Amazon has quietly changed the design of its new app icon, replacing the blue ribbon on top that drew some unfavorable comparisons. From a report: Users of the Amazon Shopping app will now see a brown box that resembles a parcel with a blue strip that looks like packaging tape above the company's signature arrow in the shape of a smile. Amazon introduced the initial new icon in a handful of international markets in late January, but has now changed the design of the blue tape after some said it resembled a toothbrush-style mustache, similar to the one worn by Adolf Hitler. "I completely missed that amazon quietly tweaked its new icon to make it look... less like hitler," wrote Alex Hern, a technology editor for the Guardian, on Twitter. The new icon, the first design change in more than five years, replaces the shopping cart and ditches the word "Amazon," but displays the company's smiling arrow logo more prominently. The blue tape looks like it's being torn off, as if opening the package.

Frosty P writes: The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) has removed Marko Rodriguez from the TinkerPop project he co-founded because his provocative Twitter posts were said to have violated the ASF Code of Conduct. "I was removed from the project I started 11 years ago for 'publishing offensive humor that borders on hate speech,'" Rodriguez explained in an email to The Register. "However, now that Big Tech has secured the ASF board, it is a way to 'shut me up' about the monopolistic practices of Big Tech." Rodriguez argues that "woke culture" is a creation of "Big Tech," and that it serves to protect the industry's economic monopoly "by monopolizing the ideology of the people." Asked whether he sees the problem in light of the content-moderation challenge faced by social media services, which police speech without clear, consistent rules or due process, he said not at all. "I like to tweet, so I tweet. If Apache likes to police tweets, then may they police tweets," Rodriguez replied. "The question becomes: do they really like to police tweets? Are they finding as much joy in policing tweets as I find in tweeting tweets? If so, then we are both happy and the world rejoices. If not, then how can we help Apache find joy ... For joyless people ultimately impede those that do find joy in what they do." In a subsequent message he noted he has received death threats demanding he apologize for his thoughts, and that those people always assume he's a Trump supporter. "I've never voted," he said. "I simply don't care."

Facebook has restricted access to news in Australia, and so far the tech giant seems to have taken a pretty broad definition of news. From a report: Some pages that don't fit the traditional news genre have been stripped out as part of the stoush between Facebook and the federal government over whether the social media company should pay for Australian content it runs on its site. In response to the outages, Facebook said government pages should not be hit by the changes. A spokesperson said any inadvertently impacted pages would be fixed. "As the law does not provide clear guidance on the definition of news content, we have taken a broad definition in order to respect the law as drafted," the spokesperson said in a statement. [...] Post are down for the Bureau of Meteorology, the government agency responsible for providing weather service updates. [...] The health departments for the ACT, South Australia and Queensland have had posts taken down. [...] Law enforcement has also been caught by the ban. Content under the "latest news" tab for the Victoria Police Facebook page is unavailable. [...] Domestic, family and sexual violence services 1800RESPECT and DVConnect have had posts taken down. Also affected is the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [...] Other pages which have been stripped of their content include Urban List, which offer restaurant reviews, satire sites like the The Betoota Advocate and The Shovel, and even homemaker magazines like Home Beautiful.

An 8-year-old from Minneapolis recently pointed out a big problem with NPR's oldest news show, All Things Considered. Leo Shidla wrote to his local NPR station: My name is Leo and I am 8 years old. I listen to All Things Considered in the car with mom. I listen a lot. I never hear much about nature or dinosaurs or things like that. Maybe you should call your show Newsy things Considered, since I don't get to hear about all the things. Or please talk more about dinosaurs and cool things.
Sincerely,
Leo
NPR: Leo has a point. All Things Considered is about to turn 50 years old. NPR's archivists found the word "dinosaur" appearing in stories 294 times in the show's history. By comparison, "senator" has appeared 20,447 times. To remedy the situation, All Things Considered invited Leo to ask some questions about dinosaurs to Ashley Poust, a research associate at the San Diego Natural History Museum. Leo wants to be a paleontologist when he grows up.

