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You have to get used to it: Alpine will convert exclusively to electricity in a few years. This will be the case with the A110 coupe which already provides some information. Future electric Alpine A110 - Last January, the craftsman from Dieppe began his turn towards the electrification of all his future models , through the voice of the parent company Renault. In addition to the introduction of an SUV , alongside a city car, a sports coupe will indeed be there . We know a little more about this future electric A110, expected by 2025. While the Renault-Nissan Alliance is preparing to roll out its new CMF-EV electric platform in all its flavors, it prefers to delegate the development of the one on which the future electric Alpine A110 will be based. And not with just anyone since it was the English Lotus that caught the attention of Renault's thinking heads. Lotus in the ranks It must be said that the English specialist has already acquired serious experience in terms of electrification , for a few years, through the Evija project . This is the name of the electric hypercar developing up to 2000 hp that Lotus intends to sell in 130 units, at a rate of £ 1.7 million, excluding taxes, each. More than 400 electric hp A nice introduction that lets predict a bright future for its future electric coupe which will share its mechanical parts with the Alpine A110. Rumor has it that the two battery- powered sports cars would develop a minimum of 300 kW, or more than 400 hp, in propulsion , thanks to two electromotors housed in the rear central position. The death of the thermal A110? We also learn that a second variant, even more powerful , would receive the reinforcement of a third engine on the front axle , with all-wheel drive. A riot of power that should not make us forget that electrical technology will involve a strong weight gain . And despite the use of an aluminum architecture, it is not certain that the future electric A110 will outclass its thermal counterpart which currently peaks at 292 hp. The arrival of this electric sports car will not, however, eclipse the current A110 . Both will be marketed in parallel for a few more years, after 2025. To stay up to date, the thermal sports car will benefit from a restyling, in a few years , and will be armed with a supercharged variant, exceeding the bar. 300 hp.

Leading sports bodies will begin an 81-hour boycott of social media on Friday by stepping up their demands for companies such as Facebook and Twitter to do more to stop online abuse being sent or seen. The Premier League, English Football League and the anti-racism campaign Kick It Out are among those calling for fresh measures to tackle hate and discrimination – including a requirement for social media giants to display a warning if a user writes an abusive message, and to ask them to enter personal data if they wish to send it. They also want social media companies to have to submit a detailed quarterly report, outlining efforts they have made to prevent abuse, so they can be held more accountable. The boycott, first announced by a large number of football clubs and players and the Football Association, covers the bank holiday weekend’s programme of fixtures, from 3pm on Friday until 11.59pm on Monday. Other sporting bodies have since joined – including the England and Wales Cricket Board, Premiership Rugby and the Lawn Tennis Association – highlighting the need for the social media giants to do more to eradicate online hate. Lewis Hamilton gave his backing to the campaign on Thursday. Guardian Sport announced on Thursday it would take part, as did Sky Sports. On Thursday the Uefa president, Aleksander Ceferin, also gave his unequivocal backing to the initiative, saying: “Allowing a culture of hatred to grow with impunity is dangerous, very dangerous, not only for football but for society as a whole. We’ve had enough of these cowards who hide behind their anonymity to spew out their noxious ideologies.” Many of the organisations involved in the boycott will post a message at 9am on Friday saying: “Social media companies must do more to #StopOnlineAbuse. Join us and switch off too, as we collectively demand change.”

Disappointed by their schools’ decline on U.S. News and World Report’s annual ranking of the nation’s best high schools, Palm Beach County public school leaders criticized the magazine for using what they called incomplete information to evaluate schools. The magazine, which released its po[CENSORED]r rankings Tuesday, left the county’s two application-only high schools, Dreyfoos School of the Arts and Suncoast High School, out of the Top 100 for the second straight year. The schools rated at No. 119 and No. 128, respectively. Both routinely ranked in the top 100 before 2019. More:Palm Beach County high schools shut out of U.S. News’ Top 100 list More:Report: Palm Beach County schools use Baker Act on ‘shockingly high’ number of children More:Palm Beach County high school graduations: How they will work Four of the school district’s traditional high schools — Spanish River High, Boca Raton High, West Boca Raton High and Jupiter High — also ranked in the top 2,000 this year. Rankings should value AICE curriculum now in wide use, district says The magazine changed its rating system in 2019 to place less emphasis on college-level classes and more on how schools serve poor and minority students But Palm Beach County Deputy Schools Superintendent Keith Oswald said Wednesday there is another reason many county schools didn’t fare better: U.S. News ignores the school district’s main program for providing college-level courses. The magazine ranks schools based on six academic categories, but the most weight is given to one called “college readiness,” which measures what percentage of seniors at each school passed at least one exam for a college-level class.

D-CLIP, a lifestyle education program to prevent diabetes in South Asians with prediabetes, increased moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity (MVPA) by up to nearly an hour a week, researchers at the Rush Institute for Healthy Aging have found. The results of their study were published online Feb. 28 in the medical journal Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice and will be featured in the journal's April print edition. The D-CLIP trial, that included 573 individuals with prediabetes from Chennai, India, aimed to implement and evaluate the effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and sustainability of a culturally appropriate, low-cost lifestyle intervention for the prevention of type 2 diabetes mellitus in India. These lifestyle interventions included training on improving diet quality and reducing dietary intake through keeping weekly food diaries, adhering to individual goals for total fat intake, reducing portion sizes, and increasing intake of fiber-rich foods. In addition, a lifestyle modification team, including a health coach, a fitness instructor and a community volunteer peer leader worked with each participant. Using data from this trial, an abbreviation for Diabetes Community Lifestyle Improvement Program, the Rush investigators examined if the program's intervention increased MVPA. MVPA was measured with a questionnaire given to study participants at six, 12, 18, 24, 30 and 36 months after the program began. Rush investigators used a methodology called random effects models to examine the relationship between the group participating in D-CLIP and odds of reporting more than 150 weekly minutes of MVPA, as compared to a control group. They also examined the impact of intervention on weekly MVPA. Random effects research models enable the assessment of an entire sample of data for subgroup differences without need to split the data into subgroups. The researchers found that D-CLIP increased the average amount of weekly MVPA by an additional 56.7 after six months and 34.3, 23.6 and 24.3 minutes a week at 12, 18, and 24 months, respectively. "We found that the intervention significantly increased physical activity by increasing walking, the duration of exercise and number of workout sessions per week," Ford explained. "Findings from this study show that lifestyle interventions to prevent diabetes in South Asians at high risk of diabetes can significantly increase physical activity." Studying the data found in the D-CLIP trial could have a major impact that extends beyond how to prevent diabetes in South Asians. "Studying diabetes in South Asians could inform national recommendations to prevent diabetes in India and also could have implications for the treatment and prevention of diabetes globally," Ford says. "Findings from this study may be important to global health policy makers."

A relatively new type of tools analyzes the search engines results pages (SERPs) and provides recommendations based on statistical analysis of similarities shared between the top ranked sites. But some in the search community have doubts about the usefulness of this kind of tool. SERP Correlation Analysis and Lack of Causation This kind of analysis is called Search Engine Results Page (SERP) Correlation Analysis. SERP analysis is research that analyzes Google search results to identify factors in ranked web pages. The SEO community has found startling correlations in the past by studying search results. One analysis discovered that top ranked sites tended to have Facebook pages with a lot of likes. Of course, those top ranked sites were not top ranking because of the Facebook likes. Just because the top ranked sites share certain features does not mean that those features caused them to rank better. And that lack of actual cause between the factors in common and the actual reasons why those sites are top ranked can be seen as a problem. Just because web pages ranked in the search results share a word count, a keyword density or share keywords in common does not mean that those word counts, keyword densities and keywords are causing those pages to rank. SERPs Are No Longer Ten Blue Links Another problem with analyzing the top ten of the search results is that the search results are no longer a list of ten ranked web pages, the ten blue links. Bill Slawski (@bill_slawski) of GoFishDigital expressed little confidence in search results correlation analysis.

