Technology Business

The US justice department wants to have its say on Apple’s antitrust tussle with Epic Games, which is due to be heard on appeal next month—a year after a Californian court ruled largely in favor of the iPhone maker.

On Friday, the appeals court granted the department the right to send a representative to the hearing scheduled for October 21, where both sides are expected to make their case again.

In 2021 a California judge ruled against Fortnite-maker Epic, which had accused Apple of acting like a monopoly in its shop for digital goods or services.

But the judge also barred Apple from prohibiting developers from including in their apps “external links or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms.”

Apple can still mandate that its payment systems is used for in-app transactions.

Both sides are appealing.

Earlier this year the justice department asked for time at the appeal hearing to air concerns about the trial judge’s interpretation of antitrust law at issue in the case.

“The district court committed several legal errors that could imperil effective antitrust enforcement, especially in the digital economy,” justice department lawyers argued in their brief.

Justice officials have been investigating whether Apple and other tech giants are abusing their market clout with anti-competitive practices.

Attorneys for Apple, Epic and the justice department will all speak to the appeals court, which will also consider their written arguments.

© 2022 AFP

Uber said Friday it was investigating a “cybersecurity incident,” declining to comment on reports a young hacker had gained access to the ride-hailing company’s computer network.

Uber put out word of the breach late Thursday in a tweet, and a hacker claiming to be 18 years old then posted screenshots taken from inside Uber computers.

“He says that he simply—having already determined a valid username and password—tricked an Uber staff member into granting him access to internal systems,” independent cybersecurity analyst Graham Cluley said at his website.

Online comments purported to be by the hacker indicated he targeted an Uber employee with notifications for more than an hour, then reached out to the worker via WhatsApp claiming to be member of the company’s tech support team.

“Many other companies are probably at risk of falling for a similar trick,” Cluley said.

Uber said Friday that its services were all operational and that it had “no evidence that the incident involved access to sensitive data” such as users’ trip history.

Employee software tools shut down as a precaution were being gradually restarted, the San Francisco based company added.

“There’s a reason cybersecurity experts say that the human is often the weakest link,” said Ray Kelly, a fellow at Synopsys Software Integrity Group in Silicon Valley.

“Whether it be phishing/SMS attacks or a simple phone call to get an employee to give up their credentials, ‘social engineering’ is going to be the easiest route for a malicious actor.”

© 2022 AFP

Ethereum, the blockchain network behind the world’s second-largest crypto token ether, just completed a major software upgrade that could revolutionize the cryptocurrency universe, some experts say.

The upgrade, called “the Merge” by crypto enthusiasts, promises to lower Ethereum’s energy consumption and attract more users. Climate activists have long criticized digital assets because producing them uses enormous amounts of electricity and generates large CO₂ emissions. The University of Cambridge and Digiconomist estimate that the two largest crypto-assets, Bitcoin and Ethereum, together use around twice as much electricity in one year as the whole of Sweden.

Crypto-production’s high energy consumption is due to “proof of work,” which is the way transactions are verified and more digital assets are produced. By upgrading its software, Ethereum is changing the process to “proof of stake,” which will lower energy consumption, attract more users, and speed up transactions, experts say.

“The Merge might be one of the most important events in history” for digital assets, said Jacky Goh, CEO, and Founder of Rewards Bunny, a platform that rewards shoppers with cashback in either cryptocurrency or U.S. dollars. “It will make Ethereum more usable and scalable, and there will be better adoption.”

What is proof of work (PoW)?

To confirm a transaction on the blockchain, people must solve complex mathematical puzzles using powerful computing power. Once the puzzles are solved, the transaction is added to the blockchain ledger and the person, or miner, who solved the puzzles first is rewarded with cryptocurrency. This is also how new cryptocurrencies are released.

What is proof of stake (PoS)?

This method replaces miners with “validators” who put their cryptocurrency up as collateral to create new blocks. Instead of individuals competing to be the first to solve the same mathematical puzzles to create new blocks, a

Sierra Leone is to delay the phaseout of its old currency until next spring, the central bank said.

On July 1, the West African country stripped three noughts off its banknotes in a bid to restore confidence in the inflation-hit currency, the leone.

The old and new notes both remain in circulation for the moment.

The transition period was due to end on October 1, when the old leone ceased to be legal tender, but has now been extended for six months, the bank announced late Thursday.

“The transition period of 1st July, 2022 to 30th September, 2022 (wherein both the Old Leone and the New Leone shall be legal tender) is hereby extended to 31st March, 2023,” it said on social media, without elaborating.