Residents of an Austrian village will ring in the new year under a new name -- Fugging -- after ridicule of their signposts, especially on social media, became too much to bear. From a report: They finally grew weary of Fucking, its current name, which some experts say dates back to the 11th century. Minutes from a municipal council meeting published on Thursday showed that the village of about 100 people, 350km (215 miles) east of Vienna, will be named Fugging from 1 January 2021. Increasing numbers of English-speaking tourists have made a point of stopping in to snap pictures of themselves by the signpost at the entrance to the village, sometimes striking lascivious poses for social media.

Some have reportedly even stolen the signposts, leading the local authorities to use theft-resistant concrete when putting up replacements. Finally, a majority of the villagers decided they had had enough. "I can confirm that the village is being renamed," said Andrea Holzner, the mayor of Tarsdorf, the municipality to which the village belongs.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Marissa Mayer shoves her iPhone toward her MacBook's webcam until it overwhelms the screen on the Google Meet video call we are sharing. "I admire Apple," she declares. "They are the best at what they do. But the fact that the biggest and most successful company on Earth by some measures -- and certainly the best at design, bar none -- thinks that when you meet someone new, that this is an ideal interface is mind-blowing. It's like bad nerd humor." What Mayer is critiquing is the New Contact feature in iOS's Contacts app -- an exceedingly generic screen with fields for you to type first and last names, phone numbers, and other information. It's not uniquely uninspired. Actually, it's comparable to Google's equivalent on an Android phone -- and reminiscent of nearly every other piece of software for managing contacts we've seen throughout the history of smartphones and PCs.

[...] Now Mayer is back in the product business -- and as you may have already guessed, she thinks she has a better way to wrangle contacts. That would be Sunshine Contacts, the new iPhone app (Android is in the works) from her latest company, Sunshine. If you've previously heard of the largely stealthy startup, it was under the name Lumi Labs, which Mayer, its CEO, says was a placeholder all along. The app is launching as an invite-only closed beta; you can download it from the App Store and sign up for an alert when it's ready to let you in. Joining Mayer as cofounder and president is Enrique Munoz Torres, whose entire career has been intertwined with hers. An MIT senior when Mayer hired him as a Google associate product manager in 2004, he left that company in 2013 to join her at Yahoo, where he eventually led the advertising and search businesses. Though both Mayer and Munoz Torres have copious experience creating and ramping up successful products, they are first-time founders. Their company currently has about 20 employees, making it the same size as Google was when Mayer joined it.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Trey Parker and Matt Stone, best known for their cartoon South Park, have created a new comedy deepfake series called Sassy Justice. The star of the show, Fred Sassy, is a local news reporter from Cheyenne, Wyoming, with the face of US President Donald Trump. Other notable characters include, erm, "Dialysis King" Mark Zuckerberg. Politicians like former vice president Al Gore and White House family members Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner also appear. Kushner is portrayed as a man child.

If that sounds completely bonkers, that's because it is. They're all actually deepfakes generated using machine learning algorithms. Their faces have all been superimposed onto the bodies of actors. Not only is it pretty funny, the quality of the technology is shockingly good. The transitions and subtle facial expressions are smooth, apart from Zuckerberg who appears as robotic as ever, making it all the more realistic really. You can watch the first episode here.

A fake letter from Sean Connery to Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is making the rounds on social media following the actor's death on Saturday. Just to reiterate: it's fake, the product of humor site Scoopertino, which posts satirical articles about Apple and goings-on at its Cupertino (get it that's the name) headquarters. From a report: The typewritten letter dated 1998 purports to show Connery's outrage over Jobs asking him to appear in an Apple commercial. "I do not sell my soul for Apple or any other company. I have no interest in 'changing the world' as you suggest," it states. "You are a computer salesman, I am fucking JAMES BOND!" But the internet loves things that are too good to be true, and Sunday morning, the "letter" was circulating on Twitter.

An error in Facebook's automated system rejected a user's picture of onions for being "overtly sexual." The BBC reports: The Seed Company by EW Gaze, in St John's, Newfoundland, had wanted to post a seemingly innocent advert for Walla Walla onion seeds on Facebook. But to their surprise, it was rejected for being "overtly sexual." In a statement on Wednesday, the social media company apologized for the error made by its automated technology. It took store manager Jackson McLean a moment to realize what the issue was with the posting, he said. Then he figured out that "something about the round shapes" could be suggestive of breasts or buttocks.

