An anonymous reader writes: I thought I had malware on my main Windows 11 machine this weekend. There I was minding my own business in Chrome before tabbing back to a game and wham a pop-up appeared asking me to switch my default search engine to Microsoft Bing in Chrome. Stunningly, Microsoft now thinks it's ok to shove a pop-up in my face above my apps and games just because I dare to use Chrome instead of Microsoft Edge. This isn't a normal notification, either. It didn't appear in the notification center in Windows 11, nor is it connected to the part of Windows 11 that suggests new features to you. It's quite literally a rogue executable file that has somehow appeared in c:\windows\temp\mubstemp and is digitally signed by Microsoft.

"We are aware of these reports and have paused this notification while we investigate and take appropriate action to address this unintended behavior," says Caitlin Roulston, director of communications, in a statement to The Verge. [...] This isn't Microsoft's first rodeo, either. I'm growing increasingly frustrated by the company's methods of getting people to switch from Google and Chrome to Bing and Edge. Microsoft has been using a variety of prompts for years now, with pop-ups appearing inside Chrome, on the Windows taskbar, and elsewhere. Microsoft has even forced people into Edge after a Windows Update, and regularly presents a full-screen message to switch to Bing and Edge after updates.

SonicSpike shares a report from NASA: In 2023, NASA is sending a technology demonstration known as the Integrated LCRD Low Earth Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal (ILLUMA-T) to the space station. Together, ILLUMA-T and the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD), which launched in December 2021, will complete NASA's first two-way, end-to-end laser relay system. With ILLUMA-T, NASA's Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program office will demonstrate the power of laser communications from the space station. Using invisible infrared light, laser communications systems send and receive information at higher data rates. With higher data rates, missions can send more images and videos back to Earth in a single transmission. Once installed on the space station, ILLUMA-T will showcase the benefits higher data rates could have for missions in low Earth orbit.

"Laser communications offer missions more flexibility and an expedited way to get data back from space," said Badri Younes, former deputy associate administrator for NASA's SCaN program. "We are integrating this technology on demonstrations near Earth, at the Moon, and in deep space." In addition to higher data rates, laser systems are lighter and use less power -- a key benefit when designing spacecraft. ILLUMA-T is approximately the size of a standard refrigerator and will be secured to an external module on the space station to conduct its demonstration with LCRD. Currently, LCRD is showcasing the benefits of a laser relay in geosynchronous orbit -- 22,000 miles from Earth -- by beaming data between two ground stations and conducting experiments to further refine NASA's laser capabilities. "Once ILLUMA-T is on the space station, the terminal will send high-resolution data, including pictures and videos to LCRD at a rate of 1.2 gigabits-per-second," said Matt Magsamen, deputy project manager for ILLUMA-T. "Then, the data will be sent from LCRD to ground stations in Hawaii and California. This demonstration will show how laser communications can benefit missions in low Earth orbit."

ILLUMA-T is launching as a payload on SpaceX's 29th Commercial Resupply Services mission for NASA. In the first two weeks after its launch, ILLUMA-T will be removed from the Dragon spacecraft's trunk for installation on the station's Japanese Experiment Module-Exposed Facility (JEM-EF), also known as "Kibo" -- meaning "hope" in Japanese. NASA's Laser Communications Roadmap. Following the payload's installation, the ILLUMA-T team will perform preliminary testing and in-orbit checkouts. Once completed, the team will make a pass for the payload's first light -- a critical milestone where the mission transmits its first beam of laser light through its optical telescope to LCRD. Once first light is achieved, data transmission and laser communications experiments will begin and continue throughout the duration of the planned mission.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Sports leagues are urging the US to require "instantaneous" takedowns of pirated livestreams and new requirements for Internet service providers to block pirate websites. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 requires websites to "expeditiously" remove infringing material upon being notified of its existence. But pirated livestreams of sports events often aren't taken down while the events are ongoing, said comments submitted last week by Ultimate Fighting Championship, the National Basketball Association, and National Football League.

