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The European Space Agency (ESA) has completed stage one of its latest astronaut selection process, with 1,362 astronaut and 29 parastronaut applicants making the cut. The group, which started as 23,000 wannabes, will now be invited to participate in a battery of psychological, performance, and personality tests followed by psychological interviews and medical testing for the ones that make it that far. In December, ESA admitted it was still in the process of contacting applicants. But a delay is something that any would-be spacefarer will have to get used to. Recruitment interviews will follow before the new class of astronauts and reserves are unveiled in Autumn 2022. The gender mix of the 1,362 astronauts is 61 per cent male applicants and 39 per cent female. The remaining 29 parastronauts consist of 27.6 per cent female applicants and 72.4 per cent male. The announcement comes days after the 16 January anniversary of NASA's 1978 selection (TFNG – Thirty-Five New Guys, or The F***ing New Guys, according to a chapter title in astronaut Mike Mullane's book, Riding Rockets). NASA's selection back then included Sally Ride, who would go on to become the first American woman in space. European Space Agency: Come on, hack our satellite if you think you're hard enough ESA promises to get back to would-be astronauts by the end of 2021 ESA swamped by over 23,000 applicants for astronaut program European Space Agency open to hiring astronauts with a physical disability ESA hopes to lead by example in opening up applications to would-be astronauts with a physical disability. This could be a lower limb deficiency, a leg length difference or person under 130cm in height. NASA, on the other hand, has a few problems with the management of its astronaut corps. A report [PDF] by its watchdog concluded that the US space agency might struggle to meet the needs of the upcoming Artemis missions. Furthermore, data limitations will "restrict NASA's ability to fully measure its progress towards meeting broader diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility goals," according to the report, "a significant issue given that astronauts are
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Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Buying a TV can be a confusing ordeal, but it doesn’t need to be By Jan 18, 2022, 10:45am EST Every year after CES, there can be a new pile of buzzwords and technology shorthand that can go up and over the head of many consumers — even when those acronyms often describe meaningful advancements that are worth knowing about. So with all the latest TVs from Samsung, LG, Sony, TCL, Hisense, and others now announced and due to ship over the next few months, it seems an opportune moment to review the features you should be looking for when TV shopping. Stay tuned over
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ImageCredit...Frederic J. Brown/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMicrosoft agreed on Tuesday to buy Activision Blizzard, the video game maker behind hits like Call of Duty and Candy Crush, for $68.7 billion in cash. It is the largest takeover in Microsoft’s 46-year history and a big bet on its future direction.The deal plants Microsoft’s flag in the emerging battle for dominance in the so-called metaverse, the next-generation internet that melds the traditional online world with virtual and augmented reality.It is also a challenge to regulators in Washington, as Democrats and Republicans alike have pushed to limit the power of technology giants. In buying Activision, which faced accusations of sexual harassment and discrimination that senior executives ignored, Microsoft appears to be rebuffing a controversy about the game maker’s workplace culture. The allegations have weighed on Activision, with its shares falling 27 percent since California sued the company in July over the matter. The game maker’s shares are up nearly 40 percent in premarket trading. Microsoft’s shares fell by 1 percent after the announcement.The transaction may be seen as a victory for Bobby Kotick, Activision’s longtime chief executive, whom some critics had sought to oust over the controversy. Mr. Kotick negotiated a big premium for investors — Microsoft is paying $95 a share, roughly 45 percent above his company’s stock price before the announcement — and will continue running the company.Microsoft would gain Activision’s nearly 400 million monthly gaming users and access to some of the world’s most popular games, which are expected to form a cornerstone of the metaverse. Combining with Microsoft will also give Activision access to a vast array of artificial intelligence and other programming talent.It would give Microsoft a significant boost in particular against Facebook, whose renaming of its parent company to Meta underscored its commitment to the metaverse. Adding Activision could bolster the virtual reality offerings from Microsoft’s Xbox unit as it competes with Facebook’s Oculus system.“Gaming is the most dynamic and exciting category in entertainment across all platforms today and will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms,” Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, said in a statement.The deal would also drastically transform Microsoft. Despite owning Xbox and the studios behind Minecraft and Halo, the company has remained largely focused on corporate users for software like Office 365 and especially Azure, its cloud-computing business that competes with the likes of Amazon and Google.This is breaking news. Check back for updates.ImageCredit...Mike Blake/ReutersGoldman Sachs’s fourth-quarter earnings fell, the investment bank said on Tuesday, taking the shine off a solid year in which it reported a record $21.6 billion profit.The Wall Street bank said profit in the final three months of the year dropped 13 percent from the previous year to $3.94 billion, or $10.81 a share, falling short of analysts’ expectations. The results echoed a pattern of declining fourth-quarter earnings set by other banking giants — JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup — that reported results on Friday.But the firm still racked up its largest-ever annual profit on revenue of $59.3 billion, helped by deal-making by its investment bankers.“2021 was a record year for Goldman Sachs,” David M. Solomon, the company’s chief executive, said in a statement. “Our leadership team remains committed to growing Goldman Sachs, diversifying our businesses and delivering strong returns.”Shares of Goldman Sachs fell more than 2 percent in premarket trading.Goldman Sachs joined its Wall Street peers in bumping up pay after producing blockbuster profits. The company’s investment bankers brought in record revenue, while its stock and bond traders generated the highest revenue in 12 years, even as quarterly revenue in its trading division slumped 7 percent. Their performance prompted “significantly higher compensation” expenses, which rose 33 percent from a year earlier.Stocks fell on Tuesday, as Treasury yields continued to rise above prepandemic levels, and disappointing results from another major Wall Street bank dragged the sector lower.The S&P 500 fell 1.6 percent to start the week after Martin Luther King’s Birthday on Monday. The Nasdaq composite fell 1.8 percent. The losses added to a losing streak that’s seen both indexes fall sharply since the start of the year.A key reason for those losses, a jump in government bond yields, continued on Tuesday. The yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note climbed to 1.84 percent, the highest level since January 2020, before the pandemic hampered the economy.Losses in the S&P 500 were led by Goldman Sachs, which fell about 8 percent after the company reported its profit in the last quarter tumbled 13 percent from the previous year to $3.94 billion, falling short of analysts’ expectations.A pair of rival banks, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, had also published disappointing results last week, and shares of large banks were broadly lower on Tuesday. Morgan Stanley fell about 5 percent, while Citigroup, Bank of America and JPMorgan were all lower.The prospects for higher interest rates this year has weighed on technology stocks in particular and that was true again on Tuesday. Amazon and Alphabet were down more than 2.5 percent, while Meta, Facebook’s parent company, fell about 3.8 percent.Shares of Microsoft were down 1.8 percent on Tuesday after the company announced it would buy Activision Blizzard, the video game maker, for $68.7 billion in cash. Activision jumped nearly 30 percent on the news, and shares of other game makers also rose. Electronic Arts climbed 6 percent, while Take-Two Interactive rose about 2.5 percent.Energy stocks were also higher, as oil prices climbed sharply. Brent crude, the global benchmark, hovered above $88 a barrel in early trading Tuesday, reaching its highest level since 2014, before dropping slightly to $87.23. The price gains came after an attack on oil infrastructure and the killing of three people in the United Arab Emirates on Monday.“The damage to the U.A.E. oil facilities in Abu Dhabi is not significant in itself, but it raises the question of even more supply disruptions in the region in 2022,” Louise Dickson, senior oil markets analyst at Rystad Energy, wrote in a note.Futures for West Texas Intermediate were up 1.3 percent to $84.88 percent a barrel on Tuesday.ImageCredit...Bryan Anselm for The New York TimesTwo days before Verizon and AT&T plan to deploy more segments of their new 5G mobile internet technology, leaders of the nation’s largest air carriers warned again on Monday that thousands of flights could be grounded by interference from the technology and that “the nation’s commerce will grind to a halt.”In unusually sharp terms, the airline industry implied in a letter to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and other top federal officials that Verizon’s and AT&T’s plans could add to the disruptions in the global shipping network that have fueled inflation.High-speed 5G internet uses so-called C-band frequencies close to those used by aircraft to measure their altitude. The airlines say the technology can interfere with the instruments and create a serious safety hazard. Verizon and AT&T have argued that the aviation industry had years to upgrade any equipment that might be affected.The protest by the chief executives of Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, United Airlines and seven other passenger and cargo carriers threw into question a deal reached this month between the Federal Aviation Administration and the telecommunications companies. The F.A.A. said it would not object to a rollout of the new technology after the companies promised to address safety concerns by reducing power at 5G transmitters near airports.The airline executives said in their letter on Monday, which was reported earlier by Reuters, that aircraft manufacturers had informed them in recent weeks that the measures promised by Verizon an
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Though they offer protection against COVID-19, the worst part of wearing a face mask as a glasses-wearer is having your glasses fog up every time you take a breath. The fog makes it almost impossible to see, and when combined with chilly outdoor weather, presents an annoying and possibly dangerous dilemma. I can’t recall the number of times I’ve yanked off my glasses in frustration and quickly wiped them down with whatever piece of cloth is easily accessible, just so I don’t run into anything. I was aware of anti-fog sprays and cloths, but after a recent study from Duke University came out noting there are chemicals in some of these products that may potentially be harmful, I was hesitant to use them. Before this discovery, I had reached out to Jessica Reyes Mileti, a licensed optician in New York state and general manager of Clairmont Nichols Opticians, to get the low-down on how these sprays and cloths work. “Most anti-fog sprays, wipes or treatments work by depositing a chemical to prevent condensation from forming on the lenses,” Mileti said. The Duke study found that several anti-fog sprays and cloths contained high levels of fluorotelomer alcohols (FTOHs) and fluorotelomer ethoxylates (FTEOs), two types of per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS). PFAS are widely used “forever chemicals” that break down slowly and therefore have been found lingering in low levels in the environment and humans. There are thousands of types of PFAS, and while the science is still out on whether there is any potential harm from FTOHs and FTEOs specifically, some other PFAS are known to be associated with impaired immune function, cancer, thyroid disease and other health conditions.With this new information in mind, I sought out alternative ways to prevent my glasses from fogging, and found other gadgets and hacks to help in addition to Mileti’s spray recommendation. HuffPost may receive a share from purchases made via links on this page. Every item is independently selected by the HuffPost Shopping team. Prices and availability are subject to change. Zeiss anti-fog spray"The Zeiss spray leaves behind a thin film on the lenses that can preven
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Today, Roku, Funny Or Die, and Tango announced that they’re partnering up to produce WEIRD: The Al Yankovic Story, a biopic written by “Weird Al” Yankovic and director Eric Appel, with Daniel Radcliffe attached to star in the lead role. In a statement about the upcoming film, Yankovic spoke about how he sees WEIRD as his making good on a promise to maintain a dedicated presence in the film space over the decades. “When my last movie UHF came out in 1989, I made a solemn vow to my fans that I would release a major motion picture every 33 years, like clockwork. I’m very happy to say
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Seven people died after being shot at demonstrations in the northeast African country, a doctors’ group said, bringing the civilian death toll since the military seized back power to 71.Credit...Marwan Ali/Associated PressJan. 18, 2022, 10:44 a.m. ETNAIROBI, Kenya — Sudanese security forces killed seven people and injured at least 100 others on Monday, a doctors’ group said, the latest bloody protest to shake the country ahead of a visit by senior American diplomats seeking to support the revival of Sudan’s faltering transition to democracy.Those killed were between the ages of 19 and
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11.00am EST 11:00 Peeeeep! Off we go! Senegal, all in white, kick off against the red-clad Malawi and begin at pace, winning a corner ... 10.55am EST 10:55 Capacities for non-Cameroon games are capped at 60% for now, while you have to be vaccinated against Covid and that’s a big problem in most of Africa, but attendances do seem to be picking up after a very sluggish start and it’s a decent atmosphere as the teams come out and sing the anthems. 10.49am EST 10:49 Guinea v Zimbabwe will happen simultaneously to this game; I’ll have half an eye on it for you. Guinea are, like Senegal, pretty much guaranteed to go through but will have a great chance of winning the group – a bit of a surprise if it happens – if they beat their already-eliminated opponents. 10.41am EST 10:41 Sadio Mane watch: not overly involved so far this AFCON, but did score the last-gasp penalty that saw off Zimbabwe. No need for him to explode into life til the latter stages, you’d think, but if Senegal do go all the way he’ll have to be a major reason. 10.33am EST 10:33 Familiarise yourself with Mario Marinica, the man in Malawi’s hot seat, via this brilliant interview by Dave Hytner. It’s some story: 10.10am EST 10:10 Hi all The group stage finales roll onwards and we’ve a tasty one for you this afternoon. Senegal are tipped by many to