He knew his customers would find the ad rejection funny, and posted the photo, along with the automated Facebook message warning "listings may not position products or services in a sexually suggestive manner," to the company page. Mr McLean said some clients have been posting images of potentially suggestive carrots and pumpkins in reply. He also appealed the decision to Facebook.

The Walla Walla onions, "an older onion variety," had recently brought back in stock by customer request, and are now selling fast due to their newfound notoriety, he said. "We've sold more in the last three days than in the last five years," said Mr McLean, adding they are also now listed under "sexy onions" on the company website.

The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded on Thursday to Louise Gluck, one of America's most celebrated poets, "for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal." The award was announced at a news conference in Stockholm. From a report: Gluck, who was born in New York in 1943, has written numerous poetry collections, many of which deal with the challenges of family life and growing older. They include "The Wild Iris," for which she won a Pulitzer Prize in 1993, and "Faithful and Virtuous Night," about mortality and grief, from 2014. She was named the United States' poet laureate in 2003. At the Nobel announcement, Anders Olsson, the chair of the prize-giving committee, praised her minimalist voice and especially poems that get to the heart of family life. "Louise Gluck's voice is unmistakable," he said. "It is candid and uncompromising, and it signals this poet wants to be understood." But he also said her voice was also "full of humor and biting wit."

According to the Subway Ireland website, the chain's six-inch and footlong subs are available on six different kinds of bread, including nine-grain multi-seed, Italian white bread, Italian herbs and cheese, nine-grain wheat, hearty Italian, and honey oat. And, according to the country's Supreme Court, all six varieties are too sugary to legally be called "bread" at all. From a report: The court case itself is a slightly confusing one unless you're well versed in Irish tax policies, but it started when a Subway franchise owner challenged the tax authorities' decision not to issue a refund for value-added tax (VAT) on some takeout foods. Galway-based Bookfinders LTD said that it shouldn't have to pay VAT on hot coffee and tea, or on the hot sandwiches that weren't eaten inside the restaurant.

Its argument was that since the sandwiches contain bread, they should be considered a "staple food" and shouldn't be taxed. But the five Supreme Court judges countered by suggesting that those sandwiches aren't served on "bread" at all, at least not under the "statutory definition of bread." According to the Irish Independent, the judges ruled that Subway's bread is not a staple food because its sugar content is 10 percent of the weight of the flour in the dough; the Value-Added Tax Act 1972 stipulates that sugar, fat, and "bread improver" cannot add up to more than 2 percent of the weight of the flour. (Those limits are in place to prevent things like pastries and other sweet baked goods from being labeled as "staple foods" and exempt from being taxed.)

Kelerei writes: Microsoft Flight Simulator players spotted a giant mountain-high obelisk in Australia last month. While Flight Simulator has done a great job at recreating the real world, this unusually huge structure doesn't exist in real life. Players have now discovered that its existence stems from a simple typo. University student Nathan Wright made an edit to OpenStreetMap data for part of his degree work last year, adding more than two hundred stories to a building that's actually just two stories. Wright meant to type 2, but instead he typed 212 in the data section for floors. "I think it's so funny as it was the first time I was using OpenStreetMap," says Wright in an email to The Verge. "I was using it for a university task and had to add data for class. I didn't think I would have to see it again." His university work is now internet famous, especially with the Microsoft Flight Simulator community. The typo made its way into Microsoft's Bing Maps data, which Asobo Studio, the developers behind Microsoft Flight Simulator, uses to map out the world in the game. Flight Simulator uses Azure-powered procedural generation technology, combined with Bing Maps data, to recreate virtual buildings like this 212-story obelisk.

Gary Larson has released new comics for the The Far Side, the first strips since January 1995. Larson does however caution that this is "not a resurrection of The Far Side daily cartoons." He adds: "I'm just exploring, experimenting, and trying stuff." The Verge reports: The first of the new comics features bears, aliens, and taxidermy (all staples of The Far Side). The style is comfortably familiar, with two large exceptions: instead of watercolor, the new comics are done in digital brushstrokes that make the images feel more volumetric and vibrant than the original full-color cartoons. Also, the penned outlines, which exist in both the watercolor and black-and-white original comics, are almost entirely gone. The end result is images that evoke the feel of the old comics but are somehow a little less cartoony. The characters and elements all feel unified in the scene together.

