Bits: daily tech news bulletin

Big news in science today, with particle physicists closing in on a fifth fundamental force of nature. During magnetic experiments on sub-atomic Muon particles at Fermilab in the USA an unexpected wobble was observed that could upend the entire Standard Model of physics. There remains a 1 in 40,000 chance the observation was a statistical anomaly, so experiments will continue to achieve a level of confidence that will make it a valid discovery. If true, the result opens up potential new explanations for many remaining puzzles in physics, from dark energy to potential undiscovered sub-atomic particles.

Elsewhere in science, researchers have debunked the 2016 NASA Eagleworks test results that found evidence of thrust generated by the hypothetical EmDrive technology. The concept claimed to generate thrust with no exhaust using electromagnetic radiation in an asymmetric cavity – a result that breaks the fundamental law of conservation of momentum. New testing has found the original test introduced heat into the engine mount, resulting in a change in how the measurement scale was calibrated. An improved test showed that, as expected, the EmDrive produces no thrust whatsoever.

Twitter has declared its ban on President Trump's tweets also means the US National Archive cannot preserve them in the same way they preserve tweets of other government officials or accounts. The archive wants to be able to make the tweets available in the same way other accounts were shifted to accounts now controlled by the archive, but Twitter stands by its position that the ban on his account must remain in force regardless. A tricky situation for the idea of preservation of historic records in all their forms.

In cybersecurity, research has found that Microsoft and Zoom were the most commonly impersonated companies in phishing attempts during 2020, accounting for 80% of such attacks. Phishing attacks come in many forms, aiming to encourage a user to click a link in an email that takes them to a compromised web location. Amongst brand-impersonation attacks, Microsoft was a dominant 70% of attacks, Zoom at 9% and Amazon at 7%.

Apple has announced its Find My service, which lets users track the location of their Apple phones, tablets, and laptops, will soon expand to incorporate third-party device tracking. The tracking system includes real-time information for network connected devices and last-time-seen location markers for devices that connect to networks via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. The first new devices will include e-bikes from VanMoof, Belkin Soundform wireless earbuds and Chipolo tracking tokens.

The Verge has spotted a filing at the US Federal Communications Commission that reveals Sonos is working with IKEA on a new wall art speaker system. The companies have worked together on bookshelf and table lamp speakers already, and the filing suggests an updated version of the lamp may also be on the way. To date speakers integrated into art have been prohibitively expensive, so the potential for a new affordable offering in this space is very intriguing. Sonos has just launched its new portable speaker, the Sonos Roam, and you can read the Byteside review now at byteside.com. Spoiler: I loved it.

Live streaming platform Twitch has announced it will now ban streamers for harassment that takes place beyond the confines of its platform. The Amazon-owned service aims to crackdown on streamers being associated with any forms of abuse or criminal acts, whether they happen on Twitch or not.

Finally, Google just released a fun AR app that lets you tunnel through the Earth to see what's on the other side. If that's a dream you've always held in your heart, the Floom experiment is worth a look.

https://experiments.withgoogle.com/floom

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A new proof of concept emergency mobile broadband network is being developed for Australia to help emergency services access a unified and data rich communications environment when dealing with critical events in real-time. The NSW government is managing the trial on behalf of all states and the Commonwealth, with the announcement naming TPG, Nokia and Optus as the contracted technology partners to develop the feasibility assessment.

Group communication platform Discord has released an update on its efforts to remove extremist groups from its platform. In the second half of 2020, Discord removed over 2,200 communities for extremist or violent content, almost double the number of groups removed for this reason in the first half of 2020. In total, almost 30,000 communities were removed for various forms of criminal or abusive content. The report comes at a time when Discord is said to be close to a potential $10B deal to be purchased by Microsoft.

Secure messaging app Signal has announced it will add payment support to its platform that will allow users to send money back and forth while maintaining high-level security and privacy by using a cryptocurrency to perform the transactions. The encrypted communication tool will use MobileCoin, a privacy-oriented cryptocurrency designed to work well on mobile with minimal storage requirement and fast transaction speeds. However, MobileCoin is not yet widely supported by crypto exchanges.

Rounding out a run of communication platform stories, a new beta update for popular chat tool WhatsApp has revealed the software will soon allow users to migrate between iOS and Android and take their messaging history with them. Until now users have often resorted to using third-party tools, with the associated security risks, so it is a positive step to see WhatsApp close to supporting this user requirement sometime soon.