Not so long ago, watching a movie on a smartphone seemed impossible. Vivienne Sze was a graduate student at MIT at the time, in the mid 2000s, and she was drawn to the challenge of compressing video to keep image quality high without draining the phone’s battery. The solution she hit upon called for co-designing energy-efficient circuits with energy-efficient algorithms. Sze would go on to be part of the team that won an Engineering Emmy Award for developing the video compression standards still in use today. Now an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Sze has set her sights on a new milestone: bringing artificial intelligence applications to smartphones and tiny robots. Her research focuses on designing more-efficient deep neural networks to process video, and more-efficient hardware to run those applications. She recently co-published a book on the topic, and will teach a professional education course on how to design efficient deep learning systems in June. On April 29, Sze will join Assistant Professor Song Han for an MIT Quest AI Roundtable on the co-design of efficient hardware and software moderated by Aude Oliva, director of MIT Quest Corporate and the MIT director of the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab. Here, Sze discusses her recent work. Q: Why do we need low-power AI now? A: AI applications are moving to smartphones, tiny robots, and internet-connected appliances and other devices with limited power and processing capabilities. The challenge is that AI has high computing requirements. Analyzing sensor and camera data from a self-driving car consumes about 2,500 watts, but the computing budget of a smartphone is just about a single watt. Closing this gap requires rethinking the entire stack, a trend that will define the next decade of AI. Q: What’s the big deal about running AI on a smartphone? A: It means that the data processing no longer has to take place in the “cloud,” on racks of warehouse servers. Untethering compute from the cloud allows us to broaden AI’s reach. It gives people in developing countries with limited communication infrastructure access to AI. It also speeds up response time by reducing the lag caused by communicating with distant servers. This is crucial for interactive applications like autonomous navigation and augmented reality, which need to respond instantaneously to changing conditions. Processing data on the device can also protect medical and other sensitive records. Data can be processed right where they’re collected. Q: What makes modern AI so inefficient? A: The cornerstone of modern AI — deep neural networks — can require hundreds of millions to billions of calculations — orders of magnitude greater than compressing video on a smartphone. But it’s not just number crunching that makes deep networks energy-intensive — it’s the cost of shuffling data to and from memory to perform these computations. The farther the data have to travel, and the more data there are, the greater the bottleneck. Q: How are you redesigning AI hardware for greater energy efficiency? A: We focus on reducing data movement and the amount of data needed for computation. In some deep networks, the same data are used multiple times for different computations. We design specialized hardware to reuse data locally rather than send them off-chip. Storing reused data on-chip makes the process extremely energy-efficient. We also optimize the order in which data are processed to maximize their reuse. That’s the key property of the Eyeriss chip that I co-designed with Joel Emer. In our followup work, Eyeriss v2, we made the chip flexible enough to reuse data across a wider range of deep networks. The Eyeriss chip also uses compression to reduce data movement, a common tactic among AI chips. The low-power Navion chip that I co-designed with Sertac Karaman for mapping and navigation applications in robotics uses two to three orders of magnitude less energy than a CPU, in part by using optimizations that reduce the amount of data processed and stored on-chip. Q: What changes have you made on the software side to boost efficiency? A: The more that software aligns with hardware-related performance metrics like energy efficiency, the better we can do. Pruning, for example, is a po[CENSORED]r way to remove weights from a deep network to reduce computation costs. But rather than remove weights based on their magnitude, our work on energy-aware pruning suggests you can remove the more energy-intensive weights to improve overall energy consumption. Another method we’ve developed, NetAdapt, automates the process of adapting and optimizing a deep network for a smartphone or other hardware platforms. Our recent followup work, NetAdaptv2, accelerates the optimization process to further boost efficiency. Q: What low-power AI applications are you working on? A: I’m exploring autonomous navigation for low-energy robots with Sertac Karaman. I’m also working with Thomas Heldt to develop a low-cost and potentially more effective way of diagnosing and monitoring people with neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s by tracking their eye movements. Eye-movement properties like reaction time could potentially serve as biomarkers for brain function. In the past, eye-movement tracking took place in clinics because of the expensive equipment required. We’ve shown that an ordinary smartphone camera can take measurements from a patient’s home, making data collection easier and less costly. This could help to monitor disease progression and track improvements in clinical drug trials. Q: Where is low-power AI headed next? A: Reducing AI’s energy requirements will extend AI to a wider range of embedded devices, extending its reach into tiny robots, smart homes, and medical devices. A key challenge is that efficiency often requires a tradeoff in performance. For wide adoption, it will be important to dig deeper into these different applications to establish the right balance between efficiency and accuracy.

Earlier this week, Paradox released the Leviathan expansion for Europa Universalis 4, which is aimed at making it easier to 'play tall', gaining power by centralizing rather than expanding. It adds more diplomatic options, specialized colonial nations, and so on. At the time of writing, it has a rating of Overwhelmingly Negative on Steam, with only 10 percent positive user reviews. That's lower than Flatout 3 (14 percent positive), Spacebase DF-9 (18 percent positive), or RollerCoaster Tycoon World (25 percent positive). To be fair, it only has 1,351 reviews so far versus the, say, 5,719 that Godus has. It could turn things around yet, but there's a lot that players want to see changed. Since the release of Leviathan, players have encountered a raft of issues. Even those who didn't buy the DLC are finding bugs related to the accompanying 1.31 Majapahit update to the base game. A release problem megathread on the official forum that's over 40 pages and a Leviathan bug report megathread on Reddit collects the complaints. Among them, hordes' missionary strength being set to 100 percent instead of one percent (allowing them to convert entire provinces in a day), the Sikhism interface missing buttons, natives transforming into Europeans when unified no matter where they're from, settled provinces reverting to unsettled, games crashing after 100 years (in-game time, obviously), and plenty more. Paradox has already released a hotfix, which has dealt with some of the bugs, like problems with reform rates, and attempted to rebalance broken or exploitable mechanics like monuments and the speed at which favors are gained. Some of the fixes are quite minor: "Ulm flag made slightly higher quality", one of the patch notes says. It hasn't done much to alter opinions on the forums or in the user reviews, which remain predominantly negative. Among the rare positive reviews is one that reads, "Now i finally can quit complaining about Cyberpunk 2077 being the most glitchy, btoken [sic] and rushed out game i've ever played."

More than 140 animals have been taken to a shelter from a North Dublin petting farm after concerns had been raised about their welfare. Inspectors from the Dublin Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (DSPCA) attended the farm in the north of the county on Wednesday, April 21st, at the request of the gardaí, according to the charity. There had been concerns reported about the welfare of a large number of animals on the property. After the initial inspection, the owners surrendered all of the animals and over 140 were removed by the DSPCA and brought to its shelter in Rathfarnham. The DSPCA’s veterinary team have examined the animals, including 31 dogs, 46 rabbits, 9 guinea pigs, 6 Geese, 37 chickens, 9 pigeons, 6 Goats, 2 ponies and their foals, and a heavily pregnant donkey. Most of the adult dogs were female and four were nursing young puppies, a spokeswoman for the DSPCA said. Each of the dogs had matted coats and there were also many pregnant and nursing rabbits. “All of these animals are now in the care of the DSPCA animal care staff and will be looking for homes shortly,” the spokeswoman said. An appeal will be launched shortly to find homes for the large number of rabbits and guinea pigs as well as the chickens and roosters. Some other animals that were surrendered, including geese, pigs and a number of horses and donkeys, have been relocated to other animal Charities.

