Tuesday, July 10th, 2018

Time	Event
12:30a	New Microsoft Surface Hardware Is Arriving Tomorrow Microsoft is teasing a new Surface device announcement for tomorrow. The company tweeted out the leading question "Where will Surface go next?" along with an image of the full lineup -- the Pro, Laptop, Book 2 and swiveling all-in-one Studio. Each computer in the image displays 6:00 on Tuesday, July 10. TechCrunch reports: The big news will probably drop tomorrow, most likely in the A.M. So, what's on deck for the Surface line? Given that all of the key players are present and accounted for here, an entirely new entry seems like a pretty reasonable guess. Rumors of a new, low-end device have been making the rounds for a few months now. Back in May, talk surfaced of a new, low-cost entry, aimed at competing more directly with the iPad. That certainly makes sense from a Portfolio standpoint. Other rumors include the loss of the proprietary Surface connector, in favor of USB-C and "rounded edges." Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
1:00a	UK Wants An Electric-Vehicle Charger In Every New Home A new government proposal included in Road to Zero, a report on climate-change related policies, would require all new homes to be fitted with electric car charging points. It follows a commitment made last year by the UK to end sales of new gasoline and diesel cars by 2040. The Drive reports: "It is our intention that all new homes, where appropriate, should have a charge point available," a government statement said. "We plan to consult as soon as possible on introducing a requirement for charge point infrastructure for new dwellings in England." To help achieve that goal, the U.K. will reportedly establish a 400-million-pound ($531 million) fund for companies that manufacture and install charging stations. The government is also reportedly looking at integrating charging stations with newly-installed streetlights, as well as wireless-charging technology. A new Automated and Electric Vehicles bill will also give the government power to mandate installation of charging infrastructure at highway service stations. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
9:00p	Apple's China-Friendly Censorship Caused An iPhone-Crashing Bug Security researcher Patrick Wardle helped Apple fix a bug that would crash apps displaying the word "Taiwan" or the Taiwanese flag emoji. Some iPhones could be remotely crashed by something as simple as receiving a text message with the Taiwanese flag. Apple confirmed the fix in a security update Monday. Wired reports: "Basically Apple added some code to iOS with the goal that phones in China wouldn't display a Taiwanese flag," Wardle says, "and there was a bug in that code." Since at least early 2017, iOS has included that Chinese censorship function: Switch your iPhone's location setting to China, and the Taiwanese flag emoji essentially disappears from your phone, evaporating from its library of emojis and appearing as a "missing" emoji in any text that appears on the screen. That code likely represents a favor from Apple to the Chinese government, which for the last 70 years has maintained that Taiwan is a part of China and has no legitimate independent government. But Wardle found that in some edge cases, a bug in the Taiwan-censorship code meant that instead of treating the Taiwan emoji as missing from the phone's library, it instead considered it an invalid input. That caused phones to crash altogether, resulting in what hackers call a "denial of service" attack that would let anyone crash a vulnerable device on command. Wardle's still not sure how many devices are affected, or what caused that bug to be triggered only in some iOS devices and not others, but he believes it has something to do with the phone's location and language settings. Wardle has more details of the bug on his blog. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
9:40p	DOJ Reaches Settlement On Publication of Files About 3D Printed Firearms He Who Has No Name writes: Those who remember Cody Wilson and Defense Distributed -- the self-described cryptoanarchist and his organization that published plans for 3D printable firearm parts, respectively -- also remember that not long after the plans for the printable Liberator single-shot pistol hit the web, the Department of State seized the Defense Distributed website and prohibited Wilson from publishing 3D printable firearm plans, claiming violations of ITAR -- the International Traffic in Arms Regulation, a U.S. law taxing and restricting the distribution of a wide variety of physical goods listed as having military value. Slashdot covered the website seizure here (the Department of Defense was initially misreported in sources to have been the agency responsible). In both a First and Second Amendment win, the Second Amendment Foundation has settled with the Department of State after suing on behalf of Defense Distributed. Slashdot reader schwit1 shares an excerpt from the report: "Under terms of the settlement, the government has agreed to waive its prior restraint against the plaintiffs, allowing them to freely publish the 3-D files and other information at issue. The government has also agreed to pay a significant portion of the plaintiffs' attorney's fees, and to return $10,000 in State Department registration dues paid by Defense Distributed as a result of the prior restraint. Significantly, the government expressly acknowledges that non-automatic firearms up to .50-caliber -- including modern semi-auto sporting rifles such as the popular AR-15 and similar firearms -- are not inherently military." Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)

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