Thursday Go's long-time tech lead Russ Cox made an announcement: Starting September 1, Austin Clements will be taking over as the tech lead of Go: both the Go team at Google and the overall Go project. Austin is currently the tech lead for what we sometimes call the "Go core", which encompasses compiler toolchain, runtime, and releases. Cherry Mui will be stepping up to lead those areas.

I am not leaving the Go project, but I think the time is right for a change... I will be shifting my focus to work more on Gaby [or "Go AI bot," an open-source contributor agent] and Oscar [an open-source contributor agent architecture], trying to make useful contributions in the Go issue tracker to help all of you work more productively. I am hopeful that work on Oscar will uncover ways to help open source maintainers that will be adopted by other projects, just like some of Go's best ideas have been adopted by other projects. At the highest level, my goals for Oscar are to build something useful, learn something new, and chart a path for other projects. These are the same broad goals I've always had for our work on Go, so in that sense Oscar feels like a natural continuation.
The post notes that new tech lead Austin Clements "has been working on Go at Google since 2014" (and Mui since 2016). "Their judgment is superb and their knowledge of Go and the systems it runs on both broad and deep. When I have general design questions or need to better understand details of the compiler, linker, or runtime, I turn to them." It's important to remember that tech lead — like any position of leadership — is a service role, not an honorary title. I have been leading the Go project for over 12 years, serving all of you, and trying to create the right conditions for all of you to do your best work. Large projects like Go absolutely benefit from stable leadership, but they can also benefit from leadership changes. New leaders bring new strengths and fresh perspectives. For Go, I think 12+ years of one leader is enough stability; it's time for someone new to serve in this role.

In particular, I don't believe that the "BDFL" (benevolent dictator for life) model is healthy for a person or a project. It doesn't create space for new leaders. It's a single point of failure. It doesn't give the project room to grow. I think Python benefited greatly from Guido stepping down in 2018 and letting other people lead, and I've had in the back of my mind for many years that we should have a Go leadership change eventually....

I am going to consciously step back from decision making and create space for Austin and the others to step forward, but I am not disappearing. I will still be available to talk about Go designs, review CLs, answer obscure history questions, and generally help and support you all in whatever way I can. I will still file issues and send CLs from time to time, I have been working on a few potential new standard libraries, I will still advocate for Go across the industry, and I will be speaking about Go at GoLab in Italy in November...

I am incredibly proud of the work we have all accomplished together, and I am confident in the leaders both on the Go team at Google and in the Go community. You are all doing remarkable work, and I know you will continue to do that.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The new Labour government has shelved $1.66 bn of funding promised by the Conservatives for tech and Artificial Intelligence (AI) projects, the BBC has learned. It includes $1 bn for the creation of an exascale supercomputer at Edinburgh University and a further $640m for AI Research Resource, which funds computing power for AI. Both funds were unveiled less than 12 months ago.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) said the money was promised by the previous administration but was never allocated in its budget. Some in the industry have criticised the government's decision. Tech business founder Barney Hussey-Yeo posted on X that reducing investment risked "pushing more entrepreneurs to the US." Businessman Chris van der Kuyl described the move as "idiotic." Trade body techUK said the government now needed to make "new proposals quickly" or the UK risked "losing out" to other countries in what are crucial industries of the future.

schwit1 writes: A U.S. appeals court on Thursday blocked the Federal Communications Commission's reinstatement of landmark net neutrality rules, saying broadband providers are likely to succeed in a legal challenge. The agency voted in April along party lines to reassume regulatory oversight of broadband internet and reinstate open internet rules adopted in 2015 that were rescinded under then-President Donald Trump.

The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which had temporarily delayed the rules, said on Thursday it would temporarily block net neutrality rules and scheduled oral arguments for late October or early November on the issue, dealing a serious blow to President Joe Biden's effort to reinstate the rules. "The final rule implicates a major question, and the commission has failed to satisfy the high bar for imposing such regulations," the court wrote. "Net neutrality is likely a major question requiring clear congressional authorization."

