The Associated Press reports: A long dormant volcano on the Reykjanes Peninsula in southwestern Iceland flared to life Friday night, spilling lava down two sides in that area's first volcanic eruption in nearly 800 years... The glow from the lava could be seen from the outskirts of Iceland's capital, Reykjavík, which is about 32 kilometers (20 miles) away. The Department of Emergency Management said it was not anticipating evacuations because the volcano is in a remote valley, about 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) from the nearest road.
The report adds that initial aerial footage "showed a relatively small eruption so far, with two streams of lava running in opposite directions."

Salesforce canceled its 325,000-square-foot lease at the unbuilt Parcel F tower in San Francisco's Transbay neighborhood, reports SFGate: The company announced in February that more than half of its workforce will continue working remotely or on a flexible schedule after the pandemic is over...

The lease termination is just the latest blow to San Francisco's downtown office footprint as more companies shrink or offload leases because of the persistence of remote work. The lease on Yelp's 161,876-square-foot office space at 140 New Montgomery St. is up in October 2021 and the entire space has been listed for rent. WeWork confirmed it would be scaling back its Bay Area locations and is closing five downtown locations. Just this week, the Mission Bay headquarters once leased by Dropbox is being sold for $1.08 billion. The company adopted a remote work policy in October 2020... In August 2020, Pinterest paid $89.5 million to terminate its lease for 88 Bluxome.

Bleeping Computer reports: The most well-known and popular blogging platform, WordPress, is considering dropping support for Internet Explorer 11 as the browser's usage dips below 1%. Using three metrics to determine the number of people still using IE 11, WordPress has found that its cumulative usage is below 1%...

WordPress is not alone in dropping support for IE 11. In August 2020, Microsoft announced that they would no longer support Internet Explorer on the Microsoft Teams web app, and Microsoft 365 would no longer support it starting on August 17th, 2021.
"Dropping support would result in smaller scripts, lower maintenance burden, and decrease build times," notes a post on the Wordpress blog. "For instance, a recent exploration by @youknowriad demonstrated that not transpiling the scripts to IE11 immediately resulted in a net reduction of nearly 84kB in the Gutenberg JavaScript [Wordpress Editor interface] built files, representing a 7,78% total decrease in size; these scripts have seen a size contraction up to 60%, with an average reduction of 24%...

"Moreover, dropping support would ultimately make WordPress' currently included polyfill script obsolete, decreasing the enqueued scripts size up to 102kB more."

The Washington Post reports: Tesla's Bay Area production plant recorded hundreds of covid-19 cases following CEO Elon Musk's defiant reopening of the plant in May, according to county-level data obtained by a legal transparency website.

The document, obtained by the website PlainSite following a court ruling this year, showed Tesla received around 10 reports of covid-19 in May when the plant reopened, and saw a steady rise in cases all the way up to 125 in December, as the disease caused by the novel coronavirus peaked around the country. The revelation follows The Washington Post's reporting in June that there had been multiple covid-19 cases reported at Tesla's facilities in Fremont, Calif., after Musk decided to reopen despite a countywide stay-at-home order, daring officials to arrest him. The data, covering the months between May and December, showed there were around 450 total reported cases. Roughly 10,000 people work at the plant...

Despite around 10 cases in May, according to the data, the health department told The Post in early June that there were no known cases of workplace infections affecting county residents. Tesla and the Alameda County Public Health Department and representatives did not respond to a request for comment...

Tesla also came under fire for its treatment of workers. It had promised they could remain home if they felt uncomfortable returning to the line. The Post reported in late June and July that workers concerned about covid exposure received termination notices after they did not return to work. The data released by Alameda County shows there were 19 reported cases in June and 58 reported cases at the plant in July.

Tim Wu coined the phrase "net neutrality". He's the author of The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age , and Bloomberg calls him an "outspoken advocate for aggressive antitrust enforcement against U.S. technology giants."