The public will be able to swap the old currency for the new one between April 1 and 15, 2023, it said.

President Julius Maada Bio introduced the re-denominated currency this summer in a bid to stop its freefall.

Shoppers needed huge quantities of the old banknotes for the simplest transactions, and unscrupulous bank tellers sometimes pilfered notes from sealed bundles of bills.

The new 10-leone note is the equivalent of 10,000 old leones and is worth around 70 US cents.

Sierra Leone’s eight million people live in one of the poorest nations in the world. The former British colony ranks 182 out of 189 countries on the United Nations’s Human Development Index.

The economy, which is heavily dependent on its diamonds and other mineral wealth, was devastated by a civil war that ran from 1991 to 2002 and left about 120,000 dead.

Efforts at rebuilding were set back by an Ebola epidemic in 2014-2016, a fall in world commodity prices, the coronavirus epidemic and the war in Ukraine.

California will be the first state to require online companies to put kids’ safety first by barring them from profiling children or using personal information in ways that could harm children physically or mentally, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday.

“We’re taking aggressive action in California to protect the health and wellbeing of our kids,” Newsom said in a statement announcing that he had signed the bill. He noted that as a father of four, “I’m familiar with the real issues our children are experiencing online.”

The bill requires tech companies that provide online services attractive to children to follow age-appropriate design code principles aimed at keeping children safe. Companies will eventually have to submit a “data protection impact assessment” to the state’s attorney general before offering new online services, products, or features attractive to children.

Facebook parent company Meta said it has concerns about some of law’s provisions but shares lawmakers’ goal of keeping children safe online.

“We believe young people should have consistent protections across all apps and online services they use, which is why we support clear industry standards in this area,” the social media giant said. It called the law “an important development towards establishing these standards.”

TikTok on Thursday added an authenticity feature that has been a winner for French app BeReal, taking a page from Meta’s playbook by copying a rival.

The social media giant described its TikTok Now feature as “a daily photo and video experience to share your most authentic moments” using a smartphone’s front and rear cameras simultaneously.

“You’ll receive a daily prompt to capture a 10-second video or a static photo to easily share what you’re up to,” TikTok said in a post.

TikTok said the Now feature was available on the app in the United States and will be rolled out worldwide in coming weeks.

People have been flocking to BeReal, a new social network app that calls on users to share true glimpses of their lives rather than cherry-picked moments.

Once a day, BeReal prompts users to take photos of what they are doing, giving them two minutes to post.

The app uses front and rear facing cameras on phones, putting “selfies” into context.

The approach is a sharp contrast to the carefully curated images common on Instagram and Facebook.

“The ideal of BeReal is you are just in a moment—where are you and what are you doing right now,” said Jennifer Stromer-Galley, a professor at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies in the United States.

“Our lived lives, not our best lives—maybe you are walking the dog or in your pajamas eating cereal.”

Launched two years ago by French entrepreneurs, BeReal has seen its popularity surge in recent months.

BeReal’s rise signals that people are tired of polished online images that don’t reflect actual life, Creative Strategies tech analyst

Indonesia has launched an anti-trust investigation into Google over the tech firm’s insistence that its payment system be used for purchases from its app store, authorities said Thursday, accusing it of unfair business practices.

The US internet giant has been under legal scrutiny in a number of countries over its stipulation that its billing system be used by all buyers on Google Play.

Authorities in Jakarta said in a statement they suspected “Google has abused its dominant position by imposing conditional sales and discriminatory practices in digital application distribution in Indonesia”.

Google Play is the largest app distribution platform in Indonesia, a country of 270 million people.

Third party developers offering their apps on Google Play are charged a 15 to 30 percent service fee, higher than the five percent imposed by other payment systems, according to an initial probe by the nation’s anti-trust agency.

“The respective developers cannot refuse the obligation because Google can impose sanctions by removing their applications from the Google Play store and preventing them from making updates to their applications,” the agency said.

Google did not immediately reply to a request for comment from AFP.

The American multinational has faced a barrage of legal cases in the United States, Europe and Asia based on similar accusations.

Google has also faced claims that it unfairly forced its search engine and Chrome internet browser on phone makers using the Android operating system.

On Wednesday, the European Union’s second-highest court ruled that “Google imposed unlawful restrictions on manufacturers of Android mobile devices”.

That case was the third of three major cases brought against Google by the EU’s competition czar Margrethe Vestager, whose legal challenges were the first worldwide to directly take on Silicon Valley tech giants.