Ground temperatures across great swathes of the ice sheets of Antarctica have soared an average of 10C above normal over the past month, in what has been described as a near record heatwave. From a report: While temperatures remain below zero on the polar land mass, which is shrouded in darkness at this time of year, the depths of southern hemisphere winter, temperatures have reportedly reached 28C above expectations on some days. The globe has experienced 12 months of record warmth, with temperatures consistently exceeding the 1.5C rise above preindustrial levels that has been touted as the limit to avoiding the worst of climate breakdown.

Michael Dukes, the director of forecasting at MetDesk, said that while individual daily high temperatures were surprising, far more significant was the average rise over the month. Climate scientists' models have long predicted that the most significant effects of anthropogenic climate change would be on polar regions, "and this is a great example of that," he said. "Usually you can't just look at one month for a climate trend but it is right in line with what models predict," Dukes added. "In Antarctica generally that kind of warming in the winter and continuing in to summer months can lead to collapsing of the ice sheets."

San Francisco's Board of Supervisors has approved a first-in-the-nation ordinance banning landlords from using certain software and algorithms to set rents. The measure, proposed by Board President Aaron Peskin, passed with a 10-0 vote and targets companies like RealPage and Yardi.

The ordinance prohibits the sale or use of "algorithmic devices" that analyze non-public competitor data to recommend rents or occupancy levels for residential units in San Francisco. Violators could face civil penalties up to $1,000 per infraction. Proponents argue the software exacerbates the city's housing crisis by enabling artificial rent inflation. RealPage defended its product, stating it "benefits both housing providers and residents" and that customers can reject price recommendations. The ban follows federal scrutiny of algorithmic rent-setting practices. A final vote is scheduled for September 3.

An anonymous reader quotes an op-ed, written by former hedge fund manager Marc Rubinstein: With new technologies come new rules governing how they are used. Often, policy is framed via analogy: Are social media platforms publishers or are they town squares? Are instant messages water-cooler chatter or are they formal communication? So it is with peer-to-peer electronic payments. Last week a US Senate committee joined the debate over whether they're analogous to cash or to bank-payment channels. It's an essential distinction -- for both consumers and the companies that provide this free service. [...] Yet while no bank would accept liability if a customer lost their wallet to a pickpocket, the senators' debate focused on who's responsible when fraudsters target electronic wallets. Last year, customers of the three largest lenders -- Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo -- lost a total of $370 million via Zelle, the platform these banks jointly own with four others. According to the majority staff report (PDF) filed by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which convened the July 23 hearing, the banks reimbursed only around $100 million of that, leaving consumers to shoulder the rest. While small in the context of overall volume that go through Zelle -- $806 billion last year, of which these banks did 73% -- that's cold comfort for the customers.

Legally, a bank's obligation rests on whether clients fall victim to a "fraud" or to a "scam." In a fraud, money is transferred out of the user's account without their authorization, usually as the result of hacking. Under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, banks are required to reimburse such losses. As long as the customer authorizes the transaction, though, even if fraudulently induced to do so, banks don't have to pick up the tab. Such scams are growing as fraudsters parade as a bank employee, a love interest or a potential new employer, often via social media. According to a Pew Research survey, 13% of P2P platform users reported sending money, only later to realize they were set up. Persuading your bank you are the victim of a fraud rather than a scam can take some work. [...] For bad guys, the speed of P2P payments makes them a particularly attractive target. A Zelle transfer can take 20 to 30 seconds to initiate. In most cases, by the time an unsuspecting consumer realizes they have been targeted, their money is already gone. Banks argue this is no different from cash. [...]

However, others see P2P transactions more akin to electronic payments and question why reimbursement rates, at 26% in the case of Zelle, are so much lower than for credit-card payments (47%) or debit-card payments (36%) at the three big banks. Despite critical differences, the subcommittee agrees. Its report recommends extending purchase protections standard in credit and debit-card markets to commercial P2P payments, and amending the Electronic Fund Transfer Act to make fraudulently induced transactions subject to reimbursement. Such a move has already been adopted in the UK, where new rules requiring financial institutions to fully reimburse victims of scams come into force in October this year. US bankers aren't keen. "We need to be thoughtful and think about unintended consequences," Adam Vancini, Wells Fargo's head of payments for Consumer, Small & Business Banking, said at the Senate hearing. For now, Zelle transfers enjoy all the benefits of cash. Layer in the benefits of card payments, too, and the no-cost model may disappear.

