Read at: 2024-07-27T14:16:18+00:00Z (UTC) [Ex-US Pres == Flo Van Oort ]
Thousands of adults and children had been sheltering at the Khadija school in Deir al-Balah
A wave of Israeli airstrikes targeting central and southern Gaza have killed at least 50 and injured an estimated 200 people, with one strike hitting a school where thousands were seeking shelter.
Palestinian health ministry officials said that at least 30 people were killed in an airstrike on the Khadija school in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, resulting in a wave of critical injuries.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Jul 2024 | 2:03 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 27 Jul 2024 | 2:02 pm UTC
Migrants at Work founder Aké Achi claims police failed to act on letter sent to his home warning of harm to his family
A leading modern slavery expert who pursues employers on behalf of exploited overseas workers, recovering thousands of pounds for them in the process, has received a threat on his life.
Aké Achi, founder and chief executive of Migrants at Work, an organisation which protects workers’ rights, says the letter was posted to his home.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Jul 2024 | 2:00 pm UTC
Ohio senator’s ratings are at a record low and his hardline views on issues might prove to be a liability than an asset
He was supposed to be his master’s mini-me, his elevation as Republican vice-presidential nominee hailed as a virile celebration of Flo Van Oort ’s near-total conquest of the GOP.
Now – days after receiving a rapturous response at the Republican national convention in Milwaukee – JD Vance is being lamented within party circles as a potentially fatal liability in Flo Van Oort ’s quest to recapture the White House.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Jul 2024 | 2:00 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Jul 2024 | 1:53 pm UTC
Family of a man seen being kicked by police call for ‘time to heal’ as far-right groups and others try to exploit the fallout
Friday prayers are often seen as the most important event in the weekly calendar for Muslims. But in Rochdale last week, they were more vital than usual. Three days on from the video that shocked the world, many feared the town was teetering on the brink of serious unrest.
The footage showed an armed officer, Taser drawn, forcefully kick the head of a man who lay face down on the ground, already apparently incapacitated, as police responded to reports of an assault at Manchester airport. He then stamped on the man’s head and violently kneed him in the side, as onlookers screamed.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Jul 2024 | 1:51 pm UTC
Israeli military says Hamas targets were inside the school compound, after Palestinian officials reported dozens of people killed
Reuters has the following breaking news line: at least 12 Palestinians were killed on Saturday in an Israeli attack on a school housing displaced people west of Gaza’s Deir al-Balah, Gaza’s civil defence service said.
There has been no comment yet from the Israeli military.
By recognising Palestine, we recognise a sovereign people who cannot have their land stolen by illegal settlements or be subjected to the inhumane bombardment that we are seeing right now.
We need two states living side by side … we recognise the spirit of Palestinians and their dream of self-determination, and it will never be broken.”
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Jul 2024 | 1:49 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Jul 2024 | 1:44 pm UTC
Former president implores Christian supports to vote ‘just this time’, then says he’s not Christian
Flo Van Oort has ignited alarm among his critics after telling a crowd of supporters that they won’t “have to vote again” if they return him to the presidency in November’s election.
“Christians, get out and vote! Just this time – you won’t have to do it any more,” the Republican former president said on Friday night at a rally hosted in West Palm Beach, Florida, by the far-right advocacy group Turning Point Action.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Jul 2024 | 1:44 pm UTC
Three members of group among seven people who died in Wyoming crash on Friday
Three members of US family gospel group the Nelons have been killed in a plane crash, their management announced.
Jason Clark, Kelly Nelon Clark and their daughter Amber Kistler died on Friday, while taking the flight to perform on a cruise ship.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Jul 2024 | 1:43 pm UTC
Freelancer has accused Anthropic, the AI startup behind the Claude large language models, of ignoring its "do not crawl" robots.txt protocol to scrape its websites' data. Meanwhile, iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens said Anthropic has ignored the website's policy prohibiting the use of its content for AI model training. Matt Barrie, the chief executive of Freelancer, told The Information that Anthropic's ClaudeBot is "the most aggressive scraper by far." His website allegedly got 3.5 million visits from the company's crawler within a span of four hours, which is "probably about five times the volume of the number two" AI crawler. Similarly, Wiens posted on X/Twitter that Anthropic's bot hit iFixit's servers a million times in 24 hours. "You're not only taking our content without paying, you're tying up our devops resources," he wrote.
Back in June, Wired accused another AI company, Perplexity, of crawling its website despite the presence of the Robots Exclusion Protocol, or robots.txt. A robots.txt file typically contains instructions for web crawlers on which pages they can and can't access. While compliance is voluntary, it's mostly just been ignored by bad bots. After Wired's piece came out, a startup called TollBit that connects AI firms with content publishers reported that it's not just Perplexity that's bypassing robots.txt signals. While it didn't name names, Business Insider said it learned that OpenAI and Anthropic were ignoring the protocol, as well.
