Who know, this could be one of the few steps to making bitcoin a national legal currency just as El Salvador.
Thursday, 16 September 2021
Asian nation Laos to legalize Bitcoin mining and trading
Bitcoin Price Prediction - failure to hit $48,500 would give the bears control
Tuesday, 14 September 2021
Cryptocurrency still emerges upward even after the exposed truth acted by Litecoin official tweet
• Cryptocurrencies mostly higher
Cryptocurrencies were trading mostly higher in a quieter day after the volatility seen on Monday, prompted by the fake Walmart (NYSE:WMT)/Litecoin press release.
Bitcoin rebounded back above $46,000 and Ethereum also traded higher amid little news.
“From a technical perspective, little has changed on the Bitcoin front,” writes OANDA Senior Market Analysts Craig Erlam. “A significant break of $44,000 could see a sizeable correction follow, one that has been building for a number of weeks.”
US consumer prices increase
In the US, focus was on CPI which increased at a below forecast 0.3% in August, according to the Labor Department. The lower than expected CPI figures come ahead of next week’s Fed meeting and the chances of tapering to begin next week now seem very unlikely.
GBP/USD was higher in the wake of the two data releases with the pair trading above 1.39 for the first time since 6th August. EUR/GBP dropped to a three-week low following the UK data.
UK labour market recovery continues
• UK labour market recovery continues
On the data front, focus in the UK was on the latest labour market report for signs that the recovery is continuing. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that employee numbers returned to pre-Covid levels in August as 241,000 payrolled jobs were added. Vacancies hit a record high above 1 million.
“Beyond the near term, the sharp rise in the level of vacancies suggests a likelihood of sustained increases in employment in the coming months,” said analysts at Lloyds (LON:LLOY) bank in an emailed note. “The strong pick up in demand for labour corroborates evidence from a number of survey reports […] which show that hiring activity has held firm throughout the summer months.”
JD Sports: The demand for trainers and the trend for athleisure wear shows little sign of going out of fashion
JD Sports (LON:JD) shares rallied after the sports and leisurewear retailer reported record first half profit. The company now forecasts full year profit before tax of at least £750 million.
“Demand for trainers and the trend for athleisure wear shows little sign of going out of fashion,” writes Hargreaves Lansdown (LON:HRGV) Senior Investment and Markets Analyst Susannah Streeter. “The sports leisure market in the US is huge and here JD Sports is stepping up the pace of sales, which will be key to future growth prospects.”
MARKET WRAP. FTSE falls
FTSE 100 closing price of 7,035.4, -0.5%
• Miners weigh on FTSE
By Samuel Indyk
The FTSE 100 declined on Tuesday as a number of mining shares weighed on the blue-chip index following a note from Barclays (LON:BARC) on the sector.
Rio Tinto (LON:RIO), Anglo American (LON:AAL) and BHP Group (LON:BHPB) all had their price targets cut as Barclays downgraded the European mining sector to neutral on China’s rapid steel production cuts. However, Glencore (LON:GLEN) was maintained at overweight with Barclays analysts saying they had an attractive valuation.
Monday, 13 September 2021
A horrifying new AI app swaps women into porn videos with a click
Deepfake researchers have long feared the day this would arrive.
The website is eye-catching for its simplicity. Against a white backdrop, a giant blue button invites visitors to upload a picture of a face. Below the button, four AI-generated faces allow you to test the service. Above it, the tag line boldly proclaims the purpose: turn anyone into a porn star by using deepfake technology to swap the person’s face into an adult video. All it requires is the picture and the push of a button.
MIT Technology Review has chosen not to name the service, which we will call Y, or use any direct quotes and screenshots of its contents, to avoid driving traffic to the site. It was discovered and brought to our attention by deepfake researcher Henry Ajder, who has been tracking the evolution and rise of synthetic media online
For now, Y exists in relative obscurity, with a small user base actively giving the creator development feedback in online forums. But researchers have feared that an app like this would emerge, breaching an ethical line no other service has crossed before.
From the beginning, deepfakes, or AI-generated synthetic media, have primarily been used to create pornographic representations of women, who often find this psychologically devastating. The original Reddit creator who popularized the technology face-swapped female celebrities’ faces into porn videos. To this day, the research company Sensity AI estimates, between 90% and 95% of all online deepfake videos are nonconsensual porn, and around 90% of those feature women.
As the technology has advanced, numerous easy-to-use no-code tools have also emerged, allowing users to “strip” the clothes off female bodies in images. Many of these services have since been forced offline, but the code still exists in open-source repositories and has continued to resurface in new forms. The latest such site received over 6.7 million visits in August, according to the researcher Genevieve Oh, who discovered it. It has yet to be taken offline.
There have been other single-photo face-swapping apps, like ZAO or ReFace, that place users into selected scenes from mainstream movies or pop videos. But as the first dedicated pornographic face-swapping app, Y takes this to a new level. It’s “tailor-made” to create pornographic images of people without their consent, says Adam Dodge, the founder of EndTAB, a nonprofit that educates people about technology-enabled abuse. This makes it easier for the creators to improve the technology for this specific use case and entices people who otherwise wouldn’t have thought about creating deepfake porn. “Anytime you specialize like that, it creates a new corner of the internet that will draw in new users,” Dodge says.
Y is incredibly easy to use. Once a user uploads a photo of a face, the site opens up a library of porn videos. The vast majority feature women, though a small handful also feature men, mostly in gay porn. A user can then select any video to generate a preview of the face-swapped result within seconds—and pay to download the full version.