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Mexico’s embattled press corps has suffered a shattering start to the new year with the murders of two journalists who had dared chronicle their country’s slide into drug and corruption-fuelled violence.Margarito Martínez Esquivel, a crime reporter and photographer who often collaborated with members of the foreign media, was shot dead outside his home in the northern city of Tijuana on Monday lunchtime.“Unfortunately, I couldn’t do anything for him,” his distraught wife, Elena Martínez, told the San Diego Union-Tribune – one of numerous international outlets the journalist had worked with, including the BBC, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post.Martínez’s death came a week after another journalist, José Luis Gamboa, was fatally stabbed in the eastern state of Veracruz, another of Mexico’s most violent regions.Two days earlier Gamboa, the director of a news website called Inforegio, used Twitter to call for the appointment of an anti-drug tsar who might slow the decades-long escalation in bloodshed. Last year he lamented how parts of the government, instead of fighting drug trafficking, had been sucked into “a great criminal association” with the cartels. “The Mexican population still hasn’t grasped how serious this is,” Gamboa tweeted.The two as yet unexplained killings – which follow the murder of nine journalists last year – sparked outrage and mourning in the Latin American country, which is considered the world’s most dangerous country for reporters outside war zones.In some regions journalists have become so fearful of being abducted and killed that they take DIY dental impressions and leave them in the freezer at home before going out to report so relatives can identify their remains.“It’s shocking to have this happen so early in the year and to have one murder happen so shortly after the other,” said Jan-Albert Hootsen, the Mexico representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists.The Tijuana-based press collective Yo Sí Soy Periodista (Yes, I’m a journalist) demanded a swift investigation into the killing of Martínez, who spent more than two decades documenting the border city’s security crisis and worked for the weekly newspaper Zeta.The group said Martínez was the 29th Mexican journalist to be killed since Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, took power in December 2018 promising to pacify the country.Wendy Fry, who reports on Tijuana for the San Diego Union-Tribune and knew Martínez, remembered an industrious and kind colleague who was almost always the first to arrive on the scene on of a story.“It’s a risky thing to be a journalist in TJ and he just had a lot of pride in doing it … He worked tirelessly: day, night, afternoon,” said Fry, one of the shell-shocked journalists who gathered outside the photographer’s house on Monday.As news of Martínez’s killing spread, the Facebook page where he would livestream murder scenes to tens of thousands of followers was flooded with messages from workmates and politicians.“I feel heartbroken. I can’t believe Margarito Martínez is gone … they murdered him in cold blood,” wrote one friend, G
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As part of Microsoft’s plan to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, the software giant has created a Microsoft Gaming division. Phil Spencer, former head of Xbox, will now lead this team as it focuses on gaming across Xbox, PC, mobile, and the cloud. It’s a big promotion for Spencer, described as the Xboss by Xbox fans. Spencer originally took over as the head of Microsoft’s Xbox division in 2014, reporting to former Windows chief Terry Myerson. In a sign of how gaming has changed at Microsoft under Spencer, he quickly moved into Microsoft’s senior leadership team in 2017, reporting directly to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella as the corporate vice president of gaming. After more than 30 years at the company, Spencer is now CEO of Microsoft Gaming, as it looks to tackle mobile gaming, the metaverse, and cloud gaming with more than 20 game studios. Microsoft is now willing to spend billions on acquisitions to bolster its gaming efforts after acquiring Bethesda last year for $7.5 billion. Activision Blizzard won’t be a particularly easy acquisition for Microsoft, though. The troubled company has been struggling to address concerns from employees over a myriad of sexual misconduct allegations. Spencer and his Microsoft Gaming team will certainly have a lot of work to do to ensure the culture inside Activision Blizzard is addressed. Here’s what Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer had to say about his new role and the company’s gaming efforts in an email to staff today: Welcome back from the holidays. To start, I’d like to thank everyone for all of the hard work and dedication that have built this business and this community. Obviously, today’s agreement to acquire Activision Blizzard is incredibly exciting. In fact it’s a milestone for our company, our business and our industry. I and the entire Gaming Leadership Team are deeply enthusiastic about this opportunity. We also announced this morning that we have surpassed 25 million Game Pass subscribers across console, cloud and PC, a great achievement for all of Team Xbox. As players and partners, we all know how talented and dedicated the teams and studios are across Activision Blizzard. The legendary games and franchises across that company have delighted millions of people for decades. Coming together, we can accelerate our mission to extend the joy and community of gaming to everyone. We have the capability and opportunity to build simply the best, most engaging, most fun entertainment ecosystem anywhere. Microsoft is committed to our journey for inclusion in every aspect of gaming, among both employees and players. We deeply value individual studio cultures. We also believe that creative success and autonomy go hand-in-hand with treating every person with dignity and respect. We hold all teams, and all leaders, to this commitment. We’re looking forward to extending our culture of proactive inclusion to the great teams across Activision Blizzard. We expect this acquisition to close in FY23, pending regulatory approvals. Once the acquisition is completed, the Activision Blizzard business will report to me. In the meantime, we know you will have a lot of questions. Th
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Gary Chambers, a Louisiana Democrat vying to oust Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) from office, released a new campaign ad on Tuesday that features him smoking marijuana. The ad, titled “37 Seconds,” features Chambers lighting up a blunt as he addresses the racial disparities of marijuana-related arrests and the costs affiliated with enforcing marijuana laws. “Black people are four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana laws than white people,” Chambers, a Black progressive community activist, says in the ad.Chambers is one of two Democrats running for the opportunity to deny Kennedy a second term. The Louisiana Republican is a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump and he is
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Ingrid Betancourt’s candidacy comes at a critical time, when Colombians are fed up with the political establishment and the future of the peace agreement is at stake.Credit...Gabriel Bouys/Agence Fr
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The US supreme court will on Tuesday consider whether the city of Boston violated the free speech of a Christian group who sought to fly a flag in front of city hall.Three flagpoles stand outside Boston city hall. The US flag and the Massachusetts state flag are permanent fixtures. The third pole is usually reserved for the Boston flag but the city has allowed groups to temporarily use it while holding events in front of the building.Flags that have been flown include the LGBTQ+ pride flag and those of different nations.In 2017, Harold Shurtleff, the founder of Camp Constitution, a volunteer group that aims “to enhance the understanding of the country’s Judeo-Christian heritage”, appli
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Intel’s earnings are not until next Wednesday, but whatever it is that CEO Pat Gelsinger plans to discuss, it seems to me the real news about Intel came from the earnings of another company:
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An initiative in Brighton aimed at helping protect the bee population could do more harm than good, scientists have warned.The council in Brighton has passed a planning condition that means any new building more than five metres high will have to include swift boxes and special bricks with holes known as bee bricks. They will provide nesting and hibernating space for solitary bees.However, scientists have warned that such a move will not make any real difference for biodiversity, with some arguing that it could make matters worse for bees if the holes are not cleaned properly and attract mites or encourage the spread of disease.The idea was first raised in 2019 by councillor Robert Nemeth, and the condition was attached to all planning permissions after 1 April 2020.Dave Goulson, a professor of biology at the University of Sussex, said he had tried a bee brick out and that the holes were not deep enough to be “ideal homes for bees” but “are probably better than nothing”.He added: “Bee bricks seem like a displacement activity to me. We are kidding ourselves if we think having one of these in every house is going to make any real difference for biodiversity. Far more substantial action is needed, and these bricks could easily be used as ‘greenwash’ by developers.”Sebastian Worms, a graduate student from the University of Louvain in Belgium, said that the bricks were more educational tools for children and could have a negative impact if they were too big and not cleaned enough. “To help bees it would be better to introduce more flowers,” he said.Adam Hart, an entomologist and professor of science communication at the university of Gloucestershire, said that sometimes “well-meaning interventions can have unwanted consequences”.“It would be good to have much more research on all of these ‘bee hotels’ so bees can get the maximum benefit from people’s desire to help them,” he said.Not everyone was in agreement that the bricks were a bad idea. Francis Gilbert, a professor of ecology at the University of Nottingham, said that bee bricks did not need to be cleaned. “The mites will leave after one to two seasons and then the bees will r
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English | 简体中文 A go-style coroutine library in C++11 and more. 0. Introduction cocoyaxi (co for short), is an elegant and efficient cross-platform C++ base library. It contains a series of high-quality base components, such as go-style coroutine, coroutine-based network programming framework, command line and config file parser, high-performance log library, unit testing framework, JSON library, etc. It was said that about 23 light-years from the Earth, there is a planet named Namake. Namake has three suns, a large one and two small ones. The Namakians make a living by programming. They divide themselves into nine levels according to their programming level, and the three lowest levels will be sent to other planets to develop programming technology. These wandering Namakians must collect at least 10,000 stars through a project before they can return to Namake. Several years ago, two Namakians, ruki and alvin, were dispatched to the Earth. In order to go back to the Namake planet as soon as possible, ruki has developed a nice build tool xmake, whose name is taken from Namake. At the same time, alvin has developed a go-style C++ coroutine library cocoyaxi, whose name is taken from the Cocoyaxi village where ruki and alvin live on Namake. 1. Sponsor cocoya
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Today, I’m talking to Volkswagen Group CEO Dr. Herbert Diess. Volkswagen is one of the two biggest carmakers in the world — there’s a battle every year between VW and Toyota for the top spot; they both sell around 10 million cars a year. To put that in perspective, Ford sells around 4–6 million cars a year, and Tesla currently sells around 500,000 cars a year. So, yeah, Volkswagen Group is big. It’s also complicated: Herbert oversees a huge range of familiar car brands: VW, of course, but also Audi, Lamborghini, Porsche, and Bentley, as well as Skoda and Seat in Europe. A recent management shuffle also put him directly in charge of Volkswagen’s software subsidiary, which is called CARIAD, and, of course, he’s in charge of VW’s aggressive efforts to electrify its lineup and shift all its cars to being EVs. And that process has its roots in the Dieselgate scandal. From 2009 to 2015, Volkswagen sold cars with diesel engines that were programmed to circumvent emissions tests, and most countries opened investigations and issued fines. Here in the United States, Volkswagen was ordered to pay $2.7 billion in environmental fees and, importantly, invest $2 billion into clean-emissions infrastructure. That $2 billion investment turned into an EV charging network called Electrify America, which aims to expand to 1,800 stations and 10,000 chargers by the end of 2025. For comparison, Tesla already has just over 900 stations and 10,000 chargers. If VW can get it right, it can spin the consequences of Dieselgate into a pretty significant competitive advantage as the country transitions to EVs. Herbert and I talked about all of that and the overall transition to EVs, including VW’s new EV microbus, which is very cool. We also talked about how a company like Volkswagen can move as quickly as smaller competitors like Tesla, whether or not Volkswagen will let others buy the software it’s developing for its own cars, how he’s thinking about self-driving cars, and more. If you listen, you’ll notice a real theme is vertical integration: Herbert thinks Volkswagen Group has to do a lot of things itself instead of
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Netflix has announced that The Cuphead Show!, the animated series based on Studio MDHR’s hit game Cuphead, will debut on its service on Feb. 18. The streamer released the first full trailer for the series and a batch of images, showcasing its commitment to the game’s distinctive, early-20th-century animation stylings. Released as 12 episodes running 12 minutes apiece, The Cuphead Show! is described as “a character-driven comedy series” following the receptacle-headed Cuphead and his brother Mugman on a carnival-themed adventure through the Inkwell Isles. The journey will bring them face-to-face with The Devil himself. Tonally, the show seems to split the difference between a modern smart-aleck animated comedy and the simpler pleasures of the early cartoons that inspired its look; like the game, it mimics the rubbery animation, slapstick violence, surreal characters and mildly seedy air of the jazz-age cartoons of Max Fleischer. Image: Netflix Image: Netflix Image: Netflix Image: Netflix Image: Netflix Image: Netflix Image: Netflix
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A pure C linux MJPEG over HTTP server Summary mjpeg2http is a minimalistic server primarily targeted to run on embedded computers, like routers, raspberry pi, with a Linux OS. It can be used to stream JPEG files over an IP-based network from a webcam to various types of viewers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, VLC, mplayer, and other software capable of receiving MJPG streams. The implementation uses epoll on non-blocking file descriptors and is not thread-based. Build Install dependencies: $ sudo apt install build-essential libv4l-dev Compile with: Usage Run: $ ./mjpeg2http 192.168.2.1 8080 /dev/video0 my_secret_token Open browser on http://192.168.2.1:8080/path?my_secret_token One time token Run: $ ./mjpeg2http 192.168.2.1 8080 /dev/video0 my_secret_token /tmp/mj
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Irish police investigating the death of Ashling Murphy have arrested a man in his 30s on suspicion of murder.Murphy, a primary schoolteacher, was strangled on a canal path near the town of Tullamore while out jogging last Wednesday afternoon. Her funeral was held on Tuesday.Irish media reported that the man who was arrested was being treated for injuries in a Dublin hospital, and that authorities judged that he had recovered sufficiently to face questions.Police said they had arrested a man “on suspicion of murder” and that they had no further comment.Murphy’s death convulsed Ireland and led to vigils attended by tens of thousands of people in Dublin, Cork, Belfast, London and New York over the weekend.More to follow …
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X-Road Security Architecture. Source: https://x-road.global/securityThe Information System produces or consumes services via X-Road and is owned by an X-Road member. X-Road supports both REST and SOAP as communication methods, however X-Road does not provide automatic conversions between different types of messages and services. The Information System is capable of discovering registered X-Road members and their available services by using the X-Road metadata protocol. All messages sent via X-Road are time-stamped and logged by the Security Server. The purpose of the time-stamping is to certify the existence of data items at a certain point in time. The Time-Stamping Authority (TSA) provides a time-stamping service that the Security Server uses for time-stamping all the incoming/outgoing requests/responses. Only trusted TSAs that are defined in the Central Server can be used. The certification authority (CA) issues certificates to Security Servers (authentication certificates) and X-Road member organizations (signing certificates). Authentication certificates are used for securing the connection between two Security Servers. Signing certificates are used for digitally signing messa
