A bipartisan group of US senators have announced a new bill that would require social media companies to share platform data with independent researchers. The Verge reports: The bill was announced Thursday by Democratic senators Chris Coons (D-DE), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and also Rob Portman (R-OH), a Republican. Named the Platform Accountability and Transparency Act (PATA), it would establish new rules compelling social media platforms to share data with "qualified researchers," defined as university-affiliated researchers pursuing projects that have been approved by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Under the terms of the bill, platforms would be bound to comply with requests for data once research was approved by the NSF. Failing to provide data to a qualifying project would result in the platform losing the immunities provided by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. "The PATA act is a truly comprehensive platform transparency proposal," said Laura Edelson, a PhD candidate at NYU Tandon School of Engineering and lead researcher at NYU's Cybersecurity for Democracy project, in an email to The Verge. "If passed this legislation would provide a real pathway for researchers to better understand online harms and start coming up with solutions."

Jonathan Greenberg: Surprising almost no one, the US Federal Trade Commission has moved to block Nvidia's acquisition of Arm. We have written a lot about this deal and Arm in general, and wanted to touch on the topic in light of this news. We will save the background on this deal for that prior piece, but a few things stand out. Arm is seen by regulators as being too important to not be neutral. No other chip company can buy the company, as no one wants to compete with this key supplier of semiconductor intellectual property (IP), and almost every major chip company is now an Arm licensee, one way or another. So what will happen to the company now?

We have to first look at Arm's current owners, Softbank -- the Japanese investment firm. Their original impetus for selling Arm dates back a few years when they were under pressure from some expensive, high-profile deal failures, WeWork being the best known example among several others. At the time, Softbank needed to raise cash or at least convince their own investors that they had the ability to do so. Fast forward to today, and Softbank is in a much better position. They seem to have benefited strongly from the technology stock market bull run over the last two years. They made some big bets on the market and these have paid off, so the company is now in a much better financial position. So one option is for Sotbank to do nothing. Arguably, Arm needs to make some big investments to fund future R&D needs, but from the outside it certainly seems like Arm could raise sufficient funds on its own to do this.

Nonetheless, we have to think that Softbank would still like to exit. They almost made a pile of cash and having it snatched away is the kind of factor that spurs the brain to think of alternatives. The most likely outcome is an IPO of at least a minority stake of Arm. Prior to the Nvidia deal, Softbank seems to have gone far down this path. However, Softbank faced the problem that the public markets would have likely valued Arm less than what Softbank hoped (or possibly even what they paid for it) and far less than what Nvidia offered. The capital markets are in a different place today, and Arm is likely to attract a much higher valuation because semis are hot now in a way they have not been for a long time. One wrinkle for this plan is that an IPO will take some time to arrange. We would guess at least six months, possibly longer. No idea what the markets will look like then, and it leaves Arm in limbo when they should be doing all that R&D investment.

Twitter asked a federal judge to throw out Donald Trump's lawsuit over his ban from the platform for stoking the U.S. Capitol riot, arguing the company's right to free speech is at stake -- not the former president's. From a report: Twitter's First Amendment rights "are at their apex" in the case because the editorial decisions Trump is challenging relate to matters of public concern, including threats to the peaceful transfer of power, Twitter and its chief executive officer, Jack Dorsey, said in a San Francisco federal court filing. Trump "agreed to abide by Twitter's rules, and yet proceeded to repeatedly violate those rules" before, during and after the deadly assault on the Capitol by a mob of his supporters, with tweets that "could encourage further violence," the company said in its filing late Thursday.

Trump's free-speech claim also ignores "that Twitter is a private actor that is not constrained by the federal constitution," the company said. The government "cannot force the private operator of an online platform, such as Twitter, to disseminate speech with which the operator disagrees." Trump is fighting bans or suspensions from Twitter, Meta Platforms' Facebook and Alphabet's Google, accusing the tech giants of trying to silence conservative views and violating his free-speech rights. He's also pressing ahead with plans to launch a rival social-media platform as part of a new media company with "non-woke" entertainment and news.

Transport for London announced a ban on all e-scooters on its network, effective December 13th, over safety concerns following recent fires. The ban will apply to all public transport in London, including underground trains and buses. From a report: E-scooters are currently banned on UK roads and sidewalks, but shops can still sell them for use on private land. The only legal e-scooters in use in London are the ones part of rental trials that started over the summer. The ban does not include mobility scooters that are permitted on TfL's network, and foldable e-bikes are still permitted.

