Amazon will direct $2 billion in loans and grants to secure affordable housing near three American cities where the company employs thousands of workers, the tech giant announced Wednesday. The Seattle Times reports: In a first step in the Puget Sound region, Amazon is promising $185.5 million, mostly in loans, to the King County Housing Authority to help buy affordable apartments in the region and keep the rents low. The Housing Authority will use an initial portion of that money to help fund its recent purchase of three Bellevue apartment buildings. Amazon will also direct about $382 million to a nonprofit in Arlington, Virginia, and so-far unspecified amount to organizations in Nashville, Tennessee. Amazon said it selected the three areas where the company expects to have at least 5,000 employees.

In total across the three regions, the company projected the $2 billion would help preserve or create 20,000 affordable housing units over the next five years. The funding will "help local families achieve long-term stability while building strong, inclusive communities," Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement.

Microsoft is making a big change to its Windows 10 taskbar soon, with the addition of a news and weather widget. The Verge reports: The new feature is available to testers today, and it will allow Windows 10 users to access a feed of news, stocks, and weather information straight from the taskbar. You'll be able to quickly glance at the weather without having to open the Start menu, install a third-party app, or check online. The taskbar feature will pop out into a mini feed of content that can be personalized with the latest sports news, headlines, and weather information. Microsoft is using its Microsoft News network to surface news and content from more than 4,500 sources. The company has been curating this through artificial intelligence in recent months, and this particular feature will also learn what news is relevant to you when you dismiss or like stories in the feed.

This new taskbar feature will also require Microsoft's Chromium-based Edge to be installed on a PC. That means any link you click within the feature will force you into Edge to read it, and Microsoft is presenting content in the reading view by default. You can of course disable this new taskbar feature, and Microsoft says it will be an ad-free experience.

The Trump administration says that Chinese payment apps, including WeChat Pay, are a threat to national security. By Executive Order, all US transactions with these apps must cease within 45 days. AppleInsider reports: President Trump has issued an Executive Order banning US transactions with a range of Chinese payment platform apps from February 18, 2021. The order says this "aggressive action" must be taken because the apps have access to the data of a large number of users. "[The] pace and pervasiveness of the spread in the United States of certain connected mobile and desktop applications," says the Executive Order, "and other software developed or controlled by persons in the People's Republic of China, to include Hong Kong and Macau (China), continue to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States." "At this time, action must be taken to address the threat posed by these Chinese connected software applications," it continues.

The most prominent apps named are WeChat Pay and Alipay. The order also lists the lesser-known payment systems QQ Wallet, Tencent QQ, CamScanner, SHAREit, VMate, and WPS Office. US firms have 45 days from the date of the order to comply. However, the specifics of precisely which types of transactions are to be banned is yet to be announced. "The following actions shall be prohibited beginning 45 days after the date of this order, to the extent permitted under applicable law," says the order. "[Any] transaction by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, with persons that develop or control the following Chinese connected software applications, or with their subsidiaries."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: President-elect Joe Biden's transition team announced that David Recordon, one of OpenId and oAuth's developers, has been named the White House Director of Technology. Recordon most recently was the VP of infrastructure and security at the non-profit Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Foundation. Before that, Recordon was Facebook's engineer director. There, he had led Facebook's open-source initiatives and projects. Among other programs, this included Phabricator, a suite of code review web apps, which Facebook used for its own development. He also led efforts on Cassandra, the Apache open-source distributed database management system; HipHop, a PHP to C++ source code translator; and Apache Thrift, a software framework, for scalable cross-language services development. In short, he's both a programmer and manager who knows open-source from the inside out.

Recordon learned to program at a public elementary school. According to the Biden-Harris transition team, he's spent his almost two-decade career working at the intersection of technology, security, open-source software, public service, and philanthropy. Looking forward to the challenges Recordon faces in his new position, he wrote on LinkedIn: "The pandemic and ongoing cybersecurity attacks present new challenges for the entire Executive Office of the President, but ones I know that these teams can conquer in a safe and secure manner together." The report notes that Recordon served as the first Director of White House Information Technology during President Barack Obama's term of office, working on IT modernization and cybersecurity issues. He's also served as the Biden-Harris transition team's deputy CTO.

New regulations for testing the next generation of ultra-fast jets were finalized by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, an attempt to streamline the development of supersonic flight. From a report: The FAA on Wednesday announced the regulations as several companies work on developing prototypes of aircraft capable of flying faster than the speed of sound, it said in a press release. The move is an attempt to make it easier to receive permission from FAA for conducting supersonic test flights. U.S. rules prohibit routine flights beyond the speed of sound -- about 660 miles (1062 kilometers) per hour at high altitudes -- over land. The agency is also working on setting broader new standards for such aircraft, it said. "Today's action is a significant step toward reintroducing civil supersonic flight and demonstrates the departmentâ(TM)s commitment to safe innovation," Transportation Secretary Elaine L. Chao said in the press release. Companies including Aerion Corp. and Boom Technology are attempting to design aircraft capable of flying at speeds far faster than existing models, but concerns remain over sonic booms and other environmental issues.

Britain's competition watchdog has launched an investigation into the $40 billion takeover of the UK-based chip designer Arm by the US company Nvidia. From a report: The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has called for interested parties to submit views on the contentious deal before the launch of a formal investigation later this year. Arm Holdings, which employs 6,500 staff including 3,000 in the UK, is a global leader in designing chips for smartphones, computers and tablets. California-based Nvidia, a graphics chip specialist, announced its plan to buy the British tech group from Japan's SoftBank in September. SoftBank had acquired Arm for $32 billion in 2016, when the Japanese company took advantage of the fall in value of the pound after the Brexit vote. Arm is based in Cambridge but has operations in a number of UK towns and cities, including Manchester, Belfast and Warwick. Its chief executive, Simon Segars, acknowledged at the time of the Nvidia deal that it could take up to 18 months to win approval from regulators around the world.

Hackers who tapped into government networks through SolarWinds software potentially accessed about 3% of the Justice Department's email accounts, but there's no indication they accessed classified systems, a DOJ spokesperson said in a statement Wednesday. From a report: The DOJ Office of the Chief Information Officer learned of the hack the day of Christmas Eve, according to the statement, where agents accessed the Department's Microsoft Office 365 email environment. "As part of the ongoing technical analysis, the department has determined that the activity constitutes a major incident under the Federal Information Security Modernization Act, and is taking the steps consistent with that determination," the spokesperson said. "The department will continue to notify the appropriate federal agencies, Congress, and the public as warranted."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: In one of its last strikes against the American wilderness, Donald Trump's administration will on Wednesday auction off portions of the Arctic national wildlife refuge to oil drillers. The lease sales are the climax to one of the nation's highest-profile environmental battles. The lands on the northern coastal plain of Alaska are home to denning polar bears and migrating herds of Porcupine caribou that indigenous communities depend on and consider sacred. But the oil industry has long suspected that the ground beneath the plain holds billions of barrels of petroleum.

Once the leases in the refuge, known as ANWR, are sold to energy companies, they would be difficult to claw back. The incoming president, Joe Biden, could, however, discourage development in the refuge by putting regulatory hurdles in the way of drillers. The refuge has become central to America's debate over how quickly to stop drilling for and burning fossil fuels as the climate crisis accelerates. Climate experts say there should be no new oil and gas extraction, as the world is already more than 1C hotter than pre-industrial times. Even if humans stopped using fossil fuels today, the planet would continue to heat. [...] On Monday, the Trump administration also dramatically expanded the area where the government can lease public land for oil drilling to the west of ANWR. The plan would allow drilling in 82% of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, an area bigger than the state of West Virginia, according to environmental groups, though the Biden administration could reverse that decision more easily than it could hold off drilling in ANWR.

