ReHacked #82: Fortran Web Framework, Mozilla has made it easier to switch to Firefox on Windows, Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules and more

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Mozilla has defeated Microsoft’s default browser protections in Windows - The Verge #software

Mozilla has quietly made it easier to switch to Firefox on Windows recently. While Microsoft offers a method to switch default browsers on Windows 10, it’s more cumbersome than the simple one-click process to switch to Edge. This one-click process isn’t officially available for anyone other than Microsoft, and Mozilla appears to have grown tired of the situation.

In version 91 of Firefox, released on August 10th, Mozilla has reverse engineered the way Microsoft sets Edge as default in Windows 10, and enabled Firefox to quickly make itself the default. Before this change, Firefox users would be sent to the Settings part of Windows 10 to then have to select Firefox as a default browser and ignore Microsoft’s plea to keep Edge.

Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules | NL Times #economy

Taxi app Uber has to employ its drivers. From now on they fall under the collective bargaining agreement of Taxi Transport, the court ruled in a case brought by trade union FNV. Uber wanted drivers to remain self-employed, while FNV called this bogus self-employment.

The judge ruled that Uber has "modern employer authority" and that drivers are only self-employed 'on paper'. Several features on the app that Uber uses to connect drivers with customers indicate an employee relationship. For example, a driver may only refuse a few trips before being logged out by the system. In the event of customer complaints, Uber is also the party that decides unilaterally about the solution. The company can, among other things, decide to adjust the agreed fare.

FORTRAN.io Fortran Web Framework  #programming #link

Historical yearly trends in the usage statistics of server-side programming languages for websites, September 2021 #software #link

My Life After Quitting Social Media #socialnetworks #internet #psychology #health

Social media is like cigarettes and alcohol. Toxic. Addictive. Yet widely accessible. Everybody knows it’s bad. Everybody knows that it’s wasting your time and polluting your brain with envy, jealously, and resentment. Yet again, nobody is trying to prevent it – nor take the steps to withdraw. The benefits of using social media, it seems for plenty of people, are far greater than the benefits of staying away.

Apple co-founder announces private space company to clean up the space debris clogging the planet | The Independent #technology #space

Steve Wozniak is starting a private space company called Privateer.

The company has been founded alongside Alex Fielding, who was a member of the first iMac team and founded “Wheels of Zeus” (‘WoZ’) in 2002 – a company that created wireless location trackers - but it is unclear exactly what the company will do.

Intel Is Reducing Server Chip Pricing in Attempt to Stem the AMD Tide: Report | Tom's Hardware #hardware #economy

According to DigiTimes, Intel has pivoted on its server strategy to fight a supply-constrained AMD, and is now offering more competitive pricing on its server processors. However, it's noteworthy that Intel hasn't changed its official recommended pricing, so these deals are likely coming as part of volume purchases with its largest customers.

Collisions of Light Produce Matter/Antimatter from Pure Energy | BNL Newsroom #science #nature #physics

Scientists studying particle collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC)—a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science user facility for nuclear physics research at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory—have produced definitive evidence for two physics phenomena predicted more than 80 years ago. The results were derived from a detailed analysis of more than 6,000 pairs of electrons and positrons produced in glancing particle collisions at RHIC and are published in Physical Review Letters.

The primary finding is that pairs of electrons and positrons—particles of matter and antimatter—can be created directly by colliding very energetic photons, which are quantum “packets” of light. This conversion of energetic light into matter is a direct consequence of Einstein’s famous E=mc2 equation, which states that energy and matter (or mass) are interchangeable. Nuclear reactions in the sun and at nuclear power plants regularly convert matter into energy. Now scientists have converted light energy directly into matter in a single step.

S.Korea fines Google $177 mln for blocking Android customisation | Reuters #copyrights #software

South Korea's antitrust regulator has fined Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google 207 billion won ($176.64 million) for blocking customised versions of its Android operating system (OS), in the U.S. technology giant's second setback in the country in less than a month.

The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) said on Tuesday Google's contract terms with device makers amounted to an abuse of its dominant market position that restricted competition in the mobile OS market.

Designing Beautiful Shadows in CSS #webdev

Intended audience

This tutorial is intended for developers who are comfortable with the basics of CSS. Some knowledge around box-shadow, hsl() colors, and CSS variables is assumed.

EU Funding for Dev Tools for the Decentralized Web | HTTP Toolkit #internet #software #privacy

Through the Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative, HTTP Toolkit has been selected for funding from the EU's Horizon research & innovation program, to expand beyond HTTP and offer the same interception, debugging & testing functionality for applications built on top of the decentralized web.

This is going to be a huge opportunity to invest in expanding HTTP Toolkit to support some very exciting new technologies, and extending existing core functionality to do so along the way.

Michelin's Airless Tires Hit the Streets For the First Time #engineering

Puncture-proof tires have been an intriguing concept for many years. Tire maker, Michelin, has been working on it since 2005 and after more than a decade of work, it is now closer to reality. The company took its puncture-proof tires for a spin for the first time, on an electric vehicle, in line with the company's goals of being more sustainable in the future.

More than three billion tires are produced annually around the world. Once beyond their lifetime, these tires usually end up in landfills. They are also at risk of catching fire and releasing toxic fumes into the atmosphere. Like with other things manmade, one way of making tires more eco-friendly is to make them out of naturally occurring material. The second is to reduce instances that cause wear and tear and render the tires useless. French tire manufacturer, Michelin, is using both these approaches to make its tires more 'green' in the future.

North Korean missiles land in Japan EEZ as nuclear threat grows | The Japan Times #politics #world

North Korea fired what appeared to be two ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan on Wednesday — an act Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga slammed as “outrageous” — just days after testing a new weapon believed to be capable of delivering a nuclear bomb to most of Japan.

The spate of tests in the span of less than a week have served to highlight that the North Korean nuclear issue can bubble to the surface at any time, despite the United States’ push to focus on China.

Japan’s Defense Ministry said the missiles appeared to be ballistic. Initially, it said they were not believed to have landed in Japanese territorial waters or its exclusive economic zone, an area 200 nautical miles (370 km) from its shores. But Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi walked back this claim late Wednesday, telling reporters that, based on further analysis, the missiles were estimated to have splashed down within its EEZ, making them the first to land that close to Japan since last October.

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Dainius