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no fly zones — Aviation lobby says services will cause "incalculable" disruption to passengers, cargo. Enlarge / American Airline planes sit on the tarmac at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) in Arlington, Virginia, on January 15, 2022. (Photo by Stefani Reynolds / AFP) (Photo by STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)Stefani Reynolds | Getty Images The imminent rollout of high-speed 5G telecoms services threatens to ground flights across the US, America’s largest airlines warned on Monday, as they urged government agencies to intervene to avoid “chaos” for passengers and “incalculable” disruptions to supply chains. “The harm that will result from deployment on January 19 is substantially worse than we originally anticipated,” warned Airlines for America, an industry lobby group, pointing to the potential for 5G services to interfere with the sensitive equipment that aircraft use to take off and land. The letter, seen by the Financial Times and first reported by Reuters, was signed by the largest US carriers as well as the air freight arms of two of the biggest logistics groups, UPS and FedEx. The companies called on Joe Biden’s administration to block the rollout of 5G to towers located within two miles of airport runways that the Federal Aviation Authority has identified as being prone to disruption. “Unless our major hubs are cleared to fly, the vast majority of the traveling and shipping public will essentially be grounded,” the lobby group wrote in its letter to officials including B
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Hi HN. Aravindh and Alex here, co-founders of Fable (https://www.tryfable.com). Fable allows product teams to collaborate on product specs, which it automatically syncs to issue trackers like Jira and Linear. Here's a demo video: https://www.loom.com/share/a34eebc263f949db90f2e17aa7ffe104Product teams painstakingly craft their product specs to ensure they’re building the right thing. Unfortunately, the pace of modern product development is so fast that the minute a product spec is written, it’s no longer relevant. People waste time copy/pasting this content into issue trackers, because the engineers need tickets to work on. Worse yet, these stale artifacts result in bad decisions and ultimately the wrong product going out the door.Alex and I have been PMs at companies of varying sizes and industries—from Microsoft to Budweiser to Zocdoc. This idea came to mind when I was a PM at TpT (Teachers Pay Teachers). I was wasting hours copy/pasting from my spec into Jira, time that I could have spent doing more valuable things like talking to users. Then after creating those Jira tickets, I’d get the link and paste it back in the spec. Problem was that I didn’t have time to keep updating the spec, which is the only place that my teammates on marketing and sales looked at. They didn’t want to go into Jira.Fable gives product teams a place to collaboratively write their specs. What’s unique is that once the spec is written, teams can push a button to sync the content with
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I’ve been following the development of KiCAD for a number of years now, and using it as my main electronics CAD package daily for a the last six years or thereabouts, so the release of KiCAD 6.0 is quite exciting to an electronics nerd like me. The release date had been pushed out a bit, as this is such a huge update, and has taken a little longer than anticipated. But, it was finally tagged and pushed out to distribution on Christmas day, with some much deserved fanfare in the usual places. So now is a good time to look at which features are new in KiCAD 6.0 — actually 6.0.1 is t
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First emerging as a surrealist reaction to the horrors of the second world war, the Japanese art of butoh incorporates violence, sacrifice and bodily mutilation: a captivatingly intense form of performance described by its founder Tatsumi Hijikata as the “dance of utter darkness”.For a teenage Tom Heyes, growing up in dreary, small-town Lancashire, it was an escape from the abject mundanity of his life. “When I was first starting out I didn’t really view it as performance art. It was just me being fucked up in my bedroom,” he says, reflecting on his early interpretation of the craft
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Is cloud gaming finally a viable alternative to the local experience? The recent release of the new premium RTX 3080 tier for GeForce Now sees Nvidia push online streaming specs higher than we've ever seen them before: more compute, enviable ray tracing performance, AI upscaling via DLSS, 1440p120 and 4K60 HDR functionality. Meanwhile, Nvidia makes big claims about GeForce Now actually outperforming Xbox Series X in terms of input lag. In a world where PC upgrade prices are sky-high - if you can find the hardware to begin with - may
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Story Highlights Preferences shifted from nine-point Democratic advantage to five-point GOP edge Average party preferences for all of 2021 similar to past years Largest percentage of U.S. adults identify as political independents WASHINGTON, D.C. -- On average, Americans' political party preferences in 2021 looked similar to prior years, with slightly more U.S. adults identifying as Democrats or leaning Democratic (46%) than identified as Republicans or leaned Republican (43%). However, the general stability for the full-year average obscures a dramatic shift over the cour
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Work, zoom learning, commuting, cooking and cleaning. Whatever is filling up your daily schedule to the brim, leaving you with little time to spare, it’s easy to let those lower priority tasks go by the wayside.From rapid-cooking appliances that make perfectly cooked eggs every time to an MVP odor and stain eliminator that’s been touted for its low maintenance cleaning ability, these products can help you stay on track and even save you some time in your day. HuffPost may receive a share from purchases made via links on this page. Prices and availability are subject to change. A no-scrub weekly shower cleaner that you spray and then forget aboutPromising review: "This stuff is a life saver. Life is tremendously busy with kids and cleaning the shower is at the bottom of the l
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The other day I was reading about the development of personal computers and the desktop GUI, and I was thinking about how comfortable we all have become with the analogy of the “desktop” for our personal computers. We place files in folders and keep them on our desktops. There’s a lot of physical action going on. Humans are very good at understanding spaces, especially when it comes to remembering physical spaces, and it got me thinking about how we commonly visualize code. Is there any good way to tap into that when thinking about and visualizing code? How do you visualize code? This made me think about how I tend to visualize code, and it’s a little hard to describe. I think it usually lives in my head in a variety of ways, depending on the level of abstracti
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Nato has invited Russia to a fresh series of talks to discuss European security and arms controls as the alliance scrambles to avoid a possible Russian attack on Ukraine.“The main task now is to prevent a military attack on Ukraine,” the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said after a meeting with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz. “We are willing to listen to their concerns but we will not compromise on core principles. We must remain clear-eyed about the prospects of progress but … will make every effort to reach an agreement.”Stoltenberg’s offer of further wide-ranging talks with Moscow follows inconclusive meetings last week between the US and Russia, as well as a rare meeting of the Nato-Russia Council, where Russia tabled uncompromising demands about the future se
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New York|Hochul Outpaces Foes by Raising a Record-High $21.6 Million for Campaignhttps://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/18/nyregion/kathy-hochul-fundraising.htmlThe fund-raising haul positions Gov. Kathy Hochul, who leads her rivals in polls, as a prohibitive favorite to win her first full term as governor of New York in November.Credit...Brittainy Newman for The New York TimesJan. 18, 2022, 9:48 a.m. ETFive months after ascending to New York’s highest office, Gov. Kathy Hochul plans to submit filings on Tuesday that show her election campaign has already raised nearly $21.6 million, a record-smashing sum that positions her as the prohibitive favorite to win a full term as governor this fall, and likely the most dominant figure in New York State politics.The filings were expected to show that M
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Microsoft is buying the gaming company Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, gaining access to blockbuster games like “Call of Duty” and ”Candy Crush.”The all-cash deal will let Microsoft, maker of the Xbox gaming system, accelerate mobile gaming and provide building blocks for the metaverse, or a virtual environment.The announcement Tuesday arrives with Activision still in turmoil over allegations of misconduct and unequal pay.Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a conference call with investors “the culture of our organization is my number one priority” and that “it’s critical for Activision Blizzard to drive forward on its” commitments to improve its workplace culture.Activision disclosed last year it was being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission ove
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A woman who may have seen Prince Andrew with Virginia Giuffre at a London nightclub 20 years ago is “willing” to provide testimony in Giuffre’s civil lawsuit against the royal, whom she accuses of sexual abuse, the witness’s lawyer said.“I am proud to represent Shukri Walker, who has bravely stepped forward as a witness and encourages others who may have information to do so as well,” the lawyer Lisa Bloom said in an email.“She is willing to do the deposition Virginia Giuffre’s team is seeking.”Giuffre, now 38, maintains that at age 17 she was coerced into having sex with the prince, by his associates Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Andrew emphatically denies all allegations of misconduct.Epstein, a convicted sex offender and financier, was arrested in July 2019 on
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Prince Andrew has plenty on his mind but the latest ignominy following the Virginia Giuffre scandal will not be missed by his mother, whose most fervent passion is horse racing and whose first read in the morning is the Racing Post.York racecourse have decided to rename the Duke Of York Stakes, a prestigious race for sprinters run each year at its May meeting, in a bid to distance themselves from the embattled royal and the story will certainly make headlines in Wednesday’s edition.The track’s head of marketing and sponsorship James Brennan told the daily turf bible: “The race has been with us in different guises, over different distances and at different times of the year, since 1895.“It was introduced in honour of the then Duke of York, who went on to become King George V, and I
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9.41am EST 09:41 While Democrats are expected to fail again in their effort to pass voting rights legislation, a group of bipartisan senators is working on a more narrow bill to help improve US elections. The senators’ work involves the 1887 Electoral Count Act, an obscure law that dictates how presidential election results are certified by Congress. Donald Trump tried to use the law to pressure Mike Pence to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 race, and the certification process was ultimately disrupted by the Capitol insurrection. Axios reports: The idea of targeting the 188
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tl;dr papers shows AI’s potential to condense research By Jan 18, 2022, 9:40am EST Academic writing often has a reputation for being hard to follow, but what if you could use machine learning to summarize arguments in scientific papers so that even a seven-year-old could understand them? That’s the idea behind tl;dr papers — a project that leverages recent advances in AI language processing to simplify science. Work on the site began tw
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The six-year-old schoolboy Rikki Neave was murdered 27 years ago by a boy aged 13 with a “grotesque interest” in child murder who lied for decades to cover up the killing, a court has heard.James Watson, 40, denies the murder of Neave, who went missing in November 1994 and whose body was found in woodland near Peterborough the following day.Opening Watson’s trial at the Old Bailey, John Price QC told the jury that Rikki’s mother, Ruth Neave, was charged and acquitted of his murder in 1996 and it is submitted that the decision to charge her was “wrong”.It was in February 2020 that Watson, who had appeared as a witness in the original investigation, was charged with the murder after a DNA breakthrough established he had been in close physical contact with the clothing Neave was w
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In the wake of scandal and lawsuits alleging a culture of discrimination and harrassment at Activision Blizzard, Microsoft today announced they're buying the company. Wait, hang on. What. That's not what I expected when Xbox head Phil Spencer told staff he was "evaluating all aspects of [Xbox's] relationship" with Activision Blizzard. Microsoft plan to pay $68.7 billion (£50 billion) for the company, which will nab them games including Warcraft, Call Of Duty, and Overwatch. Jesus. Pending approval from shareholders and authorities, Microsoft will buy up Activision Blizzard in a cash deal valued at $68.7 billion [almost nice -ed.]. They'll pick up video game series including Call Of Duty, Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, Candy Crush
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The BugleThe problem with topical comedy podcasts is that they often find themselves caught between two poles. They are neither as fast and reactive as Twitter, nor as popular and mainstream as a TV panel show. The secret of a good one, then, is largely down to personality. And it’s this that has propelled Andy Zaltzman’s The Bugle for a decade and a half. Originally co-hosted with a pre-megastardom John Oliver, each week Zaltzman pulls apart the news (with help from one of a rotating band of guests) in a manner that is often absurd or angry but never smug. Given the state of topical comedy in general, that last quality is particularly miraculous.Sign up to our Inside Saturday newsletter for an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the making of the magazine’s biggest features, as well as a curated list of our weekly highlights.The Daily ZeitgeistThe miracle of The Daily Zeitgeist, meanwhile, is that it is daily. And while you might assume that filling a podcast with topical gags every 24 hours is the fastest way to be driven to either madness or despair, that happily isn’t the case here. Hosted by Jack O’Brien, co-founder of the comedy site Cracked, The Daily Zeitgeist is smart enough to realise that all days are not created equally. Some days O’Brien and his guest can prattle on entertainingly for more than an hour; on quieter days they wrap up in as little as 15 minutes. It makes for a refreshingly fat-free listen.Page 94: The Private Eye PodcastIf, like many (or perhaps just me), you have grown bored of Have I Got News for You, you should welcome Page 94 into your life with absolute glee. In truth, calling it a comedy podcast is a stretch: recent episodes ha
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Erik van Lieshout’s films are often riotous, comic affairs. Always putting himself in the frame – along with his subjects, collaborators, antagonists and even passers-by – he’s a kind of agent provocateur. He annoys, provokes, and sometimes goes too far. How far can you go? Now 54, Van Lieshout’s latest work focuses on fellow Dutch artist René Daniëls. While retaining Van Lieshout’s talent for embedding himself in situations (often of his own making), and for all the incidental, hilarious interludes, this film, René Daniëls 2021, filmed over a year, has a largely different tenor to previous works.In 1987 Daniëls, then an influential young Dutch painter, suffered a haemorrhagic stroke. He was 37. His career had lasted barely a decade. For a long time, Daniëls was unable to work, and still can barely speak. Slowly, he has learned to paint and draw again, using his left hand. He is now aphasic, and partially paralysed on his right side.Communicating by way of smiles and thumbs-ups, laughter, cryptic drawings and occasionally written words, you’re never quite sure what’s going on with Daniëls. But it would be a mistake to cast Daniëls’ art in the past tense. Not only does he still sporadically paint and make drawings, his art also remains influential and is regularly shown. A prolific painter, his work always bristled with ideas, visual puns, unexpected conjunctions, an impure mix of figuration, abstraction, cryptic signs and an overriding humour and surprise. His paintings have a light, deft touch, both funny and serious at the same time. Younger painters now who don’t know Daniëls’ work might be as surprised and captivated by it as I still am.
