The Mysterious Disappearance of Google’s Click Metric

In Google’s recent end-of-the-year 2019 financial report, the company for the first time disclosed the revenues for YouTube and its Google Cloud unit. However, as Tom Foremski writes via ZDNet, “Google removed key metrics that have been included for more than 15 years: How much money it makes per click (Cost-per-Click (CPC)) and the growth of paid clicks.” From the report:…

Germany Has Proof That Huawei Worked With Chinese Intelligence: Handelsblatt

The German government is in possession of evidence that Huawei, the leading maker of telecoms network equipment, has collaborated with Chinese intelligence, the Handelsblatt daily reported on Wednesday. Reuters: “At the end of 2019, intelligence was passed to us by the U.S., according to which Huawei is proven to have been cooperating with China’s security authorities,” the newspaper quoted a confidential…

LabCorp Security Lapse Exposed Thousands of Medical Documents

A security flaw in LabCorp’s website exposed thousands of medical documents, like test results containing sensitive health data. From a report: It’s the second incident in the past year after LabCorp said in June that 7.7 million patients had been affected by a credit card data breach of a third-party payments processor. The breach also hit several other laboratory testing companies,…

How Dual-Screen Apps Will Run On Windows 10X, Android

Microsoft has published a blog post detailing exactly how it imagines dual-screen apps will run on devices like the Surface Duo and Surface Neo — two foldable devices unveiled back on October that run Android and Windows 10X, respectively. The Verge reports: By default, an app will occupy a single screen according to Microsoft. Surface Duo or Surface Neo users can…

China To Ban Single-Use Plastic Bags and Straws

China, one of the world’s biggest producers of plastic waste, is set to introduce a ban on all non-degradable plastic bags and single-use straws in major cities. From a report: As part of a plan to drastically reduce plastic pollution, China’s government said the production and sale of disposable foam and plastic tableware, often used for takeout, and single-use plastic straws…

127 Tesla Owners Complain The Cars Accelerate On Their Own

An anonymous reader quotes the Associated Press:
The U.S. government’s auto safety agency is looking into allegations that all three of Tesla’s electric vehicle models can suddenly accelerate on their own. Brian Sparks of Berkeley, California, petitioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration asking for an investigation. An agency document shows 127 owner complaints to the government that include 110 crashes and…

Gary Starkweather, Inventor of the Laser Printer, Dies At 81

Gary Starkweather, engineer and inventor of the first laser printer, died on December 26 at the age of 81. The New York Times reports: Mr. Starkweather was working as a junior engineer in the offices of the Xerox Corporation in Rochester, N.Y., in 1964 — several years after the company had introduced the photocopier to American office buildings — when he…

Amazon To Ask Court To Block Microsoft From Working On $10 Billion JEDI Contract

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Amazon Web Services is expecting a decision next month from a U.S. court about whether the brakes will be slammed on the Pentagon’s lucrative Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract awarded to Microsoft. The filing (PDF), on January 13, sets up the schedule for key dates including February 11, when AWS and…

Facebook Is Forcing Its Moderators To Log Every Second of Their Days

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: When Valera Zaicev began working in Dublin as one of Facebook’s moderators a couple years ago, he knew he’d be looking at some of the most graphic and violent content on the internet. What he didn’t know was that Facebook would be counting the seconds of his bathroom breaks. Facebook, which outsources the…