Hybrid, but also 100% electrified, the future Peugeot 3008 reveals some of its characteristics, before its arrival scheduled for 2023. New Peugeot 3008 2023 - If the current generation of 3008 has just been restyled to honor its second part of its career, Peugeot already has the lead in 2023 . It will be a question of handing over to a brand new opus amplifying the electrification of its range. Hen with golden eggs Not easy to replace such a “monument”. Internally, the Lion teams must probably put pressure on themselves to renew the best-seller in its catalog. Because the Peugeot 3008 is THE model that brought the Sochaux manufacturer out of the doldrums , on the verge of bankruptcy in the early 2010s. A bit like the 205, in the mid-1980s. Since its launch in 2016, more than 800,000 copies have sold across the world, with a very high product mix, particularly profitable for the French firm. To renew itself within two years, we can bet that the SUV will capitalize on the athletic silhouette of the current model , which had completely turned its back on the tinted architecture of the minivan of the very first 3008, which appeared in 2009 . If we lack information about his final style, we nevertheless imagined the attitude he could display, through our exclusive illustration. Even more dynamic We will probably find in the lines of the future 3008 a hint of the new 308 , revealed at the beginning of the year. Its grille will be more indented, while its gaze will be more piercing , accompanied by even more spectacular side light claws. Its black lacquered pavilion should also be renewed, to boost its line, when the chrome will become more discreet, surfing on the current trend. The new Peugeot 3008 should lengthen a few centimeters to reach or even exceed 4.50 m , resting on a major overhaul of the EMP2 base . Soon named eVMP, this new platform will be multi-energy. Finally micro-hybridized If the diesel offer is brought to disappear definitively, with the arrival of this new Peugeot 3008, the gasoline units will convert to micro-hybridization, potentially provided by a 48 V battery. But the big project of the new Peugeot 3008 will consist in its total electrification , of which we already know some of the characteristics. In 2020, the PSA group, now Stellantis, evoked battery capacities ranging from 60 to 100 kWh , with the promise of autonomy between 400 and 650 km , in order to oppose the Volkswagen ID.4 , among the players who will multiply in this “zero emission” niche. What about rechargeable hybridization? Finally, there is room for doubt as regards the sustainability of the PHEV groups. With the deployment of 100% electric versions, one can wonder if the future Peugeot 3008 will reintroduce rechargeable hybridization , often criticized by environmentalists for its counter-productivity in terms of efficiency. On board, the 3008 cuvée 2023 will put the package in terms of connectivity and driving aids. It will finally inherit the digital 3D panel , housed behind the wheel, inaugurated by the 208 and 2008 , and could add a head-up display in augmented reality . The Franche-Comté SUV could also inherit certain safety equipment which remains, for the moment, the prerogative of DS models. One can very well imagine the integration of a night vision , or of a piloted suspension anticipating the road relief thanks to a camera . In any case, it is certain that the 3008 will push back its autonomous driving capabilities a little more . An electric sports model? Launched in the fall of 2023, the new Peugeot 3008, as well as its 100% electric variants, called e-3008 , could subsequently receive the reinforcement of a sports version, labeled PSE . Once again, this would be a model turning its back on fossil fuels. Finally, this new 3008 will be followed closely by the replacement for the 5008. Better optimized, its architecture will finally allow it to have electrification worthy of the name , when the current one cannot convert to the rechargeable hybridization of its little brother, in because of the size of its third row of armchairs hidden under the trunk.

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour. https://www.ft.com/content/80c79e49-3f9b-4ca9-866c-9f39f38683c1 BT has opened talks with a number of potential investors as it considers a sale of its sports broadcasting operation, looking to focus on its core broadband and telephony business and blow the whistle on the content business. The telecoms company has appointed investment bank Lazard and held initial talks with companies including Dazn, Amazon, Walt Disney and private equity companies over a potential investment in the business, said a person with direct knowledge of the situation. The move could encompass a full disposal of BT Sport, forming a joint venture or partnership with a media business, or selling a stake in it to bring in outside investment. Discussions are still at an early stage with a number of partners, said multiple people with knowledge of the process. News of the talks was first reported by The Daily Telegraph. BT declined to comment. The move reverses BT’s strategy of building a sizeable presence in the sports market over the past decade to take on Sky, which had encroached on its core broadband business. The company is instead looking to revert to a role as an aggregator of content, offering a suite of apps, including Sky, Netflix and Amazon Prime, through its BT TV service. Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour. https://www.ft.com/content/80c79e49-3f9b-4ca9-866c-9f39f38683c1 BT has reduced operating costs at BT Sport in recent years and the unit breaks even within the BT Consumer division but the telecoms company has decided to consider options for the media business as it looks to focus on fibre investment and building its 5G network. The disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has had a knock-on effect on live sport, has also contributed to the review. BT Sport could be a valuable asset for a media company looking to acquire an established presence in the UK market, including studios and millions of existing customers. Although it operates as a TV channel, BT Sport has increased its role as a streaming platform by introducing monthly passes to watch games on its app to non-BT customers over the past year. Dazn, the sports streaming service that would be seen as an obvious buyer for the business, and Disney, which owns US sports channel ESPN, both declined to comment. Amazon, which streams tennis and a small number of Premier League games in the UK, was not immediately available to comment. BT has spent billions establishing itself in the broadcasting market as it transformed BT Sport into the second-largest player in the UK by winning the rights to Premier League football games, rugby union and niche sports including Australian Rules Football and UFC fighting. It landed its biggest blow when it won the exclusive rights to Champions League football in 2013. That fuelled a sharp rise in the value of sports rights — with those for covering the Premier League almost trebling between the 2009 and 2017 auctions. But the climbing cost left BT, which initially offered BT Sport for free to its broadband customers, nursing heavy losses. Sky and BT subsequently signed a cross-licensing deal to carry each others sports channels. The push into sports was a key pillar of Gavin Patterson’s growth strategy when he was chief executive but the media business has become less prominent since Philip Jansen took over, with BT’s consumer business less willing to overpay for sports rights and the company focused on expanding its full-fibre network. This is the latest example of a telecoms company pulling back from the content market, having struggled to make the convergence of media and connectivity pay off.

WEDNESDAY, April 28, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Adults with low socioeconomic status (SES) and the least healthy lifestyle have a twofold higher risk for mortality and more than a 3.5-fold increased risk for incident cardiovascular disease (CVD) compared with adults with high SES and the healthiest lifestyles, according to a study published online April 14 in The BMJ. Yan-Bo Zhang, from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, and colleagues used data from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES; 1988 to 1994 and 1999 to 2014; including 44,462 adults aged ≥20 years) and the U.K. Biobank (including 399,537 adults aged 37 to 73 years) to examine whether overall lifestyles mediate associations of SES with mortality and incident CVD. The researchers found that among adults of low SES, the age-adjusted risk for death was 22.5 per 1,000 person-years in NHANES and 7.4 per 1,000 person-years in the U.K. Biobank, while the age-adjusted risk for CVD was 2.5 per 1,000 person-years in the U.K. Biobank. For adults of high SES, the corresponding risks were 11.4, 3.3, and 1.4 per 1,000 person years. Adults with low SES had higher risks for all-cause mortality (hazard ratio , 2.13 in NHANES and 1.96 in U.K. Biobank), CVD mortality (HR, 2.25), and incident CVD (HR, 1.65) in the U.K. Biobank compared with adults of high SES. The proportions mediated by lifestyle were 12.3, 4.0, 3.0, and 3.7 percent, respectively. Adults with low SES and no or one healthy lifestyle factor had higher risks for all-cause mortality (HR, 3.53 in NHANES; HR, 2.65 in U.K. Biobank), CVD mortality (HR, 2.65), and incident CVD (HR, 2.09) in the U.K. Biobank compared with adults with high SES and three or four healthy lifestyle factors. "Healthy lifestyle promotion alone might not substantially reduce the socioeconomic inequity in health, and other measures tackling social determinants of health are warranted," the authors write.