They add that now the Columbia University media law professor "is joining the White House an adviser, signaling that the Biden administration is preparing to square off against the industry's biggest companies." Wu will join the National Economic Council as a special assistant on technology and competition policy, the White House said Friday. Wu's appointment elevates to a senior position in the administration a leading antitrust expert, favored by progressives, who has assailed the power of dominant tech companies like Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Facebook Inc. Both companies were sued by U.S. antitrust enforcers last year for allegedly abusing their monopoly power...

After the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general sued Facebook in December, Wu wrote a column in the New York Times comparing Facebook's strategy of buying competitors to Standard Oil's tactics in the 19th century. "What the federal government and states are doing is reasserting a fundamental rule for all American business: You cannot simply buy your way out of competition," Wu wrote. "Facebook, led by its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has taken that strategy to a smirking and egregious extreme, acquiring multiple companies to stifle the competitive threat they pose."

Wu joins the Biden administration as tech giants are grappling with a reckoning in Washington that could transform the industry. The Facebook lawsuit could lead to the breakup of the company, while the Justice Department's complaint against Google targets the heart of its business — Internet search. Antitrust enforcers have also opened investigations of Apple Inc. and Amazon... Wu argued in his book, The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age, that rising concentration across the economy has led to concentrated wealth and power as well as radicalized politics that threatens American democracy.
A White House press briefing Friday included this response to a question about Biden's plans for big tech companies: The President has been clear — on the campaign, and, probably, more recently — that he stands up to the abuse of power, and that includes the abuse of power from big technology companies and their executives. And Tim will help advance the President's agenda, which includes addressing the economic and social challenges posed by the growing power of tech platforms; promoting competition and addressing monopoly and market power issues; expanding access to broadband for low-income and rural communities across the country...

We don't have new policy to announce here... Just that the President believes, as he's talked about before, that it's important to promote competition and address monopoly and market power issues.
Interestingly, last August Wu also wrote an op-ed in the New York Times titled "A TikTok Ban is Overdue," arguing that China's "extensive blocking, censorship and surveillance violate just about every principle of internet openness and decency. China keeps a closed and censorial internet economy at home while its products enjoy full access to open markets abroad..." The asymmetry is unfair and ought no longer be tolerated. The privilege of full internet access — the open internet — should be extended only to companies from countries that respect that openness themselves...

[China] bans not only most foreign competitors to its tech businesses but also foreign sources of news, religious instruction and other information, while using the internet to promote state propaganda and engage in foreign electoral interference... Few foreign companies are allowed to reach Chinese citizens with ideas or services, but the world is fully open to China's online companies...

The idealists who thought the internet would automatically create democracy in China were wrong. Some think that it is a tragic mistake for the United States to violate the principles of internet openness that were pioneered in this country. But there is also such a thing as being a sucker. If China refuses to follow the rules of the open internet, why continue to give it access to internet markets around the world...?

We need to wake up to the game we are playing when it comes to the future of the global internet. The idealists of the 1990s and early '00s believed that building a universal network, a kind of digital cosmopolitanism, would lead to world peace and harmony. No one buys that fantasy any longer. But if we want decency and openness to survive on the internet — surely a more attainable goal — the nations that hold such values need to begin fighting to protect them.

An anonymous reader writes: NASA's Perseverence rover, which is currently exploring Mars, has as it's CPU a BAE Systems RAD 750 running at a 200 Mhz and featuring 256 Megabytes of RAM with 2 Gigabytes of storage. This is a radiation hardened version of the PowerPC G3, with specs roughly equivalent to the Clamshell Ibook that Reese Witherspoon used in Legally Blond back in 2001. This follows a tradition of old tech on space rovers — the Sojourner rover which explored Mars in 1997 used an Intel 80C85 running at 2 Mhz, similar to what could have been found in the classic Radio Shack TRS-80 model 100 portable from 1983.
In a comment on the original submission, long-time Slashdot reader Mal-2 argues "There's not as much distance between the actual capabilities of a CPU now and twenty years ago as there would be if you made the same comparison a decade ago." In the last 12 years or so, the CPUs have gotten more efficient and cooler-running (thus suitable for portable devices) to a much greater degree than they've actually gained new functionality. Retro computing is either going to stay stuck in the 1990s, or it's not going to be very interesting in the future.