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It is perhaps a testament to current UK politics that the survival of a prime minister could come down to a test of honesty between two famously slippery individuals. But while Dominic Cummings very clearly wants to bring down Boris Johnson, it does not necessarily mean he is making things up – at least not always.In an addendum to an earlier post on his Substack blog on Monday, Cummings argued that Johnson’s defence of why he attended the “bring your own booze” party in the Downing Street garden on 20 May 2020 – he believed it was a work meeting – was a lie.Martin Reynolds, the senior No 10 aide who sent the invitation, had been warned the event would break Covid rules, and it was inconceivable Johnson would not have known of the exchanges, Cummings wrote.“There are many other photos of parties after I left yet to appear,” Cummings ended, ominously. “I’ll say more when SG’s [Sue Gray’s] report is published.”In normal times, such allegations from a former chief aide would seem career ending for a prime minister. But Team Johnson will know two things: that Cummings is not renowned as a reliable witness; and that he has a track record of promising evidence that never materialises.For most voters, if they have heard of Cummings at all, it will be for his own lockdown breaking antics in spring 2020, notably his much-mocked “eyesight test” excuse for a family day trip to Barnard Castle.Cummings did eventually concede he had not initially told the whole truth about his travels, arguing this had been because he had decamped with his wife and son from London to Durham for security reasons, something he had not been able to disclose at the time.Similarly, in a marathon, barnstorming performance before a Covid inquiry last May, Cummings promised MPs he would provide evidence to back up claims about misdeeds by former health secretary Matt Hancock and others, but never did.As ever with Cummings, what he says and his reasons for saying it are often complex, rolled up in a nest of vested interests, ancient grudges and a showman’s instinct for feeding the public just enough to keep them interested.Many of Cummings’ utterances bring in mind th
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New York|Bill de Blasio Says He Won’t Run for Governor After Allhttps://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/18/nyregion/bill-de-blasio-governor.htmlMr. de Blasio, the former New York City mayor, had signaled for months that he planned to run for governor, but he faced long odds in a crowded Democratic primary.Credit...Holly Pickett for The New York TimesJan. 18, 2022, 9:13 a.m. ETBill de Blasio, the former mayor of New York City, said on Tuesday that he would not run for governor of New York, as he had been widely expected to do.Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat who served two terms in office, had signaled for months that he was planning a campaign, saying repeatedly that he did not feel ready to leave public service.He made the announcement in a video posted on Twitter, in which he highlighted the accomplishments of his mayoral tenure before announcing that he would not be joining the governor’s race.“No, I am not going to be running for governor in New York State,” Mr. de Blasio said, standing on the street outside his Brooklyn residence. “But I am going to devote every fiber of my being to fight inequality in the state of New York.”Mr. de Blasio then hinted that he would have more announcements to make in the coming days.He declined to enter a crowded Democratic primary field, with th
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Hash tables for parallel programming This project consisists of fast hash tables suitable for parallel programming, including multiple lock-free, wait-free hashtables. If you're interested in understanding the different algorithms, see the README.md in the src/ directory. If you're just interested in using the most efficient algorithms in your C applications, see below for instructions. Overview This project will install libhatrack.a, which exports high-level dictionary and set classes (hatrack_dict and hatrack_set), backed by two appropriate lower-level hash tables. Examples of using these classes are in the examples directory. The lower-level hash tables can also be used directly; again, look at the src directory. The hatrack_dict and hatrack_set implementations both support multiple simultaneous readers and multiple simultaneous writers. You are responsible for all memory management for keys and items; our hash tables only worries about memory management for state internal to the table. Installing If you downloaded a release distro, you can simply do: ./configure make sudo make install If you cloned the repo, then you'll first need to create the configure script and Makefile.in, using autotools: aclocal autoheader autoconf automake If you want to run the test suite, first build it with: This will create an executable named test in the tests directory, which will run functionality and performance tests for all the different hash table implementations. There are no library dependencies, beyond bits that are a part of the C11 standard (particularly stdatomic and pthreads). Parallel malloc implementations like jemalloc (http://jemalloc.net) or hoard (http://hoard.org) can be added via LD_PRELOAD, which may boost performance when there's significant concurancy, depending on the system malloc you're using... particularly with hatrack_set objects, which require more dynamic memory allocation than hatrack_dictionary objects do (this is due to sets requiring fully consistent views; see the README.md file in the src directory for more information). Getting Started Once you've built, you can just link against the library, and go. See the examples director
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Microsoft is to pay almost $70bn to buy Activision Blizzard, the publisher of mega franchises including Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Candy Crush, in the company’s largest deal and the biggest ever takeover in the tech and gaming sectors.Sign up for Pushing Buttons, our weekly guide to what’s going on in video games.Microsoft said that the $68.7bn (£50.6bn) all-cash deal – which dwarfs its previous biggest, the $26bn takeover of LinkedIn in 2016 – will “provide the building blocks for the metaverse”. It is the biggest deal in tech history, eclipsing the $67bn paid by Dell to buy the digital storage giant EMC in 2015.The deal will see the Xbox maker become the world’s third biggest gaming company by revenue behind China’s Tencent and Japan’s Sony, maker of PlayStation games consoles.“Gaming is the most dynamic and exciting category in entertainment across all platforms today and will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms,” said Satya Nadella, the chairman and chief executive of Microsoft. “We’re investing deeply in world-class content, community and the cloud to usher in a new era of gaming that puts players and creators first and make gaming safe, inclusive and accessible to all.”The deal comes after a tumultuous time for Activision Blizzard, which has 10,000 staff globally a market value of about $50bn and three $1bn gaming franchises, which has been affected by a string of allegations of sexual misconduct and discrimination involving senior executives.On Monday, the company said that it had fired more than three dozen employees and disciplined another 40 since July last year to address the allegations.Sign up to the daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDeskBobby Kotick, the chief executive of Activision Blizzard, will remain running the gaming business, which when joined with Microsoft will see the overall company run 30 internal games development studios. Microsoft said that the company’s strength in the rapidly growing mobile gaming sector was an important attraction of the deal.Sign up for our weekly technology newsletter, TechScape.Gaming has been a pandemic w
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Amika George, an activist who founded the #FreePeriods campaign, shares her worries about the police and crime bill.  She started her non-profit campaign group in 2017 and two years later got the government to commit to funding period products in every state school and college in England. The Guardian reporter Damien Gayle explains what is behind the government's police and crime bill and what it could mean for protesting.  On Monday night, the House of Lords voted down proposed
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SJD Accountancy and Nixon Williams – both contractor-focused beancounting firms owned by the same corporate parent as cyber-attack-struck UK umbrella company Parasol – have been hit by online attackers. The three firms are all nested under UK corporate parent Optionis Group, which describes itself as a "family" of "award-winning tax, umbrella and accountancy solutions" aimed at contractors. We have asked Optionis Group if its other brands, which include contractor accounting org ClearSky and tax rebate specialist Brian Alfred, are also affected. The firms share a company director in Doug
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For years now I have been living with a chronic condition that I’ve finally been able to diagnose as Privileged Immigrant Derangement Syndrome (PIDS). Let me explain: more than a decade ago I left my native Britain to go and work in New York. I wasn’t fleeing persecution, poverty, or life in a failed state; I just wanted to live in the US. There were more opportunities, I didn’t have to navigate the suffocating class system, and, most importantly, my English accent gave me a competitive edge. Women swooned at my vowel sounds (I’m not making that up: they swooned … OK, I promise at least one woman swooned) and everyone assumed I was on tea-drinking terms with the Queen.Anyway, that’s the PI bit of PIDS. The D bit is this: when you spend extended time away from your home country, it’s easy to build up a romanticised version of it in your head. I became a cheerleader for all things British; I even bought a pair of union jack wellies, and wore them with pride whenever it rained. As my long-suffering American wife can attest, I seized every opportunity to say how much better things were in Blighty than Stateside. We had a superior healthcare system; we weren’t gun-nuts?; our infrastructure was better; our political system wasn’t as drenched with money, and was less corrupt. Even our rain was better. On and on I went about how the UK was infinitely superior to the US.Then Brexit happened. Suddenly the US media (and the rest of the world) started looking at the UK with more sceptical eyes. Britain’s global reputation started to plummet, as did the value of my accent. Still, it wasn’t as if the US could feel superior for long: shortly after Brexit, it elected a reality TV star president. Since then both countries have been engaged in a race to the bottom. Even with an acute case of PIDS, it’s hard to deny Britain is an out-of-control dumpster fire; every time I think things can’t get more ludicrous, they do. The other day there were reports that Boris Johnson had concocted a strategy called Operation Save Big Dog to protect him from the fallout from “partygate”. GB News just announced it will – dictatorship style – start broadcasting the national anthem daily at the beginning of its live programming. Today, I read a headline about Prince Andrew allegedly verbally abusing his maids for rearranging his teddy bears. How on earth are th
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Rate, review, share on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and email. On the podcast today; drama in the Copa del Rey as Real Betis v Sevilla is abandoned, Barcelona are finally able to register Ferran Torres and Luka Modric’s plans to play until he’s 40. Elsewhere, Inter look like they’ll edge an all-Milan title race, and the panel discuss where Dusan Vlahovic and Paulo Dybala could be heading. Plus, the latest in the Bundesliga and Ligue 1, while we check in on Gianni Infantino’s latest movements . Photograph: Claudio Giovannini/EPA Support The Guardian The Guardian is edi
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Activision Blizzard acquisition will no doubt boost subscribers further. Game Pass now has over 25 million subscribers, across both Xbox and PC.The news was part of a statement from Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer as the company acquires Activision Blizzard.Once the takeover deal closes, both new and old Activision Blizzard games will be added to the service, which will increase its value for money considerably. "We also announced today that Game Pass now has more than 25 million subscribers. As always, we look forward to continuing to add more value and more great games to Game Pass," says Spencer.Last year, Microsoft bought Bethesda parent company Zenimax for $7.5bn and swiftly added its biggest titles to Game Pass: The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Doom included. This was the biggest gaming acquisition in Microsoft's history, until Activision Blizzard for a staggering $68.7bn.Sony, meanwhile, are rumoured to be releasing their own Game Pass equivalent, codenamed Spartacus.Spencer even commented on the reports of Sony releasing their own service. "So when I hear others doing things like Game Pass or coming to PC," he said, "it makes sense to me because I think that's the right answer... I don't really look at it as validation [of Xbox's strategies]. I actually, when I'm talking to our teams, I talk about it as an inevitability."While details
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Greece has vowed to intensify its campaign for the reunification of the Parthenon sculptures amid “optimistic” signs that British public opinion has shifted markedly in favour of returning the prized “Elgin” marbles to Athens.The Greek government said it would step up pressure for the fifth-century BC antiquities to be enjoyed in their entirety, within view of the Acropolis, after receiving support from an unexpected quarter of the British establishment.“The sculptures are the most important link between the modern Greeks and their ancestors,” said Tasos Chatzivasileiou, an MP who is the Greek prime minister’s top foreign policy adviser. “Our strategy will be to turn up the heat, to keep this issue in the public sphere and to raise it at every opportunity.”An about-turn by the Times newspaper, arguing for the treasures to be returned to Greece, was evidence the campaign was working, he said.Not since the early 1980s – when the former culture minister Melina Mercouri first demanded they be restored to their homeland – has the drive to retrieve the “exiled” marbles been so alive.For close to two centuries, the British Museum has been home to almost half of the temple’s monumental 160-metre-long frieze, considered the high point of classical art. The controversial circumstances in which the sculptures were dismantled from the Parthenon have long stirred debate.Successive Greek governments have argued that the antiquities were stolen at a time when the stateless nation was under Ottoman rule and without a voice. The cultural row has remained the one black spot in otherwise excellent Anglo-Greek ties.“Our bilateral relations go back centuries … but we believe they are also incomplete,” said Chatzivasileiou, who sat in on talks in Downing Street in November when the prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, formally raised the issue for the first time. “We need to work hard together to overturn an injustice that weighs heavy on the hearts of Greeks.”But as Athens has sought to place the issue at the top of its international cultural agenda, people have also rallied to the cause. In a YouGov poll conducted days after the Greek leader’s meeting with Boris Johnson, 59% of Britons said they believed the antiquities belonged in Greece. Increasingly, actors, writers, barristers and politicians have weighed in, calling for them to be reunited with carvings that survived being sawed from the temple when Lord Elgin, England’s then ambassador to the Ottoman empire, sent in workmen to remove “as much as possible” in 1801.Johnson, a passionate advocate of the antiquities’ repatriation as a classics student at Oxford University, contends the artworks were legally acquired upon receipt of a permit from the Sublime Porte. Like his predecessors, he has also said the dispute should be discussed with the museum’s trustees despite Unesco recently ruling that it is a matter for both governments to resolve.On its website, the British Museum asserts the diplomat not only “acted with the full knowledge and permission of the legal authorities of the day in both Athens and London” but that his “activities were thoroughly i
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The one thing missing from the list of 22 personality traits and accomplishments flaunted in a full-page newspaper advert entitled “Who is Silvio Berlusconi?” was the former Italian prime minister’s talent for singing. But the one-time cruise ship crooner, one of Italy’s most controversial leaders well known for his myriad legal woes, is hoping his pleasant voice will seduce dozens of parliamentarians into backing his bid to become Italy’s next president.The secret ballot begins on 24 January, and Berlusconi, 85, has broken from tradition by shamelessly campaigning for the job, a largely ceremonial role with powers to resolve political crises, even without officially throwing his hat into the ring. His charm offensive, which includes telephone canvassing unaffiliated parliamentarians whose votes could secure his victory and jokingly inviting them to his “bunga bunga party”’, is stoking tensions within Italy’s ruling coalition, blocking any meaningful debate on an impartial candidate all parties can agree on and igniting protests among Italians who find the prospect of the scandal-plagued Berlusconi becoming head of state abominable.For the past week, Vittorio Sgarbi, an MP, art critic and a culture undersecretary in Berlusconi’s second of four governments, has been orchestrating “calls with Berlusconi” to establish whether the billionaire Forza Italia leader can muster enough votes to win. “He told me he had 100 votes more [needed from unaffiliated parliamentarians] and I said, ‘Ok, let’s try and give the votes a face’, and so we started phoning people,” said Sgarbi. “These are people without a party to call home, and so when you get a call from Berlusconi you feel important. We’ve made 50 calls so far, and 15 seemed ready to vote for him. He’s the one doing the talking, not me, and he has a voice like Frank Sinatra. For me, his voice alone can bring in at least another 20 votes.”Berlusconi speaks to media following a December meeting with centre-right leaders in Rome. Photograph: Roberto Monaldo/APJust over 1,000 “grand electors” – MPs, senators and a smaller number of regional delegates – will cast their ballots in a complex process that is poised to go through several rounds before a successor to Sergio Mattarella, who steps down on 3 February, is elected. The majority required to win diminishes on each round. If Berlusconi officially expresses his candidature in the coming days and can prove he has the extra numbers then his rightwing allies, the League and Brothers of Italy, have promised their parties’ backing. If that promise prevails and all parliamentarians from the rightwing bloc support Berlusconi, then he would need about 80 more votes from the unaffiliated pool to secure the 505 needed for victory in the fourth round.Berlusconi is doing all he can to augment his public persona as he seeks one final grab at power, mobilising his media empire while hogging the political debate. The attributes highlighted in the advert that ran in his Il Giornale newspaper last week included being “a good and generous person”, a “friend of everyone, enemy of no-one”, and a “self-made man,
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Titled Towers, Fortnite’s most famous and recognizable location, has returned to the battle royale. The game’s most popular landmark rejoined the map with the latest patch, available Tuesday, which also revealed that the city has been hidden in the thawing ice on the new Chapter 3 island. Tilted Towers, a city full of skyscrapers and destructible buildings, was part of Fortnite’s first battle royale island map. During its time in Chapter 1 from October 2017 to October 2019, Tilted Towers was blown up more than a few times, redesigned once or twice, and even destroyed by players in a touching memorial. But it didn’t make the cut for Chapter 2’s map. While other areas in Fortnit
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mega-merger — Industry-shaking purchase could grow Xbox's sizable slate of exclusive franchises.