A landmark case alleging Google illegally tracked millions of iPhone users is set for the Supreme Court. The case will not be about the claim itself but whether the complainant Richard Lloyd - the former director of consumer rights group Which? - can bring it on behalf of those affected. Two days of arguments will be heard, although a judgement is not expected for weeks. If the case is allowed to go ahead, many others are likely to follow. Mr Lloyd alleged that between 2011 and 2012 Google cookies collected data on health, race, ethnicity, sexuality and finance through Apple's Safari web browser, even when users had chosen a "do not track" privacy setting. The case aimed to get compensation for the 4.4 million affected users. Legal precedent It was the first-of-its-kind case in the UK. Although class actions - where one person brings a case on behalf of many - are common in the US, in the UK they can only be brought on an opt-in basis, meaning all those involved have to give their consent. So, for instance, a long-running case over a British Airways data breach is still at the stage of gathering interested parties. The Google case is a test of whether just one individual can bring such an action without having to have people actively opt in, which should speed up such legal actions. A similar case against TikTok, was launched recently by the former children's commissioner on behalf of millions of youngsters in the EU and the UK. It can only proceed if the judgement in the Google case goes in favour of such class actions. The Google case Initially, the Google case was dismissed by the High Court, which ruled it was difficult to calculate how many people had been affected or whether they had suffered damage as a result of the breach. But the Court of Appeal later ruled that the case Mr Lloyd was bringing was a suitable way for people to seek mass redress for data breaches. Google appealed against that decision and the case has now reached the Supreme Court, where TechUK is one of several groups hoping to get it dismissed. The group, which represents Google among others, argues that it could open the floodgates for mass litigations and seriously damage small firms who could face large penalties. "This massively raises the liability for people providing data-driven services in the UK, which is most of the digital economy," said Antony Walker, TechUK's deputy chief executive. Claimant Richard Lloyd said he hoped the case "could establish a form of fair redress for data misuse that doesn't currently exist in this country". "It is about giving millions of consumers access to justice when their rights are abused by global tech giants." Julian Copeman, partner at law firm Herbert Smith Freehills, told the BBC the case could go either way. "There are two ways of looking at this: would allowing opt-out class actions for data claims increase access to justice, allowing companies to be held to account for what they do with their clients' data? "Or would this simply benefit the funders and claimant law firms, while damaging business and clogging up the court system, with affected individuals only receiving nominal amounts at the end of the case?" If the case goes ahead it could mean businesses dealing in data stand to lose a lot of money, Mr Copeman added. "Although the amount per head that claims may win would probably only be small sums of money for each individual, given the number of claimants represented, even a small amount per head will add up to huge sums. This represents a serious problem for businesses, however large they are."

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Check Point Software Technologies reported on Monday a higher-than-expected 9% rise in quarterly net profit, boosted by strong growth in its platforms as more employees work from home in the pandemic. Chief Executive Gil Shwed said the company was combining its technologies that help protect cloud storage systems as well as corporate and home networks into one suite called Infinity. Much is still unknown about the future of work and whether business travel will return to pre-pandemic levels, Shwed said, although Check Point expects 74% of firms to allow some sort of working from home. "We know it will be hybrid and that will require new levels of security that we haven't seen before," Shwed told a news conference, noting the number of large cyber attacks continues to grow weekly. "We're in the new world and there are new opportunities." Shwed said Check Point's cloud and home network offerings both saw double-digit percentage growth in the first quarter, and that is expected to continue through 2021. The Israel-based company said it earned $1.54 per diluted share excluding one-time items in the quarter, up from $1.42 a year earlier. Revenue grew 4% to $508 million, with the company on its way to top $2 billion for a second straight year in 2021. It was forecast to earn $1.50 a share on revenue of $502 million, according to I/B/E/S data from Refinitiv. For the second quarter, it sees revenue of $510-$535 million and adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $1.50-$1.60. Analysts have forecast EPS of $1.55 on revenue of $521.8 million. Check Point kept its full-year estimates: revenue of $2.08-$2.18 billion and adjusted EPS of $6.45-$6.85 - compared with 2020 results of $2.07 billion and $6.78 respectively. Its Nasdaq-listed shares opened 1.7% higher at $121.80 but they are down nearly 10% so far in 2021. Check Point said it bought back 2.7 million shares in the quarter worth $325 million. (Reporting by Steven Scheer. Editing by Ari Rabinovitch and Mark Potter)

GUANGZHOU, China — Huawei is boosting its efforts in software areas like cloud computing and smart cars as U.S. sanctions hurt its hardware business. Last week, Arcfox, a brand under automaker BAIC Group, launched a car with Huawei’s vehicle technology. It included a cockpit kitted out with HarmonyOS, the operating system Huawei launched in 2019, as well as autonomous driving capabilities. Huawei will not be making cars and will instead focus on the technology that powers them. And on Sunday, Huawei launched some new cloud computing products as it looks to challenge China’s market leader, Alibaba. Huawei said in a press release on Sunday that it hopes the focus on cloud will “eventually increase the proportion our software and service business has in our total revenue mix.” The pivot to software comes after U.S. sanctions on Huawei have caused smartphone sales to plunge. The Chinese giant was put on a blacklist known as the Entity List in 2019 which restricted its access to some American technology. And last year, Washington moved to cut Huawei off form key semiconductor supplies. “Huawei is doubling down on pivoting to a software/cloud and services company,” Neil Shah, research director at Counterpoint Research, said. As a result of Washington’s sanctions, Shah said the Chinese company is “unable to procure critical semiconductor components and related tech” from the U.S. “Huawei with this effort is becoming like Google,” he said. Google makes the Android mobile operating system used by the majority of the world’s smartphones. The tech giant is also working on in-car software and has a fast-growing cloud computing business. Huawei has also touted its HarmonyOS as being able to work across different devices from smartphones to TVs and cars.