According to Statcounter, Linux use hit another all-time high in July. For July 2024, the statistics website is showing Linux at 4.45%, climbing almost a half a percentage point from June's 4.05% high.

Is 2024 truly the year of Linux on the desktop?

A blockbuster prisoner exchange between the United States, Russia and Germany on Thursday included at least two prominent cybercriminals held by the U.S. on charges of financially motivated cybercrime and hacking to facilitate insider trading. Cyberscoop reports: The prisoners were part of a deal that freed 16 people from Russia, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan. A White House spokesperson confirmed that as part of the deal, the U.S. released convicted Russian cybercriminals Roman Seleznev and Vladislav Klyushin.

Seleznev is a notorious Russian hacker known for running extensive cybercrime operations. He was involved in numerous cyberattacks, including credit card fraud, theft, and selling stolen credit card information on "Carder[dot]su," a cybercriminal forum ring. Seleznev conducted his criminal activities under the alias "Track2" and "nCux." He is the son of Valery Seleznev, a prominent member of the Russian Duma, the country's parliament. Seleznev was sentenced in 2017 to 27 years in prison for his involvement in a massive credit-card computer fraud scheme. Klyushin was extradited to the U.S. for his involvement in an elaborate hack-to-trade scheme that netted approximately $93 million through securities trades based on confidential corporate information stolen from U.S. computer networks. With insider knowledge of companies' financial performance, Klyushin and his co-conspirators predicted stock price movements and traded on stolen information. They used accounts in multiple countries, including Cyprus, Denmark, Portugal, Russia, and the U.S., misleading brokerage firms about their activities.

A U.S. judge has thrown out a Republican National Committee lawsuit accusing Alphabet's Google of intentionally misdirecting the political party's email messages to users' spam folders. From a report: U.S. District Judge Daniel Calabretta in Sacramento, California, on Wednesday dismissed the RNC's lawsuit for a second time, and said the organization would not be allowed to refile it. While expressing some sympathy for the RNC's allegations, he said it had not made an adequate case that Google violated California's unfair competition law.

The lawsuit alleged Google had intentionally or negligently sent RNC fundraising emails to Gmail users' spam folders and cost the group hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential donations. Google denied any wrongdoing.

Mozilla is following in Google Chrome's footsteps in officially distrusting Entrust as a root certificate authority (CA) following what it says was a protracted period of compliance failures. From a report: A little over a month ago, Google was the first to make the bold step of dropping Entrust as a CA, saying it noted a "pattern of concerning behaviors" from the company. Entrust has apologized to Google, Mozilla, and the wider web community, outlining its plans to regain the trust of browsers, but these appear to be unsatisfactory to both Google and Mozilla.

In an email shared by Mozilla's Ben Wilson on Wednesday, the root store manager said the decision wasn't taken lightly, but equally Entrust's response to Mozilla's concerns didn't inspire confidence that the situation would materially change for the better. "Mozilla previously requested that Entrust provide a detailed report on these recent incidents and their root causes, an evaluation of Entrust's recent actions in light of their previous commitments given in the aftermath of similarly serious incidents in 2020, and a proposal for how Entrust will re-establish Mozilla's and the community's trust," said Wilson.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: With thousands of species at risk of extinction, scientists have devised a radical plan: a vault filled with preserved samples of our planet's most important and at-risk creatures located on the moon. An international team of experts says threats from climate change and habitat loss have outpaced our ability to protect species in their natural habitats, necessitating urgent action. A biorepository of preserved cells, and the crucial DNA within them, could be used to enhance genetic diversity in small populations of critically endangered species, or to clone and create new individuals in the worst-case scenario of extinction.

