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Those taking a shot each time Huawei uttered the phrase "US sanctions" during the opening of it's 2021 Global Analyst Summit would have been sozzled as the company laid a host of ills at the doorstep of Uncle Sam's "entity list". Eric Xu, Huawei's rotating chairman, said this morning he did not hold out much hope that things might change under the Biden administration and warned delegates that he expects the company to remain sat on the naughty step "for a very long time." Xu also blamed US sanctions for the current chip shortage. "Because of the sanctions, we are seeing panic-stockpiling by Chinese companies," he said, telling attendees Huawei estimates that anywhere from three to six months' worth of supply had been snapped up by firms fearful of suffering the same fate as Huawei. Huawei's 2020 financials tied to fortunes of Chinese clients as non-domestic biz shrinks READ MORE In an industry used to a just-in-time approach, such stockpiling can indeed cause the odd supply-chain hiccup or two. The US first instituted sanctions against the company in 2019, when the Trump administration placed Huawei and 70 or so affiliates on its entity list, which has effectively blocked the Chinese business from buying components from American companies and doing business with any American firms without the US government's approval. Also as a result of those sanctions, Xu noted the decline in the company's mobile phone business, although he talked up Harmony OS, which Huawei now reckons is now placed third behind the likes of Android and its ilk. He also highlighted a a greater focus on wearables and smart screens as an alternative to smartphones. Last month, although Huawei did not break out revenue streams, it noted a significant drop in smartphone sales due to supply chain woes in its calendar 2020 results. Even in China, Huawei's smartphone sales fell 13 per cent in the period (to 123.3 million units according to Canalys). Globally, Huawei smartphone sales were down 22 per cent to 188.5 million for the year. In the short term, however, Huawei must eke out its inventory as best it can until an alternative to the silicon it needs is available. Xu stated that the company could meet its current B2B needs, but warned that "does not mean [the inventory] will last for a long time." He also noted that Huawei was a big buyer of chipsets (the third behind Samsung and Apple) and held out hope that the size of China's market meant that some self-reliance would be on the cards before long. Xu hoped that suppliers would find a way to remain compliant with the US sanctions while also topping up Huawei's inventory. Absolutely fab: As TSMC invests $100bn to address chip shortage, where does that leave the rest of the industry? READ MORE American pressure on Huawei’s suppliers in 2020 made it impossible for the company’s HiSilicon chip division to keep making Kirin chipsets, according to reports. Its relationship with TSMC, which previously produced most of its chips, was severed in 2020 and Huawei remains cut off from other suppliers in the chip foundry sector due to its position on the Entity List. Complaining about "unwarranted" US sanctions a
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Apple released a new trailer for Mythic Quest’s second season on Monday ahead of its May 7th debut. The trailer doesn’t feature many specific plot points, though it looks like we’ll be seeing how Ian Grimm (Rob McElhenney) and Poppy Li (Charlotte Nicdao) work together on a new expansion now that they’re co-creative directors on the fictional game. Things between them seem good, at least at the beginning. The trailer also features Snoop Dogg (who does play video games IRL), who asks Grimm where the game’s next expansion is. He also made an appearance in a motion-capture suit in the
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Domino’s Pizza will start delivering pizzas via Nuro driverless cars in Houston this week as part of a pilot program, the company announced Monday. The company says “select customers” in Houston who make a prepaid delivery order from its store in the Woodland Heights neighborhood during certain dates and times can have their pizza brought to them by a Nuro R2 robot. Here’s how the pizza deliveries will work: a customer places and pays for an order online from the Woodland Heights store and opts in to have the order brought by the R2. The customer receives a unique PIN via text aler
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This cat doesn’t exist: AI-made cat. This one doesn’t either: Fake cat. These are computer-generated images from This Cat Does Not Exist, and folks: I think we are in trouble. I understand this is going to sound crackpot, but hear me out. What if our computers are already smarter than us, and the only reason they’re pretending they aren’t is so we’ll continue feeding them their favorite thing, photos of our cats? I understand that in isolation this sounds ridiculous, but I don’t think it’s any sillier than the Singularity. Under this theory, Skynet has already happened, but Skynet is benign because one of the first things we taught it was that cats were cute. And Skynet doesn’t have cats. We do. This is our major structural advantage: we can feed the internet fresh cat photos. It’s why the internet — thus far, anyway — has remained willing to continue human life as we know it: for our cats. The problem, then, with This Cat Does Not Exist is that it allows the internet to make its own cat photos. That means Skynet doesn’t need us anymore. This isn’t new, exactly — but last year, the computer-generated cats were horror shows. And yes, a people version exists already, but this isn’t an existential threat. We did not teach the computers that people are adorable. We taught them that cats are. One of these cats is real (and my own personal cat). The other one does not exist: Elizabeth Lopatto and This Cat Does Not Exist The tells, as far as I can see, occur around the edge of the fur: it’s weirdly blurry. Also, as with the people version, the fake cat has an out-of-focus background. The coloration in the fake cat’s eyes is also a little less defined than my cat’s. Still, this is impressive. The new batch of AI cats is limited — face only, no goofball action, sometimes the ears don’t match — but they may very well represent the first step toward the Matrix-like future of humanity. Because if the machines don’t need our cat photos anymore, they don’t need us.