California-based Aptera Motors "is rolling out the first mass-produced solar car this year," reports the Washington Post, after successfully crowdfunding a restart of their development effort: It's a three-wheel, ultra-aerodynamic electric vehicle covered in 34 square feet of solar cells. The car is so efficient that, on a clear day, those cells alone could provide enough energy to drive about 40 miles — more than twice the distance of the average American's commute.

The Aptera must undergo safety tests before the company can begin distribution, which it hopes to do by the end of this year. Even then, it's not clear that consumers will want to buy something that looks like a cross between the Batmobile and a beetle. The shadow of an initial attempt, which ended in bankruptcy, hangs over the founders as they gear up to launch their new product. But the Aptera's creators, Chris Anthony and Steve Fambro, think the world needs a car like theirs. Transportation is the largest source of planet-warming pollution in the United States. The Biden administration has made it a priority to reduce vehicle emissions, and several major automakers have pledged to phase out cars and light trucks with internal combustion engines.

After years of dreaming, maybe the time for driving on sunshine is finally here.
The Post also reports that 7,500 people have already put down a deposit for the two-seater car (which retails for $25,900). It can be charged just by plugging it into an electric outlet, the Post notes, while its creators claim that their car is four times more efficient than the average electric vehicle. "At least 90% of the power produced by the Aptera's solar panels goes toward making the vehicle move, the company says."

"Its extreme efficiency means the car can go 150 miles after just 15 minutes at an ordinary charging station."

Ryan Dahl, creator of Node.js and Deno, gave a new interview this week to the IT outsourcing company Evrone: Evrone: You have hands-on experience with lots of programming languages: C, Rust, Ruby, JavaScript, TypeScript. Which one do you enjoy the most to work with?

Ryan: I have the most fun writing Rust these days. It has a steep learning curve and is not appropriate for many problems; but for the stuff I'm working on now it's perfect. It's a much better C++. I'm convinced that I will never start a new C++ project. Rust is beautiful in its ability to express low-level machinery with such simplicity.

JavaScript has never been my favorite language — it's just the most common language — and for that reason it is a useful way to express many ideas. I don't consider TypeScript a separate language; its beauty is that it's just marked up JavaScript. TypeScript allows one to build larger, more robust systems in JavaScript, and I'd say it's my go-to language for small everyday tasks.

With Deno we are trying to remove a lot of the complexity inherent in transpiling TypeScript code down to JavaScript with the hope this will enable more people to utilize it.

Evrone: Gradual typing was successfully added into core Python, PHP, and Ruby. What, in your opinion, is the main showstopper for adding types into JavaScript?

Ryan: Types were added to JavaScript (with TypeScript) far more successfully than has been accomplished in Python, PHP, or Ruby. TypeScript is JavaScript with types. The better question is: what is blocking the JavaScript standardization organization (TC39) from adopting TypeScript? Standardization, by design, moves slowly and carefully. They are first looking into proposing Types-As-Comments, which would allow the JavaScript runtimes to execute TypeScript syntax by ignoring the types. I think eventually TypeScript (or something like it) will be proposed as part of the JavaScript standard, but that will take time.

Evrone: As a respectable VIM user, what do you think of modern programmer editors like Visual Studio Code? Are they good enough for the old guard?

Ryan: Everyone I work with uses vscode and they love it. Probably most people should use that.

I continue to use VIM for two reasons. 1) I'm just very familiar and fast with it, I like being able to work over ssh and tmux and I enjoy the serenity of a full screen terminal. 2) It's important for software infrastructure to be text-based and accessible with simple tools. In the Java world they made the mistake of tying the IDEs too much into the worldflows of the language, creating a situation where practically one was forced to use an IDE to program Java. By using simple tooling myself, I ensure that the software I develop does not become unnecessarily reliant on IDEs. If you use grep instead of jump-to-definition too much indirection becomes intolerable. For what I do, I think this results in better software.

