The Justice Department will press its argument Thursday that Google sought to strike agreements with mobile carriers to win powerful default positions on smartphones to dominate search in an antitrust trial that could change the future of the internet. From a report: The government will wrap up questioning Thursday of Antonio Rangel, who teaches behavioral biology at the California Institute of Technology. Other witnesses will be James Kolotouros, for Google, and Brian Higgins, from Verizon Communications. The government says the Alphabet unit paid $10 billion annually to wireless companies like AT&T, device makers like Apple and browser makers like Mozilla to fend off rivals and keep its search engine market share near 90%. The government has also alleged that Google illegally took steps to protect communications about the payments.

The government called witnesses on Tuesday and Wednesday to show that Google, as far back as the mid-2000s, sought to attract a large number of search queries by winning default status on mobile devices. Another witness, Rangel, discussed how powerful default status was, although data he used to show this was largely redacted. Google's clout in search, the government alleges, has helped Google build monopolies in some aspects of online search advertising. Search is free so Google makes money through advertising.

The Justice Department sought on Wednesday to show how Google did all it could to get people to use its search engine and build itself into a $1 trillion search and advertising giant on the second day of a once-in-a-generation antitrust trial. From a report: First out of the gate, the government questioned a former Google executive, Chris Barton, about billion-dollar deals with mobile carriers and others that helped make Google the default search engine. Barton, who was at Google from 2004 to 2011, said the number of Google executives working to win default status with mobile carriers grew dramatically when he was with the company, recognizing the potential growth of handheld devices and early versions of smartphones.

Google's clout in search, the government argues, has helped Google build monopolies in some aspects of online search advertising. Since search is free, Google makes money through advertising. The government says the Alphabet unit paid $10 billion annually to wireless companies like AT&T, device makers like Apple and browser makers like Mozilla to fend off rivals and keep its search engine market share near 90%. In revenue-sharing deals with mobile carriers and Android smartphone makers, Google pressed for its search to be the default and exclusive. If Microsoft's search engine Bing was the default on an Android phone, Barton said, then users would have a "difficult time finding or changing to Google."

Barton said on his LinkedIn profile that he was responsible for leading Google's partnerships with mobile carriers like Verizon and AT&T, estimating that the deals "drive hundreds of millions in revenue." Hal Varian, Google's chief economist, told the court that scale, or the number of search queries Google received, was important, but pushed back during questioning on how important. He also acknowledged giving a speech in which he said certain search queries, for instance for a tennis racquet, were important in effectively advertising to the person who made the query and to subsequent ad revenues.

Alphabet's Google pays more than $10 billion a year to maintain its position as the default search engine on web browsers and mobile devices, stifling competition, the US Justice Department said Tuesday at the start of a high-stakes antitrust trial in Washington. From a report: "This case is about the future of the internet and whether Google's search engine will ever face meaningful competition," Kenneth Dintzer, a government lawyer, said in his opening statement. "The evidence will show they demanded default exclusivity to block rivals." Dintzer said Google became a monopoly by at least 2010 and today controls more than 89% of the online search market.

"The company pays billions for defaults because they are uniquely powerful," he said. "For the last 12 years, Google has abused its monopoly in general search." The monopolization trial is the first pitting the federal government against a US technology company in more than two decades. The Justice Department and 52 attorneys general from states and US territories allege Google illegally maintained its monopoly by paying billions to tech rivals, smartphone makers and wireless providers in exchange for being set as the preselected option or default on mobile phones and web browsers.

The U.S. Senate today approved a nominee to fill the vacant, fifth seat on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The Senate voted 55 to 43 to approve Anna Gomez as the fifth FCC Commissioner. Her term will be for five years from July 1, 2021, so effectively about three years. From a report: Gomez most recently has served as a senior advisor on communications policy at the Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy. She was also deputy administrator at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) from 2009 to 2013. The NTIA is not only important as the advisor to the President on national spectrum policy, but the agency is also currently overseeing the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program.

Telecom operators in India, the second largest wireless market, would like internet companies to compensate for using their networks, a recommendation they've made to the local regulatory body, echoing a viewpoint that is gaining some momentum in other parts of the world but also stoking fears about violation of net neutrality. From a report: Jio, India's largest telecom operator with more than 450 million subscribers, recommended to the local regulator that internet companies should be made to "contribute" towards telecom network costs based on the traffic they consume, their turnover and number of users.