The "DMCA does not define 'expeditiously,' and OSPs [online service providers] have exploited this ambiguity in the statutory language to delay removing content in response to takedown requests," the leagues told the US Patent and Trademark Office in response to a request for comments on addressing counterfeiting and piracy. The leagues urged the US "to establish that, in the case of live content, the requirement to 'expeditiously' remove infringing content means that content must be removed 'instantaneously or near-instantaneously' in response to a takedown request." The leagues claimed the change "would be a relatively modest and non-controversial update to the DMCA that could be included in the broader reforms being considered by Congress or could be addressed separately." They also want stricter "verification measures before a user is permitted to livestream."

The UFC separately submitted comments on its own, urging the US to require that ISPs block pirate sites. The UFC said that a "significant and growing" number of websites, typically operated from outside the US, don't respond to takedown requests and thus should be blocked by broadband network operators. The UFC wrote: "Unlike many other jurisdictions around the world, the US lacks a 'site-blocking' regime whereby copyright owners may obtain no-fault injunctions requiring domestic Internet service providers to block websites that are primarily geared at infringing activity. A 'site-blocking' regime, with appropriate safeguards to prevent abuse, would substantially facilitate all copyright owners' ability to address piracy, including UFC's." Website-blocking is bound to be a controversial topic, although the Federal Communications Commission's now-repeated net neutrality rules only prohibited blocking of "lawful Internet traffic." While the UFC said it just wants "websites that are primarily geared at infringing activity" to be blocked, a site-blocking regime could be used more expansively if there aren't strict limits.

An advertising watchdog has recommended that YouTube TV, Google's growing pay-TV streaming service, drops an ad claim that the service is "$600 less than cable." The recommendation from the National Advertising Division (NAD) stems from a complaint lodged by Charter Communications. From a report: NAD, which used an expedited process for single-issue advertising cases in making this decision, found that YouTube TV's pricing claim, which identifies "comparable standalone cable" as the basis of comparison, doesn't hold up. NAD noted that the price calculation underlying the challenged claim includes the cost of two set-top boxes per household for "standalone cable" services," but argued that such a comparison isn't a good fit because operators such as Charter offer pay-TV streaming options that may not require a set-top box. In Charter's case, its Spectrum TV app, billed as a platform that can "stream outside the cable box," is compatible with iOS and Android mobile devices along with several retail streaming devices and/or integrated connected TVs from companies such as Apple, Roku, Google and Samsung. "In the context of the 'cable' comparison, NAD found the claim reasonably conveys the cost of YouTube TV is compared to all cable services," the organization explained.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A federal judge yesterday granted Google's motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee (RNC), which claims that Google intentionally used Gmail's spam filter to suppress Republicans' fundraising emails. An order (PDF) dismissing the lawsuit was issued yesterday by US District Judge Daniel Calabretta. The RNC is seeking "recovery for donations it allegedly lost as a result of its emails not being delivered to its supporters' inboxes," Calabretta noted. But Google correctly argued that the lawsuit claims are barred by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the judge wrote. The RNC lawsuit was filed in October 2022 in US District Court for the Eastern District of California.

"While it is a close case, the Court concludes that... the RNC has not sufficiently pled that Google acted in bad faith in filtering the RNC's messages into Gmail users' spam folders, and that doing so was protected by Section 230. On the merits, the Court concludes that each of the RNC's claims fail as a matter of law for the reasons described below," he wrote. Calabretta, a Biden appointee, called it "concerning that Gmail's spam filter has a disparate impact on the emails of one political party, and that Google is aware of and has not yet been able to correct this bias." But he noted that "other large email providers have exhibited some sort of political bias" and that if Google did not filter spam, it would harm its users by subjecting them "to harmful malware or harassing messages. On the whole, Google's spam filter, though in this instance imperfect, is not morally blameworthy."

The RNC was given leave to amend another claim that alleged intentional interference with prospective economic relations under California law. The judge dismissed the claim as follows: "The RNC argues that Google's conduct was independently wrongful because '(1) it is political discrimination against the RNC, (2) it is dishonest to Google's users and the public, and (3) Google repeatedly lied about it.' As established above, political discrimination is not prohibited by California anti-discrimination laws and so Google's alleged discrimination would not be unlawful. The latter two reasons do not provide a 'determinable legal standard' under which the Court could find the conduct wrongful; they rest on a 'nebulous' theory of wrongfulness which other courts have rejected." The RNC "has failed to establish that Defendant's alleged interference constituted a separate, independently 'wrongful act' that would be an appropriate predicate offense" but "will be granted leave to amend this claim to establish that Defendant's conduct was unlawful by some legal measure," Calabretta wrote. Google said in a statement: "We welcome the Court's finding that there are no plausible allegations that Gmail's spam filters discriminate for political purposes. We will continue investing in spam-filtering technologies that protect people from unwanted emails while still allowing senders to reach the inboxes of users who want their messages."

