Google Says iMessage Is Too Powerful

Google took to Twitter this weekend to complain that iMessage is just too darn influential with today’s kids. Ron Amadeo writes via Ars Technica: The company was responding to a Wall Street Journal report detailing the lock-in and social pressure Apple’s walled garden is creating among US teens. iMessage brands texts from iPhone users with a blue background and gives them additional features, while texts from Android phones are shown in green and only have the base SMS feature set. According to the article, “Teens and college students said they dread the ostracism that comes with a green text. The social pressure is palpable, with some reporting being ostracized or singled out after switching away from iPhones.” Google feels this is a problem.

“iMessage should not benefit from bullying,” the official Android Twitter account wrote. “Texting should bring us together, and the solution exists. Let’s fix this as one industry.” Google SVP Hiroshi Lockheimer chimed in, too, saying, “Apple’s iMessage lock-in is a documented strategy. Using peer pressure and bullying as a way to sell products is disingenuous for a company that has humanity and equity as a core part of its marketing. The standards exist today to fix this.”

The “solution” Google is pushing here is RCS, or Rich Communication Services, a GSMA standard from 2008 that has slowly gained traction as an upgrade to SMS. RCS adds typing indicators, user presence, and better image sharing to carrier messaging. It is a 14-year-old carrier standard, though, so it lacks many of the features you would want from a modern messaging service, like end-to-end encryption and support for non-phone devices. Google tries to band-aid over the aging standard with its “Google Messaging” client, but the result is a lot of clunky solutions that don’t add up to a good modern messaging service. Since RCS replaces SMS, Google has been on a campaign to get the industry to make the upgrade. After years of protesting, the US carriers are all onboard, and there is some uptake among the international carriers, too. The biggest holdout is Apple, which only supports SMS through iMessage. “Google clearly views iMessage’s popularity as a problem, and the company is hoping this public-shaming campaign will get Apple to change its mind on RCS,” writes Amadeo in closing. “But Google giving other companies advice on a messaging strategy is a laughable idea since Google probably has the least credibility of any tech company when it comes to messaging services. If the company really wants to do something about iMessage, it should try competing with it.”

Further reading:
Eddy Cue Wanted To Bring iMessage To Android In 2013
Apple Says iMessage On Android ‘Will Hurt Us More Than Help Us’

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T-Mobile Says It Has ‘Not Broadly Blocked’ iCloud Private Relay, Blames iOS 15.2 Bug For Errors

T-Mobile has officially acknowledged a bug that has blocked some subscribers from using iCloud Private Relay when connected to cellular networking. In a statement to 9to5Mac, T-Mobile blamed this situation on a bug in iOS 15.2 and said that it has “not broadly blocked” iCloud Private Relay. From the report: It’s also important to note that this bug is not only affecting T-Mobile subscribers, as the company says in its statement. Instead, it’s a bug that seems to affect iOS 15.2 broadly rather than T-Mobile specifically. The issue is also still present in the latest release of iOS 15.3 beta. The full statement reads: “Overnight our team identified that in the 15.2 iOS release, some device settings default to the feature being toggled off. We have shared this with Apple. This is not specific to T-Mobile. Again though, we have not broadly blocked iCloud Phone Relay.”

A solution to the problem that has worked for 9to5Mac in testing is to go to Settings, then choose Cellular, then choose your plan, and ensure that “Limit IP Address Tracking” is enabled. Make sure to complete these steps while WiFi is disabled and you are connected to your cellular network. T-Mobile has, however, acknowledged that are situations in which it is required to block iCloud Private Relay due to technical reasons. Namely, if your account or line has content moderation features or parental controls enabled, you will be unable to use iCloud Private Relay when connected to cellular. […] A source has also confirmed to 9to5Mac that this also applies to certain legacy plans that include the Netflix on Us perk and have Family Allowances enabled.