"We suggest that TRAI [India's telecom regulator] should recommend for OTT providers contributing in the network development and building a backbone for the country. In this effort, the Other OTT service providers should also be required to pay their fair share," said the unit of Reliance, which is run by Asia's richest man Mukesh Ambani. Reliance, which carries 55% share of India's total data traffic, contends that requiring internet companies to compensate for network usage will ensure a level playing field. Jio said there is a "near consensus" among telecom operators across the globe on this subject.

Microsoft has patented an AI-powered backpack design featuring a plethora of sensors that may include cameras, microphones, GPS, and a compass. Tom's Hardware reports: Additionally, Microsoft thinks it may be useful to add in LEDs and speakers, as well as a haptic actuator, into the straps. Some real-time processing is deemed necessary to the smart wearable. Thus, various recognition modules are proposed to provide image, text, speech, facial, and cognitive recognition. As well as real-time monitors feeding data to the built-in processing power for AI smarts, the system housed in the backpack also will boast a recording device (using on-board storage), wireless connectivity, battery power / charging and more.

With all the above sensing and processing on your person, in the backpack, it is envisioned that wearers will benefit from AI enhanced object identification and analysis, nearby device interaction, and be able to gain contextual insights. A flow chart shows how the backpack and its data feed might work alongside personal computers and cloud servers. Other illustrations show the wandering backpack wearer navigating a ski resort, and checking out supermarket prices, as well as considering booking concert tickets. Sometimes the user may interact with the backpack's on-board AI via speech, e.g. "Hey Backpack, add this poster to my calendar." Alternatively some AI actions or contextual tasks may be instigated by interacting with sensors on the straps. You can view the patent application here.

According to a new report by The Wall Street Journal, mobile carriers including Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile are all requiring customers to switch to a debit card or bank account withdrawal in order to receive an autopay discount on their plan. Verizon has included this requirement for years, but in the past few months the other two carriers have quietly added it too. The Verge reports: The new rule goes into effect for AT&T customers on October 2nd, and as a gesture of goodwill, the company will only reduce your discount if you continue to pay with a credit card. Those who register for autopay with a bank or debit card will receive $10 off; a credit card will only get you $5. T-Mobile's change went into effect in July, also eliminating Apple Pay and Google Pay as methods eligible for the $5 discount. Oh, and technically, you can qualify for Verizon's autopay discount with a credit card -- it just has to be a Verizon Visa card.

AT&T and T-Mobile aren't just making this a requirement for new customers -- the change is being applied to all postpaid accounts. Even if you've been receiving the discount for years with a credit card, you'll have to make the switch in order to keep your discount. And it adds up -- the discounts are applied for each line on your plan, so if your whole family is on the same plan, it's a significant amount of money.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Dolby Laboratories today announced Dolby Atmos FlexConnect, a feature with the potential to add flexibility and simplicity to home theater audio setups. The company says FlexConnect allows supporting TVs to optimize Dolby Atmos audio output among the TV's speakers and paired wireless speakers. Currently, Dolby is only announcing the feature with upcoming TCL TVs, but it could expand elsewhere. FlexConnect, which will work with Atmos, 5.1, and stereo sound, is about adapting to people's audio setups, with considerations for things like speaker count and placement. The upcoming feature aims to bolster Atmos audio in situations where speaker placement is limited due to obstacles like room size, furniture, or outlet locations.

According to Dolby, FlexConnect will mean users can hear the same experience regardless of where they're sitting in the room, and that audio is tweaked based on each speaker's location and capabilities. Ars Technica asked Dolby to elaborate on this, and a company spokesperson told us: "After each speaker is placed, the TV will undergo an automatic calibration using acoustic mapping, [using TV microphones], to understand the location of each speaker. The TV then intelligently and seamlessly optimizes the sound image after analyzing this data combined with information the TV can gather on each speaker's acoustic capabilities. Together, this information allows the TV to adjust the rendering of each speaker to optimize the sound to ensure listeners are enjoying a great audio experience."

