The Insider News

Quartz[^]:

French finance minister Bruno Le Maire says the country will move ahead with a new tax on Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon starting Jan. 1, 2019. The tax is expected to raise €500 million ($570 million) in 2019.

Ars Technica[^]:

With Microsoft's decision to end development of its own Web rendering engine and switch to Chromium, control over the Web has functionally been ceded to Google. That's a worrying turn of events, given the company's past behavior.

NYT First sentence:

For half a century, the Stanford computer scientist Donald Knuth, who bears a slight resemblance to Yoda — albeit standing 6-foot-4 and wearing glasses — has reigned as the spirit-guide of the algorithmic realm.

The Intercept:

GOOGLE HAS BEEN forced to shut down a data analysis system it was using to develop a censored search engine for China after members of the company’s privacy team raised internal complaints that it had been kept secret from them, The Intercept has learned.

The internal rift over the system has had massive ramifications, effectively ending work on the censored search engine, known as Dragonfly, according to two sources familiar with the plans.

Techspot[^]:

Instead of relying on Windows Insiders, employees, and willing participants in testing updates, Microsoft has decided it is acceptable for regular users to receive patches before they are known to be stable if they opt to click the "check for updates" button on their own.

Geek.com[^]:

The Grand Rapids Public School district took a big step into the future back in the 1980s when it used money from an energy bond to purchase a Commodore Amiga computer.

Computerworld[^]:

Everybody’s talking about ambient computing. And there is so much to talk about. But with all this chatter comes confusion. People disagree on what ambient computing is, how it works and what it’s for. So let’s bring clarity to this muddled and confused concept.