Top national security agencies in a rare joint statement Tuesday confirmed that Russia was likely responsible for a massive hack of U.S. government departments and corporations, rejecting President Donald Trump's claim that China might be to blame. The Associated Press reports: The statement represented the U.S. government's first formal attempt to assign responsibility for the breaches at multiple agencies and to assign a possible motive for the operation. It said the hacks appeared to be part of an "intelligence-gathering," suggesting the evidence so far pointed to a Russian spying effort rather than an attempt to damage or disrupt U.S. government operations. "This is a serious compromise that will require a sustained and dedicated effort to remediate," said the statement, distributed by a cyber working group comprised of the FBI and other investigative agencies. Russia has denied involvement in the hack.

Last July, GitHub prevented users in Iran and several other nations from accessing portions of the service due to U.S. sanction laws. Today, the world's largest host of source code announced that it has secured a license from the U.S. government to operate in Iran. It's also working to secure similar licenses for developers in Crimea and Syria as well. MSPoweruser reports: "Over the course of two years, we were able to demonstrate how developer use of GitHub advances human progress, international communication, and the enduring U.S. foreign policy of promoting free speech and the free flow of information. We are grateful to OFAC for the engagement which has led to this great result for developers. We are in the process of rolling back all restrictions on developers in Iran, and reinstating full access to affected accounts," wrote Nat Friedman, CEO of GitHub. GitHub is also working with the U.S. government to secure similar licenses for developers in Crimea and Syria as well.

A little over a year after bringing Minecraft Earth in the US, Microsoft announced this week it will shut down the game later this year. Engadget reports: Minecraft Earth players have until June 30th, 2021, to play the augmented reality title before Microsoft shuts down its servers and it's no longer available to download from app marketplaces. Developer Mojang Studios blamed the coronavirus pandemic and all the changes to day-to-day life that have come with it for the shutdown. "Minecraft Earth was designed around free movement and collaborative play -- two things that have become near impossible in the current global situation," the studio said. Like Niantic with Pokemon Go, Mojang had tweaked the game to make it easier to play at home. Those changes clearly weren't enough.

But if there's a silver lining in today's news, it's that Mojang plans to send off Minecraft Earth in style. The studio is rolling out one last update for the game it says contains changes "to make your time in Minecraft Earth as fun as possible." Among other tweaks, the update does away with real-money transactions and drastically reduces the time it will take for players to craft and build things within the game. It also offers players a chance to see all the content that Mojang was working on before today's announcement. "We hope these adjustments will allow you to explore, craft, and build more -- while staying safe indoors," the studio said. Once June 30th comes and goes, Microsoft will delete player data on July 1st. If you spent money in Minecraft Earth at any point during the life of the game, you'll get a token that will allow you to download the Bedrock edition of Minecraft to your mobile device. You can find more details on the shutdown on the Minecraft website.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Tens of thousands of website owners who are based in the UK might have started the year with an unpleasant surprise: Eurid, the registry manager of .eu domain names, has suspended .eu domain names registered by UK citizens as a result of the regulatory changes caused by Brexit. Suspended domain names can no longer support a website or service like email, and owners now have three months to prove their right to run a .eu domain. This means updating contact data to transfer the .eu domain to an EU-subsidiary outside the UK; or declaring citizenship or residence of an EU member state.

Domain names will be re-instated as soon as contact data is updated, said Eurid -- but only for the next few months. Those who, after 31st March 2021, still haven't demonstrated their eligibility will see their domain name withdrawn, and made available again for general registration from January 2022 if no action is taken by then. Eurid said 81,000 domains, from 50,000 users, have been suspended. Eurid's suspension of UK domains comes after a series of mixed signals from the European Commission, which decides on the rules that guide the registration of .eu domains. EU regulations currently stipulate that .eu websites can only be allocated to EU citizens -- regardless of their place of residence -- as well as non-EU citizens and organizations established in a member state. In other words, once Brexit happened, UK-based .eu domains owned by UK citizens suddenly became non-EU websites hosted in a non-EU country.

The New York Stock Exchange has abruptly reversed plans to delist three major Chinese telecommunications companies after consulting regulators about an investment ban ordered by President Donald Trump. From a report: Coming days before the companies were to be delisted -- and just over two weeks before Trump is to leave the White House -- the U-turn avoids a step that threatened to heighten U.S.-China tensions further. The Big Board gave no reason for its decision in a statement released during Asian hours, saying only that it had consulted "relevant regulatory authorities" about Trump's executive order, signed in November as part of his administration's push to check China's growing economic power. The move came as a surprise and sparked confusion among officials at the U.S. Treasury and State departments, and National Security Council, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the conversations were confidential. The about-face, described as "bizarre" by a Jefferies Financial Group Inc. analyst, also whipsawed investors who on Monday had sold shares of the Chinese telecom companies and raced to bet on which stocks might be delisted next. China Mobile Ltd., China Telecom and China Unicom Hong Kong all rallied on Tuesday.

The Environmental Protection Agency has finalized a rule that limits scientific research used in the crafting of public health and environmental policy. From a report: Researchers argue the rule that prioritizes studies with all data available publicly "essentially blocks" research that uses personal information and confidential medical records that can't be released because of privacy conditions, per the New York Times, which first reported the news Monday. A requirement to disclose raw data would have prevented past major studies from going ahead. "Such studies have served as the scientific underpinnings of some of the most important clean air and water regulations of the past half century," the Times notes. The EPA declined a request for comment, but referred Axios to an op-ed by Administrator Andrew Wheeler in the Wall Street Journal published Monday evening headlined, "Why We're Ending the EPA's Reliance on Secret Science." Wheeler is expected to officially announce the rule Tuesday. In the op-ed, Wheeler insists the rule is "not a stick for forcing scientists to choose between respecting the privacy and rights of their study participants and submitting their work for consideration."

UK scientists have expressed concern that COVID-19 vaccines being rolled out in Britain may not be able to protect against a new variant of the coronavirus that emerged in South Africa and has spread internationally. From a report: Both Britain and South Africa have detected new, more transmissible variants of the COVID-19-causing virus in recent weeks that have driven a surge in cases. British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Monday he was now very worried about the variant identified in South Africa. Simon Clarke, an associate professor in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, said that while both variants had some new features in common, the one found in South Africa "has a number additional mutations ... which are concerning." He said these included more extensive alterations to a key part of the virus known as the spike protein -- which the virus uses to infect human cells -- and "may make the virus less susceptible to the immune response triggered by the vaccines." Lawrence Young, a virologist and professor of molecular oncology at Warwick University, also noted that the South African variant has "multiple spike mutations."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CoinDesk: Ukraine's government has chosen the Stellar blockchain network as a platform to build a central bank digital currency (CBDC). Announced Monday, the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine and the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) signed a Memorandum of Understanding to build out a "virtual assets ecosystem and national digital currency of Ukraine." The National Bank of Ukraine has been researching the possibility of CBDC implementation since 2017, and the Stellar partnership will now be the basis of its virtual currency development, according to Digital Transformation and IT Deputy Minister Oleksandr Bornyakov.