The results are far from perfect. Many of the face swaps are obviously fake, with the faces shimmering and distorting as they turn different angles. But to a casual observer, some are subtle enough to pass, and the trajectory of deepfakes has already shown how quickly they can become indistinguishable from reality. Some experts argue that the quality of the deepfake also doesn’t really matter because the psychological toll on victims can be the same either way. And many members of the public remain unaware that such technology exists, so even low-quality face swaps can be capable of fooling people.
To this day, I’ve never been successful fully in getting any of the images taken down. Forever, that will be out there. No matter what I do.Noelle Martin, an Australian activist
Y bills itself as a safe and responsible tool for exploring sexual fantasies. The language on the site encourages users to upload their own face. But nothing prevents them from uploading other people’s faces, and comments on online forums suggest that users have already been doing just that.
The consequences for women and girls targeted by such activity can be crushing. At a psychological level, these videos can feel as violating as revenge porn—real intimate videos filmed or released without consent. “This kind of abuse—where people misrepresent your identity, name, reputation, and alter it in such violating ways—shatters you to the core,” says Noelle Martin, an Australian activist who has been targeted by a deepfake porn campaign.
And the repercussions can stay with victims for life. The images and videos are difficult to remove from the internet, and new material can be created at any time. “It affects your interpersonal relations; it affects you with getting jobs. Every single job interview you ever go for, this might be brought up. Potential romantic relationships,” Martin says. “To this day, I’ve never been successful fully in getting any of the images taken down. Forever, that will be out there. No matter what I do.”
Sometimes it’s even more complicated than revenge porn. Because the content is not real, women can doubt whether they deserve to feel traumatized and whether they should report it, says Dodge. “If somebody is wrestling with whether they’re even really a victim, it impairs their ability to recover,” he says.
Nonconsensual deepfake porn can also have economic and career impacts. Rana Ayyub, an Indian journalist who became a victim of a deepfake porn campaign, received such intense online harassment in its aftermath that she had to minimize her online presence and thus the public profile required to do her work. Helen Mort, a UK-based poet and broadcaster who previously shared her story with MIT Technology Review, said she felt pressure to do the same after discovering that photos of her had been stolen from private social media accounts to create fake nudes.
The Revenge Porn Helpline funded by the UK government recently received a case from a teacher who lost her job after deepfake pornographic images of her were circulated on social media and brought to her school’s attention, says Sophie Mortimer, who manages the service. “It’s getting worse, not better,” Dodge says. “More women are being targeted this way.”
Y’s option to create deepfake gay porn, though limited, poses an additional threat to men in countries where homosexuality is criminalized, says Ajder. This is the case in 71 jurisdictions globally, 11 of which punish the offense by death.
Ajder, who has discovered numerous deepfake porn apps in the last few years, says he has attempted to contact Y’s hosting service and force it offline. But he’s pessimistic about preventing similar tools from being created. Already, another site has popped up that seems to be attempting the same thing. He thinks banning such content from social media platforms, and perhaps even making their creation or consumption illegal, would prove a more sustainable solution. “That means that these websites are treated in the same way as dark web material,” he says. “Even if it gets driven underground, at least it puts that out of the eyes of everyday people.”
Y did not respond to multiple requests for comment at the press email listed on its site. The registration information associated with the domain is also blocked by the privacy service Withheld for Privacy. On August 17, after MIT Technology Review made a third attempt to reach the creator, the site put up a notice on its homepage saying it’s no longer available to new users. As of September 12, the notice was still there.
Walmart confirms Litecoin story is fake, Litcoin pumps and dumps
Sep 13, 2021.
14:42
The price of Litecoin jumped 25% on Monday before quickly paring gains and turning negative after reports that Walmart (NYSE:WMT) may begin accepting Litecoin as payment on its e-commerce website turned out to be fake.
A press release on GlobeNewswire, a usually reputable source for company news, stated that Walmart would begin accepting Litecoin from October 1st on its e-commerce website.
A spokesperson for Walmart confirmed the Litecoin story was fake, according to CNBC.
Litecoin’s official Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) handle tweeted the news, but the tweet was swiftly deleted, leading to speculation that GlobeNewswire may have been tricked into publishing a fake press release.
The Press release
The press release announced that Walmart had signed a “major” partnership with Litecoin, where it intends to give its shoppers an opportunity to make payments with cryptocurrencies on its e-commerce store.
The price of Litecoin initially surged following the announcement. The cryptocurrency jumped 25% to a high of $233.81 before paring gains and turning negative on the day.
Stocks set to bounce, as Apple absorbs Epic disappointment
By 6:15 AM ET (1015 GMT), Dow Jones futures were up 182 points, or 0.5%, while S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures were up in parallel.
Stocks likely to be in focus later include Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), in the wake of a landmark ruling against the company in favor of Fortnite publisher Epic Games on Friday that threatens to hit the earning power of its app store. Epic said on Sunday it will appeal the court ruling, which it said didn’t go far enough in recognizing Apple’s alleged abuse of its dominant position.
Oracle is the only company of note reporting, and that’s after the closing bell.
Sunday, 12 September 2021
El Salvador buys bitcoin as the digital currency becomes legal tender
By Merlin Delcid, CNN Business
Sep 7, 2021
San Salvador, El Salvador (CNN Business) - El Salvador became the first country to adopt bitcoin as a national currency on Tuesday, kicking off a radical monetary experiment that could pose risks to the fragile economy.
