Slashdot Mirror

theodp writes: Commenting on reports that Amazon is reconsidering its plan to bring 25,000 jobs to a new campus in New York City following a wave of political and community opposition, Amazon issued the following statement: "We're focused on engaging with our new neighbors -- small business owners, educators, and community leaders. Whether it's building a pipeline of local jobs through workforce training or funding computer science classes for thousands of New York City students, we are working hard to demonstrate what kind of neighbor we will be." Yep, it'd be a shame if something happened. The Washington Post earlier reported that New York State Sen. Michael Gianaris, a strong opponent of the Amazon HQ2 deal, described the possibility that Amazon would pull out of the deal -- which totals up to $3 billion in state and city incentives -- as akin to blackmail. "Amazon has extorted New York from the start, and this seems to be their next effort to do just that," he said. "If their view is, 'We won't come unless we get three billion of your dollars,' then they shouldn't come." Over at Vice, Ankita Rao examines what Amazon infiltrating America's school system might look like.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Forbes: The tipping controversy that prompted Instacart to reverse a compensation plan to its contract workers isn't likely to go away: Rivals DoorDash and Amazon Flex are continuing to adjust driver pay based on how much they get tipped, saying doing so ensures a minimum payout. The practice, which has its roots in the way brick-and-mortar restaurants pay waitstaff, has been adapted to suit the needs of app-based delivery companies. The difference is that gig-economy workers are independent contractors, and so aren't protected by the minimum wage laws. Instacart, a $7.6 billion grocery delivery company, made a change in October 2018 that workers would receive at least $10 per delivery order. Customers and shoppers didn't realize that the tips were counting towards that minimum instead of being a bonus on top. So if someone tipped more, Instacart effectively had to pay less. That's how one Instacart delivery driver ended up with Instacart only paying 80 cents and the rest of the minimum being met with tips.

The company reversed its decision on Wednesday after public outcry, admitting that counting tips in its payout totals was "misguided" and has moved to a new pay scale that doesn't factor in tips at all. But DoorDash and Amazon Flex, the contract workforce that delivers packages for Prime Now, continued to stand their ground. DoorDash claims it has been transparent about the tips being part of its delivery driver pay since it made the change in 2017, including on a blog post on whether customers should tip, and maintains that delivery-driver retention and overall satisfaction both "increased significantly" since the change. Both DoorDash and Instacart insist that they never turned the payment dial down if someone received a large tip. Instead, both companies used an algorithm to calculate a base pay rate that would include things like time and effort it took to deliver. If that base pay plus tip fell short of the price they guaranteed, then both companies would pay out more to make sure its delivery drivers reached the payout they had been promised. But in cases where the tip plus its initial calculation reached the promised payout, then the companies would only contribute the amount that the algorithm had calculated the delivery person deserved. One simple solution if you want to make sure your tip gets into the hand of your digital delivery worker: tip in cash.

An anonymous reader quotes the Los Angeles Times A launchpad on the U.S.-Mexico border, which it plans to use for rockets carrying humans around the world and eventually to Mars, could be split in two by the Trump administration's planned wall... Lawmakers said they were concerned about the effect on the company's 50-acre facility after seeing a Department of Homeland Security map showing a barrier running through what they described as a launchpad...

James Gleeson, a SpaceX spokesman, declined to provide details on how the fence would affect the facility. "The Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection recently requested SpaceX permit access to our South Texas Launch site to conduct a site survey," he said in a statement. "At this time, SpaceX is evaluating the request and is in communication with DHS to further understand their plans...." Musk is working on a new, more powerful vehicle known as Starship to eventually ferry humans to Mars. SpaceX recently announced that it would test the Starship test vehicle at the site in south Texas.

SpaceX just filed a new earth-station license application with America's Federal Communications Commisions, seeking blanket approval "for up to a million earth stations" for customers of their Starlink satellite internet service, reports GeekWire: Those satellites have already received clearance from the FCC, and SpaceX plans to launch the first elements of the initial 4,425-satellite constellation this year, using Falcon 9 rockets.... Eventually, SpaceX wants to build up the network to take in as many as 12,000 satellites in low Earth orbit...