"The Ministry of Digital Transformation is working on creating the legal environment for the development of virtual assets in Ukraine," Bornyakov said in a statement. "We believe our cooperation with the Stellar Development Foundation will contribute to development of the virtual asset industry and its integration into the global financial ecosystem." Stellar Development Foundation CEO Denelle Dixon said the partnership with Ukraine's government and other stakeholders to digitize the hryvnia will officially launch this month. "We've been in conversations with governments and institutions all over the world about the key considerations for issuing CBDCs. It's important to remember many, if not all, of these organizations weren't designed to be technology companies and that they have many audiences that they are supporting," Dixon said via an email. "That makes a public-private partnership so essential to getting this right."

Uber apparently squandered an estimated $100 million on third-party digital advertising campaigns. Input Mag reports: Former Sleeping Giants alum and co-founder of Check My Ads, Nandini Jammi, caught most of us up on the whole situation yesterday in a lengthy Twitter thread detailing just how Uber, the poster child of startup capitalism's unethical robber baron mentality, managed to recently waste a mind-boggling $100 million in pointless digital advertising campaigns through a host of blatantly shady ad networks. One such instance involved launching "'battery saver' style apps in Google Play, giving them root access to your phone." Upon typing "Uber" into Google Play, the service "auto-fires a click to make it look like you clicked on an Uber ad and attribute the install to themselves."

It's a comprehensive rundown worth reading in its entirety, but to make a long story short: after getting publicly roasted for continually advertising on Breitbart -- Stephen Miller's racist, chauvinistic fever dream billing itself as a "news" outlet -- Uber's former Head of Acquisition, Kevin Frisch, realized the company could trim roughly 3/4 of its entire online advertising budget and see next to no change in consumer engagement. No, seriously. Over $100 million that could have been reallocated towards such "costly" investments like sick leave, overtime, health insurance, or any number of the other bare minimum workforce benefits Uber routinely denies its gig employees.

According to The Wall Street Journal, failed mobile-first streaming service Quibi is in advanced talks to sell the rights to its content library to Roku for an undisclosed price. The Verge reports: If it were to happen, the deal could give the Roku Channel exclusive access to Quibi's slate of programming. None of Quibi's shows ever really took off, but Roku may feel that the content would stand a better chance when available on the best-selling streaming devices in the US.

Quibi announced it was shutting down back in October, just six months after its much-hyped launch. The service was headed by former HP CEO Meg Whitman and former Disney chairman and movie producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, who managed to raise almost $2 billion in funding before the app was released. Katzenberg had already tried to get companies including Facebook and NBCUniversal to pick up Quibi programming ahead of its demise, according to The Information.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange cannot be extradited to the United States, a court in London has ruled. The BBC reports: The judge blocked the request because of concerns over Mr Assange's mental health and risk of suicide in the U.S. Mr Assange, who is wanted over the publication of thousands of classified documents in 2010 and 2011, says the case is politically motivated. Expressing disappointment at the ruling, the U.S. justice department noted that its legal arguments had prevailed. Its position is that the leaks broke the law and endangered lives.

"While we are extremely disappointed in the court's ultimate decision, we are gratified that the United States prevailed on every point of law raised," the justice department said. The U.S. authorities have 14 days in which to lodge an appeal and are expected to do so. Mr Assange will now be taken back to Belmarsh Prison -- where he is being held -- and a full application for his bail will be made on Wednesday. His lawyer Ed Fitzgerald QC told the court there would be evidence to show Mr Assange would not abscond. [...]

If convicted in the U.S., Mr Assange faces a possible penalty of up to 175 years in jail, his lawyers have said. However the U.S. government said the sentence was more likely to be between four and six years. Mr Assange faces an 18-count indictment from the U.S. government, accusing him of conspiring to hack into U.S. military databases to acquire sensitive secret information relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, which was then published on the Wikileaks website. He says the information exposed abuses by the U.S. military. But U.S. prosecutors say the leaks of classified material endangered lives, and so the U.S. sought his extradition from the UK.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange cannot be extradited to the United States, a court in London has ruled. From a report: The judge blocked the request because of concerns over Mr Assange's mental health and risk of suicide in the US. The 49-year-old is wanted over the publication of thousands of classified documents in 2010 and 2011. The US claims the leaks broke the law and endangered lives. Mr Assange has fought the extradition and says the case is politically motivated. The US authorities have 14 days in which to lodge an appeal and are expected to do so. Mr Assange will now be taken back to Belmarsh Prison -- where he is being held -- and a full application for his bail will be made on Wednesday. His lawyer Ed Fitzgerald QC told the court there will be evidence to show Mr Assange will not abscond. District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled that while US prosecutors met the tests for Mr Assange to be extradited for trial, the US was incapable of preventing him from attempting to take his own life.

"Axiom Space has announced that it is creating an office park and manufacturing center at the Houston SpacePort at Ellington Field," notes an opinion piece for The Hill by Houston-based space writer Mark R. Whittington.

"The development is a hopeful sign that, despite foot dragging by Congress, a commercial replacement for the International Space Station may well happen." The United States has a chance to avoid a "space gap" when the ISS reaches the end of its operational life, like the one that happened between the end of the space shuttle program and the first launch of the SpaceX commercial crew Dragon mission. When Jim Bridenstine became NASA administrator, one of the questions confronting him was what to do about maintaining a presence in low Earth orbit after the ISS. The idea that he and experts at NASA have been pushing is to encourage private companies to build their own space station.

NASA would provide needed support by pledging to become an anchor tenant for such orbiting facilities. However, the commercial space stations would also have to find private customers. The problem is that Congress has been remarkably stingy when it comes to putting up real money for this approach. The fiscal 2020 budget request included $150 million for commercial space stations. Congress funded support for private orbiting labs for a grand total of $15 million...

Axiom Space has won the nod to attach one of its own modules to the ISS. Not waiting for Congress to cough up funding for NASA, Axiom has announced a facility to manufacture space station modules at the Ellington SpacePort in Houston. The company will also have private astronaut training facilities. Besides employing 1,000 people, the new Axiom facility represents a commitment to creating a commercial space station industry... It is also likely no accident that the Axiom facility is about a five-hour drive from the growing SpaceX spaceport in Boca Chica near the southern tip of Texas. No doubt SpaceX CEO Elon Musk would be pleased to launch finished modules to space, using the mighty Starship rocket, and later crews and cargo.

In the midst of a pandemic, part of a space future is taking shape in South Texas. This time it's being driven by the private sector. NASA had best jump on board or risk being left behind.

Heading into the new year, the Atlantic's executive editor penned a scathing warning that vast social networks like Facebook "can harm society just by existing..." Even as Facebook has insisted that it is a value-neutral vessel for the material its users choose to publish, moderation is a lever the company has tried to pull again and again. But there aren't enough moderators speaking enough languages, working enough hours, to stop the biblical flood of shit that Facebook unleashes on the world, because 10 times out of 10, the algorithm is faster and more powerful than a person. At megascale, this algorithmically warped personalized informational environment is extraordinarily difficult to moderate in a meaningful way, and extraordinarily dangerous as a result...

We're still in the infancy of this century's triple digital revolution of the internet, smartphones, and the social web, and we find ourselves in a dangerous and unstable informational environment, powerless to resist forces of manipulation and exploitation that we know are exerted on us but remain mostly invisible. The Doomsday Machine offers a lesson: We should not accept this current arrangement. No single machine should be able to control so many people...

