Month: June 2022

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | nevarpp)

European telecom regulator BEREC has updated its net neutrality guidelines to include a strict ban on zero-rating practices that exempt specific apps or categories of apps from data caps imposed by Internet service providers.

The document published yesterday provides guidance to national regulatory authorities on their "obligations to closely monitor and ensure compliance with the rules to safeguard equal and non-discriminatory treatment of traffic in the provision of Internet access services and related end-users' rights." BEREC stands for Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications.

"Despite intense lobbying from big carriers and giant platforms, BEREC voted to clearly ban zero-rating offers that benefit select apps or categories of apps by exempting them from people's monthly data caps," Stanford Law Professor Barbara van Schewick wrote. "The ban applies whether the app pays to be included or not, closing a loophole in the draft guidelines."

Enlarge / Amazon's latest delivery drone design, the MK27-2. (credit: Amazon)

Amazon is detailing plans to begin its drone delivery service, Amazon Prime Air. The company still has some regulatory obstacles to overcome but expects drones to be dropping packages into customers' backyards in Lockeford, California, by the end of 2022.

In a blog post this week, Amazon said that after receiving approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Lockeford officials, it would launch its drone delivery service in Lockeford and build it based on customer feedback. Amazon said it's already been working with the FAA and has acquired an air carrier certificate.

Amazon highlighted Lockeford's connection to aviation, namely former resident and 1900s aviator Weldon B. Cooke. But it probably also helps that Lockeford is a rural town. It's about 100 miles east of San Francisco, with an estimated population of about 3,500. Amazon also has some facilities in the city's San Joaquin County.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

Microsoft's Internet Explorer has died many deaths over the years, but today is the one that counts. The final version of the browser, Internet Explorer 11, will no longer receive support or security updates starting today, and it will gradually be removed from Windows 10 PCs via a Windows Update at some point in the future. It was never installed on Windows 11 PCs at all.

Microsoft says that people who open Internet Explorer "over the next few months" will "progressively" be redirected toward Microsoft Edge instead, which will offer to import all bookmarks and saved passwords to ease the transition. For users and businesses who need Internet Explorer to access individual websites, Microsoft will continue to support IE mode in Microsoft Edge until "at least 2029." IE mode combines the user interface of Edge with IE11's old Trident rendering engine, allowing older websites that don't render correctly in newer browsers to continue to work.

That's the end of the line for Internet Explorer, a browser that annihilated all competitors in the late-'90s browser wars only to be decisively wiped out in the early-2010s browser wars. For those who weren't there, we've put together a brief history of the life and times of Internet Explorer. IE's heyday is a distant memory, but the entire story is worth knowing. Google Chrome is on top of the world today, but that didn't happen overnight, and the browser wars have been nothing if not cyclical.

Enlarge / Tesla is facing multiple federal investigations into the safety of its automated and partially automated driving systems. New data from NHTSA shows the automaker accounted for three quarters of all crashes involving advanced driver assists in the past year. (credit: Tesla)

On Wednesday morning, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released data on the safety, or lack thereof, of advanced driver assistance systems. Since June 2021, automakers have been required to inform NHTSA if any of their vehicles crash while using partially automated driving systems, also known as SAE level 2 systems.

As many suspected, Tesla's Autopilot system accounted for the majority of crashes since the reporting period began. In fact, Teslas represented three-quarters of all ADAS crashes—273 out of 367 crashes reported between July 2021 and May 15, 2022. The news provides yet more data undermining Tesla's safety claims about its Autopilot system.

In the past, Tesla and even NHTSA have claimed that Autopilot reduced crash rates by 40 percent. However, as we reported in 2018, that claim fell apart once a consulting company called Quality Control Systems got its hands on the data.