The proposed lunar biorepository, as described in the journal BioScience, would be beyond the reach of climate breakdown, geopolitical events or other Earth-based disasters. The moon's naturally frigid environment means samples would remain frozen year-round without the need for human involvement or an energy source. By taking advantage of deep craters near the polar regions that are never exposed to sunlight, the moon is one of few places that can provide the ultra-low temperature of -196C necessary to preserve the samples in a way suitable for future cloning. [...] Besides those facing the imminent risk of extinction, the proposed repository would prioritize species with important functions in their environment and food webs. Through careful selection, those housed could be used to re-establish an extinct population on Earth or even to terraform another planet. Dr Mary Hagedorn of the Smithsonian's national zoo and conservation biology institute and the proposal's lead author believes the biorepository proposal will come to fruition, although perhaps not in our lifetime: "We know how to do this and can do this and will do this, but it may take decades to finally achieve," she said.

The report says the next steps "will be to develop packaging for the cryopreserved samples that can withstand the conditions of space, and to work out the logistics of transporting samples to the moon."

Taco Bell's parent company, Yum! Brands, announced today that the fast-food chain will expand its Voice AI technology to "hundreds" of chains around the country by the end of the year. A global expansion of the service will follow. Fortune reports: Right now, more than 100 Taco Bell locations in 13 states rely on AI to take customer orders at the drive-thru. Company officials say that has resulted in improved order accuracy, shorter wait times, and higher profits. Human workers, the company says, will be freed up to focus on other tasks, ranging from interacting with guests who opt to order from the restaurant counter to preparing food. "Yum! Brands is integrating digital and technology into all aspects of our business with exciting new capabilities, and AI is a core piece of that strategy," said Lawrence Kim, chief innovation officer at Yum! Brands, in a statement. "With over two years of fine-tuning and testing the drive-thru Voice AI technology, we're confident in its effectiveness in optimizing operations and enhancing customer satisfaction."

The results of Los Angeles' 12-month guaranteed income pilot program show that it was "overwhelmingly beneficial (source may be paywalled; alternative source)," reports the Los Angeles Times. The program, which involved giving L.A.'s poorest families cash assistance of $1,000 a month with no strings attached, significantly improved participants' financial stability, job opportunities, and overall well-being. From the report: The Basic Income Guaranteed: Los Angeles Economic Assistance Pilot, or BIG:LEAP, disbursed $38.4 million in city funds to 3,200 residents who were pregnant or had at least one child, lived at or below the federal poverty level and experienced hardship related to COVID-19. Participants were randomly selected from about 50,000 applicants and received the payments for 12 months starting in 2022. The city paid researchers $3.9 million to help design the trial and survey participants throughout about their experiences.

[Dr. Amy Castro, co-founder of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Guaranteed Income Research] and her colleagues partnered with researchers at UCLA's Fielding School of Public Health to compare the experiences of participants in L.A.'s randomized control trial -- the country's first large-scale guaranteed-income pilot using public funds -- with those of nearly 5,000 people who didn't receive the unconditional cash. Researchers found that participants reported a meaningful increase in savings and were more likely to be able to cover a $400 emergency during and after the program. Guaranteed-income recipients also were more likely to secure full-time or part-time employment, or to be looking for work, rather than being unemployed and not looking for work, the study found.

In a city with sky-high rents, participants reported that the guaranteed income functioned as "a preventative measure against homelessness," according to the report, helping them offset rental costs and serving as a buffer while they waited for other housing support. It also prevented or reduced the incidence of intimate partner violence, the analysis found, by making it possible for people and their children to leave and find other housing. Intimate partner violence is an intractable social challenge, Castro said, so to see improvements with just 12 months of funding is a "pretty extraordinary change." People who had struggled to maintain their health because of inflexible or erratic work schedules and lack of child care reported that the guaranteed income provided the safety net they needed to maintain healthier behaviors, the report said. They reported sleeping better, exercising more, resuming necessary medications and seeking mental health therapy for themselves and their children. Compared with those who didn't receive cash, guaranteed income recipients were more likely to enroll their kids in sports and clubs during and after the pilot.

