Four more U.S. states on Tuesday joined the Justice Department's lawsuit against Apple alleging the iPhone maker is monopolizing smartphone markets, the department said in a statement. From a report: The four states are Indiana, Massachusetts, Nevada and Washington, the Justice Department said. The original lawsuit was filed in March, and 15 states and the District of Columbia joined the lawsuit at the time. The lawsuit alleges that Apple uses its market power to get more money from consumers, developers, content creators, artists, publishers, small businesses and merchants. The civil lawsuit accuses Apple of an illegal monopoly on smartphones, maintained by imposing contractual restrictions on, and withholding critical access from, developers. The Justice Department has previously said Apple charges as much as $1,599 for an iPhone and makes a larger profit than any rival. Officials also said Apple imposes hidden charges on various business partners - from software developers to credit card companies and even rivals such as Alphabet's, Google, in ways that ultimately raise prices for consumers.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Since April, a hacker with a history of selling stolen data has claimed a data breach of billions of records -- impacting at least 300 million people -- from a U.S. data broker, which would make it one of the largest alleged data breaches of the year. The data, seen by TechCrunch, on its own appears partly legitimate -- if imperfect. The stolen data, which was advertised on a known cybercrime forum, allegedly dates back years and includes U.S. citizens' full names, their home address history and Social Security numbers -- data that is widely available for sale by data brokers. But confirming the source of the alleged data theft has proven inconclusive; such is the nature of the data broker industry, which gobbles up individuals' personal data from disparate sources with little to no quality control. The alleged data broker in question, according to the hacker, is National Public Data, which bills itself as "one of the biggest providers of public records on the Internet." On its official website, National Public Data claimed to sell access to several databases: a "People Finder" one where customers can search by Social Security number, name and date of birth, address or telephone number; a database of U.S. consumer data "covering over 250 million individuals;" a database containing voter registration data that contains information on 100 million U.S. citizens; a criminal records one; and several more. Malware research group vx-underground said on X (formerly Twitter) that they reviewed the whole stolen database and could "confirm the data present in it is real and accurate."

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schwit1 shares a report: Bill Gates and his energy company are starting construction at their Wyoming site for a next-generation nuclear power plant he believes will "revolutionize" how power is generated. Gates was in the tiny community of Kemmerer Monday to break ground on the project. The co-founder of Microsoft is chairman of TerraPower. The company applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March for a construction permit for an advanced nuclear reactor that uses sodium, not water, for cooling. If approved, it would operate as a commercial nuclear power plant. The site is adjacent to PacifiCorp's Naughton Power Plant, which will stop burning coal in 2026 and natural gas a decade later, the utility said. Nuclear reactors operate without emitting planet-warming greenhouse gases. PacifiCorp plans to get carbon-free power from the reactor and says it is weighing how much nuclear to include in its long-range planning. The work begun Monday is aimed at having the site ready so TerraPower can build the reactor as quickly as possible if its permit is approved. Russia is at the forefront for developing sodium-cooled reactors.

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A Chromebook refresh looms despite Google trying to extend the life of laptops by offering a decade of service updates for models sold since 2021. From a report: Sales of the hardware, which flew off the shelves during the pandemic, ran out of steam in 2022 after buyers had their fill. The US education market generally accounts for 70 to 80 percent of annual orders. The sharp downturn left some vendors holding excess inventory. Yet the refresh cycle may be starting again, according to HP boss Enrique Lores. "So we have started to see a pickup of demand in education, and this, especially in the US, is a Chromebook opportunity," he told an audience of investors at Bernstein's 40th Annual Strategic Decision Conference. He forecast a flurry of activity in 2025 for "many million of units" from education but downplayed the impact on HP's balance sheet because the company pulled back from the product line after the pandemic. Lores said: "We are going after these deals because we think it's good, but it's not like ... a huge impact on the company."