An example of how FlexConnect could adapt audio based on speaker capabilities is with low frequencies, which many TVs struggle with. If there's a more capable speaker connected, the TV's speakers could "offload the bass to these speakers, which frees up power to allocate to other parts of the frequency spectrum," Dolby's spokesperson said. "This could allow the TV speakers to allocate more power to dialogue, ensuring the best combination of bass and intelligibility," the rep said. Dolby also provided an example of how FlexConnect could adapt audio based on speaker location. If a user puts two wireless speakers in the back of the room, FlexConnect "will put more of the audio load onto the TV speakers so that the TV speakers cover the front soundstage and the dialogue." But if the wireless speakers were in the front of the room, the TV/center speakers would focus on dialogue.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A severely paralyzed woman has been able to speak through an avatar using technology that translated her brain signals into speech and facial expressions. The latest technology uses tiny electrodes implanted on the surface of the brain to detect electrical activity in the part of the brain that controls speech and face movements. These signals are translated directly into a digital avatar's speech and facial expressions including smiling, frowning or surprise. The patient, a 47-year-old woman, Ann, has been severely paralyzed since suffering a brainstem stroke more than 18 years ago. She cannot speak or type and normally communicates using movement-tracking technology that allows her to slowly select letters at up to 14 words a minute. She hopes the avatar technology could enable her to work as a counsellor in future.

The team implanted a paper-thin rectangle of 253 electrodes on to the surface of Ann's brain over a region critical for speech. The electrodes intercepted the brain signals that, if not for the stroke, would have controlled muscles in her tongue, jaw, larynx and face. After implantation, Ann worked with the team to train the system's AI algorithm to detect her unique brain signals for various speech sounds by repeating different phrases repeatedly. The computer learned 39 distinctive sounds and a Chat GPT-style language model was used to translate the signals into intelligible sentences. This was then used to control an avatar with a voice personalized to sound like Ann's voice before the injury, based on a recording of her speaking at her wedding.

The technology was not perfect, decoding words incorrectly 28% of the time in a test run involving more than 500 phrases, and it generated brain-to-text at a rate of 78 words a minute, compared with the 110-150 words typically spoken in natural conversation. However, scientists said the latest advances in accuracy, speed and sophistication suggest the technology is now at a point of being practically useful for patients. A crucial next step is to create a wireless version of the BCI that could be implanted beneath the skull. The findings have been published in the journal Nature.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Tuesday automakers can comply with a Massachusetts Right to Repair law, reversing a previous directive to ignore the state legislation. Massachusetts's Right to Repair law was a ballot initiative that passed overwhelmingly in 2020. The law requires auto manufacturers that sell cars in the state to equip vehicles with a standardized open data platform so that owners and independent mechanics can access telematics data for repairs, maintenance and diagnostics. In June 2023, NHTSA told automakers they needn't comply with the law, citing hacking concerns. The agency claimed sharing vehicle data would enable criminals to steal data or take control of cars remotely.

NHTSA now says the law can roll out, with some caveats. Automakers can safely share diagnostic data with independent mechanics using short-range wireless technology. Long-range wireless signals, though, could potentially allow hackers to send dangerous commands to moving vehicles. The auto safety agency also said automakers should be allowed "a reasonable period of time" to put the technology in place. "[The U.S. Department of Transportation] strongly supports the right to repair and is eager to promote consumers' ability to choose independent or DIY repairs without compromising safety to themselves or others on our nation's roads," said Ben Halle, director of public affairs at USDOT. "The clarifications contained in the exchange of letters between state and federal partners ensure a path forward to promote competition and give consumers more options, while mitigating a dangerous risk to safety."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The US broadband industry is united in opposition to a requirement that Internet service providers list all of their monthly fees. Five lobby groups representing cable companies, fiber and DSL providers, and mobile operators have repeatedly urged the Federal Communications Commission to eliminate the requirement before new broadband labeling rules take effect. The trade associations petitioned the FCC in January to change the rules and renewed their call last week in a filing and in a meeting with FCC officials. The requirement that ISPs list all their monthly fees "would add unnecessary complexity and burdens to the label for consumers and providers and could result in some providers having to create many labels for any given plan," the groups said in the filing on Friday.

The trade groups said the FCC should instead "require providers to include an explanatory statement that such fees may apply and that they vary by jurisdiction, similar to the Commission's treatment of government-imposed taxes," or require "the display of the maximum level of government-imposed fees that might be passed through, so that consumers would not experience bill shock with respect to such fees." The filing was submitted by NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, which represents Comcast, Charter, Cox, and other cable companies. The NCTA's ex parte filing described a meeting with FCC officials that also included wireless industry trade group CTIA and USTelecom, which represents telcos including AT&T, Verizon, Lumen (formerly CenturyLink), Frontier, and Windstream.