Bloomberg has a fascinating report on delays in the digital world caused by shortages in some of the smallest, simplest computer chips in the business. Looking at production of essential display driver integrated circuits that cost a mere $1, the hardware is being made on production lines that are running non-stop, but more lines cannot be made because the chips are not worth enough and makers cannot be certain increased demand will last long enough to be worth the effort. But these simple chips cause delays for anything with an LCD screen. Which is everything.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-05/why-shortages-of-a-1-chip-sparked-crisis-in-the-global-economy

Owners of Google Pixel phones have a new software update available that should dramatically improve graphics performance on the Pixel 5. The phone has been notoriously poor on the GPU side of performance since launch last year, with this update bringing the handset up to a better standard for its Snapdragon 765G processor.

TikTok has announced it is adding automatic captioning for English and Japanese users in an upcoming update to improve accessibility in the app. Creators can edit automated captions to fix errors while viewers will be able to switch captions on or off in their own settings. TikTok already features text-to-speech features as well as automated detection to offer photosensitivity warnings to viewers.

Finally, in videogames, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, E3, will return in June this year in a digital only format. The event was cancelled entirely in 2020 due to the pandemic, but this year E3 has announced its return with companies including Nintendo, Microsoft, Capcom, Konami, Ubisoft, Take-Two and more set to participate. Alongside the news, E3 announced its commitment to return to having a real show floor in 2022.

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Over half a billion Facebook user account details have been leaked online as a free data dump on a hacking forum. The leak contains full names, phone numbers, email addresses and biographical information such as location, date of birth, gender and more. Facebook has downplayed the leak as being related to a flaw that was patched in 2019, but experts are warning users to be vigilant around social engineering scams that could use this data to target users or to attempt to commit fraud with these details. You can check if your data is included via the trustworthy Australian security website haveibeenpwned.com.

LG is shutting down its smartphone business after 12 years of making Android phones. The company announced it will conclude smartphone operations at the end of July this year. The last profitable year for LG's mobile division was 2014. The company at times used its mobile division to test the potential of its battery and screen research and development, including the LG Rollable phone that was unveiled at CES this year. 

In other shutdowns, Yahoo! has stated it will shut down the Yahoo Answers service, one of the longest running question and answer forums on the internet. Launched in 2005, the company says the service will close down on May the Fourth, and that the 16 year history of the site will not be archived. A reminder to support initiatives like The Internet Archive in their efforts to independently archive the internet.

In local research, last week the inaugural Australian and New Zealand Women in AI awards were granted at an event in Sydney. Leading researchers were awarded across finance, health, education, infrastructure, agribusiness and more. The top award went to Jamila Gordon, the CEO & Founder of Lumachain, a company working to improve global food supply chains with the help of AI.

In science, a new study has found a new general model underlying the growth of all sharp biological structures, including teeth, horns, claws, beaks in animals and even thorns in plants. The new 'power cascade' model has found a power law between the radius and the length of these sharp structures, naming them 'power cones'. The model will also enable the prediction of age for a range of organisms.

The global Esports Integrity Commission, ESIC, has revealed criminal investigations are ongoing into betting and match fixing in competitive Australian Counter-Strike. 35 players were sanctioned in January after seven others were sanctioned in October last year. Delays in more details being revealed have been explained as being related to police involvement in a small number of the cases where match results were being manipulated.

In mobile games, Apple has updated its Apple Arcade game subscription service to bring a range of all-time classic games to its users. Apple Arcade has until now commissioned new games that have no in-app purchases or other added charges and no advertising. The new move sees a new App Store Classics category offer up Fruit Ninja Classic Plus, Mini Metro Plus, Cut The Rope Remastered and more, and a Timeless Classics category for puzzle and boardgames, offering Backgammon, Chess, Sudoku, Crosswords and others.

Finally, in entertainment, Torrentfreak data suggests isolating TV shows or movies on less favoured streaming services could lead to increased piracy. At the start of January, the US version of The Office was made an exclusive to NBCUniversal's Peacock service in the US, removing the show from Netflix. A related spike in download traffic of the show from piracy sites was seen in tracking data.

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Telstra has been hit with a $50M fine by the ACCC for what it called unconscionable conduct in selling expensive mobile plans to indigenous customers who could not afford them. In a number of Telstra stores, the company was found to have pushed contracts onto 108 Indigenous customers who did not understand and could not afford the plans they were being sold. Many spoke English as a second language while others were unemployed or had limited income, and the ACCC found Telstra store staff even misrepresented contracts as being 'free' as well as manipulated credit assessments. On average, the customers found themselves thousands of dollars in debt. Along with the fines, community organisation Reconciliation Australia has cut ties with the telecommunications giant.