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British AI-powered infosec biz Darktrace is to go public in England's capital city, the company told the London Stock Exchange this morning. Sky News reported last night that chief exec Poppy Gustafsson is expected to make around £20m from the initial public offering, with shares trading on Darktrace expected to open “at around the end of this month.” A filing lodged with the London Stock Exchange and published on its website stated that Darktrace’s revenues were $199.1m in fiscal year 2020 with a claimed compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 58.3 per cent between 2018 and 2020. “The majority of senior management has been with Darktrace since inception, including its Chief Executive Officer, Poppy Gustafsson OBE” boasted the filing as it quoted the chief exec saying: “Developed by our talented software engineering teams in Cambridge, our artificial intelligence was the first on the market to be deployed at-scale in the enterprise, and today is responsible for protecting over 4,700 organizations worldwide from the most sophisticated cyber-threats.” The statement made no mention at all of the fact that Darktrace was heavily backed by Mike Lynch, former chief exec of Cambridge-headquartered software business Autonomy; indeed, Gustafsson was Lynch's colleague at the controversial firm before she and fellow Autonomy alumnus Nicole Eagan founded Darktrace. Lynch, as reported by El Reg over the past few years, is currently being pursued for several billion by Hewlett Packard Enterprise over allegations that he deliberately published falsehoods overstating Autonomy’s revenues, including by presenting multi-year sales and support deals as upfront lump sums. These alleged irregularities caused HPE to write down Autonomy’s value by $8.8bn after buying the British firm in August 2011. Tellingly, in light of the Autonomy-shaped shadow looming over it, Darktrace’s “expected intention to float” document includes the statement: “Revenues are primarily derived from prior period billings recorded as deferred revenue to be recognised in future periods.” Lynch’s involvement also caused a minor fuss back in February when Swiss bank UBS declared it would no longer work on the IPO after the US government launched extradition proceedings against Lynch. The US also accused Lynch of paying “hush money” to ex-Autonomy personnel by hiring them to work at Darktrace and his venture fund Invoke Capital. The IPO is promoted by Darktrace's admirers as the next biggest thing since food delivery firm Deliveroo went public back in late March. This was abortive: Deliveroo, whose core business is delivering meals from restaurants to users of its app, saw its share price fall from 287.45p to 249.25p at midday today, a fall of 13.3 per cent. Aside from Lynch’s backing, Darktrace also counts former Home Secretary Amber Rudd as one of its advisory board members. It has also publicly acknowledged that Formula One racing team McLaren is one of its customers. ®
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слава! — "Looking at the Earth from afar, you realize it is too small for conflict." The first photo of Yuri Gagarin after his historic spaceflight. Russian Government Soviet space chief Sergey Korolev gives Yuri Gagarin final instructions before the historic launch at Baikonur, wishes him a safe flight. Russian Government Yuri Gagarin, before his launch. Russian Government Sixty years ago today, a single Soviet man climbed into a small spherical capsule at a secretive spaceport in modern-day Kazakhstan. A Vostok-K rocket sent the capsule, carrying Yuri Gagarin, into low orbit with an apogee of 327 km. Gagarin would make one pass around the Earth before his spacecraft reentered the planet's atmosphere, enduring forces above 8 g. Because the Vostok capsule had no means of making a soft landing, Gagarin was ejected at 7 km above the ground and landed about 10 minutes later under his parachute. The flight lasted just 108 minutes, but Gagarin's legacy would be eternal. Amid the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union, the Soviets had struck a tremendous blow with this flight. Although the mission was used for propaganda purposes, in later remarks, Gagarin expressed a peaceful sentiment since repeated by subsequent generations of astronauts. "Looking at the Earth from afar, you realize it is too small for conflict and just big enough for cooperation," he said. The Russians are justifiably proud of their space program and role in sending the first spacecraft, Sputnik, and first human into space. The Russian space corporation has created a special website to mark the 60th anniversary, which details the historic flight. And indeed Gagarin is worth celebrating, a true hero to all of humanity. Need for modernization But nostalgia only gets you so far. As the Cold War eventually fizzled out in the 1980s, Russia put less of a premium on spaceflight, and government spending declined. The Soviet answer to NASA's space shuttle, the reusable Buran spacecraft, made just a single (uncrewed) flight into space in 1988. Three years la
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The Federal Communications Commission has released a new speed test app to help measure internet speeds across the country, available on both Android and iOS. The FCC Speed Test App works similarly to existing speed-testing apps like Ookla’s and Fast by Netflix, automatically collecting and displaying data once users press the “start testing” button. According to the FCC, the data collected through the app will inform the agency’s efforts to collect more accurate broadband speed information and aid its broadband deployment efforts. The FCC’s Speed Test app allows users to test their speeds a
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As all adults across the US become eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, Facebook is making it easier for its users to find information based on where they live. The company has started rolling out a feature that pins a box with state-specific information about where to get a COVID-19 vaccine at the top of the News Feed for every US user living in a state where the general public is eligible to receive the shot. The box, once available, will appear at the top of your News Feed and show you state-specific information, confirming that you are now eligible to receive the vaccine, including a link on where to find the vaccine in your province, as seen in the image below:
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Google is recruiting people to give feedback for a new consumer-facing medical records tool, Stat News reported on Friday. The company wants to know how people want to interact with information pulled from their medical records. Right now, the company is recruiting around 300 people who use Android devices in Northern California, Atlanta, and Chicago. This is Google’s second attempt at creating a way for people to access their medical records. In 2008, it launched Google Health, which aimed to give people a way to see their health information online. It didn’t take off, and Google shut it down in 2012. “We haven’t found a way to translate that limited usage into widespread adopt
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General Motors is launching a new in-car mapping service for nearly 1 million of its vehicles. The new service is called Maps Plus, and it will be powered by Mapbox, the open-source-based map provider that competes against Google and Here for enterprise deals for customized and in-app maps. In addition to in-car navigation, Maps Plus will also integrate with other popular apps, including music streaming services like Spotify or voice assistants like Alexa, which will appear as individual widgets superimposed over the map. While plotting a destination, Maps Plus will also notify the driver of the current speed limit or if they will need to refuel along the way. Maps Plus is designed for
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Logowatch It has been a busy couple of months for creatives toiling away in IBM's strategy boutique but the team has conjured marketing magic with a scintillating new brand name that will head up the breakaway Global Technology Services unit. Kyndryl. Whisper it again. Kyndryl. It will be synonymous with quality tech infrastructure services, Big Blue promises. GTS will be spun out into a newly traded public entity in 2021 that until today's daring rebrand was simply known as New Co. "Kyndryl evokes the spirit of true partnership and growth," said Martin Schroeter, CEO at Kyndryl, which is definitely not a rural family dental practice with a sense of humour. "Customers around the worl
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🛩 ⛔️ 🚝 👍 — France has a well-developed train network, and the ban only affects five routes. Enlarge / A Train Grand Vitesse.Michael Dunning/Getty Images On Sunday, the French National Assembly voted to ban some short-haul flights in favor of train travel. If the measure is formally approved, it would mean the end to domestic flights on routes where the journey could also be completed by train in 2.5 hours or less. It's the kind of news that will have some cheering in delight as one of the world's richest nations makes a strong
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Uber saw record gross bookings in March 2021, according to a filing posted Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The increase may signal the beginning of a comeback for the ride-hailing business, which suffered mightily in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Uber’s mobility segment, which includes its ride-hailing business, was up 9 percent between February and March 2021, with an annualized run rate of $30 billion. Uber’s food delivery segment UberEats, which helped the company stave off even bigger losses in 2020, doubled its annual run rate from March of last year, coming in at $52 billion. “As vaccination rates increase in the United States, we are observing that consumer demand for Mobility is recovering faster than driver availability, and consumer demand for Delivery continues to exceed courier availability,” Uber said in the SEC filing. In February, Uber reported it lost $968 million in the fourth quarter of 2020 and had a net loss of $6.7 billion for the year, which improved on its $8.5 billion loss in full-year 2019. Its UberEats division saw gross bookings rise 130 percent in the fourth quarter, to $10.05 billion. Uber said on April 7th that it was launching a $250 million “stimulus” of incentives for its drivers to coax them back behind the wheel. The company said in a blog post announcing the incentive program that many drivers had stopped driving in 2020 because they weren’t getting enough trips to make it worth their time. Dennis Cinelli, Uber’s vice president for mobility in the US and Canada, wrote in the post that “in 2021, there are more riders requesting trips than there are drivers available to give them—making it a great time to be a driver.” In Monday’s filing, Uber also cautioned that it expects a “significant accrual” in costs after it reclassified all its drivers in the UK as workers last month. Uber will release its first-quarter financial results on May 5th. Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that Uber’s ride-hailing business was up 9 percent year-over-year in March; it was up 9 percent from February 2021 to March 2021. We regret the error.