KitGuru has spotted a product listing for the new Acer Nitro XV2 with a FreeSync Premium compatible 360Hz IPS panel that's overclockable to 390Hz—a significant upgrade from the previous Nitro, which could hit an overclocked 270Hz. There are a handful of other 360Hz gaming monitors out there, such as the Alienware 25 AW2521H or the impressive ASUS ROG Swift 360Hz PG259QN, but Acer has the new speed champ here. The Acer Nitro XV242Q F features a 24.5-inch 1080p IPS panel. You're also looking at a screen with a 0.5ms G2G response time, making it one of the fastest around. This version of the Nitro keeps the attractive thin bezels and sleek overall design, too. The XV2 also meets the AMD FreeSync Premium specification, allowing it to vary its refresh rate to match a game's framerate. It's a monitor that is designed to show you as many frames as technologically possible (without too absurd a price), so long as your GPU is up to the task. Considering more games taking advantage of features like DLSS, it's becoming a little easier to make use of refresh rates this high, but you will still need a pretty beefy GPU even to get anywhere close to unlocking this screen's full potential. We don't have any price or release window just yet, but there was a listing for €530, which converts to roughly $730. video playingHow not to hurt yourself Gaming | PC Gamer Health Samsung talks about its 240Hz curved gaming... 11/06/19Samsung talks about its 240Hz curved gaming CRG5 panel - PC Gaming Show 2019 PC Gamer Show: Guide to gaming chairs 14/02/15PC Gamer Show: Guide to gaming chairs This Week in PC Gaming: War gets an overhaul in... 25/04/21This Week in PC Gaming: War gets an overhaul in Total War: Rome Remastered This Week in PC Gaming: NieR Replicant and a... 18/04/21This Week in PC Gaming: NieR Replicant and a mystery Call of Duty: Warzone Update This Week in PC Gaming: Final Fantasy 14 5.5... 11/04/21This Week in PC Gaming: Final Fantasy 14 5.5 Update and Shadow Man Remastered Sadly, you'll likely have an easier time tracking down one of these monitors than one of the GPUs capable of driving it. And, aguably, 240-290Hz is overkill even for competitive gaming. To that I say: leave me in peace as I get murdered in Call of Duty: Warzone with the smoothest refresh rate around.

The Pasadena Humane Society is offering a free virtual webinar on Wednesday, April 28, to guide people about the difference between therapy animals and service animals. Kim Kane, a volunteer at Pet Partners, will lead the discussion, showing how those two types of animals differ, as well as teaching the benefits of therapy animals. Canine Journal says service animals, or service dogs, are trained to help people with disabilities, such as visual impairments, mental illnesses, seizure disorders, diabetes, and other ailments. A therapy dog, on the other hand, is trained to provide comfort and affection to people in hospice, disaster areas, retirement homes, hospitals, nursing homes, schools, and other similar facilities. Both types of animals are trained in different skills. A service dog is specifically trained to perform tasks related to the disabled person’s specific condition. A diabetic person, for example, may have a dog who can detect when the owner’s blood sugar level is too low or high. Training can be done by the owner, a friend, family member, or professional trainer. Therapy dogs are trained to help provide comfort and affection. Canine Journal says spending time with a therapy dog has been shown to lower blood pressure and heart rate, reduce anxiety, and increase endorphins and oxytocin. Kim Kane is a licensed team evaluator with Pet Partners and can evaluate prospective pet visitation therapy animals such as dogs, cats, birds, horses, bunnies, and cavies. She is also currently a volunteer with Orange County Animal Care and is active in its Educational Outreach program, leading shelter tours for students and Scouting groups, and conducting off-site informational and educational presentations.

Last weekend, Formula E organized two E-Prix in Spain for the first time, at the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia. Unfortunately, the show was not great. Driven by the health situation on permanent circuits, Formula E released a new configuration . Of course, we can say that the championship had already borrowed existing circuits, such as Mexico or Marrakech. But each time, the route had been adapted, and the DNA of the series, which is to run errands in the city, had been more or less reproduced. In Valence, even if walls were added in places, the configuration of the place, its abrasive ground, constituted a real challenge for these electric single-seaters. This is not the first time that the championship has visited the scene. Since 2017, the teams have been meeting there every fall for the pre-season tests . A moment when everyone agreed that the track was suitable for testing, but not at all for an E-Prix! Despite everything, the health context pushed the organizers to find alternatives, and Valence was chosen to replace Paris. The magic did not work It has nothing to do with the level of the teams or the drivers. It's just that the place doesn't match the discipline . And there, despite the creation of a chicane difficult to tackle, the large curves, the numerous clearances, the gravel traps and the long straight line highlighted the lack of performance of the cars, which "floated" a little on this. circuit in the open area. But the worst happened during the first of the two races, when the rain generated many excursions off the track, and as many interventions by the safety car. Five in total, for 19 minutes of interruption of the race, over a 45-minute E-Prix plus a lap… Which also means 19 kWh of theoretical energy cut off from the batteries , according to the regulations. An ubiquitous end of the race While the last safety car is about to return to the pits, the teams are informed that their single-seaters will see their energy capital cut by 5 kWh of energy. Some do not believe it, because it would put more than half of the board to zero . The raise is expected at 44'45 '', and that's when it all comes down to it. Da Costa, then in the lead, has two options: either he slows down the peloton to cross the line after the regulation 45 minutes and only do one lap, he accelerates again and must do two laps. He has less energy than his pursuer (De Vries), but his team believe that the FIA will not apply the energy reduction rule concerning the last 5 kWh. Yet that is what will happen. The race ended in a catastrophic way, with more than half of the cars idling while they still had 14 or 15 laps left in their batteries. The situation is damaging for the championship, but what would those who had enough energy have said if the regulations had not been applied? The only solution which could have avoided this carnage, had been to reconsider the rule "1 min = 1 kWh" before the races of Valence, on the basis of simulation of energy consumption on a permeable circuit. It is obviously not this choice which was made. Michelin got it right Always considerate, Michelin had for its part requested an adjustment of the regulations in order to take a set of tires in addition , and those for several reasons. “As you know, tire regulations changed at the end of last season, and the number of tires was halved on the double headers(8 tires instead of 16 per car, Editor's note) ”, indicates Jérôme Mondain, Michelin manager in Formula E. In the history of the discipline, Michelin tires have always been developed for racing on urban circuits. The Michelin Pilot Sport EVs, unveiled at the start of season 5, have been developed with this in mind and taking into account the regulations in force concerning the quantities allocated. The FIA has asked us, as part of lowering costs, to keep the same tires this season. Valencia being a permanent circuit, with characteristics different from those of the streets in the city center, we therefore asked the FIA to provide four additional tires per car. Which, let us remember, still corresponds to a reduction of 25% compared to last year! And that stays in line with what is applied for single races. " The rest of the season will take place in Monaco, on May 8, for an unprecedented E-Prix, on the same circuit - or almost that of Formula 1. It will be a question of making forget the black weekend of Valence Results E-Prix number 1 - Saturday April 24 Qualifications (super pole for the first 6): AF Da Costa (DS Techeetah) 1'26''522 N. de Vries (Mercedes EQ) 1'26''730 M. Günther (BMW i Andretti) 1'26''943 A. Lynn (Mahindra Racing) 1'27''022 S. Buemi (Nissan e.dams) 1'27''053 A. Lotterer (Tag Heuer Porsche Motorsport) 1'26''933 Race: N. de Vries in 48'20''547 N. Müller at 13''128 S. Vandoorne at 34''886 N. Cassidy at 36''903 R. Rast at 51''650 R. Frijns at 52''985 L. Di Grassi at 2'41''946 J. Dennis at 3'07''061 JE Vergne at 4'19''582 E-Prix number 2 - Sunday April 25 Qualifications (super pole for the first 6): J. Dennis (BMW I Andretti) 1'31''855 A. Lotterer (Tag Heuer Porsche Motorsport) 1'31''958 A. Lynn (Mahindra Racing) 1'32''585 T. Blomqvist (NIO 333) 1'32''727 O. Turvey (NIO 333 Racing) 1'32''950 N. Nato (Rokit Venturi Racing) 1'33''155 Race: J. Dennis in 46'32''002 A. Lotterer at 1''483 A. Lynn at 2''428 O. Rowland at 2''870 N. Nato at 5''811 R. Rast at 8''122 I Vergne at 7 '' O. Turvey at 11''292 E. Mortara at 12''014 L. Di Grassi at 12''405 Championship Pilots: 1. N. De Vries 57, 2. S. Vandoorne 48, 3. S. Bird 43, 4. R. Frijns 43, 5. M. Evans 39, 6. R. Rast 39, 7. JE Vergne 33 , 8. J. Dennis 33, 9. E. Mortara 32, 10. P. Wehrlein 32, 11. N. Müller 30, 12. O. Rowland 27, 13. A. Sims 24, 14. AF Da costa 24, 15. A. Lynn 21, 16. A. Lotterer 18, 17. N. Cassidy 15,18. O. Turvey 13, 19. L. Di Grassi 13, 20. S. Sette Câmara 12, 21. M. Günther 12, 22. S. Buemi 11, 23. N. Nato 11, 24. T. Blomqvist 5 Teams: 1. Mercedes-Benz EQ 105 Pts, 2. Jaguar Racing 82, 3. Envision Virgin Racing 58, 4. DS Techeetah 57, 5. Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler 52, 6. Tag Heuer Porsche Motorsport 50, 7. BMW i Andretti Motorsport 45, 8. Mahindra Racing 45, 9. Rokit Venturi Racing 43, 10. Dragon / Penske Autosport 42, 11. Nissan e.dams 38, 12. NIO 333 Racing 18.