Flinders University researchers have been working with traditional owners in Arnhem Land to investigate the evolution of ancient rock art using machine learning technologies. According to a report by ZDNet, the technology aimed to assist in the understanding of chronology of rock art in the region with the hope to remove human bias in interpretation. The study's results were in agreement with traditional techniques, which was seen as a positive for the ongoing development of the machine learning technique for wider use in rock art analysis.

Group communication platform Discord is introducing a new Clubhouse-like feature, Stage Channels, which adds another option to the company's existing range of audio channel options. The mode makes it easier to put a small group of speakers front and centre while a larger group listens to the conversation. Workplace communication platform Slack has also recently announced it is developing a Clubhouse-style tool.

Microsoft has discontinued its Cortana voice assistant app for iOS and Android. First launched in 2015, the app has been updated a number of times but failed to challenge Amazon's Alexa, Google Assistant or Apple's Siri. More widely, Cortana has been removed from a number of embedded options including a smart speaker and Microsoft's own Surface Headphones. Microsoft aims to continue Cortana as a service on Windows desktop. The name Cortana came from the AI featured in the Microsoft owned Halo game series.

In entertainment, reports suggest that NBCUniversal is considering ending distribution deals with HBO and Netflix for its movies and instead making them exclusively available through its own streaming platform, Peacock. As the streaming space becomes more competitive and companies aim to build audiences for their own platforms, many expect such decisions to become more common in the years ahead. NBCUniversal has already made similar decisions with its TV shows, such as making the US edition of The Office exclusive to its own platform in America.

In other streaming news, Netflix has signed a deal to secure the rights to two sequels to the Rian Johnson Whodunnit Knives Out featuring Daniel Craig's detective Benoit Blanc solving further mysteries. The deal was reported at US$400M but Netflix has disputed that number.

In videogames, Hearthstone's shift into the Year of the Gryphon has taken place, with sweeping changes to the base card sets - replacing the previous Basic and Classic sets with a new free Core set, while creating a new Classic mode to play the game the way it was when it first launched in 2014. Plus, the latest expansion, Forged in the Barrens, is now available.

Meanwhile, in Fortnite, meme lovers will be pleased to discover the game's April Fool's special feature is the arrival of the weird CG man from the Stonks meme is available to purchase as a character skin for one day only.

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Facebook is making a number of significant changes to the core experience of using the social network, including to how users control comments on posts to making it easier to change your News Feed to a chronological instead of algorithmic list. The change to comments allows users to limit who can comment on a public post, and comes following a 2019 Australian court decision that found news outlets liable for comments on their pages. Meanwhile, a new 'Most Recent' option will soon appear at the top of the News Feed on mobile devices to allow users to switch from the algorithmic system that decides on what to show based on popularity and past engagement with posts and pages.

The 2020 AM Turing Award winners have been announced, with Alfred Aho and Jeffrey Ullman sharing the prize for their pioneering collaborative work developing computer compilers. The award has led to wide praise, with the pairs work since the 1960s leading to the evolution of computer programming languages. The award has become known as akin to a Nobel Prize of the computing industry.

Apple will no longer make Siri default to a female voice, with the latest beta version of iOS 14.5 offering every user a choice for which version of the voice they would prefer to use – without offering a default option during the process. Two new Siri voices are also being added to the options, which already includes 38 voices based on Apple's Neural text to speech technology.

New research from Trinity College Dublin has revealed the both Apple and Google transmit telemetry data about a smartphone even if the user has explicitly opted out of such data sharing. The research found that data is sent every 4.5 minutes, and in the first 10 minutes of starting up a Pixel handset 1MB of data is sent to Google while 42KB of iPhone data is sent to Apple. While sitting idle, similar volumes of data are sent back every 12 hours. Both Google and Apple dispute the findings as misunderstanding what the data is for.

Popular free-to-use stock image library Unsplash has been acquired by Getty Images. Getty Images is one of the world's most prominent image licensing company, and owns a wide range of photo library brands. Unsplash promises it will remain free with unchanged photographic licensing.

In science, researchers at CERN have achieved the first laser-based manipulation of antimatter, a major breakthrough in the ongoing effort to delve deeper into antimatter science. A Canadian laser technology allowed the research team to cool an antimatter sample to near absolute zero. The work is set to lead to the creation of longer lasting antimatter investigations and the potential for creating the first antimatter molecules by joining atoms using laser manipulation.