Air New Zealand has become the first major airline to drop its 2030 goal to cut carbon emissions. From a report: The company has blamed difficulties in procuring new planes and sustainable jet fuel. The airline's CEO, Greg Foran said: "In recent months, and more so in the last few weeks, it has also become apparent that potential delays to our fleet renewal plan pose an additional risk to the target's achievability. It is possible the airline may need to retain its existing fleet for longer than planned due to global manufacturing and supply chain issues that could potentially slow the introduction of newer, more fuel-efficient aircraft into the fleet." The industry as a whole has a goal to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. But in 2022, Air New Zealand set itself the target of cutting its emissions by almost 29% by 2030.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Proposals to slap a wealth tax on the world's super-rich could yield $250 billion a year to tackle the climate crisis and address poverty and inequality, but would affect only a small number of billionaire families, Brazil's climate chief has said. Ministers from the G20 group of the world's biggest developed and emerging economies are meeting in Rio de Janeiro this weekend, where Brazil's proposal for a 2% wealth tax on those with assets worth more than $1 billion is near the top of the agenda. No government was speaking out against the tax, said Ana Toni, who is national secretary for climate change in the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. "Our feeling is that, morally, nobody's against," she told the Observer in an interview. "But the level of support from some countries is bigger than others."

However, the lack of overt opposition does not mean the tax proposal is likely to be approved. Many governments are privately skeptical but unwilling to publicly criticize a plan that would shave a tiny amount from the rapidly accumulating wealth of the planet's richest few, and raise money to address the pressing global climate emergency. Janet Yellen, the US Treasury secretary, told journalists in Rio that the US "did not see the need" for a global initiative. "People are not keen on global taxes," Toni admitted. "And there is a question over how you implement global taxes." But she said levying and raising a tax globally was possible, as had been shown by G7 finance ministers' agreement to levy a minimum 15% corporate tax. "It should be at a global level, because otherwise, obviously, rich people will move from one country to another," she said.

Only about 100 families around the world would be affected by the proposed 2% levy, she added. The world's richest 1% have added $42 trillion to their wealth in the past decade, roughly 36 times more than the bottom half of the world's population did. The question of how funds raised by such taxation should be spent had also not been settled, noted Toni. Some economists have argued that the idea was more likely to be accepted if the proceeds were devoted to solving the climate crisis than if they were used to address global inequality. Other experts say at least some of the money should be used for poverty alleviation.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: According to a new statement, the White House realizes open source is key to artificial intelligence (AI) development -- much like many businesses using the technology. On Tuesday, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) issued a report supporting open-source and open models to promote innovation in AI while emphasizing the need for vigilant risk monitoring. The report recommends that the US continue to support AI openness while working on new capabilities to monitor potential AI risks but refrain from restricting the availability of open model weights.

"A Fortune 50 company paid a record-breaking $75 million ransom payment to the Dark Angels ransomware gang," writes BleepingComputer's Lawrence Abrams, citing a report (PDF) by Zscaler ThreatLabz. From the report: The largest known ransom payment was previously $40 million, which insurance giant CNA paid after suffering an Evil Corp ransomware attack. While Zscaler did not share what company paid the $75 million ransom, they mentioned the company was in the Fortune 50 and the attack occurred in early 2024. One Fortune 50 company that suffered a cyberattack in February 2024 is pharmaceutical giant Cencora, ranked #10 on the list. No ransomware gang ever claimed responsibility for the attack, potentially indicating that a ransom was paid.

Zscaler ThreatLabz says that Dark Angels utilizes the "Big Game Hunting" strategy, which is to target only a few high-value companies in the hopes of massive payouts rather than many companies at once for numerous but smaller ransom payments. "The Dark Angels group employs a highly targeted approach, typically attacking a single large company at a time," explains the Zscaler ThreatLabz researchers. "This is in stark contrast to most ransomware groups, which target victims indiscriminately and outsource most of the attack to affiliate networks of initial access brokers and penetration testing teams." According to Chainalysis, the Big Game Hunting tactic has become a dominant trend utilized by numerous ransomware gangs over the past few years.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Perplexity AI on Tuesday debuted a revenue-sharing model for publishers after more than a month of plagiarism accusations. Media outlets and content platforms including Fortune, Time, Entrepreneur, The Texas Tribune, Der Spiegel and WordPress.com are the first to join the company's "Publishers Program." The announcement follows an onslaught of controversy in June, when Forbes said it found a plagiarized version of its paywalled original reporting within Perplexity AI's Pages tool, with no reference to the media outlet besides a small "F" logo at the bottom of the page. Weeks later, Wired said it also found evidence of Perplexity plagiarizing Wired stories, and reported that an IP address "almost certainly linked to Perplexity and not listed in its public IP range" visited its parent company's websites more than 800 times in a three-month span.