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said the Starlink project aims is to provide high-speed, reliable and affordable broadband data services to consumers in the U.S. and around the world, including an estimated 3.8 billion people who are underserved by existing networks. When he unveiled the project four years ago in Seattle, he said revenue from the internet service would pay for his vision of creating a city on Mars.
The application assures regulators that the earth stations will "incorporate advanced technologies to enable highly efficient use of the spectrum and enhance the customer's broadband experience."

"YouTube is no stranger to viewers weaponizing the dislike button, as seen by the company's recent Rewind video, but the product development team is working on a way to tackle the issue," writes the Verge.

Suren Enfiajyan shares their report on a new video by Tom Leung, YouTube's director of project management. "Dislike mobs" are the YouTube equivalent to review bombings on Steam -- a group of people who are upset with a certain creator or game decide to execute an organized attack and downvote or negatively review a game or video into oblivion. It's an issue on YouTube as well, and one that creators have spoken out against many times in the past.... Now, the company is planning to experiment with new ways to make it more difficult for organized attacks to be executed. Leung states that these are just "lightly being discussed" right now, and if none of the options are the correct approach, they may hold off until a better idea comes along.
Ironically, Leung's video itself drew 2,654 "dislike" votes -- nearly double its 1,377 upvotes.

According to new job listings (first spotted by Android Police), it looks like Google may start building its own wearable devices. "A job listing posted two days ago on the Google Careers site calls for a Vice President of Hardware Engineering for Wearables," reports Android Police. The description reads, "As the VP of Hardware Engineering for Wearables, you'll work collaboratively with the Senior Leadership team for Google Hardware and will be responsible for the design, development, and shipment of all Google's Wearable products. You will lead and enable the effectiveness of a large engineering organization primarily based in Mountain View to develop multiple next-generation wearable products simultaneously." From the report: Google's only current wearable product is the Pixel Buds, which hasn't been a runaway success. It seems extremely unlikely that the company would want a Vice President dedicated to producing earbuds, so it's safe to assume Google has plans for other wearable products, like fitness trackers and/or smartwatches. Another listing is for a "Wearables Design Manager," but the description is more vague. "As the Design Manager of the Wearables design team within the award-winning Google Hardware Design organization, you will be a critical leader and contributor to guide the efforts in defining and evolving what it means to hold 'Google in your hand.'"

Amazon.com is reconsidering its plan to bring 25,000 jobs to a new campus in New York City following a wave of opposition from local politicians, The Washington Post reported Friday [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source], citing two people familiar with the company's thinking. From the report: The company has not leased or purchased office space for the project, making it easy to withdraw its commitment. Unlike in Virginia -- where elected leaders quickly passed an incentive package for a separate headquarters facility -- final approval from New York state is not expected until 2020. Tennessee officials have also embraced Amazon's plans to bring 5,000 jobs to Nashville, which this week approved $15.2 million in road, sewer and other improvements related to that project. Amazon executives have had internal discussions recently to reassess the situation in New York and explore alternatives, said the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the company's perspective.

stoborrobots writes: Google Fiber is leaving Louisville, as reported in The Verge: "Google Fiber's attempt to roll out its gigabit internet across the city of Louisville, Kentucky has apparently failed so spectacularly that the company has decided to completely shut down the service and leave town altogether. CNET has a report on the news, which Alphabet's Access division confirmed in a blog post on Thursday. 'We'll work with our customers and partners to minimize disruption, and we're committed to doing right by the community, which welcomed us as we tested methods of delivering high-speed internet in new and different ways,' the Fiber team said."

TechCrunch's take: "It's a rare admission of defeat for Google Fiber, though it's no secret that the company isn't exactly bullish on the prospect of the service anymore. Louisville was supposed to be somewhat of a comeback for Google Fiber, which like so many Google services is now under more pressure to generate a profit. Clearly, that didn't work out." The issue apparently has to do with "shallow trenching," a process that involves laying fiber cable two inches beneath the sides of roads in the city and covering them up with sealant. "The company seemed optimistic about this plan until some of the cable started becoming exposed over time, requiring a second cover-up with hot asphalt," reports The Verge. "It seems Access realized it had to go a bit deeper with the cabling; in San Antonio, a similar method is used -- but the fiber is laid at least six inches deep into the ground."