T-Mobile USA is cutting 7% of its staff, part of an effort to rein in costs as the company spends heavily to attract new subscribers in an increasingly competitive market. From a report: The move will affect about 5,000 positions, mostly corporate and back-office staff along with some technology roles, T-Mobile said in a regulatory filing. Retail and consumer-care experts won't be impacted. Chief Executive Officer Mike Sievert said in a letter to employees that the cost of attracting and retaining customers is "materially more expensive than it was just a few quarters ago." Building out the company's high-speed internet business and efforts in other areas "is not enough to deliver on these changing customer expectations going forward," he said.

A two-year human trial conducted by James Cook University (JCU) has concluded, demonstrating positive results using low-dose human hookworm therapy to treat chronic conditions, particularly in relation to type 2 diabetes. New Atlas reports: [O]f the 24 participants who received worms, when offered a dewormer at the end of the second year of the trial, with the option to stay in the study for another 12 months, only one person chose to kill off their gut buddies -- and it was only because they had an impending planned medical procedure. "All trial participants had risk factors for developing cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes," said Dr Doris Pierce, from JCU's Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine (AITHM). "The trial delivered some considerable metabolic benefits to the hookworm-treated recipients, particularly those infected with 20 larvae."

In this double-blinded trial, 40 participants aged 27 to 50, with early signs of metabolic diseases, took part. They received either 20 or 40 microscopic larvae of the human hookworm species Necator americanus; another group took a placebo. As an intestinal parasite, the best survival skill is to keep the host healthy, which will provide a long-term stable home with nutrients 'on tap.' In return, these hookworms pay the rent in the form of creating an environment that suppresses inflammation and other adverse conditions that can upset that stable home. While the small, round worms can live for a decade, they don't multiply unless outside the body, and good hygiene means transmission risk is very low.

As for the results, those with 20 hookworms saw a Homeostatic Model Assessment of Insulin Resistance (HOMA-IR) level drop from 3.0 units to 1.8 units within the first year, which restored their insulin resistance to a healthy range. The cohort with 40 hookworms still experienced a drop, from 2.4 to 2.0. Those who received the placebo saw their HOMA-IR levels increase from 2.2 to 2.9 during the same time frame. "These lowered HOMA-IR values indicated that people were experiencing considerable improvements in insulin sensitivity -- results that were both clinically and statistically significant," said Dr Pierce. Those with worms also had higher levels of cytokines, which play a vital role in triggering immune responses. The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.

SK Telecom, South Korea's dominant mobile carrier and sibling of chipmaker SK hynix, has declared that 5G was over-hyped, has under-delivered, and has failed to deliver a killer app. From a report: The telco offered that assessment in a recent white paper titled "5G Lessons Learned, 6G Key Requirements, 6G Network Evolution, and 6G Spectrum." The paper opens with an unflattering assessment of 5G, which the authors recall being sold as an enabler of autonomous driving, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAM), extended reality (XR) and digital twins. Those applications were possible, but did not succeed due to a combination of "device form factor constraints, immaturity of device and service technology, low or absent market demand, and policy/regulation issues."

The performance of 5G networks was not the issue, the paper argues. The telco argued that some of the goals set out by the UN's international standardization org ITU-R for 5G were met, but many tasks are still far from completion four years into the technology's commercial deployment. Those goals were meant to be realized in the long term -- but that expectation was not accurately conveyed to consumers, leading to "excessive expectations."