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Kazakhstan’s former president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, has made his first appearance since unrest broke out in the country earlier this month, in a stilted video in which he denied reports that he had fled the country, or that there was a split in the country’s elites.Instead, Nazarbayev insisted, he had merely been having “a deserved rest”.Nazarbayev ruled Kazakhstan from independence in 1991 until 2019. When he stepped down, he handpicked his successor, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, and retained the honorific title “Leader of the Nation”. He was also the head of the country’s security council until he was removed by Tokayev during the unrest, which official figures say killed 225 peop
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Self-proclaimed visionaries of our times like to explode myths about what can and cannot be done. Inhabiting mars? Let's get on it, electric car maker Elon Musk says. Heavy industry in spac
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Farkhunda’s* mother has run a feminist radio station in her conservative province for the best part of 20 years, in defiance of Taliban threats. She has three children with disabilities who were forced to abandon their wheelchairs when gunmen attacked their home about two months after the Taliban takeover. They are in hiding in a city safe house, but don’t know how they will survive longer term.Quick GuideAfghanistan: the left behindShowAfghanistan: the left behindThe crowds fighting to get into Kabul airport for evacuation dispersed months ago, but while the scramble to leave Taliban-controlled Afghanistan became less visible when the last foreign troops left in August 2021, it got no less desperate.Since then, reprisal killings have regularly been reported from across the country, including dozens detailed in a recent report from Human Rights Watch. For those still in Afghanistan, living in hiding or in permanent fear for months now, the dangers seem to be increasing as the options for escape narrow.The UK government has tightened rules for its ARAP visa programme for former employees.A second scheme offering a path to safety to a wider section of Afghans at risk was heavily promoted by the government but it only began operating this month, and there are no details of how individuals can apply.And while the Taliban have largely kept a promise to allow those with tickets and documents to fly out, Afghan passports are difficult to secure , visas are even more challenging, and flights are still prohibitively expensive.This series features the stories of those who are trapped, in Afghanistan or in limbo as they search for safe haven, fearing for their lives from Taliban attacks or through hunger because they cannot work.Emma Graham-HarrisonWhen the fighting closed in on our city in August we were moving around – one night in one place, one night in another place – staying with different relatives because my mum had received a lot of threats in the past.She had faced some discrimination, as an ethnic minority in our region, and also the Taliban used to ask her: “Why are you, a woman, running a radio station. You should stay home and look after your family.”When we left our home, we took nothing with us – my sister and brothers are disabled and they can’t walk. But eventually our relatives told us that even though the Taliban are in power, everything is normal and we can come back to our home.So in October, we returned to the house after two months living with different uncles and aunts. That same evening, late at night when we were all sleeping, suddenly we heard gunshots all around the doors.We all gathered in one room in the centre of the house that didn’t have windows, so we were able to survive. In the other rooms the windows were shot as well as the doors, there was glass all around, but they didn’t try to come in – perhaps they thought they hit us already.We wanted to leave when the shooting stopped, but it was too late. The next morning our neighbours came and said: “Why did you come back? You should leave immediately.” They thought it was insecure because we had come back and that our family was the r
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The killer of the children’s author Helen Bailey in 2016 has gone on trial charged with murdering his wife six years earlier in an incident he claimed was an epileptic fit.Ian Stewart, 61, is charged with the murder of Diane Stewart, who died at their Cambridgeshire home in June 2010.Opening the case in front of the jury at Huntingdon crown court, Stuart Trimmer QC said: “The crown say this defendant intended to kill Diane Stewart and the only serious issue you have to determine is whether Ian Stewart was responsible for the killing or whether it was a medical accident.”The crown says St
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MILAN (AP) — Jeff Goldblum infused Milan Fashion Week with some levity on Sunday as he shimmied down the Prada runway in a dark overcoat that cast a dramatic silhouette.The latest menswear collection in the two-year-old collaboration between Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons as co-creative directors was at once elemental and celebratory, presenting elevated versions of everyday pieces.“We were thinking about meaningful fashion, pieces that make sense,” Prada said in show notes. “Clothes that make people feel important, and that are therefore, in themselves, important, not something to disca
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Dignity-wise, I see the Johnson administration has moved to the stage of a man in a dirty tracksuit saying he’ll do a polygraph. Dominic Cummings’ insistence that the prime minister is lying, and that he’ll swear to it, makes you wonder if Sue Gray is really the person to run the inquiry into Downing Street parties. In many ways Jeremy Kyle has the more relevant experience, though of course it would be the first time the presenter had stood in judgment on people lavished with every possible economic, educational and social advantage in life.A number of anonymous sources have confirmed Cummings’ account to the BBC, giving rise to the sort of unfortunate news coverage that is in no way behind Boris Johnson’s plan to smash the national broadcaster like a mirror that won’t tell him he’s the fairest of them all. And we’ll come to so-called Operation Red Meat in a second.In the meantime, I am enjoying the dead look in all the ministers’ eyes as they are seconded to defend Johnson in the face of what might soon become the indefensible. Instead of calling this Form a Square Around the Shitster, Johnson’s allies have reportedly gone with Operation Save Big Dog, a name that just underscores the impression of No 10 as a stag do gone badly wrong. You know the plot: some inadequate guys mount a desperate rearguard action to escape the problem of a dead stripper/missing groom/pub crawl that has somehow made them the target of Armenian gangsters.Anyway, on to Operation Red Meat, the attempt to pacify mutinous backbenchers with two minutes’ hate. For more than 10 years, Conservative governments wishing to kneecap the BBC have fallen back on one question they always believe is rhetorical: why does this or that presenter get paid more than the prime minister? Weirdly, no one’s tried that line yet this time. Can’t think why. But we know how these things work, so it won’t be long before secretary of state for culture wars Nadine Dorries is out there demanding to know why Zoe Ball or whoever gets paid more than Boris Johnson.I guess the minor points of difference are that Zoe’s very good at her job, people like her and she doesn’t hold her listeners in total contempt. But given how deeply most politicians struggle with the very basic showbiz concept of “talent”, let’s put it another way: did Zoe’s indecision lead to the deaths of thousands of people, cause the entire economy to be shut down way longer than it needed to be and preside over a multibillion-pound culture of cronyism? Did Zoe’s producer break lockdown rules to drive a 60-mile round trip to test their eyesight? Is Zoe a career liar, whose pathological mendacity is now tearing at the entire fabric of trust in politics, and even the very notion of government by consent, in ways that will last for all of us long past her departure from her current role?In a word: NO. To all of those. Indeed, maybe those political brains who never tire of telling us what moral bankruptcy is “priced in” with Boris Johnson should try to understand that an absence of moral bankruptcy is also priced into the salaries of many of Britain’s best-loved broadcasters. If they still can
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I love all tinned fish, but how can I jazz them up for lunch and dinner?Ben, Sheffield“Tinned fish is such good stuff,” agrees chef and restaurateur Mitch Tonks, who launched his Rockfish tinned seafood range at the start of January. “We have the obligatory sardines and mackerel, as well as mussels and cuttlefish or squid in ink … I’m a bit of tinned fish fan.” And he’s not alone.José Pizarro always has some sardines to hand: “Get sardinillas, the little ones – they’re the best.” The chef and restaurateur chops and uses them, alongside boiled eggs and capers, to fill empanadas. “I can’t get enough of these pastries. It’s a recipe my mum taught me, though she uses tinned tuna.” Alternatively, Tonks puts his sardines to work in a Reuben-style sandwich: “Mix creme fraiche, English mustard and a dash of Worcestershire sauce, spread it on rye bread [buttered on the outside], lay the sardines on top, add black pepper, red onion, sliced dill pickle, capers, sauerkraut and swiss cheese.” Top with another slice of rye buttered on the outside and fry until crisp.You could also turn up the heat with a som tam, Tonks says: “Shred carrots, courgettes and/or green papaya, slice red onion, halve cherry tomatoes and put them all in a bowl with sliced hot fresh chilli. Make a dressing by combining a bashed garlic clove, palm sugar, fish sauce and lime juice, then toss it all together with coriander and mint. Deep-fry some tinned sardines and crumble them over the top to finish.”If Ben has any tinned tuna knocking about, Tonks recommends stirring it through crispy potatoes spiced up with ’nduja, while tinned mackerel signals shawarma: “Shred cabbage, red onion and green chilli, then grate some garlic into yoghurt and mix.” Spread that on flatbread with some hummus, a little za’atar, lemon juice and mackerel, wrap it all up and job done.“Anchovies are also essential,” says chef Angus Cowen, who with his partner Charlotte Dawe founded the East London Canning Co during lockdown. “They’ve got that umami you can’t get from anything else.” While anchovies have myriad uses, you’ll be hard pushed serve them better than simply on toast with “as much butter as you can handle”. Alternatively, “sweat them down with chopped rosemary and garlic to use as a base with chicken stock for a braise, be it lamb shoulder or rabbit”.Cowen is also a great believer in tinned mussels: “We cook and snack on them all year round.” A real winner round his – and especially with his children – is an orzo dish for which he renders smoked bacon, then sweats leeks and garlic, plus a few fennel seeds, until soft. “Add a splash of cider, pop in some cooked pasta and a knob of butter, bring it all together, and the mussels go in right at the end.” If you’ve got some fancy mussels, don’t forget to add a bit of their liquor, too. Or, for a quick fix, use them as a toast topper. Tonks tosses his mussels (“we tin them in an escabeche, which is a light vinegar marinade”) with red onions, capers, shredded little gem and a bit of olive oil and vinegar. Eat on sourdough and spread the joy.