Comcast submitted its own filing urging the FCC to scrap the rules in June. The calls to weaken the FCC's truth-in-billing rules angered consumer advocates, as we wrote at the time. "The label hasn't even reached consumers yet, but Comcast is already trying to create loopholes. This request would allow the big ISPs to continue hiding the true cost of service and frustrating customers with poor service," Joshua Stager, policy director at media advocacy group Free Press, told Ars. Congress required the FCC to implement broadband labels with exact prices for Internet service plans in a 2021 law, but gave the FCC some leeway in how to structure the rules. The FCC adopted specific label rules in November 2022. The labels must be displayed to consumers at the point of sale and include monthly price, additional charges, speeds, data caps, additional charges for data, and other information. The FCC rules aren't in force yet because they are subject to a federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) review under the US Paperwork Reduction Act.

Last year, Queens resident David Leacraft filed a lawsuit against Canon claiming that his Canon Pixma All-in-One printer won't scan documents unless it has ink. According to The Verge's Sean Hollister, it has quietly ended in a private settlement rather than becoming a big class-action. From the report: I just checked, and a judge already dismissed David Leacraft's lawsuit in November, without (PDF) Canon ever being forced to show what happens when you try to scan without a full ink cartridge. (Numerous Canon customer support reps wrote that it simply doesn't work.) Here's the good news: HP, an even larger and more shameless manufacturer of printers, is still possibly facing down a class-action suit for the same practice.

As Reuters reports, a judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit by Gary Freund and Wayne McMath that alleges many HP printers won't scan or fax documents when their ink cartridges report that they've run low. Among other things, HP tried to suggest that Freund couldn't rely on the word of one of HP's own customer support reps as evidence that HP knew about the limitation. But a judge decided it was at least enough to be worth exploring in court. "Plaintiffs have plausibly alleged that HP had a duty to disclose and had knowledge of the alleged defect," wrote Judge Beth Labson Freeman, in the order denying almost all of HP's current attempts to dismiss the suit.

Interestingly, neither Canon nor HP spent any time trying to argue their printers do scan when they're low on ink in the lawsuit responses I've read. Perhaps they can't deny it? Epson, meanwhile, has an entire FAQ dedicated to reassuring customers that it hasn't pulled that trick since 2008. (Don't worry, Epson has other forms of printer enshittification.) HP does seem to be covering its rear in one way. The company's original description on Amazon for the Envy 6455e claimed that you could scan things "whenever". But when I went back now to check the same product page, it now reads differently: HP no longer claims this printer can scan "whenever" you want it to. Now, we wait to see whether the case can clear the bars needed to potentially become a big class-action trial, or whether it similarly settles like Canon, or any number of other outcomes.

Verizon Communications is raising prices on some existing wireless plans to help boost revenue and offset slumping subscriber growth. From a report: Starting with September bills, customers on Mix and Match plans will pay $3 more for single lines and $5 extra for multiple lines, Chief Financial Officer Tony Skiadas said Wednesday during at an investor conference. The price hike is Verizon's third increase in two years. Last month the carrier marked up its wireless home internet prices by $10. Rival AT&T Inc. this month began charging $2.50 more per month for its top-tier wireless plan.

Verizon and AT&T, two of the three largest US wireless carriers, have been raising prices on more popular offerings in an attempt to widen profit margins as mobile phone subscriber growth slows. Both carriers have been signing up fewer customers than T-Mobile US Inc. and are losing market share to cable companies Comcast Corp and Charter Communications, which have been offering free mobile lines.

Microsoft is extending the repairability program it introduced for its Surface PC products to include replacement parts for its Xbox Wireless Controller and Xbox Elite Controller Series 2 products. Neowin reports: The page on the Microsoft Store site shows that replacement parts are available for the top case for both versions of the controller, along with replacement buttons. In addition, Microsoft is selling Replacement Input PCBA boards for those Xbox controllers, along with the Replacement PCBA and Motor Assembly parts as well. The parts do come with a one-year warranty.

In a new support page, Microsoft makes it clear that these parts should only be purchased and used for Xbox controllers that are out of their normal warranty period. On another support page, the company adds: "These types of repairs require moderate technical skill, and are suited for enthusiasts, professionals, or those with prior experience in electronic disassembly. If this is your first attempt at performing a repair, use caution and follow our safety recommendations and step-by-step instructions."

Microsoft also says that certain tools, which are not directly sold by the company, will be needed to replace and repair the controllers. They include a plastic pry tool, TR8 and T5 Torx screwdriver bits and plastic tweezers. Microsoft does offer PDF files (PDF) and even offers YouTube video tutorials for repairing the Xbox Wireless Controller and the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2.