Both the style changes and the comic's return are due to the fact that Larson is now using a digital tablet. After years of frustration dealing with clogged pens and dried-up markers, Larson decided to give going digital a chance. "I was stunned at all the tools the thing offered, all the creative potential it contained. I simply had no idea how far these things had evolved," Larson writes in an opening letter for New Stuff, the title for his new works. "Perhaps fittingly, the first thing I drew was a caveman."

hcs_$reboot writes: President Donald Trump said Monday that he has been taking anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine for over a week to prevent coronavirus infection even though it is not yet a proven treatment. Hydroxychloroquine, which is available as a generic drug and is also produced under the brand name Plaquenil by French drugmaker Sanofi, can have serious side effects, including muscle weakness and heart arrhythmia. A small study in Brazil was halted for safety reasons after coronavirus patients taking chloroquine, which hydroxychloroquine is derived from, developed arrhythmia, including some who died. Even Fox News agrees that this drug is harmful, adds hcs_$reboot. "I cannot stress this enough, this will kill you," Fox News host Neil Cavuto said.

Trump said Monday he asked his White House physician about the drug. "I asked him, 'What do you think?' He said, 'Well, if you'd like it.' I said, 'Yeah, I'd like it. I'd like to take it.'" Trump said Monday that if the drug wasn't good he'd "tell you." He said he's gotten "a lot of tremendously positive news on the hydroxy, and I say hey -- you know the expression I've used, John? What do you have to lose?"

"I'm not gonna get hurt by it. It's been around for 40 years," he said. "For malaria, for lupus, for other things. I take it. Front-line workers take it. A lot of doctors take it -- excuse me, a lot of doctors take it. I take it."

The Washington Post describes it as "the next internet." Wikipedia defines it as "a collective virtual shared space...including the sum of all virtual worlds, augmented reality, and the Internet." But it was Neal Stephenson who named it "the metaverse" in his 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash.

Are we closer to seeing it happen? The Washington Post reports: In the past month, office culture has coalesced around video chat platforms like Zoom, while personal cultural milestones like weddings and graduations are being conducted in Nintendo's Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The Metaverse not only seems realistic — it would probably be pretty useful right about now. The Metaverse reality is still years, possibly decades, away. But Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has been publicly pushing for its creation, and he isn't alone in his desire to push for the Metaverse, where the online world echoes and fulfills real-world needs and activities. Constructing the virtual Internet space is Silicon Valley's macro goal, many of whom are obsessed with Neal Stephenson's 1992 book, "Snow Crash," which defined the term.

In recent years, Facebook, Google and Samsung have all made heavy investments in cloud computing and virtual reality companies in anticipation of a Metaverse... But it's Epic Games, with Fortnite, that has the most viable path forward in terms of creating the Metaverse, according to an essay by venture capitalist and former Amazon executive Matthew Ball... [The article also notes other "traits" of the metaverse in Minecraft and Roblox.] The most widely agreed core attributes of a Metaverse include always being live and persistent — with both planned and spontaneous events always occurring — while at the same time providing an experience that spans and operates across platforms and the real world. A Metaverse must also have no real cap on audience, and have its own fully functioning economy... Fortnite hasn't reached Metaverse status yet. But Fortnite as a social network and impossible-to-ignore cultural phenomenon, Ball says, provides Epic Games a key advantage for leading in the Metaverse race. Fortnite draws a massive, willing and excited audience online to engage with chaotically clashing intellectual properties... "This organic evolution can't be overemphasized," Ball writes in his essay. "If you 'declared' your intent to start a Metaverse, these parties would never embrace interoperability or entrust their IP. But Fortnite has become so popular and so unique that most counterparties have no choice but to participate... Fortnite is too valuable a platform...."

