Mediaboss Marketing

YouTube has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Invidious, an open-source "alternative front-end" to the website which allows users to watch videos without having their data tracked, claiming it violates YouTube's API policy and demanding that it be shut down within seven days. From a report: "We recently became aware of your product or service, Invidious," reads the letter, which was posted on the Invidious GitHub last week. "Your Client appears to be in violation of the YouTube API Services Terms of Service and Developer Policies." The letter then delineates the policies which Invidious is accused of having violated, such as not displaying a link to YouTube's Terms of Service or "clearly" explaining what it does with user information. Invidious is open-source software licensed under AGPL-3.0, and it markets itself as a way for users to interact with YouTube without allowing the site to collect their data, or having to make an account. "Invidious protects you from the prying eyes of Google," its homepage reads. "It won't track you either!" Invidious also allows users to watch videos without being interrupted by "annoying ads," which is how YouTube makes most of its money.

Read more:
YouTube Tells Open-Source Privacy Software 'Invidious' to Shut Down - Slashdot

New research suggests that Arctic summer sea ice could melt almost completely by the 2030s, a decade earlier than previously projected, even with significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions. Smithsonian Magazine reports: "We are very quickly about to lose the Arctic summer sea-ice cover, basically independent of what we are doing," Dirk Notz, a climate scientist at the University of Hamburg in Germany tells the New York Times' Raymond Zhong. "We've been waiting too long now to do something about climate change to still protect the remaining ice." An ice-free summer, also called a "blue ocean event," will happen when the sea ice drops below one million square kilometers (386,102 square miles), writes Jonathan Bamber, a professor of physical geography at the University of Bristol, in the Conversation. This equates to just 15 percent of the Arctic's seasonal minimum ice cover of the late 1970s, per the Times.

Previous assessments using models have estimated an ice-free summer under high and intermediate emissions scenarios by 2050. But researchers noticed differences between what climate models predicted about what would happen to sea ice and what they've actually seen through observations, according to Bob Weber of the Canadian Press. "The models, on average, underestimate sea ice decline compared with observations," says Nathan Gillett, an environment and climate change Canada scientist, to Weber.

Now, in a new study published in Nature Communications, Notz, Gillett and their colleagues tweaked these models to more closely fit satellite data collected over the past 40 years. Using these modified models, the researchers projected ice changes under different possible levels of greenhouse gas emissions. Their paper suggests that regardless of emissions scenario, "we may experience an unprecedented ice-free Arctic climate in the next decade or two." Under a high emissions scenario, the Arctic could see a sustained loss of sea ice from August until as late as October before the 2080s, lead author Seung-Ki Min, a climate scientist at Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea, tells CNN's Rachel Ramirez.

Read the original post:
Arctic Could Be Sea Ice-Free in the Summer by the 2030s - Slashdot

Many companies featured on Money advertise with us. Opinions are our own, but compensation and in-depth research determine where and how companies may appear. Learn more about how we make money.

Yahoo reported better-than-expected quarterly adjusted profit on Tuesday, positive news for the beleaguered company whose deal to sell its core business to Verizon has been shaken by a massive data breach.

Verizon's general counsel said last week that the hack, which affected at least 500 million email accounts in 2014, could have a material impact, possibly allowing Verizon to withdraw from the $4.83 billion deal.

Revenue from Mavens - the mobile, video, native and social advertising units that Chief Executive Marissa Mayer touts as its emerging businesses - rose 24.2% to $524 million.

Gross search revenue fell 14.1% to $752.5 million.

Yahoo's shares were up marginally in extended trading.

Verizon plans to combine Yahoo's search, email and messenger assets as well as advertising technology tools with its AOL unit, which it bought last year for $4.4 billion.

The deal would transform Yahoo into a holding company, with a 15% stake in Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and a 35.5% interest in Yahoo Japan as well as Yahoo's convertible notes, certain minority investments and its non-core patents.