Anyone who is serious about mitigating the damage done to humankind by the social web should, of course, consider quitting Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and any other algorithmically distorted informational environments that manipulate people. But we need to adopt a broader view of what it will take to fix the brokenness of the social web. That will require challenging the logic of today's platforms — and first and foremost challenging the very concept of megascale as a way that humans gather. If megascale is what gives Facebook its power, and what makes it dangerous, collective action against the web as it is today is necessary for change. The web's existing logic tells us that social platforms are free in exchange for a feast of user data; that major networks are necessarily global and centralized; that moderators make the rules. None of that need be the case. We need people who dismantle these notions by building alternatives. And we need enough people to care about these other alternatives to break the spell of venture capital and mass attention that fuels megascale and creates fatalism about the web as it is now.

I still believe the internet is good for humanity, but that's despite the social web, not because of it. We must also find ways to repair the aspects of our society and culture that the social web has badly damaged. This will require intellectual independence, respectful debate, and the same rebellious streak that helped establish Enlightenment values centuries ago.

We may not be able to predict the future, but we do know how it is made: through flashes of rare and genuine invention, sustained by people's time and attention. Right now, too many people are allowing algorithms and tech giants to manipulate them, and reality is slipping from our grasp as a result. This century's Doomsday Machine is here, and humming along.

It does not have to be this way.

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: In India, parents are being aggressively sold the idea that their children must start coding at 4 or 5 or be future failures, prompting Neelesh Misra [a writer, audio storyteller, and founder of a media and organic products company] to ask Do Children Really Need to Learn to Code? [Alternate URL here] In a New York Times Opinion piece that's sparked 1,000+ comments, Misra writes that "Aggressive campaigns pushing Indian parents and schools to embrace coding might help meet corporate targets, but they are creating a fear that a generation of children will lose out if their parents don't sign them up for these coding programs. Parents struggle to resist these shrewdly framed campaigns."
From the writer/storyteller/founder's piece: WhiteHat Jr., which operates in India and the United States, mounted an advertising blitzkrieg in India telling parents that our children need to learn coding from the age of 4, 5 or 6 — or they will fall behind in life. Indian celebrities promoted the brand and spread the fear of losing out among families... Although numerous experts advise against teaching children to code, a skill that will soon become redundant, the WhiteHat Jr. campaign taps into a parent's deepest fear: Will my child be left behind...?

Relentless advertising campaigns are telling Indian parents that coding is critical because making children code will develop their cognitive skills. Storytelling does all that too. And singing songs. And asking questions or being offered choices or visiting interesting places...

I realize that our world is about to change unrecognizably. Robotics, artificial intelligence and virtual and augmented reality shall soon be concepts and a way of living that will be second nature to our children. The future should excite us, not make our children feel afraid and ill equipped. The future should — and I am sure will — have a place for dreamers and doers, and not just those hunched forever over a computer.

Last Sunday we reported Bitcoin's price had surged 50% in the previous month.

In the week since it's surged another 24.8%.

As Bitcoin celebrates its 12th anniversary, a Forbes columnist writes that Bitcoin "soared to $34,000 yesterday — but here's why Warren Buffett will never own Bitcoin." Buffett has called Bitcoin, among other names, "rat poison squared" and has said he won't ever buy the cryptocurrency. "I don't have any cryptocurrency and I never will," Buffett told CNBC in February, when Bitcoin was trading at about $10,000. Here are 3 reasons why Buffett will never own Bitcoin, no matter how high the price of Bitcoin soars:

Buffett believes that Bitcoin has no underlying value. As a value investor, Buffett invests in companies that are undervalued, produce stable and recurring cash flow and have the ability to increase in book value. To Buffett, Bitcoin doesn't produce earnings or dividends. Rather, the value of Bitcoin is simply what one person is willing to pay for it. In this regard, Bitcoin is no different than the tulip craze of 1637. Therefore, Buffett believes that Bitcoin has no inherent value...

While all investing involves some degree of speculation, Buffett's background is in insurance and risk mitigation. Buffett doesn't invest in "high fliers" — that's not his game. His game is "buy and hold" — forever. He invests in companies that grow over time, steadily and consistently.
And the third reason? Warren Buffett "only invests in things he understands."

"He prefers to invest in stable consumer goods companies like Coca-Cola and financial services companies like American Express."

CNN reports that some critics are now questioning whether America's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is equipped to protect the integrity of government systems from adversaries: Some of the nearly half-dozen government agencies affected by the hack have recently reached out to CISA for help with addressing the known vulnerabilities that were exploited in the attack but were told the agency did not have enough resources to provide direct support, according to a source familiar with the requests. The person noted the slow response has only increased the perception that CISA is overstretched. Multiple sources told CNN that CISA, which operates as the Department of Homeland Security's cyber arm, does not have the appropriate level of funding or necessary resources to effectively handle an issue of this magnitude.

"It's a two-year-old agency with about 2,000 employees, so clearly that level of responsibility is not commensurate with the resources that they have," Kiersten Todt, a former Obama cybersecurity official and managing director of the Cyber Readiness Institute, recently told CNN....

"CISA is not capable," according to James Andrew Lewis, cybersecurity and technology expert at the Center for Strategic and International, who added that the agency's failure to detect the breach months ago was largely due to the fact its attention and resources were consumed by efforts to secure the 2020 presidential election. "CISA has always been and will continue to be slammed by the responsibilities heaped on it by law," Daniel Dister, New Hampshire's chief information security officer, told CNN. "They have been overloaded with work from the start and have had a hard time coming up to the level of expertise that DoD/CYBERCOM/NSA has enjoyed."
Yesterday the New York Times noted the breach wasn't detected by any U.S. government cyberdefense agency (or the Department of Homeland Security), but by private cybersecurity firm FireEye. "It's clear the United States government missed it," the Times was told by Senator Mark Warner, ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. "And if FireEye had not come forward, I'm not sure we would be fully aware of it to this day." The breach is far broader than first believed. Initial estimates were that Russia sent its probes only into a few dozen of the 18,000 government and private networks they gained access to when they inserted code into network management software made by a Texas company named SolarWinds. But as businesses like Amazon and Microsoft that provide cloud services dig deeper for evidence, it now appears Russia exploited multiple layers of the supply chain to gain access to as many as 250 networks.

The hackers managed their intrusion from servers inside the United States, exploiting legal prohibitions on the National Security Agency from engaging in domestic surveillance and eluding cyberdefenses deployed by the Department of Homeland Security. "Early warning" sensors placed by Cyber Command and the National Security Agency deep inside foreign networks to detect brewing attacks clearly failed. There is also no indication yet that any human intelligence alerted the United States to the hacking.

Long-time Slashdot reader serviscope_minor wanted to remind us that 2020 also saw the death of science fiction/fantasy author Debra Doyle at the age of 67 from a sudden cardiac event. "Her works were co-written with her husband, James D. Macdonald," notes her entry on Wikipedia: Her first work written with Macdonald was "Bad Blood" in 1988. Their novel Knight's Wyrd was awarded the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature in 1992 and appeared on the New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age list in 1993. They published two series, Mageworlds (7 novels) and The Wizard Apprentice (8 novels), and two alternate history novels, Land of Mist and Snow and Lincoln's Sword.