The current swarm to an online-only social and capitalist economy has only highlighted the current Internet's failings, and what the Metaverse needs to do, Ball said. Big sites like Facebook, Google and Amazon continue to dominate online activity, as do larger streaming services like YouTube and Netflix. But each location requires its own membership and has separate ecosystems. "Right now, the digital world basically operates as though every restaurant and bar you go to requires a different ID card, has a different currency, requires their own dress codes and has their own units [of service and measurement]," Ball said. "It is clear that this really advantages the biggest services. People are just sticking to the big games, really. However there's a clear argument that reducing network lock-in can really raise all boats here."

Sweeney said as much in his DICE Summit keynote speech February. If the game industry wants to reshape the Internet and move away from Silicon Valley's walled gardens, Sweeney stressed that publishers need to rethink economies in the same way email was standardized... "We need to give up our attempts to each create our own private walled gardens and private monopoly and agree to work together and recognize we're all far better off if we connect our systems and grow our social graphs together.
Neal Stephenson answered questions from Slashdot readers back in 2004.

The popular early internet meme machine YTMND.com is back online after shutting down last May due to declining ad revenue and the site creator's ill health. Motherboard reports: Launched in 2001, YTMND was one of the early internet's first sources of viral content. Users could attach a gif, often animated but not always, to a piece of looping sound. Users could vote on these animations, share, or remix them. Its death was sad, a piece of early internet, gone forever. But over the last year, [the site's creator Max Goldberg] said fans helped him test the new site, find bugs, and pushed him for regular updates.

Goldberg said he rebuilt the site from the ground up, which is why it took the better part of a year. One of the biggest challenges was converting everything away from Flash, which Adobe is finally retiring this year. "That means YTMNDs play more reliably (and work on mobile phones!) and will also be future-compatible," Goldberg said. "The new player was written in a way that makes archiving a YTMND significantly easier, which opens up a lot of possibilities. I've also removed all social media and advertising from the site." He also replaced all the hardware that was running the site.

Google won't be participating in April Fools' Day this year due to the serious threat of the coronavirus that continues to impact the entire world. The Verge reports: According to an internal email obtained by Business Insider, Google will "take the year off from that tradition out of respect for all those fighting the Covid-19 pandemic. Our highest goal right now is to be helpful to people, so let's save the jokes for next April, which will undoubtedly be a whole lot brighter than this one."

"We've already stopped any centralized April Fool's efforts but realize there may be smaller projects within teams that we don't know about," the email from Google's head of marketing Lorraine Twohill continues. "Please suss out those efforts and make sure your teams pause on any jokes they may have planned -- internally or externally." Hopefully other companies will take note of Google's lead here and adjust their own April Fools' plans accordingly. There's a time and a place for a good joke -- but this probably isn't it.

Drive down any U.S. interstate and there's a good chance you will see a pun or a funny reference on the next electronic message board you spot. From a report: Such messages have become ubiquitous across the country lately. But besides getting a snicker, what's behind these roadside bits, and are they making drivers behave any differently? They are known as Dynamic Message Signs, and they usually remind drivers about speed limits or traffic delays. Though the technology has been around for decades, in recent years states across the country have been taking a different tack with their messaging in a bid for more eyeballs.

A recent message that was flashing out across Illinois expressways is a perfect example of this. It read, "Got The Munchies? Get Food Delivered. Don't Drive High!" Since Illinois legalized marijuana this year, transportation officials have been trying to get people to avoid driving stoned, so why not appeal to a stoner's love for snacking? Elmo Bruggink, an Illinois tourist from the Netherlands, weighed in on the message. His home country is a place that has long been dealing with drivers who smoke weed, but Bruggink said officials haven't tried humor yet.

World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen has been sneaking onto online chess sites using stupid pseudonyms and taunting his opponents by using pointless maneuvers with names like "the Bongcloud." One YouTube commenter calls it "a revolution in the history of chess."

Slate documents the antics in an article titled "DrDrunkenstein's Reign of Terror." "DrDrunkenstein" is one of many aliases Magnus Carlsen has played under during the past two years, when he went on a killing spree across the speed chess tournaments of the internet. Since winter 2017, Carlsen has taken to livestreaming his games on a variety of platforms, which has provided a surprisingly entertaining window into the mind of an all-time great.