The deal is expected to close in early 2017, after which Yahoo plans to change its name and become a publicly traded investment company.

Yahoo's revenue rose 6.5% to $1.31 billion in the third quarter ended Sept. 30, beating the average analyst estimate of $1.30 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

After deducting fees paid to partner websites, revenue fell to $857.7 million from $1 billion.

Net income attributable to Yahoo rose to $162.8 million, or 17 cents per share, from $76.3 million, or 8 cents per share, a year earlier.

Excluding items, the company earned 20 cents per share, beating the average estimate of 14 cents.

Yahoo said on Friday it would not hold a call or webcast after the release of the results, citing the Verizon deal.

Read more:
The IRS Will Test Out Its Own Free Tax Prep Software in 2024 - Money

The IRS is working on a plan that would allow taxpayers to file directly with the government online, but tax preparation companies plan stiff opposition. Joe Raedle/Getty Images hide caption

The IRS is working on a plan that would allow taxpayers to file directly with the government online, but tax preparation companies plan stiff opposition.

The IRS is developing a system that would let taxpayers send electronic returns directly to the government for free, sidestepping commercial options such as TurboTax.

The agency plans a pilot test of the program next year.

Many other countries already offer taxpayers a government-run filing system. But the IRS plan is likely to face stiff opposition from the $14 billion tax-preparation industry.

"A direct-to-IRS e-file system is wholly redundant and is nothing more than a solution in search of a problem," said Rick Heineman, a spokesman for Intuit, the company behind TurboTax. "That solution will unnecessarily cost taxpayers billions of dollars and especially harm the most vulnerable Americans."

Americans already spend significant time and money preparing their taxes. The average individual filer pays $140 per year, according to the IRS.

While an alliance of industry players offers a free-filing option through the IRS website, only about 2% of taxpayers use it.

"That's because the tax prep companies sabotaged the program, so they could keep raking in money," Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said last month.

Last year, TurboTax paid $141 million to settle a complaint that it advertised free tax preparation, then steered customers into costly upgrades. The company did not admit to any wrongdoing.

IRS commissioner Danny Werfel stressed that filing returns directly with the government will be strictly optional.

"Taxpayers will always have choices for how they file their taxes," Werfel told reporters during a conference call Tuesday. "They can use tax software. They can use a trusted tax professional. They can use a paper tax return. We'd rather they file electronically, sure. But they have that choice."

Many Democrats have long favored a direct filing option. Legislation passed last year gave the IRS $15 million to study the idea.

"Democrats are committed to the proposition that it shouldn't cost hundreds of dollars and many more hours of time simply to follow the law," Senate Finance Committee chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said during a hearing last month. "When it comes to filing taxes online, the status quo is unacceptable."

Advocates gather in Washington, D.C., on April 17, 2023, to call out tax prep companies like Intuit TurboTax and H&R Block for blocking simplified filing and to support the IRS in its exploration of alternative free tax filing in Washington, DC. Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for Economic Securi hide caption

Advocates gather in Washington, D.C., on April 17, 2023, to call out tax prep companies like Intuit TurboTax and H&R Block for blocking simplified filing and to support the IRS in its exploration of alternative free tax filing in Washington, DC.

Through surveys, the IRS found significant interest in a government-run filing system, but also challenges.

One survey found 72% of taxpayers would be "very interested" or "somewhat interested" in a system that allowed them to file returns directly with the government at no cost. The option was most popular with younger people, those with limited English skills and people who do their own taxes.

"If the government is requiring me to file, they should offer a free service," one survey respondent said.

Other participants were concerned, however, that the tax collector might not provide them with the largest refund or the smallest tax bill a potential conflict that's been highlighted by commercial tax preparers.

The IRS estimates that setting up and operating a direct file system would cost the government between $64 million and $249 million annually, depending on the number of users and the complexity of returns it could handle.

One challenge is how to integrate state tax returns, which would make a IRS-run system more attractive. The system could also be a stepping stone to having the IRS fill in parts of a tax return itself, using information from employers and other sources.

