After months of negotiations, President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda advanced into its last phase of debate this week. The bipartisan infrastructure bill contains billions to expand high-speed broadband across the country, aiming to close the digital divide over the next 10 years. From a report: But the administration’s $65 billion down payment on…

After using Apple’s latest smartwatch for a couple of weeks, it dawned on me: This is a sneaky good upgrade …read more Source:: ZDNet

We’ve sifted through the kitchen aisles to find the best Black Friday deals, from air fryers to blenders. …read more Source:: ZDNet

Apple’s newest AirPods and AirPods Pro can withstand a little splashing, but don’t wear them while swimming. …read more Source:: CNet

Microsoft unveils new capabilities within Azure Synapse Analytics, Cosmos DB, and its stable of open source databases. …read more Source:: ZDNet

Common format and license floated to foster greater exchange of info for ML The non-profit Linux Foundation on Tuesday said it has teamed up with dataset management platform Graviti to develop Project OpenBytes, an initiative to make open data less legally risky through the development of data standards and formats.… …read more Source:: TheRegister

theodp writes: Chicago Public School (CPS) teachers were ‘blindsided’ after access to popular classroom software was yanked due to CPS’s interpretation of Illinois’ Student Online Personal Protection Act (SOPPA), the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Sneha Dey writes, “Among the software products that violate the law, CPS now says, are programs like Code.org, which is widely used…

The cybersecurity body reiterated that there is “no specific, credible threat to election infrastructure” but noted that they are “ready to provide cyber incident response and expertise if needed.” …read more Source:: ZDNet

Software developers [Andy Borka] and [Jason Fayre] have a love for aviation. They are also both totally blind. They’ve developed software called Talking Flight Monitor, and it has made flight simulation possible for anyone with impaired vision or blindness, as you can experience in the blurry video below the break. What draws them to aviation…

Facebook plans to shut down its decade-old facial recognition system this month, deleting the face scan data of more than one billion users and effectively eliminating a feature that has fueled privacy concerns, government investigations, a class-action lawsuit and regulatory woes. From a report: Jerome Pesenti, vice president of artificial intelligence at Meta, Facebook’s newly…