Yi-Chi Shih — the 64-year-old engineer in question, and also a part-time Los Angeles resident — was found guilty of conspiring to export sensitive semiconductor chips with military applications to China without the required export license, according to the Department of Justice (DoJ). “The jury also found Shih guilty of mail fraud, wire fraud, subscribing to a false tax return, making false statements to a government agency, and conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information,” the DoJ said....

Financial support packages for this segment of the economy have been strong, typified by the UK Chancellor’s commitment to a £330 billion loan scheme. This, and similar measures across the continent, will come as a relief to many small and medium-sized firms. But there are gaps — notably a lack of recognition of the needs, and the role, of tech startups in the European economy. Protecting the so-called ‘backbone’ of any economy, which for many countries is small and medium-sized enterprises, is a fundamental part of managing an economic crisis....

The safest locations for settlers could be under the Moon’s surface. The European Space Agency (ESA) believes lunar caves could provide shelter from radiation, micrometeorites, and extreme temperatures — and perhaps even access to water ice deposits. The agency is currently testing an autonomous robot that it hopes will offer new insights into conditions in the caverns. [Read: How to use AI to better serve your customers] Named DAEDALUS, the 46-cm sphere would be lowered into a cave’s mouth from a long tether and then use its own power to roll away....

The company, founded in 2017, announced first quarter results yesterday, and there are some alarming details. There are alot of big numbers and technical terms for those of us without a degree in finance or accounting. But let’s take a look at who Canoo is, its offerings, and what its financial woes might mean for the company. Canoo’s funky designs Canoo kicked off its subscription-based business with the Lifestyle vehicle in 2019, an electric van that a buyer could configure to suit different use cases such as delivery or passenger carrying....

— Henrik Fisker (@henrikfisker) July 13, 2020 According to an announcement made earlier today, Fisker and Spartan Energy Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company, have entered into a definitive agreement for a business merger that would effectively make Fisker a publicly listed company. [Read: Tesla’s idea of a ‘cheaper’ Model Y is a long range single motor version] Fisker’s merger here is similar to what EV startup Nikola did to get the company listed publicly....

The Galaxy Z Fold 3 Third time’s the charm, as the Z Fold 3 seems to take significant steps to address people’s biggest complaints about the series. Samsung did not announce a new Note series phone today but instead brought a stylus to the Fold family. The Z Fold 3 is compatible with a special S-pen that retracts to prevent too much force from being applied to the display. The phone is packing a display that is “80% more durable” than the previous Folds and is water-resistant for the first time....

You wouldn’t go weeks without washing your bedding, continuously use the same coffee mug, or wear the same socks every day — or maybe you would, but you’re missing the point. Like anything you use every day, it needs cleaning, and that includes your — probably disease-riddled — laptop. But we’re not here to make you feel bad about your gross life choices, we’ve instead produced a handy guide on how to clean your laptop exterior safely, whatever the brand....

But today, the company is taking one of its broadest moderation moves ever, banning “any Facebook Pages, Groups, and Instagram accounts representing QAnon, even if they contain no violent content.” The company says the decision comes about because calls for violence are just one form of “real world harm, including recent claims that the west coast wildfires were started by certain groups.” The company also cites the fact that “QAnon messaging changes very quickly and we see networks of supporters build an audience with one message and then quickly pivot to another....

That said, the feature isn’t simply being forced on users yet. TechCrunch says at the moment the feature is opt-in; you can access it by going to Facebook.com’s settings menu and tapping “see new Facebook.” At the moment you can still revert to the old Facebook if you don’t like it, so it’s not a permanent switch. While I’m not seeing the option for the new design yet, several people I know do....

A swathe of popular services, including Spotify, Pinterest, Twitter, Viber, Venmo, Tinder, and even Apple’s App Store, are experiencing technical difficulties. The exact number of affected users is unclear at present, but over 15,000 people have collectively reported unable to access Spotify, Pinterest, and Waze, according to Down Detector. The issues mostly affect iOS apps, so in case you’re struggling to access any services on your iPhone or iPad devices, now you know why....