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Most doctors are intelligent, compassionate human beings, but they are human. And medicine is a business, which means doctors can be overworked, pressed for time and dismissive of patient complaints, especially if that patient is a woman. In my case, the casual dismissal of my symptoms almost cost me my life.It was October 2019 when my new OB-GYN ― let’s call her Dr. Can’t Be Bothered ― gave me what I considered to be life-changing news.“You have a two-centimeter tumor on your uterine cervix,” she said, without even a hint of concern. For me, those words felt like a knife to the gut. A tumor? Me? How?Then her phone rang, and she left the room.By the time she returned, tears had welled up in my eyes. “Do I have cancer?” I asked, terrified and confused. As a non-doctor, when I hear the word “tumor,” my first thought is cancer. Hers was not.“No, no,” Dr. Can’t Be Bothered assured me. “This is not how cancer behaves.” Then she added a sentence I’ll never forget: “For you to have cancer at this age, with this medical history, it would be like winning the lottery.”This did not make me feel better. She seemed unconcerned about the tumor growing in my pelvis, but I was not. She explained I would need a biopsy, but assured me it was probably fibroids, a benign growth, maybe a polyp, or a million other little non-cancer things. I would have to go under anesthesia for the biopsy, and it would be an “all-day” affair. Not wanting this tumor-thingy hanging over my head, I asked to schedule the surgery as quickly as possible.Dr. CBB once again told me there was no rush, even though the radiology report stated the tumor was “of concern.”In fact, she was going on vacation for two weeks and her schedule was full. We would have to put off the procedure for at least four weeks. I asked if I could get in sooner ― perhaps a different doctor could perform the biopsy?“It’s not necessary,” she said. “Just be patient.”“I let it go ― after all, she'd gone to medical school and I hadn't. She wore a white coat, and I was a 34-year-old whose work wardrobe still included yoga pants.”She made me feel like I was overreacting, like I was ignorant of how “these things work.” I peppered her with questions about the Big C, to which she kept saying, “No, no, that’s not how cancer behaves.” I let it go ― after all, she’d gone to medical school and I hadn’t. She wore a white coat, and I was a 34-year-old whose work wardrobe still included yoga pants. It was not my place to argue with her.On my drive home I called my mother. I explained everything the doctor told me, but I couldn’t stop crying. I felt that something was wrong ― like, really wrong. And I was angry the doctor wasn’t taking this seriously. My mother agreed.On instinct, I called up my old OB-GYN. Sobbing, I explained my situation and begged for an urgent appointment.When it comes to certain cancers, time matters. Forty-eight hours later I was once again sitting in a doctor’s office, only this time, it was a completely different experience.My old doctor spoke to me with kindness and concern. He explained exactly what the ultrasound reve
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Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass service now has 25 million subscribers. That’s up from the 18 million Microsoft previously reported in January last year. The Xbox Game Pass all-you-can-eat catalog of downloadable games — or the “Netflix for video games” as it’s often described — continues to attract new subscribers as Microsoft looks to extend the service. As Microsoft’s subscriber numbers grow, so does the amount of titles available on Xbox Game Pass. In 2021, Xbox Game Pass added iconic Bethesda games, with 20 in total on the service, including Dishonored, Doom, The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Wolfenstein. Microsoft announced the milestone while revealing its planned $68.7 b
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For the past five years, I’ve been “working from boat”, sailing in a crystal Mediterranean sea, with turtles nibbling at my anchor. Sounds fun. It’s not. I miss the office. There are problems
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In 1998 Franka Potente earned her movie-star stripes by taking the lead role in Run Lola Run. Potente spends much of that film, as the title might suggest, in constant motion as her character hares around Berlin trying to find 100,000 deutsche marks to save her imperilled boyfriend. In stark contrast, for her first feature as a writer-director Potente has conceived a story about people mostly stuck in one place, literally and metaphorically.For the last 20 years, protagonist Marvin (In the Valley of Elah’s Jake McLaughlin, impressive enough here to make you wonder where he’s been for the last few decades) has been confined to a prison cell, serving time for a stupid, pointless murder he
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To perform an ollie is to commune with gods. Or maybe just look cool. OlliOlli World is shaping up to be a good-spirited renovation of the 2
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This is Highly Recommend, a column dedicated to what food people are obsessed with eating, drinking, and buying right now. Next up, Tiffany Hopkins makes the case for Jane Bakes cookies.Judge me if you will, but I initially bought these hazelnut and dark chocolate cookies from Jane Bakes because of their fiber content. We could all use a little help, OKAY? Made with just a handful of ingredients, these cookies are not only high in fiber, but also lower in carbs than standard store-bought cookies. I’ve tried a lot of healthy-ish snacks, and let’s be honest, they usually aren’t as good as their sugar- and saturated fat-filled counterparts. So I wasn’t expecting these to be delicious, but surprise! Their rich, nutty flavor and delicate, melt-in-your mouth texture had me hooked.Jane Bakes Hazelnut and Dark Chocolate CookiesMost store-bought, chocolate-speckled cookies fall into two camps: Team Crispy (Tate’s) and Team Chewy (Pepperidge Farm). But Jane Bakes’ treats are something different altogether, sitting somewhere between a crumbly chocolate chip cookie and a buttery shortbread—sort of like, you know, those cookies. With a small, bite-sized shape, they’re perfectly tender, have just the right amount of sweetness, and embody the perfect butter/chocolate/nut ratio. They’re the captain of Team Delicate.So what, exactly, makes them healthy? The base of these cookies consists of a mixture of 100% organic, whole wheat flour fortified with something called Hi-Maize, a fiber-packed resistant starch that’s made from corn. The cookies get their sweetness from Whey Low, a low-glycemic blend of natural sugars including fructose (fruit sugar) and lactose (milk sugar). While I don’t know if a “healthy cookie” actually exists, I can vouch for the deliciousness of Jane Bakes’ offerings.I immediately regretted only buying one pack—a mistake I haven’t made since. These days, I always keep a couple sleeves of Jane Bakes cookies on deck. Sometimes it’s the whiskey and rye chocolate chip flavor or the maple pecan variety, but the hazelnut and dark chocolate cookies are incredibly hard to beat. I can’t be sure that eating a cookie a day will keep t
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poly-lt-wire-logo Image: Wizards of the Coast Monsters of the Multiverse is designed to be ‘backward-compatible’ with 5th edition By Jan 18, 2022, 9:00am EST Dungeons & Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast is currently walking a tightrope. The seminal tabletop role-playing game turns 50 in 2024, and developers are busy building the game’s next version to go on sale during that window. At the same time, D&D is more popular than ever, a jewel in Hasbro’s crown that — along with Magic: The Gathering — is raking in money hand over fist. So how will the developers navigate the void between the 5th edition and what comes next? The answer is: very, very carefully. Our first hint at how that transition will be navigated is an upcoming book titled Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse, a confusing name for a confusing product that will be sold in a confusing way and — at least initially — a
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It’s hard to pin down exactly when it happened, but if you paid attention to women’s media in the 2000s and kept paying attention into the next decade, you definitely noticed it. Magazines that devoted their pages to diet tips and celebrity snark suddenly started preaching “empowerment.” Fashion brands that made clothing that only went up to a size 12 wanted you to “love your body” just the way it was. Parenting books wanted you to know that messing up was okay, that as long as you raised resilient, self-assured children, nobody cared about your stretch marks or your glass of wine in front of the TV. Regardless, somewhere along the way — perhaps having to do with a catastrophic financial crisis and the rise of social media — it became imperative for capitalist enterprises to recognize that people were rediscovering a certain kind of feminism, a kind that emphasized self-love and self-care, embraced imperfection, and called on women to advocate for equality. All of this coalesces in what the sociologists Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill call “confidence culture” in their book of the same name due out January 28. “To be self-confident is the imperative of our time. As gender, racial, and class inequalities deepen, women are increasingly called on to believe in themselves,” reads the first line of the text. It criticizes the individualistic, neoliberal missives from corporations to “just be more confident” — in our bodies, in our relationships, in motherhood, in the workplace, and within humanitarian efforts to support global development — and argues that, most of the time, they end up reinforcing the very beliefs they aim to deconstruct. For example: Orgad and Gill describe one “love your body” campaign that features a dozen or so women all dressed similarly against a minimalist background as “an attempt to use and strategically deploy images of minoritized groups (people of color, disabled people, Muslims, queer people) in commercial culture to ‘take diversity into account’ only to empty any particular differences of their meaning and social significance.” I chatted with Orgad and Gill over Zoom, where we discussed t
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Microsoft’s Chrome OS competitor, Windows 11 SE, is making its way onto a handful of laptops. After detailing Windows 11 SE in November, Microsoft’s OEM partners are now starting to make devices available globally for schools and students. Acer, Asus, Dell, Dynabook, Lenovo, HP, and JP.IK have all created Windows 11 SE laptops, with devices from Fujitsu and Positivo arriving later this year. Windows 11 SE will only be available on new low-cost devices and only for schools and education customers. It’s designed to really take on Chromebooks in education, and is optimized for Microsoft Edge, Office, and Microsoft’s cloud-based services. Windows 11 SE isn’t limited to just Microsoft apps though, with both Zoom and Chrome part of an authorized selection of apps that IT admins can install. Microsoft has also simplified Windows 11 SE so apps always run fullscreen, multitasking using Snap Layouts has been reduced to side-by-side only, and the Widgets section has been removed. Acer’s Windows 11 SE laptop includes stylus support. Image: Microsoft In terms of hardware, a variety of laptops will be available in the coming weeks. Most OEMs seem to be repurposing existing low-cost devices to ship with Windows 11 SE preinstalled. Acer is updating its existing TravelMate Spin B3 laptop with Windows 11 SE. The 11.6-inch device includes shock-absorbent bumpers to protect against drops and even drainage nearly the keyboard for spillages. Intel Pentium Silver or Celeron processors will power the TravelMate Spin B3, which are fairly common processor choices among Windows 11 SE laptops. Asus has its own wonderfully named BR1100F laptop that includes a 360-degree hinge, a touchscreen display with stylus support, and a rubber bumper and spill-resistant keyboard. Dell has opted for an 11-inch display on its Latitude 3120 laptops, with a quick charging feature that lets owners get around 80 percent charge in an hour. That’s useful in schools where trying to keep devices charged is half the struggle with laptops. Dynabook (known previously as To
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Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge Two dozen women drivers speak out about their experiences with sexual assault and harassment By Jan 18, 2022, 9:00am EST Warning: this story contains descriptions of sexual assault that some readers may find disturbing. For this story, last names have been omitted to protect the identities of these women and in some cases, the names have been changed for privacy reasons. Tar
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A spat over Covid has exposed friction between the former president and a rising G.O.P. governor unwilling to curb his ambitions.Credit...Samuel Corum for The New York TimesPublished Jan. 16, 2022Updated Jan. 18, 2022, 8:59 a.m. ETFor months, former President Donald J. Trump has been grumbling quietly to friends and visitors to his Palm Beach mansion about a rival Republican power center in another Florida mansion, some 400 miles to the north.Gov. Ron DeSantis, a man Mr. Trump believes he put on the map, has been acting far less like an acolyte and more like a future competitor, Mr. Trump complains. With his stock rising fast in the party, the governor has conspicuously refrained from saying he would stand aside if Mr. Trump runs for the Republican nomination for president in 2024.“The m
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A conservative Maltese lawyer who opposes abortion has been elected president of the European parliament, the first woman in 20 years to lead the assembly.Roberta Metsola, who is celebrating her 43rd birthday on Tuesday, is the youngest-ever president of the European parliament, winning a comfortable majority to serve a two-and-a-half-year term.A former civil servant first elected in 2013, she is the first person from Malta, the smallest member state, to lead any EU institution.Metsola, a member of the centre-right European People’s party, had been serving as interim president after the untimely death of David Sassoli last week. Sassoli, a popular Italian Social Democrat, was due to end his term in this week’s midterm reshuffle of top jobs.As the favourite to succeed Sassoli since her candidacy was announced last autumn, Metsola’s victory was never in doubt after the parliament’s three largest groups made a pact to support her on the eve of the vote.She won 458 of 690 votes cast, easily beating three rivals from smaller groups: the Greens, the radical left and conservative nationalists.The Socialists and Democrats, the second-largest group behind the EPP, threw their weight
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ImageCredit...Frederic J. Brown/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMicrosoft agreed on Tuesday to buy Activision Blizzard, the video game maker behind hits like Call of Duty and Candy Crush, for $68.7 billion in cash. It is the largest takeover in Microsoft’s 46-year history and a big bet on its future direction.The deal plants Microsoft’s flag in the emerging battle for dominance in the so-called metaverse, the next-generation internet that melds the traditional online world with virtual and augmented reality.It is also a challenge to regulators in Washington, as Democrats and Republicans alike have pushed to limit the power of technology giants. In buying Activision, which faced accusations of sexual harassment and discrimination that senior executives ignored, Microsoft appears to be rebuffing a controversy about the game maker’s workplace culture. The allegations have weighed on Activision, with its shares falling 27 percent since California sued the company in July over the matter. The game maker’s shares are up nearly 40 percent in premarket trading. Microsoft’s shares fell by 1 percent after the announcement.The transaction may be seen as a victory for Bobby Kotick, Activision’s longtime chief executive, whom some critics had sought to oust over the controversy. Mr. Kotick negotiated a big premium for investors — Microsoft is paying $95 a share, roughly 45 percent above his company’s stock price before the announcement — and will continue running the company.Microsoft would gain Activision’s nearly 400 million monthly gaming users and access to some of the world’s most popular games, which are expected to form a cornerstone of the metaverse.