T-Mobile has started charging customers who pay phone bills in-store a new $5 "Payment Support Charge," plus tax. According to The Mobile Report, the new fee went into effect on July 19th, though prepaid customers will be charged the fee later on. From a report: In a flier shared with The Mobile Report announcing the change to its employees, T-Mobile implies the reason behind the fee is to help "enable a digital-enabled future." Yet, as Droid Life points out, employee time spent processing payments may mean less time for more profitable endeavors -- like selling phones or add-ons to plans. Plus, it's a sneaky way to encourage more customers to sign up for AutoPay, which conveniently also offers a $5 per line discount if you pay your bill online -- and only if you use a debit card. T-Mobile recently withdrew the benefit from customers who paid bills with a credit card.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware: Today, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has added 802.11bb as a standard for light-based wireless communications. The publishing of the standard has been welcomed by global Li-Fi businesses, as it will help speed the rollout and adoption of the data-transmission technology standard. Advantages of using light rather than radio frequencies (RF) are highlighted by Li-Fi proponents including pureLiFi, Fraunhofer HHI, and the Light Communications 802.11bb Task Group. Li-Fi is said to deliver "faster, more reliable wireless communications with unparalleled security compared to conventional technologies such as Wi-Fi and 5G." Now that the IEEE 802.11bb Li-Fi standard has been released, it is hoped that interoperability between Li-Fi systems with the successful Wi-Fi will be fully addressed.

Of course, Li-Fi isn't going to sweep away Wi-Fi and 5G alternatives (nor wired networks). Radio waves still have a distinct advantage with regard to transmission through the atmosphere at great distance, and though opaque objects. Instead, work must concentrate on using horses for courses -- with Li-Fi advantages being harvested where possible. [...] Now the IEEE 802.11bb standard is published, manufacturers can have greater confidence in the ecosystem and start integrating the tech, where suitable. One of the big wheels of Li-Fi, pureLiFi, has already prepared the Light Antenna ONE module for integration into connected devices. This 14.5mm long component is currently being provided to OEMs for evaluation. In its promotional materials the firm suggests that Li-Fi is preferable over Wi-Fi for: more connections without congestion, greater security and privacy, and doing the heavy lifting for the highest bandwidth tasks. We expect to see a far fuller gamut of Li-Fi network devices, and user devices which support the standard, emerge between now and MWC next February.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Techdirt: One recent study found that the U.S. was currently ranked somewhere around 32nd globally, behind countries like Russia, Lithuania, and Bulgaria [on broadband affordability] (you can find the full breakdown here): "The United States and Canada both have one of the highest internet costs," Alex Tofts, the Broadband Expert for Broadband Genie, said in a summary. "It's driven by a lack of competition and bigger distances to connect, with lower population density than other developed countries. However, both have average wages in the top fifteen in the world, compensating for the high cost of internet."

For decades, people (mostly the industry) tried to suggest the problem was because America was just so gosh darn big. But you'll notice that China and Russia, (ranked 25th and 17th, respectively) still perform better. Data routinely shows that affordability is the key obstacle to access, yet it's only been in the last few years that you've started to see this reality reflected in U.S. policymaking. [...] But again, the cause of this problem is very clear: monopolization and consolidation, protected by corruption. Few U.S. markets have the choice of more than one broadband provider at next-generation speeds. And that's because federal and state lawmakers are so comically corrupt, they routinely let AT&T, Comcast, Charter, or Verizon lobbyists endlessly merge, crush all competition, then literally write state or federal legislation and policy over several decades.

But it's not all doom and gloom. Decades of federal policy corruption and dysfunction have created an extremely strong, local, bipartisan grassroots movement for better broadband access. In countless towns and cities, municipalities, cooperatives, city-owned utilities, and creative new partnerships are building new, open access fiber networks with an eye on competition and cost. [...] Still, it's comical and grotesque that it's 2023 and a country that fancies itself a technology giant still can't meaningfully tackle equitable broadband access and affordability. And that telecom and media policy has basically become a boring afterthought in the era of "Big Tech." Ensuring equitable access to an essential utility is just too boring for most 2023 policy circles, much less the modern attention economy.

George Church was part of the team that pioneered CRISPR gene editing. In 2021 he co-founded a kind of real-world "Jurassic Park" — Colossal Biosciences, a biotech startup working to de-extinct the Woolly Mammoth.

For the 30th anniversary of the movie Jurassic Park, Rolling Stone brought in Colossal's co-founder and CEO, Ben Lamm, to share how the movie inspired and influenced their plans. Lamm writes that in 1993 he was 11 years old when he'd first seen the movie Jurassic Park. And even then, "Yes, as an 11-year-old I thought, what if dinosaurs could be real?"