In its ongoing attempt to gauge the popularity of programming languages, "C is at the top of the list of TIOBE'S Index for February 2021 with Java in second place," reports TechRepublic: Those two languages swapped positions on the list as compared to 2020, but the rest of the list is almost exactly the same as a year ago. Python is in the No. 3 spot followed by C++, C#, Visual Basic, JavaScript, PHP, and SQL.

Assembly Language rounds out the top 10 list, up from spot 12 in 2020. R moved up two spots over the last year from 13 to 11. Groovy jumped to the 12h spot, up from 26 a year ago. Classic Visual Basic is on the rise also moving up four spots to 18.
For what it's worth, in the last year Go has dropped to #13 on the list — overtaken by assembly language, R, and Groovy.

And Swift dropped from #10 to #15, also being overtaken in the last year by Ruby.

Miami's mayor Francis Suarez is trying to attract tech talent to his city. (The New York Times recently noted he's joined by "a few venture capital influencers trying to tweet the city's startup world into existence.") So he's still pushing a proposal to use bitcoin in a few city operations as "part of a larger play if you will to position Miami as one of the most tech-forward cities in the country," according to Reuters.

Bloomberg reports: The mayor wants to allow the City of Miami's workers to choose to receive all or a portion of their pay in Bitcoin, according to a resolution passed by the city's governing commission. In addition, the mayor proposed allowing people to pay all or part of property taxes or city fees in crypto.

Although the commission approved the resolution 4-1, it significantly dialed back its original wording. It only agreed to study the practicality of such steps, rather than taking action, as the original proposal had suggested...

Suarez also wants the city to analyze the feasibility to invest some government funds in Bitcoin, the resolution said. It's not clear how much of that is actually possible: Florida statutes have strict limitations on how local governments can invest surplus funds, generally restricting investments to low-volatility instruments such as those issued by the U.S. government. In the past year alone, Bitcoin has shown it can double in price — or lose half its value — in a month's time....

Ken Russell, vice-chairman of the city commission, said he's "certainly not opposed" to the idea of integrating Bitcoin into the city's business, but it's important to ensure "we all know what we're getting into."

"What needs to be done is diligence, and not just from the legal perspective," he said in an interview Wednesday. "It's not just a currency, it's a concept."
Bloomberg also points out that the mayor of the City of Miami "doesn't control the budget or municipal workforce or get a vote on the commission.

"He asked voters to give him more managerial power, but the initiative failed."

Tokolosh writes: On February 13, 2018 the FreeBSD Foundation posted its Code of Conduct. This included a system for reporting offenders, plus a Code of Conduct Committee to review charges and issue sanctions. The resulting story on Slashdot on February 17 triggered 859 comments. Needless to say, it was controversial.

In 2020, a survey indicated that some 35% of the FreeBSD developer community was dissatisfied with their 2018 Code of Conduct, 34% were neutral, and only 30% satisfied. So they set out to adopt a new CoC. A second survey asked which code of conduct should FreeBSD adopt? 4% favored keeping the 2018 code of conduct, 33% favored the Go-derived code of conduct, 63% favored the LLVM-derived code of conduct. The LLVM Project code was thus adopted.

My pragmatic question back in 2018 was, will this CoC lead to a better FreeBSD, more engagement, a larger, more productive community, and more market share for FreeBSD? In other words, does the CoC give FreeBSD an evolutionary advantage? If a different or no CoC had been imposed, would the FreeBSD of today be different? If so, in what way? The answer is not clear, so I am submitting this story to gather input.

According to Phoronix, AMD currently has several interesting job openings on the Linux front. From the report: While AMD has been delivering reliable Linux support with their recent launches, there is room for improvement in areas like more timely compiler support for new processors, better alignment of their new hardware enablement for getting the code not only upstreamed but into distributions for launch-day, and similar areas. Based on recent job postings, it looks like AMD is working to make such strides.

Here is a look at some of the new and currently active Linux-related job openings at AMD: [Manager Linux Kernel Development, Linux Technical Lead, Linux Engineer, and Linux Systems Architect, among other traditional software/hardware engineering roles].

