Most Government Websites Serve Tracking Cookies Without Consent, Report Finds

A new study published by the IMDEA Networks Institute shows just how common it is for government websites to install third-party cookies in visitors’ web browsers. HotHardware reports: The study makes a distinction between third-party (TP) cookies and third-party tracking (TPT) cookies, because not all third-party cookies are “set by domains that are known to be tracking users for data collection purposes.” The chart [here] shows the percentage of government websites for each country that install at least one third-party cookie, as well as the percentage of said cookies that are associated with domains that are known to be tracking users. Russia tops out the list with over 90% of its government websites installing third-party cookies in visitors’ web browsers. Meanwhile, nearly 60% of US government websites install at least one third-party cookie. Germany sits at the bottom of the list with a little under 30% of government websites serving up third-party cookies.

Most of the third-party cookies installed by government websites are known tracking cookies, except in the case of Germany, where under 10% of third-party cookies are associated with domains that are known to track users. The researchers also found that, depending on the country, 20% to 60% of the third party cookies installed by government websites remain in visitors’ browsers without expiring for a year or more. That’s a long time for a tracker installed without your knowledge or consent to remain active. Beyond specifically tracking cookies, the researchers measured the number of trackers of any kind present on government websites. The Russian gov.ru has the most trackers out of any government website analyzed by the researchers, numbering 31 trackers in total. However, Brazil and Canada aren’t far behind, with 25 trackers present on both investexportbrasil.gov.br and nac-cna.ca. The US government website with the most trackers is hhs.gov, which has 13.

The researchers point out that both third-party tracking cookies are automatically installed in visitors’ web browsers without their consent. However, the researchers guess that web developers and administrators likely include third-party content without intending to add trackers to their websites. A great many websites now rely on third-party resources and include social content that come with trackers built-in.

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Tesla To Expand Its US Supercharger Network To Other EVs In Late 2022

Tesla plans to begin opening its Supercharger network to other electric vehicles by the end of the year, according to a White House memo that shared the automaker’s plans. TechCrunch reports: The U.S. government said in April that it needs to increase its own network of about 1,100 charging stations a hundred-fold to meet coming demand. Tesla’s plans call for expanding capacity at its Gigafactory in Buffalo, New York, where more than 1,600 employees produce Supercharging stations and solar panels, the memo said. “Later this year, Tesla will begin production of new Supercharger equipment that will enable non-Tesla EV drivers in North America to use Tesla Superchargers,” according to the memo.

The expansion — and exposure to customers of other EVs brands — could help Tesla capture more revenue and attention as automakers begin launching new EVs over the next couple of years. The memo did not mention how much money Tesla will invest in adding stations to its fast-charging network, but said that the EV maker is ramping up production of “power electronics components that convert alternating current to direct current, charging cabinets, posts and cables.”

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VW Announces $20 Billion Effort To Build Its Own EV Batteries

Volkswagen said it would invest $20.38 billion to build electric vehicle batteries, a move the company says will create 20,000 jobs and generate $20.38 billion in annual sales. The Verge reports: The automaker will create a new company called Power Co to oversee the vast effort as VW races to secure enough capacity, materials, and supplies to power its EV ambitions. Power Co will manage VW’s entire battery supply chain, from research and development of new technologies to the mining of the raw materials to end-of-life recycling. The news was announced at a groundbreaking ceremony for the company’s first battery plant in Salzgitter, a city in Germany’s Lower Saxony.

Last year, VW unveiled plans to build six battery cell production plants in Europe by 2030, including the facility in Salzgitter and one in Skelleftea, Sweden. A third plant will be established in Valencia, Spain, and the fourth factory will be based in Eastern Europe. The company is also exploring plans to build future gigafactories in North America. The plants will eventually have a production capacity of 240 gigawatt-hours a year. Starting in 2023, VW plans to roll out a new unified prismatic cell design of its batteries that will be installed across the automaker’s brands. The goal is to have this unified cell design powering up to 80 percent of VW’s electric vehicles by 2030. VW also has contracts with two other major battery producers, Samsung and CATL. And the company is backing a startup based in San Jose, California, QuantumScape, which is working on more energy-efficient solid-state batteries.

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Will EVs Mean the End of AM Radio In Cars?