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Microsoft announced Tuesday that it has purchased Activision Blizzard, publisher of some of the most popular games on the planet (from World of Warcraft to Call of Duty), as well as the studio currently embroiled in multiple lawsuits related to accusations of gender discrimination in its workplace. Xbox boss Phil Spencer will serve as the CEO of Activision Blizzard once the transaction is finalized. The Wall Street Journal reports the deal is worth an estimated $68.7 billion. In a blog post about the acquisition, Spencer further noted that Microsoft “will offer as many Activision Blizzard games as we can within Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass, both new titles and games from Activision Blizzard’s incredible catalog.” As far as the discrimination lawsuits, Spencer’s blog post and the announcement post from Microsoft made no direct mention of the situation. However, Spencer’s post includes this paragraph about workplace culture: “As a company, Microsoft is committed to our journey for inclusion in every aspect of gaming, among both employees and players. We deeply value individual studio cultures. We also believe that creative success and autonomy go hand-in-hand with treating every person with dignity and respect. We hold all teams, and all leaders, to this commitment.” In November 2021, after more than 1,000 Activision Blizzard employees signed a letter calling for the company’s CEO Bobby Kotick to resign, Phil Spencer said in an internal email obtained by
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Mister Bentley just stepped into history on Jimmy Fallon's "Why Is Your Pet Better Than Me?"Mister Bentley took one giant step for dogkind Monday on “The Tonight Show.”The pooch moonwalked with some sass in host Jimmy Fallon’s “Why Is Your Pet Better Than Me?” segment. (Watch the video below.)Mister Bentley’s owner, Bradley Friesen of Vancouver, Canada, noted that Fallon was “not the best moonwalker” and set out to prove his talented canine was better.We think the King of Pop would have approved.General Assignment Reporter, HuffPostJimmy FallonPetsdogmoonwalk
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By Celeste Bott (January 14, 2022, 8:20 PM EST) -- John Deere has monopolized the market for repair and maintenance services of its agricultural equipment, preventing independent shops and farmers from accessing vital tools and software needed to repair newer generations of its machinery, according to a proposed class action in Illinois federal court.By making those tools and software available only to Deere-affiliated dealerships, and withholding them from farmers and independent repair businesses, the Illinois-based manufacturing company has cornered the market in order to rake in ad
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In programming, we often represent numbers using types that have specific ranges. For example, 64-bit signed integer types can represent all integers between -9223372036854775808 and 9223372036854775807, inclusively. All integers inside this range are valid, all integers outside are “out of range”. It is simple. What about floating-point numbers? The nuance with floating-point numbers is that they cannot represent all numbers within a continuous range. For example, the real number 1/3 cannot be represented using binary floating-point numbers. So the convention is that given a textual re
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The Monetary Authority of Singapore says it is considering supervisory action against Southeast Asia's second largest bank, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC), which was criticised for its incident response to a widespread phishing scheme across the island nation. "Monetary Authority Singapore (MAS) takes a serious view of the recent phishing scams involving OCBC Bank. They have significantly impacted several customers. OCBC has acknowledged that its incident response and customer service should have been better. MAS has been following up with the bank on these and broader issues relating to the incident," said MAS deputy managing director Ms Ho Hern Shin in a statement to The Register. The phishing scheme first appeared at the start of December 2021 and became more aggressive thr
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On a cloudless morning last May, a pilot took off from the Niagara Falls International Airport, heading for restricted military airspace over Lake Ontario. The plane, which bore the insignia of the United States Air Force, was a repurposed Czechoslovak jet, an L-39 Albatros, purchased by a private defense contractor. The bay in front of the cockpit was filled with sensors and computer processors that recorded the aircraft’s performance. For two hours, the pilot flew counterclockwise around the lake. Engineers on the ground, under contract with DARPA, the Defense Department’s research agency, had choreographed every turn, every pitch and roll, in an attempt to do something unprecedented: design a plane that can fly and engage in aerial combat—dogfighting—without a human pilot operat
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WHAT IS END-TO-END ENCRYPTION?Social media has many benefits and is an important part of life for many people. End-to-end encryption is valuable technology designed to keep our data and conversations safe. We are not opposed to end-to-encryption in principle and fully support the importance of strong user privacy. Instead, our campaign is calling for social media companies to work with us to find a solution that protects privacy, without putting children at even greater risk.Child sex abusers use social media platforms to exploit children and share images and videos of children being abused with other offenders.Right now, some social media companies can detect child sexual abuse material being shared on their platforms and report it to law enforcement. This plays an important part in stopp
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Holistic Configuration Management at FacebookThe 25th ACM Symposium on Operating Systems PrinciplesAbstractFacebook’s web site and mobile apps are very dynamic. Every day, they undergo thousands of online configuration changes, and execute trillions of configuration checks to personalize the product features experienced by hundreds of million of daily active users. For example, configuration changes help manage the rollouts of new product features, perform A/B testing experiments on mobile devices to identify the best echo-canceling parameters for VoIP, rebalance the load across global regions, and deploy the latest machine learning models to improve News Feed ranking. This paper gives a comprehensive description of the use cases, design, implementation, and usage statistics of a suite o
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If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. The edgy animated adaptation of Valve's silly wizard war MOBA Dota 2 has returned, with the full second season of Dota: Dragon's Blood now live on Netflix. Dragon Knight, Mirana, and their friends return to fight Terrorblade, having committed the classic Dota mistake of letting a late-game carry farm uninterrupted until they're stacked. Should've kept ganking him before he ate all those dragons, nerks. The animated series pulls fragments from Valve's world and characters and patches them together with new pieces into an original story of sex, violence, and politics. Following the first seaso
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A positive spin — Proton had reliability issues and could not compete with SpaceX's Falcon 9. Enlarge / A Russian 3-stage Proton rocket blasts into the sky in 2000.NASA Russia's main space corporation, Roscosmos, said it is in the process of building four more Proton rockets before it shuts down production of the venerable booster. In a news release, Roscosmos said the four rockets are on an assembly line at the Khrunichev State Space Research and Design Center's factory in Moscow's Fili district. After their production is complete, these four rockets will be added to its present inventory of 10 flight-ready Proton-M rockets. (The news
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2010-07-19 12:32:12 you: Hi 2010-07-19 12:32:15 co-worker: Hello. ## CO-WORKER WAITS WHILE YOU PHRASE YOUR QUESTION 2010-07-19 12:34:01 you: I'm working on [something] and I'm trying to do [etc...] 2010-07-19 12:35:21 co-worker: Oh, that's [answer...] It's as if you called someone on the phone and said "Hi!" and then put them on hold! Please do this instead: 2010-07-19 12:32:12 you: Hi -- I'm working on [something] and I'm trying to do [etc...] 2010-07-19 12:33:32 co-worker: [answers question] Note that you get help minutes sooner, and you don't make them wait. Instead, the co-worker can start thinking about your question right away! You're trying to be polite by not jumping right into the request, like you would do in person or on the phone. But Chat is neither of those th
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The Israeli police allegedly conducted warrantless phone intercepts of Israeli citizens, including politicians and activists, using the NSO group’s controversial Pegasus spyware, according to an investigation by the Israeli business media site Calcalist.Among those described as having been targets in the report were local mayors, leaders of political protests against the former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and former government employees.According to the report, the surveillance was done without the court supervision required for Israeli citizens and without monitoring of how the data was used, a claim denied explicitly by the Israeli police service and a government minister.A separate report in the Israeli daily Haaretz, based on an invoice seen by the paper, suggested the Israeli
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The Activision booth is shown at the E3 2017 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, California, U.S. June 13, 2017. REUTERS/ Mike Blake/File PhotoRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comJan 18 (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) said on Tuesday it would buy "Call of Duty"videogame maker Activision Blizzard (ATVI.O) for $68.7 billion in cash, the largest deal in the sector making the Xbox maker the third-largest gaming company by revenue.Microsoft's offer of $95 per share is at a premium of 45% to Activision's Friday close. Shares of Activision were up nearly 38% at $65.39 before being halted for news."Gaming is the most dynamic and exciting category in entertainment across all platforms today and will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms," Microsof
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Advent of code is now a pretty popular yearly event, where every day from December 1st to 25th, there is a new two-parts problem to solve. The story is delightfully weird and convoluted, and the problems are all pretty small and self contained. I found that it's a great way to level up in a programming language. Once you are familiar with the basic syntax and concept, these problems are really good practice to become intermediate, without being tangled in complexity or library hell. The official leaderboard is about solving the problems as fast as possible, which doesn't really interest me, compounded by the fact that they are revealed at 5am in my timezone. So I remembered this post of someone solving last year's advent of code under 1s total. Of course it's highly dependent on the under
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Microsoft is acquiring Activision, the troubled publisher of Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Diablo. The deal will value Activision at $68.7 billion, far in excess of the $26 billion Microsoft paid to acquire LinkedIn in 2016. It’s Microsoft’s biggest push into gaming, and the company says it will be the “third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony” once the deal closes. Microsoft plans to add many of Activision’s games to Xbox Game Pass once the deal closes. With the acquisition of Activision, Microsoft will soon publish franchises like Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, Call of Duty and Candy Crush. “Upon close, we will offer as many Activision Blizzard games as we can within Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass, both new titles and games from Activision Bli
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Houthi forces who control much of northern Yemen say about 20 people have died in Saudi-led coalition airstrikes on the capital, Sana’a, a day after a Houthi drone attack killed three people in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia’s coalition partner.Neighbours and doctors said about 14 people were killed when coalition planes struck the home of a high-ranking Houthi military official, including his wife and son. A Houthi official tweeted that in all, about 20 people had died.Early on Tuesday, the coalition said it had begun strikes against strongholds and camps in Sana’a belonging to the Houthi group.Global leaders have rallied around the UAE since the drone attack, which killed three migrant workers and wounded six others. Emirati officials said they were weighing a response to w
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January 18, 2022 | Microsoft News Center Legendary games, immersive interactive entertainment and publishing expertise accelerate growth in Microsoft’s Gaming business across mobile, PC, console and cloud. Microsoft announced plans to acquire Activision Blizzard, a leader in game development and an interactive entertainment content publisher. The planned acquisition includes iconic franchises from the Activision, Blizzard and King studios like “Warcraft,” “Diablo,” “Overwatch,” “Call of Duty” and “Candy Crush.” REDMOND, Wash. and Santa Monica, Calif. – Jan. 18, 2022 – With three billion people actively playing games today, and fueled by a new generation steeped in the joys of interactive entertainment, gaming is now the largest and fastest-growing form of entertainment. Today, Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) announced plans to acquire Activision Blizzard Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI), a leader in game development and interactive entertainment content publisher. This acquisition will accelerate the growth in Microsoft’s gaming business across mobile, PC, console and cloud and will provide building blocks for the metaverse. Microsoft will acquire Activision Blizzard for $95.00 per share, in an all-cash transaction valued at $68.7 billion, inclusive of Activision Blizzard’s net cash. When the transaction closes, Microsoft will become the world’s third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony. The planned acquisition includes iconic franchises from the Activision, Blizzard and King studios like “Warcraft,” “Diablo,” “Overwatch,” “Call of Duty
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Microsoft is buying Call of Duty and World of Warcraft maker Activision Blizzard in an astonishing deal worth $68.7bn. The Wall St Journal today broke the news that Microsoft was "near" a deal to buy the embattled publisher. Shortly after, Microsoft confirmed its acquisition plans in a blog post from Xbox boss Phil Spencer.The monumental acquisition - by far the largest ever seen in video games - means Microsoft will own blockbuster franchises such as Call of Duty, Spyro, Guitar Hero, Crash Bandicoot and Tony Hawk from Activision, Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, Hearthstone and StarCraft from Blizzard, as well as Candy Crush from mobile arm King. Microsoft will take over Activision, Blizzard, and all of its subsidiary studios - including Beenox, Demonware, Digital Legends, High Moon Studios, Infinity Ward, King, Major League Gaming, Radical Entertainment, Raven Software, Sledgehammer Games, Toys for Bob and Treyarch.The deal comes after a turbulent period for Activision Blizzard, after numerous reports of employee misconduct and toxic workplace conditions and intense pressure on the company's hugely controversial boss Bobby Kotick. There's no explicit mention of what will happen to Kotick in Microsoft's announcement, but Spencer did have this to say:"Until this transaction closes, Activision Blizzard and Microsoft Gaming will continue to operate independently," Spencer wrote. "Once the deal is complete, the Activision Blizzard business will report to me as CEO, Microsoft Gaming."As a company, Microsoft is committed to our journey for inclusion in every aspect of gaming, among both employees and players. We deep
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January 18, 2022 | Microsoft News Center Legendary games, immersive interactive entertainment and publishing expertise accelerate growth in Microsoft’s Gaming business across mobile, PC, console and cloud. Microsoft announced plans to acquire Activision Blizzard, a leader in game development and an interactive entertainment content publisher. The planned acquisition includes iconic franchises from the Activision, Blizzard and King studios like “Warcraft,” “Diablo,” “Overwatch,” “Call of Duty” and “Candy Crush.” REDMOND, Wash. and Santa Monica, Calif. – Jan. 18, 2022 – With three billion people actively playing games today, and fueled by a new generation steeped in the joys of interactive entertainment, gaming is now the largest and fastest-growing form of entertainment. Today, Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) announced plans to acquire Activision Blizzard Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI), a leader in game development and interactive entertainment content publisher. This acquisition will accelerate the growth in Microsoft’s gaming business across mobile, PC, console and cloud and will provide building blocks for the metaverse. Microsoft will acquire Activision Blizzard for $95.00 per share, in an all-cash transaction valued at $68.7 billion, inclusive of Activision Blizzard’s net cash. When the transaction closes, Microsoft will become the world’s third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony. The planned acquisition includes iconic franchises from the Activision, Blizzard and King studios like “Warcraft,” “Diablo,” “Overwatch,” “Call of Duty” and “Candy Crush,” in addition to global eSports activities through Major League Gaming. The company has studios around the word with nearly 10,000 employees. Bobby Kotick will continue to serve as CEO of Activision Blizzard, and he and his team will maintain their focus on driving efforts to further strengthen the company’s culture and accelerate business growth. Once the deal closes, the Activision Blizzard business will report to Phil Spencer, CEO, Microsoft Gaming. “Gaming is the
