Bitcoin is touted as a secure, decentralized and anonymous way to conduct financial transactions, one reason why cybercriminals use it or some other cryptocurrency when conducting illegal business, whether it’s drug trafficking or ransomware. But this week the Justice Department revealed that it traced and recovered 63.7 of the 75 Bitcoins ($2.3 million of the total $4.3 million) that Colonial Pipeline paid in ransom to release its computer systems. The feds declined to detail how they recouped the Bitcoin. Meanwhile, El Salvador has become the first nation to formally adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. Read more

Ride-hailing services Uber and Lyft, which have been branching out into areas such as food delivery and scooter rentals, spent about $200 million to pass a ballot initiative that countered California’s 2019 legislation giving gig workers the status of employees. The two companies are now focused on avoiding the same battle in other states by pushing for legislation classifying their drivers as contractors. In New York state, for example, Uber and Lyft offered bargaining rights and other benefits to their workers, but not full classification of employees, which could raise their prices 20 to 30 percent. Read more

Baylor University’s Film & Digital Media Department just introduced a proposed multi-primary color system, dubbed 6P Color. Led by professors Corey Carbonara and Michael Korpi, the core team also includes cinematographer Steven Poster, ASC; Gary Mandle, Jim DeFilippis, Gary Feather and Dr. Mitch Bogdanowicz. On June 3, the team made their case — via streaming platform SMPTE+ — on why the standard RGB three-color triangle would benefit by the addition of new primaries. Baylor University also has a business plan for making the idea a reality. Read more

The Senate passed a bipartisan bill in a 63-32 vote this week that allocates $250 billion for technology R&D to counter foreign competition, primarily from China. The U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (USICA) intends to boost research investment, build semiconductor manufacturing capacity and focus on AI development. The National Science Foundation (NSF) will also play a more significant role. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) stated the bill is “about investing in that innovation economy of the future.” It still needs to pass the House. Read more

At its WWDC21 developers’ conference this week, Apple revealed tweaks to consumer privacy rules that will limit advertisers’ ability to track users’ activity and gain information from data brokers. These changes will impact many Apple devices, not just iOS 15. Apple earlier curbed in-app tracking, another move that concerned advertisers. Apple senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi said the changes would block IP addresses from being transmitted to websites visited in Apple’s Safari browser. Read more