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The dream of perpetual, emissionless flight is getting closer to reality. Aviation giants, telecoms, investors, and military agencies are pouring millions into developing these prototypes, which could revolutionize aerial surveillance, emergency communications, and more. Solar planes absorb energy via panels covering their wings and bodies, allowing them to fly indefinitely as long as the sun shines. Advances in battery technology now enable longer flights and overnight operation, albeit with less power than jet fuel. These slow, lightweight aircraft can fly at altitudes and durations impossible for humans, making them ideal for monitoring, telecom, and disaster response. Companies like BAE Systems, Airbus, and Skydweller are racing to commercialize solar planes, with hopes of offering services by 2026-2027. The unregulated stratosphere is a key focus, with planes acting as "steerable satellites." WSJ adds: Most of the companies trying to commercialize solar planes are building aircraft that are lightweight, autonomous and can fly at altitudes and for lengths of time that humans can't tolerate. Unlike balloons, solar planes are steerable, a big advantage for monitoring a target on the ground or providing telecom coverage without being blown off course. They are also cheaper and closer to Earth than satellites, putting them in a sweet spot for services that can't currently be offered by either, executives in charge of solar-aircraft projects say. The planes can capture higher resolution photos or video than satellites, or deliver broadband internet from the air, another thing satellites can't do.

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Microsoft is making changes to Outlook for consumers to enhance account security as part of its Secure Future Initiative. Starting September 16th, the company will end support for Basic Authentication for Outlook personal accounts, requiring users to access their email through apps using Modern Authentication. Microsoft will also remove the light version of the Outlook web application on August 19th and discontinue support for Gmail accounts in Outlook.com on June 30th. Users of affected email apps will be notified by the end of June to update their settings or reconfigure their accounts. The latest versions of Outlook, Apple Mail, and Thunderbird will support these changes, while the new Outlook for Windows and Mac apps will continue to support Gmail accounts. Microsoft is also migrating Windows Mail and Calendar users to the new Outlook for Windows app ahead of ending support for the built-in apps later this year.

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storkus shares a report: Starting from 2030, Mastercard will no longer require Europeans to enter their card numbers manually when checking out online -- no matter what platform or device they're using. Mastercard will announce Tuesday in a fireside chat with CNBC that, by 2030, all cards it issues on its network in Europe will be tokenized. In other words, instead of the 16-digit card number we're all accustomed to using for transactions, this will be replaced with a randomly generated "token." The firm says it's been working with banks, fintechs, merchants and other partners to phase out manual card entry for e-commerce by 2030 in Europe, in favor of a one-click button across all online platforms. This will ensure that consumers' cards are secure against fraud attempts, Mastercard says. Users won't have to keep entering passwords every time they try to make a payment, as Mastercard is introducing passkeys that replace passwords. storkus comments: "This story, as currently written, says nothing about their plans outside Europe but in the past the USA in particular has been dead last in getting this kind of tech."

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Abstract of a paper published on Nature: Personal names are a universal feature of human language, yet few analogues exist in other species. While dolphins and parrots address conspecifics by imitating the calls of the addressee, human names are not imitations of the sounds typically made by the named individual. Labelling objects or individuals without relying on imitation of the sounds made by the referent radically expands the expressive power of language. Thus, if non-imitative name analogues were found in other species, this could have important implications for our understanding of language evolution. Here we present evidence that wild African elephants address one another with individually specific calls, probably without relying on imitation of the receiver. We used machine learning to demonstrate that the receiver of a call could be predicted from the call's acoustic structure, regardless of how similar the call was to the receiver's vocalizations. Moreover, elephants differentially responded to playbacks of calls originally addressed to them relative to calls addressed to a different individual. Our findings offer evidence for individual addressing of conspecifics in elephants. They further suggest that, unlike other non-human animals, elephants probably do not rely on imitation of the receiver's calls to address one another.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Who would have thought that Raspberry Pi, the maker of the tiny, cheap, single-board computers, would become a public company? Yet, this is exactly what's happening: Raspberry Pi priced its IPO on the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday morning at $3.56 per share, valuing it at $689 million. Shortly after that, the company's shares jumped a nice 32% to $4.70. It means that Raspberry Pi could end up raising more than $200 million during its IPO process. Raspberry Pi has sold 60 million units since its inception. In 2023 alone, Raspberry Pi generated $266 million in revenue and $66 million in gross profit. Raspberry Pi Ltd, the public company, is the commercial subsidiary of the Raspberry Pi Foundation. The Foundation says it wants to make it easier for people to learn coding through a low-cost, programmable computer. It also remains the main shareholder of Raspberry Pi Ltd.