Some carmakers are leaving AM radios out of their new cars. They say it’s because of audio quality, but it isn’t that simple. James Gilboy writes via The Drive. From the report: BMW and Volvo told me it was due to audio quality problems rooted in electromagnetic interference, of which EVs’ drivetrains produce a significant amount. Cars’ engines and other complex electronics have always made EM interference, but low-wattage static is relatively easy to shield against. It’s not as simple with EVs that may pull hundreds of watts from their batteries, generating far more interference, reducing audio quality to a level both BMW and Volvo told me they consider insufficient. But it’s hard to take them at their word when EVs are built with AM radios and in no small numbers. Detroit’s Three — Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis — have produced or currently make EVs that include AM radio, even on flagship models. That goes for the Ford F-150 Lightning and Mustang Mach-E, GM EVs from the Cadillac Lyriq to the Chevy Bolt EUV and GMC Hummer EV, and even Stellantis’s almost-forgotten Fiat 500e. Clearly, some carmakers don’t think EM interference is a problem, and some EV owners agree. One user of an EV forum user said that AM radio “works fine” in their 500e and older Chevy Bolt.

We contacted all three of Detroit’s giants for why they continue to include AM radios when some European makes have phased them out, but the answer establishes itself across those very same lines. AM radio has fallen out of favor in Europe, with Radio Info reporting in 2015 that stations were shutting down en masse from France to the Netherlands and Russia. The frequency has largely been superseded by the DAB format, which is a more advanced form of radio broadcasting with better audio quality and choice of stations. AM radio stations and their listeners are all but gone in Europe, so European carmakers may not need to include technology that many of its customers can’t use.

In the U.S., on the other hand, radio remains a must for car buyers, with 89 percent of responders in a 2021 survey stating radio should be standard in new cars. That makes radio even more important to U.S. car buyers than USB ports, which only 84 percent said were necessary. AM audiences were in rapid decline as of a 2017 report by Inside Radio, but not to enough a degree for American carmakers to leave AM radios out of their products. It’s not hard to figure out why AM’s holding on here, either: AM signals travel further than FM broadcasts do and are cheaper to transmit, allowing them to cater to audiences in sparsely populated areas. Audio quality can’t compare, but that’s secondary to having anything to listen to at all in some parts of the continental United States.

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Apple Plans To Launch An ‘Extreme Sports’ Apple Watch With a Larger Screen, Metal Casing: Report

Apple is reportedly planning to launch an “extreme sports” version of the Apple Watch this year, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. TechCrunch reports: The extreme sports Apple Watch is expected to have the company’s largest smartwatch display to date, along with a bigger battery and rugged metal casing. The display will measure in at almost two inches diagonally, Gurman says. The extreme sports model will have about 7% more screen area than the largest current Apple Watch. The display will also have a resolution of about 410 pixels by 502 pixels. Gurman speculates that the larger screen could be used to display more fitness metrics or information on watch faces.

In addition, Gurman says the extreme sports watch will use a stronger metal than aluminum and have a more shatter-resistant screen. The watch is also expected to have a larger battery in order to accommodate longer workout times. Gurman also says the watch is expected to have improved tracking metrics, such as the ability to detect elevation when hiking. As with the Apple Watch 8, the extreme sports model is expected to have the ability to detect fevers by taking the wearer’s body temperature. The extreme sports model is reportedly going to be announced later this year, alongside two other models, the Apple Watch Series 8 and an updated version of the low-end Apple Watch SE.

Gurman says the Apple Watch Series 8 will retain its 1.9-inch diagonal screen size, while the Apple Watch SE will stick with its current 1.78-inch screen size. The extreme sports version of the Apple Watch is expected to cost more than the standard stainless steel Apple Watch, which is currently priced at $699. All of the new Apple Watches will use an S8 processor with similar performance to the S7 chip in the Apple Watch Series 7, Gurman says. Apple typically announces its new watch models in September alongside its new iPhone launches.

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EU Lawmakers Pass Landmark Tech Rules, But Enforcement a Worry

EU lawmakers gave the thumbs up on Tuesday to landmark rules to rein in tech giants such as Alphabet unit Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft, but enforcement could be hampered by regulators’ limited resources. From a report: In addition to the rules known as the Digital Markets Act (DMA), lawmakers also approved the Digital Services Act (DSA), which requires online platforms to do more to police the internet for illegal content. Companies face fines of up to 10% of annual global turnover for DMA violations and 6% for DSA breaches. Lawmakers and EU states had reached a political deal on both rule books earlier this year, leaving some details to be ironed out. The European Commission has set up a taskforce, with about 80 officials expected to join up, which critics say is inadequate. Last month it put out a 12 million euro ($12.3 million) tender for experts to help in investigations and compliance enforcement over a four-year period. EU industry chief Thierry Breton sought to address enforcement concerns, saying various teams would focus on different issues such as risk assessments, interoperability of messenger services and data access during implementation of the rules.

