Juul E-Cigarettes To Be Ordered Off US Shelves

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is preparing to order Juul Labs Inc to take its e-cigarettes off the market in the United States, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Reuters reports: Juul has faced heightened scrutiny from regulators, lawmakers and state attorneys general over the appeal of its nicotine products to teenagers. Under pressure, the company in late 2019 had halted U.S. sales of several flavors. “This clearly comes as a surprise to the market … we would expect that Juul would appeal the decision, and remain on the market through that process, which would likely take a year or more,” Cowen analyst Vivien Azer said.

The looming verdict comes nearly two years after Juul had applied for approval to keep selling e-cigarettes in the country. The FDA’s review of the applications was based on whether the e-cigarettes are effective in getting smokers to quit and, if so, whether the benefits to smokers outweigh the health damage to new users, including teenagers. […] The estimated fair value of Altria’s investment in Juul was $1.6 billion as of March end, a fraction of the $12.8 billion it paid in 2018, as a crackdown on vaping has upended the once fast-growing industry.

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Coinbase Shares Fall After Rival Binance.US Drops Spot Bitcoin Trading Fees

Coinbase shares fell almost 10% on Wednesday after rival crypto exchange Binance.US said it’s dropping certain trading fees for customers. CNBC reports: Binance.US, the U.S. affiliate of the largest crypto exchange in the world by trading volume, said it will allow users to make spot bitcoin trades for the U.S. dollar and stablecoins tether, USD Coin and Binance USD without paying spot trading fees. Shares of Coinbase were down 9.7%. Robinhood slipped by less than 1%.
In a separate report, Barron’s Daren Fonda speculates that a price war could be next.

“It’s the beginning of the end of Coinbase’s high-fee business model,” says Mizuho Securities analyst Dan Dolev. “We’ve said that the fees will eventually go close to zero. And it could be pretty rapid — it may be months. The market is very competitive and getting tighter.”

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SpaceX Asserts 5G Would ‘Blow Out’ Satellite Users In 12 GHz Band

Monica Alleven writes via Fierce Wireless: So much for the “win-win-win” scenario that Dish Network envisioned for the 12 GHz band. Dish and fellow MVDDS licensee RS Access have argued that the 12 GHz band can be used by both satellite players like SpaceX’s Starlink and by companies like Dish that want to use it for 5G, all for the public’s benefit. SpaceX on Tuesday submitted its own analysis (PDF) of the effect of terrestrial mobile deployment on non-geostationary orbit fixed satellite service (NGSO FSS) downlink operations. The upshot: The SpaceX study shows terrestrial mobile service would cause harmful interference to SpaceX’s Starlink terminals in the 12.2-12.7 GHz band more than 77% of the time, resulting in full outages 74% of the time.

Although entities like RS Access note that SpaceX has access to plenty of other spectrum to accomplish its broadband mission, SpaceX insists that the 12 GHz band has become one of the most important and intensely used spectrum bands for Americans who depend on satellite services. In fact, SpaceX said it depends on the 12 GHz band for the workhorse frequencies in critical downlink services to serve Americans “in every corner of the nation.” […] SpaceX would like the FCC to drop the 12 GHz proceeding, but Dish and RS Access have been urging the FCC for years to change the rules so that their MVDDS licenses can be used for two-way 5G services. In response to SpaceX’s submission, the 5G for 12 GHz Coalition, issued the following statement: “We understand that SpaceX has — after 18 months and both a robust comment and reply period — just filed its own in-house technical submission to the 12 GHz proceeding. Our engineers and technical experts are reviewing the filing in depth and remain committed to working in good faith with the FCC and stakeholders to ensure that the American public is able to reap the immense benefits of 5G services in this band.”

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Valve’s Steam Deck Makes a Brilliant Case Against Walled Gardens

“Unlike practically every major game console that’s come before it, the Steam Deck, from PC gaming giant Valve, doesn’t lock users into one ecosystem,” writes Fast Company’s Jared Newman. “While Valve’s own Steam store is the default way to buy and play games, the Steam Deck also lets users install whatever software they want on the device’s Linux-based operating system. The experience has been liberating…” From the report: In recent weeks, I’ve gorged on weird indie creations from itch.io, classic games from GOG.com, and free games from the Epic Games Store. I’ve used Plexamp to stream my personal music collection in place of in-game soundtracks, and I’ve used Vivaldi to browse the web in the Steam Deck’s desktop mode. You don’t have to use your Steam Deck this way, but just being knowing that it’s an option makes the device more capable and personal. The tech industry is filled with companies that seem deathly afraid of this model, either because they don’t trust their users or don’t want to risk weakening their own ecosystems. By taking the opposite approach, Valve is proving that open platforms aren’t so catastrophic, and it elevates the Steam Deck from yet another gadget into the most exciting consumer electronics device in years. […]

Valve could have easily used the Steam Deck to lock players into its own ecosystem. It could have opted not to include a desktop mode and withheld instructions on how to lift its read-only restrictions. It could have discouraged users from installing different operating systems and made its recovery tools unavailable to the public. Console makers have long insisted that such restrictions are necessary for the good of their platforms. In 2020, for instance, Microsoft argued that because console makers sell their hardware at or below cost to create a market for their software, they shouldn’t have to accommodate third-party app stores or sideloading.

