Techlife News #548

Groups that want the U.S. Postal Service to buy more electric delivery vehicles are suing to halt purchases of thousands of gas-powered trucks as the agency modernizes its mail delivery fleet. Two lawsuits, filed Thursday in New York and California, ask judges to order a more thorough environmental review before the Postal Service moves forward with the next-generation delivery vehicle program. Plaintiffs contend that purchases of fossil fuel-powered delivery vehicles will cause environmental harm for decades to come. “Louis DeJoy’s gas-guzzling fleet guarantees decades of pollution with every postcard and package,” said Scott Hochberg, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, referring to the postmaster general. One lawsuit was filed by Earthjustice, Center for Biological Diversity, CleanAirNow KC and Sierra Club in San Francisco. Another was filed by the Natural Resources Defense…

Facebook parent Meta’s first quarter profit and its count of daily users jumped past Wall Street’s expectations despite the company’s slowest revenue growth since going public a decade ago. Shares were up sharply in after-hours trading. Meta cut a sharp contrast with Google parent Alphabet, which this week reported what analysts called disappointing earnings, with profit below Wall Street’s expectations. Google also reported a revenue growth slowdown, but for Meta this appeared to have been mitigated by an increase in daily active users that“was enough to send the shorts covering and the stock surging,”said Jesse Cohen, senior analyst at Investing.com. “That being said, it was a mixed report overall as the social media giant continues to struggle with slowing revenue growth amid reduced ad spending amid the current inflationary environment,”Cohen said. Apple’s recent…

It took Jack Craven 20 years to grasp that running his family’s wholesale business selling goods to discount stores wasn’t how he wanted to spend the second half of his life. He also figured out his ever-mounting unhappiness had taken a toll on his relationships with loved ones. “I realized that I wasn’t taking ownership of what I really wanted,” said Craven, who lives in suburban Chicago. “I was more focused on blaming others.” So how did he make it through to the other side? With the pandemic’s Great Resignation has come a Great Reinvention as more people of all ages have given up on jobs and find themselves pondering the work-life balance that lends meaning to their lives. At times, it’s transforming a side hustle as Craven did. In other cases, it’s…

Climate change will result in thousands of new viruses spread among animal species by 2070 — and that’s likely to increase the risk of emerging infectious diseases jumping from animals to humans, according to a new study. This is especially true for Africa and Asia, continents that have been hotspots for deadly disease spread from humans to animals or vice versa over the last several decades, including the flu, HIV, Ebola and coronavirus. Researchers, who published their findings Thursday in the journal Nature, used a model to examine how over 3,000 mammal species might migrate and and share viruses over the next 50 years if the world warms by 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), which recent research shows is possible. They found that cross-species virus spread will happen over 4,000 times among…

Russia’s relentless digital assaults on Ukraine may have caused less damage than many anticipated. But most of its hacking is focused on a different goal that gets less attention but has chilling potential consequences: data collection. Ukrainian agencies breached on the eve of the Feb. 24 invasion include the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which oversees the police, national guard and border patrol. A month earlier, a national database of automobile insurance policies was raided during a diversionary cyberattack that defaced Ukrainian websites. The hacks, paired with prewar data theft, likely armed Russia with extensive details on much of Ukraine’s population, cybersecurity and military intelligence analysts say. It’s information Russia can use to identify and locate Ukrainians most likely to resist an occupation, and potentially target them for internment or worse. “Fantastically useful information…

China has granted Chinese internet services company Baidu and a rival autonomous car company, Pony.ai, permits to provide driverless ride-hailing services to the public in Beijing, a significant regulatory step in the country’s pursuit of driverless technology. The permits given to Baidu and Pony.ai allow them to offer rides without a safety driver behind the wheel to take over in cases of an emergency. The new permits still require a safety supervisor to be seated in the front passenger seat. Baidu said 10 such autonomous cars began offering rides to passengers within a 60-square-kilometer (23-square-mile) area in suburban Beijing from Thursday. Baidu already operates an autonomous fleet of taxis in Beijing under its Apollo Go ride-hailing services, but they must have a safety driver behind the wheel. China has ambitions to lead autonomous driving…