An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Germany has banned Tesla from repeating what a court says are misleading advertising statements relating to the capabilities of the firm's driver assistance systems and to autonomous driving, a Munich judge ruled on Tuesday. Tesla can appeal the ruling. The case was brought by Germany's Wettbewerbszentrale, an industry sponsored body tasked with policing anti-competitive practices. The Munich court agreed with the industry body's assessment and banned Tesla Germany from including "full potential for autonomous driving" and "Autopilot inclusive" in its German advertising materials. It said such claims amounted to misleading business practices, adding that the average buyer might be given the impression that the car could drive without human intervention and might suggest such a system was now legal on German roads.

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IBM's Global Technology Services has posted a job ad calling for candidates with a "minimum 12+ years' experience in Kubernetes administration and management." From a report: Which is a little odd because the first GitHub commit for the project was made on June 7, 2014. And the feature freeze for version 1.0 was announced on May 22, 2015. Sharp-minded Reg readers will have recognised that -- absent time travel -- it is therefore not possible for anyone to have 12 years' experience with Kubernetes. The ad is sadly silent on just how IBM expects candidates will have found the time to accumulate a dozen years' experience in a six-year-old project.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

See if you can count the lies.

The Tom Hanks-starring World War II action film "Greyhound" has earned the largest opening weekend for Apple TV+.

Welcome to our Daily Deals column, where we round up the best tech deals from around the web. Here you’ll find discounts on everything from Apple products to accessories, video games and much more. But you better hurry, these prices won’t be around forever!

Apple on Tuesday updated their iTunes Store with new deals on movies and other content. Among the discounts are films like U-571 and Hacksaw Ridge for just $5, Inception and Knives Out under $8, and a number of 2-movie bundles for $10. Check out our full roundup below.

Facing eight federal lawsuits and opposition from hundreds of universities, the Trump administration on Tuesday rescinded a rule that would have required international students to transfer or leave the country if their schools held classes entirely online because of the pandemic. From a report: The decision was announced at the start of a hearing in a federal lawsuit in Boston brought by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs said federal immigration authorities agreed to pull the July 6 directive and "return to the status quo." A lawyer representing the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said only that the judge's characterization was correct. The announcement brings relief to thousands of foreign students who had been at risk of being deported from the country, along with hundreds of universities that were scrambling to reassess their plans for the fall in light of the policy. Under the policy, international students in the U.S. would have been forbidden from taking all their courses online this fall. New visas would not have been issued to students at schools planning to provide all classes online, which includes Harvard. Students already in the U.S. would have faced deportation if they didn't transfer schools or leave the country voluntarily.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Since WannaCry and NotPetya struck the internet just over three years ago, the security industry has scrutinized every new Windows bug that could be used to create a similar world-shaking worm. Now one potentially "wormable" vulnerability -- meaning an attack can spread from one machine to another with no human interaction -- has appeared in Microsoft's implementation of the domain name system protocol, one of the fundamental building blocks of the internet. From a report: As part of its Patch Tuesday batch of software updates, Microsoft today released a fix for a bug discovered by Israeli security firm Check Point, which the company's researchers have named SigRed. The SigRed bug exploits Windows DNS, one of the most popular kinds of DNS software that translates domain names into IP addresses. Windows DNS runs on the DNS servers of practically every small and medium-sized organization around the world. The bug, Check Point says, has existed in that software for a remarkable 17 years. Check Point and Microsoft warn that the flaw is critical, a 10 out of 10 on the common vulnerability scoring system, an industry standard severity rating. Not only is the bug wormable, Windows DNS software often runs on the powerful servers known as domain controllers that set the rules for networks. Many of those machines are particularly sensitive; a foothold in one would allow further penetration into other devices inside an organization. On top of all of that, says Check Point's head of vulnerability research Omri Herscovici, the Windows DNS bug can in some cases be exploited with no action on the part of the target user, creating a seamless and powerful attack. "It requires no interaction. And not only that, once you're inside the domain controller that runs the Windows DNS server, expanding your control to the rest of the network is really easy," says Omri Herscovici. "It's basically game over." Check Point found the SigRed vulnerability in the part of Windows DNS that handles a certain piece of data that's part of the key exchange used in the more secure version of DNS known as DNSSEC. That one piece of data can be maliciously crafted such that Windows DNS allows a hacker to overwrite chunks of memory they're not meant to have access to, ultimately gaining full remote code execution on the target server. (Check Point says Microsoft asked the company not to publicize too many details of other elements of the technique, including how it bypasses certain security features on Windows servers.)