In the world of football this weekend, a blue moon rose again over the League Cup, while Son didn't shine for Tottenham. Elsewhere, Chelsea have a Glas ceiling to break through in the Women's Champions League and there was plenty of late drama in the Scottish Cup, La Liga and Ligue 1. Here are some of the best tweets from all of that and more. 1. Once in a blue moon ReportPep Guardiola added another entry to the record books on Sunday as his Manchester City team won their fourth League Cup in a row - matching the Liverpool team of the early 1980s. 2. The wait goes on Meanwhile, Tottenham missed out on another chance of silverware. Since they won the League Cup in 2008, Spurs have been to three finals and failed to score in all of them (not counting the one penalty they scored in the 2009 final shootout). Some of the lads out there looked distraught after the match.

The study, published in The Obesity Society’s (TOS) journal Obesity, utilised multi-trajectory modelling to analyse the longitudinal relationship linking concurrent changes in lifestyle patterns and the BMI z scores of young children, revealing their influence on childhood obesity. The investigation discovered that factors such as maternal pre-pregnancy BMI, maternal dietary patterns, and the duration of television viewing time are all substantial determinants of BMI z scores in early childhood. Miaobing Zheng, the corresponding author of the study from Deakin University, said: “The findings will inform early childhood obesity prevention intervention and policy, and will be of great interest to paediatricians, researchers, policymakers, and the general public.” The first study of its kind Comprehensive longitudinal studies of this nature have never been conducted before, with the association between healthy lifestyle patterns and a reduced risk of childhood obesity only reported in a small amount of cross-sectional Studies. The researchers utilised the data of 439 children from the Melbourne Feeding Activity and Nutrition Trial (InFANT) programme – a 15-month parent-focused randomised controlled trial from 2008 that aimed to mitigate obesity risk behaviours in young children until 18 months with follow-ups implemented for children aged between 42 and 60 months. The multi-trajectory modelling implemented by the researchers highlighted groups of children with comparable lifestyle patterns and BMI z score trajectories, with multinomial logistic regression assessing the determinants of the trajectory groups. Behavioural indicators of childhood obesity The researchers distinguished three trajectory groups of childhood lifestyle patterns and BMI z scores, all demonstrating various healthy and unhealthy lifestyle behaviours. Group one being an “unhealthy lifestyle, with low BMI z”, group two “healthy lifestyle pattern, mid-BMI z“, and group three “unhealthiest lifestyle pattern, high BMI z“. Group two encompassed most children, with 53% following a gradual, low trajectory for an unhealthy lifestyle pattern typified by a poor diet of energy-dense and nutrient-poor discretionary food consumption and substantial television viewing time. This group demonstrated a further high trajectory of a healthy lifestyle pattern of fruit and vegetable intakes, outdoor exercise, and a mean BMI z score of +1 unit over time. Contrastingly, groups one and three shared similar characteristics of high trajectories of an unhealthy lifestyle pattern of discretionary food consumption and television viewing time and low trajectories for fruit and vegetable consumption and outdoor exercise. The central aspect in which the groups differentiated was their BMI z score trajectories, with group one displaying a score of 0 units and group three +2 units. Liliana Aguayo, TOS member and research assistant professor from the Hubert Department of Global Health at Emory University, said: “Young children learn by imitating that which they see daily. There is no doubt that children copy the behaviours observed in the presence of parents – healthy and unhealthy. “Evidence from this study highlights the importance of early childhood as a critical period for the development of obesity. More research is needed to identify effective approaches to simultaneously address parent and child health behaviours.”

A 19-year-old Citrus Springs woman died in a two-vehicle crash in the afternoon hours of Sunday, April 25, according to a Florida Highway Patrol report. A van, driven by a 63-year-old Beverly Hills man, was traveling northbound at 3:05 p.m. on County Road 491 and had stopped at the intersection of State Road 200, the report stated. The woman was traveling westbound in a pickup truck at 3:05 p.m. on State Road 200 approaching the intersection of County Road 491. According to the report, despite the stop sign, the man entered the intersection and path of the woman’s truck so as to complete a left turn. As a result, the report stated, the front of the van collided with the right rear of the truck Post-impact, the truck rotated, departed the roadway, overturned and collided with a fence before coming to final rest. The van came to rest within the eastbound left turn lane of S.R. 200. The woman died injuries at the scene of the crash, according to the FHP report. The driver of the van was not hurt.