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Copycats are stepping up their attacks on small businesses. Sellers of products including merino socks and hummingbird feeders say they have lost customers to online scammers who use the legitimate business owners' videos, logos and social-media posts to assume their identities and steer customers to cheap knockoffs or simply take their money. WSJ: "We used to think you'd be targeted because you have a brand everywhere," said Alastair Gray, director of anticounterfeiting for the International Trademark Association, a nonprofit that represents brand owners. "It now seems with the ease at which these criminals can replicate websites, they can cut and paste everything." Technology has expanded the reach of even the smallest businesses, making it easy to court customers across the globe. But evolving technology has also boosted opportunities for copycats; ChatGPT and other advances in artificial intelligence make it easier to avoid language or spelling errors, often a signal of fraud. Imitators also have fine-tuned their tactics, including by outbidding legitimate brands for top position in search results. "These counterfeiters will market themselves just like brands market themselves," said Rachel Aronson, co-founder of CounterFind, a Dallas-based brand-protection company. Policing copycats is particularly challenging for small businesses with limited financial resources and not many employees. Online giants such as Amazon.com and Meta Platforms say they use technology to identify and remove misleading ads, fake accounts or counterfeit products.

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Apple is bringing ChatGPT, OpenAI's AI-powered chatbot experience, to Siri and other first-party apps and capabilities across its operating systems. From a report: "We're excited to partner with Apple to bring ChatGPT to their users in a new way," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a statement. "Apple shares our commitment to safety and innovation, and this partnership aligns with OpenAI's mission to make advanced AI accessible to everyone." Soon, Siri will be able to tap ChatGPT for "expertise" where it might be helpful, Apple says. For example, if you need menu ideas for a meal to make for friends using some ingredients from your garden, you can ask Siri, and Siri will automatically feed that info to ChatGPT for an answer after you give it permission to do so. You can include photos with the questions you ask ChatGPT via Siri, or ask questions related to your docs or PDFs. Apple's also integrated ChatGPT into system-wide writing tools like Writing Tools, which lets you create content with ChatGPT -- including images -- or ask an initial idea and send it to ChatGPT to get a revision or variation back. Apple said ChatGPT within Apple's apps is free and data isn't being shared with the Microsoft-backed firm. ChatGPT subscribers can connect their accounts and access paid features right from these experiences, the company said. Apple Intelligence -- Apple's efforts to combine the power of generative models with personal context -- is free to Apple device owners but works with "iOS 18" on iPhone 15 Pro, macOS 15 and iPadOS 17.

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Apple has announced that its Messages app will support RCS in iOS 18. From a report: The new standard will replace SMS as the default communication protocol between Android and iOS devices. The move comes after years of taunting, cajoling, and finally, some regulatory scrutiny from the EU. Right now, when people on iOS and Android message each other, the service falls back to SMS -- photos and videos are sent at a lower quality, messages are shortened, and importantly, conversations are not end-to-end encrypted like they are in iMessage. Messages from Android phones show up as green bubbles in iMessage chats and chaos ensues.

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As rumored, Apple today unveiled Apple Intelligence, its long-awaited push into generative artificial intelligence (AI), promising highly personalized experiences built with safety and privacy at its core. The feature, referred to as "A.I.", will be integrated into Apple's various operating systems, including iOS, macOS, and the latest, VisionOS. CEO Tim Cook said that Apple Intelligence goes beyond artificial intelligence, calling it "personal intelligence" and "the next big step for Apple." Apple Intelligence is built on large language and intelligence models, with much of the processing done locally on the latest Apple silicon. Private Cloud Compute is being added to handle more intensive tasks while maintaining user privacy. The update also includes significant changes to Siri, Apple's virtual assistant, which will now support typed queries and deeper integration into various apps, including third-party applications. This integration will enable users to perform complex tasks without switching between multiple apps. Apple Intelligence will roll out to the latest versions of Apple's operating systems, including iOS and iPadOS 18, macOS Sequoia, and visionOS 2.

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At its Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple formally introduced macOS 15, codenamed "Sequoia." The new release combines features from iOS 18 with Mac-specific improvements. One notable addition is automated window tiling, allowing users to arrange windows on their screen without manual resizing or switching to full-screen mode. Another feature, iPhone Mirroring, streams the iPhone's screen to the Mac, enabling app use with the Mac's keyboard and trackpad while keeping the phone locked for privacy. Gamers will appreciate the second version of Apple's Game Porting Toolkit, simplifying the process of bringing Windows games to macOS and vice versa. Sequoia also incorporates changes from iOS and iPadOS, such as RCS support and expanded Tapback reactions in Messages, a redesigned Calculator app, and the Math Notes feature for typed equations in Notes. Additionally, all Apple platforms and Windows will receive a new Passwords app, potentially replacing standalone password managers. A developer beta of macOS Sequoia is available today, with refined public betas coming in July and a full release planned for the fall.