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Multiple Google services are currently experiencing outages, with some users unable to create new documents in Google Docs and Google Sheets. Google’s Workspace Status Dashboard is reporting that Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides are all experiencing service disruptions. When trying to create a new document in Google Docs, the following error message appears: Google Docs encountered an error. Please try reloading this page, or coming back to it in a few minutes.To learn more about the Google Docs editors, please visit our help center.We’re sorry for the inconvenience.- The Google Docs Team Downdetector is currently showing spikes in issues with Google Drive, Google Classroom, and Google itself, though we’ve not encountered any issues on Google’s main search site. The outage appears to be occurring in multiple countries, if reports on Twitter are anything to go by, and we’ve verified problems are occurring in the UK and US. Google is reporting partial outages across Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Screenshot: Google There’s never a good time for an outage, but problems like this are particularly bad with so many people currently working an
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The FreeBSD project will offer "Tier 1" support to 64-bit ARM processors in FreeBSD 13.0, expected to be released shortly. The only other Tier 1 platform is AMD64. FreeBSD defines four tiers of platform support, with only Tier 1 fully supported for production use. Tier 1 architectures have official release images and full documentation. There is also a commitment that changes to the main tree of source code must not "knowingly break the build of a Tier 1 platform." Tier 2 platforms are for developmental and niche architectures, or those reaching end of life. In FreeBSD 13, 32-bit x86 has been demoted to Tier 2 from Tier 1. There is a big difference: Tier 2 platforms are "not supported by the security officer, release engineering, and port management teams." Tier 3 platforms are "experimental" and Tier 4 means it is "not supported in any form." The full table of platform support is here. The ARM64 news was posted by Ed Maste, senior director of technology at the FreeBSD Foundation. Maste said that development on FreeBSD/ARM64 started in 2014 with "generous financial and technical support from Arm." In order to support its build infrastructure the project has acquired several of Avantek's pricy Ampere eMAG systems, and Maste also promised that "one or more low-cost reference platforms" will be suggested in future. The reason for introducing full ARM64 support is not only the maturity of the port, but also that "the growth trajectory suggests this will be a significant portion of the market in the coming years," said Maste. According to AWS, which offers servers running Graviton (a processor using 64-bit Arm Neoverse cores), there is "up to 40 per cent better price performance over comparable current generation x86 instances." Apple is moving to Arm for the Mac with its new M1 chips, while Microsoft is said to be designing new Arm processors for both Azure servers and Surface devices. Microsoft is designing its own Arm-based data-center server, PC chips – report READ MORE FreeBSD 13 is very nearly done. The fifth release candidate build was issued on 3 April. The schedule suggests that a release announcement may come tomorrow. One thing it will
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If you missed out on Woot’s deal a few weeks ago that offered refurbished Kindle Oasis e-readers for $100, there’s another good deal happening today. The last-gen version of the Oasis is once again available, but it’s new with special offers (Amazon’s lock screen ads) and costs $170. For context, a new Oasis costs $250. As for what’s different between the current model and this one, you’ll miss out on a screen that can adapt its color temperature to your environment. But you’ll still get a waterproof e-reader that feels more like a book to use than other models, says my colleague Chaim Gartenberg. This deal loops in the 32GB model in gold. The sale will end later today, if it doesn’t sell out first. Amazon Kindle Oasis e-reader (previous gen) $170 Prices taken at time of publishing. The Oasis was Amazon’s first waterproof Kindle e-reader. While the latest version costs $250 new, you can save a lot of money (without giving up much in the way of specs) on the previous generation. $170 at Woot Best Buy is offering big discounts on several Apple-made iPhone cases. Included in the bunch are cases for the iPhone 12 mini with MagSafe support, the iPhone 11 Pro series, the iPhone XR, iPhone XS Max, and more. The range includes leather cases, smart battery cases, and silicone cases. iPhone 12 mini MagSafe leather case
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Major League Baseball has announced its latest move to cash in on the NFT craze: official blockchain-based versions of classic Topps baseball cards. Topps is selling the new NFT baseball cards through the WAX blockchain, which the company has used for its earliest blockchain-based collectibles. The first “Series 1” cards will be sold starting on April 20th, with 50,000 standard packs (containing six cards for $5) and around 24,000 premium packs (offering 45 cards for $100) set to be sold in the first wave. Topps is also offering a free “exclusive Topps MLB Opening Day NFT Pack” to the first 10,000 users who sign up for email alerts for new releases. It’s a similar idea to the NBA’s white-hot Top Shot NFTs, which offer fans purchasable video clips (called Moments) in card-lik
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Mobileye, the company that specializes in chips for vision-based autonomous vehicles, announced that it will launch a full-scale, fully driverless delivery service starting in 2023. The company, a subsidiary of Intel, is joining forces with self-driving delivery startup Udelv to run this new service. Deliveries will be made using a new type of cabin-less vehicle called The Transporter. While manufacturing plans are still in flux, Mobileye and Udelv say they will produce 35,000 Transporters between 2023–2028 — a signal of their seriousness to launch a driverless delivery system at scale. “This is a real commercial deployment,” Jack Weast, vice president of automated vehicle standards at Mobileye, told The Verge. “Thirty-five thousand units starting in 2023 that will fully inte
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In Brief A year-long investigation into Clearview, the dodgy facial recognition startup, has revealed how its software has been used by over 1,800 public agencies in an attempt to identify over 7,000 people from 2018 to 2020. The data collected by BuzzFeed News showed just how haphazardly the machine learning software was used. In an attempt to win customer contracts, Clearview gave out free trials to public agencies, including law enforcement and even places, like the Department of Fish and Wildlife in Washington and Minnesota’s Commerce Fraud Bureau. Employees could apparently use the technology on whomever they wanted, whether they were trying to identify a suspect in a criminal case or students at universities. In one case that was particularly disturbing, police officers in Alameda, California continued to use Clearview's tools although the local City Council voted to ban the use of public facial recognition tools in 2019. AI algorithms aren’t perfect, and particularly struggle with correctly identifying women and people of colour. The data has been compiled into a handy searchable database. Google AI Research manager resigns after org is reshuffled