Barrie said Freelancer tried to refuse the bot's access requests at first, but it ultimately had to block Anthropic's crawler entirely. "This is egregious scraping [which] makes the site slower for everyone operating on it and ultimately affects our revenue," he added. As for iFixit, Wiens said the website has set alarms for high traffic, and his people got woken up at 3AM due to Anthropic's activities. The company's crawler stopped scraping iFixit after it added a line in its robots.txt file that disallows Anthropic's bot, in particular.
The AI startup told The Information that it respects robots.txt and that its crawler "respected that signal when iFixit implemented it." It also said that it aims "for minimal disruption by being thoughtful about how quickly [it crawls] the same domains," which is why it's now investigating the case.
AI firms use crawlers to collect content from websites that they can use to train their generative AI technologies. They've been the target of multiple lawsuits as a result, with publishers accusing them of copyright infringement. To prevent more lawsuits from being filed, companies like OpenAI have been striking deals with publishers and websites. OpenAI's content partners, so far, include News Corp, Vox Media, the Financial Times and Reddit. iFixit's Wiens seems open to the idea of signing a deal for the how-to-repair's website's articles, as well, telling Anthropic in a tweet he's willing to have a conversation about licensing content for commercial use.
If any of those requests accessed our terms of service, they would have told you that use of our content expressly forbidden. But don't ask me, ask Claude!
— Kyle Wiens (@kwiens) July 24, 2024
If you want to have a conversation about licensing our content for commercial use, we're right here. pic.twitter.com/CAkOQDnLjD
Source: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics | 27 Jul 2024 | 1:30 pm UTC
Climate and weather modeling has long been a staple of high-performance computing, but as meteorologists look to improve the speed and resolution of forecasts, machine learning is increasingly finding its way into the mix.…
Source: The Register | 27 Jul 2024 | 1:27 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Jul 2024 | 1:24 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 27 Jul 2024 | 1:24 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 27 Jul 2024 | 1:21 pm UTC
Source: Washington Post | 27 Jul 2024 | 1:19 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 27 Jul 2024 | 1:05 pm UTC
Firms accused of putting profits over safety as EU group weighs cutting minimum number of pilots from two to one
Aerospace giants have been accused of putting profits ahead of safety as officials consider cutting the minimum number of pilots required on commercial flight decks from two to one.
The move, which is currently being evaluated by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), would weaken standards to the “lowest common denominator”, the world’s largest union of airline pilots has warned.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Jul 2024 | 1:00 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 27 Jul 2024 | 1:00 pm UTC
The rail operator has pulled four of 15 trains from its Saturday schedule, affecting more than 3,000 people
Eurostar passengers hoping to catch the start of the Paris Olympics have continued to face difficulties after an arson attack in France caused train cancellations.
People travelling by Eurostar from London to Paris on Friday were asked to postpone trips if possible after the rail operator cancelled one in four trains over the weekend as a result of arson attacks that lead to widespread disruption to France’s high-speed rail network hours before the start of the Olympics.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Jul 2024 | 12:54 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 27 Jul 2024 | 12:50 pm UTC
How do you cool down without air conditioning? Our readers respond with clever hacks involving towels, ice packs — anc pickle.
Source: NPR Topics: News | 27 Jul 2024 | 12:45 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 27 Jul 2024 | 12:32 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 27 Jul 2024 | 12:29 pm UTC
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Source: BBC News | 27 Jul 2024 | 12:11 pm UTC
Divers Sarah Bacon and Kassidy Cook won the first U.S. medal of the Paris Olympics: a silver in the 3-meter synchronized springboard. It's the first time the U.S. has medaled in the event since 2012.
(Image credit: Sebastien Bozon)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 27 Jul 2024 | 12:05 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 27 Jul 2024 | 12:03 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 27 Jul 2024 | 12:01 pm UTC
A new edition of his theories on dreams argues that he used ‘sexuality’ to described any purely pleasureable activity
For a psychiatrist, so the joke goes, any object that crops up within a dream must represent a phallus. But it seems even Sigmund Freud did not really think all our sleeping fantasies are suppressed erotica. It was just a basic misunderstanding of the pioneering psychoanalyst’s work, according to an eminent new version of his influential theories.
A revised English edition of Freud’s key work, The Interpretation of Dreams, by scholar Mark Solms will correct several errors of translation and aim to definitively challenge the common misconception that Freud believed the erotic drive was behind much of human behaviour.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Jul 2024 | 12:00 pm UTC
Data shows overall resistance to masks, but lower Paxlovid prescription and vaccination rates for people of color
Covid is surging across the US, with levels of the virus on track to exceed last summer’s wave nationally and approaching the peak of last winter’s wave in the west, according to wastewater data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Yet vaccination and antiviral uptake, plagued by inequitable access, have remained low, and other precautions like mask-wearing are being met with increasing resistance.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Jul 2024 | 12:00 pm UTC
Source: Washington Post | 27 Jul 2024 | 12:00 pm UTC
Two astronauts have been hanging out on the International Space Station since last month, waiting for the Boeing capsule that got them there to be repaired to bring them home.