President Nayib Bukele announced late Monday that his government purchased 200 bitcoins ahead of El Salvador's formal adoption of the currency. He added another 150 on Tuesday, bringing the country's total to 550 bitcoins.
Bitcoin is now legal tender in El Salvador alongside the US dollar. On Tuesday, the risks of the approach were highlighted when bitcoin prices dropped sharply on what Bukele has called "Bitcoin Day."
Bukele, a right-wing populist who rose to power in 2019, announced the plan to start using bitcoin in June. The law designating bitcoin as legal tender says that all "economic agents" shall accept the cryptocurrency as a form of payment. It also says that tax payments can be made in bitcoin.
Salvadorans will be able to download the "Chivo Wallet," an application created by the government which will deliver $30 worth of bitcoin to people to promote its use.
"The process of #Bitcoin in El Salvador has a learning curve. Every step toward the future is like this, and we will not achieve everything in a day, nor in a month," Bukele tweeted. "But we must break the paradigms of the past."
Some citizens have embraced the technology, while others are wary. José Abraham Cerón, a baker, told CNN that it's not difficult to deal in bitcoin. But Blanca Estela Ponce, the owner of a nearby tortilla shop, said she prefers cash.
"[Bitcoin is] something new and we don't have enough information about it," Ponce told CNN.
El Salvador has partnered with digital finance company Strike to create the infrastructure required.
Cryptocurrencies are held in digital wallets, rather than through a traditional bank account — meaning that people in poorer communities with less access to banks could use bitcoin as a way to gain increased access to their finances.
However, social organizations have asked the Salvadoran government to repeal the law, largely because they fear the extreme volatility of the cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin has recovered some lost ground following a dramatic crash earlier this year, but it remains well below its record high of nearly $65,000 set in April. The price was $46,930 on Tuesday, down 9.1% in the past 24 hours, according to Coinbase.
The International Monetary Fund, which provided an emergency loan to El Salvador last year and is now negotiating another round of lending, has taken a dim view of using bitcoin as legal tender, saying that doing so raises a number of economic, financial and legal issues.
"How do we know what we collect in taxes when bitcoin goes up and bitcoin goes down? How do we plan for expenditures? Remember in April, bitcoin crossed $65,000 and then it dropped almost half of it. That is a problem that the ministry of finance is going to be wrestling with. And it is not an easy one," Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the IMF, said recently.
In late July, Moody's Investors Service pushed El Salvador's debt rating deeper into junk territory, citing "a deterioration in the quality of policymaking" including the government's decision to adopt bitcoin as legal tender.
Moody's said the country remains susceptible to financing shocks that could jeopardize the government's ability to repay creditors starting in January 2023.
El Salvador's government is betting that using bitcoin as legal tender will attract new investments. Authorities also hope to reduce commissions paid for sending remittances from abroad.
-- Joshua Berlinger, Rafael Romo, Charles Riley and Jill Disis contributed to this report.
In a huge blow, judge rules Apple can't force developers to exclusively use its App Store payment system
By Rishi Iyengar and Clare Duffy, CNN Business
Sep 10, 2021
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the US District Court in the Northern District of California ruled on Friday that Apple had violated California's Unfair Competition Law by forcing Fortnite and its maker Epic Games to use Apple's payment systems on the App Store, with the iPhone maker extracting a 30% commission on every in-app purchase in the process. She issued an injunction saying Apple can no longer prohibit developers from adding links within their apps to outside payment options; for example, alerting users to the option to pay for a subscription on a web browser, rather than through the app.
But Gonzalez Rogers sided with Apple on the suit's other claims and said she could not conclude that the iPhone maker is a monopoly.
"Given the trial record, the Court cannot ultimately conclude that Apple is a monopolist under either federal or state antitrust laws," court documents read. "Success is not illegal. The final trial record did not include evidence of other critical factors, such as barriers to entry and conduct decreasing output or decreasing innovation in the relevant market."
The decision, which is almost certain to be appealed, came after a months-long legal fight that could change how we use our smartphones.
Apple's stock was down nearly 3% in midday trading Friday following the decision. In a statement, and a followup press call, Apple framed the decision as a victory for the company and stressed that the court found it was not a monopolist.
"Today the Court has affirmed what we've known all along: the App Store is not in violation of antitrust law," Apple said in a statement. "Apple faces rigorous competition in every segment in which we do business, and we believe customers and developers choose us because our products and services are the best in the world."
In a series of tweets, Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney said the company "will fight on."
"Today's ruling isn't a win for developers or for consumers. Epic is fighting for fair competition among in-app payment methods and app stores for a billion consumers," Sweeney tweeted, continuing: "Fortnite will return to the iOS App Store when and where Epic can offer in-app payment in fair competition with Apple in-app payment, passing along the savings to consumers."
A spokesperson for Epic confirmed the company plans to appeal the decision.
The fight began last August when Apple kicked Fortnite off the App Store for flouting its rules on in-app payments on the iPhone.
In a software update to Fortnite, Epic encouraged iOS players to buy the game's digital currency, known as V-Bucks, directly from Epic, as opposed to through Apple's in-app purchase system. To sweeten the deal, Epic offered a discount to those who bought V-Bucks directly.
While consumers may have viewed it as a loyalty bonus, Apple saw it as a gross violation of its contract with Epic and an attempt to undercut a key revenue stream. The iPhone maker booted Fortnite from the App store, and Epic immediately filed what appeared to be a largely premeditated lawsuit.
