Miscellaneous Tech News
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Slack Technologies prepares for flotation
Slack Technologies, a messaging service used by companies across the world, is officially gearing up for a public stock listing.
The firm said it had filed a confidential notice with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In one of the year's most anticipated flotations, Slack could be seeking a $10bn valuation.
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Ajit Pai loses in court—judges overturn gutting of tribal broadband program
A federal appeals court has overturned Ajit Pai's attempt to take broadband subsidies away from tribal residents.
The Pai-led Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 in November 2017 to make it much harder for tribal residents to obtain a $25-per-month Lifeline subsidy that reduces the cost of Internet or phone service.
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Researchers find working USB drive in seal poop
Defecated drive "downloaded" to New Zealand beach has pictures, video of seals.
As any parent who has sifted through their offspring’s bowel movements in search of something that shouldn’t have been swallowed in the first place can tell you, coins, magnets, and even small plastic toys can survive a voyage through the digestive tract. It turns out that USB thumb drives can as well, at least when the pinniped digestive system is involved.
Researchers in New Zealand are looking for the owner of a USB thumb drive that was discovered in a frozen seal turd—specifically, that of an Antarctic leopard seal. According to the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand, volunteers working with an organization devoted to studying leopard seals and educating the public about them collected and froze the seal scat in November 2017.
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Apple pays France €500 million to cover a decade of back taxes
Paris has been urging other EU states to more heavily tax Silicon Valley giants.
Apple has reportedly paid 10 years of back taxes to the French tax authority—around €500 million (over $570 million)—according to L’Express, a business newspaper.
The iPhone maker has been under pressure to pay taxes to European Union countries after it was found to have engaged in legal financial chicanery to drastically mitigate its tax burden.
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@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Apple pays France €500 million to cover a decade of back taxes
Paris has been urging other EU states to more heavily tax Silicon Valley giants.
Apple has reportedly paid 10 years of back taxes to the French tax authority—around €500 million (over $570 million)—according to L’Express, a business newspaper.
The iPhone maker has been under pressure to pay taxes to European Union countries after it was found to have engaged in legal financial chicanery to drastically mitigate its tax burden.
If it's legal, what's the issue? Why does Apple owe?
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@Dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Apple pays France €500 million to cover a decade of back taxes
Paris has been urging other EU states to more heavily tax Silicon Valley giants.
Apple has reportedly paid 10 years of back taxes to the French tax authority—around €500 million (over $570 million)—according to L’Express, a business newspaper.
The iPhone maker has been under pressure to pay taxes to European Union countries after it was found to have engaged in legal financial chicanery to drastically mitigate its tax burden.
If it's legal, what's the issue? Why does Apple owe?
Because it obviously wasn't legal.
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@Dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Apple pays France €500 million to cover a decade of back taxes
Paris has been urging other EU states to more heavily tax Silicon Valley giants.
Apple has reportedly paid 10 years of back taxes to the French tax authority—around €500 million (over $570 million)—according to L’Express, a business newspaper.
The iPhone maker has been under pressure to pay taxes to European Union countries after it was found to have engaged in legal financial chicanery to drastically mitigate its tax burden.
If it's legal, what's the issue? Why does Apple owe?
Financial chicanery means it was illegal. They owe because they were involved in tax fraud.
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@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@Dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Apple pays France €500 million to cover a decade of back taxes
Paris has been urging other EU states to more heavily tax Silicon Valley giants.
Apple has reportedly paid 10 years of back taxes to the French tax authority—around €500 million (over $570 million)—according to L’Express, a business newspaper.
The iPhone maker has been under pressure to pay taxes to European Union countries after it was found to have engaged in legal financial chicanery to drastically mitigate its tax burden.
If it's legal, what's the issue? Why does Apple owe?
Financial chicanery means it was illegal. They owe because they were involved in tax fraud.
So the quote was poorly written then. Got it. and if not poorly - purposefully to confuse.
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@Dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@Dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Apple pays France €500 million to cover a decade of back taxes
Paris has been urging other EU states to more heavily tax Silicon Valley giants.
Apple has reportedly paid 10 years of back taxes to the French tax authority—around €500 million (over $570 million)—according to L’Express, a business newspaper.
