Thunderbird's Android app, which is actually the K-9 Mail project reborn, is almost out. You can check it out a bit early in a beta that will feel pretty robust to most users. Thunderbird, maintained by the Mozilla Foundation subsidiary MZLA, acquired the source code and naming rights to K-9 Mail, as announced in June 2022. The group also brought K-9 maintainer Christian Ketterer (or "cketti") onto the project. Their initial goals, before a full rebrand into Thunderbird, involved importing Thunderbird's automatic account setup, message filters, and mobile/desktop Thunderbird syncing. At the tail end of 2023, however, Ketterer wrote on K-9's blog that the punchlist of items before official Thunderbird-dom was taking longer than expected. But when it's fully released, Thunderbird for Android will have those features. As such, beta testers are asked to check out a specific list of things to see if they work, including automatic setup, folder management, and K-9-to-Thunderbird transfer. The beta will not be "addressing longstanding issues," Thunderbird's blog post notes. Read full article

Zoom plans to introduce a feature to let people effectively clone themselves digitally. There's concerns that this could be misused.

Brazil's Supreme Court is allowing Elon Musk's X to resume operations, apparently ending a months-long battle after the social network paid over $5 million in fines and reluctantly agreed to suspend accounts accused of spreading disinformation. The court yesterday issued a press release announcing the reinstatement, saying that X has complied with all the orders it previously defied. Brazil Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered that the suspension be ended and that telecom agency Anatel take steps to allow the platform's return. The dispute began in April, when X refused to suspend certain accounts belonging to supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro. X, formerly Twitter, was banned in Brazil for over a month. Internet providers, including Musk's Starlink service, were ordered to block the social network. Read full article

Palantir now owns 8.7% of struggling electric vehicle startup Faraday Future, according to a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The data-mining company was granted more than 800,000 shares in the EV startup on October 2 “as payment for certain outstanding receivables” — the equivalent of roughly $2.4 million judging by Faraday […]

Microsoft has fixed a known issue that was causing Word to delete some Windows users' documents instead of saving them....

Microsoft has fixed a known issue that was causing Word to delete some Windows users' documents instead of saving them....

Around twenty percent of the homeless people in the Netherlands are children. Another fifth are between the ages of 18 and 27.

General Motors is shaking up its electric vehicle strategy once again. Despite bumper EV sales in 2024, the US automaker told investors yesterday that it will stop branding its batteries under the Ultium name. Perhaps more consequentially, it's also abandoning its one-cell-type-fits-all strategy and will embrace a wider range of cell chemistries and physical formats in forthcoming EVs. GM debuted the Ultium brand in March 2020 as part of a much-hyped EV plan that was supposed to see 22 new electric models on sale in the US by 2023. The company formed a $2.3 billion joint venture with LG Chem, called Ultium Cells LLC, and decided on a family of common batteries across its brands, using a nickel manganese cobalt aluminum chemistry in a pouch cell format that could be combined in modules for packs as small as 50 kWh or larger than 200 kWh, as found in the Hummer and Silverado EVs. Most importantly, GM chair and CEO Mary Barra said that Ultium cells would drop below the important $100/kWh barrier "early in the platform's life." Read full article