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A group of Israeli researchers explored the security of the Visual Studio Code marketplace and managed to "infect" over 100 organizations by trojanizing a copy of the popular 'Dracula Official theme to include risky code. Further research into the VSCode Marketplace found thousands of extensions with millions of installs. From a report: Visual Studio Code (VSCode) is a source code editor published by Microsoft and used by many professional software developers worldwide. Microsoft also operates an extensions market for the IDE, called the Visual Studio Code Marketplace, which offers add-ons that extend the application's functionality and provide more customization options. Previous reports have highlighted gaps in VSCode's security, allowing extension and publisher impersonation and extensions that steal developer authentication tokens. There have also been in-the-wild findings that were confirmed to be malicious.

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Security researchers say they believe financially motivated cybercriminals have stolen a "significant volume of data" from hundreds of customers hosting their vast banks of data with cloud storage giant Snowflake. TechCrunch: Incident response firm Mandiant, which is working with Snowflake to investigate the recent spate of data thefts, said in a blog post Monday that the two firms have notified around 165 customers that their data may have been stolen. It's the first time that the number of affected Snowflake customers has been disclosed since the account hacks began in April. Snowflake has said little to date about the attacks, only that a "limited number" of its customers are affected. The cloud data giant has more than 9,800 corporate customers, like healthcare organizations, retail giants and some of the world's largest tech companies, which use Snowflake for data analytics.

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Microplastic pollution has been found in all human semen samples tested in a study, and researchers say further research on the potential harm to reproduction is "imperative." From a report: Sperm counts in men have been falling for decades and 40% of low counts remain unexplained, although chemical pollution has been implicated by many studies. The 40 semen samples were from healthy men undergoing premarital health assessments in Jinan, China. Another recent study found microplastics in the semen of six out of 10 healthy young men in Italy, and another study in China found the pollutants in half of 25 samples. Recent studies in mice have reported that microplastics reduced sperm count and caused abnormalities and hormone disruption. Research on microplastics and human health is moving quickly and scientists appear to be finding the contaminants everywhere. The pollutants were found in all 23 human testicle samples tested in a study published in May. Microplastics have also recently been discovered in human blood, placentas and breast milk, indicating widespread contamination of people's bodies. The impact on health is as yet unknown but microplastics have been shown to cause damage to human cells in the laboratory.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: A study claims to have proof of what some have suspected: return to office mandates are just back-channel layoffs and post-COVID work culture is making everyone miserable. HR software biz BambooHR surveyed more than 1,500 employees, a third of whom work in HR. The findings suggest the return to office movement has been a poorly-executed failure, but one particular figure stands out - a quarter of executives and a fifth of HR professionals hoped RTO mandates would result in staff leaving. While that statistic essentially admits the quiet part out loud, there was some merit to that belief. People did quit when RTO mandates were enforced at many of the largest companies, but it wasn't enough, the study reports. More than a third (37 percent) of respondents in leadership roles believed their employers had undertaken layoffs in the past 12 months as a result of too few people quitting in protest of RTO mandates, the study found. Nearly the same number thought their management wanted employees back in the office to monitor them more closely. The end result has been the growth of a different office culture, one that's even more performative, suspicious, and divisive than before the COVID pandemic, the study concludes.

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Microsoft has announced a new lineup of Xbox consoles, including an all-digital white Xbox Series X with a 1TB SSD, priced at $450. The company is also retiring the Carbon Black Series S, replacing it with a white version featuring a 1TB SSD and a $350 price point. Additionally, a new Xbox Series X with a disc drive and 2TB of storage will launch for $600. The move comes as Microsoft continues to focus on digital gaming and subscription services like Game Pass, with reports suggesting that the PS5 is outselling Xbox Series consoles 2:1. The shift has led to minimal physical Xbox game sections in stores and some first-party titles, like Hellblade 2, not receiving physical releases. Despite rumors of a multiplatform approach, Microsoft maintains its commitment to its own gaming machines, promising a new "next-gen" console in the future, potentially utilizing generative-AI technology. Further reading: Upcoming Games Include More Xbox Sequels - and a Medieval 'Doom'.

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