A Google employee is suing the company, claiming it imposed unlawful confidentiality agreements. The plaintiff says staff are banned from speaking out even about illegal activities. The lawsuit has been filed anonymously and is thus in the name of ... John Doe. It alleges violations of the Private Attorney Generals Act, which is a technical measure that lets private citizens bring claims against a company for breaching labor laws. "Doe" claims that although he remains at the company, Google falsely told other Google workers that he had been fired for leaking information to the press. ... (view more)

Tesla's automatic car steering tool will now restrict the car to the local speed limit on most roads. Users had previously been able to set the system to run up to five miles over the limit. The changes are to a feature which has the full title of ... Autopilot Traffic-Aware Cruise Control. It not only controls the car's speed as with normal cruise control, but automatically adjusts to keep a safe distance from surrounding vehicles and steers the car to keep in the lane. (Source: electrek.co ) Freeways an Exception to No-Speeding Policy Once the latest update takes effect, the feature ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader George M. writes: " Dear Dennis, I upgraded to Windows 10 a few months ago - however, just recently when I right click on a file, the 'Open with' option is missing from the menu. For example, normally when I right click on a video ... file, I have the option to 'Open with', and then I can choose Video Lan Player, or Windows Media Player, etc - but that option is no longer available. I have searched the web on how to fix the broken 'Open with' option but NONE of the fixes online work! Can you please help? " My response: I contacted George and asked if he would like to connect to ... (view more)

Google has tweaked its search algorithm after discovering holocaust denial sites were topping the results for some queries. The incident may have highlighted a difference in the way Google and other search engines rank pages. The issue came to light ... when a newspaper reporter experimented with searches for the phrase "did the Holocaust happen" and discovered that the top result returned by Google was a site specifically dedicated to denying the Holocaust. Other journalists checked up potentially controversial queries and found unsettling top results, such as a search for "are ... (view more)

Stolen Yahoo account details could be changing hands for as little as three-hundredths of a cent according to security researchers. It follows a hack of more than a billion accounts. It's the second Yahoo breach reported this year. Back in September ... the news broke that details of more than 500,000 accounts had been accessed by hackers in 2014. Now Yahoo has confirmed a separate attack in 2013 involved the theft of data for more than a billion accounts, something security experts believe makes it a record breach. It's suggested that the stolen data includes email addresses and passwords, ... (view more)

Taxicab-rival Uber says it will ignore orders to stop using self-driving cars to pick up passengers. It disputes a Department of Motor Vehicle statement that it requires a test permit to use such vehicles. Uber has long caused controversy with its ... attitude to regulations. Its service uses an app to let customers book a vehicle driven by a private individual, with Uber handling the payment, providing navigation directions and taking a commission. That set-up often means it doesn't face the same level of regulation as licensed taxi cabs, which can pick up customers on the street without a ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Dan A. writes: " Dear Dennis, I upgraded to Windows 10 last year and now all the sudden I keep receiving popup notifications from the Windows 10 Action Centre that my Windows 10 password is about to expire. I have never received ... this password expire notification before. How can I disable these notifications? " My response: I also started receiving these notifications some time in the last two weeks and I'm not sure why. Perhaps there was an update to Windows 10 that caused these notifications to appear. How to Fix: Disable Windows 10 Password Reminder There are a few ways ... (view more)

This article will explain how to keep your email inbox clean, and how to sort and store your email messages locally (or by remote) using Mozilla Thunderbird. This article is the 6th article in a series of articles I've recently written on ... Thunderbird, including: How to Fix: Thunderbird: One Inbox, Multiple Accounts How to Fix: Minimize Thunderbird to Tray Bar (Not Task Bar) How to Fix: Thunderbird Paragraph Mode (Press Enter Twice) How to Fix: Disable Thunderbird Popup Notifications How to Fix: Disable Thunderbird Attachment Reminder How to Fix: Sort and Archive Emails with Thunderbird ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Julia S. writes: " Dear Dennis, Thanks for your articles on Thunderbird. I have a question! I have multiple email accounts that I use with Thunderbird; one issue I find is that it's difficult to figure out which inbox has my new ... emails. Some accounts are set up with POP3, others with IMAP. The IMAP accounts have their own 'Inbox', 'Sent', 'Deleted items', etc, whereas the POP3 emails end up in my 'Local Inbox'. Is there a plug-in or a way to configure Thunderbird so everything goes into one single inbox? It would make my life so much easier! " My response: I wondered the ... (view more)

Google has published eight letters sent by the FBI demanding details about its users. Normally the company isn't allowed to even acknowledge the letters exist. The letters, known as National Security Letters, are formal demands from the FBI for ... details about users - in this case, Google users. The letters are controversial for two reasons; first, the demands can be made without a specific search order, something that raises constitutional issues. The second is that Google isn't normally allowed to tell the user about the demand. While it's been argued that doing so may tip off a ... (view more)