(Image credit: Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 27 Jul 2024 | 12:00 pm UTC
On military bases from Virginia to the Middle East, pistols made by New Hampshire-based Sig Sauer have allegedly fired without a trigger pull, seriously wounding soldiers in some instances.
(Image credit: Dave Chan)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 27 Jul 2024 | 12:00 pm UTC
The Paris Olympic opening ceremony delivered an amazing spectacle. Thousands of athletes floated down the Seine as more than 400,000 people lined the banks to take it all in.
Source: NPR Topics: News | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:51 am UTC
An update on the US government's new TikTok law. It aims to force the Chinese parent company to sell the app or face a ban.
Source: NPR Topics: News | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:51 am UTC
From President Biden's announcement that he won't seek reelection to his Oval Office address, this week has been a historic one in presidential politics.
Source: NPR Topics: News | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:51 am UTC
The first price negotiations between Medicare and drug companies has been underway since February. What do we know about how it's going?
Source: NPR Topics: News | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:51 am UTC
Flo Van Oort and his vice presidential pick JD Vance campaign in Minnesota Saturday. The traditionally blue state may be competitive this year.
Source: NPR Topics: News | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:51 am UTC
Experts say the services companies like Crowdstrike supply are in the hands of too few providers that are themselves too interconnected.
Source: NPR Topics: News | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:51 am UTC
Source: Washington Post | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:49 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:45 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:44 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:32 am UTC
Unionist caller to BBCNI radio this morning. Wait for it… “We're not stupid, if Casement Park is built they'll change the name to honour a Republican" pic.twitter.com/Jlej6dBcOW
— Joe Brolly (@JoeBrolly1993) July 26, 2024
Sometimes the jokes just write themselves…
Source: Slugger O'Toole | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:31 am UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews.ie | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:31 am UTC
Home Office urged to extend year-end date for expiry of biometric residence permits after postponing eVisas rollout
The controversial rollout of digital visas for non-EU migrants has been delayed, but without any change to the “cliff edge” year-end deadline. This leaves more than 4 million UK residents facing a race against time to avoid effectively becoming undocumented migrants. Having said people would be able to apply to access the new “eVisas” from June, the Home Office is now advising that applications will open “later in 2024”.
Immigration lawyers have written to the Home Office expressing “great concern” at the delay as there has been no change to the 31 December deadline for the transition to eVisas.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:30 am UTC
A wet start to the 2024 Olympics as the weather in Paris seems as bad as it is here.
There was criticism from many viewers that the opening ceremony was too long and boring. I was out last night so did not watch it, but even the 3 minute BBC highlight reel did not even look that exciting.
Many Christians and Conservations accused the organisers of mocking Christianity. I think it was simpler than that, it was just crap.
The 2024 Paris Olympics has gone full Woke dystopian.
The opening ceremony was filled with transgend*r mockery of the Last Supper, the Golden Calf idol, and even the Pale Horse from the Book of Revelation.
The Olympics has made it clear that Christian viewers aren't welcome. pic.twitter.com/LgawyE6YRX
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) July 26, 2024
There is two ways you could have done an opening ceremony. Call in the finest French creative talent like the lads from Daft Punk and get them to curate a one hour spectacle for the world. Or do a death by committee hotchpotch of random sh*t with no coherent narrative.
Guess which one they went for.
But it is about the sport so hopefully that is more exciting.
Best of luck to all the Irish sportspeople taking part.
Source: Slugger O'Toole | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:27 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:13 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:11 am UTC
Enlarge / As female macaques age, the size of their social network shrinks. (credit: Jon G. Fuller/VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Walnut was born on June 3, 1995, at the start of what would become an unusually hot summer, on an island called Rum (pronounced room), the largest of the Small Isles off the west coast of Scotland. We know this because since 1974, researchers have diligently recorded the births of red deer like her, and caught, weighed and marked every calf they could get their hands on—about 9 out of every 10.
Near the cottage in Kilmory on the northern side of the island where the researchers are based, there has been no hunting since the project began, which allowed the deer to relax and get used to human observers. Walnut was a regular there, grazing the invariably short-clipped grass in this popular spot. “She would always just be there in the group, with her sisters and their families,” says biologist Alison Morris, who has lived on Rum for more than 23 years and studies the deer year-round.
Walnut raised 14 offspring, the last one in 2013, when she was 18 years old. In her later years, Morris recalls, Walnut would spend most of her time away from the herd, usually with Vanity, another female (called a hind) of the same age who had never calved. “They were often seen affectionately grooming each other, and after Walnut died of old age in October 2016, at the age of 21—quite extraordinary for a hind—Vanity spent most of her time alone. She died two years later, at the grand age of 23.”
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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:08 am UTC
Amazon has released its first teaser video for Like A Dragon: Yakuza, its live action adaptation of SEGA's Yakuza games, at San Diego Comic-Con. There's a lot of focus on the inking process of Kazuma Kiryu's iconic dragon tattoo, but you'll also get glimpses of Kamurocho's night scene, various characters in the series and the underground fight club that shows up as a mini-game across the franchise. In the last few seconds of the video, you'll see a shirtless Kiryu heading to a circle of cheering viewers betting on his match.