The next step in the process is to let some real taxpayers try using the system next year.

"The best way to be successful is to begin with a limited scope pilot that allows the IRS to test functionality for some taxpayers, evaluate success, and use lessons learned to inform the growth of the tool," Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo wrote, in a letter authorizing the test.

The scale of the experiment and the kinds of taxpayers who will be eligible is yet to be determined.

Read more:
The IRS is working on software to allow taxpayers to file online - NPR

RIB Software launches free-to-use RIB Carbon Quantifier for optimized carbon quantification in construction.

RIB Software, a leading multinational provider of innovative technology solutions to the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industries, has partnered with non-profit organization, Building Transparency, to develop the RIB Carbon Quantifier.

Through a direct link with Building Transparencys Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3), the application allows users to quickly, easily and consistently allocate carbon environmental product declaration (EPD) values against their imported estimate data, including resource quantities.

This comes as studies highlight the industrys impact on the environment, with construction constituting a staggering 39% of global greenhouse gas emissions and accounting for 36% of global energy demands.

Ren Wolf, Chief Executive Officer at RIB Software, says there is a growing need to reduce carbon emissions within the engineering and construction sector to combat the damaging effects of climate change.

Until recently, the construction industrys response to reducing building-related emissions has focused on energy efficiency by reducing operational emissions - the energy used to heat, cool and light buildings.

While previously effective, this approach overlooks embodied carbon emissions associated with material and construction processes across a buildings lifecycle, which represents a quarter of the carbon emitted during the life of a building and 11% of all global carbon emissions.

It is therefore critical to increase efforts to quantify, monitor, evaluate and ultimately reduce the embodied carbon emitted throughout the lifecycle of a construction project - and the driving factor for why RIB Software developed the Carbon Quantifier application, explains Wolf.

Through a seamless integration with Building Transparencys premier, free-to-use EC3 tool, the RIB Carbon Quantifier application is set to be the first of its kind in the industry to assist the built environment in extracting and quantifying embodied carbon data more quickly and efficiently, optimizing carbon quantification and reducing estimate delivery times.

Through this powerful partnership of technology, industry professionals will now have access to an additional toolset to optimize the efficiency in the quantification and measurement of carbon, thus better facilitating design and procurement decisions, helping the global AEC industry in achieving a lower embodied carbon footprint.

Stacy Smedley, Executive Director of Building Transparency, says reducing embodied carbon emissions is one of the biggest opportunities in the fight against global warming. Partnerships, like ours with RIB Software, are critical to driving action in the building sector and identifying new solutions that make it easier to prioritize low-carbon decision-making on projects. Its exciting to have our EC3 data and its large carbon impact database be utilized and leveraged for tools like the RIB Carbon Quantifier.

The primary features of the RIB Carbon Quantifier include the easy extraction of embodied carbon data from Building Transparencys EC3 database against estimates; keeping a repository of each estimates embodied carbon data for cross-referencing and facilitating easier allocation of carbon values for future projects; the ability to easily export aligned quantified data back to EC3 for analytics, reporting and dashboarding; and providing users with a direct integration with other estimating products within the RIB portfolio of products.

Wolf says the need to accelerate decarbonization practices in the AEC industry is critical, and using an application like the RIB Carbon Quantifier will not only allow users to optimize carbon quantification, but will ensure they avoid unnecessary energy spent and emissions generated from associated projects and processes.

At RIB, we are driven by transformative digital technologies, industry best-practice and trends that help propel the industry forward and make engineering and construction more efficient and sustainable, he concludes.

For more information about the RIB Carbon Quantifier, emailcq@rib-software.comor visitrib-software.com/en/home/carbon-quantifier.

[ENDS]

Press Enquiries

Kim Immelmankim.immelman@rib-software.com

Go here to read the rest:
RIB Software launches free-to-use RIB Carbon Quantifier for ... - GlobeNewswire