Yahoo Tells Japan Employees They Can Work Anywhere, Commute By Plane When Necessary

Yahoo Japan is telling its 8,000 employees they can work anywhere in the country — and even be flown into work when the job requires it — bucking the trend of companies looking to return workers to offices in the third year of the coronavirus pandemic. The Japan Times reports: The program takes effect April 1 and allows employees to commute by plane, which wasn’t previously an option, the company said in a statement Wednesday. While Yahoo is best known for its internet portal in Japan, it’s a unit of SoftBank Group’s Z Holdings, which also owns the Line messaging app and PayPay mobile payments service. Ninety percent of the company’s employees are now working remotely, according to President Kentaro Kawabe, who tweeted that an overwhelming majority of them said their performance has held steady or improved at home. “So we’re allowing Yahoo employees to live anywhere in Japan. This doesn’t mean we’re denying the benefits of the office — you’ll be able to fly in when needed,” he added.

Yahoo is setting a commuting budget of $1,300 per month per worker and lifting its previous daily cap. In-person communication will still be encouraged as the initiative is also aimed at bolstering morale and well-being, with social gatherings to be subsidized by [$44] per employee a month. The company has had an “office anywhere” remote work system in place since 2014, however it had capped the number of work-from-home days before the virus took hold to five days a month.

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Jack Dorsey Announces Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund

Former Twitter CEO and Block founder Jack Dorsey has announced plans to create a “Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund” with Chaincode Labs co-founder Alex Morcos and Martin White, who appears to be an academic at the University of Sussex. CoinTelegraph reports: The announcement was sent on a mailing list for Bitcoin developers, bitcoin-dev, at 13:45 UTC on Wednesday from an email address appearing to belong to Dorsey. The announcement stated the fund will help provide a legal defense for Bitcoin developers, who are “currently the subject of multi-front litigation.” “Litigation and continued threats are having their intended effect; individual defendants have chosen to capitulate in the absence of legal support,” the email stated, referencing open-source developers who are often independent and, therefore, susceptible to legal pressure.

The announcement went on to describe the Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund as a “nonprofit entity that aims to minimize legal headaches that discourage software developers from actively developing Bitcoin and related projects.” “The main purpose of this Fund is to defend developers from lawsuits regarding their activities in the Bitcoin ecosystem, including finding and retaining defense counsel, developing litigation strategy, and paying legal bills,” it stated. Initially, the fund will include volunteers and part-time lawyers for developers to “take advantage of if they so wish,” although, the email also states that “the board of the Fund will be responsible for determining which lawsuits and defendants it will help defend.” According to the email, the fund’s first project will be to take over the existing defense of Ramona Ang’s “Tulip Trading Lawsuit” against developers for alleged misconduct over access to a Bitcoin (BTC) fortune.

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US To Hold Largest-Ever Offshore Wind Farm Auction Next Month

The US government announced Wednesday it will auction more than 480,000 acres off the coasts of New York and New Jersey to build wind farms as part of its campaign to supply renewable energy to more than 10 million homes by 2030. Tech Xplore reports: Offshore wind developers will bid February 23 on six areas in the New York Bight — the most lots ever offered in a single auction — which could generate between 5.6 to seven gigawatts of energy, enough to power two million homes, the Interior Department said. The auction will be the first under President Joe Biden, whose administration aims to build as many as to seven major offshore wind farms and review plans for at least 16 others along the US coasts. The effort is part of Washington’s fight against climate change, and the Biden administration says the wind investment would cut 78 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions and create tens of thousands of jobs.

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Germany Raises Prospect of Shutting Telegram Over Hate Threats

Germany raised the prospect of closing down the Telegram messaging service over concerns about its use as a platform for extremist groups. Bloomberg reports: The country could seek to block the service if the government reaches the conclusion that it breeches national and European Union law. “A shutdown would be very serious and clearly the last resort,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in an interview with German weekly Die Zeit. Before such a step, all other options would have to be exhausted, but “we can’t exclude this per se,” the SPD politician said. Talks about possible measures against Telegram are ongoing, an Interior Ministry spokesman said on Wednesday, adding that it wasn’t clear what legal and technical procedures would be necessary to switch off Telegram.

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Taiwan Will Soon Have More Electric Scooter Battery Swap Stations Than Gas Stations

According to Electrek, the number of Gogoro electric scooter battery swap stations in Taiwan will soon eclipse the country’s total number of gas stations. From the report: Gogoro’s battery swap stations look something like a bright green and white vending machine. Users of Gogoro’s batteries (which include scooters of many different brands thanks to its partnerships), simply roll up to a station and swap out their depleted battery for a freshly charged unit. A subscription service makes it a quick and easy process that takes just a few seconds. At the end of 2021, Gogoro counted a total of 2,215 GoStations nationwide, according to the Taipei Times. The number of gas stations stood barely higher at 2,487. At Gogoro’s current rate of expansion, 2022 very well may be the year that the number of GoStations surpasses the number of gas stations.

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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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