South

Britain on Thursday announced an “in-depth investigation” into Microsoft’s planned $69-billion takeover of US gaming giant Activision Blizzard, citing UK competition concerns.

US technology giant Microsoft in January announced a bid to create the world’s third biggest gaming company by revenue, behind China’s Tencent and Japan’s Sony, by purchasing the owner of hit games “Candy Crush” and “Call Of Duty”.

The proposed deal, already controversial owing to allegations of sexual harassment against women at Activision, now faces a probe by Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority.

“The CMA has referred the anticipated acquisition by Microsoft Corporation of Activision Blizzard, Inc. for an in-depth investigation,” a statement said.

It added that the “merger may be expected to result in a substantial lessening of competition within a market or markets in the United Kingdom”.

Activision Blizzard’s portfolio also includes the popular game “World Of Warcraft”.

Sorcha O’Carroll, senior director of mergers at the CMA, previously expressed concern that Microsoft could use its control over Call Of Duty and World Of Warcraft “to harm rivals, including recent and future rivals in multi-game subscription services and cloud gaming”.

Sony has expressed concerns that Call of Duty might no longer be accessible on its PlayStation console.

Microsoft dismissed such a suggestion, however, saying in a statement Thursday that “it makes zero business sense… to remove Call of Duty from PlayStation given its market leading console position”.

© 2022 AFP

In simple terms, digital money can be defined as a form of currency that uses computer networks to make payments. Breathless media coverage of the future potential of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin has made digital money a hot topic.

One of the main differences between digital money and physical currency, such as cash, is that digital money lacks any identifying features that make it unique. If you take a glance at any bank notes you might have sitting in your wallet or purse, you will quickly notice that each note has a serial number—a unique string of letters and numbers that marks the uniqueness of that bill.

But as we know, digital objects, such as songs or images, are easily reproducible infinitely on the internet. What prevents us from reproducing the digital money in our bank accounts so easily?

Most of us have been using digital money all along. It is not the digital nature of cryptocurrencies that differentiate them from digital money, but rather how they ensure the ownership of digital property that mark them as transformational.

The problems of digital money and who owns it are likely to increase in complexity, with far-reaching implications in everyday life. The Counter Currency Laboratory, a new initiative based in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Victoria, was established to explore these questions. Our research there documents the present and future of money, and its effects on how we live.

Credit cards

Commercial banks and payment networks, such as those that use credit cards, safeguard the uniqueness of our digital dollars. These institutions guarantee that we do not go around spending the same digital dollar more than once. Once we spend digital money, banks deduct

Software company Adobe is buying online design company Figma in an approximately $20 billion cash-and-stock deal.

Figma, founded in 2012, allows those who design interactive mobile and web applications to collaborate through multi-player workflows, sophisticated design systems and a rich developer ecosystem.

The companies said that Figma’s web-based, multi-player capabilities will accelerate the delivery of Adobe’s creative cloud technologies on the web, making the creative process more productive and accessible to more people.

San Jose, California-based Adobe sells software for creating, publishing and promoting content, and managing documents.

“With Adobe’s amazing innovation and expertise, especially in 3D, video, vector, imaging and fonts, we can further reimagine end-to-end product design in the browser, while building new tools and spaces to empower customers to design products faster and more easily,” Figma co-founder and CEO Dylan Field said in a statement.

Each company will run independently until the transaction closes. At that time, Field, who will continue to lead the Figma team, will report to David Wadhwani, president of Adobe’s Digital Media business.

The deal is expected to close next year. It still needs approval from Figma’s shareholders.

Adobe Inc.’s stock fell more than 9% before the market open on Thursday.

© 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Senior figures in the crypto world said on Thursday that one of the biggest software upgrades the sector has ever seen was completed, an overhaul of the Ethereum blockchain aimed at reducing its massive energy consumption.

Developers had spent years working on a more energy-efficient version of Ethereum, a digital ledger that underpins a multibillion dollar ecosystem of cryptocurrencies, digital tokens (NFTs), games and apps.

“And we finalized!” tweeted Ethereum’s co-creator Vitalik Buterin, calling it a “big moment for the Ethereum ecosystem”.

Ethereum is the second most important blockchain after bitcoin, but it has faced criticism for burning through more power each year than New Zealand.

Buterin quoted research claiming that the “merge”, as developers have called the software upgrade, would reduce global energy consumption by 0.2 percent.