"Unfortunately, things have somehow gone so awry in Louisville that Google Fiber claims it would need to rebuild the entire network to get everything to a satisfactory point, and it seems Alphabet just isn't interested in blowing the cash that would be necessary to do that. So instead, Google Fiber will today alert Louisville customers that their service will end on April 15th." In an attempt to soften the blow, Google Fiber says it will not charge customers for their final two months of service.

Google Chrome 73, scheduled for release next month, will be the first version of Chrome that will officially support the multimedia keys that some users have on their desk and laptop keyboards, ZDNet reports. From the report: Support for multimedia keys will initially be available for Chrome on Chrome OS, macOS, and Windows, while support for Linux will come later (unspecified date). Users will be able to control both audio and video content played in Chrome, including skipping through playlists. Initial support is planned for multimedia keys such as "play," "pause," "previous track," "next track," "seek backward," and "seek forward." Key presses will be supported at the Chrome level, not the tab level, meaning that multimedia buttons will work regardless if the Chrome browser is in the operating system's foreground or background (minimized).

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Thursday morning, NPR posted a bill drafted by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) advocating for a Green New Deal -- that is, a public works bill aimed at employing Americans and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the face of climate change. A similar version of the bill is expected to be introduced in the Senate by Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.). The House bill opens by citing two recent climate change reports: an October 2018 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and a heavily peer-reviewed report released in November 2018 by a group of U.S. scientists from federal energy and environment departments. Both reports were unequivocal about the role that humans play in climate change and the dire consequences humans stand to face if climate change continues unchecked.

The bill lists some of these consequences: $500 billion in lost annual economic output for the U.S. by 2100, mass migration, bigger and more ferocious wildfires, and risk of more than $1 trillion in damage to U.S. infrastructure and coastal property. To stop this, the bill says, the global greenhouse gas emissions from human sources must be reduced by 40 to 60 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, and we must reach net-zero emissions by 2050. [...] The Green New Deal specifically calls for a 10-year mobilization plan that would "achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions through a fair and just transition for all communities and workers" by creating "millions" of high-paying jobs through investment in U.S. infrastructure. Specific kinds of infrastructure aren't listed, but general categories or works projects are outlined. Adaptive infrastructure tailored to communities, like higher sea walls and new drainage systems, would be included. NPR notes that the language is classified as a non-binding resolution, "meaning that even if it were to pass... it wouldn't itself create any new programs. Instead, it would potentially affirm the sense of the House that these things should be done in the coming years."

Surprisingly, the bill doesn't mention fossil fuels at all. "In a draft version of the Green New Deal that had been circulated in December, a Frequently Asked Questions section did not preclude eventually calling for a tax or a ban on fossil fuels, but it noted that this was not what the bill was about," notes Ars Technica. "Simply put, we don't need to just stop doing some things we are doing (like using fossil fuels for energy needs)," the FAQ notes under the Green New Deal draft language. "We also need to start doing new things (like overhauling whole industries or retrofitting all buildings to be energy efficient). Starting to do new things requires some upfront investment."

All graphic images of self-harm will be removed from Instagram, the head of the social media platform has told the BBC. From a report: The move comes after the father of 14-year-old Molly Russell, who took her own life in 2017, said Instagram had "helped kill" his daughter. Molly's family found she had been viewing graphic images of self-harm on the site prior to her death. Adam Mosseri said Instagram was trying to balance "the need to act now and the need to act responsibly". He added the site was "not where we need to be on the issues of self-harm and suicide". When asked by the BBC's Angus Crawford when the images would be removed, Mr Mosseri replied: "As quickly as we can, responsibly." Molly's father Ian Russell welcomed Instagram's commitment and said he hoped they would act swiftly to implement their plans.

