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Waymo will begin testing its autonomous vehicles in Tokyo in early 2025, marking its first deployment outside the U.S. TechCrunch reports: The move to Japan is part of Waymo's "road trips," a development program that involves bringing its technology to a variety of cities and testing it -- with each city having different challenges. In Tokyo, the Waymo robotaxis will face left-hand driving and a dense urban environment. [...] Waymo said it will partner with taxi-hailing app GO and taxi company Nihon Kotsu as part of its Japanese "road trip." Nihon Kotsu will oversee the management and servicing of the Waymo vehicles, according to the company. Initially, Nihon Kotsu drivers will operate the vehicles manually to map key areas of the Japanese capital, including Minato, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Chiyoda, Chuo, Shinagawa, and Koto. Waymo said it is working with Nihon Kotsu's team to train its employees how to operate Waymo's self-driving Jaguar I-Pace vehicles.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Kali Linux 2024.4 released! 14 new shiny tools added  Help Net Security

5 Compelling Reasons to Choose Linux Over Windows  Linux Journal

How to Become an Ethical Hacker in 2025?  Simplilearn

Is Your SSD Failing? Learn to Check Its Health on Linux  TechRepublic

It’s that time of year, where I will soon remind you to use up your Healthcare Flexible Spending Account (FSA) funds before they expire. However, if you somehow have a large unused balance that you can’t offset with sunscreen and cold medicine, you may be interested in the possibility of using it towards exercise equipment.

While shopping for a Zwift smart trainer bike, I came across a new checkout option called TrueMed that lets you “pay with HSA/FSA”. TrueMed claims to “unlock tax-free HSA/FSA spending for the leading exercise, healthy food and supplement companies”.

In order to use your HSA/FSA funds on these types of things, you need a Letter of Medical Necessity (LMN) – a signed document from a licensed healthcare provider that asserts that a product, treatment, or device is medically necessary for a patient. The LMN is valid for one year from the date it’s signed.

Check out this IRS alert: Beware of companies misrepresenting nutrition, wellness and general health expenses as medical care for FSAs, HSAs, HRAs and MSAs. For exercise equipment, you must be treating a specific medical condition (like a knee injury vs. general health):

Exercise equipment must be used to treat a specific medical condition in order to be considered eligible for reimbursement. Exercise equipment used for general health and wellbeing is not eligible for reimbursement.

It appears TrueMed provides the LMN after you fill out their online questionnaire. In some cases, I notice that they will charge you a fee like $15 to take the online questionnaire.

There is a movement redefining healthcare, focusing on proactive, root-cause solutions like fitness, nutrition, and innovative health technology. When you shop with Truemed merchants, you can seamlessly qualify for a Letter of Medical Necessity (LMN), enabling you to use pre-tax HSA/FSA funds for these transformative health interventions—saving you an average of 30%.

I’m not affiliated with TrueMed. I have not tried TrueMed and I have not submitted a claim for any exercise equipment using their Letter of Medical Necessity. In the end, it is still dependent on your specific claims administrator to approve the claim and accept the documentation you provide. I’ve come across a few examples of rejections, but also other reports that TrueMed later adjusted their practices in order to qualify. They appear to work with you:

My Claim Was Denied… Now What?

If you receive an alert of a denied claim, we are here to help! To best support you, please compile the following information.

– Denied Claim Information
– A screenshot or copy of the denial notice. This should include the denial reason clearly stated and also the denial code, if provided.
– The name of your HSA/FSA administrator, if not clearly shown on the denial notice.

Once you have this information compiled, please email support@truemed.com and include this information in the email body.

This may be worth further investigation if you are already committed to a specific exercise program or equipment as treatment. I’d prefer a bike as treatment for joint issues, hypertension, or obesity over more pills. As a checkout option, I like that it should come into play after you grab any other available discounts. I’ve historically had bad experiences with FSA claims administrators, so I would tread carefully.

