Coinbase To Suspend Trading in XRP

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase said on Monday it would suspend trading in cryptocurrency XRP after U.S. regulators last week charged associated blockchain firm Ripple with conducting a $1.3 billion unregistered securities offering. From a report: The move by San Francisco-based Coinbase comes as the firm is preparing for a stock market listing and has confidentially applied with the U.S. Securities and Exchange…

America Creates a 770-Mile Corridor for Testing Supersonic Aircraft Up to Mach 3

America’s Federal Aviation Agency signed an agreement with the state of Kansas’s department of transportation to establish a 770-nautical mile Kansas Supersonic Transportation Corridor for testing aircraft up to Mach 3, reports Aviation International News:
The agreement would provide a critical testing site for the emerging group of supersonic aircraft as civil supersonic flight remains banned over land. Flight testing for models…

Oracle’s Hidden Hand Is Behind the Google Antitrust Lawsuits

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: With great fanfare last week, 44 attorneys general hit Google with two antitrust complaints, following a landmark lawsuit the Justice Department and 11 states lodged against the Alphabet Inc. unit in October. What’s less known is that Oracle Corp. spent years working behind the scenes to convince regulators and law enforcement agencies in…

SEC Formally Sues Cryptocurrency Company Ripple

U.S. securities regulators on Tuesday sued cryptocurrency giant Ripple, and both its CEO and executive chairman, for allegedly selling over $1.3 billion in unregistered securities. Axios reports: Ripple on Monday had publicly disclosed that the lawsuit was to be filed imminently, and said it does not believe its tokens needed to be registered. XRP, the cryptocurrency created by Ripple in 2012,…

How Toxic Fumes Seep Into the Air You Breathe on Planes

An anonymous reader shares an investigative report by LA Times: The plane had begun its descent into Boston. Inside the cockpit, the captain was slumped in his seat. Sitting beside him, copilot Eric Tellmann was starting to pass out. Tellmann managed to strap on his oxygen mask, then grabbed the captain’s arm and forced him to follow suit. Reviving slowly, the…

FDA Panel Recommends Approval of Pfizer’s Covid Vaccine For Emergency Use

A key Food and Drug Administration advisory panel on Thursday recommended the approval of Pfizer and BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine for emergency use in people over 16 years old, the last step before the FDA gives the final OK to broadly distribute the first doses throughout the United States. CNBC reports: If the FDA accepts the nonbinding recommendation from the Vaccines and…

Spam Calls Grew 18% This Year Despite the Global Pandemic

Despite several efforts from carriers, telecom regulators, mobile operating system developers, smartphone makers, and a global pandemic, spam calls continued to pester and scam people around the globe this year — and they only got worse. From a report: Users worldwide received 31.3 billion spam calls between January and October this year, up from 26 billion during the same period last…

Celebrating the Path-Breaking Research That Lead to Coronavirus Vaccines

The Washington Post tells the remarkable story of how both Moderna’s vaccine and the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine relied on a specially designed spike protein partially created by America’s Vaccine Research Center — along with messenger RNA, “a technology never before harnessed in an approved vaccine.” And also decades of path-breaking research: If, as expected in the next few weeks, regulators give those…

Italy Fines Apple $12 Million For Unfair Claims About iPhone Water Resistance

Iwastheone writes: Italian regulators have fined Apple $12 million for making misleading and unfair claims about iPhone water resistance. The fine was imposed by L’Autorita Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM), which translates literally as the guarantee authority for competition and the market. This is the competition watchdog responsible for ensuring that companies treat both consumers and competitors fairly. First,…

European Regulators Prepare For MAX To Return To Service In 2021

thegreatbob writes: Looks like the main additions over the FAA’s requirements are some additional pilot training requirements. The actual EASA statement can be found here. Confirms what the available information had been pointing to: the plane flies tolerably without its Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), but does not meet certification criteria. [The MCAS was a software system installed on the Max…