In entertainment, for those upset by the cancellation of The Dark Crystal Netflix series after just one season, a new Dark Crystal is preparing to launch – this time as a ballet at London's Royal Opera House by Wayne McGregor.

Finally, yesterday we mentioned Voltswagen, and at the time of recording VW was adamant it was not a joke. A few hours later they admitted they had lied to a number of major news outlets in their assertion the name change was legitimate and that it was really meant as an April fools joke - just a few days early. Mmmm... no thanks, car company, have fun rebuilding trust once again after that old diesel debacle.

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After the Australian government introduced a telecommunications industry code to improve blocking scam calls in December, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher announced yesterday that the code has led to 55 million scam calls being blocked over its first few months, a big jump from 30 million calls blocked over the previous year. Alongside the requirement for telcos to do more work on blocking scams, the code also introduced industry cooperation and information sharing.

Yesterday Visa, today Paypal, with news the digital payments platform will allow US customers to use cryptocurrency holdings to pay merchants through its platform. PayPal began allowing the purchase of cryptocurrency through its platform in November 2020, and now the Checkout with Crypto feature lets users pay from Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin or Bitcoin Cash into US dollars with no transaction fee or to any other local currency with a standard US to international transaction fee.

Google has announced a number of new features coming to Google Maps, the most interesting being an indoor augmented reality navigation mode to transit stations, airports and malls. The indoor Live View AR system will launch in a limited number of locations in the US, with Tokyo and Zurich first to follow, allowing users to hold up the camera and be shown where to navigate a venue and navigate between floors. Other new features for Maps include updates to modes of transportation preferences, driving routes that offer fuel-efficient options and map overlays for air quality and weather information.

Apple has announced its worldwide developer conference, WWDC, will again take place as a virtual online event in 2021, from June 7 to June 11. The event is where the latest versions of the company's software upgrades get announced, including iOS 15, macOS 12 and more ahead of laptop and iPhone hardware in the later part of the year.

We are not sure if we're being April fooled a little early or just baffled, but Volkswagen, with a k, has revealed it will change its name to Voltswagen, with a t, at least in North America, as part of a push toward an electric vehicle focused future. A leaked press release was first believed to be a possible joke but was confirmed as real by the German automaker. I guess if it is a marketing initiative, it just worked on Bits.

Chinese police and gaming giant Tencent have announced the shutdown of what is said to be one of the world's largest video game cheating services. The operation, known as Chicken Drumstick, had designed and sold cheats for both desktop and mobile games, with a reported US$76M in revenues earned through its cheats offered as a subscription service. Assets have been seized and 10 people arrested.

In space news, the latest attempt by SpaceX to launch and land its Starship rocket has again ended in an explosive failure. This was the fourth attempt to test a full-sized Starship prototype. SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeted, quote, At least the crater is in the right place.

And in art, The Louvre has announced a new online collection database that now makes over 482,000 works of art from the museum viewable online for free. The Collections.louvre.fr includes all works of art on display and in storage, with options to explore by themes, collections and by search. And yes, even the Mona Lisa is here. Search with two Ns in Mona to find it.

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Australia's Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, has announced a reshuffle of his ministerial portfolios, leading to changes in political leadership across science and technology. For the past three years the minister for Industry, Science and Technology was Karen Andrews, with the position now moving to former Attorney General Christian Porter. This is the seventh change to this portfolio since the Coalition won government in 2013.

The cyberattack on Nine Entertainment continues at the broadcast and publishing giant, with the company reporting the attack is now contained but continuing to cause serious disruption. Paul Smith at The Australian Financial Review, a Nine newspaper, reported that the attack does seem to be based on the MedusaLocker ransomware but no ransom demand has been made – it has simply been deployed to make systems unusable. The recovery is expected to continue to be quite difficult for Nine.

OpenAI has announced what the first nine months of AI text generation platform GPT-3's public launch has enabled, stating more than 300 apps are producing 4.5 billion automated words per day. OpenAI highlighted apps for customer sentiment tracking, for creating dialogue in interactive VR stories, and for semantic website search tools. The organisation, which chose to partner with Microsoft to run the platform on its Azure platform, has emphasised safety and only allows access via application to prevent poor use and misuse of the technology.

Visa has become the first major payment network to allow the settlement of transactions on its network via a cryptocurrency. Visa has allowed the use of the USDC stable coin, built on the Ethereum blockchain, to settle transactions via the crypto.com cryptocurrency exchange. USDC has its value directly connected to the US dollar so it will not fluctuate nor see speculation like many other cryptocurrencies.