Last year’s revelation of the infiltration of federal agency digital supply chains—via the information technology (IT) contractor SolarWinds—revealed gaping holes in America’s cyber defenses. The White House recently attributed this intrusion to the Russian foreign intelligence service, further highlighting the sophisticated nature of malicious cyber actors targeting the United States. Following closely on this news was the announcement by Microsoft that probable Chinese government hackers had exploited previously unknown attack vectors in one of its products. The Biden administration has begun responding to these and other high-profile exploitations of vulnerabilities in commercially available software—including some used by the United States Government—through a variety of means. Although any retaliatory actions that the United States takes against the perpetrators of these digital espionage campaigns are worthy of their own analysis, preventing future such infiltrations in the first place is of vital concern. Toward this end, the White House has signaled its intent to release an executive order on software security. While the exact text of the order is not yet public, both media reporting and public statements by administration officials have highlighted what will likely be the key components. In this post I describe what the order might look like—based on information that is currently publicly available—and also comment on the merits of its various aspects. From my analysis of the publicly available information, it appears likely the order will drive action in three specific domains: improvements to internal federal department and agency operations, mandatory secure development standards for contractors selling software to the government, and requirements for these organizations to report data breaches proactively and cooperate with investigations into them. The first category is where the executive order can have the fastest impacts because establishing and refining internal government procedures is likely the simplest place to start, bureaucratic inertia and resistance notwithstanding. Generally, the steps in this area being publicly mulled are welcome. But, regarding the latter two categories—which relate to the government’s interaction with software vendors—I have some concerns. While laying out these reservations, I will suggest ways in which the executive order can help improve the security of federal networks without triggering unintended consequences. In general, the order should direct the federal government to focus on managing all relevant risks while avoiding a “box-checking” focus on compliance. With respect to federal department and agency IT operations, a Reuters article reporting on an early draft suggests that the impending order will mandate more extensive use of encryption and multifactor authentication. Although additional detailed guidance will be vital for implementing these requirements, on their face they appear appropriate. Use of the former technology still appears to be uneven throughout the government’s computers, and the latter can help stop even nation-state hackers from reusing stolen credentials to move laterally through systems. In addition to requiring the use of technical controls, however, organizational and policy changes are also needed, and the new order is an excellent vehicle to implement them. Although nothing in the public record suggests this is imminent, modifying the Obama administration-era Presidential Policy Directive (PPD) 41 would be a critical step toward improving the government’s ability to respond to malicious activity in the digital domain. Specifically, the new order should clarify the definition of a “cyber incident,” as PPD-41 currently conflates vulnerabilities—potential infiltration vectors—with imminent or actual exploitations of them. Federal IT teams likely detect potential vulnerabilities of varying severity in their systems every day. The vast majority are extremely difficult to use maliciously or are exploitable only in a limited set of situations. In my assessment, truly serious vulnerabilities might warrant rapid and broad notification, but the mere discovery of one should not necessarily trigger action at the level of the National Security Council. Exploitations, by contrast, represent the successful use by an attacker of one or more such vulnerabilities. Unless conducted by an authorized party such as an ethical hacker or penetration tester, such events necessarily indicate hostile intent and are generally cause for far greater concern than the identification of a vulnerability alone. On this note, federal departments and agencies need detailed guidance regarding damage thresholds and timelines for notification of such cyber incidents (or impending ones). For example, the order should lay out quantitative notification criteria based on the dollar value of financial loss expected or—in the worst case—actual or anticipated number of deaths or injuries. For example, a sophisticated breach of sensitive systems requiring expensive incident response and forensic measures should necessarily lead to the immediate notification of senior officials. By contrast, the prompt detection and blocking of an unskilled reconnaissance attempt can probably be reported in a weekly or monthly roll-up of malicious cyber events. Unfortunately, the existing incident classification schema established by PPD-41 uses qualitative terminology, which the information security community increasingly views as poor practice due to its openness to interpretation. A well-designed successor regime to PPD-41 would base event triggers on numeric damage estimates. Such a clear framework could also serve as a foundation for the private-sector reporting requirements being mulled. Finally, the Biden administration should use the issuance of the order as an opportunity to eliminate the accountability by committee that PPD-41 established (via the Cyber Response Group). The president should simply use the order to delegate coordination authority for cyber incident response to the newly established national cyber director position, as another Lawfare author has previously suggested. With such explicit authorization, and assuming he is confirmed, the recently nominated Chris Inglis can direct the relevant federal actors to take appropriate action. Similarly, the president should be wary of creating yet another organization, such as the proposed cybersecurity incident response board that the aforementioned Reuters article has suggested is under consideration. Establishing such an additional body would further cloud the already muddy waters of responsibility for information security in the federal government. In response to the second category of potential requirements—security mandates levied on government contractors—a coalition of industry groups have already expressed concerns via a letter to the secretaries of commerce and homeland security. I think their hesitance is appropriate, based on some statements the Biden administration has already made publicly. For example, Jeff Greene, acting senior director for cybersecurity at the National Security Council, said that “we’re at the point where the federal government simply can’t bear the risk of buying insecure software anymore.” This statement implies plans to implement a (currently undefined) standard of security for software below which the government will never consider buying it. Unfortunately, indexing only on one characteristic of a piece of software is not a good practice, either for the private sector or for the government. As I have stated before, deciding whether to accept information security risk or spend time and money mitigating it must always depend on the countervailing reward to be had by using such software. At times, keeping old and likely insecure software in operation might be the only alternative to shutting down entire systems or programs. A zero-defect mentality with respect to cybersecurity can inflict substantial costs in other domains that, upon review, leaders often decide are not justifiable or appropriate. Additionally, such a binary perspective necessarily implies a “box-checking” mentality rather than a focus on weighing risks and rewards. To give just one example, the Reuters article suggests the order will require in certain cases that vendors provide the government with software bills of material (SBOMs), identifying all of the components contained therein. Taken by itself, this seems like a sensible requirement, as third-party components (and their dependencies) can introduce serious vulnerabilities into applications. The government, however, should be careful in what it asks for and have a plan for what happens if it gets it. SBOMs can certainly highlight known vulnerabilities in products used in federal IT systems, but a surface-level analysis of a typical SBOM will likely set off unnecessary alarm bells while potentially obscuring true threats. Due to the nearly ubiquitous use of third-party libraries in enterprise software, most SBOMs will include references to components with dozens or even hundreds of known vulnerabilities. In many cases, deep technical analysis is required to determine if such flaws are actually exploitable. While I have advocated for the establishment of a National Supply Chain Intelligence Center to do just that—at least for software used in critical fields such as defense and intelligence—the absence of the necessary analytic power will likely lead to unwarranted panic when government or contracted engineers pore over hundreds of newly generated and delivered SBOMs. Additionally, sophisticated adversaries are more likely to take advantage of previously unknown vulnerabilities, using zero-day exploits. The poisoning of SolarWind’s software—and subsequent infiltration of a series of federal agencies—may have been the result of the attackers’ use of vulnerabilities that were not known beforehand. Additionally, SolarWinds inadvertently digitally signed the corrupted Orion software responsible for the breach before distributing it to customers. Thus, anyone reviewing an SBOM for Orion—before the public disclosure of the relevant vulnerabilities—would probably believe everything to be in order. This is not to say that developing standards for SBOMs is a bad idea or that the government should not require them from vendors. The use of components with known vulnerabilities remains a major cybersecurity threat. My point is that a carefully thought out strategy for processing and analyzing SBOMs must be a prerequisite before any blanket mandate comes into force. Establishing triage and remediation processes in advance to address what will likely be a tidal wave of apparent software flaws will help facilitate more effective risk-based response procedures. More broadly, the president and his staff should carefully consider any new requirements levied on government contractors. Even well-intentioned and facially proper mandates could potentially be counterproductive—or simply impossible to comply with—if not thoroughly reviewed. Furthermore, no measure by itself is a panacea but rather should form part of a comprehensive defense-in-depth cybersecurity strategy. The third category of new requirements likely to be included in the order—based on my analysis—relates to private-sector obligations following a cyber incident. Most importantly, federal government vendors will probably need to report identified data breaches proactively, according to the Reuters article. Additionally, the article suggests the new order may mandate that such victim organizations cooperate with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency when the latter organizations investigate such incidents. Including these requirements as part of future purchase agreements between the government and software providers seems to be a fair requirement, and such contractual obligations between private-sector companies are already common. With that said, creating a clear standard for what level of cooperation will be necessary and what exactly warrants notification will be vital. In the former case, the order should mandate that contracts explicitly spell out data retention and preservation obligations of government suppliers, as well as providing confidentiality guarantees and liability waivers for companies that make good-faith efforts to meet them. In the latter case, not every malicious network activity necessarily warrants government notification, and some observers have already noted that this requirement could cause alert fatigue. The order should thus establish clear thresholds for reporting—mapped directly to the successor regime to PPD-41—to avoid creating yet another standard. On the note of duplication, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires publicly traded companies (including many government contractors) to file formal public disclosures about “material” cybersecurity incidents. This standard is still somewhat unclear, leading to broad variations in reporting, and may be different from the bar set by the new executive order. The order should thus direct the SEC to define “materiality” in terms of the precise thresholds spelled out by the PPD-41 successor regime. Thus, a publicly traded firm selling software to the government that suffers a breach would have to expend fewer resources determining—and complying with—its various reporting obligations. Doing so will help to reduce the patchwork of requirements with which heavily regulated companies must contend, allowing them to focus more on cybersecurity risk management than on redundant compliance-related tasks. Make no mistake: clear direction from the president on software security is a pressing need. Executive action is a good first step toward setting the tone across the entire federal government and ensuring unity of effort. Preventing the establishment of perverse incentives when it comes to cybersecurity is equally important. Apparently in response to the aforementioned private-sector concerns, the White House wisely appears to be considering a period in which the requirements would be nonbinding, allowing for feedback from the industry and academia. Taking into account the views of technology experts will help tailor any such requirements appropriately and allow both the government and the private sector to focus on actual information security risk versus complying with yet another set of well-intentioned but onerous requirements. PTC, the author’s employer and a publicly traded company, sells software to the United States Government. Microsoft is a PTC partner. The views expressed in this article, however, do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of PTC, Microsoft, or the United States Government.