In March, TechCrunch discovered Facebook planned to require advertisers pledge that they had permission to upload someone's phone number or email address for ad targeting. That tool debuted in June, though there was no verification process and Facebook just took businesses at their word despite the financial incentive to lie. In November, Facebook launched a way for ad agencies and marketing tech developers to specify who they were buying promotions "on behalf of." Soon that information will finally be revealed to users. From the report: Starting February 28th, Facebook's "Why am I seeing this?" button in the drop-down menu of feed posts will reveal more than the brand who paid for the ad, some biographical details they targeted, and if they'd uploaded your contact info. Facebook will start to show when your contact info was uploaded, if it was by the brand or one of their agency/developer partners, and when access was shared between partners. A Facebook spokesperson tells me the goal to keep giving people a better understanding of how advertisers use their information.

This new level of transparency could help users pinpoint what caused a brand to get ahold of their contact info. That might help them to change their behavior to stay more private. The system could also help Facebook zero in on agencies or partners who are constantly uploading contact info and might not have attained it legitimately. Apparently seeking not to dredge up old privacy problems, Facebook didn't publish a blog post about the change but simply announced it in a Facebook post to the Facebook Advertiser Hub Page.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: After a year of secret preparations, Mozilla has publicly announced plans today to implement a "site isolation" feature, which works by splitting Firefox code in isolated OS processes, on a per-domain (site) basis. The concept behind this feature isn't new, as it's already present in Chrome, since May 2018. Currently, Firefox comes with one process for the browser's user interface, and a few (two to ten) processes for the Firefox code that renders the websites. With Project Fission (as this was named), Firefox split processes will change, and a separate one will be created for each website a user is accessing. This separation will be so fine-grained that just like in Chrome, if there's an iframe on the page, that iframe will receive its own process as well, helping protect users from threat actors that hide malicious code inside iframes (HTML elements that load other websites inside the current website). This is the same approach Chrome has taken with its "Site Isolation."

After 130 years, it can be hard to come up with new flavors, so the world's largest spice company is becoming the latest food producer to turn to artificial intelligence for help. From a report: McCormick -- the maker of Old Bay and other seasonings, spices and condiments -- hopes the technology can help it tantalize taste buds. It worked with IBM Research to build an AI system trained on decades worth of data about spices and flavors to come up with new flavor combinations. The Baltimore, Maryland-based company plans to bring its first batch of AI-assisted products to market later this year. The line of seasoning mixes, called One, for making one-dish meals, includes flavors such as Tuscan Chicken and Bourbon Pork Tenderloin. Hamed Faridi, McCormick's chief science officer, told CNN Business that using AI cuts down product development time, and that the company plans to use the technology to help develop all new products by the end of 2021.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: For the first time, EU authorities have announced plans to recall a product from the European market because of a data privacy issue. The product is Safe-KID-One, a children's smartwatch produced by German electronics vendor ENOX. According to the company's website, the watch comes with a trove of features, such as a built-in GPS tracker, built-in microphone and speaker, a calling and SMS text function, and a companion Android mobile app that parents can use to keep track and contact their children. The product is what most parents regularly look in a modern smartwatch but in a RAPEX (Rapid Alert System for Non-Food Products) alert published last week and spotted by Dutch news site Tweakers, European authorities ordered a mass recall of all smartwatches from end users citing severe privacy lapses. "The mobile application accompanying the watch has unencrypted communications with its backend server and the server enables unauthenticated access to data," said authorities in the RAPEX alert. "As a consequence, the data such as location history, phone numbers, serial number can easily be retrieved and changed." On top of this, authorities also said that "a malicious user can send commands to any watch making it call another number of his choosing, can communicate with the child wearing the device or locate the child through GPS."