In a contentious trial that began in May and lasted nearly a month, Epic argued that the App Store constituted a monopoly because it is the only way to access hundreds of millions of iPhone users, and that Apple harmed competition by prohibiting other app stores or payment methods on its devices.
The gaming company stressed that it is not seeking any monetary compensation from the lawsuit but wants the judge to compel Apple to relax some of those restrictions. "Epic is solely seeking changes to Apple's future behavior," the company's CEO, Tim Sweeney, said on the stand.
Apple and its CEO Tim Cook sought to undercut that argument by pointing out that the iPhone is one of several devices where Fortnite users can play the game and buy V-bucks, including Android smartphones (Epic is fighting a similar lawsuit against Google) and video game consoles such as the PlayStation and Xbox, many of which also don't allow alternative payment methods and charge similar commissions.
It's not illegal to have a monopoly under US law; it's only illegal to try to preserve a monopoly at the expense of competition.
Apple also justified its 30% commission by saying the earnings from in-app payments help improve security and privacy for the iPhone users that give developers a massive captive audience.
"We've made a choice," Cook told the judge. "There are clearly other ways to monetize, but we chose this one because this one overall is the best way."
Apple's commissions on in-app payments — often referred to by developers as the "Apple Tax" — have been under fire from developers, lawmakers, and regulators around the world for years. And while the Epic lawsuit is one of the more high-profile legal challenges, it is one of many just within the past year alone. Music streaming service Spotify and dating app Tinder's parent company Match Group have been other notable antagonists, with the former taking on Apple both in the United States and Europe over alleged anticompetitive behavior. In the weeks leading up to the verdict, Apple made multiple tweaks to App Store policies in a possible attempt to head off further criticism about its practices. In late August, the company announced a settlement in a class action lawsuit that allows app developers to email their users about alternative payment methods.
Just days later, the company said it will further relax restrictions on "reader" apps — a designation that applies to companies like Spotify and Netflix that distribute media — and allow those apps to link out to external websites for users to set up and manage accounts. That update, which will take effect in 2022, was in response to an investigation by Japan's Fair Trade Commission.
Those changes have received a skeptical reception from the major developers taking on Apple.
"This is a raw demonstration of their monopolistic power: making capricious changes designed to spur good PR for their benefit right as legislation, regulatory scrutiny and developer complaints are closing in on them," a Match Group spokesperson said in response to Apple's class action settlement relaxing email rules for developers. "We hope everyone sees this for what it is — a sham."
Gonzalez Rogers on Friday ordered Apple to change that system, saying the company can no longer prohibit developers from directing users to outside payment mechanisms.
The practical outcome of the 180-page order will likely be that Apple app store developers are no longer required to use Apple's in-app payment system in order to collect funds from iOS users, said Josh Davis, a professor at the University of California at San Francisco law school. He added that Apple will have to be careful with how it implements the order to avoid being in contempt of court after the injunction goes into effect in 90 days.
"They're not just free to characterize this order however they want," he said.
Still, Stanford Law Professor Mark Lemley said it's possible only a few large, well-known apps may benefit from no longer having to rely on Apple's in-app payment system.
"For your ordinary app I'm using, I'm never leaving the app, I'm just using it on the phone," he said. "But it does open the possibility for those that either can persuade you to go or for which you already are going to go [to another platform] ... they can say, 'Hey, go buy your [Fortnite] downloads or your emotes through [the Epic Store].'"
Gonzalez Rogers also ruled in Apple's favor on a counterclaim that Epic was in breach of contract for subverting Apple's in-app payment system and ordered the developer to pay damages equal to 30% of the $12,167,719 in revenue it collected from the iOS Fornite app between August and October 2020, plus 30% of any revenue it earned from the app from November 2020 through the date of the judgment, and interest.
Meanwhile, the pressure on Apple keeps piling up, with the company still facing antitrust scrutiny by the US House and Senate, as well as regulators in the United Kingdom and Europe.
South Korea has already taken one of the most severe actions against Apple's in-app payment restrictions, passing a law in early September that requires Apple and Google to offer alternative payment systems to their users in the country.
Gonzalez Rogers' ruling that Apple has not violated federal antitrust law could increase pressure on US lawmakers to advance proposed bills that would reform antitrust laws for tech giants.
"I would imagine this opinion could add to the momentum behind those bills," UCSF's Davis said, "to the extent that I could imagine legislators saying, 'Wait, we all know Apple has market power. These technicalities of antitrust doctrine are kind of getting in the way. We need to reform the law.'"
Friday's decision is expected to be appealed, and the case could drag on for several months or even years.
Update: This article and headline have been updated to better clarify how Apple has been ordered to ease restrictions on developers.
Saturday, 11 September 2021
September 11 affected the entire nation. Here's how local newspapers are covering the 20th anniversary
By Kerry Flynn, CNN Business
Sep 10, 2021
The terror attacks of September 11, 2001 were centered around the East Coast, but its effect was felt in nearly all corners of the country. Ahead of Saturday's anniversary, newspaper editors around the US are publishing powerful front pages with unique stories that capture how local communities are still grappling with the tragedy 20 years later.
Tim Cotter, executive editor of The Day in New London, Connecticut, said that his staff reached out to people in the area ahead of the anniversary so they could feature their personal stories. The Day's front page on Friday included a story compiling many of those memories from the day of the attacks as well as a profile of a New London resident who had served as a volunteer construction worker at ground zero to clean up the aftermath.
