Month: May 2022

Enlarge / US and Texas flags flying outside the Texas State Capitol building in Austin. (credit: Getty Images | PA Thompson)

More than two dozen groups have urged the US Supreme Court to block a Texas law that prohibits large social media companies from moderating content based on a user’s “viewpoint.”

The Texas law, HB20, “results in blatant violations of the First Amendment rights of platform providers,” said a Supreme Court brief filed yesterday. The law taking effect means that “chaos will ensue online with disastrous and irreparable consequences,” the brief said, continuing:

With platforms unable to effectively moderate scammers, messages preying on vulnerable populations, including the elderly, will proliferate online. The uptick of this content will predictably result in yet more people being tricked into sending money to scammers or disclosing financial information, leading to identity theft and financial ruin. Platforms will be powerless to regulate speech praising terrorists and those who engage in murderous campaigns, with horrendous potential ramifications if even a single person engages in copycat activity. And they may be precluded from protecting children from age-inappropriate content, including reprehensible messages encouraging our youth to engage in self-destructive activities.

The brief was signed by 20 tech-industry and advocacy groups, including the Chamber of Progress; Anti-Defamation League; Connected Commerce Council; Consumer Technology Association; Engine Advocacy; Family Online Safety Institute; HONR Network Inc.; Information Technology & Innovation Foundation; Interactive Advertising Bureau; IP Justice; LGBT Tech Institute; Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; National Hispanic Media Coalition; Our Vote Texas; Software and Information Industry Association; Stop Child Predators; TechNet; Texas State Conference of the NAACP; and the Washington Center for Technology Policy Inclusion.

Enlarge / Martin Shkreli, former CEO of Turing, smirked his way through a congressional hearing. (credit: CSPAN)

Infamous ex-pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli has been released from federal prison after serving less than five years of a seven-year sentence for a securities and wire fraud conviction. He is now moving into a US Bureau of Prisons halfway house at an undisclosed location in New York until September 14, 2022.

Shkreli was convicted in August 2017 on two counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud in connection to what federal prosecutors called a Ponzi-like scheme involving two hedge funds Shkreli managed. In March 2018, a federal judge sentenced him to seven years, which he was serving in minimum security federal prison in Allenwood, Pennsylvania.

His early release—slightly more than four years after his sentencing—reflects time shaved off for good behavior in prison, plus completion of education and rehabilitation programs, according to CNBC. It also includes a credit for the roughly six months he spent in jail prior to his sentencing.

Enlarge / The new Outlook client for Windows will unify the web and offline clients—when it’s done, anyway. (credit: Microsoft)

For years now, Microsoft has been planning behind the scenes to unify its disparate Outlook clients across the web, Windows, and macOS. Today, that goal moved one step closer to completion with the introduction of a new Outlook client for Windows users that closely mirrors the interface and functionality of the Outlook web client.

The new app is available to Office Insiders in the Beta channel who have work or school Microsoft 365 accounts. Regular Microsoft accounts aren’t currently supported. This appears to be the same version of the Outlook client that leaked to the public a couple of weeks ago.

A unified Outlook client, also known as “One Outlook” or “Project Monarch,” will be an especially welcome change for Mac users. The Mac version of Outlook has always looked different from and been less fully featured than the Windows client, though the current situation is much better than the bad old days of Microsoft Entourage.

Enlarge / Welcome to the mini-styled smartphone-RTS universe of WarCraft Arclight Rumble. (credit: Blizzard)

Blizzard Entertainment’s first real-time strategy game for smartphones, WarCraft Arclight Rumble, is slated to launch on iOS and Android later this year, with a tech beta going live sooner in various regions. Ahead of that launch, we were invited to test the game’s current version for a couple of days, and we can confirm that Blizzard is still pretty good at designing games for phones. (Even if they’ve brought at least one related gaffe upon themselves.)

In Arclight Rumble‘s case, however, a certain chicken-and-egg question comes up: When comparing this game to the wildly popular Clash Royale, exactly who is ripping off whom?

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  CGI intro emphasizes that you’re tossing plastic figurines onto a table, which then come to life and do battle on your behalf. Gotta… WarCraft ’em all? [credit:
  Blizzard ]

Both games overlap, as Blizzard’s new smartphone game adopts more than a few of Supercell’s well-trodden, touchscreen-friendly conventions. Yet Supercell’s game arguably borrows a lot from the original WarCraft series on PC—not just in its adherence to RTS traditions but also its medieval, primary-color aesthetic.

Enlarge / The Google doodle for Russia National Day 2016. (credit: Google)

Google’s going… out of business?! That’s apparently the case in Russia. As Reuters reports, Google’s Russia subsidiary plans to file for bankruptcy after “the authorities seized its bank account, making it impossible to carry on operations.” Reuters has a statement from Google:

The Russian authorities’ seizure of Google Russia’s bank account has made it untenable for our Russia office to function, including employing and paying Russia-based employees, paying suppliers and vendors, and meeting other financial obligations. Google Russia has published a notice of its intention to file for bankruptcy.

A regulatory filing showed Google Russia has been expecting to file for bankruptcy since March 22. The division did $2 billion in revenue last year, but that doesn’t matter much when authorities take your entire bank account.

Unlike many tech companies that have abandoned Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, Google has tried to keep doing business in the country. Heavy hitters like Google Search, YouTube, Maps, Gmail, and Google Play are all still running in Russia. Google’s most important product, the ad platform, was shut down on March 3 in Russia after the Russian government started demanding it censor ads about the war. Over the next few days in March, the big four credit card companies all pulled out of Russia, making normal business transactions very difficult. Google cited this “payment system disruption” as the reason for shutting down Google Play paid apps.