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Under mounting lawsuits and immense public condemnation, the Trump administration on Tuesday said it would rescind the dangerous and cruel Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policy forcing international students to either attend in-person classes amid the novel coronavirus pandemic or leave the U.S.

“The hearing was over before it began, essentially,” tweeted American Immigration Council policy counsel Aaron Reichlin-Melnick. “After NINE lawsuits filed, DHS backs down completely and revokes the guidance before it's bound by a court.”

This is a California bluebell, which I’ve shown you before. But I especially like this picture, with the background so far away that the flowers pop out really vividly. It almost looks artificial, but it’s not! No Photoshop tricks on this one.

April 5, 2019 — Laguna Canyon Wilderness Park, Orange County, California

China said on Tuesday it would place sanctions on Lockheed Martin for its involvement in arms sales to Taiwan, a move that could further escalate tensions between Beijing and Washington. hackingbear writes: "China firmly opposes US arms sales to Taiwan," Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a press conference. Taiwan is a self-ruled island, but China has long vowed to unify it with the mainland. The United States is one of Taiwan's main arms suppliers. The US State Department last week approved a request by Taiwan to upgrade its Patriot Surface-to-Air missiles at an estimated cost of $620 million, according to Taiwan's state-run Central News Agency. In response, China is imposing "sanctions on the main contractor of this arms sale, Lockheed Martin," Zhao said, without going into detail. The United States should "stop selling arms to Taiwan and cut its military ties to Taiwan, so it won't do further harm to bilateral relations between China and the United States," he added.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Early on in the presidential primary, Joe Biden seemed to be solidly middle-of-the-road on almost every issue. That was certainly true of the environment. In a race where Gov. Jay Inslee had made climate change his central issue, and where Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were both pushing comprehensive environmental plans related to the Green New Deal, Biden’s early positions seemed somewhat reserved.

But the speech that Joe Biden delivered on Tuesday showed that he has fully absorbed the need for a dramatic change that would reshape both America’s energy policy and the economy. In a 20-minute address that also took time to punch Donald Trump for his failures to listen to experts in dealing with COVID-19, Biden presented the outlines of a policy that’s genuinely bold, and a view of how the economy and environment are related that was aimed squarely at ending the false dichotomy between good jobs and a clean future.

Caavo has developed a new app called "Watch With Friends" that makes watch parties possible using the Apple TV or a Roku device.

More insanity:

Senior Trump administration officials have begun signaling their willingness to approve a narrow extension of the enhanced unemployment benefits helping tens of millions of jobless Americans hurt by the coronavirus pandemic.

….One potential compromise discussed by Republican lawmakers would involve cutting the unemployment benefit from $600 per week to between $200 and $400 per week and making up at least part of the difference by sending another round of $1,200 stimulus payments, these people said.

….White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement that the administration is opposed to the $600-per-week increase but would not rule out the administration agreeing to a more limited expansion of the benefit. Maintaining unemployment insurance benefits at current levels “does not incentivize returning to work,” Deere said in an email. “UI reform is a priority for this White House in any phase four package and we are in ongoing discussions with the Hill.”

It’s not that the disincentive to work is hogwash. It really is true that the $600 UI bonus is big enough that it makes total UI benefits bigger than normal pay for a lot of low-income workers. But this only matters when people are using this as a reason not to work. Right now, COVID-19 cases are skyrocketing, mortality is rising, and states are shutting down again. That’s why people aren’t going back to work.

In any case, I’d be willing to compromise on a $400 bonus plus a new round of stimulus checks. The UI bonus is more tightly focused on people out of work, but the stimulus checks go out to everyone, which makes up for some of the folks genuinely in need but who don’t qualify for UI. It’s not a bad combination.

The important thing, though, is to get moving on this. We already know that states need time to get their UI machinery going, and Treasury needs time to print stimulus checks. It’s stupid to make millions of people wait and wonder about if they can pay next month’s rent while Congress dithers. Do it now.

There are over 25,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Orange County, California. That’s more than 19 U.S. states. It’s more than all of Japan. Twice the count of South Korea. And yet, on Monday evening, the Orange County Board of Education met and, by a 4-1 vote, put forward a plan to reopen schools without requiring masks or enforcing any form of social distancing. That proposal doesn’t just violate the guidelines for school reopening set by the CDC, it goes against the plan put together by the Orange County Department of Education … which is, apparently, a completely different entity. What the board passed is a plan they say was compiled from a “community forum,” and is a perfect illustration of why these decisions can’t be left to individual school boards. Anyone who thinks there’s no district that will put children at risk for purely political reasons, has clearly never met America.

