Tag: united kingdom

‘Why Are Cops Around the World Using This Outlandish Mind-Reading Tool?’

ProPublica has determined that dozens of state and local agencies have purchased “SCAN” training from a company called LSI for reviewing a suspect’s written statements — even though there’s no scientific evidence that it works. Local, state and federal agencies from the Louisville Metro Police Department to the Michigan State Police to the U.S. State Department have paid for SCAN training….

Walmart Dodged US Tax on $2 Billion by Routing Cash Through Multiple Countries, Whistleblower Says

Walmart, the world’s biggest retail company, underpaid US taxes on nearly $2 billion worth of offshore cash, according to whistleblower documents filed by a former Walmart executive to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in 2011, and recently obtained by Quartz. From the report: The firm avoided nearly $200 million in taxes on that money and “dramatically” overstated its foreign tax credits…

Google To Limit Targeting of Political Ads

Google said on Wednesday that it will stop giving advertisers the ability to target election ads using data such as public voter records and general political affiliations. Reuters reports: Google said on Wednesday it would start limiting audience targeting for election ads to age, gender and general location at a postal code level. Previously, verified political advertisers could also target ads…

Microsoft Will Model the Entire Planet For ‘Breathtakingly Lifelike’ New Flight Simulator

A senior editor at the Experimental Aircraft Association tells the long and storied history of Microsoft’s Flight Simulator, remembering how he’d used version 1.0 of the product “when I was about 12 years old (nearly 40 years ago)” before working on it when he was a Microsoft employee for more than 10 years, until it was cancelled in 2009. But in…

Attorney General Bill Barr Will Ask Zuckerberg To Halt Plans For End-To-End Encryption Across Facebook’s Apps

Attorney General Bill Barr, along with officials from the United Kingdom and Australia, is set to publish an open letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg asking the company to delay plans for end-to-end encryption across its messaging services until it can guarantee the added privacy does not reduce public safety. From a report: A draft of the letter, dated Oct. 4,…

Firefox Promises UK Government DNS-Over-HTTPS Won’t Be Default in UK

“Despite looking to make DNS-over-HTTPS the default for its American users, Mozilla has assured culture secretary Nicky Morgan that this won’t be the case in the UK,” reports Gizmodo: DNS-over-HTTPS has been fairly controversial, with the Internet Services Providers Association nominating Mozilla for an ‘Internet Villain’ over the whole thing, saying it will “bypass UK filtering obligations and parental controls, undermining…

The World’s Largest Offshore Wind Farm is Nearly Complete. It Can Power 1 Million Homes

The world’s largest offshore wind farm is taking shape off the east coast of Britain, a landmark project that demonstrates one way to combat climate change at scale. From a report: Located 120 kilometers (75 miles) off England’s Yorkshire coast, Hornsea One will produce enough energy to supply 1 million UK homes with clean electricity when it is completed in 2020….

281 Alleged Email Scammers Arrested In Massive Global Sweep

The Department of Justice today announced the arrest of 281 suspects in connection with email scams and wire transfer fraud. The action is the biggest of its kind yet against this type of digital scammer, and is a strong symbol of law enforcement’s sense of urgency in trying to contain a rapidly growing threat. Wired reports: You’re familiar with crimes like…

What has China’s rover found on the moon’s far side?

Chinese media have reported that the Yutu-2 rover has discovered a “gel-like” substance in a crater on the far side of the moon. It sounds intriguing, but details are still scarce. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/what-has-chinas-rover-found-on-the-moons-far-side…