Kali Linux 2024.4 Released – What’s New!  GBHackers

Ars Technica's Beth Mole reports: Editors of the environmental chemistry journal Chemosphere have posted an eye-catching correction to a study reporting toxic flame retardants from electronics wind up in some household products made of black plastic, including kitchen utensils. The study sparked a flurry of media reports a few weeks ago that urgently implored people to ditch their kitchen spatulas and spoons. Wirecutter even offered a buying guide for what to replace them with. The correction, posted Sunday, will likely take some heat off the beleaguered utensils. The authors made a math error that put the estimated risk from kitchen utensils off by an order of magnitude. Specifically, the authors estimated that if a kitchen utensil contained middling levels of a key toxic flame retardant (BDE-209), the utensil would transfer 34,700 nanograms of the contaminant a day based on regular use while cooking and serving hot food. The authors then compared that estimate to a reference level of BDE-209 considered safe by the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA's safe level is 7,000 ng -- per kilogram of body weight -- per day, and the authors used 60 kg as the adult weight (about 132 pounds) for their estimate. So, the safe EPA limit would be 7,000 multiplied by 60, yielding 420,000 ng per day. That's 12 times more than the estimated exposure of 34,700 ng per day. However, the authors missed a zero and reported the EPA's safe limit as 42,000 ng per day for a 60 kg adult. The error made it seem like the estimated exposure was nearly at the safe limit, even though it was actually less than a tenth of the limit. "We regret this error and have updated it in our manuscript," the authors said in a correction. "This calculation error does not affect the overall conclusion of the paper," the correction reads. The study maintains that flame retardants "significantly contaminate" the plastic products, which have "high exposure potential."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Driving Open-Source Innovation: Linux Foundation's Global Vision  DATAQUEST

Driving Open-Source Innovation: Linux Foundation's Global Vision  DATAQUEST

Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy has once again argued for Indian workers to spend 70 hours a week in paid employment. From a report: Murthy called for the long working hours in October 2023 and then again in January 2024, and recently shared his opinion that two-day weekends were a mistake. His views have earned plenty of criticism, but he's not backing down. On Sunday he addressed the Indian chamber of Commerce's centenary celebration and reportedly argued 70-hour weeks are necessary because millions of Indian citizens remain in poverty, so those who have jobs should work long hours and embrace entrepreneurialism to create jobs for others.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Uber has 30 days to require certain drivers to get fingerprinted if the ride-hail giant intends to continue transporting unaccompanied teens in California. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) issued a ruling Thursday that requires taxi and ride-hail drivers who are carrying unaccompanied minors in the state to pass a fingerprint background check. The ruling also requires transport companies to pay for the cost of those background checks. "When an adult is being tasked to provide a service to a minor, the adult is placed in a position of trust, responsibility, and control over California's most vulnerable citizenry -- children," reads the decision. "Not conducting a fingerprint-based background check to identify adults with disqualifying arrests or criminal records would place the unaccompanied minor in a potentially dangerous, if not life-threatening situation." [...] The CPUC's ruling also requires transport companies that intend to transport minors share information with the agency on how they implement live trip tracking for parents, what safety procedures they implement at pickup and drop-off locations, and what sort of driver training the companies implement specifically around transporting unaccompanied minors. The ruling also says that each company is responsible for paying for the checks. Uber has also argued against this stipulation, saying that forcing the company -- which has a market cap of around $150 billion as of December -- to pay for fingerprinting would result in a price hike for the Uber for Teens service.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Fedora Linux Grappling With New vs. Old Intel Hardware Support For Compute Stack  Phoronix

Android 15 QPR2 Beta 2 is here with our first look at the working Linux Terminal app  Android Central

Android 15 QPR2 Beta 2 is here with our first look at the working Linux Terminal app  Android Central

Android 15 QPR2 Beta 2 is here with our first look at the working Linux Terminal app  Android Central

Android 15 QPR2 Beta 2 is here with our first look at the working Linux Terminal app  Android Central

Android 15 QPR2 Beta 2 is here with our first look at the working Linux Terminal app  Android Central

Android 15 QPR2 Beta 2 is here with our first look at the working Linux Terminal app  Android Central

Android 15 QPR2 Beta 2 is here with our first look at the working Linux Terminal app  Android Central