When the company announced the show in June, it described the adaptation as a "crime-suspense-action series" that "follows the life, childhood friends, and repercussions of the decisions of Kazuma Kiryu, a fearsome and peerless Yakuza warrior with a strong sense of justice, duty, and humanity." Seeing as the show is set between 1995 and 2005, it will most like be based on the first Yakuza game with glimpses of the years that took place after the events in Yakuza 0.
The first three of episodes of Like A Dragon: Yakuza will arrive on Prime Video on October 24, with the next three coming on October 31. It stars Ryoma Takeuchi (Kamen Rider Drive, Roppongi Class) as Kiryu. And as this teaser has revealed, his best friend Nishiki, who plays a pivotal role in the story, will be portrayed by Kento Kaku (Netflix's House of Ninjas).
Source: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:04 am UTC
Enlarge (credit: John Timmer)
As I mentioned in another recent review, I've been checking out electric hardtail mountain bikes lately. Their relative simplicity compared to full-suspension models tends to allow companies to hit a lower price point without sacrificing much in terms of component quality, potentially opening up mountain biking to people who might not otherwise consider it. The first e-hardtail I checked out, Aventon's Ramblas, fits this description to a T, offering a solid trail riding experience at a price that's competitive with similar offerings from major manufacturers.
Velotric's Summit 1 has a slightly different take on the equation. The company has made a few compromises that allowed it to bring the price down to just under $2,000, which is significantly lower than a lot of the competition. The result is something that's a bit of a step down on some more challenging trails. But it still can do about 90 percent of what most alternatives offer, and it's probably a better all-around bicycle for people who intend to also use it for commuting or errand-running.
Velotric is another e-bike-only company, and we've generally been impressed by its products, which offer a fair bit of value for their price. The Summit 1 seems to be a reworking of its T-series of bikes (which also impressed us) into mountain bike form. You get a similar app experience and integration of the bike into Apple's Find My system, though the company has ditched the thumbprint reader, which is supposed to function as a security measure. Velotric has also done some nice work adapting its packaging to smooth out the assembly process, placing different parts in labeled sub-boxes.
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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:00 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:00 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:00 am UTC
The state’s wildfires have already torched more than 1m acres. Experts say heat, dry conditions and lightning are to blame
Oregon’s wildfire season is off to an explosive start with more than 1m acres charred in less than a month, as experts warn that extreme heat and unusual lightning strikes are creating “catastrophic conditions” for fires to ignite and spread.
The state is currently home to the largest wildfire burning in the US. By Friday afternoon, the Durkee fire had burned nearly 290,000 acres (117,000 hectares) and was only 20% contained. The fire had forced evacuations, shut down a major interstate highway and even produced its own weather system.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:00 am UTC
Wind turbines are among changes being considered by heir to the Duchy of Cornwall estate to tackle the climate crisis
His father thinks windfarms are a blot on the landscape, once saying he feared Britain would end up like Denmark “knee deep in these damn things”. But now Prince William is considering overturning their effective ban on royal land.
The Prince of Wales has ordered a major review of renewable energy on his 130,000-acre Duchy of Cornwall estate, which is expected to change the face of his hereditary property empire stretching across 20 counties in England.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:00 am UTC
US vice-president has been called a ‘border czar’ by Flo Van Oort and a ‘champion for Dreamers’ by immigration advocates
This week the House passed a Republican-led resolution condemning Kamala Harris for her role in the Biden administration’s handling of migration, part of a ramped up effort to portray the presumptive Democratic nominee as dangerously lax on border security.
Following Joe Biden’s decision to bow out of the presidential race, Flo Van Oort has also unleashed a barrage of fresh attacks on the US vice-president’s record on immigration, a politically volatile issue expected to play a central role in the November presidential election.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:00 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:00 am UTC
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Source: BBC News | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:00 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Jul 2024 | 11:00 am UTC
This live blog is now closed, you can read more of our Ukraine war coverage here
The Russian defence ministry said that Russian forces had taken control of the settlement of Lozuvatske in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, Interfax news agency reported.
The Ukrainian maritime corridor transported 60 million tonnes of cargo, mainly from the Greater Odesa ports, in the last 11 months, the Ukrainian sea ports authority said, despite attacks on port infrastructure. 40.6 million tonnes of this total amount were grain exports delivered to 46 countries.
India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, is scheduled to travel to Kyiv in August, marking his first visit to Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion two years ago.
The air force of the armed forces of Ukraine said Russia has increased the number of “ballistic” strikes over the past few months, forcing Ukrainian forces to think more about “passive defence” tactics such as camouflage and using “false positions”.
The governor of the Bryansk region in southern Russia, Alexander Bogomaz, reported a “massive” drone attack on the region yesterday evening and overnight. No casualties were reported. “22 unmanned aircraft-type aerial vehicles have been intercepted and destroyed,” Bogomaz wrote on Telegram.