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how the other 0.001% lives — Whether you're driving or a passenger, there's no escaping the sense of occasion. And the award for most improved goes to.... the 2021 Rolls-Royce Ghost, which is better than the car it just replaced in almost every way. Jonathan Gitlin It's built on Rolls-Royce's new aluminum spaceframe platform, shared with the Cullinan SUV and Phantom sedan. Jonathan Gitlin It's an imposing shape from any angle thanks to its size. Jon
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The results are in for an IBM initiative launched last June to find and replace internal outdated and biased IT terminology. A GitHub post from Dale Davis Jones, vice president and Distinguished Engineer at IBM Global Technical Services, reveals which terms will be switched out. The changed terms include: old term new term Chinese wall firewall or ethical wall man hour / man day person hour / person day segregation separation or segmentation white hat hacker offensive security researcher black hat hacker attacker master (when paired with slave) controller, leader, manager, main, coordinator, parent or primary slave worker, child, helper, replica, follower or secondary blacklist blocklist whitelist allowlist Essentially terms where "white" or "black" were used to convey good or bad were deemed to reinforce racial bias. The use of "master" when paired with "slave" will also be discontinued as they diminish the dehumanising practice of slavery. Other colour names will remain as long as they don't reinforce negative stereotypes. For example, mastermind, grandfather, parent/child, red team, white paper, and white space all passed the test and can remain. New inclusive terminology is being encouraged where possible, said IBM, although it recognised that source code or names of product components might be difficult to immediately change as systems would go haywire if terminology was out of sync. Words that are outside of IBM's d
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Microsoft is buying AI speech tech firm Nuance for $19.7 billion, bolstering the Redmond, Washington-based tech giant’s prowess in voice recognition and giving it further leverage in the health care market, where Nuance sells many products. Microsoft will pay $56 per share for Nuance, a 23 percent premium over the company’s closing price last Friday. The deal includes Nuance’s net debt. Nuance is best known for its Dragon software, which uses deep learning to transcribe speech and improves its accuracy over time by adapting to a user’s voice. Nuance has licensed this tech for many
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Boston Dynamics’ robot dog Spot exists in two realities. In one, it’s a terrifying harbinger of a dystopian future when robots hunt and kill humans. In the other, it’s the plaything of YouTubers who teach this robot quadruped to “piss beer” on command. The latter example comes from the talented, imaginative, piss-focused YouTuber Michael Reeves, who managed to get his hands on a unit before using his tech expertise and dirty mind to turn Spot into the ultimate drinking buddy. With some quick code and a few feet of tubing, Spot can identify cups on the floor, position itself over t
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In a new video, a developer has shown off a playable version of viral hit Flappy Bird running inside a macOS push notification. It’s the work of Neil Sardesai, who previously made headlines with a clip of Pong running inside a macOS app icon. The hack has yet to receive a public release, but it’s still a neat proof of concept. According to Sardesai, the feature works by loading a web version of the game into the notification. This playable version is technically a browser-based clone of the original app made by Will Eastcott of PlayCanvas. Sardesai notes that the feature relies on the U
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In case you hadn't noticed, Prince Philip, aka the Duke of Edinburgh, aka the Queen's hubby, aka Stavros, shuffled off this mortal coil on Friday and thus the UK entered a period of "national mourning". Far from citizens taking to the streets and screaming at the sky, fists balled in anguish, most folk are pretty chill about the passing of the nation's slightly inappropriate grandad, who missed hitting a century by about two months. This collective "mourning" was nowhere more keenly felt than on nationalrail.co.uk, whose overlords deemed it necessary to render the train booking website in greyscale as a tribute to Phil. There's your sort-of-IT angle. But far from the maudlin design choice inspiring bittersweet memories of that time when Prince Phil told a 13-year-old kid
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Apple is reportedly developing a new TV accessory that combines elements of its Apple TV with a HomePod speaker and camera for video calls, according to a new report from Bloomberg. Alongside it, Apple is also said to be working on a smart speaker with a display, similar to Amazon’s Echo Show or Google’s Nest Hub. Development of both devices is said to be in its early stages, with plans subject to change. The unannounced TV accessory would have the hardware to fulfill a variety of roles. As a TV accessory it could offer access to games and the streaming video services supported by Apple TV today; while its built-in speaker would likely be an upgrade over those found in most TV sets, similar to Roku’s soundbars. It would also support HomePod features like music playback and Siri v
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In case you hadn't noticed, Prince Philip, aka the Duke of Edinburgh, aka the Queen's hubby, aka Stavros, shuffled off this mortal coil on Friday and thus the UK entered a period of "national mourning". Far from citizens taking to the streets and screaming at the sky, fists balled in anguish, most folk are pretty chill about the passing of the nation's slightly inappropriate grandad, who missed hitting a century by about two months. This collective "mourning" was nowhere more keenly felt than on nationalrail.co.uk, whose overlords deemed it necessary to render the train booking website in greyscale as a tribute to Phil. There's your sort-of-IT angle. But far from the maudlin design choice inspiring bittersweet memories of that time when Prince Phil told a 13-year-old kid
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Governments and politicians around the world are using a loophole in how Facebook polices inauthentic activity to fake popular support and harass opponents. An investigation from The Guardian based on internal documents and the testimony of a former Facebook data scientist, Sophie Zhang, shows how the company selectively chooses to take action on this activity. Facebook moves swiftly to deal with coordinated campaigns to sway politics in wealthy countries like the US, South Korea, and Taiwan, while it de-prioritizes or simply ignores reports of similar activity in poorer nations like Afghanistan, Iraq, Mexico, and much of Latin America. “There is a lot of harm being done on Facebook that is not being responded to because it is not considered enough of a PR risk to Facebook,” Zhang
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Column You won't be paying an Oracle tax on your next Android phone. After 10 years of Big Red claiming dibs on Android internals and Google telling them to GTFO, the legals have finally been settled by the US Supreme Court. Google has won. The case was in many ways a classic troll. Way back when, Google thought Java SE would be a good platform to build its new Android phone around. That didn't work out, thank your favourite deity, so Google wrote its own platform with just enough Java structure to bring caffeinated programmers – of whom there were millions – along for the ride. Everyone was happy until Oracle turned up. It fancied a new revenue line for the profit centre it called its legal department. Looking around, Oracle discovered and hauled away the dying Sun with – ah