Several of these new job descriptions do begin with, "step up into a new organization built to engage more strategically and deeply with the technical teams of our commercial customers." Interestingly, I only see that opening line on their current Linux job postings. When asking AMD if there is a "new (Linux) organization" at AMD, the comment was there is no organization to announce but this is part of the overall expansion at AMD. So for now it's back to dreaming about a new unit akin to the defunct AMD Operating System Research Center that previously drove their Linux support or Intel's former Open-Source Technology Center.

Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), the commercial version of the ubiquitous Defender antivirus and Microsoft's top enterprise security solution, is currently having a bad day and labeling yesterday's Google Chrome browser update as a backdoor trojan. From a report: The detections are for Google Chrome 88.0.4324.146, the latest version of the Chrome browser, which Google released last night. As per the screenshot (embedded in the linked story), but also based on reports shared on Twitter by other dismayed system administrators, Defender ATP is currently detecting multiple files part of the Chrome v88.0.4324.146 update package as containing a generic backdoor trojan named "PHP/Funvalget.A." The alerts have caused quite a stir in enterprise environments in light of recent multiple software supply chain attacks that have hit companies across the world over the past few months. System administrators are currently awaiting a formal statement from Microsoft to confirm that the detection is a "false possitive" and not an actual threat.

A mysterious hacking group has compromised the server infrastructure of a popular Android emulator and has delivered malware to a handful of victims across Asia in a highly-targeted supply chain attack. ZDNet reports: The attack was discovered by Slovak security firm ESET on January 25, last week, and targeted BigNox, a company that makes NoxPlayer, a software client for emulating Android apps on Windows or macOS desktops. ESET says that based on evidence its researchers gathered, a threat actor compromised one of the company's official API (api.bignox.com) and file-hosting servers (res06.bignox.com).

Using this access, hackers tampered with the download URL of NoxPlayer updates in the API server to deliver malware to NoxPlayer users. Despite evidence implying that attackers had access to BigNox servers since at least September 2020, ESET said the threat actor didn't target all of the company's users but instead focused on specific machines, suggesting this was a highly-targeted attack looking to infect only a certain class of users. Until today, and based on its own telemetry, ESET said it spotted malware-laced NoxPlayer updates being delivered to only five victims, located in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Sri Lanka. "We discard the possibility that this operation is the product of some financially motivated group," an ESET spokesperson told ZDNet today via email. "We are still investigating, but we have found tangible correlations to a group we internally call Stellera, which we will be reporting about in the near future."

Photographer and scientist Nathan Myhrvold has developed a camera that captures snowflakes at a microscopic level never seen before. Smithsonian Magazine reports: Myhrvold, who holds a PhD in theoretical mathematics and physics from Princeton University and served as the Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft for 14 years, leaned on his background as a scientist to create the camera. He also tapped into his experience as a photographer, most notably as the founder of Modernist Cuisine, a food innovation lab known for its high-resolution photographs of various food stuffs published into a five-volume book of photography of the same name that focuses on the art and science of cooking. Myhrvold first got the idea to photograph snowflakes 15 years ago after meeting Kenneth Libbrecht, a California Institute of Technology professor who happened to be studying the physics of snowflakes.

In simple terms, the system Myhrvold developed is comprised of one part microscope and one part camera, but with a number of parts that work in tandem to complete the arduous task of capturing an image of a snowflake, a subject that's not only miniscule (most snowflakes measure less than a half-inch in diameter) but also quick to melt. In fact, a snowflake's tendency to disintegrate was one of the biggest challenges Myhrvold had to overcome with this project. His solution: equipping his 50-pound camera system with a thermoelectric cooling system, a carbon fiber frame and LED lights, which give off less heat than standard lights. Every single part of his Frankenstein-esque device, which stands at about five feet in height off the ground when placed on a table, was built using materials that are less likely to cause melting or sublimation of the subject matter.