The Biden administration on Monday continued its push toward internet-for-all by 2030, announcing about $667 million in new grants and loans to build more broadband infrastructure in the rural U.S. From a report: "With this investment, we're getting funding to communities in every corner of the country because we believe that no kid should have to sit in the back of a mama's car in a McDonald's parking lot in order to do homework," said Mitch Landrieu, the White House's infrastructure coordinator, in a call with reporters. The 37 new recipients represent the fourth round of funding under the program, dubbed ReConnect by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Another 37 projects received $771.4 million in grants and loans announced in April and June.

The money flowing through federal broadband programs, including what was announced Monday and the $42.5 billion infrastructure program detailed earlier this summer, will lead to a new variation on "the electrification of rural America," Landrieu said, repeating a common Biden administration refrain. The largest award went to the Ponderosa Telephone Co. in California, which received more than $42 million to deploy fiber networks in Fresno County. In total, more than 1,200 people, 12 farms and 26 other businesses will benefit from that effort alone, according to USDA.

Amazon held an all-hands meeting where Adam Selipsky, head of Amazon's cloud computing business, "wouldn't give employees any data to back up the decision to require workers to come back to the office," reports the Seattle Times.

"But he did have some stories to share, according to an Amazon Web Services employee who attended the all-hands meeting," with one anecdote highlighting "the serendipity" that can happen with a return to the office. For some Amazon employees, "serendipity" isn't enough. Workers who have asked the company to share data have been provided anecdotes and a consistent trope that innovation is more likely to happen in person. That has left some workers feeling demoralized, distracted and undervalued as they struggle to stay focused and motivated, according to interviews and internal communications shared with The Times. An Amazon manager, who is based on the East Coast and asked to speak anonymously to protect their job, said it is "dehumanizing," and feels as if leadership doesn't trust its employees to understand their reasoning. In Slack messages, employees anonymously posted that Amazon's decisions were "dystopian" and creating "just a horrible situation...."

The company declined requests from The Times to share any data points that factored into its decision to change the remote work policy. Amazon workers have been asking the company for more information since it announced the change in February. The mandate went into effect in May... Mike Hopkins, senior vice president at Prime Video and Amazon Studios, told employees at another all-hands meeting that the return to office is working, according to a copy of his remarks Amazon shared with The Times. "I don't have data to back it up, but I know it's better...." The East Coast-based manager said they've been less productive since returning to the office. Without any cubicles or assigned workspaces, there is no privacy, they said. Anyone can overhear your phone call or peek at your monitor...

Amazon contends the return has gone well, both for workers and the communities where it operates. In Seattle, Amazon's return to its South Lake Union campus has led to an 82% increase in foot traffic between May and July and an 86% increase in credit card transactions at restaurants in the neighborhood, according to data shared from Amazon.
"Some employees welcomed the return to office mandate, and told The Times they were looking forward to seeing co-workers in person, solidifying a distinction between work and home, and drumming up business for the shops and restaurants around Amazon's campus."

Remember when your email address came from your ISP?

Now the cost for small companies to offer email service "has gone up in server and administration costs," reports the Guardian, "without the economies of scale." But in Australia, this has created a problem for people like the Canberra-based customer of iiNet who's had the same email address since the 1990s... TPG — which owns brands that have historically offered email including iiNet all the way back to OzEmail — informed customers in July that it would migrate their email to a separate private service, the Messaging Company, by the end of November. Users will keep their exisiting email addresses on this service, and would get it free for the first year. After that, there will be options of paying for a service, or an ad-based free service after that. The amount to be charged from next year has not yet been decided.

The announcement was met with outrage among users of the long-running web forum Whirlpool. "It's a shitty move. My wife has never set up a Gmail or Yahoo and only ever used her iiNet email address for her business as well as personal. This screws us royally," one user said.

"Us oldies couldn't start out using Gmail etc because they weren't in existence 25 years ago," another said.

"It's a nightmare trying to change logins at many places...."

The other factor is the increasing security risk. Legacy systems, particularly those managed under a variety of absorbed companies, as with TPG, can over time become more at risk of a cybersecurity attack or breach. External providers who offer this service either in place of, or on behalf of the internet service provider are becoming seen as the more secure option....

The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network chief executive, Andrew Williams, says that ultimately internet providers getting out of the email game is a good thing because it means customers don't feel locked into one internet company...

With the rise in data breaches, and the avalanche of spam and scams, the shift offers people the opportunity of a clean email slate, according to Andrew Williams, of the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network.

