2025-05-10 08:02:00
Mexico has filed a lawsuit against Google for changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to "Gulf of America" for U.S. users on Google Maps, following a Republican-led House vote on Thursday to codify the name change. President Claudia Sheinbaum argues the U.S. only has authority to rename its portion of the continental shelf and warned of legal action unless Google reversed the change. The Guardian reports: "All we want is for the decree issued by the US government to be complied with," Sheinbaum said. "The US government only calls the portion of the US continental shelf the Gulf of America, not the entire gulf, because it wouldn't have the authority to name the entire gulf," she added. In response to Trump, Sheinbaum has cheekily suggested calling the United States "America Mexicana" -- Mexican America, pointing to a map dating back to before 1848, when one-third of her country was seized by the United States.
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2025-05-10 07:20:00
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Schools across the US are warning parents about an Internet trend that has students purposefully trying to damage their school-issued Chromebooks so that they start smoking or catch fire. Various school districts, including some in Colorado, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Washington, have sent letters to parents warning about the trend that's largely taken off on TikTok. Per reports from school districts and videos that Ars Technica has reviewed online, the so-called Chromebook Challenge includes students sticking things into Chromebook ports to short-circuit the system. Students are using various easily accessible items to do this, including writing utensils, paper clips, gum wrappers, and pushpins. The Chromebook challenge has caused chaos for US schools, leading to laptop fires that have forced school evacuations, early dismissals, and the summoning of first responders. Schools are also warning that damage to school property can result in disciplinary action and, in some states, legal action. In Plainville, Connecticut, a middle schooler allegedly "intentionally stuck scissors into a laptop, causing smoke to emit from it," Superintendent Brian Reas told local news station WFSB. The incident reportedly led to one student going to the hospital due to smoke inhalation and is suspected to be connected to the viral trend. "Although the investigation is ongoing, the student involved will be referred to juvenile court to face criminal charges," Reas said. TikTok recently banned the search term "Chromebook Challenge" and created a safety message that pops up when searching for the term. The social media company notes that the challenge is on other social media platforms, too.
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2025-05-10 06:40:00
According to The Information (paywalled), Meta is reportedly developing facial recognition capabilities for its Ray-Ban smart glasses -- technology it previously avoided due to privacy concerns. 404 Media's Joseph Cox writes: The move is an obvious about-face from Meta. It's also interesting to me because Meta's PR chewed my ass off when I dared to report in October that a pair of students took Meta's Ray-Ban glasses and combined them with off-the-shelf facial recognition technology. That tool, which the students called I-XRAY, captured a person's face, ran it through an easy to access facial recognition service called Pimeyes, then went a step further and pulled up information about the subject from across the web, including their home address and phone number. When I contacted Meta for comment for that story, Dave Arnold, a spokesperson for the company, said in an email he had one question for me. "That Pimeyes facial recognition technology could be used with ANY camera, correct? In other words, this isn't something that only is possible because of Meta Ray-Bans? If so, I think that's an important point to note in the piece," he wrote. This is true. But entirely misses the point of why the students created the tool with Meta's Ray-Ban glasses. They said themselves in a demonstration video they identified dozens of people without their knowledge. You do that by wearing a pair of glasses that look like any other. Meta's Ray-Ban's do have a light that turns on when it's recording, but according to the new report, Meta is questioning whether new versions of its glasses need this.
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2025-05-10 06:02:00
Numerous coffee establishments across the US are actively restricting internet access and laptop use as they push back against remote workers monopolizing their spaces for hours. New York's Devocion chain limits WiFi to two-hour windows on weekdays and eliminates it entirely on weekends, while Detroit's Alba coffee shop has operated without WiFi since its 2023 opening. Some venues have resorted to physically taping over electrical outlets. DC-based cafe Elle initially launched without WiFi but reversed course after receiving negative Google reviews, implementing a compromise with access restricted to Monday-Thursday, 8am-3pm, with a 90-minute usage cap. The restrictions primarily aim to increase customer turnover, improve sales figures, and restore the community atmosphere that extended laptop sessions often diminish.
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2025-05-10 05:25:00
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: A Florida bill, which would have required social media companies to provide an encryption backdoor for allowing police to access user accounts and private messages, has failed to pass into law. The Social Media Use by Minors bill was "indefinitely postponed" and "withdrawn from consideration" in the Florida House of Representatives earlier this week. Lawmakers in the Florida Senate had already voted to advance the legislation, but a bill requires both legislative chambers to pass before it can become law. The bill would have required social media firms to "provide a mechanism to decrypt end-to-end encryption when law enforcement obtains a subpoena," which are typically issued by law enforcement agencies and without judicial oversight. Digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation called the bill "dangerous and dumb." Security professionals have long argued that it is impossible to create a secure backdoor that cannot also be maliciously abused, and encryption backdoors put user data at risk of data breaches.
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2025-05-10 04:45:00
Just days after a radar and communications outage at Newark Liberty International Airport, the FAA confirmed a second incident on May 9 that disrupted radar and radio contact for 90 seconds due to a telecom failure at Philadelphia TRACON. "As of 12:30PM ET, FlightAware stats showed 292 total delays for flights into or out of Newark, which is also experiencing delays due to runway construction," reports The Verge. From the report: After the first outage on April 28th, an air traffic controller who had been on duty that day told CNN it "...was the most dangerous situation you could have." CNN reports that after a change made last July, the airport's radar and radio communication flows over a single data feed from a facility in New York, where controllers used to manage Newark's flights, to Philadelphia. The FAA has announced a plan to replace the current copper connection with fiber, as well as adding "three new, high-bandwidth telecommunications connections between the New York-based STARS and the Philadelphia TRACON," and more air traffic controllers. Until those and other changes are made, the agency also said a new backup system is being deployed in Philadelphia, but it's unclear when that will be available. NBC News reports the Friday outage affected a limited number of sectors, but it's another incident in the string of issues that have highlighted the problems with the airport's aging control system and lack of staffing. [...] A statement from the FAA said, "Frequent equipment and telecommunications outages can be stressful for controllers. Some controllers at the Philadelphia TRACON who work Newark arrivals and departures have taken time off to recover from the stress of multiple recent outages."
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