Doyle and Macdonald also published together under other names. They published their first novel, Night of Ghosts and Lightning, in 1989 under the house name Robyn Tallis; two Tom Swift novels under the house name Victor Appleton; Pep Rally, Blood Brothers, and Vampire's Kiss under the house name Nicholas Adams; and two Spider-Man novels as Martin Delrio.

Together Doyle and Macdonald made up part of the core membership of the sff.net website and rec.arts.sff newsgroup. Doyle also taught at the Viable Paradise genre writer's workshop on Martha's Vineyard.

Mozilla is "investigating" a design refresh for its Firefox browser. Ghacks reports that the refresh is referred to internally as "Photon." Information about the design refresh is limited at this point in time. Mozilla created a meta bug on Bugzilla as a reference to keep track of the changes. While there are not any mockups or screenshots posted on the site, the names of the bugs provide information on the elements that will get a refresh. These are:

- The Firefox address bar and tabs bar.
- The main Firefox menu.
- Infobars.
- Doorhangers.
- Context Menus.
- Modals.
Most user interface elements are listed in the meta bug. Mozilla plans to release the new design in Firefox 89; the browser is scheduled for a mid-2021 release. Its release date is set to May 18, 2021...

[Developer/Firefox extension author] Sören Hentzschel revealed that he saw some of the Firefox Proton mockups... He notes that Firefox will look more modern when the designs land and that Mozilla plans to introduce useful improvements, especially in regards to the user experience. Hentzschel mentions two examples of potential improvements to the user experience: a mockup that displays vertical tabs in a compact mode, and another that shows the grouping of tabs on the tab bar.

Since 1976 "Project Censored," a U.S.-based nonprofit media watchdog organization, has been identifying "the news that didn't make the news," the most significant stories it believes are being systematically overlooked. Slashdot ran stories about its annual list of the year's most censored news stories in 1999, 2003, 2004, and in 2007, when they'd presciently warned that the media was ignoring the issue of net neutrality.

But their latest list of underreported stories includes this disturbing headline: "Antibiotic Abuse: Pharmaceutical Profiteering Accelerates Superbugs." Pharmaceutical giants Abbott and Sun Pharma are providing dangerous amounts of antibiotics to unlicensed doctors in India and incentivizing them to overprescribe. In August 2019 the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) reported that these unethical business practices are leading to a rise in superbugs, or bacterial infections that are resistant to antibiotic treatment. Bacteria naturally evolve a resistance to antibiotics over time, but the widespread and inappropriate use of antibiotics accelerates this process. Superbugs are killing at least 58,000 babies each year and rendering a growing number of patients untreatable with all available drugs.

India's unlicensed medical practitioners, known as "quack" doctors, are being courted by Abbott and Sun Pharma, billion-dollar companies that do business in more than one hundred countries, including the United States. The incentives these companies provide to quack doctors to sell antibiotics have included free medical equipment, gift cards, televisions, travel, and cash, earning some doctors nearly a quarter of their salary. "Sales representatives would also offer extra pills or money as an incentive to buy more antibiotics, encouraging potentially dangerous overprescription," a Sun Pharma sales representative revealed to an undercover BIJ reporter... [P]atients without access to better care often turn to quack doctors for treatment, and many are unaware that their local medical "professionals" have no formal training and are being bribed to sell unnecessary antibiotics.

In September 2019, the BIJ reported on similar problems with broken healthcare systems, medical corruption, and dangerous superbugs in Cambodia. Their account describes how patients often request antibiotics for common colds, to pour onto wounds, and to feed to animals. Illegally practicing doctors and pharmacists in Cambodia admitted that they would often prescribe based on customer requests rather than appropriate medical guidelines. As the BIJ noted, "This kind of misuse speeds up the creation of drug resistant bacteria, or superbugs, which are predicted to kill 10 million people by 2050 if no action is taken...."

Although superbugs have attracted some attention, their cause and importance remain poorly understood by the public. The Independent and BuzzFlash republished the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's report; otherwise, the role of pharmaceutical companies in the rise of dangerous superbugs has been drastically underreported.
The site's list of the top 25 censored stories of 2019 - 2020 also includes:

• Growing interest in so-called "public" banks, "not legally obligated to maximize profits, as private banks are; instead, public banks are mandated to serve their communities."

• How rising sea levels and warmer waters will impact nuclear power plants, "posing increased risks of nuclear disasters."

• Proposals to revitalize journalism through public funding.

• How the U.S. military represents "a massive, hidden contributor to the climate crisis."

"A carefully designed four-day week could be introduced in the UK immediately and be affordable for most firms with more than 50 workers, a think tank has said," reports the Guardian, citing new research from a not-for-profit think tank: A report by Autonomy – which is campaigning for a shorter working week without loss of pay – said the majority of 50,000 firms studied would be able to cope with the change through higher productivity or by raising prices. The think tank said the government should investigate ways of rolling out a four-day week, starting with the public sector. Although many companies are struggling with the lingering impact of the UK's deepest slump in more than 300 years, Autonomy said that even under its "worst-case" scenario, a four-day week would be affordable for most firms once the initial phase of the Covid-19 pandemic had passed.

It accepted, however, that some firms in sectors where labour costs were high and profit margins thin would experience cashflow problems if changes were implemented too quickly. Will Stronge, director of research at Autonomy, said: "For the large majority of firms, reducing working hours is an entirely realistic goal for the near future. By providing a hypothetical 'stress test', we can dispel any myths about the affordability of a four-day working week.

After Russia's massive breach of both government and private networks in the U.S., American intelligence officials "have expressed anger that Microsoft did not detect the attack earlier.

But new criticisms are also falling on SolarWinds: Some of the compromised SolarWinds software was engineered in Eastern Europe, and American investigators are now examining whether the incursion originated there, where Russian intelligence operatives are deeply rooted.... SolarWinds moved much of its engineering to satellite offices in the Czech Republic, Poland and Belarus, where engineers had broad access to the Orion network management software that Russia's agents compromised. The company has said only that the manipulation of its software was the work of human hackers rather than of a computer program. It has not publicly addressed the possibility of an insider being involved in the breach.

None of the SolarWinds customers contacted by The New York Times in recent weeks were aware they were reliant on software that was maintained in Eastern Europe. Many said they did not even know they were using SolarWinds software until recently.

Even with its software installed throughout federal networks, employees said SolarWinds tacked on security only in 2017, under threat of penalty from a new European privacy law. Only then, employees say, did SolarWinds hire its first chief information officer and install a vice president of "security architecture." Ian Thornton-Trump, a former cybersecurity adviser at SolarWinds, said he warned management that year that unless it took a more proactive approach to its internal security, a cybersecurity episode would be "catastrophic." After his basic recommendations were ignored, Mr. Thornton-Trump left the company.

SolarWinds declined to address questions about the adequacy of its security. In a statement, it said it was a "victim of a highly-sophisticated, complex and targeted cyberattack" and was collaborating closely with law enforcement, intelligence agencies and security experts to investigate. But security experts note that it took days after the Russian attack was discovered before SolarWinds' websites stopped offering clients compromised code.
And privately U.S. officials are now also considering the security of the U.S. power grid: Publicly, officials have said they do not believe the hackers from Russia's S.V.R. pierced classified systems containing sensitive communications and plans. But privately, officials say they still do not have a clear picture of what might have been stolen. They said they worried about delicate but unclassified data the hackers might have taken from victims like the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, including Black Start, the detailed technical blueprints for how the United States plans to restore power in the event of a cataclysmic blackout. The plans would give Russia a hit list of systems to target to keep power from being restored in an attack like the one it pulled off in Ukraine in 2015, shutting off power for six hours in the dead of winter. Moscow long ago implanted malware in the American electric grid, and the United States has done the same to Russia as a deterrent....