"We wanted to hear from people," Cotter told CNN Business. "It's a moment that people will always remember where they were, what they were doing."
The Day plans to publish a story on Sunday about how the Muslim community in the area has been affected, Cotter said. The Daily Herald, a newspaper covering suburban Chicago, featured a story about that same topic on its Friday front page.
John Lampinen, senior vice president of Paddock Publications and editor of the Daily Herald, told CNN Business that his paper has been running a week-long series about the anniversary.
"[W]e wanted to teach or remind our audience what that day was like, how real and human it felt, how all of us as people responded — to teach or remind our audience that there was a time when the country came together; a time when the divisions disappeared," Lampinen wrote in an email. "And we wanted to teach or remind our audience that as universal as all this felt, there were some who felt left out — those in the Muslim community, in particular, even though they shared in the incredible heartache."
Some of the most iconic 9/11 news coverage is lost. Blame Adobe Flash
By Clare Duffy and Kerry Flynn, CNN Business
Sep 10, 2021
New York (CNN Business) - Journalism is often considered the first draft of history, but what happens when that draft is written on a software program that becomes obsolete?
Adobe ending support for Flash — its once ubiquitous multimedia content player — last year meant that some of the news coverage of the September 11th attacks and other major events from the early days of online journalism are no longer accessible. For example, The Washington Post and ABC News both have broken experiences within their September 11th coverage, viewable in the Internet Archive. CNN's online coverage of September 11th also has been impacted by the end of Flash.
That means what was once an interactive explainer of how the planes hit the World Trade Center or a visually-rich story on where some survivors of the attacks are now, at best, a non-functioning still image, or at worst, a gray box informing readers that "Adobe Flash player is no longer supported."
Dan Pacheco, professor of practice and chair of journalism innovation at Syracuse University's Newhouse School, has experienced the issue firsthand. As an online producer for the Post's website in the late 1990s and later for America Online, some of the work he helped build has disappeared.
"This is really about the problem of what I call the boneyard of the internet. Everything that's not a piece of text or a flat picture is basically destined to rot and die when new methods of delivering the content replace it," Pacheco told CNN Business. "I just feel like the internet is rotting at an even faster pace, ironically, because of innovation. It shouldn't."
Rise and fall of Flash
Adobe Flash played a critical role in the internet's development by being the first tool that made it easy to create and view animations, games and videos online across nearly any browser and device. Animated stars of the early internet such as Charlie the Unicorn, Salad Fingers and the game Club Penguin were all brought to life thanks to Flash.
The software also helped journalism to evolve beyond print newspapers, TV and radio, ushering in an era of digital news coverage that used interactive maps, data visualizations and other novel ways of presenting information to audiences.
"Flash's ease of use for creating interactive visualizations and explorable content shaped early experiments with web coverage, and particularly served as a preview for what adding dynamic elements to a story could provide," Anastasia Salter, associate professor at the University of Central Florida and author of the book "Flash: Building the Interactive Web," told CNN Business in an email.
But despite enabling those innovations, Flash was also controversial. In 2010, Apple founder Steve Jobs wrote a scathing letter bemoaning Flash's security issues and the fact that it was a proprietary system underlying so much of the internet. Jobs' refusal to support Flash on iOS devices was widely seen as the start of its decline. A year later, Adobe said it would no longer develop Flash on mobile devices.
In the following years, the more open web standard HTML5 — which allowed developers to embed content directly onto webpages — gained traction, and made the add-on Flash extension less useful. Flash was increasingly mocked and despised for being buggy, laden with security vulnerabilities, a battery drain and requiring a plug-in to use.
In 2017, Adobe announced it would pull the plug on Flash at the end of 2020. Some operating systems and browsers started discontinuing Flash early, and the software's official "end-of-life" day came on December 31, 2020, when Adobe ended support for Flash and encouraged users to uninstall it because it would no longer get security updates.
Since then, a host of Flash-based content across the web has become inaccessible.
"Web preservationists have been sounding the alarm on Flash for a long time," Salter said.
In some corners of the internet, there are efforts to preserve or restore some of that content. The Internet Archive has made a push to re-create, save and display Flash-based animations, games and other media using an emulator tool called Ruffle. However, that process can be difficult and won't necessarily work to save all content built in Flash.
"Unfortunately it's a lot more difficult than we'd like [to restore Flash content], particularly because 'Flash' encompasses generations of work and the platform's code complexity grew with every iteration of Adobe's scripting language," Salter said. "I can't say I've seen any news organization make the type of concerted effort that animations, games, and electronic literature communities are to save this history."
For its part, an Adobe spokesperson said in a statement: "Adobe stopped supporting Flash Player beginning December 31, 2020. Unfortunately, these older web pages can no longer be played due to the Flash plugin being blocked from loading in the browser. Like all Americans, we watched the horrific events of 9/11 and understand the important role Flash played in helping media organizations depict and tell the stories of that tragic day."
A Samsung-owned software called Harman has also partnered with Adobe and can help companies to keep Flash-based content running.
Finding solutions
Some newsrooms have taken it upon themselves to rebuild Flash content. For its coverage of the 20th anniversary of September 11th, USA Today republished some 2002 articles timed with the first anniversary and that included recreating some Flash-based interactives. Whereas some of these graphics were originally bigger interactives, USA Today's graphics teams remade some to be smaller.
"We played with the limitation a little bit... because this is more a more relaxed and a more solemn and calm way to look at the stories," said Javier Zarracina, graphics director at USA Today. "We're not doing a facsimile. We're taking a curated look at what we published 20 years ago."