Similar arguments have spilled out into the broader mobile app business as well. In response to a lawsuit from Epic Games, Apple has claimed that its investments in the App Store wouldn’t be feasible if it couldn’t force developers to use its in-app purchase mechanisms. Some defenders of Apple’s viewpoint, such as Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, have argued that iOS is more like a game console than a PC platform. So, it’s all the more remarkable that Valve ignored all this hand-wringing and made the Steam Deck a haven for tinkerers. Instead of trying to shut out competitors, the company is betting that its own store will prevail on quality. If the Steam Deck successful — as it appears to be so far — it could upend years of conventional wisdom around walled gardens and become a threat to other consoles in more ways than one.

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Physicists Say They’ve Built an Atom Laser That Can Run ‘Forever’

A new breakthrough has allowed physicists to create a beam of atoms that behaves the same way as a laser, and that can theoretically stay on “forever.” ScienceAlert reports: At the root of the atom laser is a state of matter called a Bose-Einstein condensate, or BEC. A BEC is created by cooling a cloud of bosons to just a fraction above absolute zero. At such low temperatures, the atoms sink to their lowest possible energy state without stopping completely. When they reach these low energies, the particles’ quantum properties can no longer interfere with each other; they move close enough to each other to sort of overlap, resulting in a high-density cloud of atoms that behaves like one ‘super atom’ or matter wave. However, BECs are something of a paradox. They’re very fragile; even light can destroy a BEC. Given that the atoms in a BEC are cooled using optical lasers, this usually means that a BEC’s existence is fleeting.

Atom lasers that scientists have managed to achieve to date have been of the pulsed, rather than continuous variety; and involve firing off just one pulse before a new BEC needs to be generated. In order to create a continuous BEC, a team of researchers at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands realized something needed to change. “In previous experiments, the gradual cooling of atoms was all done in one place. In our setup, we decided to spread the cooling steps not over time, but in space: we make the atoms move while they progress through consecutive cooling steps,” explained physicist Florian Schreck. “In the end, ultracold atoms arrive at the heart of the experiment, where they can be used to form coherent matter waves in a BEC. But while these atoms are being used, new atoms are already on their way to replenish the BEC. In this way, we can keep the process going — essentially forever.” The research has been published in the journal Nature.

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DRAM Prices To Drop 3-8% Due To Ukraine War, Inflation

Taiwanese research firm TrendForce said Monday that DRAM pricing for commercial buyers is forecast to drop around three to eight percent across those markets in the third quarter compared to the previous three months. Even prices for DDR5 modules in the PC market could drop as much as five percent from July to September. The Register reports: This could result in DRAM buyers, such as system vendors and distributors, reducing prices for end users if they hope to stimulate demand in markets like PC and smartphones where sales have waned. We suppose they could try to profit on the decreased memory prices, but with many people tightening their budgets, we hope this won’t be the case. The culprit for the DRAM price drop is one that we’ve been hearing a great deal about in the past few months: weaker demand for consumer electronics, including PCs and smartphones, as a result of high inflation and Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, according to TrendForce.

The weaker consumer demand means DRAM inventories are building up at system vendors and distributors, which means they don’t need to buy as much in the near future. This, in turn, is why memory prices are dropping, the research firm said. On the PC side, DDR4 memory pricing is expected to drop three to eight percent in the third quarter of 2022 after only seeing a zero to five percent decline in the second quarter. DDR5 pricing, on the other hand, is set to drop by only zero to five percent in Q3 after seeing a three to eight percent plummet in the previous quarter. For certain DRAM products, prices could see a steeper decline of more than eight percent, according to TrendForce, though the firm didn’t say which products this would include. TrendForce said PC makers are focused on getting rid of their existing DRAM inventories, and a continuously “sluggish” market means they’ll be reticent to buy much more memory.

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Rutgers Scientist Develops Antimicrobial, Plant-Based Food Wrap Designed To Replace Plastic

Aiming to produce environmentally friendly alternatives to plastic food wrap and containers, a Rutgers scientist has developed a biodegradable, plant-based coating that can be sprayed on foods, guarding against pathogenic and spoilage microorganisms and transportation damage. From a report: Their article, published in the science journal Nature Food, describes the new kind of packaging technology using the polysaccharide/biopolymer-based fibers. Like the webs cast by the Marvel comic book character Spider-Man, the stringy material can be spun from a heating device that resembles a hair dryer and “shrink-wrapped” over foods of various shapes and sizes, such as an avocado or a sirloin steak. The resulting material that encases food products is sturdy enough to protect bruising and contains antimicrobial agents to fight spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms such as E. coli and listeria.