"We have been extremely worried by the recent incidents on our public transport services, which involved intense fires and considerable smoke and damage," said TfL's chief safety, health, and environment officer Lilli Matson. "We have worked with London Fire Brigade to determine how we should deal with these devices and, following that review, we have decided to ban them. Customers who try to bring them onto our network will be refused access to our stations and premises, and not be permitted to use any of our services."

Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz won regulatory approval to deploy a hands-free driving system in Germany ahead of Tesla, gaining an edge in the race to offer higher levels of automation in one of the world's most competitive car markets. Bloomberg: The automaker got the green light to sell its Drive Pilot package for use on stretches of the country's Autobahn network at a speed of up to 60 kilometers (37 miles) per hour, Mercedes said Thursday. The system was approved for Level 3 autonomous driving, a notch higher than Tesla's Level 2 Autopilot system, and will allow a drivers to take their hands off the wheel in slow-moving traffic.

"Drive Pilot enables the driver to turn away from the traffic and focus on certain secondary activities," the luxury-car maker said in a statement. "For example, to communicate with colleagues via the in-car office, to write emails, to surf the Internet or to relax and watch a film." Mercedes got permission for the system only in Germany, but said it's aiming for regulatory approval in other jurisdictions as well. Drive Pilot will be an option for the S-Class and EQS models from around the middle of next year. The automaker hasn't decided how much it will charge for the system, which has approval to be used on around 13,000 kilometers of Germany's highway network.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The detonation of the first nuclear bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 is seared into our collective memory, and the world has been haunted by the prospect of a devastating nuclear apocalypse ever since. Less well-known but equally significant from a nuclear arms race standpoint was the Soviet Union's successful detonation of a hydrogen "superbomb" in the wee hours of October 30, 1961. Dubbed "Tsar Bomba" (loosely translated, "Emperor of Bombs"), it was the size of a small school bus -- it wouldn't even fit inside a bomber and had to be slung below the belly of the plane. The 60,000-pound (27 metric tons) test bomb's explosive yield was 50 million tons (50 megatons) of TNT, although the design had a maximum explosive yield of 100 million tons (100 megatons).

The US had conducted the first successful test of a hydrogen bomb (codename: Ivy Mike) in 1954 and had been pondering the development of even more powerful hydrogen superbombs. But the Soviets' successful test lent greater urgency to the matter. Ultimately, President John F. Kennedy opted for diplomacy, signing the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty on October 7, 1963. But US nuclear policy -- and, hence, world history -- might have ended up looking very different, according to Alex Wellerstein, a historian of science at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey and author of Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States, released earlier this year. He also maintains the NUKEMAP, an interactive tool that enables users to model the impact of various types of nuclear weapons on the geographical location of their choice.

Wellerstein has analyzed recently declassified documents pertaining to the US response to Tsar Bomba during the Kennedy administration. He described his conclusions in a fascinating article recently published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, coinciding with the 60th anniversary of the test. [...] According to Wellerstein, the US initially sought to minimize the significance of the Soviets' success, officially dismissing it as a political publicity stunt with little to no technical or strategic importance. But the declassified files revealed that, behind the scenes, US officials took the matter very seriously indeed. Physicist Edward Teller in particular strongly advocated in favor of developing two even more powerful hydrogen bombs, with yields of 1,000 and even 10,000 megatons, respectively. While much of Teller's testimony at a secret meeting on the topic remains classified, Wellerstein found that many scientists who were present expressed shock at his proposal. Concerns about the practical use of such a massive weapon, particularly the widespread nuclear fallout, ultimately scuttled those plans. "I found the new information with regard to the US response to Tsar Bomba really interesting, because it contradicts what they said in public versus what was going on behind the scenes," says Wellerstein. "A lot of the discussions about the Tsar Bomba in American writing essentially parrot then-President Kennedy's line without realizing it: 'Oh, these bombs are worthless. No, they can't do it.' But it's clear that there were people within the Kennedy administration who didn't think it was as simple as that. We can be happy that those people didn't win out."

He added: "There is always this temptation for big bombs. I found a memo by somebody at Sandia, talking about meeting with the military. He said that the military didn't really know what they wanted these big bombs for, but they figured that if the Soviets thought they were a good idea, then the US should have one, too. It's reminiscent of that line from Dr. Strangelove."