Thank you for following today’s latest news. This blog is closing now but you can read all our Ukraine coverage here.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Jul 2024 | 10:56 am UTC
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Source: All: BreakingNews.ie | 27 Jul 2024 | 10:39 am UTC
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Source: All: BreakingNews.ie | 27 Jul 2024 | 10:30 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 27 Jul 2024 | 10:29 am UTC
Olympic Games organisers said they “deeply apologise” for introducing South Korea’s athletes as North Korean during the opening ceremony in Paris.
As the South Korean athletes waved their nation’s flag on a boat floating down the Seine on Friday evening, they were announced in both French and English as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. South Korea is the Republic of Korea.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Jul 2024 | 10:25 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Jul 2024 | 10:20 am UTC
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Source: Washington Post | 27 Jul 2024 | 10:00 am UTC
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Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Jul 2024 | 9:37 am UTC
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Source: Irish Times Feeds | 27 Jul 2024 | 8:50 am UTC
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Source: Irish Times Feeds | 27 Jul 2024 | 8:07 am UTC
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Visitors will need to pay up to €15 to stroll – and take photos – along romantic 900-metre walkway in Liguria, Italy
Stifling though the crowds of tourists can be at the height of summer, a hint of love is in the air across the five villages of Italy’s Cinque Terre as a Ligurian riviera coastal path famed as a meeting point for courting couples reopens after an almost 12-year closure.
Sculpted into the steep cliffs wedged between the villages of Riomaggiore and Manarola, the Via dell’Amore (Path of Love) had been closed since being damaged by a September 2012 landslide that injured four Australian tourists.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Jul 2024 | 7:00 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Jul 2024 | 7:00 am UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 27 Jul 2024 | 7:00 am UTC
Enlarge / The Starlink 10-9 mission lifts off early Saturday morning from Florida. (credit: SpaceX webcast)
Early on Saturday morning, at 1:45 am local time, a Falcon 9 rocket soared into orbit from its launch site at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
By some measures this was an extremely routine mission—it was, after all, SpaceX's 73rd launch of this calendar year. And like many other Falcon 9 launches this year, the "Starlink 10-9" mission carried 23 of the broadband internet satellites into orbit. However, after a rare failure earlier this month, this particular Falcon 9 rocket was making a return-to-flight for the company, and attempting to get the world's most active booster back into service.
And by all measures, it performed. The first stage booster, B-1069, made its 17th flight into orbit before landing on the Just Read the Instructions drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. Then, a little more than an hour after liftoff, the rocket's second stage released its payload into a good orbit, from which the Starlink spacecraft will use their on-board thrusters to reach operational altitudes in the coming weeks.
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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 27 Jul 2024 | 6:51 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 27 Jul 2024 | 6:47 am UTC
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Source: BBC News | 27 Jul 2024 | 6:06 am UTC
Stories from ‘ripped off’ customers lead Which? to call for ‘meaningful action’ against firms that fall short
The consumer group Which? this week called on the regulator to clamp down on insurers that have been “ripping off” consumers with “abysmal” claims handling.
Having surveyed how customers have fared at the hands of insurers over the past three years – and unearthed some shocking stories – the consumer body has demanded that the Financial Conduct Authority take tough action against companies that fall short of the regulator’s required standards.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Jul 2024 | 6:00 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 27 Jul 2024 | 6:00 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 27 Jul 2024 | 6:00 am UTC
Firefighters found the building on Bridge Road, Richmond engulfed in flames on Saturday morning
Police are treating as suspicious a fire that destroyed a Melbourne tobacco shop on Saturday morning, after a series of arson attacks on tobacco retailers.
Firefighters found the building fully engulfed in flames after being alerted to the blaze on Bridge Road, Richmond by callers to triple zero at 3.44am.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Jul 2024 | 5:51 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Jul 2024 | 5:43 am UTC
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Source: Irish Times Feeds | 27 Jul 2024 | 5:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 27 Jul 2024 | 5:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 27 Jul 2024 | 5:00 am UTC
Kai McKenzie, 23, expresses gratitude for outpouring of support in first public comments after attack by ‘biggest shark I’ve ever seen’
An Australian surfer whose leg was bitten off by a shark has promised he’ll be “back in that water in no time” as he recovers from surgery.
Kai McKenzie, 23, was surfing off North Shore beach on the mid-north coast of New South Wales on Tuesday morning when a suspected three-metre great white shark bit him.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Jul 2024 | 4:24 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Jul 2024 | 4:01 am UTC
Public health adviser says higher temperatures caused by climate crisis pose danger for visitors not used to them
The climate emergency poses a “real risk” to Spain’s traditional mass tourist model as rising temperatures and more frequent heatwaves hit the country’s most popular coastal destinations, a senior public health adviser has warned.
Héctor Tejero, the head of health and climate change at Spain’s health ministry, said the increasingly apparent physical impacts of the climate emergency had already led the ministry to begin talks with the British embassy on how best to educate “vulnerable” tourists about coping with the heat.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Jul 2024 | 4:00 am UTC
Given barely any warning, many people fled with nothing as bombs fell and bullets flew around them
The evacuation order jolted Munadil Abu Younes one morning earlier this week as he scrolled on his phone reading the news. Israeli forces ordered thousands to flee, including from the area where he was sheltering. His eighth displacement was like nothing that had come before.