Elon Musk took to Twitter Sunday evening to announce the "first firing of Starship Raptor flight engine." While SpaceX has fired individual components before and experimented with various designs, this is the first time the now-completed design has been assembled and fired in its intended spaceflight configuration. ExtremeTech reports: Raptor has gone through a number of design changes -- originally, SpaceX planned to mount it to the ITS launch vehicle back in 2016 (powered by 42 Raptor engines), before changing gears and unveiling its BFR rocket concept (officially known as "Super Heavy" for the first stage, and Starship for the second). The Super Heavy mounts 31 Raptor engines, while the Starship has seven. The engine has been designed with a priority on lowering overall wear and tear and removing failure points that could limit its reusability or increase long-term operating costs. Unlike SpaceX's Merlin engine, which runs on a mixture of RP-1 and LOX, the Raptor engine is fueled by cryogenic liquid methane and LOX. The Raptor uses subcooled methane (subcooling refers to keeping the temperature of the liquid well below its boiling point). Subcooling the methane allows SpaceX to increase the amount of propellant stored in the rocket. It increases specific impulse and reduces cavitation.

The actual test burn only goes on for a few seconds, but yields tremendously valuable information about the actual performance of the rocket and its ability to ignite in a controlled fashion. The green glow in the exhaust near the end of the firing indicates the copper liner in the engine chamber burned by accident. While this should not have happened, it's precisely to find these pain points that engineers conduct test firings in the first place. There is no substitute for this kind of test-firing and, as Ars Technica notes, "any 'first' test firing of a new, full-scale rocket engine that doesn't end in an uncontrolled explosion is a good thing." Ars also states that this specific engine may be deployed for "hopper" flights this year when SpaceX attempts to fly the Starship roughly 5km high, then land it again.

Slack, the cloud-based messaging platform, has confidentially filed with regulators to go public in the U.S. "[Slack], previously reported to be pursuing a direct listing of its stock, said in a statement Monday that it had submitted a confidential filing with the [SEC]," reports Bloomberg. "Slack is working with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Allen & Co. on the share sale." From the report: Slack plans to forgo a traditional initial public offering and instead intends to sell its shares to bidders in a direct listing, a person familiar with the matter said last month. While that would preclude the company from raising money by issuing new shares for sale, it would avoid some typical underwriting fees and allow current investors to sell shares without a lock-up period. The company is choosing the unusual method for going public because it doesn't need the cash or publicity of an IPO, the person said at the time. The share sale, which might take place toward mid-year, could value Slack at more than $7 billion, according to the person, who added that the San Francisco-based company's plans could still change.

An anonymous reader writes: Starting with Firefox 66 -- scheduled for release on March 19, 2019 -- Mozilla plans to block auto-playing audio on both desktop and mobile -- a feature it began to test on Nightly builds last year. The new rule will apply to any website that plays audio without user interaction in advance -- such as a user clicking a button. The audio autoplay ban will apply to both HTML5 audio and video elements used for media playback in modern browsers, meaning Firefox will block sound coming from both ads and video players, the most common sources of such abuse. Mozilla's move comes almost a year after Chrome took a similar decision to block all auto-playing sound by default with the release of Chrome 66 in April 2018. Microsoft similarly announced plans to block auto-playing sounds in Edge, but the feature never made it to production.

Google today rolled out Instant Tethering to third-party Chromebooks. Fifteen additional Chromebook models and over 30 cell phone models now support the feature. The move is part of Google's strategy of bringing Chrome OS and Android closer together. From a report: Tethering requires switching on your hotspot that uses your phone's mobile data, connecting to it from your other device by entering the password, and disconnecting when you're done. Instant Tethering skips those steps by putting you through an initial set-up process and then just showing a notification with a Connect button when your Chromebook detects that it has no Wi-Fi access. As long as tethering is enabled on your mobile data plan, and you have the data to spare, your Chromebook can always be online. Instant Tethering will also automatically disconnect if it detects 10 minutes of no activity.

At least 14 UK police forces have made use of crime-prediction software or plan to do so, according to Liberty. From a report: The human rights group said [PDF] it had sent a total of 90 Freedom of Information requests out last year to discover which forces used the technology. It believes the programs involved can lead to biased policing strategies that unfairly focus on ethnic minorities and lower-income communities. And it said there had been a "severe lack of transparency" about the matter. Defenders of the technology say it can provide new insights into gun and knife crime, sex trafficking and other potentially life-threatening offences at a time when police budgets are under pressure.