One of the stories USA Today published in 2002 was an investigation into the elevator system in the World Trade Center that included a Flash graphic explaining how people got trapped inside them on September 11, 2001. The USA Today team chose to remake that graphic and republished it earlier this week.
USA Today has archived many of its old interactives by storing the original files on its servers. Since some of the online interactives were converted for the print newspaper, they also saved associated static graphics. Zarracina said he was able to open some of the files originally made in Adobe's FreeHand software in a newer creative software suite called Affinity.
The New York Times has brought back some its old Flash-based interactives by using Ruffle, an Adobe Flash Player emulator that is part of an open-source project, said Jordan Cohen, The Times' executive director of communications.
"The Times cares about preserving the digital history of the early days of web journalism, and through several site migrations we have made sure to preserve pages as they were originally published on archive.nytimes.com," Cohen wrote in an email. "[W]e hope in the future will enable our readers to experience all of our Flash interactives."
But not every media organization is as dedicated to archiving.
"News companies are in the business of this very minute and tomorrow," said Pacheco, the Syracuse professor. "We're not libraries."
Jason Tuohey, managing editor for digital at The Boston Globe, said in a statement that his team planned to "revive some of our archive coverage [for the September 11th anniversary], but in many ways, the best material we can provide our readers is journalism that puts the anniversary in context and perspective, rather than simply repeating what we ran in the past."
Kat Downs Mulder, managing editor of digital at The Post, said in a statement that her news organization has "made a concerted effort to make most of our text-based articles, images, graphics and maps accessible" in their online archives but added that not every project is rebuilt.
CNN and ABC News declined to detail any plans to rebuild Flash-based interactives.
A never-ending problem
The limitations of news organization's archives does not start or end with Flash. Pacheco noted how his former employer, The Post, has invested significant effort in TikTok. He questioned whether they were preserving each video and if that was also the case for other social apps, including disappearing content on Instagram and Snapchat.
USA Today is not rebuilding every old experience for today's news consumer. But individuals inside the news organization are giving special attention to certain projects. Jim Sergent, senior manager of graphics at USA Today, said his colleague Mitchell Thorson keeps eyes on the functionality of the interactive map within the Pulitzer-winning feature, "The Wall," about the US-Mexico border and former President Donald Trump's campaign to build a wall.
"'The Wall' is a great example where we did just unbelievable work and we realized, 'Okay, yeah. We want this to be out there for as long as it can be,'" Sergent said.
In a huge blow, judge rules Apple can't force developers to exclusively use its App Store payment system
By Rishi Iyengar and Clare Duffy, CNN Business
Sep 10, 2021
(CNN Business) - Apple can no longer prohibit app developers from directing users to payment options outside its App Store, a judge ruled on Friday. The decision, which followed a contentious court battle with the maker of the hugely popular Fortnite video game, is a major blow to Apple — but the company also scored a partial victory as the judge stopped short of calling it a monopoly.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the US District Court in the Northern District of California ruled on Friday that Apple had violated California's Unfair Competition Law by forcing Fortnite and its maker Epic Games to use Apple's payment systems on the App Store, with the iPhone maker extracting a 30% commission on every in-app purchase in the process. She issued an injunction saying Apple can no longer prohibit developers from adding links within their apps to outside payment options; for example, alerting users to the option to pay for a subscription on a web browser, rather than through the app.
But Gonzalez Rogers sided with Apple on the suit's other claims and said she could not conclude that the iPhone maker is a monopoly.
"Given the trial record, the Court cannot ultimately conclude that Apple is a monopolist under either federal or state antitrust laws," court documents read. "Success is not illegal. The final trial record did not include evidence of other critical factors, such as barriers to entry and conduct decreasing output or decreasing innovation in the relevant market."
The decision, which is almost certain to be appealed, came after a months-long legal fight that could change how we use our smartphones.
Apple's stock was down nearly 3% in midday trading Friday following the decision. In a statement, and a followup press call, Apple framed the decision as a victory for the company and stressed that the court found it was not a monopolist.
"Today the Court has affirmed what we've known all along: the App Store is not in violation of antitrust law," Apple said in a statement. "Apple faces rigorous competition in every segment in which we do business, and we believe customers and developers choose us because our products and services are the best in the world."
In a series of tweets, Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney said the company "will fight on."
"Today's ruling isn't a win for developers or for consumers. Epic is fighting for fair competition among in-app payment methods and app stores for a billion consumers," Sweeney tweeted, continuing: "Fortnite will return to the iOS App Store when and where Epic can offer in-app payment in fair competition with Apple in-app payment, passing along the savings to consumers."
A spokesperson for Epic confirmed the company plans to appeal the decision.
The fight began last August when Apple kicked Fortnite off the App Store for flouting its rules on in-app payments on the iPhone.
In a software update to Fortnite, Epic encouraged iOS players to buy the game's digital currency, known as V-Bucks, directly from Epic, as opposed to through Apple's in-app purchase system. To sweeten the deal, Epic offered a discount to those who bought V-Bucks directly.
While consumers may have viewed it as a loyalty bonus, Apple saw it as a gross violation of its contract with Epic and an attempt to undercut a key revenue stream. The iPhone maker booted Fortnite from the App store, and Epic immediately filed what appeared to be a largely premeditated lawsuit.