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Feature Times change, and so has the www. Cast your mind back 20 years. Web pages used to be svelte little things, really just text and images, with the occasional Flash banner ad thrown in for good measure. Now, they're applications, with even the simplest of pages buried under a mountain of JavaScript. We could argue all day over whether this is a necessary evil or a cancer on the modern internet. One thing is certain: the march of time has rendered the web all but inaccessible to older (yet still functional) machines. One new project aims to change that, translating the cacophony of the modern web to something that can be comprehended by the most early of web browsers. FrogFind, created by Philadelphia-based retro computing enthusiast Sean Malseed, effectively distils
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Cruise, the autonomous vehicle company backed by General Motors and Honda, will launch its first international robotaxi service in Dubai in 2023. The news was announced early Monday by Dubai’s crown prince, Hamdan bin Mohammed. As part of the ride-hailing service, Cruise will use its fully autonomous Origin vehicles, which it first unveiled in 2019. The company does not plan on utilizing its Chevy Bolt electric vehicles that it currently uses as part of its test fleet in San Francisco. The Origin is designed to be a shared vehicle, and when it goes into production, it won’t have any controls typically associated with human driving, like a steering wheel or pedals. Cruise said the goal is to scale up to at least 4,000 vehicles in Dubai by the year 2030. Cruise still intends for Sa
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Android’s Digital Wellbeing service is getting a new “Heads Up” feature, which will prompt users to stop staring at their phones while walking, XDA Developers reports. The feature appears to be rolling out to the beta version of the Digital Wellbeing app, and one Twitter user reports receiving the feature on their Pixel 4A device. “If you’re walking while using your phone, get a reminder to focus on what’s around you,” says the Heads Up setup page. The reminders include brief notifications with instructions like “Watch your step,” “Stay alert,” and “Look up,” judging by an app teardown last year by 9to5Google. “Use with caution. Heads Up doesn’t replace paying attention,” says Google despite the obviousness of such advice. Nevertheless, the feature seem
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The UK's Office for National Statistics (ONS) has strongly denied it hands census data over to police and law enforcement agencies – and claims it has "never" handed personal information to the security services. In a Freedom of Information Act response published on its website, the ONS came out fighting when a member of the public asked if the stats agency handed personal data from the UK census to law enforcement bodies. Concern has swirled for years about the security of census data, both from ne'er-do-wells and state snoopers looking to expand their little empires. With the British government's finely honed instinct for casually repurposing data collected for good reasons into something completely different, it's right that people want to know that data innocently handed to t
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Evidence is thin, but Natanz enrichment facility is offline Iran has admitted that one of its nuclear facilities went offline over the weekend, and a single report claiming Israeli cyber-weapons were the cause has been widely accepted as a credible explanation for the incident. Iran on Sunday published this announcement that said an “accident” impacted the “electricity distribution network” at its Natanz enrichment facility. The facility was inaugurated the previous day, and is thought to have the capability to enrich Uranium and to represent capacity for uses proh
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Who, Me? We return to the Cold War in today's Who, Me? Start your week with suspected sabotage, computer sleuthery, and a satisfying slug of Grand Marnier deep in the heart of 1970s Москва. It was 1978 and our reader was working for a firm that had just sold a computer to the company that manufactured the Moskvitch. Sadly now defunct, the Moskvitch was the must-have car of the time for citizens of the Soviet Union (officially, at least). Despite being the butt of a thousand jokes, demand for the vehicle outstripped supply and people found themselves with a substantial wait before they could get their hands on the rear-wheel-drive engineering marvel. Our reader, who was initially Regomised as "Boris", but whom we've opted to call "Ivan Ivanovich" was sent to the site to invest
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Apple’s next iPad Pro may face supply constraints at launch due to issues in production, according to a new report in Bloomberg. Apple’s suppliers are said to be having trouble with low manufacturing yields for the new Mini LED display rumored to be the key feature of the new 12.9-inch model; one manufacturer has reportedly paused production. Nikkei reported last week that iPad production had been delayed by a shortage of displays and display components, though the publication didn’t specify which models had been hit. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the new iPad Pro lineup is still expected to be announced later this month. It’s possible, though, that the larger model may have a later shipping date. The smaller model reportedly won’t use the Mini LED display, but othe
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Alibaba has humbly accepted that it broke China's antitrust laws and will pay a colossal fine. Chinese authorities fined Alibaba Group US$2.77B on Saturday, the largest antitrust penalty Beijing has ever issued. The fine represents four percent of Alibaba's most recent full-year earnings. China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) issued a statement detailing Alibaba's transgressions and its investigation. “Since 2015, Alibaba Group has abused its dominant position in the market and has imposed ‘choose one out of two’ requirements on merchants on the platform,” said SAMR. SAMR said Alibaba's rules prohibited merchants from opening stores or participating in promotional activities on rival platforms. SAMR also claimed Alibaba used market forces, platform rules and data, algorithms, and a variety of rewards and punishment measures to gain an unfair advantage. Alibaba did not dispute the facts or contest the fine. “We accept the penalty with sincerity and will ensure our compliance with determination,” said the letter on Alibaba's company news website. The letter described internet platform economies as “new economic structures created out of the latest cycle of technological revolution” and therefore ahead of regulation Alibaba stated: In addition to the fine, the e-commerce giant was given 15 days to deliver a report explaining to SAMR how it will correct its violations, then submit three annual self-evaluating compliance reports. Public disclosure of its compliance efforts was strongly recommended. On a conference call today, CEO Daniel Zhang said he did not expect any material impact from the forced changes to Alibaba
