A proposed deal for Purdue Pharma to resolve opioid lawsuits is facing pushback from some state attorneys general who say it doesn’t bring in enough cash to satisfy their demands.
The new flag for US Space Command is unveiled during a ceremony with President Trump | Credit: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images Today, the Trump administration stood up a new unified combatant command within the military that will be entirely focused on space. Aptly named the US Space Command, the organization will be run by a four-star general, and it will be responsible for setting the US’s military agenda and doctrine for space in the years to come. “As the newest combatant command SPACECOM will defend America’s vital interests in space — the next warfighting domain,” President Donald Trump said today at a ceremony standing up Space Command. “And I think that’s pretty obvious to everybody. It’s all about space.” Following Trump’s speech about the merits of Space Command, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper signed documents that formally established the organization. A new flag for the command was also unveiled at the ceremony. “It’s all about space.” In reality, the US Space Command isn’t actually new. The military once had a Space Command, established back in 1985 after there was a push to focus on space warfighting. It operated for nearly 20 years, but after the September 11th terror attacks, the US wanted to focus more on warfighting in North America. As a result, Space Command got tucked into US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), which is focused on nuclear deterrence. Since then, the military’s space strategy has come out of that combatant command from the Joint Force Space Component Command (JFSCC). But from today onward, the national security space agenda will be decided by a standalone group. Space Command is a different entity from Trump’s proposed Space Force. If the Space Force becomes a thing, it’ll be focused on organizing, training, and equipping, or OTE. That means figuring out what kind of space assets need to be made — such as satellites for surveillance, communication, navigation, and more — building those satellites, and then training people to operate them. A combatant command, on the other hand, is focused on higher-level warfighting. For space, that entails figuring out how to integrate the use of these satellites into the Department of Defense’s missions. “All of the combatant commands have all their own war plans,” Brian Weeden, director of program planning for the Secure World Foundation, an organization that promotes sustainable space solutions, tells The Verge. “How does space fit into those? Space Command is now going to be helping with that.” The other big responsibility of the Space Command is to come up with the military’s playbook for space-related scenarios. “The biggest thing that a combatant command does is it thinks about all the bad things that could happen in its area of control,” says Weeden. “And then they put together a plan for how to respond to all of those bad things that can happen.” For instance, if some foreign adversary were to, say, hack a US surveillance satellite, the Space Command would have a detailed checklist for how to respond to such an event. And they would figure out a protocol for who is in charge of handling the situation. “what it does is it creates the conditions for things to change in the future.” Very little is actually changing, though, except for some bureaucratic reshuffling. The organization is still being run by the same person — Gen. John Raymond — except now he doesn’t need to report to the leader of USSTRATCOM. Much of the same personnel who were working on space warfighting within USSTRATCOM are going to be doing the same for US Space Command, too. And while the location of the command’s headquarters has yet to be decided, the two main components of Space Command will be organizations that are already in operation: the Combined Space Operation Center (CSpOC) at Vandenberg Air Force Base, and the National Space Defense Center (NSDC), in Colorado Springs. CSpOC is in charge of enhancing the nation’s space capabilities as well as coordinating the space agenda between the US, international partners, and commercial enterprises. The NSDC is responsible for identifying and warning against threats to the US’s space assets. For now, it’s unclear how this resurrection of a separate Space Command will change things. But the fact that space warfighting will be decided by a fully independent organization may mean a sharper focus on national security space issues, says Weeden. “It’s not actually that different,” he says. “I would say what it does is it creates the conditions for things to change in the future.” In the meantime, the future of the Space Force has yet to be decided. Ultimately, the decision is now in the hands of Congress, which will decide whether to stand up the new military branch and how much money it will receive if so. That decision may come once Congress decides on the next National Defense Authorization Act for 2020. For now, the newly minted Space Command will be in full swing, starting today. “Just as we have recognized land, air, sea, and cyber as vital warfighting domains, we will now treat space as an independent region, overseen by a new unified geographic combatant command,” said Trump.