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The Associated Press Is Starting Its Own NFT Marketplace For Photojournalism

The Associated Press, or AP, has announced that it’s starting a marketplace to sell NFTs of its photojournalists’ work in collaboration with a company called Xooa. The Verge reports: It’s billing its foray into NFTs as a way for collectors to “purchase the news agency’s award-winning contemporary and historic photojournalism” and says that the virtual tokens will be released at “broad and inclusive price points” (though it’s hard to tell what types of prices resellers will want on the AP marketplace). The news outlet says its system will be built on the “environmentally friendly” Polygon blockchain and that the NFTs will “include a rich set of original metadata” to tell buyers when, where, and how the photos were taken. It says its first collection, launching January 31st, will include NFTs featuring photos of “space, climate, war and other images to spotlights on the work of specific AP photographers.”

Buyers will be able to pay for NFTs from the market using either credit cards or Ethereum — AP says the MetaMask will be the first wallet supported but that there are plans to add support for others. There will be virtual queues to buy NFTs as they’re released by AP, with “Pulitzer Drops” containing more limited-edition NFTs happening every two weeks — the FAQ says these particular images will “have increased scarcity to preserve their status.” Buyers will be able to resell those NFTs on the site’s secondary market. AP says that the proceeds from the NFTs’ sale will be used to fund its journalistic endeavors. It’ll also get revenue whenever they’re resold on its marketplace — the FAQ says there’s a 10 percent fee associated with reselling, and Xooa spokesperson Lauren Easton told The Verge in an email that the two companies would share that fee. Easton also told us that the “photographers will share in all revenue collected,” but didn’t specify what their cut would be. The NFT marketplace is set to open on January 31st, but you can get on a waitlist now to get “priority access” and a higher waitlist ranking if you refer others to sign up.

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The GMC Hummer EV Could Pop Wheelies Before Engineers Intervened

New submitter X2b5Ysb8 shares a report from The Drive, written by Peter Holderith: Driving a 2022 GMC Hummer EV prototype back in Oct. 2021 was an eye-opening experience. […] I did a fair amount of driving and some riding along with the vehicle’s chief engineer, Al Oppenheiser. During one of our chats, Oppenheiser shared with me some of the trials and tribulations his engineering team went through while developing the vehicle. This included one unexpected capability that had to be tuned out before the massive truck was delivered to customers: wheelies. After a launch in WTF mode on the steeply banked test track at GM’s Milford Proving Grounds, I told Oppenheiser that I was impressed how the truck could spin all four of its tires as it fired off the line like a shot. He went on to explain that was actually a preferred scenario as far as launches go. They used to be even more interesting when the tires came off the ground.

“In the early days when we were just trying to balance the front and rear torque, I got the front end to lift,” he told me. As it turns out, so much of the car was developed digitally that, when it came time to do real-world testing, there were a few unexpected quirks. “We had to back off the torque on the front end,” he added, just as he prepared the Hummer for another launch. After our final sprint to highway speeds in WTF mode, I clarified with him that the Hummer would indeed do a wheelstand if it was tuned correctly. He reiterated his point, saying “originally” that was the case, and you could theoretically still make it do so “to prove that you can.” However, when it comes to the production versions of the hefty 4×4, he made it clear that for “functional safety reasons,” that wouldn’t be in the Hummer’s big bag of tricks. Talking about feeling cheated. So yes, the Hummer EV can do wheelies, just not in stock form.

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Meet Boomy, the AI Software That Could Turn You In To a Music Star

Boomy is a new AI startup that helps users create their own songs using artificial intelligence software that does most of the heavy lifting. The BBC reports: You choose from a number of genres, click on “create song”, and the AI will compose one for you in less than 30 seconds. It swiftly picks the track’s key, chords and melody. And from there you can then finesse your song. You can do things such as add or strip-out instruments, change the tempo, adjust the volumes, add echoes, make everything sound brighter or softer, and lay down some vocals.

California-based, Boomy, was launched at the end of 2018, and claims its users around the world have now created almost five million songs. The Boomy website and app even allows people to submit their tracks to be listed on Spotify and other music streaming sites, and to earn money every time they get played. While Boomy owns the copyright to each recording, and receives the funds in the first instance, the company says it passes on 80% of the streaming royalties to the person who created the song. [CEO Alex Mitchell] adds that more than 10,000 of its users have published over 100,000 songs in total on various streaming services.