The United States Space Force has activated its first and only unit dedicated to targeting other nations' satellites and the ground stations that support them. Space.com reports: The 75th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Squadron (ISRS) was activated on Aug. 11 at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado. This unit is part of Space Delta 7, an element of the U.S. Space Force tasked with providing intelligence on adversary space capabilities. It'll do things like analyze the capabilities of potential targets, locate and track these targets as well as participate in "target engagement," which presumably refers to destroying or disrupting adversary satellites, the ground stations that support them and transmissions sent between the two.

Master Sgt. Desiree Cabrera, 75th ISRS operations superintendent, said the new unit will revolutionize the targeting capabilities of not just the Space Force, but also the entire U.S. military: "Not only are we standing up the sole targeting squadron in the U.S. Space Force, we are changing the way targeting is done across the joint community when it comes to space and electromagnetic warfare." The 75th ISRS will also analyze adversary space capabilities including "counterspace force threats," according to the Space Force's statement. Counterspace forces refer to adversary systems aimed at preventing the U.S. from using its own satellites during a conflict.

China launched what is thought to be the world's first geosynchronous orbit synthetic aperture radar satellite on Saturday. SpaceNews reports: A Long March 3B rocket lifted off from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China at 1:36 p.m. Eastern (1736 UTC) Aug. 12. The Land Exploration-4 01 (Ludi Tance-4 (01)) satellite successfully entered geosynchronous transfer orbit, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., (CASC) announced within an hour of liftoff. Few details of the satellite were provided by CASC. However the group's "blue book" outlining plans for 2023 released in January noted the launch of a "high-orbit 20-meter [resolution] SAR satellite."

The L-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite will provide all-day, all-weather observation of China and surrounding areas, boosting the country's disaster prevention, reduction, and relief capabilities. The land observation satellite series and "high-orbit SAR technology" are listed in the country's Medium and Long Term Development Plan for Civilian Space Infrastructure (2015-2025). The plan includes establishing high and medium resolution optical and synthetic aperture radar constellations for a range of land, marine and atmospheric monitoring. The series is separate from the China High-resolution Earth Observation System (CHEOS), which consists of Gaofen ("high resolution") satellites. China's Gaofen-4 satellite is a GEO optical satellite. SAR at GEO, while providing much lower resolution than satellites in low Earth orbit, can provide constant coverage and imagery despite cloud cover.

It is not yet known what orbital scheme the Land Exploration-4 (01) satellite will enter. An inclined GEO orbit would produce a "figure eight" ground track over the area of intended coverage. Chinese academics from the Beijing Institute of Technology have produced a study of various schemes, while others have published research into modified signal models for GEO SAR. The (01) designation suggests China could launch other SAR satellites into geosynchronous orbits. The satellite was developed by the China Academy of Spacecraft Technology (CAST.)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The US broadband industry is united in opposition to a requirement that Internet service providers list all of their monthly fees. Five lobby groups representing cable companies, fiber and DSL providers, and mobile operators have repeatedly urged the Federal Communications Commission to eliminate the requirement before new broadband labeling rules take effect. The trade associations petitioned the FCC in January to change the rules and renewed their call last week in a filing and in a meeting with FCC officials. The requirement that ISPs list all their monthly fees "would add unnecessary complexity and burdens to the label for consumers and providers and could result in some providers having to create many labels for any given plan," the groups said in the filing on Friday.

The trade groups said the FCC should instead "require providers to include an explanatory statement that such fees may apply and that they vary by jurisdiction, similar to the Commission's treatment of government-imposed taxes," or require "the display of the maximum level of government-imposed fees that might be passed through, so that consumers would not experience bill shock with respect to such fees." The filing was submitted by NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, which represents Comcast, Charter, Cox, and other cable companies. The NCTA's ex parte filing described a meeting with FCC officials that also included wireless industry trade group CTIA and USTelecom, which represents telcos including AT&T, Verizon, Lumen (formerly CenturyLink), Frontier, and Windstream.