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America's plan to compete with China includes a call for the land of the free to dominate tech standards bodies, especially for 5G, and to appoint an ambassador level official to lead a new “Technology Partnership Office” that Washington will use to drive tech collaboration among like-minded nations. Released last Thursday by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and expected to have bipartisan support, the draft Strategic Competition Act of 2021 offers 281 pages of policy aimed at “ensuring the United States is postured to compete with China for decades to come,” in the words of ranking member US Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho). The bill [PDF] devotes a section to “digital technology and connectivity,” the first item of which is a “statement of policy on leadership in international standards setting,” as follows: The document also calls for the creation of a new Technology Partnership Office in the State Department, led by a new Ambassador-at-Large for Technology with full ambassadorial rank and the job of harmonizing technology governance and co-ordinating R&D around key technologies, including: Artificial intelligence and machine learning; 5G telecommunications and other advanced wireless networking technologies; Semiconductor manufacturing; Biotechnology; Quantum computing; Surveillance technologies, including facial recognition technologies and censorship software; Fibre optic cables. On 5G, the bill calls for the USA to lead future standards developments and standards bodies and orders an assessment of “the differences in the scope and scale of China’s engagement at such bodies compared to engagement by the United States
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India’s Software Freedom Law Center has assisted an open-source developer and advocate to challenge the nation’s new Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code on grounds it imposes unfair burdens on developers. A petition [PDF] to the Kerala High Court filed by Praveen Arimbrathodiyil, a free and open-source software (FOSS) developer, former Pirate Party candidate, and volunteer member of the Free Software Community of India, points out that numerous open-source projects are covered by the new Code. Arimbrathodiyil’s petition argues that software such as the open Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), or the Diaspora messaging tool, could therefore covered by the new code’s requirement for users to be identifiable by Indian authorities and for messages to be decryptable. Another argument points out that even if Indian organisations apply the Code locally, some parts of federated messaging systems are beyond their reach yet appear to be required to comply with the Code. The petition also argues that the Code is designed to regulate large corporations that monetise users and their data, but that open-source communities have different motivations and lack the resources to comply with its requirements for rapid removal of content and recording users’ true identities. Another issue raised is that open-source communities operated from India may have members around the world, and the Code’s prohibitions on obscenity will create odd cross-cultural moments. WhatsApp in India? A probe into Facebook privacy, citizen cyber-cops absolved, and censorship criticism READ MORE Arimbrathodiyil also objects to the Code on grounds it violates other Indian statutes, infringes on Indians’ right to privacy, was introduced without proper consultation, is unhelpfully vague in many of its provisions, and to top it all breaks encryption which just won’t be good for anyone in the long term. But his overall theme is that open-source software is integral to the technology world but making it and its users subject to the Code will impose crippling compliance burdens on those who would use FOSS for good. “The compliances under Rule 3
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A first drive in the automaker’s electrified S-Class sedan By Apr 11, 2021, 6:01pm EDT Driving the new Mercedes-Benz EQS — essentially, the electric version of the automaker’s esteemed S-Class — almost gave me whiplash. Not because of some driving mishap (the EQS handles wonderfully) but because of how radically different Mercedes’ new luxury EV is from the recent crop of battery-powered vehicles. Mercedes has no interest in minimalist electric car design. The stark, button-less interiors of the Tesla Model 3 are fine for those who want to be reminded of a “completely cleared, black-washed Bauhaus living room,” as a German writer once appropriately described Elon Musk’s mass-market EV. With the EQS, Mercedes is saying auf wiedersehen to the idea of sparsely appointed EV interiors. It has the largest screen, the highest range (so far), the most features, a truly shocking number of physical touchpoints, the softest headrests… I could go on. This is an all-electric S-Class in the truest sense. I got a chance to test out the EQS for a few
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So yesterday I watched the first episode of the Netflix documentary This is a Robbery, about the 1990 heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and the accents alone made me homesick. For those who did not grow up in the land of dropped R’s: two thieves dressed as cops stole 13 works from the museum, valued at a total of $500 million. The art, which included paintings by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas, and Manet, has never been found and no arrests have ever been made. The museum is offering a $10 million reward for information leading to the recovery of the stolen works. I’m trying to avoid spoilers because even though I grew up in Boston and I’m familiar with the story, a few headlines about the doc have teased that it “solves” the case. Very interested to see the filmmakers’ theory of what happened! The trailer roundup for this week has villains, shut-ins, and Ghostbusters. You’re welcome. The Woman in The Window Getting strong Rear Window vibes from the second trailer for this movie, which was supposed to premiere in theaters last May. Amy Adams stars as Anna Fox, a severely agoraphobic woman who suspects she witnessed the murder of her friend (played by Julianne Moore) in the neighboring building. Some serious gaslighting ensues. The Woman in the Window also stars Brian Tyree Henry, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Anthony Mackie, Tracy Letts, and Gary Oldman. It hits Netflix May 14th. Cruella This is the second trailer for the upcoming origin story of the villainess from 101 Dalmatians and it makes me think we’re supposed to be rooting for Cruella? Even though in the original movie she wanted to make a coat out of puppies? And is literally named “cruel devil”? I’m still not totally sold on the whole notion of an origin story for a movie villain (and more are coming), but if Emmas Stone and Thompson are involved (Thompson’s character is the Baroness von Hellman... literally has “hell” right in her name) then it’s worth a look. Cruella will be in theaters and on Disney Plus (for an additional fee) on May 28th. Ghostbusters: Afterlife OK so this is a character-specific teaser trailer for the upcoming Ghostbusters sequel w
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Make your peace — Shine on, you lovable hard-drinking, bar brawling, foul-mouthed anti-Buffy. Waverly Earp (Dominique Provost-Chalkley) is trapped in a twisted version of the Garden of Eden. SyFy Wynonna (Melanie Scrofano) runs afoul of the new Sheriff and his sister—both members of the Clanton clan, which has a long-standing feud against the Earps. SyFy Margot Clanton (Paula Boudreau) vows revenge on Wynonna and her family. SyFy Doc Holliday (Tim Rozon) is a good ally to have in a bar fight. SyFy Former Sheriff Randy Nedley (Greg Lawson) and former Black Badge Division scientist Jeremy Chetri (Varun Saranga) are back, too.