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CISA Director: We’ll Be Dealing With Log4j For a Long Time

Security professionals will be dealing with the fallout from the Log4j bug for a long time to come, top officials for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said Monday. CNET reports: If left unpatched or otherwise unfixed, the major security flaw discovered a month ago in the Java-logging library Apache Log4j poses risks for huge swaths of the internet. The vulnerability in the widely used software could be exploited by cyberattackers to take over computer servers, potentially putting everything from consumer electronics to government and corporate systems at risk of a cyberattack. No US federal agencies have been compromised as a result of the vulnerability, CISA Director Jen Easterly told reporters on a call Monday. In addition, no major cyberattacks involving the bug have been reported in the US, though many attacks go unreported, she said.

Easterly said the sheer scope of the vulnerability, which affects tens of millions of internet-connected devices, makes it the worst she has seen in her career. It’s possible, she said, that attackers are biding their time, waiting for companies and others to lower their defenses before they attack. “We do expect Log4Shell to be used in intrusions well into the future,” Easterly said, using the name for the bug in the Log4j software. She noted the Equifax data breach in 2017, which compromised the personal information of nearly 150 million Americans, stemmed from a vulnerability in open-source software. Most of the attempts to exploit the bug, so far, have been focused on low-level crypto mining or attempts to draw devices into botnets, she said.

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Green Texts In IMessages Nudges Teens To Use IPhones

Slashdot reader PolygamousRanchKid quotes a report from Apple Insider: Apple’s color-coding of SMS communications in green in iMessage plays a role alongside other feature in getting teenagers to switch from Android to iPhone, a report claims, with a pressure to fit in with their peers promoting moves to turn their messages blue. The use of green and blue to show whether a message to a user is made through iMessage or via other devices has become more than a simple convenience indicator for users. It’s also a form of status indicator, showing the user not only owns an iPhone, but can also make use of features on the platform that others cannot. In a profile of the color-indication system by the Wall Street Journal, teenagers and students explain how not having an iPhone and seeing green messages are seemingly a negative to them.
New York masters student Jocelyn Maher said she was mocked by her friends and younger sister when dating, if the potential suitor used Android. ‘I was like, Oh my gosh, his texts are green,’ and my sister literally went Ew, that’s gross,” said Maher.
Apple is apparently well aware that iMessage is a serious draw to its users, with it surfacing in the Epic-Apple trial as part of a series of claims it was used to lock users into its ecosystem. Epic pointed to statements by senior Apple management that the company had blocked the creation of an Android version of iMessage.

The Wall Street Journal headlined its piece, “Why Appleâ(TM)s iMessage Is Winning: Teens Dread the Green Text Bubble.”

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Open Source Developer Intentionally Corrupts His Own Widely-Used Libraries

“Users of popular open-source libraries ‘colors’ and ‘faker’ were left stunned after they saw their applications, using these libraries, printing gibberish data and breaking..” reports BleepingComputer.
“The developer of these libraries intentionally introduced an infinite loop that bricked thousands of projects that depend on ‘colors and ‘faker’.”

The colors library receives over 20 million weekly downloads on npm alone, and has almost 19,000 projects depending on it. Whereas, faker receives over 2.8 million weekly downloads on npm, and has over 2,500 dependents….

Yesterday, users of popular open-source projects, such as Amazon’s Cloud Development Kit were left stunned on seeing their applications print gibberish messages on their console. These messages included the text ‘LIBERTY LIBERTY LIBERTY’ followed by a sequence of non-ASCII characters… The developer, named Marak Squires added a “new American flag module” to colors.js library yesterday in version v1.4.44-liberty-2 that he then pushed to GitHub and npm. The infinite loop introduced in the code will keep running indefinitely; printing the gibberish non-ASCII character sequence endlessly on the console for any applications that use ‘colors.’ Likewise, a sabotaged version ‘6.6.6’ of faker was published to GitHub and npm….

