IT news March 12: The USA lifted the restriction on the entry of foreign programmers, Trump turned to IT companies for help, the UK introduces a tax on social networks and search engines
A US court abolished the immigration barrier for foreign IT specialists
U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer struck down a cap on H-1B work visas put in place in 2018 by the Donald Trump administration. Under a document adopted two years ago by the US President, visa applicants were required to detail what projects they intended to work on over a three-year period. As a result, this led to a sharp increase in the number of visa refusals, including for foreign programmers, who are in dire need of the American IT industry. The District Court's March 10 decision in the ITServe Alliance's lawsuit can be considered a major victory not only for foreign IT specialists, but also for American companies. Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook have repeatedly complained about difficulties in attracting qualified programmers domestically. Representatives of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, which was the defendant in this case, have already announced that they intend to appeal the District Court's decision. Source: Protocol
Russian developers are offered to identify users by phone number
The Media Communications Union, consisting of telecom operators and media holdings, invites Russian application developers to identify users by their phone number. Identification is planned to be carried out in applications that are required for pre-installation on electronic gadgets. As Nikita Danilov, head of the department for legal interaction with executive authorities at MegaFon, said, disclosing the identity of the application user will only affect the owners of those devices that have SIM cards. According to the initiators of this measure, identification of application users will help increase the level of information security. Mandatory pre-installation of Russian software on smartphones and tablets will begin on July 1, 2020; for system units and laptops – from July 1, 2021; on Smart-TV – from July 1, 2022. Source: Habr
AWS releases Bottlerocket operating system for container hosting
Amazon Web Services has developed its own open source operating system for hosting containers on virtual machines and physical servers. The new product is called Bottlerocket. The new OS is based on Linux. So far, only a preview version for developers has been presented. It can be downloaded from GitHub as an Amazon Machine Image or tried on an Amazon EKS cluster. The creators of the OS promise all users three years of technical support. Bottlerocket is designed for AWS EKS Kubernetes clusters, compatible with Docker images and any others that comply with the Open Container Initiative standard. The Bottlerocket update mechanism is based not on packages, but on images, which makes the procedure for updating or rolling back easier and faster. The file system is used primarily in read mode; there is also a system integrity check at boot. Source: GitHub
Trump turned to IT companies for help due to the coronavirus epidemic
The administration of US President Donald Trump has asked leading American IT companies to more actively combat misinformation related to the coronavirus epidemic. The appeal was sent to Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, IBM. “Advanced technology companies and large online platforms will play a critical role in combating the spread of coronavirus,” said Michael Kratsios, chief technology officer at the US AP. “Today’s meeting outlined an initial path forward, and we are committed to continuing this important conversation.” In turn, the opposition to the current president represented by representatives of the Democratic Party itself accused Trump of spreading false information about the coronavirus. In particular, the recent comment by the head of the White House that the number of coronavirus cases in the United States is declining was criticized, although this is absolutely not the case. In recent weeks, the United States tech industry has been taking steps to combat the epidemic by highlighting trusted sources of information about the virus on its social platforms and removing misinformation. In addition, the Amazon marketplace has prohibited sellers from sharply increasing prices on medical supplies. Source: Politico
Google tool will simplify website development for people with visual impairments
Google has introduced a new testing tool that allows web developers to test the accessibility of content for people with vision problems such as color blindness and tritanopia. Testing can be done in beta version 82 of the Google Chrome browser by going to the developer tools tab. In the section that appears, you need to find an element called “Emulate visual impairments.” Then you need to select a particular vision problem from the drop-down menu. When you select one of them, for example tritanopia (a condition in which a person cannot distinguish between blue and yellow colors), the site page will change its color palette to the one that a person with limited perception of colors sees in front of him. For the first time, the ability to test the color scheme of a website was introduced by the developers of the Firefox browser in September 2019. According to Color Blind Awareness, about 300 million people around the world have color blindness to one degree or another - 8% of all men and 0.5% of all women. Source: The Verge
UK introduces tax on search engines and social networks
The UK government has confirmed that from 1 April the country will introduce a 2% tax on the revenue of search engines, social networks and online marketplaces that make money from UK users. The new tax will affect companies whose global revenue exceeds 500 million pounds (about $650 million), and where British users contribute more than 25 million pounds to their overall revenue structure. Among the first to be affected by tax changes will be Google, Facebook and Amazon. The UK government's decision to introduce a new tax comes amid efforts by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to reform international tax rules. This is expected to result in large internet companies being taxed worldwide, not just in the US. Source: CNet
Under a document adopted two years ago by the US President, visa applicants were required to detail what projects they intended to work on over a three-year period. As a result, this led to a sharp increase in the number of visa refusals, including for foreign programmers, who are in dire need of the American IT industry. The District Court's March 10 decision in the ITServe Alliance's lawsuit can be considered a major victory not only for foreign IT specialists, but also for American companies. Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook have repeatedly complained about difficulties in attracting qualified programmers domestically. Representatives of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, which was the defendant in this case, have already announced that they intend to appeal the District Court's decision. Source: Protocol
“Advanced technology companies and large online platforms will play a critical role in combating the spread of coronavirus,” said Michael Kratsios, chief technology officer at the US AP. “Today’s meeting outlined an initial path forward, and we are committed to continuing this important conversation.” In turn, the opposition to the current president represented by representatives of the Democratic Party itself accused Trump of spreading false information about the coronavirus. In particular, the recent comment by the head of the White House that the number of coronavirus cases in the United States is declining was criticized, although this is absolutely not the case. In recent weeks, the United States tech industry has been taking steps to combat the epidemic by highlighting trusted sources of information about the virus on its social platforms and removing misinformation. In addition, the Amazon marketplace has prohibited sellers from sharply increasing prices on medical supplies. Source: Politico
The new tax will affect companies whose global revenue exceeds 500 million pounds (about $650 million), and where British users contribute more than 25 million pounds to their overall revenue structure. Among the first to be affected by tax changes will be Google, Facebook and Amazon. The UK government's decision to introduce a new tax comes amid efforts by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to reform international tax rules. This is expected to result in large internet companies being taxed worldwide, not just in the US. Source: CNet
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