Enthusiasts hope a more energy efficient Ethereum will spur wider adoption, particularly as a way of enabling banks to automate transactions and other processes.

But so far the technology has been used largely to create speculative financial products.

And critics remain skeptical of the claims of massive energy savings, pointing out that it is unclear much energy the new system will need.

Trading resumes

The switchover changes the way transactions are logged on the Ethereum blockchain.

From the start of Ethereum in 2015, so-called crypto miners have competed against each other to solve equations—a system known as “proof of work”.

The process required vast computing power and only the winner would be chosen to update the blockchain and get rewards.

The new system scraps the competition element, the miners and their energy-guzzling computer stacks.

Instead, “validators” will now be chosen in a lottery-style system.

Samsung Electronics is shifting away from fossil fuels and aiming to entirely power its global operations with clean electricity by 2050, a challenging goal that experts say could be hampered by South Korea’s modest climate change commitments.

South Korea-based Samsung is a top producer of computer memory chips and smartphones and, by some estimates, the biggest energy consumer among hundreds of global companies that have joined the “RE100” campaign to get 100% of electricity from renewable sources like wind or solar power.

In announcing its target Thursday the company said it aims to achieve net zero carbon emissions across its mobile device, television and consumer electronics divisions by 2030, and across all global operations including semiconductors by 2050.

It plans to invest 7 trillion won ($5 billion) through 2030 on projects aimed at reducing emissions from process gases, controlling and recycling electronic waste, conserving water and minimizing pollutants. It plans to develop new technologies to reduce power consumption in consumer electronics devices and data centers, which would require more efficient memory chips. It also will set long-term goals to reduce emissions in supply chains and logistics.

“Samsung is responding to the threats of climate change with a comprehensive plan that includes reducing emissions, new sustainability practices and the development of innovative technologies and products that are better for our planet,” Jong-Hee Han, the company’s CEO, said in an emailed statement.

California filed a lawsuit Wednesday accusing Amazon of using its market influence to prevent merchants from offering buyers better deals elsewhere online, in violation of state antitrust law.

Amazon pressures merchants not to list items at lower prices on other websites, which hurts sellers and consumers, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in the lawsuit.

“Amazon coerces merchants into agreements that keep prices artificially high, knowing full well that they can’t afford to say no,” Bonta said in a release.

“Many of the products we buy online would be cheaper if market forces were left unconstrained.”

The attorney general in Washington had filed a similar suit against Amazon, but a judge dismissed the case in March.

“Similar to the DC Attorney General—whose complaint was dismissed by the courts—the California Attorney General has it exactly backwards,” an Amazon spokesperson said in response to an AFP inquiry.

“The relief the AG seeks would force Amazon to feature higher prices to customers, oddly going against core objectives of antitrust law.”

Amazon dominance

Amazon is such a dominant e-commerce site that merchants feel they have little choice when it comes to agreeing to the titan’s selling conditions, Bonta’s lawsuit argued.

Those demands include agreeing not to offer lower prices elsewhere, whether it be at Amazon rivals such as Walmart or a merchant’s own website, the suit said.

Vendors who don’t comply can see their listings made less prominent or even have their ability to sell items on Amazon suspended, according to the suit.

“Amazon takes pride in the fact that we offer low prices across the broadest selection, and like any store we reserve the right not to highlight offers to customers

Roger Bennett remembers calling his father in Liverpool, England, and having his father hold the phone next to the television so he could experience his beloved Everton in the FA Cup semifinals.

To say those days are long, thankfully gone, is an understatement. Technology, streaming packages, and the value of sports programming have allowed fans to view their favorite teams or leagues live or on demand.

“We are living in a golden age. You could make a case for soccer that there’s nowhere better to follow or be a fan than the United States just because of the sheer volume of games broadcast and accessible,” said Bennett, the co-host of the “Men in Blazers” podcast.

With streaming services eager to acquire live content, professional sports leagues in the U.S. are taking the next steps. The NFL will be the latest with Amazon Prime Video’s debut of “Thursday Night Football” when the Los Angeles Chargers take on the Kansas City Chiefs.

More than half of this season’s 103 games in the Walt Disney Co.’s agreement with the NHL will be exclusively on ESPN+ and Hulu this season. Turner Sports has the option to add games to air on HBO Max as part of its seven-year deal.

MLB began a Friday night doubleheader this year with AppleTV+. A Sunday afternoon slate of games on

Amazon.com Inc. will let brands and merchants send marketing emails to shoppers, a risky bid to boost sales that could inundate inboxes with spam.