What the Orange County board did was simply endorse what they’re being told by Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos—the two officials who, you would like to think, would have the welfare of the children at heart. But as Republicans look for leverage to push children back into a crowded indoor environment where they remain for hours at a time—the perfect recipe to spread the virus—Democrats are looking to fund the infrastructure and safety measures that will allow schools to conduct classes remotely, or to open safely in areas where that’s possible. To make that happen, they’re going to have to get past Trump, and DeVos, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Joseph R. Biden Jr. announced on Tuesday a new plan to spend $2 trillion over four years to significantly escalate the use of clean energy in the transportation, electricity and building sectors, part of a suite of sweeping proposals designed to create economic opportunities and build infrastructure while also tackling climate change. DogDude shares a report: In a speech in Wilmington, Del., Mr. Biden built on his plans, released last week, for reviving the economy in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, with a new focus on enhancing the nation's infrastructure and emphasizing the importance of putting the United States on a path to significantly cut fossil fuel emissions. "These are the most critical investments we can make for the long-term health and vitality of both the American economy and the physical health and safety of the American people," he said, repeatedly criticizing President Trump's leadership on issues including climate and the pandemic. "When Donald Trump thinks about climate change, the only word he can muster is 'hoax.' When I think about climate change, the word I think of is 'jobs.'" The proposal is the second plank in Mr. Biden's economic recovery plan. His team sees an opportunity to take direct aim at Mr. Trump, who has struggled to deliver on his pledges to finance major improvements to American infrastructure. Republicans are sure to criticize the proposal as an attack on jobs in the energy sector -- but the plan will also test whether Mr. Biden has found a way to win over environmental activists and other progressives who have long been skeptical about the scope of his ambitions on climate. His plan outlines specific and aggressive targets, including achieving an emissions-free power sector by 2035 and upgrading four million buildings over four years to meet the highest standards for energy efficiency. The plan also calls for establishing an office of environmental and climate justice at the Department of Justice and developing a broad set of tools to address how "environmental policy decisions of the past have failed communities of color."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The U.S. farming industry may never be the same in the wake of Donald Trump's skyrocketing taxpayer-funded payments to the sector, warn policy experts and watchdog groups, according to Politico.

Trump has been shoveling cash to farmers in order to try to offset the massive hit they've taken from his ongoing trade disputes and tariff wars with China and other countries. And Trump’s cataclysmic handling of the coronavirus has only heightened farmers’ pain. But as subsidies ballooned from $11.5 billion in 2017 to $32 billion this year, experts fear weaning farmers off the government-subsidized cash cow could prove next to impossible.

According to a leaker, Apple is going to include a new, braided Lightning to USB-C cable with the iPhone 12.

AMD finally brings a workstation-class -- in other words, security-conscious -- processor to challenge the Intel Xeon on the desktop with its Ryzen Threadripper Pro. With up to 64 cores, the pro version of AMD's multicore powerhouse Threadripper processors incorporates essentials like support for massive amounts of memory and board-level security, critical for uses which move a ton of sensitive data, ranging from aerospace visualization to Hollywood video editing and CGI rendering. The CPU debuts in Lenovo's ThinkStation P620; Lenovo has a limited exclusive on the processor. From a report: The CPU comes in four variants: 3945WX (12 cores, with the fastest single-core speeds), 3955WX (16 cores), 3975WX (32 cores) and 3995WX (64 cores). At the moment, to achieve core counts that high with the Intel Xeon, you have to use multiple CPUs. They all come with some of the perks of AMD's architecture, including support for PCI Gen4 -- in this case, up to 128 lanes. And the Pro versions add support for more types of memory, notably RDIMM and LRDIMM, over the high-end consumer-focused Threadripper, plus 8 memory channels vs. 4, which lets it support up to 2TB of memory. On the downside, while AMD supports faster internal transfers than Intel via PCI 4, it doesn't offer any high-speed external data transfer capabilities a la Thunderbolt 3. And in fact, the ThinkStation P620's fastest connections are USB 3.2 Gen 2 and 10Gb Ethernet.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I’ve been aware that guards at private detention prisons have pepper-sprayed detained immigrants protesting their ongoing detention amid the novel coronavirus pandemic because I’ve written about it. Many Daily Kos community members have been aware that guards at private detention prisons have pepper-sprayed detained immigrants because they’ve read about it here and elsewhere. It’s happened. We know this. It’s fact.

Yet Mother Jones reports that two executives from two private prisons where a number of incidents have been reported—and in at least one instance confirmed by the company itself—claimed to Congress that they had no knowledge about any of that. A third executive, meanwhile, massively downplayed the truth: “GEO Group CEO George Zoley said he was aware of one incident in California,” the report said. In reality, there’s been at least five.