While EVs are still in the single-digit area of overall vehicle sales, they continue to climb and have already surpassed the sales of vehicles with manual transmissions. Now it seems that the electrification investments made by automakers are getting a boost from another part of the country. From a report: Massachusetts is joining California with a plan to ban the sale of new gasolined-powered cars by 2035. Governor Charlie Baker released a 2050 decarbonization road map that includes the reduction of emissions from passenger cars. Massachusetts states that 27 percent of statewide emissions come from light-duty vehicles (passenger vehicles). The goal is for the state to reach net-zero fossil-fuel emissions by 2050. In order to make sure those EVs are actually usable, the state plans to expand the public charging infrastructure to take into account that many people don't have a garage in which to charge an electric vehicle. The initiatives by California and now Massachusetts could be the beginning of a trend by states to slowly ban the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles. Several European countries have the same types of measures in order to battle climate change. Meanwhile, President-Elect Joe Biden has a plan to speed up the electrification of vehicles in the United States that includes replacing the country's fleets with EVs.

A new era has begun for the United Kingdom after it completed its formal separation from the European Union. From a report: The UK stopped following EU rules at 23:00 GMT, as replacement arrangements for travel, trade, immigration and security co-operation came into force. Boris Johnson said the UK had "freedom in our hands" and the ability to do things "differently and better" now the long Brexit process was over. But opponents of leaving the EU maintain the country will be worse off.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, whose ambition it is to take an independent Scotland back into the EU, tweeted: "Scotland will be back soon, Europe. Keep the light on." BBC Europe editor Katya Adler said there was a sense of relief in Brussels that the Brexit process was over, "but there is regret still at Brexit itself". The first lorries arriving at the borders entered the UK and EU without delay. On Friday evening, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps tweeted that border traffic had been "low due to [the] bank holiday" but there had been no disruption in Kent as "hundreds" of lorries crossed the Channel with a "small" number turned back.

A marine biologist's ideas for singling out sharks that attack humans have prompted objections from other shark scientists. From a report: The war on sharks has been waged with shock and awe at times. When a shark bit or killed a swimmer, people within the past century might take out hundreds of the marine predators to quell the panic, like executing everyone in a police lineup in order to ensure justice was dispensed on the guilty party. Eric Clua, a professor of marine biology at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris, said the rationale behind shark culls in the past was simple: fewer sharks, fewer attacks. That reasoning also drives methods such as shark nets and baited hooks, which are currently in use at a number of Australian and South African beaches that are frequently visited by sharks. Nature, he notes, pays too great a price. "They are killing sharks that are guilty of nothing," said Dr. Clua, who studies the ocean predators up close in the South Pacific.

Dr. Clua said he has found a way to make precision strikes on sharks that have attacked people through a form of DNA profiling he calls "biteprinting." He believes it's usually just solo "problem sharks" that attack humans repeatedly, analogizing them to terrestrial predators that have been documented behaving the same way. Instead of culling every bear, tiger or lion when only one has serially attacked people, wildlife managers on land usually focus their ire on the culprit. Dr. Clua said that problem sharks could be dispatched the same way. This summer, Dr. Clua and several colleagues published their latest paper on collecting DNA from the biteprints of large numbers of sharks. Once a database is built, DNA could be collected from the wounds of people who were bitten by sharks, and matched to a known shark. The offending fish would then need to be found and killed. Critics have taken issue with every facet of this plan.

Neda Ulaby, writing for NPR: What a year it was for Anglo-American literature and the arts! 1925 was the year of heralded novels by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Virginia Woolf, seminal works by Sinclair Lewis, Franz Kafka, Gertrude Stein, Agatha Christie, Theodore Dreiser, Edith Wharton, Aldous Huxley ... and a banner year for musicians, too. Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, the Gershwins, Duke Ellington and Fats Waller, among hundreds of others, made important recordings. And 1925 marked the release of canonical movies from silent film comedians Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. As of today, every single one of those works has entered the public domain. "That means that copyright has expired," explains Jennifer Jenkins, a law professor at Duke University who directs its Center for the Study of the Public Domain. "And all of the works are free for anyone to use, reuse, build upon for anyone -- without paying a fee."

theodp writes: According to an Amazon job listing for a contract position, the e-tailer is seeking a lead for a new Amazon Future Engineer program in India that's set to launch in 2021. "The initial research for Amazon Future Engineer in India," Amazon explains, "is currently underway and we look to the chosen candidate to dive deep into operationalizing the program to what is relevant for India and the student needs. The role involves working with local non-profits and government officials to deeply understand the needs of the students. They will utilize this research and feedback to build trust and implement a unique program addressing needs for different aged students, childhood to career. They will quickly diagnose any structural barriers with CS education policy/adoption by region, while also exercising a bias for action to get programs launched in 2021. This role will require strategic planning, ability to manage a budget and implement programs at a large scale."

In its press release celebrating record-breaking holiday sales in 2020, Amazon on Monday pointed out that its Amazon Future Engineer (AFE) program more than doubled its reach in the U.S. during the pandemic and is now serving more than 5,000 schools and 550,000 students in need with computer science coursework, largely by providing access to online courses from Edhesive.

Launched in 2018 with the goal of inspiring 10+ million kids each year to explore CS, Amazon explained that AFE is part of a $50 million commitment it made to CS and STEM education in 2017. Microsoft President Brad Smith later revealed in his 2019 book Tools and Weapons that the $50 million investments in CS+STEM education that Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Salesforce each committed to in 2017 were part of a $300 million private sector pledge that Smith indicated was needed to get Ivanka Trump to persuade her father to fund K-12 CS; the President ultimately issued an Executive Order requiring the U.S. Dept. of Education to spend $1 billion on K-12 CS+STEM education.

Tech's biggest companies just wrapped up a huge year. From a report: The seven most valuable U.S. technology companies -- Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook, Tesla and Nvidia -- picked up a combined $3.4 trillion in market cap in 2020, powering through a global pandemic and broader economic crisis. Between continued optimism over iPhone sales, Microsoft's growing Teams collaboration product, Amazon's ongoing control of e-commerce and the strength of Google and Facebook's online ad duopoly, Big Tech was neither slowed by Covid-19 nor the rising number of investigations into its dominance. Tesla's wild rally served as the biggest surprise. The stock climbed almost ninefold this year, lifting the electric car maker's market cap from $76 billion at the beginning of the year to $669 billion at Thursday's close. Despite initial factory closures due to the pandemic, Tesla bounced back to deliver a record number of vehicles in the third quarter.

The New York Stock Exchange said it will delist three Chinese companies to comply with a U.S. executive order that imposed restrictions on companies that were identified as affiliated with the Chinese military. From a report: China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom Hong Kong will be delisted between Jan. 7 and Jan. 11, according to a statement by the exchange.