A report from The Australia Institute has found that solar combined with big battery technology can replace fossil fuels on questions of power reliability needs. Analysis has shown that while batteries are just 0.5 percent of capacity in the Australian energy market the technology is delivering one-third of important frequency control service across the energy network. Grid stability has been a key argument for continued reliance on coal and gas power services, so the early success of battery deployments strengthening power networks is a positive sign for the future.

Sony is closing the PlayStation Store for three of its older consoles in coming months. The PlayStation 3 and PSP stores will close in July and the PlayStation Vita store will close in August. The shutdown means you can no longer buy digital games for these consoles via the store nor buy in-game content, but you will still be able to download any games or other content you have purchased in the past. The PS3 launched in 2006, the PSP in 2005, and the Vita in 2011.

In esports, controversy in China's League of Legends LPL league as clothing sponsor Nike has seen its branding covered up after making statements against forced Uyghur labour camps. The company has been a major sponsor of esports and related apparel in the region, including billboards featuring star players. The Nike swoosh logo was taped over with a black strip featuring the LPL logo. In 2018, LPL sponsor Mercedes-Benz had its logo removed after quoting the Dalai Lama in a social media campaign.

And finally, with recent news multi-award winning videogame Disco Elysium has been refused classification during its review ahead of a physical 'Final Cut' release, the game is likely to be removed from the Steam digital store potentially at any moment – if you're interested in playing one of the most unique pieces of interactive storytelling in years, buy it before it disappears.

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Nine Entertainment has been hit by a major cyber attack that crippled its ability to broadcast live television on Sunday. It's Sydney headquarters saw computer systems taken down resulting in the cancellation of live broadcasts including The Today Show and the NRL Footy Show. There are mixed reports on whether it is a ransomware attack or something else. The organisation, which includes former Fairfax newspapers, has told staff to work from home Monday as all IT systems are impacted at the office.

Microsoft has announced that the Exchange Server vulnerability that was attacked heavily in early March has been patched across 92% of all servers. In the post, Microsoft emphasised that a patch does not remove the hacker's access if the system was already compromised so further action is likely required to fully remove the threats.

In other threats, Apple has released a new update that all users should install immediately for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch to patch an actively targeted security exploit that can be triggered by simply opening an exploited webpage. Update 14.4.2 for iOS and iPadOS and 7.7.3 for watchOS is available now for all device models released through roughly the past five years.

One more hacking story today, with news a credit card hacking forum has itself been hacked. The Carding Mafia hack resulted in the release of 297,000 user account details, confirmed by Australian security expert Troy Hunt who runs the Have I Been Pwned data breach notification service.

After revealing a high-tech, science-fiction style face mask at CES 2021 in January, Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan has said the company will go ahead with producing the N95 respirator. The mask is a transparent design with active ventilation and sterilisation systems, lighting to make your mouth more visible and audio processing to make your voice come through clearly. And it has real Cyberpunk chic. No release timing has been announced.

In science, a Yale University research group has developed a new bioplastic that is derived entirely from wood powder that break down in just three months. The material, made from lumber mill waste offers a mechanical strength that suits use as plastic bags, wrappings and is stable for use carrying liquids and resistant to UV light. The broken down form can also be recycled into further reuse.

Christopher Eccleston is making a comeback to his role as Doctor Who in the form of a new series of audio adventures. The Ninth Doctor, notably absent from the anniversary special in 2013, will feature in a four-volume series available on CD, for download or even as a limited edition vinyl. The series is available for order from the Big Finish website where many Doctor Who audio stories can be found, including more adventures with other rare doctors like Paul McGann's Eighth.

In esports, League of Legends Circuit Oceania has wrapped up the round robin phase of the first Split for 2021, with Perth's Pentanet.gg completing its 13-0 clean sweep of the series. A top five playoff series begins Tuesday night for the next two weeks between Pentanet, Peace, Dire Wolves, Order and The Chiefs with the winner confirming a seat at the global Mid-Season Invitational.

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As part of the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission investigation into app marketplaces and possible monopolistic conduct, Apple has made a submission to the inquiry stating that it believes web apps coupled with the existence of platforms like Android, mean iOS faces "significant competition" and it does not wield substantial power over developers. Over the past year many developers who previously used non-App Store payment systems for customers have been forced to include App Store payments or be removed from the store.

