Vaccines Adapted for Variants Will Not Need Lengthy Testing, FDA Says

The Food and Drug Administration said this week that vaccine developers would not need to conduct lengthy randomized controlled trials for vaccines that have been adapted to protect against concerning coronavirus variants. From a report: The recommendations, which call for small trials more like those required for annual flu vaccines, would greatly accelerate the review process at a time when scientists…

Apple Is Going To Make It Harder to Hack iPhones With Zero-Click Attacks

Apple is going to make one of the most powerful types of attacks on iPhones much harder to pull off in an upcoming update of iOS. From a report: The company quietly made a new change in the way it secures the code running in its mobile operating system. The change is in the beta version of the next iOS version,…

Node.js/Deno Creator Discusses Rust, C++, TypeScript, and Vim

Ryan Dahl, creator of Node.js and Deno, gave a new interview this week to the IT outsourcing company Evrone: Evrone: You have hands-on experience with lots of programming languages: C, Rust, Ruby, JavaScript, TypeScript. Which one do you enjoy the most to work with? Ryan: I have the most fun writing Rust these days. It has a steep learning curve and…

Python Turns 30. A Steering Council Member Reflects

Today is the 30th anniversary of the Python programming language, “which has never been more popular, arguably thanks to the rise of data science and AI projects in the enterprise,” writes Venture Beat. To celebrate the historical releases file has been updated to include Guido van Rossum’s original 0.9.1 beta release from 1991. (Its ReadMe file advises that Python 0.9 “can…

Dogecoin Has a Top Dog Worth $2.1 Billion

The dogecoin market has a pack leader. From a report: Records show that a person, or entity, owns about 28% of all of the cryptocurrency in circulation — a stake worth about $2.1 billion at current prices [Editor’s note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source]. The holder’s identity isn’t known, which is common in the opaque world of digital currencies….

Google Launches the First Developer Preview of Android 12

Almost exactly a year after Google announced the first developer preview of Android 11, the company today released the first developer preview of Android 12. From a report: Google delayed the roll-out of Android 11 a bit as the teams and the company’s partners adjusted to working during a pandemic, but it looks like that didn’t stop it from keeping Android…

How Oracle Sells Repression in China

In its bid for TikTok, Oracle was supposed to prevent data from being passed to Chinese police. Instead, it’s been marketing its own software for their surveillance work. From a report: Police in China’s Liaoning province were sitting on mounds of data collected through invasive means: financial records, travel information, vehicle registrations, social media, and surveillance camera footage. To make sense…

Chromebooks Outsold Macs Worldwide in 2020, Cutting Into Windows Market Share

New numbers show 2020 was the first year that Chromebooks outsold Macs, posting impressive market share gains at the expense of Windows. From a report: Computers powered by Google’s Chrome OS have outsold Apple’s computers in individual quarters before, but 2020 was the first full year that Chrome OS took second place. Microsoft’s Windows still retained majority market share, but also…

Apple Wins Victory as North Dakota Votes Down Bill That Would Regulate App Stores

The North Dakota state senate voted 36-11 on Tuesday not to pass a bill that would have required app stores to enable software developers to use their own payment processing software and avoid fees charged by Apple and Google. From a report: The vote is a victory for Apple, which says that the App Store is a core part of its…

Stadia Leadership Praised Development Studios For ‘Great Progress’ Just One Week Before Laying Them All Off

Developers at Google’s recently formed game studios were shocked February 1 when they were notified that the studios would be shut down, Kotaku reported Tuesday, citing four sources with knowledge of what transpired. From the report: Just the week prior, Google Stadia vice president and general manager Phil Harrison sent an email to staff lauding the “great progress” its studios had…