The Indian startup ecosystem has proved time and again that it is ever ready to counter unprecedented challenges. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic bringing the entire world to a standstill, there had been an overall uptick in the startup space. Not only did the total funding amount between 2014 and H1 2020 grew to touch $63 Bn, but the country also saw the entry of 34 startups into the coveted unicorn club with a combined valuation of $115.5 Bn. This ecosystem, however, is dominated by software startups. According to The State Of Indian Startup Ecosystem 2018 report by Inc42 Plus, hardware and IoT-focussed startups accounted for a mere 8% of the total market, and India’s contribution to global hardware electronics production stood at 3.4%. Although these startups are now gaining po[CENSORED]rity — mostly due to the developments in the electronics system design and manufacturing (ESDM) segment — very few Indian states provide an ecosystem that benefits these new-age startups. But among those states, Kerala has been consistently leading the list. The southern state’s robust social and intellectual infrastructure focussed on innovation has also helped it secure the title of Top Performer for two years in a row in the Indian government’s state startup ranking. It has been a journey of decades, though. What started in 1973 with Keltron — the manufacturer of a wide range of products from electronic components to sophisticated equipment — has now grown to house 2,200 startups. According to a report titled The State Of Kerala Startup Ecosystem by Inc42 Plus, in 2019 alone, the state was home to more than 230 technical colleges where it ran its Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Centres (IEDCs), nurturing more than 10K aspiring entrepreneurs. To recognise and acknowledge the state’s efforts and shine a light on the innovative hardware startups it houses, we are excited to announce the launch of Kerala: Driving India’s Hardware Startup Revolution report by Inc42 Plus. The report is powered by Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM), while the Maker Village is the knowledge partner.

Is it a PC game? Given that you could play Pokémon Go on PC then we're sure you'll be able to emulate The Witcher: Monster Slayer, a spin-off that casts you as a witcher in a time long before Geralt and is basically Pokémon Go but with alghouls, barghests, and succubi. And it's an excuse to tweet Tub Geralt again, so whatever. Don't look at me like that. Owners of Android phones can register for early access to the soft-launch version of The Witcher: Monster Slayer now, and at the end of April some will be selected to become witchers ahead of its global release. All you have to do is tell them your email and phone model, which seems a lot easier than having to go through all that business with the Law of Surprise. Monster Slayer is an augmented reality game that turns the world around you into the Continent, filled with dangerous beasts you'll have to fight. But not before you've cooked up the appropriate assortment of potions and oils, maybe some bombs, and then played a few rounds of Gwent with random shopkeepers. The bit with Gwent may not be included, but apparently the rest will, so maybe taking down a stone golem won't be as easy as capturing another zubat after all. Jody is that guy who will try to convince you to play some indie game you've never heard of with a name like Extreme Meatpunks Forever. He is also on a doomed quest to play every Warhammer game.

The Humane Animal Society, Coimbatore, has some rescues who are ready to go home Maya: Recovered from a leg injury, seven-month-old Maya is sweet and energetic. Vaccinated, she will be sterilised at the appropriate age. Uma: Three and a half-month-old Uma is a quiet soul who loves to be around other dogs. Vaccinated, she will be sterilised at the appropriate age. Camus: Playful-Camus is recovering from injuries and needs a fun filled home to be safe and loved in. Vaccinated, she will be sterilised at the appropriate age. Scooby: Sweet-and-loving Scooby deserves to experience the joy of a home. Sterilised and vaccinated, could you make her dreams come true? Rusty: Rusty has a face that could melt a million hearts, and a personality to match. He is two and a half years of age and was rescued with a maggot infested wound behind his ear. He doesn't deserve to be fighting for survival on the streets. You could help give him a happy ending by adopting him or becoming his virtual pet parent by sponsoring his care needs. To know more about Rusty or any of our needy rescued pets, please call us on the number given below. All pets get free lifetime veterinary care, free annual vaccinations, and free spay/neuter surgery at appropriate age from Humane Animal Society (HAS). Contact Humane Animal Society @ 93661 27215 from 9 am to 5 pm.

On the occasion of the General Assembly of the Renault Group, the diamond brand announced the implementation of a speed limit for its models. All future Renault and Dacia models will see their maximum speed limited , announced Luca de Meo, CEO of Groupe Renault, during the general meeting of shareholders of Groupe Renault on Friday, April 23, at the Palais des Congrès in Paris. “The speed will be capped at 180 km / h,” said the Italian businessman, detailing a road safety action package called Caring cars . The Renault Mégane-e , scheduled for 2022, will be the first model of the Losange equipped with a new electronic device operating "by default", limiting its speed to 160 km / h. "Our vehicles will be equipped with an automatic regulator which will adjust according to the conditions" also indicates the boss of Renault. In the event of driving deemed unsuitable, a “ vehicle take-over in the event of risk ” is provided. The Alpine brand , which must represent sportiness within the group, will not be affected by the measure. A safety score "Renault vehicles will offer a safety score " also declared Luca de Meo. Like the eco-score encouraging the driver to eco-driving, the system will allow a “detailed analysis of driving habits”, assessing risk-taking. This will be done in partnership "with the insurers". The strong man from Boulogne-Billancourt also announced measures in favor of the environment such as internal carbon pricing or reductions in factory emissions (with the objective of achieving neutrality for all sites by 2030). => The Renault 25 as you have never seen it before The previous Volvo In May 2020, the Swedish brand Volvo announced a voluntary limitation of the top speed of models sold to 180 km / h, as part of its “zero fatalities, zero injuries” policy. According to a statement issued at the time by Gothenburg, it was a "strong signal about the dangers of speed, underlining Volvo Cars' position as a world leader in safety. These two characteristics illustrate how car manufacturers can take active responsibility when it comes to achieving the goal of zero road fatalities, by encouraging better driver behavior ”. Few models affected The importance of this announcement should be put into perspective. Most of the vehicles currently sold by the group's brands have a point speed between 170 and 200 km / h. Only a few models have so far exceeded the 200 km / h mark within the Renault and Dacia ranges: Renault Mégane RS (260 km / h) Renault Talisman Blue dCi 190 (225 km / h) Renault Talisman Blue dCi 160 (216 km / h) Renault Scénic TCe 160 (210 km / h) Renault Scénic dCi 150 (210 km / h) Renault Kadjar TCe 160 (210 km / h) Renault Talisman TCe 160 (207 km / h) Renault Mégane TCe 140 (205 km / h) Renault Mégane TCe 160 (205 km / h) Renault Kadjar TCe 140 (203 km / h) Dacia Duster 1.3 TCe 150 (202 km / h) Renault Koléos TCe 160 (200 km / h) Renault Espace Blue dCi 160 (200 km / h) Weighted down by the ecological penalty, the Renault Mégane RS is already doomed . During this general meeting, the Renault brand announced the cancellation of the development of a new diesel engine planned to be the last of the group.