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Richard Lawler

Richard Lawler

Senior News Editor

Senior News Editor

    More From Richard Lawler

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    BAYC layoffs.

    Yuga Labs, the $4 billion outfit behind the Bored Apes and other NFT projects, announced recently “that a number of roles have been eliminated across the company,” with restructuring cutting jobs in the US and leaving international roles under evaluation.

    Now Yuga’s going “all-in on our Otherside strategy,” referring to its metaverse gaming land grab.

    Meanwhile, someone continues to trade the tokens at prices of more than $40,000, and despite the NFT market’s ongoing slide, projects like Starbucks Odyssey and Nike’s .SWOOSH keep trying to make it catch on.

    On Today's News

    [Yuga Labs News]

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Vermont power company’s plan to ‘end outages’ by 2030 includes installing lots of batteries.

    The New York Times and WCAX 3 in Vermont report on a regulatory filing submitted by Green Mountain Power Company asking to spend $280 million to bury power cables, add spacers to cables that can’t be buried, and install more battery backup storage units for customers in the most remote rural areas.

    NYT:

    Green Mountain would control the batteries, allowing it to program them to soak up energy when wind turbines and solar panels were producing a lot of it. Then, when demand peaked on a hot summer day, say, the batteries could release electricity.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Important Information to Share with Chinese Government.

    That is the title of a Word document allegedly created by Joseph Schmidt, a former US Army Sergeant with Top Secret clearance.

    After his separation from the military, Schmidt allegedly reached out to the Chinese Consulate in Turkey and later, the Chinese security services via email offering information about national defense information.

    The FBI affidavit details info collected from his Google, Apple, and Microsoft accounts, showing he searched topics like “can you be extradited for treason,” and visited “What Do Real Spies Do and How are they Recruited – Reddit,” as well as this AMA by a former CIA intelligence officer.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    India’s government tells social media sites to remove CSAM from their platforms, or else.

    Reuters reports that X (fka Twitter), YouTube, and Telegram were sent notices by India’s federal Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) requesting prompt and permanent removal of any child sexual abuse material.

    “If they do not act swiftly, their safe harbour under section 79 of the IT Act would be withdrawn and consequences under the Indian law will follow,” India’s junior minister for Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrashekhar, was quoted as saying in the statement.

    None of the platforms have been able to entirely block that material, but some may have more trouble with the request than others.

    India tells X, Youtube, Telegram to remove any child sexual abuse material from platforms

    [Reuters]

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    iFixit goes inside the iPhone 15.

    Having already applied their screwdrivers and other tools to the iPhone 15 Pro, the folks at iFixit have now turned to the base iPhone 15 model, even looking at its internals under a microscope.

    They also point out that these models lack the Pro version’s A17 chipset with an integrated USB controller that enables higher USB-C transfer speeds but still ding the phones for Apple’s software locks that hamper repairability outside of authorized shops with access to the company’s pairing tools.

    And, of course, you can watch our storystream to follow all of the updates about the iPhone 15 lineup.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Former FTX CTO Gary Wang is on the stand.

    The government’s prosecution of Sam Bankman-Fried continues where it left off Thursday, with another former college roommate and alleged co-conspirator testifying against the former FTX CEO about exactly how all that customer money ended up being used for SBF’s other interests.

    You can read up on all of the details about the missing billions right here, ahead of another trial update later today from The Verge’s Liz Lopatto, who is in the courtroom right now.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    It is Bandcamp Friday.

    Even though ownership of the company is changing, this remains, at least for now.

    The monthly waiver of commissions is scheduled to continue through the rest of this year, on November 3rd and December 1st.

    Forza Motorsport looks and feels like Forza but with an RPG hiding under the hood

    The new Forza Motorsport’s strengths are in the sections you can’t see with your eyes, like better physics, AI, and audio.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Apple’s headset will support screen mirroring to other devices.

    One of the questions about how Vision Pro users will be able to share content with people who don’t have their own $3,500 headset may be answered, as MacRumors points out code discovered in Apple’s visionOS 1.0 beta 4 release about mirroring content to other devices and sharing via AirPlay or FaceTime.

    Another string in the code is a new alert for situations where “This video has excess motion, and could cause discomfort if expanded.”

    Apple Vision Pro to Support Screen Mirroring via AirPlay and Other Tidbits

    [MacRumors]

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    In Germany, Google has to add new options about how it will process user data.

    In certain situations, like using Gmail, Google News, Assistant, Contacts, or Google TV, personal data will be combined across different services it offers or with data from non-Google sources.

    This is the arrangement set up by Germany’s Federal Cartel Office, or Bundeskartellamt, after an antitrust inquiry under a provision allowing it to intervene “when competition is threatened by large digital companies.”

    In the future Google will have to provide its users with the possibility to give free, specific, informed and unambiguous consent to the processing of their data across services. For this purpose Google has to offer corresponding choice options for the combination of data. The selection dialogues must be designed so as not to guide users manipulatively towards cross-service data processing (avoiding “dark patterns”).

    Where data are not actually processed across services and Google’s data processing terms explicitly make this clear, Google will not have to offer choice options. Any obligations under the General Data Protection Regulation remain unaffected by these obligations.

    The regulator mentions it’s still conducting more proceedings against Google (Alphabet), Amazon, Apple, Facebook (Meta), and Microsoft.

    Google agrees to reform its data terms after German antitrust intervention | TechCrunch

    [TechCrunch]

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