The iPhone maker has been under pressure to pay taxes to European Union countries after it was found to have engaged in legal financial chicanery to drastically mitigate its tax burden.
If it's legal, what's the issue? Why does Apple owe?
Financial chicanery means it was illegal. They owe because they were involved in tax fraud.
So the quote was poorly written then. Got it. and if not poorly - purposefully to confuse.
Which part was confusing? They didn't pay taxes that they owed. They got caught. Not they are being collected.
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@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
The iPhone maker has been under pressure to pay taxes to European Union countries after it was found to have engaged in legal financial chicanery to drastically mitigate its tax burden.
right there - it calls them legal.
or, rather in this case we're back to that logical/illogical discussion we had earlier... all these extra words make it mean the opposite.
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@Dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
The iPhone maker has been under pressure to pay taxes to European Union countries after it was found to have engaged in legal financial chicanery to drastically mitigate its tax burden.
right there - it calls them legal.
or, rather in this case we're back to that logical/illogical discussion we had earlier... all these extra words make it mean the opposite.
Ah, I see what you mean.
I suppose that they meant that it was legal trickery, not that the trickery was legal.
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Ouch, ouch, ouch...
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@StuartJordan said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Ouch, ouch, ouch...
Only skimmed, but it seems like it was caused by outdated or unpatched system in use the the MSP.
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@JaredBusch does seem that way, it's a plugin for connectwise. Still 80 of their clients cryptolocked though..that's a heart drop moment there..
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@StuartJordan said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@JaredBusch does seem that way, it's a plugin for connectwise. Still 80 of their clients cryptolocked though..that's a heart drop moment there..
Nope, bad MSP are all over the place.
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@JaredBusch said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@StuartJordan said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@JaredBusch does seem that way, it's a plugin for connectwise. Still 80 of their clients cryptolocked though..that's a heart drop moment there..
Nope, bad MSP are all over the place.
Seems like something like that would shut an MSP down.
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@StuartJordan said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Ouch, ouch, ouch...
And that is also why you don't use VPNs as an MSP!
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@JaredBusch said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@StuartJordan said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Ouch, ouch, ouch...
Only skimmed, but it seems like it was caused by outdated or unpatched system in use the the MSP.
Yeah, sounds that way.
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@dafyre said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@JaredBusch said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@StuartJordan said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@JaredBusch does seem that way, it's a plugin for connectwise. Still 80 of their clients cryptolocked though..that's a heart drop moment there..
Nope, bad MSP are all over the place.
Seems like something like that would shut an MSP down.
Not likely. Because customers don't talk to each other. If things like that would kill an MSP, imagine how it would impact Microsoft. Oh wait, it doesn't. Because even if every customer was hacked because of something that was MS' fault, they view it as isolated incidences and people will just keep on doing what they are doing.
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Emoji 12.0 brings us waffles, more diversity, suggestive “finger pinch” glyph
We're now up to 3053 total emoji, with no signs of slowing down.
Emoji version 12.0 has been finalized by the Unicode Consortium, and for 2019 we're getting 230 new emoji. Although the standard is finalized, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other platform vendors still need to create artwork and integrate these new glyphs into their respective platforms. Today we have a preview of what to expect thanks to Emojipedia, which put together a list of the new glyphs with example artwork.
There's a push for more diversity with this new emoji release. We have emojis for deaf people in three genders (male, female, and genderless) and five skin tones, an ear with a hearing aid, people in motorized and unmotorized wheelchairs, prosthetic arms and legs, a guide dog and a service dog, and people with a probing cane. There are actually only 59 distinct new emoji types in this release, but everything that depicts a human comes in five skin tones and three genders, which pumps up the numbers. You can really see this with the "People holding hands" emoji, which is completely configurable for a total of 70 possible combinations.
The emoji that's causing the most buzz is "pinching hand." Emojipedia's example shows a thumb and pointer finger with a small distance between them, which could also be interpreted as a hand signal for "small." People are already coming up with uh, "suggestive" uses for such a glyph, and if the actual implementations follow Emojipedia's design, the glyph could end up on the naughty list next to peach and eggplant.