In a contentious trial that began in May and lasted nearly a month, Epic argued that the App Store constituted a monopoly because it is the only way to access hundreds of millions of iPhone users, and that Apple harmed competition by prohibiting other app stores or payment methods on its devices.
The gaming company stressed that it is not seeking any monetary compensation from the lawsuit but wants the judge to compel Apple to relax some of those restrictions. "Epic is solely seeking changes to Apple's future behavior," the company's CEO, Tim Sweeney, said on the stand.
Apple and its CEO Tim Cook sought to undercut that argument by pointing out that the iPhone is one of several devices where Fortnite users can play the game and buy V-bucks, including Android smartphones (Epic is fighting a similar lawsuit against Google) and video game consoles such as the PlayStation and Xbox, many of which also don't allow alternative payment methods and charge similar commissions.
It's not illegal to have a monopoly under US law; it's only illegal to try to preserve a monopoly at the expense of competition.
Apple also justified its 30% commission by saying the earnings from in-app payments help improve security and privacy for the iPhone users that give developers a massive captive audience.
"We've made a choice," Cook told the judge. "There are clearly other ways to monetize, but we chose this one because this one overall is the best way."
Apple's commissions on in-app payments — often referred to by developers as the "Apple Tax" — have been under fire from developers, lawmakers, and regulators around the world for years. And while the Epic lawsuit is one of the more high-profile legal challenges, it is one of many just within the past year alone. Music streaming service Spotify and dating app Tinder's parent company Match Group have been other notable antagonists, with the former taking on Apple both in the United States and Europe over alleged anticompetitive behavior. In the weeks leading up to the verdict, Apple made multiple tweaks to App Store policies in a possible attempt to head off further criticism about its practices. In late August, the company announced a settlement in a class action lawsuit that allows app developers to email their users about alternative payment methods.
Just days later, the company said it will further relax restrictions on "reader" apps — a designation that applies to companies like Spotify and Netflix that distribute media — and allow those apps to link out to external websites for users to set up and manage accounts. That update, which will take effect in 2022, was in response to an investigation by Japan's Fair Trade Commission.
Those changes have received a skeptical reception from the major developers taking on Apple.
"This is a raw demonstration of their monopolistic power: making capricious changes designed to spur good PR for their benefit right as legislation, regulatory scrutiny and developer complaints are closing in on them," a Match Group spokesperson said in response to Apple's class action settlement relaxing email rules for developers. "We hope everyone sees this for what it is — a sham."
Gonzalez Rogers on Friday ordered Apple to change that system, saying the company can no longer prohibit developers from directing users to outside payment mechanisms.
The practical outcome of the 180-page order will likely be that Apple app store developers are no longer required to use Apple's in-app payment system in order to collect funds from iOS users, said Josh Davis, a professor at the University of California at San Francisco law school. He added that Apple will have to be careful with how it implements the order to avoid being in contempt of court after the injunction goes into effect in 90 days.
"They're not just free to characterize this order however they want," he said.
Still, Stanford Law Professor Mark Lemley said it's possible only a few large, well-known apps may benefit from no longer having to rely on Apple's in-app payment system.
"For your ordinary app I'm using, I'm never leaving the app, I'm just using it on the phone," he said. "But it does open the possibility for those that either can persuade you to go or for which you already are going to go [to another platform] ... they can say, 'Hey, go buy your [Fortnite] downloads or your emotes through [the Epic Store].'"
Gonzalez Rogers also ruled in Apple's favor on a counterclaim that Epic was in breach of contract for subverting Apple's in-app payment system and ordered the developer to pay damages equal to 30% of the $12,167,719 in revenue it collected from the iOS Fornite app between August and October 2020, plus 30% of any revenue it earned from the app from November 2020 through the date of the judgment, and interest.
Meanwhile, the pressure on Apple keeps piling up, with the company still facing antitrust scrutiny by the US House and Senate, as well as regulators in the United Kingdom and Europe.
South Korea has already taken one of the most severe actions against Apple's in-app payment restrictions, passing a law in early September that requires Apple and Google to offer alternative payment systems to their users in the country.
Gonzalez Rogers' ruling that Apple has not violated federal antitrust law could increase pressure on US lawmakers to advance proposed bills that would reform antitrust laws for tech giants.
"I would imagine this opinion could add to the momentum behind those bills," UCSF's Davis said, "to the extent that I could imagine legislators saying, 'Wait, we all know Apple has market power. These technicalities of antitrust doctrine are kind of getting in the way. We need to reform the law.'"
Friday's decision is expected to be appealed, and the case could drag on for several months or even years.
Update: This article and headline have been updated to better clarify how Apple has been ordered to ease restrictions on developers.
Blackstone drops $3 billion bid for Chinese property developer
By Jordan Valinsky, CNN Business
Sep 10, 2021
New York (CNN Business) - Private equity firm Blackstone Group is abandoning its $3 billion bid for a controlling stake in Soho China, one of the country's largest real estate developers.
In a regulatory filing Friday, Blackstone said it decided to drop the deal "in light of the lack of sufficient progress" being made among government regulators who would need to approve the purchase. Blackstone announced the transaction in June, bidding roughly 30% above Soho China's stock price at the time.
Blackstone didn't offer any further details about the dropped deal. The company has made several big real estate investments in China, including a majority stake in a large logistics park in Southern China's Greater Bay Area, a premium office and retail complex outside Shanghai and a multifamily investment in Shanghai, which was completed last year.
Soho China is controlled by Zhang Xin and her husband Pan Shiyi. They founded the company in 1995 and it has developed 1.3 million square meters of real estate across China.
