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Google Drive will introduce long-asked-for file shortcuts feature

It's coming to G Suite in beta first, but may reach more users at a later date.
Soon, Google will add one of the most commonly requested features to its Drive file hosting, sharing, and collaboration service: shortcuts. These will allow users to create pointers to files from either the same drive or another, separate shared drive. The new feature will work just like shortcuts in Windows—they are pointers to a file stored in another location. The shortcut can be stored anywhere without impacting the location of the original file. Google gave this example in its blog post announcing the feature:

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Sudan just got a step closer to full democracy. Big obstacles remain

The Transitional Military Council's Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, and opposition demonstrator Ahmed Al-Rabee, raise hands after signing the historic agreement.
After almost nine months of violence and wrangling, Sudan came a step closer to a civilian government on Saturday when opposition leaders and military generals signed a power-sharing agreement in the capital, Khartoum. The choice of a fearsome commander on the signing table, and the absence of women who played a crucial role in the protest movement, show that obstacles still remain in Sudan's path to full democracy. The agreement follows protests that toppled 75-year-old dictator Omar al-Bashir, ending his 30-year rule over the northeastern African country.

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Greece wildfires leave blackened forests in their wake

Fires have been raging through a "unique, untouched pine forest" on the Greek island of Evia as authorities fight to keep the flames under control.
Hundreds of people were evacuated from nearby villages as the fire broke out in the early hours of Tuesday and ravaged through the dense forest. "It's a huge ecological disaster," acting regional governor Kostas Bakoyannis told AFP. More than 200 firefighters are helping to combat the blaze along with 75 fire engines, nine helicopters and seven planes, the news agency reports. Italy and Spain have offered additional aircraft to help dump water on the forests in an attempt to douse the flames burning through Greece's second-largest island. Other wildfires broke out on the island of Thassos as well as in the central region of Viotia and the Peloponnese. There was also a fire reported in Peania, a suburb of Athens.

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Owners of defective 2016 Google Pixels can now claim up to $500

The class action lawsuit settlement site for defective Pixel microphones has gone live.
Back in May, Google settled the defective Pixel 1 lawsuit brought against it in 2018 for $7.25 million, and now owners can file a claim at a new Pixel Settlement website. Owners of a first-generation Pixel could get up to $500 if they bought multiple defective devices, and everyone that bought an original Pixel before the cut-off date is entitled to $20, even if they didn't experience a defect. Some of the first-generation Pixel phones went out the door with defective microphones, and a class action lawsuit alleged that Google couldn't or wouldn't fix the problem. Google denies these allegations, but the company still agreed to pay out $7.25 million. According to the settlement site, Pixel 1 owners are eligible for a payout if they live in the United States and bought "a new Pixel or Pixel XL smartphone manufactured before January 4, 2017 and did not receive a replacement Pixel manufactured after January 3, 2017 or refurbished after June 5, 2017."

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Tanzania governor wants to create a national database for married men in a bid to curb infidelity

The governor of Tanzania's largest city has announced a plan to create and publish a national database of married men to protect women from "heart breaks."
Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner Paul Makonda said he has received a lot of complaints from women who were abandoned by their lovers after a marriage proposal, and that the planned database will help combat infidelity.
"I have been receiving complaints from women who have been promised marriage by men, yet the men didn't fulfill the promise. I know women who have been paying bills yet the men walked away ..." Makonda said in native Kiswahili. "If possible we will set up a database in the regional commissioner's office in each region that every man who promises a woman marriage, this should be registered in the database which will allow women to check to see whether the person asking is married ...," Makonda said at a Monday news conference.