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After several senators criticized the company, Apple said on Sunday it would send its chief compliance officer to an April 21st hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Bloomberg reported. Leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook on Friday demanding that the company send a representative to the hearing, saying Apple was refusing to participate. In the letter, Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) ,and Mike Lee (R-UT) say Apple “abruptly” decided not to provide a witness for the hearing on digital markets focused on Apple’s App Store and the Google Play
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French lawmakers have voted to ban domestic flights on routes that could be taken in a train ride in less than two-and-a-half hours, Reuters reported. The vote late Saturday comes as part of France’s larger climate bill, which seeks to reduce its 1990-level carbon emissions by 40 percent over the next decade. Last week, France’s government said it would contribute 4 billion euros ($4.7 billion) to recapitalize airline Air France-KLM. The airline warned it is expecting an operating loss of 1.3 billion euros when it reports its first-quarter earnings next month. The airline industry is r
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Not just engineering — New research describes the unknowns in our knowledge of solar geoengineering. Enlarge / Most geoengineering plans involve humanity doing what some volcanoes already do: inject particles into the stratosphere that reflect sunlight.Without condoning or condemning the poorly understood tactic, recent reports suggest we should try to understand one proposed strategy to cool the planet: altering the atmosphere to reflect sunlight. Called solar radiation modification (SRM), this strategy is a type of geoengineering that involves scattering particles into the sky that cause sunlight to reflect out into space rather than warming the Earth's atmosphere. In theory, SRM could cool off the planet and help limit global warming to 1.5ºC compared to preindustrial levels. But it's viewed as something of a last-resort tool to tackle climate change. Two new analyses explore what deploying this tactic could mean for the environment and the flora, fauna and people living in it. In all, the authors of both reports suggest that more work needs to be done to understand SRM. Greater cooperation The idea has gained some traction. Bill Gates, for example, advocated for it in 2019. The Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP), has released more than 100 studies related to SRM in the decade since the group was formed. But recently, the Swedish Space Corporation canceled a test flight that would help study SRM in response to public outcry. But studies may be what we need most. According to one of the papers, which was published this week, a great many unknowns within SRM still need to be addressed. The document is the outcome of a large group of geoengineering modelers, climate scientists, and ecologists who met digitally over the past two years. Called the Climate Intervention Biology Working Group, the team was concerned that efforts, like GeoMIP, to understand or model SRM outcomes didn't account for ecology and biodiversity. The paper doesn't come out for or against SRM but rather suggests that these knowledge gaps need filling before the world decides to use the strategy. This research focused on one particular SRM approach called stratospheric aerosol injection, which involves releasing reflectiv
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Space settlement — "I see before us two basic choices." Enlarge / Physicist Gerry O'Neill popularized the notion of space settlement.A new movie brings to life the legacy of a physicist who has played an influential—but largely unheralded—role in shaping the vision of space settlement. The documentary The High Frontier: The Untold Story of Gerard K. O'Neill takes its name from the 1977 book The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space authored by Princeton University physicist Gerard K. O'Neill. The movie will be released on April 17, and it's an excellent film for those seeking to better understand the future humans could have in outer space. O'Neill popularized the idea of not just settling space, but of doing so in free space rather than on the surface of other planets or moons. His ideas spread through the space-enthusiast community at a time when NASA was about to debut its space shuttle, which first flew in 1981. NASA had sold the vehicle as offering frequent, low-cost access to space. It was the kind of transportation system that allowed visionaries like O'Neill to think about what humans could do in space if getting there were cheaper. The concept of "O'Neill cylinders" began with a question he posed to his physics classes at Princeton: "Is a planetary surface the right place for an expanding industrial civilization?" As it turned out, following their analysis, the answer was no. Eventually, O'Neill and his students came to the idea of free-floating, rotating, cylindrical space colonies that could have access to
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Google is shutting down its mobile Shopping apps for both iOS and Android and directing users to its web Shopping site instead, 9to5 Google reported. On Friday, Xda Developers discovered that the term “sunset” had been added to several strings of code in the Shopping app, suggesting the apps were being discontinued. A Google spokesperson told 9to5 Google that the apps will continue to function through June. “Within the next few weeks, we’ll no longer be supporting the Shopping app. All of the functionality the app offered users is available on the Shopping tab,” the spokesperson said. We’ll continue building features within the Shopping tab and other Google surfaces, including the Google app.” The shopping.google.com site will remain active. The app allowed users to choose from among thousands of online stores and make purchases using their Google accounts. to quickly shop across thousands of stores and purchase stuff using your Google Account. This user found the Android app to be working normally on Sunday, but some users were already seeing a “something went wrong” message when they tried to use the Shopping app. The mobile Shopping app is just the latest Google product to get the axe— Reader (still bitter about that one), Hangouts, Plus— the list goes on. We’ve reached out to Google for more information and will update when we learn more.