Under the new partner program, any time a user asks a question and Perplexity generates advertising revenue from citing one of the publisher's articles in its answer, Perplexity will share a flat percentage of that revenue. That percentage counts on a per-article basis, Dmitry Shevelenko, Perplexity's chief business officer, told CNBC in an interview -- meaning that if three articles from one publisher were used in one answer, the partner would receive "triple the revenue share." Shevelenko confirmed that the flat rate is a double-digit percentage but declined to provide specifics. Shevelenko told CNBC that more than a dozen publishers, including "major newspaper dailies and companies that own them," had reached out with interest less than two hours after the program debuted. The company's goal, he said, is to have 30 publishers enrolled by the end of the year, and Perplexity is looking to partner with some of the publishers' ad sales teams so they can sell ads "against all Perplexity inventory."

"When Perplexity earns revenue from an interaction where a publisher's content is referenced, that publisher will also earn a share," Perplexity wrote in a blog post, adding that the company will offer publishers API credits and also work with ScalePost.ai to provide analytics to provide "deeper insights into how Perplexity cites their content." Shevelenko told CNBC that Perplexity began engaging with publishers in January and solidified ideas for how its revenue-sharing program would work later in the first quarter of 2024. He said five Perplexity employees were dedicated to working on the program. "Some of it grew out of conversations we were having with publishers about integrating Perplexity APIs and technology into their products," Shevelenko said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The Senate passed the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act (also known as COPPA 2.0), the first major internet bills meant to protect children to reach that milestone in two decades. A legislative vehicle that included both KOSA and COPPA 2.0 passed 91-3. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called it "a momentous day" in a speech ahead of the vote, saying that "the Senate keeps its promise to every parent who's lost a child because of the risks of social media." He called for the House to pass the bills "as soon as they can."

KOSA is a landmark piece of legislation that a persistent group of parent advocates played a key role in pushing forward -- meeting with lawmakers, showing up at hearings with tech CEOs, and bringing along photos of their children, who, in many cases, died by suicide after experiencing cyberbullying or other harms from social media. These parents say that a bill like KOSA could have saved their own children from suffering and hope it will do the same for other children. The bill works by creating a duty of care for online platforms that are used by minors, requiring they take "reasonable" measures in how they design their products to mitigate a list of harms, including online bullying, sexual exploitation, drug promotion, and eating disorders. It specifies that the bill doesn't prevent platforms from letting minors search for any specific content or providing resources to mitigate any of the listed harms, "including evidence-informed information and clinical resources." The legislation faces significant opposition from digital rights, free speech, and LGBTQ+ advocates who fear it could lead to censorship and privacy issues. Critics argue that the duty of care may result in aggressive content filtering and mandatory age verification, potentially blocking important educational and lifesaving content.

The bill may also face legal challenges from tech platforms citing First Amendment violations.

AmiMoJo writes: Wind turbines and solar panels have overtaken fossil fuels to generate 30% of the European Union's electricity in the first half of the year, a report has found. Power generation from burning coal, oil and gas fell 17% in the first six months of 2024 compared with the same period the year before, according to climate thinktank Ember. It found the continued shift away from polluting fuels has led to a one-third drop in the sector's emissions since the first half of 2022.

Chris Rosslowe, an analyst at Ember, said the rise of wind and solar was narrowing the role of fossil fuels. "We are witnessing a historic shift in the power sector, and it is happening rapidly." The report found EU power plants burned 24% less coal and 14% less gas from the first half of 2023 to the first half of 2024. The shift comes despite a small uptick in electricity demand that has followed two years of decline linked to the pandemic and Ukraine war.