Lamm says he's now excited at "not just de-extincting animals but at the possibility for endless discoveries that would arise from the pursuit of doing so..." When I first told my lawyer that I was interested in starting Colossal and bringing back the woolly mammoth, he asked me if I had read Michael Crichton's book or seen Spielberg's Jurassic Park movie. Since then, it's a question that has come up in nearly every meeting with investors, journalists, and lawyers. I have, which meant that I spent a number of years thinking about if we should de-extinct animals before I set out to figure out if we could. (Thanks, Dr. Ian Malcolm.) Before ever setting foot in a lab, I spent many years and countless hours thinking about the moral questions at the heart of the story.

And, with each successive year, I watched, heard, and learned about more and more animals dying due to climate change — a modern-day extinction. I came to the conclusion that the question is no longer should we practice de-extinction science but how long do we have to get it right... [T]he scary vision of the future isn't one where dinosaurs escape Isla Nubar and fly to the mainland, putting a healthy planet at risk, but instead a future where there aren't enough animals left to support food webs and ecosystems. And that includes humans, too... [I]t is our belief that it is possible to safeguard against or even stop that fatalist future vision using a similar approach in the original movie with some slight variations. It all goes back to genetics and a lot of what I learned about when I first met George...

In the same way that wireless headsets, CAT scans, LEDs, the computer mouse, and thermal blankets are all products of going to the moon, de-extinction efforts have created breakthroughs already for both conservation and human healthcare. In Colossal's first few years of work, our woolly mammoth research alone has not only accelerated genetic rescue in elephants, but also, it is working to cure a deadly elephant virus that kills 25% of all baby elephants worldwide each year. The de-extinction toolkit is also establishing a genetic backup of all living elephant species, and building the necessary tools for elephant cloning and gestation. And now, unlike Dr. Hammond, who bought an island and hid his experiment from the world, governments are coming to us asking if we can help them to restore their critically endangered animals and help safeguard their keystone species.
Lamm points out that you can get good DNA samples from specimens frozen in permafrost, skeletons preserved in caves, and from preserved specimens in museums.

But "You can't get DNA from amber. Trust us. It's porous and doesn't preserve well."

The July 1 deadline for the US airline industry came and went, and not much happened. "We're not aware of any disruptions specifically related to 5G over the weekend," wrote Ian Petchenik, director of communications for Flightradar24, on Monday. Mike Dano writes via Light Reading: Petchenik noted the flight-tracking company does not specifically collect data on the types of issues that delay flights. Regardless, the situation is remarkable considering warnings of "major disruptions," "chaos" and the possibility that "the nation's commerce will grind to a halt" if 5G gets too close to airplanes in the US. Broadly, the high-stakes standoff between the US wireless industry and the airline industry -- which kicked into high gear just over a year ago -- appears to be something that both sides now mostly want to forget.

The company behind Flipper Zero expects $80 million in sales this year, which ZDNet estimates at around 500,000 unit sales.

In its Kickstarter days the company sold almost $5 million as preorders, remembers TechCrunch, and the company claims it sold $25 million worth of the devices last year: So what are they selling? Flipper Zero is a "portable gamified multi-tool" aimed at everyone with an interest in cybersecurity, whether as a penetration tester, curious nerd or student — or with more nefarious purposes. The tool includes a bunch of ways to manipulate the world around you, including wireless devices (think garage openers), RFID card systems, remote keyless systems, key fobs, entry to barriers, etc. Basically, you can program it to emulate a bunch of different lock systems.

The system really works, too — I'm not much of a hacker, but I've been able to open garages, activate elevators and open other locking systems that should be way beyond my hacking skill level. On the one hand, it's an interesting toy to experiment with, which highlights how insecure much of the world around us actually is. On the other hand, I'm curious if it's a great idea to have 300,000+ hacking devices out in the wild that make it easy to capture car key signals and gate openers and then use them to open said apertures.
The company points out that their firmware is open source, and can be inspected by anyone.

ZDNet calls it "incredibly user-friendly" and "a fantastic educational tool and a stepping stone to get people — young and old — into cybersecurity," with "a very active community of users that are constantly finding new things to do with it". (Even third-party operating systems are available).

"Instead of looking like some scary hacking tool, all black and bristling with antennas, it looks like a kid's toy, all plastic and brightly colored," writes ZDNet. "It reminds me of Tamagotchis..."

Thanks to Slashdot reader ZipNada for suggesting the article.