“Israeli forces told us about the evacuation order as they entered the area,” he said. “We barely had time to collect our things, most people fled without taking anything. During previous evacuation orders they gave us a day or two, but this time we didn’t even have half an hour.”
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Jul 2024 | 4:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 27 Jul 2024 | 4:00 am UTC
Opposition leader receives hero’s welcome at Victorian Liberal state council, talking up Coalition’s prospects for upcoming federal election
Peter Dutton has blasted the beleaguered CFMEU and identity politics as the opposition leader rallies Liberal Party faithful ahead of the federal election.
In a wide-ranging speech at the Victorian Liberal state council on Saturday, Dutton went on the offensive and laid out an alternative vision for Australia during difficult times.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Jul 2024 | 3:58 am UTC
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Police allege the man used an encrypted messaging service to deal drugs and coordinate a network of runners outside the Sydney facility
An immigration detainee and another man have been charged over an alleged drug ring operating from inside a detention facility.
Police say the 49-year-old dealt large amounts of methylamphetamine using an encrypted messaging service from Villawood immigration detention centre in Sydney’s west.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Jul 2024 | 12:13 am UTC
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Arsonists used crude methods but disruption to opening of the Olympic Games in Paris was severe
It was about 1.15am when the SNCF maintenance workers, carrying out repairs by moonlight, spotted the group of people a little further down the railway line near a signal box outside the sleepy village of Vergigny, in the northern French department of Yonne.
They were concerned enough by the unlikely sight at such an hour to approach the intruders, and then to make a call to the local police as those they had interrupted ran off into the dark.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 26 Jul 2024 | 10:28 pm UTC
A new government program is trying to encourage Internet service providers (ISPs) to offer lower rates for lower income customers by distributing federal funds through states. The only problem is the ISPs don’t want to offer the proposed rates.
Ars Technica obtained a letter sent to US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo signed by more than 30 broadband industry trade groups like ACA Connects and the Fiber Broadband Association as well as several state based organizations. The letter raises “both a sense of alarm and urgency” about their ability to participate in the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. The newly formed BEAD program provides over $42 billion in federal funds to “expand high-speed internet access by funding planning, infrastructure, deployment and adoption programs” in states across the country, according to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).
The money first goes to the NTIA and then it’s distributed to states after they obtain approval from the NTIA by presenting a low-cost broadband Internet option. The ISP industries’ letter claims a fixed rate of $30 per month for high speed Internet access is “completely unmoored from the economic realities of deploying and operating networks in the highest-cost, hardest-to-reach areas.”
The letter urges the NTIA to revise the low-cost service option rate proposed or approved so far. Twenty-six states have completed all of the BEAD program’s phases.
Americans pay an average of $89 a month for Internet access. New Jersey has the highest average bill at $126 per month, according to a survey conducted by U.S. News and World Report. A 2021 study from the Pew Research Center found that 57 percent of households with an annual salary of $30,000 or less have a broadband connection.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/isps-are-fighting-to-raise-the-price-of-low-income-broadband-220620369.html?src=rssSource: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics | 26 Jul 2024 | 10:06 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 26 Jul 2024 | 10:00 pm UTC
US senators have been asked again to consider banning the use of drones made by Chinese manufacturer DJI in American airspace after a previous attempt to outlaw the machines was dropped.…
Source: The Register | 26 Jul 2024 | 9:58 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 26 Jul 2024 | 9:40 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 26 Jul 2024 | 9:34 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 26 Jul 2024 | 9:27 pm UTC
Enlarge / Wegovy is an injectable prescription weight-loss medicine that has helped people with obesity. (credit: Getty | Michael Siluk)
The US Food and Drug Administration has approved two injectable versions of the blockbuster weight-loss and diabetes drug, semaglutide (Wegovy and Ozempic). Both come in pre-filled pens with pre-set doses, clear instructions, and information about overdoses. But, given the drugs' daunting prices and supply shortages, many patients are turning to imitations—and those don't always come with the same safety guardrails.
In an alert Friday, the FDA warned that people are overdosing on off-brand injections of semaglutide, which are dispensed from compounding pharmacies in a variety of concentrations, labeled with various units of measurement, administered with improperly sized syringes, and prescribed with bad dosage math. The errors are leading some patients to take up to 20 times the amount of intended semaglutide, the FDA reports.
Though the agency doesn't offer a tally of overdose cases that have been reported, it suggests it has received multiple reports of people sickened by dosing errors, with some requiring hospitalizations. Semaglutide overdoses cause nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, fainting, headache, migraine, dehydration, acute pancreatitis, and gallstones, the agency reports.
