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Mark Zuckerberg says he'll fight any government effort to break up Facebook
In a leaked recording of an internal Facebook Q&A session, CEO Mark Zuckerberg says that government proposals to break up Facebook's tech and communications monopoly, supported by Democrat presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, are an existential threat to the company and that in response “you go to the mat and you fight” (TechCrunch).
In the same session, Zuckerberg highlighted the influence Facebook and other major tech firms have on US electoral politics and interference. Warren responded by criticising Facebook's anticompetitive practices and pledging to “hold Big Tech companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon accountable”.
Google and Mozilla are rolling out encrypted DNS and ISPs don't like it
The giants of the US telecoms industry are up in arms about Google and Mozilla's planned introduction of encrypted DNS to their browsers, which would make users' activities more private but also remove some of the service providers' ability to monitor and rewrite DNS queries (Ars Technica).
ISPs are concerned because this inhibits their ability to do everything from spying on user activity – for example to police copyright infringement – and serving targeted adverts to blocking domains and applying adult content filters. However, in the US, the telcos are conflating their complaints with an assertion that Google will redirect Chrome users' traffic through its own DNS over HTTPS servers, something Google says it has no plans to do.
Nasa's creating nuclear rockets to help put humans on Mars
In 1958, the USA's Redstone rocket became the first to detonate a nuclear weapon; three years later, it carried the first American into space (WIRED). The tangled history of nukes and space is again resurfacing, just up the road from the Redstone test stand near Huntsville, Alabama. This time Nasa engineers want to create something deceptively simple: a rocket engine powered by nuclear fission.
Transgenic mosquito study claims fire controversy among researchers
Contributors to a study whose findings showed that DNA from genetically modified mosquitoes had made it into the local population are contesting some of the lead author's conclusions (Science). Specifically, a number of researchers dispute that claim that the introduction of DNA from Oxitec's GM mosquitoes – which were supposed to mate with the local population and pass on a gene that would kill their offspring – would “very likely result in a more robust population than the pre-release population,” saying that there's no evidence for this kind of hybrid vigour.
Rocket League is eliminating loot boxes
Competitive car football game Rocket League is getting rid of loot boxes in response to bans and concerns about gambling around the world (Eurogamer). The game's developer, Epic Games-owned Psyonix, has revealed the new system that'll replace them in December. Rather than blind Crates that can be unlocked with a paid-for key, players will instead pick up random blueprints at the end of matches, which clearly show what you get and can be crafted into a specific item by spending the game's new paid-for Credits.
Google’s quantum leap
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