The contest — meant to develop technology for detecting deepfakes and prevent people from falling prey to misinformation — is expected to from late 2019 until spring of 2020. But training an algorithm to single out doctored videos isn’t an easy task, as it requires massive datasets of deepfakes. Which is why, the social media giant said it will use paid, consenting actors to create a library of deepfake videos in order to train and improve tools to combat the threat of such videos plaguing the platforms....

On the group’s conclusions, Patrick Grother, a NIST computer scientist and the report’s primary author, said: In other words: Most facial recognition systems are biased. And they’re biased against anyone who isn’t white, male, and middle-aged. Key takeaways from the study include: ACLU Senior Policy Analyst Jay Stanley issued the following statement concerning the report: The bottom line is that facial recognition systems are inherently biased. Whether they’re being used by law enforcement, your HR department, or on your phone: They represent a technology community that’s okay with “it works for white middle-aged men” being the bar for a product or service’s launch....

Covid-19 has leveled out this seemingly stiffly-structured playing field by streamlining the process of accessing and determining the companies that could best fit a VC’s portfolio. Yet according to Dealroom, the number of companies in the European ecosystem is decreasing while the amount of capital under management and the number of private market investors is growing. The result? There is more competition than ever. With so much varied, high-caliber VC interest, founders will have a hard time choosing which investors really are the right fit for their company, at the right stage....

Amidst the current recession and looming uncertainty, VCs seem to be pulling out of the market, which means that startups need to turn to alternative sources of funding — like angel investors and funds. Speaking at TNW Conference 2022, Tim Mills, Managing Partner at the ACF Investors Angel CoFund, explained: The big advantage of angel investments is that financing is much less risky than debt financing. Unlike a loan, invested capital does’t have to be paid back in the event of business failure....

Authorities reportedly seized $41 million worth of funds seemingly linked to these markets, and over 200 servers which were running throughout the closely guarded facility. Seven people have been arrested and the main suspect in the long-running investigation is a 59-year-old Dutch man who police believe bought the former military bunker in Traben-Trarbach (western Germany), Associated Press reports. After he acquired the bunker, the man allegedly transformed it into a large and heavily secured data processing center “in order to make it available to clients, according to our investigations, exclusively for illegal purposes,” prosecutor Juergen Bauer said....

According to a report by Automotive News Europe (ANE), the framework is currently being reviewed by the transportation ministry and other government departments. All being well, the legislation could be ready for next summer. “The planned new legal framework should create the prerequisites in the current legislative period to allow for the standard operation of autonomous, driverless motorized vehicles on public roads, limited geographically to a defined environment,” the German transportation ministry told ANE....

It doesn’t so much matter what you do with your time; rather, success is measured by whether you did what you planned to do. It’s fine to watch a video, scroll social media, daydream, or take a nap, as long as that’s what you planned to do. Alternatively, checking work email, a seemingly productive task, is a distraction if it’s done when you intended to spend time with your family or work on a presentation....

In the past couple of years, almost all major apps have rolled out a dark theme for its users, so why not GitHub? The company is introducing the feature in beta for your text editor, IDE, and terminal starting today. The code hosting platform is also rolling out an auto-merge pull request feature that’ll free administrators from overseeing every code commit. Folks who make pull requests often have to wait for approval for even simple changes....

GitHub’s CEO, Nat Friedman, said the firm has finally got a nod from the government to resume its services in Iran: He added that while the company complied with sanctions over the past months, it tried to reach a solution with the US treasury department to allow open access of GitHub to countries with trade restrictions. At last, it received permission to resume services this week. As we reported later in 2019, Iranian developers faced really tough times as they struggled to find hosting services due to the US sanctions....

Google will show these labels for the app on the Play Store under the new Saftey section. It’ll show you what kind of data the app collects — approximate or exact location, personal information, photos, and storage — and how it plans to use the data. The iPhone maker gave a glimpse of these labels last year at the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), and introduced them to the App Store later in December....