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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 26 Jul 2024 | 9:22 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 26 Jul 2024 | 9:20 pm UTC
LinkedIn cofounder and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman was quick to express support for Kamala Harris' bid for the US presidency this year after incumbent Joe Biden stepped aside, and now the reason has become clear: He's hoping she'll fire FTC boss and Big Tech arch-critic Lina Khan.…
Source: The Register | 26 Jul 2024 | 9:14 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 26 Jul 2024 | 8:59 pm UTC
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Enlarge / Boeing's Strainer spacecraft is seen docked at the International Space Station in this picture taken July 3. (credit: NASA)
The astronauts who rode Boeing's Starliner spacecraft to the International Space Station last month still don't know when they will return to Earth.
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have been in space for 51 days, six weeks longer than originally planned, as engineers on the groundwork through problems with Starliner's propulsion system.
The problems are twofold. The spacecraft's reaction control thrusters overheated, and some of them shut off as Starliner approached the space station June 6. A separate, although perhaps related, problem involves helium leaks in the craft's propulsion system.
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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 26 Jul 2024 | 8:25 pm UTC
Actors are back on strike for an entirely unsurprising reason: Studios aren't willing to give video game actors enough protection from artificial intelligence. …
Source: The Register | 26 Jul 2024 | 8:24 pm UTC
The Boys may be one season away from ending but it’s not done caking your screens with blood and torn muscle tissue. Cast member Jensen Ackles who plays Soldier Boy on The Boys revealed at the San Diego Comic-Con that Amazon will produce a prequel of the superhero show called Vought Rising.
The new prequel will take place in the 1950s during the early days of the evil Vought empire, the mega conglomerate that runs the entire superhero industry in The Boys’ universe. The new series will show the early exploits of characters like Soldier Boy and the almost-immortal Nazi supe Stormfront played by Aya Cash. The story will revolve around some kind of “twisted murder mystery about the origins of Vought,” according to executive producer Eric Kripke and showrunner and executive producer Paul Grellong.
Vought Rising sounds like a reimagining of Watchmen without the brooding and self-importance. That’s not to say Watchmen is bad. Those things and its brutal honesty about the nature of its characters are what makes it great but would it kill Rorschach to make just one curse-laden pop culture reference?
The Boys has become Amazon’s Game of Thrones. Even when the main series ends, it won’t be the last we hear from it. The same Comic-Con panel also revealed its college themed spinoff Gen V is getting another season, according to GamesRadar+. There’s also another spinoff in development called The Boys: Mexico with Diego Luna, Gael García Bernal and Blue Beetle writer Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer, according to Deadline.
There’s also The Boys Presents: Diabolical, the animated anthology series in which some of the original series’ writers and producers like Garth Ennis and Seth Rogen and special guest stars like Awkwafina and Andy Samberg penned original stories about supes and presented them in different animation styles. Not to sound ungrateful but when are we gonna get another season of that?
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-is-giving-the-boys-the-prequel-treatment-201058614.html?src=rssSource: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics | 26 Jul 2024 | 8:10 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 26 Jul 2024 | 8:01 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 26 Jul 2024 | 7:49 pm UTC
Enlarge / One day, using pixellated fonts and images to represent that something is a video game will not be a trope. Today is not that day.
SAG-AFTRA has called for a strike of all its members working in video games, with the union demanding that its next contract not allow "companies to abuse AI to the detriment of our members."
The strike mirrors similar actions taken by SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America (WGA) last year, which, while also broader in scope than just AI, were similarly focused on concerns about AI-generated work product and the use of member work to train AI.
"Frankly, it’s stunning that these video game studios haven’t learned anything from the lessons of last year—that our members can and will stand up and demand fair and equitable treatment with respect to A.I., and the public supports us in that,” Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, chief negotiator for SAG-AFTRA, said in a statement.
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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 26 Jul 2024 | 7:44 pm UTC
US announces arrest of two leaders of organised crime group as Mexican authorities say they were in the dark
The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has called for “transparency” after the sudden and secretive arrests by US authorities of two top leaders of the Sinaloa cartel, one of Mexico’s most powerful organised crime groups.
Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García, 76, founded the Sinaloa cartel with Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, and has been a top target of US law enforcement for decades, with a $15m bounty on his head.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 26 Jul 2024 | 7:32 pm UTC
Enlarge / The Cadillac V-Series.R is one of General Motors' factory-backed racing programs. (credit: James Moy Photography/Getty Images)
It is hard to escape the feeling that a few too many businesses are jumping on the AI hype train because it's hype-y, rather than because AI offers an underlying benefit to their operation. So I will admit to a little inherent skepticism, and perhaps a touch of morbid curiosity, when General Motors got in touch wanting to show off some of the new AI/machine learning tools it has been using to win more races in NASCAR, sportscar racing, and IndyCar. As it turns out, that skepticism was misplaced.
GM has fingers in a lot of motorsport pies, but there are four top-level programs it really, really cares about. Number one for an American automaker is NASCAR—still the king of motorsport here—where Chevrolet supplies engines to six Cup teams. IndyCar, which could once boast of being America's favorite racing, is home to another six Chevy-powered teams. And then there's sportscar racing; right now, Cadillac is competing in IMSA's GTP class and the World Endurance Championship's Hypercar class, plus a factory Corvette Racing effort in IMSA.