The reason behind this mischief on the developer’s part appears to be retaliation — against mega-corporations and commercial consumers of open-source projects who extensively rely on cost-free and community-powered software but do not, according to the developer, give back to the community. In November 2020, Marak had warned that he will no longer be supporting the big corporations with his “free work” and that commercial entities should consider either forking the projects or compensating the dev with a yearly “six figure” salary….

Some dubbed this an instance of “yet another OSS developer going rogue,” whereas InfoSec expert VessOnSecurity called the action “irresponsible,” stating: “If you have problems with business using your free code for free, don’t publish free code. By sabotaging your own widely used stuff, you hurt not only big business but anyone using it. This trains people not to update, ‘coz stuff might break.”

GitHub has reportedly suspended the developer’s account. And, that too, has caused mixed reactions… “Removing your own code from [GitHub] is a violation of their Terms of Service? WTF? This is a kidnapping. We need to start decentralizing the hosting of free software source code,” responded software engineer Sergio Gómez.

“While it looks like color.js has been updated to a working version, faker.js still appears to be affected, but the issue can be worked around by downgrading to a previous version (5.5.3),” reports the Verge:

Even more curiously, the faker.js Readme file has also been changed to “What really happened with Aaron Swartz…?”

Squires’ bold move draws attention to the moral — and financial — dilemma of open-source development, which was likely the goal of his actions.

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Amazon Joins Lockheed Martin and Cisco to Send Alexa to Space, Offers NASA Tours for SchoolKids

“Alexa, when are we arriving at the moon?” quips GeekWire.

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes:

This week brought news that Amazon is teaming up with Lockheed Martin and Cisco to put its Alexa voice assistant on NASA’s Orion spacecraft for the (uncrewed) Artemis 1 round-the-moon mission….

On the heels of that announcement came news that Amazon Future Engineer (AFE) has partnered with Mobile CSP and the National Science Teaching Association (NSTA) on the Alexa for Astronauts program, which will provide students in grades 4-and-up with live WebEx by Cisco tours from NASA’s Johnson Space Center. This program will also provide curriculum — NSTA’s Using AI to Monitor Health and Mobile CSP’s Alexa in Space — aimed at teaching high school Science and AP Computer Science Principles students “how to program their own Alexa skills that could help astronauts [and ‘inexperienced space travelers, such as tourists’] solve problems in space and communities at home” using MIT’s App Inventor.

App Inventor, some may recall, was developed at Google to bring programming to the masses only to be suddenly abandoned. App Inventor was later picked up by MIT and — with support from Google and millions in NSF funding — eventually found its way into curriculum developed for the new AP CSP course aimed at mainstreaming AP Computer Science.

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New NFT Series Announced – By Cheech and Chong

Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland writes: Yes, it’s true. 83-year-old Tommy Chong and and 75-year-old Cheech Marin have reunited to create NFTs — a whole series of ’em — “bringing to life new characters and storylines,” according to an official announcement, “while simultaneously celebrating Cheech & Chong’s 50-plus year career of commercial and cultural success.”

The NFT series will be called “Homies in Dreamland.”

“As many know, I am deeply involved in the art community,” Cheech says in the announcement. “As an early believer, I am glad we are introducing an NFT project now, ushering in a new era of branding for the duo and the art community.”

And Tommy Chong calls NFTs “a new way for people to express themselves and reach out to others.

“Art is connecting with others and reaching the deeper parts of self. This can bring people from the NFT world into the world of Cheech and Chong, and together in the world of NFTs.”
Last month Cheech and Chong even announced an official Discord channel for their NFT series — where they’re also hosting movie and trivia nights. But “the holders of the NFT art collectible will gain access to a variety of utility, including future airdrops and special access/utility tokens randomly inserted throughout the collection.”

The NFT series will release sometime this month, according to the announcement, with artwork by Jermaine Rogers, known for his poster art for musical acts including David Bowie, Childish Gambino, Tool, Foo Fighters, Radiohead, and Run The Jewels…

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