Comcast submitted its own filing urging the FCC to scrap the rules in June. The calls to weaken the FCC's truth-in-billing rules angered consumer advocates, as we wrote at the time. "The label hasn't even reached consumers yet, but Comcast is already trying to create loopholes. This request would allow the big ISPs to continue hiding the true cost of service and frustrating customers with poor service," Joshua Stager, policy director at media advocacy group Free Press, told Ars. Congress required the FCC to implement broadband labels with exact prices for Internet service plans in a 2021 law, but gave the FCC some leeway in how to structure the rules. The FCC adopted specific label rules in November 2022. The labels must be displayed to consumers at the point of sale and include monthly price, additional charges, speeds, data caps, additional charges for data, and other information. The FCC rules aren't in force yet because they are subject to a federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) review under the US Paperwork Reduction Act.

Pornhub, along with several other members and activists in the adult industry are suing Texas to block the state's impending law that would require age verification to view adult content. Motherboard reports: The complaint was filed on August 4 in US District Court for the Western District of Texas, and the law will take effect on September 1 unless the court agrees to block it. Governor Greg Abbott passed HB 1181 into law in June. The plaintiffs, including Pornhub, adult industry advocacy group Free Speech Coalition, and several other site operators and industry members, claim that the law violates both the Constitution of the United States and the federal Communications Decency Act.

In the complaint, the plaintiffs write that the act employs "the least effective and yet also the most restrictive means of accomplishing Texas' stated purpose of allegedly protecting minors," and that minors can easily use VPNs or Tor; on-device content filtering would be a better method of restricting access to porn for children, they write. "But such far more effective and far less restrictive means don't really matter to Texas, whose true aim is not to protect minors but to squelch constitutionally protected free speech that the State disfavors."

Under the law, porn sites would be required to display a "Texas Health and Human Services Warning" on their websites in 14-point font or larger font, in addition to age verification. "Texas could easily spread its ideological, anti-pornography message through public service announcements and the like without foisting its viewpoint upon others through mandated statements that are a mix of falsehoods, discredited pseudo-science, and baseless accusations," the complaint says.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Variety: Zoom changed its terms of service to say that it won't use any customer content -- at all -- in training generative artificial intelligence models. The update, which the videoconference company announced Friday, comes after observers raised the alarm about a recent change in Zoom's TOS that appeared to grant the company royalty-free rights in perpetuity for customer video calls and presentations for the purposes of training AI models. In its initial response on Aug. 7, Zoom said it doesn't use any customer audio, video or chat content for training AI "without consent." Now it says it will not use such content in any way related to generative AI development.

In a statement Friday appended its its earlier blog post, Zoom said, "Following feedback received regarding Zoom's recently updated terms of service, particularly related to our new generative artificial intelligence features, Zoom has updated our terms of service and the below blog post to make it clear that Zoom does not use any of your audio, video, chat, screen-sharing, attachments or other communications like customer content (such as poll results, whiteboard, and reactions) to train Zoom's or third-party artificial intelligence models." Zoom said it also updated in-product notices to reflect the change. According to Zoom's revised terms of service, the company still owns all rights to what it calls "service-generated data." That comprises telemetry data, product-usage data, diagnostic data and similar data "that Zoom collects or generates in connection with your or your End Users' use of the Services or Software," the terms of service say.

According to Gizmodo, CNET has deleted thousands of old articles over the past few months in a bid to improve its performance in Google Search results. From the report: Archived copies of CNET's author pages show the company deleted small batches of articles prior to the second half of July, but then the pace increased. Thousands of articles disappeared in recent weeks. A CNET representative confirmed that the company was culling stories but declined to share exactly how many it has taken down. The move adds to recent controversies over CNET's editorial strategy, which has included layoffs and experiments with error-riddled articles written by AI chatbots.

"Removing content from our site is not a decision we take lightly. Our teams analyze many data points to determine whether there are pages on CNET that are not currently serving a meaningful audience. This is an industry-wide best practice for large sites like ours that are primarily driven by SEO traffic," said Taylor Canada, CNET's senior director of marketing and communications. "In an ideal world, we would leave all of our content on our site in perpetuity. Unfortunately, we are penalized by the modern internet for leaving all previously published content live on our site."