Alphabet's drone delivery unit Wing criticized Trump administration rules issued this week mandating broadcast-based remote identification of drones, saying they should be revised to allow for internet-based tracking. From a report: On Monday, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued rules that will allow small drones to fly over people and at night in the United States and mandate remote identification technology for nearly all drones. The rules eliminate requirements that drones, known formally as unmanned aerial vehicles, be connected to the internet to transmit location data but requires them to broadcast remote ID messages via radio frequency broadcast. "This approach creates barriers to compliance and will have unintended negative privacy impacts for businesses and consumers," Wing said Thursday in a blog post, adding "an observer tracking a drone can infer sensitive information about specific users, including where they visit, spend time, and live and where customers receive packages from and when." Wing added that "American communities would not accept this type of surveillance of their deliveries or taxi trips on the road. They should not accept it in the sky."

T-Mobile has announced a data breach exposing customers' proprietary network information (CPNI), including phone numbers and call records. From a report: Starting this week, T-Mobile began texting customers that a "security incident" exposed their account's information. According to T-Mobile, its security team recently discovered "malicious, unauthorized access" to their systems. After bringing in a cybersecurity firm to perform an investigation, T-Mobile found that threat actors gained access to the telecommunications information generated by customers, known as CPNI. The information exposed in this breach includes phone numbers, call records, and the number of lines on an account.

Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries will soon complete in Austria the world's largest steel plant capable of attaining net-zero carbon dioxide emissions. Mitsubishi Heavy, through a British unit, is constructing the pilot plant at a complex of Austrian steelmaker Voestalpine. Trial operation is slated to begin in 2021. From a report: The plant will use hydrogen instead of coal in the reduction process for iron ore. The next-generation equipment will produce 250,000 tons of steel product a year. The global steel industry generated about 2 billion tons of CO2 in 2018, according to the International Energy Agency -- double the volume in 2000. The steel sector's share among all industries grew 5 percentage points to 25%. Iron ore reduction accounts for much of the CO2 emissions in steelmaking. Japanese steelmakers including Nippon Steel are developing hydrogen-consuming reduction processes based on the conventional blast furnace design. Mitsubishi Heavy's plant adopts a process called direct reduced iron, or DRI. New blast furnaces require trillions of yen (1 trillion yen equals $9.6 billion) in investment. Although DRI equipment produces less steel, the investment is estimated at less than half of blast furnaces. For DRI to attain the same level of cost-competitiveness as blast furnaces, low-cost hydrogen will be key. Market costs for hydrogen now stand at around 100 yen per normal cu. meter, estimates the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

Bloomberg Editorial Board: Amid raging wildfires, rolling blackouts and a worsening coronavirus outbreak, it has not been a great year for California. Unfortunately, the state is also reeling from a manmade disaster: an exodus of thriving companies to other states. In just the past few months, Hewlett Packard Enterprise said it was leaving for Houston. Oracle said it would decamp for Austin. Palantir, Charles Schwab and McKesson are all bound for greener pastures. No less an information-age avatar than Elon Musk has had enough. He thinks regulators have grown "complacent" and "entitled" about the state's world-class tech companies. No doubt, he has a point. Silicon Valley's high-tech cluster has been the envy of the world for decades, but there's nothing inevitable about its success. As many cities have found in recent years, building such agglomerations is exceedingly hard, as much art as science. Low taxes, modest regulation, sound infrastructure and good education systems all help, but aren't always sufficient. Once squandered, moreover, such dynamism can't easily be revived. With competition rising across the U.S., the area's policy makers need to recognize the dangers ahead.

In recent years, San Francisco has seemed to be begging for companies to leave. In addition to familiar failures of governance -- widespread homelessness, inadequate transit, soaring property crime -- it has also imposed more idiosyncratic hindrances. Far from welcoming experimentation, it has sought to undermine or stamp out home-rental services, food-delivery apps, ride-hailing firms, electric-scooter companies, facial-recognition technology, delivery robots and more, even as the pioneers in each of those fields attempted to set up shop in the city. It tried to ban corporate cafeterias -- a major tech-industry perk -- on the not-so-sound theory that this would protect local restaurants. It created an "Office of Emerging Technology" that will only grant permission to test new products if they're deemed, in a city bureaucrat's view, to provide a "net common good." Whatever the merits of such meddling, it's hardly a formula for unbounded inventiveness.

These two traits -- poor governance and animosity toward business -- have collided calamitously with respect to the city's housing market. Even as officials offered tax breaks for tech companies to headquarter themselves downtown, they mostly refused to lift residential height limits, modify zoning rules or allow significant new construction to accommodate the influx of new workers. They then expressed shock that rents and home prices were soaring -- and blamed the tech companies. California's legislature has only made matters worse. A bill it enacted in 2019, ostensibly intended to protect gig workers, threatened to undo the business models of some of the state's biggest tech companies until voters granted them a reprieve in a November referendum. A new privacy law has imposed immense compliance burdens -- amounting to as much as 1.8% of state output in 2018 -- while conferring almost no consumer benefits. An 8.8% state corporate tax rate and 13.3% top income-tax rate (the nation's highest) haven't helped.

For the first time since the service arrived in April 2018, the ESPN+ annual plan is getting a price increase. From January 8th, it'll cost new members $59.99 instead of $49.99. Existing annual subscribers will have until at least March 2nd to renew their plan for $50. From a report: The monthly plan went up by $1 to $5.99 in August, so opting for an annual subscription instead of going month-to-month will save you $12 over a year. Of course, you'll save more if you lock in an annual plan before the increase.

Ticketmaster will pay a $10 million criminal fine to avoid prosecution on U.S. charges it repeatedly accessed the computer systems of a rival whose assets its parent Live Nation Entertainment Inc later purchased. From a report: The fine is part of a three-year deferred prosecution agreement between Ticketmaster and the U.S. Department of Justice, which was disclosed at a Wednesday hearing before U.S. District Judge Margo Brodie in Brooklyn federal court. Ticketmaster's agreement resolves five criminal counts including wire fraud, conspiracy and computer intrusion. It also requires the Beverly Hills, California-based company to maintain compliance and ethics procedures designed to detect and prevent computer-related theft. Ticketmaster primarily sells and distributes tickets to concerts and other events. Prosecutors said that from August 2013 to December 2015, Ticketmaster employees used stolen passwords to repeatedly access computers belonging to its rival to obtain confidential business information. The rival, Songkick, specialized in artist presales, in which some tickets -- often around 8% -- are set aside for fans before general ticket sales begin, in part to foil scalpers.

The Moynihan Train Hall, with glass skylights and 92-foot-high ceilings, will open Jan. 1 as an area for Amtrak and Long Island Railroad riders. The New York Times: For more than half a century, New Yorkers have trudged through the crammed platforms, dark hallways and oppressively low ceilings of Pennsylvania Station, the busiest and perhaps most miserable train hub in North America. Entombed beneath Madison Square Garden, the station served 650,000 riders each weekday before the pandemic, or three times the number it was built to handle. But as more commuters return to Penn Station next year, they will be welcomed by a new, $1.6 billion train hall complete with over an acre of glass skylights, art installations and 92-foot-high ceilings that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who championed the project, has likened to the majestic Grand Central Terminal. After nearly three years of construction, the new Moynihan Train Hall, in the James A. Farley Post Office building across Eighth Avenue from Penn Station, will open to the public on Jan. 1 as a waiting room for Amtrak and Long Island Rail Road passengers.

