As he vies for the Republican presidential nomination, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is touting a series of measures he has pushed that have led to an upswing in banned or restricted books — not just in Florida schools but in an increasing number of other conservative states

SHENZHEN, China--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 1, 2023--

Google and the US Justice Department are beginning what might be the most decisive tech trial in a generation. The lawsuit could have substantial consequences – not only for the search giant, but for its rivals such as Apple and Meta, and the technology industry more broadly. The antitrust trial will examine claims from critics that Google has unfairly used its power to become dominant in a variety of parts of technology, in particular its search engine. The United States will argue Google didn’t play by the rules in its efforts to dominate online search in a trial seen as a battle for the soul of the Internet. The US Justice Department is expected to detail how Google paid billions of dollars annually to device makers like Apple, wireless companies like AT&T and browser makers like Mozilla to keep Google‘s search engine atop the leader board. DuckDuckGo has also complained, for example, that removing Google as the default search engine on a device and replacing it with DuckDuckGo takes too many steps, helping keep them to a measly 2.3% market share. DuckDuckGo, Microsoft and Yahoo are among a long list of Google competitors who will be watching the trial closely. “Google makes it unduly difficult to use DuckDuckGo by default. We’re glad this issue is finally going to have its day in court,” said DuckDuckGo spokesman Kamyl Bazbaz who said thatGoogle had a “stranglehold on major distribution points for more than a decade.” Google has denied wrongdoing and is prepared to vigorously defend itself. The legal fight has huge implications for Big Tech, which has been accused of buying or strangling small competitors but has insulated itself against many accusations of breaking antitrust law because the services the companies provide to users are free, as in the case of Alphabet’s Google and Facebook, or low price, as in the case of Amazon.com. “It would be difficult to overstate the importance of this case, particularly for monopolies and companies with significant market share,” antitrust lawyer Luke Hasskamp told Reuters. “This will be a major case, particularly for the major tech companies of the world (Google, Apple, Twitter, and others), which have grown to have an outsized role in nearly all our lives,” he added. Previous antitrust trials of similar importance include Microsoft, filed in 1998, and AT&T, filed in 1974. The AT&T breakup in 1982 is credited with paving the way for the modern cell phone industry while the fight with Microsoft is credited with opening space for Google and others on the internet. Congress tried to rein in Big Tech last year but largely missed. It considered bills to check the market power of the companies, like legislation to prevent them from preferencing their own products, but failed to pass the most aggressive of them. Big Tech’s rivals now pin their hope on Judge Amit Mehta, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The lawsuit that goes to trial was brought by former President Donald Trump’s Justice Department. In a rare show of bipartisan agreement, President Joe Biden’s Justice Department has pressed on with the lawsuit and filed a second one against Google in January focused on advertising technology. Judge Mehta will decide if Google has broken antitrust law in this first trial, and, if so, what should be done. The government has asked the judge to order Google to stop any illegal activity but also urged “structural relief as needed,” raising the possibility that the tech giant could be ordered broken up. The government’s strongest arguments are those against Google‘s revenue sharing agreements with Android makers, which requires Google to be the only search on the smartphone in exchange for a percentage of search advertising revenue, said Daniel McCuaig, a partner at Cohen Milstein who was formerly with the U.S. Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. Additional reporting by Reuters Read More AI can help generate synthetic viruses and spark pandemics, warns ex-Google executive Google boss says he wants to make people ‘shrug’ How Google reshaped the world – and is about to do it all over again AI is using vast amounts of water Elon Musk says monkeys implanted with Neuralink brain chips were ‘close to death’ Volcano discovery could power electric cars for decades, scientists say

OSLO Norwegian telecoms firm Telenor has recruited Google Cloud's Amol Phadke as its new Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

The Russian space agency says its Luna-25 spacecraft has crashed into the moon after it had spun into uncontrolled orbit

The name “core” suggests something hard and fixed but, it turns out, the Earth’s core is leaking. That is, at least, according to a team of top scientists, who drew the conclusion after analysing 62-million-old Arctic rocks. Geochemists from the California Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution detected record concentrations of helium 3 (3He) and helium 4 (4He) isotopes in the rocks, which suggest a slow trickle up from the very heart of our planet. They believe there could be reserves of the elusive gas buried some 2,900km underground. Helium is a surprisingly rare element on the Earth’s surface and experts have yet to establish just how much of it remains trapped deep beneath our feet. However, the new discovery has provided them with a fresh insight into the most mysterious region of our world. Understanding the presence of these helium isotopes could illuminate key processes in the core, such as how the Earth generated its life-protecting magnetic field. Most helium in the universe dates back to the Big Bang which occurred 13.8 billion years ago. The Earth swallowed up some of this as an infant planet, but mostly burped it all away during its 4.6 billion-year-long formation, as Science Alert reports. This means that any traces of helium found in volcanic rock – such as the samples unearthed in the Arctic – are believed to come either from pockets of mantle that are yet to release their helium, or from a vast, slow-leaking reserve. Basaltic lavas on Canada's Baffin Island contain some of the world's highest ratios of 3He to 4He, which geologists believe indicates that the gas's presence is not to do with the atmosphere, but rather the sign of deeper terrestrial origins. Several years ago, geochemist Forrest Horton uncovered helium isotope ratios of up to 50 times that of atmospheric levels in samples collected from Baffin's lava fields. This unusual concentration was also detected in lavas collected from Iceland. Horton and his team wondered if the helium in both samples may have derived from an ancient reservoir deep within the crust. And, it seems, their hunch may have been right. Their latest analysis – including specimens of the mineral olivine taken from dozens of sites across Baffin and surrounding islands – has delivered the highest ratio of 3He to 4He ever recorded in volcanic rock – measuring nearly 70 times anything previously detected in the atmosphere, as Science Alert notes. The team also considered ratios of other isotopes in order to rule out factors that may have altered the helium’s composition post-volcanic eruption, and found that the ratio of isotopes in the gas neon also matched the conditions present during the Earth’s formation. Despite advances in geology, the Earth’s core remains a great mystery, given that we have no way of directly exploring its core. The deepest hole humans have ever dug – branded the "entrance to hell" – extended an impressive 12,263m (40,230ft) down, but even that doesn’t come close to breaking through the crust to the layers beneath. Still, thanks to techniques like seismic tomography – which analyses how waves of energy travel through different materials during earthquakes – we’ve been able to map out the world’s interior. And carefully crafted simulations, based on the thermodynamics and pressures of our planet’s innards, suggest reserves of noble gases (like helium and neon) trapped in the core could have been protected as the Earth grew before seeping into the surrounding mantle over time. If the core is leaking, this could teach us a thing or two about how planets like ours form and how life, eventually, emerges. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings

By Jonathan Stempel and Nate Raymond A federal judge on Tuesday rejected efforts by major social media companies

It's important to stay secure when browsing online, and while you can take measures to

'Sister Wives' star Christine Brown has always been seen posting about her daughters, but nver her son

Are you still advertising on X, the Elon Musk-owned social media platform formerly known as

SEOUL, South Korea--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 20, 2023--

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 14, 2023--