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January 18, 2022 | Microsoft News Center Legendary games, immersive interactive entertainment and publishing expertise accelerate growth in Microsoft’s Gaming business across mobile, PC, console and cloud. Microsoft announced plans to acquire Activision Blizzard, a leader in game development and an interactive entertainment content publisher. The planned acquisition includes iconic franchises from the Activision, Blizzard and King studios like “Warcraft,” “Diablo,” “Overwatch,” “Call of Duty” and “Candy Crush.” REDMOND, Wash. and Santa Monica, Calif. – Jan. 18, 2022 – With three billion people actively playing games today, and fueled by a new generation steeped in the joys of interactive entertainment, gaming is now the largest and fastest-growing form of entertainment. Today, Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) announced plans to acquire Activision Blizzard Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI), a leader in game development and interactive entertainment content publisher. This acquisition will accelerate the growth in Microsoft’s gaming business across mobile, PC, console and cloud and will provide building blocks for the metaverse. Microsoft will acquire Activision Blizzard for $95.00 per sha
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Remember last summer, when things were starting to open up and Omicron was just a Greek letter you found in crossword puzzles? Yeah, me too. But now, many of us are still relying on video calls to keep in touch with work colleagues, family, and friends. And for most of us — especially those who are facing financial difficulties — free is best. Zoom continues to top the list of videoconferencing apps, but there are a bunch of applications out there that will allow you to meet others online for free. We’ve listed a few of the best known videoconferencing apps, along with a couple of popular text chat apps that include video calling features. While most of these already have free versions, some are offering access to additional features for those who are currently working from home or who want to check up on friends and relatives online. There are a number of apps we have not included, such as Facebook, WhatsApp, and FaceTime, that allow you to do video chats. We’ve left them out because they require that all participants be members of a specific social network (Facebook, WhatsApp) or that you use a specific type of device (FaceTime, which is Apple-only). We’ve also tried to concentrate on applications that allow you to participate without having to download the app (unless you’re the host), and that allow at least 10 or more participants on their free version. A good idea is to try one or two out for yourself to see how well they fit in with your style and that of your friends. This list is a good place to start. Zoom The most popular video meeting app Zoom is one of the most widely used video meeting apps. Zoom has become one of the most well-known videoconferencing apps — in fact, its name is quickly becoming synonymous with video meetings. Before the pandemic hit, the company pushed Zoom mostly for corporate use, but it also provides a free basic version for individuals. At first, because Zoom didn’t expect its sudden popularity among non-business users, there were several missteps involving privacy and security; the company quick
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Photo by Rocky Luten For quite a few years now, bedroom design has erred on the side of light and bright—you know, white walls, creamy drapes, minimal art and decor—but I happen to think that’s far from the only way of doing things. Last year, I painted the back wall of my bedroom in a deep, brownish gray (Otter Tail by Behr, to be specific), and I loved it so much that I knew I’d likely never go back to a bright white bedroom. With two coats of paint on just one wall, my bedroom immediately felt more like the sanctuary almost everyone is reaching for when they design a bedroom. It felt cozy, warm, and altogether… sleepy. Think about it: Sure, some spas are light and bright, but aren't the most relaxing experiences (like massages and facials) in dim rooms with delicate wind chime music? You know I’m right. At the end of the day, it’s all up to personal preference, but I’m taking the side of darker, moodier, sleepier. The only color I wouldn’t recommend for a bedroom? Red… like, fire engine red. That color has a documented way of putting people on edge. But if red’s your thing? By all means, have at it. Read on for 9 of the best scene-setting, sleep-inducing (hopefully!) bedroom paint colors. Okay, so maybe I’m biased (since this is a photo of my bedroom) but I love a green bedroom. I knew in my current apartment I wanted a warm, vintage vibe, and this grassy green (Soreal Leaf by Behr) pairs perfectly with brass and gold accents, pink velvet curtains, and teak wood tones. It doesn’t get more bold, really, than deep, black walls. Sure, there have been lots of chalkboard walls over the years, but a wall like this is intentional, and in small spaces, can actually make it feel larger and more open. Tricorn Black by Sherwin Williams is one o
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Batu Caves, MalaysiaHindu devotees climb the steps to Sri Subramaniar Swamy temple. After a one-year hiatus because of the coronavirus pandemic, celebrations resume this year with tight health protocols limiting the number of participants to 6,000 from the usual tens of thousands. Several rituals such as devotees carrying Kavadi, a large, decorated contraption, are not allowed, in an effort to curb the spread of Covid-19
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Back in 2017, movie star Denzel Washington surprised a grandmother on her Chicago doorstep while he was searching for a barbecue joint he used to visit as a child.Video footage that went viral showed Washington laughing and joking with Juanita Hubbard and her family.On Thursday, late night comedian Jimmy Kimmel stunned Washington ― who was promoting his new film, “The Tragedy of Macbeth” ― by reconnecting the actor with Hubbard, who is now 91, over video chat.Washington appeared genuinely thrilled to see Hubbard again, throwing his arms in the air and blowing kisses her way.Watch the c
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In vaccinated and boosted people, breakthrough Covid-19 cases can often be quite mild, akin to an annoying cold; these relatively manageable symptoms can result in infected people dismissing a slightly scratchy throat and perhaps forgoing testing. The “what is a symptom” question is also impacting those who do test positive, with new federal guidelines relying on symptoms as a deciding factor in whether you go back to work or stay home after testing positive for Covid-19 — especially for essential workers and those who don’t have paid time off. In December 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed its recommendations for isolation after a positive test, with the number of days someone must isolate being largely dependent on the presence of symptoms. Now, people who test positive but do not develop symptoms must isolate for just five days; if they remain asymptomatic, they can end isolation after five days (but continue to wear a mask around others at home and in public for another five days). To help you better understand what “counts” as a symptom, Vox spoke to three experts. “No symptoms” means you feel your best Defined by the CDC as “when a person is infected with a virus and will never feel any symptoms at all,” asymptomatic has become a catchall phrase for those who feel fine and aren’t exhibiting any of the common markers of Covid-19 — lack of taste or smell, dry cough, fever — but still test positive and appear to be capable of spreading the virus. In the age of omicron, when symptoms can be almost imperceptible, asymptomatic means absolutely no sniffles, coughs, or aches of any kind. “Asymptomatic means you feel in your best shape ever,” says Jorge Salinas, an assistant professor of medicine and hospital epidemiologist at Stanford University. “You are doing great. You feel amazing, nothing bothers you.” Because community transmission is so high right now, it’s best to assume you’ve been exposed to someone who has Covid-19 if you’ve been to a public place recently, Salinas says. Everyone should act as though they’ve come in contact with the virus and are potentially infected, and if anything feels off beyond your normal aches and pains (like your chronic lower back pain or regular migraines), you should consider it a symptom. Tolerance for pain or illness varies from person to person
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Ali MartinPlayer of the series Pat Cummins was class personified, both as a courteous, seemingly ego-free captain who had Australia playing in his image and the standout fast bowler of his generation.Breakthrough player Scott Boland arrived mid-series with little by way of fanfare and walked off at the end in Hobart with 18 wickets at 9.5 runs apiece. Build the man a statue.Best moment The final session on day two of the Boxing Day Test, when the Melbourne Cricket Ground turned into “The G” and Australia’s quicks charged in with a wall of noise behind them. Thrilling stuff.One thing I would have changed The schedule change made it understandable in this instance – and the twilight period does make for a stunning backdrop – but one day-night Test match per Ashes series is plenty.The 2023 Ashes series will be … a golden chance for Australia to claim a series win in England for the first time since 2001 unless the hosts can perform a handbrake turn on their flatlining form in the meantime.Mark RamprakashPlayer of the series If you asked any of England’s batters which one bowler they would not want to face it would be Pat Cummins, who in his first series as captain was fast, accurate, and led his team excellently.Breakthrough player I’ve been massively impressed by Cameron Green. Technically he looks a very sound right-hand bat who can play long innings at the highest level, and as a bowler he is tall, strong, hostile and unsettles players with pace and bounce.Best moment England’s highlight has to be Mark Wood getting six wickets in Hobart. I think he’s such a great character, who brings the team energy, enthusiasm and a point of difference. His first thr
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Microsoft announced Tuesday it will buy video game giant Activision Blizzard in a $68.7 billion all-cash deal.Shares of Activision soared about 37% in pre-market trading before being halted after the Wall Street Journal first reported the deal.Microsoft shares fell more than 2% following the announcementActivision, which is known for popular games such as Call of Duty and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, has been mired in controversy for the last several months following reports of sexual misconduct and harassment among the company's executives. On Monday, Activision said it fired dozens of executives after an investigation.Under the deal, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, who has faced calls to resign over the cultural problems within his company, will remain CEO and report to Microsoft's Xbox boss Phil Spencer.Microsoft has gotten more aggressive with gaming over the past several years. It bought Minecraft maker Mojang for $2.5 billion in 2014. And last year, Microsoft completed a $7.5 billion acquisition of game maker Bethesda.The deal also plays into a long-term vision for Microsoft as it competes with Meta (formerly Facebook) to build technologies to create a virtual world called the metaverse. In fact, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was the first Big Tech CEO to publicly acknowledge the value of the metaverse, months before Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Today, virtual worlds are dominated by gaming, but the hope is they expand to cater to other demographics and replace a lot of traditional
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Matrix-CRDT enables you to use Matrix as a backend for distributed, real-time collaborative web applications that sync automatically. The MatrixProvider is a sync provider for Yjs, a proven, high performance CRDT implementation. TL;DR Create apps like this: And connect Matrix as transport + backend storage. Instead of chat messages (primary use-case of Matrix), we send an event stream of data model updates (for the rich-text demo, these are document edits) to Matrix. Live demo In the examples directory, you'll find some live examples: Collaborative Todo list Collaborative rich text editing Motivation CRDTs (Conflict-free Replicated Data Types) make it easy to build decentralized, fast, collaborative local-first applications. Read more about the benefits of Local-first software in this essay When building local-first software on top of CRDTs, you probably still need a backend so users can access their data across devices and collaborate with each other. While Matrix is primarily designed for messaging (chat), it's versatile enough to use as a backend for collaborative applications (see Architecture). The idea is that by building on top of Matrix, developers can focus on building clients and get the following benefits from the Matrix ecosystem out-of-the-box: An open standard and active community Multiple server implementations (including hosted servers) Authentication (including support for SSO and 3rd party providers) Access control via Rooms and Spaces E2EE A decentralized architecture with support for federation Matrix-CRDT currently works with Yjs or SyncedStore. Usage with Yjs To setup Matrix-CRDT, 3 steps are needed: Create a Yjs Y.Doc Create and authenticate a client from matrix-js-sdk Create and initialize your Matrix-CRDT MatrixProvider import { MatrixProvider } from "matrix-crdt"; import * as Y from "yjs"; import sdk from "matrix-js-sdk"; // See https://matrix.org/docs/guides/usage-of-the-matrix-js-sdk // for login methods const matrixClient = sdk.createClient({ baseUrl: "https://matrix.org", accessToken: "....MDAxM2lkZW50aWZpZXIga2V5CjAwMTBjaWQgZ2Vu....", userId: "@USERID:matrix.org", }); // Create a new Y.Doc and connect the MatrixProvider const ydoc = new Y.Doc(); const provider = new MatrixProvider(ydoc, matrixClient, { type: "alias", alias: "matrix-room-alias", }); provider.initialize(); // array of numbers which produce a sum const yarray = ydoc.getArray("count"); // observe changes of the sum yarray.observe((event) => { // print updates when the data changes console.log("new sum: " + yarray.toArray().reduce((a, b) => a + b)); }); // add 1 to the sum yarray.push([1]); // => "new sum: 1" SyncedStore You can also use SyncedStore and use Matrix-CRDT as SyncProvider. API new MatrixProvider (doc, matrixClient, room, awareness?, opts?): MatrixProvider The MatrixProvider syncs a Matrix room with a Yjs document. Parameters Name Type Description doc Y.Doc The Y.Doc to sync over the Matrix room. matrixClient MatrixClient A matrix-js-sdk client with permissions to read (and/or write) from the room. room { type: "id"; id: string; } or { type: "alias"; alias: string } The room ID or Al
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Larry Fink, the chief executive of BlackRock, the world’s biggest investment fund manager, said pushing climate policies was about profits, not being “woke”.In his annual letter to CEOs , Fink said businesses, cities and countries that do not plan for a carbon-free future risked being left behind. He argued that the pursuit of long-term returns was the main driver behind climate policies, after being criticised for seeking to influence companies.“Stakeholder capitalism is not about politics. It is not a social or ideological agenda. It is not ‘woke’,” he wrote. “We focus on sustainability not because we’re environmentalists, but because we are capitalists and fiduciaries to our clients.”West Virginia’s treasurer said this week that the state’s Treasury investment board would no longer use a BlackRock fund, after the fund manger urged companies to cut their carbon emissions to net zero by 2050. The official said this would damage West Virginia’s economy.In his Dear CEO letter, Fink wrote: “It is through effective stakeholder capitalism that capital is efficiently allocated, companies achieve durable profitability, and value is created and sustained over the long term. Make no mistake, the fair pursuit of profit is still what animates markets; and long-term profitability is the measure by which markets will ultimately determine your company’s success.”After Fink wrote two years ago that climate risk was an investment risk and that the firm would put sustainability at the heart of its investment decisions, many companies set out plans to become carbon-neutral. BlackRock had previously been criticised for not pushing hard enough on the issue.Last spring, BlackRock – which manages about $10tn (£7.4tn) in assets – reportedly threw its weight behind a shareholder campaign to oust several directors on the board of the US oil giant ExxonMobil. The coup launched by dissident hedge fund activists at Engine No 1 replaced two Exxon board members with its own candidates to help push the oil company towards a greener strategy.Sign up to the daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDeskFink predicted in this year’s letter that “the next 1,000 unicorns won’t be search engines or social media companies, they’ll be sustainable, scalable innovators – startups that help the world decarbonise and make the energy transition affordable for all consumers”, adding that established companies should strive to do the same.He said a “tectonic shift” had happened in recent years, with sustainable investments globally reaching $4tn.Fink also said that companies had a moral responsibility to adapt to “a new world of work” that had been reshaped by the coronavirus pandemic. He said “that world is gone” – where companies expected workers to come to the office five days a week, mental health was rarely discussed in the workplace, and wages for those on low and middle incomes barely grew.
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Jim Obergefell, who was at the center of the 2015 Supreme Court case that legalized marriage equality in the United States, announced Tuesday that he is running for a seat in the Ohio House of Representatives. “We should all be able to participate fully in society and the economy, living in strong communities with great public schools, access to quality healthcare, and with well-paying jobs that allow us to stay in the community we love, with the family we care about,” Obergefell said in a statement.Obergefell grew up in Sandusky, Ohio, and attended the University of Cincinnati. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, he moved back to Sandusky last year. He is now running there as a Democr
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Emma Raducanu shone at a grand slam again as she marked her Australian Open debut with victory in the battle of the US Open champions against Sloane Stephens.The 19-year-old has found wins hard to com
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More homes have been provided with full fibre broadband in recent years as companies like BT expand their plan for Openreach in a bid to improve access to rural areas. However, some are still experiencing broadband issues either with their current supplier or because they do not have the technology installed where they live.We would like to hear your broadband experiences. Have you experienced any issues? We are particularly interested in hearing from those in rural areas.Share your experiencesYou can get in touch by filling in the form below or contact us via WhatsApp by clicking here or adding +44(0)7766780300. Your responses are secure as the form is encrypted and only the Guardian has ac
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Drinkbox's latest is an ARPG that has real fun with the classes.
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