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Ubuntu 16.10 Released, Ready to Download

After six months of development, Ubuntu 16.10, the latest stable release of the world’s most popular desktop Linux distro, is now available to download. The ISO image file of Ubuntu 16.10 is a little larger (up from 1.4GB to 1.5GB). OMGUbuntu talks about the new features (condensed): Ubuntu 16.10 is not a big update over Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, released back in April. If you were hoping it’d be a compelling or must-have upgrade you’ll be sadly disappointed. There are a number of small improvements to the Unity desktop and the Compiz window manager that powers it. Improvements that help everything work that little bit faster, and that little bit smoother. Ubuntu 16.10 also performs better in virtual machines thanks to the new Unity Low Graphics Mode. An all-new version of the Nautilus file manager also features, and is packed with some significant UI and UX differences. Plus, as always, there’s a newer Linux kernel to enjoy. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Ubuntu 16.10 Released, Ready to Download

Chrome 54 Arrives With YouTube Flash Embed Rewriting To HTML5

Krystalo quotes a report from VentureBeat: Google today launched Chrome 54 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. This release is mainly focused on developers, but the improvements to how the browser handles YouTube embeds is also noteworthy. You can update to the latest version now using the browser’s built-in silent updater, or download it directly from google.com/chrome. Chrome 54 rewrites YouTube Flash players to use the YouTube HTML5 embed style. YouTube ditched Flash for HTML5 by default in January 2015, but the old embeds still exist all over the web. Google says the change improves both performance and security for its desktop browser. The report adds that “Chrome also now provides support for the custom elements V1 spec, ” which allows “developers to create custom HTML tags as well as define their API and behavior in JavaScript.” BroadcastChannel API will also be implemented “to allow one-to-many messaging between windows, tabs, iframes, web workers, and service workers.” You can read more about Chrome 54 on Google’s blog post. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Chrome 54 Arrives With YouTube Flash Embed Rewriting To HTML5

Android 7.1 To Roll Out To Nexus Devices in December; Preview Goes Out This Month

Google said today it will roll out Android 7.1 to a range of Nexus devices — including Nexus 6 — later this year (December). A developer preview of Android 7.1 will be available to enthusiasts later this month. From an Engadget report: They also confirmed what 7.1 will bring to the table. Aside from Daydream VR support, most of the new features focus on giving developers more options to spruce up their apps’ functionality. First, they can now make custom shortcuts, much like the ones popping up in iOS via 3D Touch. There’s also support for image keyboards so users can insert stickers or GIFs within apps. For carriers and calling apps, 7.1 has APIs for multi-endpoint calling and telephony configuration. Lastly, developers can now route users to a Settings page to free up storage space by deleting unused files. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Android 7.1 To Roll Out To Nexus Devices in December; Preview Goes Out This Month

When Her Best Friend Died, She Rebuilt Him Using Artificial Intelligence

When Roman Mazurenko died, his friend Eugenia Kuyda created a digital monument to him: an artificial intelligent bot that could “speak” as Roman using thousands of lines of texts sent to friends and family. From the report: “It’s pretty weird when you open the messenger and there’s a bot of your deceased friend, who actually talks to you, ” Fayfer said. “What really struck me is that the phrases he speaks are really his. You can tell that’s the way he would say it — even short answers to ‘Hey what’s up.’ It has been less than a year since Mazurenko died, and he continues to loom large in the lives of the people who knew him. When they miss him, they send messages to his avatar, and they feel closer to him when they do. “There was a lot I didn’t know about my child, ” Roman’s mother told me. “But now that I can read about what he thought about different subjects, I’m getting to know him more. This gives the illusion that he’s here now.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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When Her Best Friend Died, She Rebuilt Him Using Artificial Intelligence

Fake Call Centers in India Scam Americans Of Millions

An anonymous reader writes:Indian police have arrested 70 people and are questioning hundreds more after uncovering a massive scam to cheat thousands of Americans out of millions of dollars by posing as U.S. tax authorities and demanding unpaid taxes, a police officer said Thursday. According to police in Mumbai, the yearlong scam involved running fake call centers which sent voice mail messages telling U.S. nationals to call back because they owed back taxes. Those who called back and believed the threats would fork out thousands of dollars to “settle” their case, Mumbai police officer Parag Marere said Thursday. The scam brought in more than $150, 000 a day, Marere said without giving a total sum. If the scam netted that amount daily, it would have made almost $55 million in one year. Some victims were also told to buy gift vouchers from various companies, and hand over the voucher ID numbers which the impostors then used to make purchases, Marere said. Police said they are likely to file charges against many of the 600 or more people still being questioned on suspicion of running the fake call centers, housed on several stories of a Mumbai office building. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Fake Call Centers in India Scam Americans Of Millions