Australian Bureau of Statistics says it is almost ready for census night on August 10. At a Senate hearing, the ABS representative said only some final testing and remediation work needs to be completed to be ready for this year's online census. In 2016 a series of failures in the IBM supplied technologies led to the census being taken offline. This year the census is built on Amazon Web Services technology through a contract with consultancy firm Price Waterhouse Coopers.

Also in the Senate, Australian Cyber Security Centre has told the federal government that it has been actively scanning Australian systems for Microsoft Exchange Server vulnerabilities since attacks on a zero day vulnerability at the start of March. Concerns had been raised that there were thousands of vulnerable systems in Australia, and ACSC head Abigail Bradshaw said its scans had seen significant patching activity, with many fewer systems still showing vulnerabilities. Many fewer sounds like it's still a long way from zero.

The first license for an Australian space launch facility has been granted to Adelaide space company Southern Launch. The company aims to launch sub-orbital satellites from a range in Koonibba, in regional South Australia. Southern Launch is also developing a second launch site at Whalers Way near Port Lincoln, also in South Australia.

NASA's Ingenuity helicopter that will soon launch the first human-powered flight on Mars is carrying a special connection to the first human-powered flight back on Earth. A small swatch of fabric from the original Wright Brothers aircraft, Flyer 1. Other relics from the Wright Brothers vessel have visited space in the past aboard the first landing on the moon with Apollo 11.

Britain is introducing a new £50 note featuring the image of famed mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing. The new note will enter circulation on June 23, Turing's birthday. The bank note is also the last of the British notes to make the transition from paper to polymer material.

In gaming news, Magic: The Gathering is launching the digital version of its collectible card game, Arena, on mobile devices starting today. All cards that are released into the physical tabletop version of the game also appear in Arena, with makers Wizards of the Coast also running many major tournaments in digital formats. Arena has been available on PC since 2019 and on macOS since 2020. The game's newest expansion, Strixhaven, set in a school of magic founded by five dragons, has also been announced. The new set will launch on April 23.

And Chinese open-world action RPG Genshin Impact has become the fastest game to earn $1 billion in mobile App Store revenues, according to Sensor Tower research. It has taken the game just six months to achieve the figure and it is currently the number one mobile RPG worldwide. It took Pokemon Go nine months to hit its first billion dollars.

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Workplace communication tool Slack has launched a new feature to allow any Slack user to send direct messages to any other Slack user whether they're part of the same Slack server or not. Called Connect DMs, the feature will make it easier to conduct far more work messaging within the app, but the feature has raised immediate concerns over abuse and spam – problems that when raised led to immediate adjustments from Slack, suggesting it hadn't exactly thought these issues through before launching the Connect DMs feature.

Intel has announced it will build two new processor foundries in the USA that will make chips for other companies. Intel's service will offer customers the ability to choose customised chips based on their own but also on Intel's designs. Companies in Korea, Taiwan and China have dominated chip fabrication services, and in the geopolitical climate Intel's new offering is likely to become highly attractive to other US companies that design chips but get them manufactured overseas.

Researchers have found both Android's Play Store and Apple's App Store are hosting hundreds of apps known as "fleeceware". Researchers at security software maker Avast identified 204 apps with a combined 1 billion downloads that aim to attract users with free trials and then charge subscriptions far above typical rates, finding some charging as much as $66 a week after a three-day trial.

Leaked documents from Facebook have revealed the company's moderator guidelines allow users to make death threats against public figures – just as long as the message didn't tag them. The Guardian obtained a 300 page document with detailed guidelines on everything from how prominent someone has to be to be considered a public figure and how long someone has been dead before they can be bullied on the services – their cutoff is the year 1900.

Publishing platform Medium is effectively closing down its paid editorial operations to pivot away from owning its own publications. All internal editors are being offered five months salary to exit the company while Medium moves toward a more individualistic model like the newsletter platforms that are so hot right now. The move comes less than one month after employees failed to form a union by one vote.

New studies have confirmed once again that 5G networks pose no risk to human health. The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency has reviewed 138 studies and found no evidence of health hazard, while emphasising that Wi-Fi sits 100 million times below a level of radiation required to cause harm and phone towers sit 500,000 times below.

In video games, Rocket League fans will soon be able to get a fix of their flying rocket car football action on mobiles with the announcement of Rocket League SideSwipe. The game will offer one on one or two vs two matches in a rapid two minute match format. The game will launch later in 2021.

And, finally, you may remember a viral video last year of dolphins in the canals of Venice that turned out to be inaccurately attributed to the Italian city. But there's good news today as sources captured real footage of dolphin's in canals near St Marks Square, which authorities had to coax back out into the Adriatic Sea.

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