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IDC: ‘All Eyes Will Be On Apple’ As Meta’s VR Strategy ‘Isn’t Sustainable’

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A recent media release from market research firm IDC predicts that Meta (the parent company of Facebook) may not be able to compete in the mixed-reality business in the long run if its strategy remains unchanged. The media release offers a bird’s-eye view of the virtual reality hardware marketplace. In the release, IDC research manager Jitesh Ubrani said that, while “Meta continues to pour dollars into developing the metaverse, [the company’s] strategy of promoting low-cost hardware at the expense of profitability isn’t sustainable in the long run.”

A similar concern was raised by tech industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo late last month. Kuo predicted that Meta would make moves to scale down investment in virtual reality, creating an opening for Apple and other competitors. He also wrote that Meta’s practice of selling VR headsets at a loss is unsustainable. Currently, Meta owns 90 percent of the VR headset market, according to the IDC release. In distant second is ByteDance’s Pico, at just 4.5 percent. Overall, VR headset shipments jumped 241.6 percent year over year in the first quarter of 2022. But the industry faced significant supply issues in Q1 2021, contributing to “a favorable comparison” for this year’s Q1.

Like Kuo a couple of weeks ago, IDC research director Ramon Llamas said that “all eyes will be on Apple as it launches its first headset next year.” Apple’s headset is expected to be much more expensive than Meta’s offerings, driving up the average unit price for the product category across the board, and Llamas believes Apple’s offering “will appeal primarily to a small audience of early adopters and Apple fans.” In other words, don’t expect the first Apple headset to ship vastly more units than Meta’s Oculus Quest 2 right out of the gate. It’s just a first step in a long-term plan to own the mixed-reality market.

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Apple Launches iPhone Security Tool To Block Targeted Attacks

Apple introduced a security tool for iPhone, iPad and Mac devices that is designed to prevent targeted cyberattacks on high-profile users such as activists, journalists and government officials. From a report: The optional feature, called Lockdown Mode, will offer “extreme” protection for a “very small number of users who face grave, targeted attacks,” Apple said Wednesday in a statement. The tool vastly reduces the number of physical and digital ways for an attacker to hack a user’s device. Apple said the feature is aimed primarily at trying to combat attacks from “spyware” sold by NSO Group and other companies, particularly to state-sponsored groups.

[…] Lockdown Mode will affect the Messages app, FaceTime, Apple online services, configuration profiles, the Safari web browser and wired connections. With the tool in place, the Messages app will block attachments other than images and disable link previews. Those are two common mechanisms that hackers use to infiltrate devices remotely. The web browser, another frequent conduit for hackers, will also be severely limited, with restrictions on certain fonts, web languages and features involving reading PDFs and previewing content. In FaceTime, users won’t be able to receive calls from an individual that they haven’t previously called within the preceding 30 days.

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‘The Phone is Terrible For Cloud Gaming’

An anonymous reader shares a column: The promise of cloud gaming is that you can do it from anywhere using any device with internet access and a good enough browser (each cloud gaming service seems to have its own requirements on the browser front). You should be able to play super demanding games whether you’re on a work trip with nothing but a work laptop or at home and the main TV is being hogged — or even if you just don’t feel like sitting on the couch. But the biggest promise of cloud gaming is that, no matter where you are, if you’ve got a phone then you’ve got all your games.

In practice, this is a bad idea. After spending the last few weeks rapturously using my Steam Deck near daily to play games in the cloud, I am never going to willingly attempt cloud gaming on my phone again. Valve’s enormous do-anything handheld PC has made me realize that, actually, sometimes dedicated gaming hardware is good! The Swiss Army knife approach to mobile gaming promised by cloud gaming on your phone is about as useful as the saw on a real Swiss Army knife. I appreciate the effort, but I don’t actually want to use it.

I’ve tried to make cloud gaming work on my phone a lot. I’ve attempted Red Dead Redemption 2 and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Halo and Gears of War and plenty of other games. Each time, I’m hit with wonder because, holy shit, these are demanding AAA games that usually require tons of expensive (and noisy) hardware playing on my phone. That feels like the delivery on a promise tech companies made me decades ago. But the wonder wears off when you cloud game on your phone for an extended period of time. Cloud gaming drains the phone’s battery quickly, which means you can and will be feeling the battery anxiety.

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