Microsoft is planning to redesign the tablet experience for Windows 10. The software giant has started testing a new design for 2-in-1 convertible PCs that will keep the user interface more similar to the existing desktop design. Currently, Windows 10 throws you into a more tablet-optimized UI that removes task bar icons and puts the Start menu full-screen when a device automatically switches into “tablet mode.” Microsoft is now walking back some of those changes, while keeping some touch-optimized elements for 2-in-1 PCs. In the new tablet experience, the desktop will remain in full view, with the task bar icons visible and increased spacing between them. If enabled, the search box will collapse into an icon, and the touch keyboard will appear when you tap on a text field. File Explorer will also switch to a touch-optimized layout.
We’ll have to try these design tweaks fully to see how many other changes have been made. Microsoft is testing this with Windows Insiders and has marked the design as beta, suggesting it will change and be shaped by feedback. Still, it’s hard not to see this as Microsoft walking back from a dedicated tablet experience in Windows 10. These new changes will trigger automatically when you remove a keyboard from a device like a Surface Pro, and Microsoft has confirmed that a dedicated “tablet mode” will remain but you’ll have to enable it manually. Microsoft already dropped a large amount of its Windows 8 tablet features that worked well on hybrid devices, and this tweak bring us back to the days of minimal Windows 7 touch improvements. These changes are only being made for 2-in-1 devices, so dedicated Windows 10 tablets will continue to have the full tablet experience that exists in the operating system. Microsoft is looking for feedback either way, and Windows tablet fans will definitely be ready to jump in and test these changes. Alongside the tablet experience changes, Microsoft is now testing a cloud download option to reset and restore Windows 10 PCs. It’s similar to what has existed in macOS for years and for some Surface devices, and it will allow Windows users to quickly reinstall the OS without needing it to be installed on the local disk or having a recovery USB drive. Update, August 29th 5:45PM ET: Microsoft has clarified that tablet mode will remain, but these changes are designed to be automatically enabled when you remove a keyboard on a device like a Surface Pro.
Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge Just a few hours after Tesla launched its in-house car insurance product in California on August 28th, the company stopped offering rate quotes and suspended access to the insurance website. It now appears to be live again as of 8PM ET on August 29th. But even during the time Tesla’s insurance site was working and offering owners quotes, some people weren’t happy with the results. The problem with starting up a whole new part of your business is… you have to start up a whole new part of your business Tesla tells The Verge those two things are actually related; the company says it found “bugs” that were affecting some customers’ rate quotes, but it declined to offer any specifics beyond that. The company said it will get the website back up as soon as that’s resolved, without saying when that resolution might be. We found it had gone live again as of this evening. Tesla’s insurance mini-site launched around 3PM ET on Wednesday, but users reported trouble accessing the site within just a few hours. At 6:49PM ET, the company tweeted it was “making some updates to Tesla Insurance” and that the service would “be back online shortly.” Seventeen minutes later, the company tweeted again that there was an “Algorithm update in progress.” That same language also shows up if you try to click on the link that originally took people to the Tesla Insurance mini-site. Both the Tesla Motors subreddit and the company’s owner forums are littered with posts from people who claim they received quotes that were higher than expected. That appears to have disappointed some owners since the company promised rates that were up to 20 percent lower than the competition. (However, most of those irked owners didn’t provide evidence of the comparisons they were complaining about.) The insurance offering may give Tesla a way to create bigger margins with a product that doesn’t require as much money to set up as the process of designing and manufacturing cars. But the problem with starting up a whole new part of your business is… you have to start up a whole new part of your business. And sometimes, new things break. Update, 8:20PM ET: Added that Tesla Insurance’s site appears to be live again.
A privately owned and operated surveillance network has sprung up around the country, and police are getting in on the action.
Amazon’s Ring has partnered with law enforcement agencies to distribute, subsidize, and manage its Neighbors Portal program. The service allows police to request surveillance footage captured by individuals’ home Ring cameras, and for the entirety of the program’s history its scope and reach have been mostly a mystery. Until now.
Following great reporting by both Motherboard and Gizmodo, Amazon on Wednesday decided to finally come clean about the scale of its Neighbors Portal program. Read more…
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