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Microsoft Finds Two New 'Wormable' Flaws in Windows

The flaws affect Windows 10, Windows 7 SP1, and Windows 8.1. If exploited, they can be used to launch a computer worm to attack vulnerable machines that have Remote Desktop Services activated.
Microsoft has discovered two serious flaws in Windows 10 and Windows 7 SP1 that the company fears could be weaponized to launch a computer worm targeting PCs and servers across the world. Both flaws are "wormable," meaning they could pave the way for malware that automatically jumps from one vulnerable machine to the next, without any action from the user, Microsoft said in a blog post on Tuesday. Other operating systems affected include Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2012. (Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 and 2008 are immune to the threat.)

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Parallels Desktop 15 for Mac moves to Metal for DirectX 11 and more

Update promises better graphics performance in games and CAD applications.
Today, popular virtualization software Parallels Desktop 15 for Mac becomes available to new and current users. The flagship feature is support for DirectX in virtual Windows machines via Apple's proprietary Metal graphics API. Other additions include a handful of new macOS Catalina-related features and improvements to transitions between Mac and Windows software running on the same machine. When we wrote about Parallels Desktop 14 around this time last year, we asked about Metal support. The application then still relied entirely on OpenGL in macOS, and Apple had already announced that continued support for OpenGL would end. We were told it was coming, and we were not misled: the new version of Parallels Desktop now supports DirectX 9, 10, and 11 via Metal. Previously, DirectX 9 and 10 were supported via OpenGL and DirectX 11 was not supported at all. Parallels' rep noted to us that "Metal and DirectX work best in Catalina."

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Guatemala's new president could give Trump a huge headache on immigration

Guatemala has a new president-elect -- and Donald Trump should probably pay attention.
Alejandro Giammattei, who looks to have secured nearly 60% of the vote in Sunday's poll, has been outspoken in his opposition to a migration deal that his predecessor, Jimmy Morales, signed with the United States last month. For Guatemalans, the result will probably be more of the same: another president who promises to combat corruption and bring an economic revival, but struggles or fails to alter the status quo on either, like Morales. And, worse than Morales, Guatemalan president-elect Giammattei must come to power with only 42% of voters bothering to turn up to the polls, and only 59% of them voting for him. Yet the stakes ahead are regional, if not global. More of the same means more of the economic collapse that preceded Giammattei and sent a record number of Guatemalans heading north, seeking a better life in the United States. In the border mountains of Huehuetenango, nearly 3% of the population has reportedly already fled to the US border since late last year. The conditions they were escaping include: climate change devastating crops; drug cartels running entire villages; flights of trafficker cocaine landing in the forest; and gang violence killing regularly.

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Microsoft cuts Office 2019 one-time licenses through Home Use Program

Microsoft's march through subscription land continues apace.
Another one bites the dust. Microsoft has been shifting much of its software to a subscription model, and the latest Office 2019 news heralds another change on that front. The suite of Microsoft programs had been available for purchase as one-off perpetual licenses through the company’s Home Use Program. HUP lets select businesses offer employees discounted rates on the software from their workplaces to use at home. Both Office Professional Plus 2019 and Office Home and Business 2019 have been removed as options for one-off licenses under the program. Instead, HUP will give a 30% discount on annual subscriptions to Office software. Office 365 Personal will run HUP members $48.99 a year, and Office 365 Home will cost them $69.99 annually. The feature sets of the two subscriptions are the same, including premium versions of Microsoft programs, 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage, and OneDrive ransomware detection. The Home version supports up to six people, and Personal is for an individual.

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Missing Nora Quoirin: Body found in Malaysia search

A body has been found in the search for a vulnerable 15-year-old girl who went missing while on holiday in Malaysia.
Nora Quoirin, who has special needs, disappeared from her room at the Dusun resort on 4 August.
Malaysian police confirmed rescuers had found a body on Tuesday near where Nora was reported missing. Missing persons charity the Lucie Blackman Trust said the body had not been identified but was "likely" to be the teenager, from London. About 350 people had been searching for Nora in dense jungle near the resort. BBC correspondent Howard Johnson said the body of a white female had been found just over a mile (2km) away from the Dusun.