday. The agency has tested the new technology at more than a dozen airports since 2017, along with the relaxed protocols that allow passengers to leave items such as laptops and toiletries inside their luggage. The rollout of the computed tomography, or CT, machines will begin this summer, Pekoske said. The $97 million contract will buy 300 machines, but the list of airports receiving them has yet to be made final, Pekoske said. The technology creates 3-D images of bags' contents and will eventually be able to detect items automatically that the TSA now asks passengers to remove, he said.

Taiwan is blocking video streaming services of Chinese tech giants Baidu and Tencent Holdings, citing national security and propaganda concerns ahead of a presidential election next year. "Chiu Chui-Cheng, deputy minister of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, [said] that Taiwan is likely to ban Baidu's popular iQiyi platform, and block Tencent's plan to bring its streaming service to the island later this year," Nikkei Asian Review reports. From the report: "We are concerned that streaming media services that have close ties with Beijing could have cultural and political influences in Taiwan... and even affect Taiwan's elections," Chiu said. "If Tencent's streaming video service is trying to enter the Taiwanese market, it's very likely that it's a part of Beijing's propaganda campaign," he said. "What if the company inserts some content that Beijing hopes to advertise? What if it implements messages linked to the Communist Party or its army? We should treat this seriously and carefully at a national security level."

The official said that Beijing has stepped up its "cultural infiltration" into Taiwan after Chinese President Xi Jinping used a speech in January to push for an accelerated reunification process. Taiwan does not allow any Chinese Netflix-like streaming services to operate locally, but search engine giant Baidu has been operating in Taiwan through an agent, OTT Entertainment, after Taipei blocked the platform in November 2016. The company's data shows iQiyi's Taiwan site -- one of the most popular video streaming platforms on the island, has 2 million active daily users.

At SUSECon in Nashville, Tennessee, European Linux power SUSE CEO Nils Brauckmann said his company would soon be the largest independent Linux company. "That's because, of course, IBM is acquiring Red Hat," reports ZDNet. "But, simultaneously, SUSE has continued to grow for seven-straight years." From the report: Brauckmann said, "We believe that makes our status as a truly independent open source company more important than ever. Our genuinely open-source solutions, flexible business practices, lack of enforced vendor lock-in, and exceptional service are more critical to customer and partner organizations, and our independence coincides with our single-minded focus on delivering what is best for them." Practically speaking, SUSE has been growing by focusing on delivering high-quality Linux and open-source programs and services to enterprise customers. Looking ahead Brauckmann said, "SUSE is better positioned to bring more innovation to customers and partners faster through both organic growth and acquisitions, keeping us on track to provide them with the open solutions that keep them ahead with their own customers in their own markets. We continue to adapt so our customers and partners can succeed."

Last year SUSE's revenue grew by 15 percent in fiscal year 2018, and the business is about to surpass the $400 million revenue mark for the first time. SUSE, which sees not quite half of its business in Europe, is also seeing revenue growth around the world. North America, for example, now accounts for almost 40 percent of SUSE's revenues. The company is also expanding. SUSE added more than 300 employees in the last 12 months. For the most part this has been in engineering followed by sales and services. SUSE staff is now approaching 1,750 globally and its plans on continuing to hire aggressively.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Wall Street Journal: Amazon is planning to cut prices on hundreds of items at Whole Foods stores this week (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source), as the e-commerce giant seeks to change the chain's high-cost image amid intense competition among grocers. The price cuts affect more than 500 products and include a focus on produce and meat, according to documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal. The move comes after Whole Foods raised prices on select items in February, mostly consumer products, as suppliers increased their prices because of higher transport and ingredient costs.

The latest cuts -- which are set to drop at Whole Foods stores on Wednesday -- are some of the broadest since Amazon bought the grocer for nearly $14 billion in 2017. Prices will be reduced by an average of 20 percent on the selected items. The e-commerce giant has tried to extend its own reputation for low prices and convenience to Whole Foods, to counter a sense among some consumers that shopping there required a "Whole Paycheck." The discounts include more produce and meat products than the earlier cuts. The price of organic-rainbow carrots, for instance, will drop by $1, to $1.99, and the price of Black Forest ham will drop $3 a pound to $9.99. The companies also said Monday that Amazon Prime members would be able to save more than before at Whole Foods, with double the number of weekly Prime Member deals and deeper discounts. The report adds that the price cuts are expected to last at least through the end of the year.

A Brooklyn landlord plans to install facial recognition technology at the entrance of a 700-unit building, according to Gothamist, "raising alarm among tenants and housing rights attorneys about what they say is a far-reaching and egregious form of digital surveillance." [Last] Sunday, several tenants told Gothamist that, unbeknownst to them, their landlord, Nelson Management, had sought state approval in July 2018 to install a facial recognition system known as StoneLock. Under state rules, landlords of rent-regulated apartments built before 1974 must seek permission from the state's Homes and Community Renewal (HCR) for any "modification in service." Tenants at the two buildings, located at 249 Thomas S. Boyland Street and 216 Rockaway Avenue, said they began receiving notices about the system in the fall. According to its website, Kansas-based company StoneLock offers a "frictionless" entry system that collects biometric data based on facial features. "We don't want to be tracked," said Icemae Downes, a longtime tenant. "We are not animals. This is like tagging us through our faces because they can't implant us with a chip."

It is not clear how many New York City apartments are using facial scanning software or how such technology is being regulated. But in a sign of the times, the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development last June began marketing 107 affordable units at a new apartment complex in the South Bronx. Among the amenities listed was "State of the Art Facial Recognition Building Access...." Across the real estate industry, New York City landlords have increasingly been moving to keyless entry systems, citing convenience as well as a desire to offer enhanced security. Over the years, in response to appeals filed by tenants, HCR has ruled in favor of key fob and card entry systems, saying that such substitutions did not violate rent-stabilization and rent-control laws. But the latest technology has triggered even more concerns about the ethics of data collection....

Last month, the management company reached out to a group of tenants to assuage their concerns about StoneLock. But tenants said the presentation, if anything, only deepened their fears that they were being asked to submit to a technology that had very little research behind it.
"This was not something we asked for at any given time," one tenant complaint, while one of the attorneys representing the tenants said that, among other things, their landlord had "made no assurances to protect the data from being accessed by NYPD, ICE, or any other city, state, or federal agency."

"Citing concerns over the potential for privacy and civil liberties violations, tenants at Brownsville's Atlantic Plaza Towers filed an objection to the plan in January..."