The company announced the initiative Wednesday at the Amazon Accelerate conference in Seattle, where it demonstrates new features to the independent businesses that sell more than half of the products on Amazon.com.

Merchants will be able to send free emails to new shoppers, repeat customers and their biggest spenders through a new “Tailored Audiences” tool, which will also let sellers monitor the results. The tool has been in testing this year and will be available to all US sellers in early 2023.

The move marks a break with Amazon’s historic reluctance to let independent merchants connect directly with customers for fear of alienating them. But online sales have slowed from their pandemic highs, and antitrust investigators are probing the power Amazon holds over millions of third-party vendors. Some merchants also say Amazon makes it hard to create a relationship with even their most loyal buyers.

Customers will have to unsubscribe if they don’t wish to receive the marketing emails.

“The downside is this could lead to a lot of spam, and I wonder how they’re going to manage that,” said Kirthi Kalyanam, director of the Retail Management Institute at Santa Clara University. “Retailers send so many emails, and shopper in-boxes get absolutely inundated.”

Despite the risks, merchants will probably embrace the initiative. This year US online sales will rise just 9.4% to $1 trillion, the first time growth has slipped into the single digits, according to Insider Intelligence. Some Amazon merchants are already bracing for a bleak holiday shopping season as inflation-hit consumers curb their spending and focus on such necessities as food and fuel.

Amazon captures 37.8% of all online spending

In the wake of a new White House report on the climate implications of energy-hogging cryptocurrency mining, Cornell Engineering research suggests that providing green policy incentives for carbon capture and renewable energy should help such mining operations reduce their carbon footprints.

The Cornell study, “Mining Bitcoins with Carbon Capture and Renewable Energy for Carbon Neutrality Across States in the U.S.,” was published Sept. 14 in Energy & Environmental Science.

The carbon impact of cryptocurrency faces increasing energy scrutiny and was examined in a White House report, “Climate and Energy Implications of Crypto-Assets in the United States,” published Sept. 8 by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. This report is a result of President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14067 (March 2022)—”Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets.”

“Bitcoin mining’s thirst for energy and the problematic, associated carbon emissions have raised concerns across the globe,” said senior author Fengqi You, the Roxanne E. and Michael J. Zak Professor in Energy Systems Engineering.

“Whether you like it or not, there is a market. Crypto is here,” said You, a senior faculty fellow at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. “Since the market for cryptocurrency is growing, how can we better use science to inform energy and climate policy? How can we encourage the industry to practice environmental, social and governance-type management and to run their mining operation in a more sustainable way? That’s the key.”

Crypto-asset transaction validation—done through consensus mechanisms such as “proof of work,” used by the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains—requires massive amounts of electricity. Total global electricity usage for cryptocurrency mining assets is between 120 billion and 240 billion kilowatt-hours per year—a range that exceeds the total annual electricity usage of large countries, such as Australia and Argentina, according to the White House

The impact of Airbnb rentals on different neighborhoods reveals a need for designated zoning laws, say Business School researchers Dr. William Cheung and Associate Professor Edward Yiu.

Their paper, published in Tourism Management, explores the effects of touristification on rent, catalyzed by Airbnb. Touristification, says Dr. Cheung, is a process that sees unplanned tourism transform a space into one that caters mainly to tourists, provoking displacement pressures on local neighborhoods.

The researchers’ study shows that while increases in Airbnb listings raise rents in apartment-heavy areas like the central city, more Airbnb rentals can reduce residential rental prices within low-density, house-dominated neighborhoods.

The impact of short-term Airbnb rentals is much more problematic in residential neighborhoods, says Dr. Cheung. “In low-density residential neighborhoods locals are more likely to notice strangers or increases in noise, and their area may not have the resources to cater to influxes of visitors. When visitors begin to swamp a community, local residents will be less willing to pay rent for that location and will move elsewhere.”

“Whereas in the central city, residents are unlikely to notice this kind of change in population, and the area is typically more equipped to handle more people.”

“Tourists are also prone to paying higher rents to enjoy convenience, and in high-density inner city areas, rents will be higher as visitors compete with individuals who would like to live in the city center in order to enjoy better accessibility.”

Dr. Cheung says the study shows that the effects of Airbnb listings in an apartment submarket are very different to those in a house submarket. “To partly resolve this, and in line with our findings, we propose a policy agenda for considering neighborhood compatibility with short-term rental accommodation.”

As apartment-type properties in high density areas are more compatible with