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Europe charges Apple with antitrust breach – TechCrunch Apple faces an antitrust complaint in Europe, TikTok has a new CEO and YouTube TV disappears from Roku. This is your Daily Crunch for April 30, 2021. Also, this is my last day at TechCrunch , and therefore my last day writing The Daily Crunch. It’s been a blast rounding up the news for all of you, and thank you to everyone who took the time to tell me they enjoyed the newsletter. On Monday, TechCrunch will be debuting a more collaborative approach to The Daily Crunch — stay tuned! The big story: Europe charges Apple with antitrust breach The European Commission has filed preliminary charges against Apple , focusing on complaints by Spotify that Apple’s App Store policies — particularly its requirements around in-app purchase — are anti-competitive. “The Commission takes issue with the mandatory use of Apple’s own in-app purchase mechanism imposed on music streaming app developers to distribute their apps via Apple’s App St...

One-Third of Basecamp Employees Have Reportedly Quit at Once Image: Basecamp Within a week, Basecamp’s loathed no-politics-at-work rule has escalated to a mass exodus. This afternoon, reporter Casey Newton tweeted that around one-third of the company’s employees accepted buyouts following a “contentious all-hands meeting.” The software company behind Ruby on Rails, Campfire, and HEY was, until this week or so, generally perceived by outsiders as one of the good ones. The stir came out of left field on Tuesday, when co-founder and CEO Jason Fried announced a ban on “societal and political discussions” within the company Basecamp account. The move depressingly aligned with similar internal policies at companies like Google and Amazon , who’ve also lost all semblance of moral superiority. Fried and co-founder David Heinemeier Hansson , who have together authored a handful of books on reimagining the workplace, defended the decision as a positive change for employee well-be...

Deadline to file comments to the HIPAA NPRM is fast approaching – Privacy Matters Authors: Emily Maus and Anna Spencer HIPAA covered entities and business associates should finalize their comments soon, before the comment period for the 2020 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ( NPRM ) closes on May 6.  The Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which is the federal agency within the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that enforces HIPAA, released the NPRM on December 10, 2020 and later extended the deadline for submission of comments from March 22 to May 6. The NPRM proposes a number of significant modifications to HIPAA, including changes to the provisions on the right of access to Protected Health Information (PHI), the use and disclosure of PHI for care coordination and case management, and permitted disclosures to assist persons in situations involving Substance Use Disorders (SUDs), Severe Mental Illness (SMI...

Anxiety Is Cause of Fainting That Was Linked to Vaccines Empty vials of the Johnson & Johnson covid-19 vaccine used at the Klerksdorp hospital in South Africa on February 18, 2021 Photo: Phill Magakoe (Getty Images) A cluster of people who came down with symptoms possibly linked to covid-19 vaccines likely actually experienced a brief bout of anxiety, researchers with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say. In early April, several reports emerged that people in at least five different vaccination sites in the U.S. experienced almost immediate symptoms after vaccination, all in different states. These symptoms predominantly included fainting, as well as dizziness, lightheadedness, and rapid breathing. The incidents, which all involved people vaccinated with the Johnson & Johnson one-dose vaccine, led to the temporary shutdown of several sites, and both local health officials and the CDC pledged to look into the matter. Ultimately, CDC officials l...

More US agencies potentially hacked, this time with Pulse Secure exploits Getty Images At least five US federal agencies may have experienced cyberattacks that targeted recently discovered security flaws that give hackers free rein over vulnerable networks, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said on Friday. The vulnerabilities in Pulse Connect Secure, a VPN that employees use to remotely connect to large networks, include one that hackers had been actively exploiting before it was known to Ivanti, the maker of the product. The flaw, which Ivanti disclosed last week , carries a severity rating of 10 out of a possible 10. The authentication bypass vulnerability allows untrusted users to remotely execute malicious code on Pulse Secure hardware, and from there, to gain control of other parts of the network where it’s installed. Federal agencies, critical infrastructure, and more Security firm FireEye said in a report published on the same day as the Ivant...

Invincible Amazon Season 1 Finale Spoiler Discussion Zone Nolan and Mark in… less complicated times. Image: Amazon The season one finale of Invincible dropped today like a two-bit crook punched by Omni-Man. The show’s biggest mystery was solved, a father and son had a major heart-to-heart, the show’s most devastating battle occurred, and much, much more. Let’s talk. So: Comics fans have known about Omni-Man’s (J.K. Simmons) secret plan since the very beginning, so this question goes out to people who didn’t read the comics: were you surprised? I mean, obviously Nolan was murdering superheroes and was not a good guy, but did you expect the full extent of his plans and how brutal his showdown with his son Mark (Steven Yeun) would be? And comics fans, how did you feel about how the show deviated from and improved on the originals, not just in the finale but through season one? There was also a ton of groundwork to set up future developments, which will definitely...

A multi-skin toned handshake emoji is coming in 2022 After Apple and Google suggested the Unicode Consortium add skin tones to emoji , more and more of the icons have evolved to become more inclusive. But there’s been one notable exception to that trend: the handshake emoji. It’s one of the only characters you can’t add a skin tone to — for reasons we’ll get into shortly. Thankfully, that’s about to change. When the Unicode Consortium rolls out Emoji 14.0 sometime in 2022 , it will include a new handshake character that will allow you to modify the skin tones of both the left and right hands for a total of 25 different combinations. Getting to the point where you’ll have that much flexibility with the handshake emoji has been something of a long journey for the Unicode Consortium and the person who pushed for the update. Last year, The Next Web talked to Emojipedia founder Jeremy Burge about the process. From start to finish, developing an emoji can take as much as two full year...

2021 Asteroid Impact Simulation Ends in Disaster Artist’s conception of the DART mission. Image: NASA An international exercise to simulate an asteroid striking Earth has come to an end. With just six days to go before a fictitious impact, things don’t look good for a 185-mile-wide region between Prague and Munich. Two years ago, the organizers of this event accidentally destroyed New York City, and now it’s time for a border region intersecting Germany, Austria, and Czech Republic to meet the same fate. When I covered the early days of this week’s simulation on Wednesday, the gathered experts were weighing their options as a 460-foot-wide asteroid barreled toward Central Europe. This may sound like a grim role-playing game, but it’s very serious business. Led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies , the asteroid impact simulation is meant to prepare scientists, planners, and key decision makers for the real thing, should it ever occ...

This Portable Hammock Is Perfect for Summer   Photo: Andrew Liszewski/Gizmodo As the waves of pollen that keep many of us trapped indoors throughout the spring subside, it’s time to start gearing up for summer activities. If that includes camping, or really any inactivity that has you relaxing under the sun, it’s worth considering a camping chair upgrade. The folding Mock ONE lets you set up a comfy hammock anywhere, even if there’s not a tree in sight. The flat-folding aluminum lawn chairs of yesteryear have long since been replaced by modern camping chairs that collapse small enough to be carried in a bag over the shoulder. They also include upgraded amenities like cup holders, smartphone pockets, and improved comfort. But for relaxing outdoors, the camping chair still can’t compete with the hammock, which has mystical powers that can induce napping in mere minutes—assuming you can find a pair of trees to hang one. With the Mock ONE Compact Portable Folding Hammock...