CNET shared an internal memo about the practice. Removing, redirecting, or refreshing irrelevant or unhelpful URLs "sends a signal to Google that says CNET is fresh, relevant and worthy of being placed higher than our competitors in search results," the document reads. According to the memo about the "content pruning" the company considers a number of factors before it "deprecates" an article, including SEO, the age and length of the story, traffic to the article, and how frequently Google crawls the page. The company says it weighs historical significance and other editorial factors before an article is taken down. When an article is slated for deletion, CNET says it maintains its own copy, and sends the story to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. The company also says current staffers whose articles are deprecated will be alerted at least 10 days ahead of time. What does Google have to say about this? According to the company's Public Liaison for Google Search, Danny Sullivan, Google recommends against the practice. "Are you deleting content from your site because you somehow believe Google doesn't like 'old' content? That's not a thing! Our guidance doesn't encourage this," Sullivan said in a series of tweets.

If a website has an individual page with outdated content, that page "isn't likely to rank well. Removing it might mean, if you have a massive site, that we're better able to crawl other content on the site. But it doesn't mean we go, 'Oh, now the whole site is so much better' because of what happens with an individual page." Sullivan wrote. "Just don't assume that deleting something only because it's old will improve your site's SEO magically."

Saudi Arabia has announced its plans to standardise charging ports for all electronic devices to USB-C connectors. From a report: The decision will be put into effect from January 1, 2025 (for all except portable computers or laptops). It was announced by the Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality Organization and the Communications, Space and Technology Commission. The standardisation is set to happen in two stages. The first stage (from January 1, 2025) will cover mobile phones and other electronic devices such as headphones, keyboards, speakers, routers, etc. The second stage, (from April 1, 2026) will apply to laptops and portable computers. According to the authorities, the decision has been taken to improve user experience and reduce costs.

Verizon Communications is raising prices on some existing wireless plans to help boost revenue and offset slumping subscriber growth. From a report: Starting with September bills, customers on Mix and Match plans will pay $3 more for single lines and $5 extra for multiple lines, Chief Financial Officer Tony Skiadas said Wednesday during at an investor conference. The price hike is Verizon's third increase in two years. Last month the carrier marked up its wireless home internet prices by $10. Rival AT&T Inc. this month began charging $2.50 more per month for its top-tier wireless plan.

Verizon and AT&T, two of the three largest US wireless carriers, have been raising prices on more popular offerings in an attempt to widen profit margins as mobile phone subscriber growth slows. Both carriers have been signing up fewer customers than T-Mobile US Inc. and are losing market share to cable companies Comcast Corp and Charter Communications, which have been offering free mobile lines.

The White House on Tuesday held its first-ever cybersecurity "summit" on the ransomware attacks plaguing U.S. schools, in which criminal hackers have dumped online sensitive student data, including medical records, psychiatric evaluations and even sexual assault reports. PBS reports: At least 48 districts have been hit by ransomware attacks this year -- already three more than in all of 2022, according to the cybersecurity firm Emsisoft. All but 10 had data stolen, the firm reported. Typically, Russian-speaking foreign-based gangs steal the data -- sometimes including the Social Security numbers and financial data of district staff -- before activating network-encrypting malware then threaten to dump it online unless paid in cryptocurrency. "Last school year, schools in Arizona, California, Washington, Massachusetts, West Virginia, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Michigan were all victims of major cyber attacks," the deputy national security advisor for cyber, Anne Neuberger, told the summit.

An October 2022 report from the Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog agency, found that more than 1.2 million students were affected in 2020 alone -- with lost learning ranging from three days to three weeks. Nearly one in three U.S. districts had been breached by the end of 2021, according to a survey by the Center for Internet Security, a federally funded nonprofit. "Do not underestimate the ruthlessness of those who would do us harm," said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas during the summit, noting that even reports on suicide attempts have been dumped online by criminal extortionists and urging educators to avail themselves of federal resources already available.

Among measures announced at the summit: The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency will step up tailored security assessments for the K-12 sector while technology providers, including Amazon Web Services, Google and Cloudflare, are offering grants and other support. A pilot proposed by Federal Communications Commission Chair Jessica Rosenworcel -- yet to be voted on by the agency -- would make $200 million available over three years to strengthen cyber defense in schools and libraries.