Ars Technica sat down with Wellerstein to learn more about the Tsar Bomba test. You can read the full article here.

In a bold bid to turn digital crooks away from a life of crime, Microsoft is offering a 50 percent discount on its Office suite to some people using pirated versions. The Verge reports: Ghacks reports that a new message in the Office ribbon bar is appearing on pirated Office apps, tempting people with a 50 percent discount on a genuine Microsoft 365 subscription. The message links to an official Microsoft website that claims "pirated software exposes your PC to security threats." Microsoft warns Office pirates that they run the risk of running into viruses, malware, data loss, identify theft, and the inability to receive critical updates. The discount brings the price of a Microsoft 365 Family subscription down to just $49.99 for the first year, or $34.99 for a year of Microsoft 365 Personal.

Meta's cryptocurrency wallet, Novi, will allow users to send and receive money through the social media giant's messaging app, WhatsApp. From a report: The pilot program is open to a limited number of people in the United States, Novi head Stephane Kasriel said in a tweet late on Wednesday. Using Novi does not change the privacy of WhatsApp personal messages and calls, he said.

More than two years and a company rebrand later, Meta is finally opening up access to its VR social platform Horizon Worlds. Starting Thursday, people in the US and Canada who are 18 and up will be able to access the free Quest app without an invite. From a report: Horizon Worlds is Meta's first attempt at releasing something that resembles CEO Mark Zuckerberg's vision of the metaverse. It's an expansive, multiplayer platform that meshes Roblox and the OASIS VR world from Ready Player One. Originally just called Horizon, it requires a Facebook account and lets you hang out with up to 20 people at a time in a virtual space. First announced in September 2019 as a private beta, Horizon Worlds has evolved from primarily being a Minecraft-like environment for building games to more of a social platform. Its thousands of beta testers have held regular comedy shows, movie nights, and meditation sessions. They've also built elaborate objects like a replica of the Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters. "Now we can open up and say we have interesting things that people can do," Vivek Sharma, Meta's VP of Horizon, tells me.

Gig economy companies operating in the European Union, such as Uber and Deliveroo, must ensure workers get the minimum wage, access to sick pay, holidays and other employment rights, unless they use genuinely independent contractors, under plans for new laws to crack down on fake self-employment. From a report: Publishing long-awaited draft legislation on Thursday, the European Commission said the burden of proof on employment status would shift to companies, rather than the individuals that work for them. Until now, gig economy workers have had to go to court to prove they are employees, or risk being denied basic rights. Nicolas Schmit, EU commissioner for jobs and social rights, told the Guardian and other European newspapers that internet platforms "have used grey zones in our legislation [and] all possible ambiguities" to develop their business models, resulting in a "misclassification" of millions of workers.

The chief executive officers of companies including Target and Best Buy called on Congress to approve legislation aimed at forcing online marketplaces to beef up measures designed to fight the sale of stolen or counterfeit goods. From a report: Passage of the so-called Inform Consumers Act would help retailers and law enforcement crack down on a "significant uptick" in organized theft, the Retail Industry Leaders Association said in a letter Thursday to Congressional leaders. The CEOs of Home Depot, Levi Strauss & Co. and more than a dozen other companies also signed their names in support. "In the current environment, criminal networks and unscrupulous businesses have exploited a system that protects their anonymity to sell unsafe, stolen, or counterfeit products with little legal recourse," the group and the CEOs said in the letter. "This lack of transparency on particular third-party marketplaces has allowed criminal activity to fester."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: The boss of a US mortgage company, who fired hundreds of his staff in a Zoom meeting has said he is "deeply sorry" for the way the lay-offs were handled. The sackings were necessary said Vishal Garg, but he accepted he had "blundered the execution" and "embarrassed" them. "I failed to show the appropriate amount of respect and appreciation for the individuals who were affected," he said in a letter (PDF) on the firm's website. Mr Garg was heavily criticized after he sacked 900 staff in an online meeting. "I am deeply sorry and am committed to learning from this situation and doing more to be the leader that you expect me to be," he said. Mr Garg said he had realized "the way I communicated this news made a difficult situation worse."

