Enlarge / The three recalled pouches linked to lead poisonings. (credit: FDA )

A spice grinder named Carlos Aguilera of Ecuador is the likely source of contaminated cinnamon containing extremely high levels of lead and chromium, which made its way into the apple cinnamon fruit pouches of US toddlers, according to an announcement by the Food and Drug Administration this week .

To date, there have been 413 cases of poisoning across 43 US states , according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The FDA said Ecuadorian officials at the Agencia Nacional de Regulación, Control y Vigilancia Sanitaria (ARCSA) identified Aguilera as the cinnamon processor and reported to the FDA that his business is no longer operating. Aquilera received raw cinnamon sticks sourced from Sri Lanka, which, according to raw sample testing conducted by ARCSA, had no lead contamination upon their arrival. After Aguilera processed the cinnamon, it was supplied by a company called Negasmart to Austrofoods, the manufacturer of the apple cinnamon pouches.

Enlarge / The three recalled pouches linked to lead poisonings. (credit: FDA )

The Food and Drug Administration has discovered a second metal contaminant—chromium—in the recalled cinnamon applesauce pouches found to contain cinnamon contaminated with extremely high levels of lead . The products have now poisoned nearly 300 young children in 37 states .

The health implications of the additional contaminant are not clear. There is no antidote for chromium exposure, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends supportive care . But the finding does hint at the possible motivation behind the tragic poisonings.

In the FDA's announcement , the agency noted that "The lead-to-chromium ratio in the cinnamon apple puree sample is consistent with that of lead chromate (PbCrO4)." This is a notorious adulterant of spices used to artificially bolster their color and weight.

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  These left-aligned tabs are sorted into "pinned tabs" and "today tabs." [credit: Samuel Axon ]

On Tuesday, The Browsing Company made its unusual new web browser Arc widely available on desktop for the first time.

Arc has been available in an invite-only preview for about a year, but yesterday was the first day it became available to download for all Mac users with no waiting list. The widespread availability coincided with Arc's graduation to version 1.0, too.

Arc was only released on the Mac and iPhone for now, but The Browser Company says it plans to launch on Windows before the year's end.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Yuichiro Chino )

One of the biggest advances in Web security over the last decade or so is the proliferation of secure, encrypted HTTPS connections . Once the purview of shopping and banking sites, HTTPS connections have become the norm rather than the exception, keeping more of your credentials and data safe from being intercepted even when you're on public or insecure networks.

Browsers going all the way back to Internet Explorer have used a small padlock icon to denote that a connection is using HTTPS. But according to the team behind the Chromium browser engine, most people still don't know what that padlock icon actually means . Because of that confusion, and because HTTPS is now expected for most sites, Chromium will retire the padlock icon starting in Chrome 117, slated for release in September alongside a larger refresh of the Chrome interface.

"Replacing the lock icon with a neutral indicator prevents the misunderstanding that the lock icon is associated with the trustworthiness of a page, and emphasizes that security should be the default state in Chrome," reads a Chromium blog post from the Chrome security team.

Enlarge / When Google, whose Chromium/Chrome-related browsers make up 80% of browser share, says that something has "not enough interest from the entire ecosystem," what does that mean, exactly? (credit: Aurich Lawson)

Chrome developers' decision to remove support for a compressed image format that Google helped develop is just another sign of "the disturbing amount of control" the ad company has over browsers and the web, according to the Free Software Foundation (FSF).

In a statement , Greg Farough, campaigns manager at the FSF, took aim at Google's stated reason for deprecating support for the JPEG XL image format , which was based on Google's PIK format . A Google engineer, commenting on the JPEG XL issue tracker on Chromium, Chrome's open source core project, wrote that "there is not enough interest from the entire ecosystem to continue experimenting with JPEG XL." The format also "does not bring sufficient incremental benefits over existing formats," and removing it "reduces the maintenance burden," the engineer wrote.

"Putting aside the problematic aspects of the term 'ecosystem' when you yourself are by far the largest and most dangerous predator in said 'ecosystem,'" Farough wrote (adding his own link). "In supposedly gauging what the 'ecosystem' wants, all Google is really doing is asking itself what Google wants."

Dans la version Linux de cette application propriétaire, le son habituel de l'intervenant est présenté par l'OS Linux comme étant #Skype.

Sauf les notification sonores de messages dans la discussion, utilisés par certains pour envoyer des extraits de texte ou des liens, évènement dans lequel le court son provoqué par l'envoi de message est présenté comme venant de #Chromium.

Quitte à se baser sur un navigateur, étonnant que MS ne se soit pas basé sur #Edge, son nouveau nom pour Windows Internet Explorer.

If you ever think about using Electron for your next application, think twice. Or thrice. It's probably a bad idea:

Github user miksuhwrites:

It is an really bad idea to use Electron. Electron is completely 100% inaccessible and unusable with the Orca screen reader on Linux. None of the Electron applications work with the Orca screen reader. All of the Electron applications are completely unusable if you are visually impaired or blind like I am. Orca screen reader speaks absoletely nothing when you try to use Electron based applications. Electron is based on Chromium technology. Chromium web browser is also completely inaccessible and unusable with the Orca screen reader. During the last 10 years people have requested several times that Chromium developers should start to support the Orca screen reader. But nothing has happenened. People have requested the same from Electron developers but nothing has happened. Chromium and Electron are still completely inaccessible and unusable. Blind users like me must use computer using screen reader which speaks the content on scree. blind and other visually impaired people can not use any Electron applications because Electron does not work with the Orca screen reader. It also looks like situation will not change, looks like Chromium and Electron developers have no plans to supoort the Orca screen reader. There is now applications like Skype which is made using Electron. Because of that Skype on Linuxx is completely inaccessible and unusable if you are visually impaired. So visually impaired users can not use e.g Skype or e.g Signal on Linux. that is simply discriminitaing visually impaired users. So no, use of Electron is not ok.

#orca #accessability #a17y #blind #visuallyimpaired #electron #signal #chromium #screenreader #jaws