Bootnotes

• Japanese boffins say they've created plastic optical fibres to reach places that might break glass

  Polymers can transmit at 53Gbps without error correction overheads, and could be just the thing for electric cars
  Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor Fri 24 Sep 2021 // 06:02 UTC 1

  Boffins at Japan's Keio University reckon they've built viable optical fibers from plastics.

  Optical fibers are most often made of glass and are, as attested by the awesome data-schlepping capacity of undersea cables, freaking amazing.

  But while boffins have made optical fibers very resilient, they've not been able to address all the fragilities in glass.

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• Apple warns of arbitrary code execution zero-day being actively exploited on Macs

  Remember iPods? The same bug can bite them, and plenty of older iPhones and iPads too
  Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor Fri 24 Sep 2021 // 05:01 UTC 1

  Apple has warned iPhone and Mac users that it's aware of a zero-day bug that's being actively exploited.

  The iGiant has thanked Google for spotting CVE-2021-30869, which the ad giant seems to have noticed because it also impacts the WebKit browser engine.

  It's a nasty flaw, as it's in the XNU kernel at the heart of Apple's operating systems including macOS and iOS.

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• Indian broadband connections top 800 million … sort of

  'Broadband' is defined as 512kbps – for now – and just 24 million current connections are wired
  Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor Fri 24 Sep 2021 // 02:58 UTC 1

  India's Telecoms Regulatory Authority has revealed that the nation has over 800 million active broadband subscribers.

  The Authority's Highlights of Telecom Subscription Data [PDF] for the month ending on July 31st 2021 revealed that the nation started the month with 792.78 million broadband subscribers and ended it with 808.6 million – two per cent growth within a month.

  Wireless subscriptions jumped by 14.78 million, with wired subs up by a mere 490,000. Interestingly, fixed wireless services grew 83.53 per cent in the month, jumping from 650,000 subs to over 1.19 million.

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• If you're not sold on the benefits of 5G, Ericsson suggests you keep an eye on gaming, home broadband

  NA CEO predicts takeoff in 18 months max
  Agam Shah Fri 24 Sep 2021 // 01:35 UTC

  Folks in the US will see the transformative effects of 5G first in the areas of online gaming and fixed wireless broadband internet connections, Ericsson North America CEO Niklas Heuveldop said on Thursday.

  "When it comes to new services, look at gaming as one of the sectors that holds promise for 5G. You need the unique throughput that 5G offers ... and the instant response," he said during a webcast hosted by The Washington Post. And yes, Heuveldop works for the Ericsson that makes and sells 5G network equipment.

  5G networks – which promise increased capacity as well as high throughput and low latency – could move game console hardware from the edge of your furniture to the edge of a network, he said, adding that is already happening in places such as South Korea, where high-performance 5G networks are operational. That is to say, the gameplay processing is done remotely and piped to a relatively simple terminal in your home, potentially using 5G if the connectivity is available.

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• California Governor signs bill protecting warehouse workers from unsafe quotas

  AB 701 takes aim at Amazon and other warehouse operators that prioritize productivity over health
  Thomas Claburn in San Francisco Thu 23 Sep 2021 // 23:52 UTC 4

  California Governor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday signed Assembly Bill 701, establishing new protections for workers at warehouse distribution centers.

  The new law requires employers operating large warehouses in the state to disclose worker production quotas. It also prohibits disciplinary action against workers for missing quotas as a result of health- or safety-related breaks.

  AB 701, which takes effect on January 1, 2022, was drafted with an eye toward Amazon's warehouse management practices.

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• Texas law banning platforms from social media moderation challenged in lawsuit

  Tech trade groups argue prohibition on moderation is unconstitutional
  Thomas Claburn in San Francisco Thu 23 Sep 2021 // 21:57 UTC 20

  Two IT trade groups on Wednesday challenged the constitutionality of Texas' new social media law, arguing that it compels companies to host speech they disagree with in violation of their First Amendment rights.

  The Texas law, HB 20, was signed by Governor Greg Abbott on September 9, 2021 and takes effect on December 9, 2021. It prohibits large social media platforms from removing content posted by users based on any viewpoint, or the user's location in Texas, unless the content is unlawful.

  The law puts politically manipulative misinformation on equal footing with good-faith opinion and verifiable facts. If you choose to say that vaccines are poison or that racial superiority is proven, HB 20 will prevent major social media platforms from interfering.