AT&T Gigabit Internet Coming To 11 More US Regions

AT&T is bringing its gigabit Internet service to 11 new metro areas. Currently available in parts of 29 cities around the country, the ultra-fast network — which the company is now calling AT&T Fiber — is expected to reach another 45 locations by the end of this year, reads a PCMag article. From the report: That includes 11 new markets: Florida: Gainesville and Panama City, Georgia: Columbus, Kentucky: Central Kentucky, Louisiana: Lafayette, Mississippi: Biloxi-Gulfport and Northeast Mississippi, Tennessee: Southeastern Tennessee and Knoxville, and Texas: Corpus Christi. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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AT&T Gigabit Internet Coming To 11 More US Regions

Encryption App Signal Wins Fight Against FBI Subpoena and Gag Order

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Daily Dot: Signal, widely considered the gold standard of encrypted messaging apps, was put to the test earlier this year when a FBI subpoena and gag order that demanded a wide range of information on two users resulted in a federal grand jury investigation in Virginia. The makers of Signal, Open Whisper Systems, profoundly disappointed law enforcement. The app collects as little data as possible and therefore was unable to hand anything useful over to agents. “That’s not because Signal chose not to provide logs of information, ” ACLU lawyer Brett Kaufman told the Associated Press. “It’s just that it couldn’t.” “The Signal service was designed to minimize the data we retain, ” Moxie Marlinspike, the founder of Open Whisper Systems, told the New York Times. The subpoena came with a yearlong gag order that was successfully challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union. Signal’s creators challenged the gag order as unconstitutional, “because it is not narrowly tailored to a compelling government interest.” The challenge was successful. In addition to being popularly considered the best consumer encrypted messaging app available, Signal’s technology is used by Facebook for Secret Conversations, WhatsApp for encrypted messages, and Google’s Allo. Confronted with the subpoena, Marlinspike went to the ACLU for legal counsel. The ACLU responded with a letter saying that even though Signal did not have data the FBI sought, it still strenuously objected (PDF) to the fact the FBI wanted so much information. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Encryption App Signal Wins Fight Against FBI Subpoena and Gag Order

Outage Knocks Out All Major Phone Providers On the East Coast

Every major phone carrier experience outages on United States’ east coast this morning at around 11am local time. The outage lasted for about 45 minutes. DownDetector, which monitors outages of services, confirmed AT&T, Verizon, Charter Spectrum, Comcast, Sprint, Time Warner Cable, US Cellular, and Vonage among others were affected. From a DailyDot report: T-Mobile CEO John Legare tweeted about the incident, pointing to issues with Level 3, a major internet backbone. Other tech firms quickly pointed to a Level 3 outage as well. No specific information has been released on potential causes of the outage or consequences that may result from it. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Outage Knocks Out All Major Phone Providers On the East Coast

Amazon Bans Incentivized Reviews Tied To Free Or Discounted Products

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Amazon is making a significant change to its Community Guidelines, announced today, which will eliminate any incentivized reviews, except for those that emerge from within its own Amazon Vine program. This program allows Amazon — not the seller or vendor — to identify trusted reviewers, and has a number of controls in place in order to keep bias out of the review process. Amazon has historically prohibited compensation for reviews — even going so far as to sue those businesses who pay for fake reviews, as well as the individuals who write them, in an effort to make its review and rating system fairer and more helpful to online shoppers. However, it has allowed businesses to offer products to customers in exchange for their “honest” review. The only condition was that those reviewers would have to disclose their affiliation with the business in question in the text of their review. Reviewers were generally offered the product for free or at a discounted price, in exchange for their review. Although, in theory, these reviewers could write their true opinion on the product — positive or negative — these incentivized reviews have tended to be overwhelmingly biased in favor of the product being rated. Amazon says that, going forward, the only incentivized reviews will be those from Amazon Vine. These don’t work the same way, however. For starters, Amazon selects who will be allowed to review products, and it does so mainly to boost the review count on new or pre-release products that haven’t yet generated enough sales to have a large number of organic reviews. Vine reviewers are invited to join the program only after having written a number of reviews voted as “helpful” by other customers, and tend to have expertise in a specific product category. In addition, vendors don’t have any contact with Vine reviewers, nor do they get to influence which reviewers will receive their products, which are submitted directly to Amazon for distribution. These changes will apply to all product categories other than books, as Amazon has always allowed advance copies of books to be distributed, the retailer notes. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Amazon Bans Incentivized Reviews Tied To Free Or Discounted Products

Ubuntu 16.04 Available in Latest Insider Update To Windows 10

The latest Windows 10 Insider preview — build 14936 — features Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. When a user enables the ‘Bash on Ubuntu on Windows’ feature for the first time, OMGUbuntu reports, Windows 10 now installs an Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus) image instead of Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr). From the report: The updated version of Ubuntu in the WSL only affects new instances, i.e., those created by running lxrun.exe /install or on the very first run of the bash.exe setup. It is possible to upgrade WSL instances from Ubuntu 14.04 to Ubuntu 16.04 manually by running the do-release-upgrade command. Other changes in the WSL in Build 14936 include support for chroot system call, epoll support for /dev/null and the ability for bash -c to redirect to a file. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Ubuntu 16.04 Available in Latest Insider Update To Windows 10