For decades, the huge undertaking was considered an absolution of sorts for one of the city's greatest sins: the demolition in the 1960s of the original Penn Station building, an awe-inspiring structure that was a stately gateway to the country's economic powerhouse. The destruction of the station was a turning point in New York's civic life. It prompted a fierce backlash among defenders of the city's architectural heritage, the creation of the Landmarks Preservation Commission and renewed efforts to protect Grand Central Terminal. That the project has been completed during a period when the city was brought to a standstill is a hopeful reminder that the bustle of Midtown Manhattan will return, Mr. Cuomo said. The train hall "sends a clear message to the world that while we suffered greatly as a result of this once-in-a-century health crisis, the pandemic did not stop us from dreaming big and building for the future," he added. The project has its detractors, who fault state officials for not going far enough in reimagining Penn Station. These critics note that the Moynihan Train Hall will serve only some of the passengers who use Penn Station, ignoring the needs of subway riders.

Amazon announced Wednesday that it's acquiring podcasting company Wondery, expanding its catalog of original audio content. From a report: As part of the deal, Wondery will join Amazon Music, the e-commerce giant's music streaming business. Amazon Music in September added podcasts to its platform, looking to carve out a share of the increasingly competitive podcasting market, in which Spotify, Apple and others have gained ground. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. Wondery, founded in 2016, has produced some of the most popular podcasts in recent years, including true crime series like "Dirty John," "Dr. Death" and "Over My Dead Body." The podcast producer and network says it counts more than 10 million unique listeners each month. WSJ reported earlier this month that Amazon was valuing Wondery at over $300 million in advanced stages of talks before the acquisition.

Detente is ending in the global fight over tech taxes. Earlier this year, France agreed to suspend collection of a tax on digital revenue from large technology companies such as Facebook, Amazon and Alphabet's Google. Meanwhile, the U.S. delayed the application of tariffs it was putting on French goods in retaliation for the tax. But now France has resumed collecting what is known as its digital-services tax, a French official said. Other countries, including Italy and the U.K., whose similar taxes went into effect this year, are also set to begin collection in coming months. From a report: The U.S., meanwhile, is set on Jan. 6 to impose tariffs on $1.3 billion of French imports, including cosmetics and handbags. Washington also has pending investigations that could lead to similar tariffs on 10 other countries, including the U.K., Italy, India and Spain. At issue in the dispute is how to tax an increasingly digital economy. For decades, tax treaties have generally allocated corporate profit based on where value is created. But modern multinationals -- particularly ones with digital offerings -- can sell their products across borders in ways that leave little taxable profit in a country where those products are consumed.

France and some other big European countries say tech companies should pay more taxes in the countries where their users and clients are located, something that could boost their tax revenues. But in long-running multilateral talks on how to update the tax system, the U.S. has opposed any solution that is too targeted at tech companies -- slowing progress. "These taxes are a reaction to dissatisfaction with how long it has taken to get a global multilateral solution," said Manal Corwin, who served as deputy assistant secretary for international affairs at the U.S. Treasury Department in the Obama administration, and now works at accounting firm KPMG. "You may need some trade battles back and forth before there's a strong incentive to say, 'OK, enough.'"

On Tuesday night, McConnell introduced a new bill tying increased stimulus payments to a full repeal of Section 230. From a report: The bill comes amid new momentum for direct $2000 stimulus payments, and increasing pressure on party leaders to appease President Trump's escalating demands. Democratic party leaders criticized the inclusion of Section 230 repeal as an effort to scuttle stimulus talks. "Senator McConnell knows how to make $2,000 survival checks reality and he knows how to kill them," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a statement Tuesday. "Will Senate Republicans go along with Sen. McConnell's cynical gambit or will they push him to give a vote on the standalone [bill]?"

McConnell's bid for a full repeal of Section 230 comes amid increasingly chaotic negotiating over the level of direct payments to be included as part of stimulus efforts. On Sunday, President Trump signed into law Congress' $900 billion COVID-19 relief and government spending package that would provide $600 in stimulus payments to most Americans. In a public statement after signing the bill, Trump urged congressional leaders to hold a standalone vote on increasing direct payments to $2,000.

VMware said that one of its former top executives, Rajiv Ramaswami, violated his contractual obligations while being courted to be the chief executive officer of rival Nutanix, adding another dimension to a bitter rivalry between the two software makers. From a report: VMware's lawsuit against Ramaswami, who was named CEO on Dec. 9, was filed Monday in California state court in San Jose. The company accused its former chief operating officer of products and cloud services of meeting with Nutanix executives and board members while helping VMware craft a strategy and acquisitions road map. VMware, majority owned by Dell Technologies, said the executive's actions and knowledge of its plans has caused "irreparable injury." Nutanix, which wasn't named as a defendant in the suit, called the case "misguided" and said it's an attempt by VMware to hurt a competitor.

"We cannot unring the bell of that conflict that existed during that two-month period that he was engaged with Nutanix while involved in planning for us," Brooks Beard, a VMware vice president and deputy general counsel, said in an interview. "Through this lawsuit, we're hoping that we can find a way to protect VMware's rights and interests, steps that we would have taken, could have taken, had he alerted us of this conflict." The Palo, Alto-based software maker may seek to recoup its compensation to Ramaswami during the time period and wants to "meaningfully engage" with the executive and his new employer to ensure they won't use confidential VMware information to make competitive decisions, Beard added.

Like everybody else, book publishers will be happy to see the end of 2020. But for many of them, the year has brought some positive news, which has been as welcome as it was surprising: Business has been good. From a report: With so many people stuck at home and activities from concerts to movies off limits, people have been reading a lot -- or at least buying a lot of books. Print sales by units are up almost 8 percent so far this year, according to NPD BookScan. E-books and audiobooks, which make up a smaller portion of the market, are up as well. "I expect that at the end of the year, when you look at the final numbers," Madeline McIntosh, chief executive of Penguin Random House U.S., said of the industry, "it will have been the best year in a very long time." When the United States slammed shut in March, book sales dropped sharply, but the dip didn't last. While some parts of the industry have continued to struggle, like bookstores and educational publishers, publishing executives say that demand came rushing back around June.

Many of these sales went to Amazon, but big-box stores, especially Target, also did well. As essential businesses that sold things like groceries, they were allowed to stay open through the lockdowns. Dennis Abboud, chief executive of ReaderLink, a book distributor to major chains like Walmart, Target and Costco, said his company's online sales nearly quadrupled over last year. "It was really a tale of two cities," Mr. Abboud said. "The beginning of the year was mega soft, and the end of the year was mega strong." Even though the number of people commuting has plummeted this year, audiobook revenue is up more than 17 percent over the same period in 2019, according to the Association of American Publishers, and e-book sales, which had been declining for the past several years, are up more than 16 percent.

References to decades-old computer software are included in the new Brexit agreement, including a description of Netscape Communicator and Mozilla Mail as being "modern" services. From a report: Experts believe officials must have copied and pasted chunks of text from old legislation into the document. The references are on page 921 of the trade deal, in a section on encryption technology. It also recommends using systems that are now vulnerable to cyber-attacks. The text cites "modern e-mail software packages including Outlook, Mozilla Mail as well as Netscape Communicator 4.x." The latter two are now defunct - the last major release of Netscape Communicator was in 1997. The document also recommends using 1024-bit RSA encryption and the SHA-1 hashing algorithm, which are both outdated and vulnerable to cyber-attacks.