China has increasingly clamped down on large business deals. The country's latest five-year plan includes promises to strengthen rules that would combat monopolistic behavior and regulate technological innovation. Authorities also called on law enforcement to take action in areas of "vital interests of people," including financial services, education and tutoring.
The economy is still a long way from normal
By Hanna Ziady, CNN Business
Sep 10, 2021
London (CNN Business) - Back in the spring, as the pace of vaccinations increased rapidly and growth predictions improved, businesses were hopeful that by the fall economic activity would largely be back to normal.
Well, September has arrived but the return to normal that many expected remains elusive.
What's happening: Developments over the past 10 days indicate that major economies are still stuck with some of the same problems they encountered earlier on in the pandemic, such as rising coronavirus cases, even as they simultaneously grapple with longer-term challenges.
On Thursday, Microsoft scrapped plans to fully reopen US offices next month because of concerns about the Delta variant. Many companies had planned for employees to return after Labor Day, but that deadline has come and gone with some firms, such as Amazon and Facebook, now looking to 2022 to reopen workplaces.
Meanwhile, major conventions — including the National Rifle Association's annual meeting in Houston and the Specialty Food Association's Fancy Food Show set for New York — have been cancelled or moved online due to rising Covid cases, in a development that feels a lot like April 2020.
That's having an effect on airlines, which were anticipating a pickup in business travel as offices reopened and in-person conferences resumed.
See here: Southwest warned investors that a drop in bookings and a rise in cancellations means it no longer expects to remain in the black for the third quarter, despite a profitable July.
Supply chain problems linked to the pandemic and labor shortages continue to plague businesses, threatening to derail the upcoming holiday shopping season and further undermine the recovery.
Mark Zandi, Moody's Analytics chief economist, now expects it could take until 2023 for the US economy to return to full employment.
Data point: Signs that the Delta variant is taking a heavy toll are beginning to show up in economic data. UK GDP growth slowed sharply in July, posting its smallest monthly increase since February, the Office for National Statistics said Friday.
Price increases linked to snarled supply chains and staff shortages as a result of Covid-19 self-isolation requirements played a role, the ONS said. Britain's economy remains 2.1% smaller than before the pandemic and economists at Berenberg now expect it to reach its pre-pandemic level in the second quarter of 2022 instead of the first.
The CNN Business Back-to-Normal Index, which tracks a range of indicators to measure the extent to which US economic activity has returned to its pre-pandemic level, has dipped slightly since late August.
And Goldman Sachs economists have slashed their GDP growth forecasts for the United States and China this year.
It's no wonder that policymakers in Europe and Australia are scaling back stimulus programs very gradually.
Losing patience: The Delta variant is not only undermining America's economic recovery, it's causing deaths and hospitalizations to rise too, particularly among the unvaccinated.
In an extraordinary step, President Joe Biden on Thursday directed the Labor Department to require all employers with more than 100 workers to mandate either the vaccine or regular testing.
In the meantime, the global economy is going to have to wait a little longer to get back to normal.
China is selling its precious oil reserves
China has been stockpiling oil for years to ensure it can meet the energy demands of its vast economy.
Now, the government is selling strategic reserves in a bid to lower prices and temper inflationary pressures.
The latest: The country's State Bureau of Grain and Material Reserves said late Thursday that it will sell crude oil to refining and petrochemical companies to "better stabilize the domestic market supply and demand and effectively guarantee national energy security."
Oil prices took a dive following the news, falling to their lowest level in two weeks, my CNN Business colleague Laura He reports.
The government didn't say how much oil it would eventually sell (China is generally tight-lipped about its crude reserves), but the move is yet more proof that the world's second largest economy faces major challenges as it emerges from the pandemic.
Inflation is soaring on rising commodity prices and energy costs are spiking, with increased demand causing power shortages in some provinces. Manufacturing and services activity has slowed, and the government has warned that rising raw materials costs will exacerbate growth and employment challenges.
JPMorgan has a plan to attract big spenders
JPMorgan wants to attract well-heeled clients who spend heavily on dining out using their credit cards. It may have found a way to do that.
America's biggest bank by assets said Thursday that it's buying The Infatuation, a restaurant discovery platform that shares reviews and recommendations on where to eat. The company, which has a presence in 50 cities across the United States, also owns restaurant guide Zagat.
Through the partnership, JPMorgan will provide "perks" for Chase card holders, a spokesperson told my CNN Business colleague Alexis Benveniste. This could include giving customers special access to live dining events and a bi-coastal food festival called Eeeeeatscon.
Bottom line: It's an unusual move for a bank to buy a media company, but when you're competing for big spenders every benefit helps.
Up Next
Kroger reports earnings before US markets open.
Coming next week: A slew of economic data from the China, the United States and Europe will provide more clues on how the recovery is shaping up.
Thursday, 9 September 2021
Modify your Learning
From time to time we've repeatedly been taught particular set of things. Things that without doubt keeps you at an average stage of life.
The most common as;
How to read, speak and write. How to plant and harvest, culture, morals, etc.
We were taught the advantage and disadvantage of many things. But never did they teach us the practical truth about success. We were only told to; go to school, graduate, get a job, earn your penny and be satisfied. Even the biggest schools today only teaches how to work for money. Whereas, the secret to success and wealth is in "how to make money work for you".
Robert Kiyosaki once said "if you can't need a paycheck - i.e you not working for money, you have a better chance of becoming rich and creating wealth"
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