Lichess.org is a free, ad-less web platform for chess players, a favorite in the online chess community... Carlsen appeared incognito as "DannyTheDonkey" and won, donating his small prize money back to the website. Carlsen's first showing as DrDrunkenstein was in Lichess' second Titled Arena the following month... Carlsen streamed the games on Twitch, where he lived up to his username, pounding Coronas while bantering in Norwegian with his friends. Chess fans were astonished. There's something hypnotizing about watching a guy known as "the Mozart of chess" — a player who is quantifiably better than Bobby Fischer — taking a big gulp of beer, announcing his position as "completely winning," then singing along to Dr. Dre saying "motherfuck the police" while coasting into another quick checkmate...

In an interview with a Norwegian newspaper in October, Carlsen admits he quit drinking for his health. "I wouldn't say I was an alcoholic exactly," he said, "but I found out this year, if I'm going to travel and play a lot... I need to prioritize differently...." On the eve of his world championship defense, Carlsen appeared in the next tournament as "manwithavan," playing a large chunk of his games on a phone from a minivan, where the touch screen presented a massive handicap. He again earned the adoration of spectators, this time for riskily walking his king into the center of the board against one of the most dangerous players in the tournament. He came in third... As DrNykterstein, he alternated between two ways of wasting his early, important opening moves. Sometimes, he'd take his queen on a four-move tour of the board before swapping her home square with the king's, letting his opponent develop their pieces while he showboated... Other times, he'd fidget his knights back and forth from their starting squares, offering his challenger a six-move time advantage. In this tournament he filled with gags, he came in first again...

One of the sweetest benefits of watching these matches is enjoying Carlsen's dry, self-deprecating sense of humor — something no chess prodigy has any right to have.
In December, Magnus also reached the #1 spot, beating seven million other players, on a fantasy football table.

"Kids can play with Alexa in their very own $300 pretend kitchen and grocery store," CNET reports, "with the Amazon voice assistant dishing out cooking advice, shopping help and plenty of goofy toddler humor." The Alexa 2-in-1 Kitchen and Market, from toymaker KidKraft, is making its debut at this weekend's New York Toy Fair... It uses a mix of RFID sensors and Bluetooth to tell Alexa which pretend food items kids are buying and cooking... Alexa speaks only when a sensor on the play set is activated. Put a toy hot dog into the pot on the stove, and Alexa knows you're cooking hot dogs. Kids hear the splash sound effect, and Alexa alerts when the hot dogs are done cooking and to hurry up and get the buns. "If they get cold, they will be chili dogs," she says...

The accessories that come with the kitchen and market, which include fake food, cookware and a credit card, are fitted with RFID chips, and sensors can tell which items are at the register, stovetop or cutting board. The play set then relays that info to the smart speaker via Bluetooth. So, if a kid places lettuce on the market scanner, it could prompt Alexa to say, "Lettuce! Are we making a salad?" And if a kid says, "Yes," Alexa will say, "Great! I love salad. Maybe get some avocado, too."
Engadget reports that once you install an Echo dot, "it will play games with your children and instruct them on how to make the best fake hot dog ever." And there's inevitably a game where Alexa tells your kids what to do: There's plenty of freeform play to be had, but to take advantage of Alexa's real capabilities a kid has to make use of the included "recipe cards." They're not real recipes with ingredients and instructions. Instead it's just a picture of the food the child wants to make, and they insert the card into a special reader on the counter to start the process of preparing it with Alexa's help. Alexa will instruct the child on whether to grab a pot or a pan, if it needs to be filled with water, and whether any ingredients need to be cut on the tiny chopping board. If the requested food isn't in the pantry, never fear: There's a store on the other side...

Unsurprisingly, the KidKraft 2-in-1 Alexa Kitchen and Market will be an Amazon exclusive when it launches some time this year. And the price? A hefty $300.
Tom's Guide calls the playset "clever --and also really creepy."

"On one hand, it's a screen-free, interactive experience... But there are a few concerns that a toy of this budding breed creates. I can't help but question the social implications of making Alexa a child's on-demand playmate."