The research paper includes a description of the technology called focused rotary jet spinning, a process by which the biopolymer is produced, and quantitative assessments showing the coating extended the shelf life of avocados by 50 percent. The coating can be rinsed off with water and degrades in soil within three days, according to the study. […] The paper describes how the new fibers encapsulating the food are laced with naturally occurring antimicrobial ingredients — thyme oil, citric acid and nisin. Researchers in the Demokritou research team can program such smart materials to act as sensors, activating and destroying bacterial strains to ensure food will arrive untainted. This will address growing concern over food-borne illnesses as well as lower the incidence of food spoilage […].

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Tencent Forms ‘Extended Reality’ Unit

China’s Tencent has officially announced the formation of an “extended reality” unit, “formally placing its bets on the metaverse concept of virtual worlds,” reports Reuters. From the report: The unit is tasked with building up the extended reality business for Tencent including both software and hardware, the sources said, adding that it will be led by Tencent Games Global’s Chief Technology Officer Li Shen and will be part of the company’s Interactive Entertainment business group. Two of the sources said the unit will eventually have over 300 staff, a generous figure given how Tencent has been cost cutting and slowing down hiring. However, they also cautioned that the hiring plans are still fluid, as the company will adjust the unit’s headcount based on its performance. The unit was first formed earlier this year but remained shrouded in secrecy, the three sources said.

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Apple Will Now Allow Developers To Transfer Ownership of Apps That Use iCloud

“The most impactful change to come out of WWDC had nothing to do with APIs, a new framework or any hardware announcement,” writes Jordan Morgan via Daring Fireball. “Instead, it was a change I’ve been clamoring for the last several years — and it’s one that’s incredibly indie friendly. As you’ve no doubt heard by now, I’m of course talking about iCloud enabled apps now allowing app transfers.” 9to5Mac explains how it works: According to Apple, you already could transfer an app when you’ve sold it to another developer or you would want to move it to another App Store Connect account or organization. You can also transfer the ownership of an app to another developer without removing it from the App Store. The company said: “The app retains its reviews and ratings during and after the transfer, and users continue to have access to future updates. Additionally, when an app is transferred, it maintains its Bundle ID — it’s not possible to update the Bundle ID after a build has been uploaded for the app.”

The news here is that it’s easier for developers to transfer the ownership of apps that use iCloud. Apple said that if your app uses any of the following, it will be transferred to the transfer recipient after they accept the app transfer: iCloud to store user data; iCloud containers; and KVS identifiers are associated with the app.

The company said: “If multiple apps on your account share a CloudKit container, the transfer of one app will disable the other apps’ ability to read or store data using the transferred CloudKit container. Additionally, the transferor will no longer have access to user data for the transferred app via the iCloud dashboard. Any app updates will disable the app’s ability to read or store data using the transferred CloudKit container. If your app uses iCloud Key-Value Storage (KVS), the full KVS value will be embedded in any new provisioning profiles you create for the transferred app. Update your entitlements plist with the full KVS value in your provisioning profile.” You can learn more about the news via this Apple Developer page.

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Researchers Claim Travis CI API Leaks ‘Tens of Thousands’ of User Tokens

Ars Technica describes Travis CI as “a service that helps open source developers write and test software.” They also wrote Monday that it’s “leaking thousands of authentication tokens and other security-sensitive secrets.

“Many of these leaks allow hackers to access the private accounts of developers on Github, Docker, AWS, and other code repositories, security experts said in a new report.”

The availability of the third-party developer credentials from Travis CI has been an ongoing problem since at least 2015. At that time, security vulnerability service HackerOne reported that a Github account it used had been compromised when the service exposed an access token for one of the HackerOne developers. A similar leak presented itself again in 2019 and again last year.

The tokens give anyone with access to them the ability to read or modify the code stored in repositories that distribute an untold number of ongoing software applications and code libraries. The ability to gain unauthorized access to such projects opens the possibility of supply chain attacks, in which threat actors tamper with malware before it’s distributed to users. The attackers can leverage their ability to tamper with the app to target huge numbers of projects that rely on the app in production servers.

Despite this being a known security concern, the leaks have continued, researchers in the Nautilus team at the Aqua Security firm are reporting. A series of two batches of data the researchers accessed using the Travis CI programming interface yielded 4.28 million and 770 million logs from 2013 through May 2022. After sampling a small percentage of the data, the researchers found what they believe are 73,000 tokens, secrets, and various credentials.

“These access keys and credentials are linked to popular cloud service providers, including GitHub, AWS, and Docker Hub,” Aqua Security said. “Attackers can use this sensitive data to initiate massive cyberattacks and to move laterally in the cloud. Anyone who has ever used Travis CI is potentially exposed, so we recommend rotating your keys immediately.”

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