Myhrvold also had to figure out how to physically capture a snowflake. (It's not quite as simple as hoping that the perfect snowflake just so happens to fall into your mittened hand.) He quickly learned that catching them on a glass microscope slide wouldn't work; glass is a known insulator. But an artificial sapphire slide, made of the same crystal material as one would find in a high-end watch, had a lower thermal conductivity ratio than glass, making it the perfect material to gather specimens. [...] Once safely on the slide, he focuses his microscope to take the photograph, changing the exposure one micron at a time. (For reference, the width of a human hair measures approximately 70 microns.) On average, Myhrvold photographs each snowflake more than 100 times, or as many times as he can before the snowflake starts to melt. Using specialized computer software, Myhrvold combines multiple photographs of a single specimen to create the final photograph. "That photo [is usually the result of] 100 photographs put together using computer software," he says. "You have to take many photos in order to get a high enough resolution, because many photos put together allows you to have enough depth of field to see an entire snowflake very sharply."

According to a survey by Blind, 31% of professionals from 42 tech companies said they're only putting in between three and four hours a day. Fast Company reports: Additionally, the survey found, 27% of tech professionals said they work five to six hours a day, and 11% reported only working one to two hours per day. In contrast, 30% said they work between seven and 10 hours per day. The survey did not ask the workers to self-report productivity, which we know is very different for everyone.

Although the responses within the companies surveyed were anecdotal, one Amazon employee commented, "Amazon requires at least 10 hours a day, with exceptions and maybe less work on Fridays or more work on weekends. I'm working way more during COVID-19, calendar's full back to back, leadership is asking for more." Meanwhile, a professional at Facebook reported, "If meetings count then 9-10. If they do not... [less than] 1," bearing out the fact that the pandemic has not impacted everyone equally.

Camel Pilot writes: Pyston 2.1, a closed-source but faster and highly-compatible implementation of the Python programming language, significantly outperforms Python 3 in a variety of benchmarks. All the system details and benchmarks in full can be found over on OpenBenchmarking.org.

This week Digital Reality data center services announced it was also relocating its headquarters from the San Francisco Bay Area to Texas, citing factors like a low cost of living and "supportive business climate". (Though it will still maintain a "significant" presence in the Bay Area.)

And Align Technology (makers of the Invisalign orthodontic dental aligners) also announced it had relocated its global corporate headquarters from San Jose, California to Tempe, Arizona, citing a "favorable corporate operating environment, low cost of living and overall quality of life."

NBC News writes that "while Silicon Valley is by no means ceasing to be the center of the technology industry," there's still an "undeniable migration" that's happening: Shervin Pishevar, a venture capitalist, bought a house in Miami Beach in 2018. In late 2020, Jonathan Oringer, who founded Shutterstock and became an investor, moved to Miami, as did other notable venture capitalists, including Keith Rabois and David Blumberg. It's not just Miami experiencing this migration. Last month, Oracle, the tech giant, announced it is moving its corporate headquarters from Redwood City, California, to Austin, Texas. Other such moves include Palantir, which decamped for Denver, while Elon Musk said last month he had moved himself to Austin. Hewlett Packard Enterprise also announced last month it was moving its headquarters from San Jose, California, in favor of a Houston suburb...

It's significant enough that while the San Francisco Bay Area continues to gain tech workers, the rate of increase is down by over 35 percent — the single largest drop of any tracked metropolitan area — according to self-reported data tracked by LinkedIn. Experts following this migration predict these numbers may grow. "There's a mini-exodus of tech companies leaving the Valley, and I think that's going to accelerate in 2021," said Dan Ives, a financial analyst with Wedbush Securities. But the reasons many businesses are moving are more complex than people may think. Tax experts say companies aren't moving their corporate headquarters necessarily for business tax incentives. Instead, it may be a long-term play to help them pay workers relatively less where the cost of living is lower... "You're going to always have the vast majority of tech companies coming out of the Valley, and you can't create that anywhere else," Ives said. "But when you look at an Austin: It's creating a mini Silicon Valley at half the cost for an average employee..."