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• Dell bids adieu to the era of big acquisitions, concentrates on paying down debt and Michael's new book

  Partnerships are our future, says tycoon
  Agam Shah Thu 23 Sep 2021 // 21:14 UTC 2

  Dell CEO Michael Dell once loved big-ticket acquisitions, but not anymore.

  Dell ruled out major takeovers in the future, and will instead focus on partnerships for product offerings, he said during an analyst presentation livestream on Thursday.

  The biz that bears his name went on a string of acquisitions through the last decade as it expanded into software, server, PC and storage offerings. The most notable was the $67bn merger in 2016 with EMC, which included VMWare, to create the world's largest private company at the time.

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• Boston Dynamics' Spot robot embarks on its latest thrilling adventure: Insurance!

  US company equips cybernetic pooch to help in building inspections, post-disaster assessments
  Matt Dupuy Thu 23 Sep 2021 // 20:27 UTC 3

  Boston Dynamics' creepy robot dog Spot has found another new employer for its unique skillset.

  Having previously found work checking out nuclear power plants, probing suspect packages, maintaining social distancing rules during the pandemic and – briefly – working as a police dog in New York before being unceremoniously fired, the headless robohound is now being tapped up by US company Farmers Insurance to assist its agents with property inspections and "in-field catastrophe claims", or assessments in the immediate wake of natural disasters and major events.

  The scary but willing cybernetic pooch has been adapted for Farmers' needs, receiving extra equipment to assist it in its new task, adding a 360° camera, site documentation software, and a new blue paintjob over its regular yellow-and-black-clad headless chassis.

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• One-size-fits-all chargers? What a great idea! Of course Apple would hate it, though

  Cupertino thinks EU plan 'stifles innovation rather than encouraging it'
  Tim Richardson Thu 23 Sep 2021 // 19:44 UTC 50

  Smartphones, tablets, and cameras sold within the European Union could be forced to adopt a single standard charging port by the middle of the decade if the latest plans from the European Commission get the go-ahead.

  The proposals for a revised Radio Equipment Directive would mean that charging port and fast-charging technology would be "harmonised" across the EU with USB-C becoming the standard for all tech. Quite where this leaves Apple is open to some debate.

  Plans to standardise chargers were hatched all the way back in 2011 and by 2014 MicroUSB was the connector design chosen. Vendors signed an MoU but Cupertino went its own way.

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• In a dark place because your K8s apps still want local storage? It’s time to see the light

  Find out how to crack the portability conundrum
  David Gordon Thu 23 Sep 2021 // 19:00 UTC

  Sponsored The hyperscalers are an unsentimental bunch. So it is that they are disaggregating servers from storage, allowing each to scale separately as applications and workloads demand, and squeezing the maximum benefit from their Kubernetes environments.

  However, this is no trivial task and regular enterprises might not have the resources to follow hyperscalers down this path, particularly as their applications are often geared towards local flash-based storage. This then leaves them facing the possibility of underutilized storage and/or servers, and the fact that they are not fully exploiting the portability potential of Kubernetes.

  So what’s the solution? Can you balance portability and the performance benefits of local flash? You can find out on September 28 at 09:00 PST / 12:00 EST / 17:00 BST with this webcast on “Kubernetes Portability with Local NVMe Performance”.

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• Facebook overpaid FTC fine by up to '$4.9bn' to protect Zuckerberg, lawsuits allege

  A whole lot of ███ in documents which finger Peter Thiel and execs
  Jude Karabus Thu 23 Sep 2021 // 18:15 UTC 13

  Facebook is remaining silent over two explosive lawsuits unsealed this week which contain allegations that board members "authorized" the overpayment of an FTC fine by up to $4.9bn in order to protect CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

  The $5bn penalty was dished out to the social network by the Federal Trade Commission back in 2019 for "deceiving users" about their control over private data in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

  Other allegations detailed in the complaints include claims the firm deliberately swerved implementing privacy controls in service of an "illegal" business model and that board members, including Marc Andreessen, Palantir boss Peter Thiel, Sheryl Sandberg, Michael Schroepfer (who resigned as Facebook CTO on Monday – see sidebar) and Zuckerberg himself, had exploited the company's "non public information" (insider trading).

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