Alexa.com, the internet company that provides web traffic data, global rankings, and other information on over 30 million websites, is being retired on May 1, 2022. The announcement was brief and didn't explain what was behind the decision. The Alexa.com team writes: Twenty-five years ago, we founded Alexa Internet. After two decades of helping you find, reach, and convert your digital audience, we've made the difficult decision to retire Alexa.com on May 1, 2022. Thank you for making us your go-to resource for content research, competitive analysis, keyword research, and so much more. We have been proud to serve you as customers. [...] The company says it's "stopped offering new subscriptions on December 8, 2021," but existing subscriptions will continue to have access until May 1, 2022. The Web Information Service APIs will be retired today (December 8, 2022).

Microsoft is continuing to update and refine Windows 11 two months after its public release, and the Notepad app is the latest bit of the operating system to get some attention. From a report: The updated version of the Notepad app is rolling out to Windows Insiders in the Dev channel, where the company is also testing tweaks to the taskbar and Start menu, a new-old button for setting the default web browser, an updated Media Player app, and other changes. The main changes appear pretty much as they did in the leaked Notepad screenshots from early October: the new unified title bar and menu bar pick up Windows 11's "mica" styling, as well as dark-mode support, support for switching between dark and light mode, and modernized font controls.

The head of Instagram will find himself in Congress' crosshairs for the first time Wednesday in the one area lawmakers have shown they are willing to pass tech regulations -- protecting youngsters online. From a report: Republicans and Democrats have found common ground in grilling tech companies on how their products harm children, especially after revelations in The Wall Street Journal about Instagram's potential harm to the mental health of teen girls. Instagram head Adam Mosseri will testify before the Senate Commerce consumer protection subcommittee Wednesday on how the photo-sharing app is used by teens. Ahead of the hearing, Mosseri announced changes Instagram is making to better protect young users, including launching the Take a Break option for a user that's been scrolling for a certain amount of time and building a feature that will nudge teens toward different topics if they've been dwelling on one.

The company also announced that it plans a March launch for tools parents can use to see -- and limit -- how much time their kids spend on Instagram. And Instagram in January will allow users to bulk delete posts, including photos, videos, previous likes and comments. At the hearing, expect Mosseri to emphasize Instagram's commitment to sharing data with researchers, as well as the company's support for some regulations around verifying the age of users and designing age-appropriate experiences. Instagram's parent-company Meta has criticized the Wall Street Journal's reporting, arguing that it mischaracterized the Instagram research and that most teens suffering from issues such as sadness or anxiety find Instagram helpful.

Tech-driven changes are coming fast and furiously to airports, including advancements in biometrics that verify identity and shorten security procedures for those passengers who opt into the programs. From a report: If it's been a year or more since you traveled, particularly internationally, you may notice something different at airports in the United States: More steps -- from checking a bag to clearing customs -- are being automated using biometrics. Biometrics are unique individual traits, such as fingerprints, that can be used to automate and verify identity. They promise both more security and efficiency in moving travelers through an airport where, at steps from check-in to boarding, passengers are normally required to show government-issued photo identification. In the travel hiatus caused by the pandemic, many airports, airlines, tech companies and government agencies like the Transportation Security Administration and United States Customs and Border Protection continued to invest in biometric advancements. The need for social distancing and contactless interactions only added to the urgency.

"The technologies have gotten much more sophisticated and the accuracy rate much higher," said Robert Tappan, the managing director for the trade group International Biometrics + Identity Association, who called the impetus to ease crowds and reduce contact through these instruments "COVID-accelerated." Many of the latest biometric developments use facial recognition, which the National Institute of Standards and Technology recently found is at least 99.5 percent accurate, rather than iris-scanning or fingerprints. "Iris-scanning has been touted as the most foolproof," said Sherry Stein, the head of technology in the Americas for SITA, a Switzerland-based biometrics tech company. "For biometrics to work, you have to be able to match to a known trusted source of data because you're trying to compare it to a record on file. The face is the easiest because all the documents we use that prove your identity -- driver's licenses, passports etc. -- rely on face." Shortly after 9/11, Congress mandated an entry and exit system using biometric technology to secure U.S. borders. Some travelers have expressed concerns about privacy, and while companies and agencies using the technology say they do not retain the images, the systems largely rely on willing travelers who agree to their use.