Tax experts suspect Oracle and its peers may over time phase out higher-paid employees in California in favor of lower-paid employees in Texas. These companies can also ease off giving employees raises because they are living somewhere with a lower cost of living. "Even though a lot of companies are saying they can let people work from anywhere, most are saying we're not going to cut salary, but we're going to slow the rate of increase of salary," said Brian Kropp, an analyst with the IT service management company Gartner. Kropp said he spoke with high-level representatives from several "Fortune 200 type companies" who are exploring moving their corporate headquarters. In short, shifting employees from California to Texas could represent long-term corporate cost savings, which means larger payouts for these companies' top executives.

"The compounding effect translates to a 3 or 5 percent margin that moves straight to profit," Kropp said...
Kropp says some companies are also worried about the increase in state laws targeting businesses and executives. But there could be another culprit, argues Darien Shanske, a law professor at the University of California, Davis who NBC identiies as an expert on state and local taxation.

"California has blown it, but not because of tax policy — its decades-long problem of not producing enough housing," he said. "It's probably cheaper and easier to build that in Austin."

After losing around $4.5 billion over the past five years, LG is considering exiting the smartphone market in 2021. The Verge reports: The Korea Herald reports that [LG CEO Kwon Bong-seok] sent out an internal memo to staff on Wednesday, hinting at a change in direction for LG's phone business. "Since the competition in the global market for mobile devices is getting fiercer, it is about time for LG to make a cold judgment and the best choice," says an LG official in a statement to The Korea Herald. "The company is considering all possible measures, including sale, withdrawal and downsizing of the smartphone business." LG confirmed the internal memo was genuine in a statement to The Verge, noting that nothing has been decided yet. "LG Electronics management is committed to making whatever decision is necessary to resolve its mobile business challenges in 2021," says an LG spokesperson. "As of today, nothing has been finalized."

The New York Times reports on an "exodus" of tech workers from the San Francisco Bay Area, where "Rent was astronomical. Taxes were high. Your neighbors didn't like you" — and your commute could be over an hour. The biggest tech companies aren't going anywhere, and tech stocks are still soaring... But the migration from the Bay Area appears real. Residential rents in San Francisco are down 27% from a year ago, and the office vacancy rate has spiked to 16.7%, a number not seen in a decade. Though prices had dropped only slightly, Zillow reported more homes for sale in San Francisco than a year ago. For more than a month last year, 90% of the searches involving San Francisco on moveBuddha were for people moving out...

There are 33,000 members in the Facebook group Leaving California and 51,000 in its sister group, Life After California. People post pictures of moving trucks and links to Zillow listings in new cities.
They've apparently scattered across the country — even to tropical islands like Puerto Rico and Costa Rica They fled to more affordable places like Georgia. They fled to states without income taxes like Texas and Florida... The No. 1 pick for people leaving San Francisco is Austin, Texas, with other winners including Seattle, New York and Chicago, according to moveBuddha, a site that compiles data on moving. Some cities have set up recruiting programs to lure them to new homes.
The Times also notes "there is a very vocal Miami faction, led by a few venture capital influencers, trying to tweet the city's startup world into existence," as other cities begin to realize that "the talent and money of newly remote tech workers are up for grabs." Topeka, Kansas, started Choose Topeka, which will reimburse new workers $10,000 for the first year of rent or $15,000 if they buy a home. Tulsa, Oklahoma, will pay you $10,000 to move there. The nation of Estonia has a new residency program just for digital nomads. A program in Savannah, Georgia, will reimburse remote workers $2,000 for the move there, and the city has created various social activities to introduce the newcomers to one another and to locals...
But the article also points out that "More money was made faster in the Bay Area by fewer people than at any other time in American history," and speculates on what long-time residents may be thinking: People who distrusted the young newcomers from the start will say this change is a good thing. Hasn't this steep growth in wealth and population in a tiny geography always seemed unsustainable? These tech workers came like a whirlwind. Virtually every community from San Jose in the south to Marin County in the north has fought the rise of new housing for the arrivals of the last decade. Maybe spreading the tech talent around America is smart.

Locals have also seen this play before. Moving trucks come to take a generation of tech ambition away, and a few years later moving trucks return with new dreamers and new ambitions.
UPDATE (7/18/2021): "Tech workers who swore off the Bay Area are coming back," the New York Times reported six months later.