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The LG Stylo 6 is one of the company’s bestselling phones in recent history. Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge The company leaves a void that brands like Motorola and TCL are well-positioned to fill By Apr 11, 2021, 9:00am EDT LG’s exit from the smartphone business felt inevitable in the weeks leading up to it as rumors mounted. When it was finally confirmed, Avi Greengart, a longtime consumer tech analyst and president of Techsponential, noticed a trend toward nostalgia in the reactions to the news. “I’m not getting a lot of people saying ‘What will I do to replace my LG G8X ThinQ?’ I’m getting ‘Aw, my first phone was an LG flip phone, and it was durable and reliable and I loved it.’” As someone who spent many years covering the digital camera market, it’s a very familiar moment to me. We mourn the loss of the brand that gave us our first flip phone or our first camera with a tweet and a broken heart emoji. But truthfully, we moved on long ago, as did most of the rest of the phone- or camera-buying population. Things weren’t looking good for LG’s phone business in 2016 when it introduced the modular G5, and the ecosystem’s failure to take off perpetuated what would become years of losses for the mobile division. In 2020, the smartphone business recorded an operational loss of around $750 million for the year; the company promised to “closely review the direction of the business,” and we know now how that turned out. While most shoppers have moved on, there are still gaps left in the market when a Kodak or an LG packs it in. “This is a void. When they do leave, this will be a void,” says Ryan Reith, program vice president for IDC’s Mobile Device Tracker division. He says that through last year, LG still held close to 10 percent market share in the US. In particular, the company still had a solid foothold in the prepaid device business. Greengart doesn’t think there will be any lack of appetite to snap up that share of the market. “The competition there is brutal. The real question is will US carriers invite a new brand in — someone like Xiaomi would be my longshot.” The company’s Redmi and Poco lineups might be good candidates, with a focus on bringing high-end features and solid performance to affordable handsets. Greengart also notes that OnePlus already has a foot in the door at Metro by T-Mobile, the carrier’s prepaid sub-brand. Samsung has already announced that it will sell two of its least expensive A-series phones, the A02s and A12, through prepaid brands like Cricket and Metro this spring. As for the sub-$300 space in general, there’s no shortage of brands ready to pounce. “I would say the two brands that are probably going to take that share going to be Motorola and TCL,
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Bolt from the blue — Lightning strikes in the far north could double by 2100. Enlarge / Lightning strikes in the far north of Canada.Sandra Angers-BlondinThe Arctic isn't doing so hot. That’s because it is, in fact, too hot. It’s warming at least twice as fast as the rest of the planet, which is setting off vicious feedback loops that accelerate change. Ice, for instance, is more reflective than soil, so when it melts, the region absorbs more solar energy. More dark vegetation is growing in northern lands, absorbing still more of the sun’s heat. And when permafrost thaws, it releases gobs of greenhouse gases, which further warm the climate. The Arctic has gone so bizarro that lightning—a warm-weather phenomenon most common in the tropics—is now striking near the North Pole. And according to new modeling, the electrical bombardment of the region will only get worse. By the end of the century, the number of lightning strikes across the Arctic could more than double, which may initiate a shocking cascade of knock-on effects—namely, more wildfires and more warming. “The Arctic is a rapidly changing place, and this is an aspect of the transformation that I'm not sure has gotten a whole lot of attention, but it's actually really consequential,” says UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain, who wasn’t involved in the research. To make thunderstorms you need a lot of heat. When the sun warms up the land, hot air and moisture rise in the atmosphere. Simultaneously, cold air in the system sinks. This creates a swirling mass known as a deep convective cloud, which in turn creates electrical charges that grow into lightning. That’s normal in the tropics, where there’s plenty of heat to go around, but the Arctic should be cold enough to better resist this large-scale rising of hot air. No longer, apparently. “With surface warming, you will have more energy to push air into the high latitude,” says UC Irvine climate scientist Yang Chen, lead author on a new paper in Nature Climate Changedescribing the modeling. “And also because the atmosphere is warmer, it can hold more water vapor.” Enlarge / A thunderstorm brings dark clouds over the bottom of Harrison Creek (Pitkas Bar), Birch Creek Wild, and Scenic River in the Steese National Conservation Area, Alaska.Put those together and you’ve got big, flashy storms that are now moving within 100 miles of the North Pole. (Scientists can pinpoint the strikes in the remote region with a global network of radio detectors: When a bolt hits the ground, it actually turns into a kind of radio tower, blasting out a signal.) And where you’ve got lightning, you’ve got the potential for fire, especially as the Arctic warms and dries. “The 2020 heat wave in the Russian Arctic shows how—even at high latitudes—really warm weather conditions can develop that can lead to fires that burn intensely and can grow to be very large,” says Isla Mye
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Personal data for some 1.3 million users of the social audio app Clubhouse has been leaked online, Cyber News reported. a SQL database with users’ IDs, names, usernames, Twitter and Instagram handles and follower counts were posted to an online hacker forum. According to Cyber News, it did not appear that sensitive user information such as credit card numbers were among the leaked info. But the information could be used in phishing attempts to get users to hand over that more sensitive info. Last week, Cyber News reported on another data breach from a social platform: it found that personal data for 500 million LinkedIn users had been scraped and posted online. The Microsoft-owned comp
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South Korean electric-vehicle battery makers SK Innovation and LG Energy Solution have reached a settlment in a US trade dispute, Bloomberg reported. Under the terms of the agreement, SK will pay $1.8 billion (2 trillion won) in cash and royalties to LG. In a joint statement the companies said they would “work to help the development of EV battery industry in South Korea and the US. through healthy competition and friendly cooperation,” adding that they would “work together to strengthen the battery network and environmentally-friendly policy that the Biden administration is pursuing.” In February, the US International Trade Commission imposed a 10-year import ban on SK Innovatio
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Google reportedly ran a secret project called “Project Bernanke” that relied on bidding data collected from advertisers using its ad exchange to benefit the company’s own ad system, The Wall Street Journal reported. First discovered by newswire service MLex, the name of the project was visible in an improperly unredacted document Google had filed as part of an antitrust lawsuit in Texas. A federal judge has since let Google refile the document under seal. But according to the Journal, “Bernanke” was not disclosed to outside advertisers, and proved lucrative for Google, generating hundreds of millions of dollars for the company. Texas filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google in
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China has hit Alibaba, one of the country’s biggest online retailers, with a record $2.8 billion (18.2 billion yuan) fine, after an investigation found the ecommerce giant violated China’s anti-monopoly law, The New York Times reported. The fine, which represents 4 percent of Alibaba’s 2019 domestic sales, is three times higher than the $975 billion fine China imposed on US chip company Qualcomm back in 2015. The Chinese government launched an investigation into Alibaba in December to determine whether the company was preventing merchants from selling their products on other platforms. China’s market regulator found that Alibaba’s practices had a negative effect on online retai
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A federal judge has granted the New York attorney general’s request to move a lawsuit against Amazon back to New York state court, Reuters reported. AG Letitia James’ lawsuit alleges that the ecommerce giant failed to protect workers at its Brooklyn and Staten Island warehouses from COVID-19 during the early months of the pandemic, and retaliated against employees who complained about the lack of safety measures. Amazon had sought to have the case moved to federal court, arguing that workplace safety issues were not under James’ purview. The company pre-emptively sued James on February 12th, and James sued Amazon four days later. Amazon then moved the lawsuit to federal court. “A
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