The United Arab Emirates will shift to a working week of four and half days with a Saturday-Sunday weekend from the start of next year to better align its economy with global markets, but private companies will be free to choose their own working week. From a report: The oil-producing Gulf state, the region's commercial, trade and tourism hub, currently has a Friday-Saturday weekend. From Jan. 1, however, the weekend will start on Friday afternoon, including for schools, a government circular said. "Each company, depending on the sector they operate in and what suits and serves their business best, can choose the weekend they decide for their employees," Minister of Human Resources and Emiratisation Abdulrahman al-Awar told Reuters. Over the past year, the UAE has taken measures to make its economy more attractive to foreign investment and talent at a time of growing economic rivalry with Saudi Arabia.

Twitter announced it has acquired Quill, a business-focused messaging service meant to compete against the likes of Slack. According to TechCrunch, "Quill is not making the cut in the acquisition: it will be winding down as an app" as Twitter works to incorporate many of its features into its own service. From the report: Quill notes in a brief announcement on its site that users will be "able to export your team message history until 1pm PST, Saturday, December 11th 2021, when we will be turning off our servers and deleting all data." It will issue refunds for all active teams. But the team and its IP are joining the flock: Specifically, Quill's people will be joining Twitter's Experience organization to work on messaging tools, specifically Twitter direct messages. Pettersson will be taking a role as product manager, reporting into the Conversations team under Oji Udezue, Twitter tells me.

DMs have long been a source of interest for Twitter observers, and some have wondered when and if Twitter would ever seek to develop them into a more standalone product (something that they've toyed with apparently) and possible business line. That would make some sense, given the huge boom we've seen in messaging apps in recent years, and the moves so many other open-ended social media platforms have made to boost their own direct messaging businesses. Now, with Twitter making more moves to diversify its business, maybe this could be an opportunity to rethink DMs too.

Intel announced that it will take public its self-driving technology company Mobileye, the Israeli company it acquired for $15.3 billion in 2017. The Verge reports: The chipmaker said that by listing Mobileye's shares on the stock market, it hopes to unlock more value for Intel's shareholders. Intel will remain the majority shareholder in Mobileye. In a statement, Intel heralded its acquisition of the company as a noteworthy success, noting that Mobileye's revenue in 2021 was 40 percent higher than the previous year. An IPO "provides the best opportunity to build on Mobileye's track record for innovation and unlock value for shareholders," Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said.

Founded in Jerusalem in 1999 by Amnon Shashua and Ziv Aviram, the company develops systems and chips to help vehicles navigate autonomously and provide warnings for collisions. Tesla originally used Mobileye chips for its Autopilot system but severed ties with the company after a fatal accident where Tesla claims Mobileye's technology was unable to distinguish between a laterally crossing truck and the sky behind it. Its EyeQ4 chip is currently used in the NIO ES6 and ES8, Nissan's ProPilot 2.0, VW's Travel Assistant in the Passat and Golf, the Ford Mustang Mach-E, as well as the F-150 truck.

Mobileye is currently working on four different products that offer varying levels of automation, including an advanced driver assist system (ADAS) that it currently supplies to 25 companies and a "premium" ADAS that will launch with Zeekr, an electric vehicle brand owned by China's Geely. Neither ADAS system will include lidar, the sensor that uses lasers to determine the real-time location of objects on the road. Mobileye's other two products will use lidar and are more advanced in their automation technology. [...] Mobileye also aspires to operate its own robotaxis [...].

Karl Bode, reporting for TechDirt: Back in 2008, Verizon proclaimed that we didn't need additional consumer privacy protections (or opt in requirements, or net neutrality rules) because consumers would keep the company honest. "The extensive oversight provided by literally hundreds of thousands of sophisticated online users would help ensure effective enforcement of good practices and protect consumers," Verizon said at the time.

Six years later and Verizon found itself at the heart of a massive privacy scandal after it began covertly injecting unique user-tracking headers into wireless data packets. The technology allowed Verizon to track users all over the internet, and the company neither bothered to inform users it would happen, or gave users any way to opt out. It took security researchers two years before security researchers even realized what Verizon was doing. Verizon ultimately received a $1.35 million fine from the FCC (a tiny portion of what Verizon made off the program), but still uses the same tech (albeit with functioning opt-out) today.

A few years later and it's not clear Verizon has actually learned all that much. The company last week began expanding its data collection and monetization once again, this time via a new "Verizon Custom Experience" the company says will help it "personalize our communications with you, give you more relevant product and service recommendations, and develop plans, services and offers that are more appealing to you." In reality that means Verizon is expanding the collection of data on the websites you visit, the people you communicate with, and the apps you use.