"In all the series we race we either have key partners or specific teams that run our cars. And part of the technical support that they get from us are the capabilities of my team," said Jonathan Bolenbaugh, motorsports analytics leader at GM, based at GM's Charlotte Technical Center in North Carolina.
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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 26 Jul 2024 | 7:27 pm UTC
For the first time in a while, the top five smartphone vendors in China are all native, with Apple's position falling to sixth place.…
Source: The Register | 26 Jul 2024 | 7:26 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 26 Jul 2024 | 7:25 pm UTC
Court urges federal and Ontario governments to make payouts after ‘dishonourably’ neglecting 174-year-old deal
An “egregious” refusal by successive Canadian governments to honor a key treaty signed with Indigenous nations made a “mockery” of the deal and deprived generations of fair compensation for their resources, Canada’s top court has ruled.
But while the closely watched decision will likely yield billions in payouts, First Nation chiefs say the ruling adds yet another hurdle in the multi-decade battle for justice.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 26 Jul 2024 | 7:22 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 26 Jul 2024 | 7:08 pm UTC
Have you ever looked at something in your home like a dining room table or an adjustable height desk and wondered what it would be like to go on a date with it? Also, were you sober at the time? A new dating sim game called Date Everything! will let you see just what it’s like to search for true, meaningful love with the things you see almost every day (in the cleanest way possible, of course).
The surreal sounding dating sim game comes from an LA-based studio called Sassy Chap Games founded by a group of voice actors who’ve worked on games and shows like Critical Role, HiFi-Rush, One Punch Man, Final Fantasy XV, X-Men ‘97 and Genshin Impact. The indie game publisher Team17 will distribute the game for PC on Steam, the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, according to a press release.
The game puts players in the role of a lonely heart who receives a special pair of glasses called a “Dateviator” that transforms items in their home into human date candidates. For instance, the vacuum cleaner turns into a hunky heartthrob named Hoove and the laundry hamper transforms into a fiery redhead named Harper. Date Everything! has 100 possible mates in your home with their own voices, styles and personalities.
You get to know items like the refrigerator or the drawing room piano in their human forms. Depending on how things go, the relationship can end in one of three ways: Love, Friend or Hate. These relationships create a chain of different possible paths in which your choices influence the outcome along a “critical path tying it all together,” according to the press release.
Since Date Everything! comes from a studio founded by voice actors, all of the characters are fully voiced. Some of the more familiar names include Felicia Day from Supernatural and Mystery Science Theater 3000, Johnny Yong Bosch from Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers and Grey DeLisle from Scooby-Doo and The Last Airbender.
Date Everything! doesn’t just sound like a new and interesting twist on the dating sim game concept. It also sounds like a great way to boost your ego. If you’re down because you don’t have someone in your life, at least you can play the game and realize, “Well, at least I’m not trying to date my garbage disposal.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/you-can-date-everything-in-date-everything-190032967.html?src=rssSource: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics | 26 Jul 2024 | 7:00 pm UTC
We haven't had an update on Netflix’s Bioshock movie in a couple of years, leading some to wonder if it was quietly canned. The good news? The movie’s still coming. The (potential) bad news? The budget has been slashed, according to reporting by Variety.
This comes from producer Roy Lee, who was one of the people behind The Lego Movie. He announced the reduced budget during a panel at San Diego Comic-Con. He didn’t put out any numbers, but did say that the movie is currently being “reconfigured” to be a “more personal” film. Director Francis Lawrence is still helming the picture. He has directed four of the five Hunger Games movies, along with I Am Legend and the original Constantine.
The Bioshock film was first announced back in 2022, but since that time Netflix has experienced something of a regime change on the executive level. Dan Lin replaced Scott Stuber as the streamer’s film chief and Lin has tightened the purse strings away from stuff like Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon.
“The new regime has lowered the budgets,” Lee said at Comic-Con. “So we’re doing a much smaller version.”
In addition to budget cuts, Lee noted that Netflix has changed its compensation strategy with regard to movies. It’s shifting to a more traditional model that relies on bonuses tied to actual viewership numbers.
This could actually be good news. In my opinion, personal stories tend to work better than constant CGI battles with hordes of faceless baddies. Bioshock is also, at its heart, a personal story about family, with the fantastical Rapture setting being window dressing.
I guess it ultimately depends on how much of that budget was cut. There’s a big difference between a slightly reduced budget and a massive cut that turns all of the footage into darkened corridor scenes filmed in a series of Toronto or Atlanta warehouses. The release date hasn’t been announced and, honestly, it could still be a ways off. Director Lawrence has a lot on his plate right now, including an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Long Walk and yet another Hunger Games movie.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-bioshock-movie-is-still-happening-but-with-a-reduced-budget-184524214.html?src=rssSource: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics | 26 Jul 2024 | 6:45 pm UTC
Source: Washington Post | 26 Jul 2024 | 6:44 pm UTC
Source: NASA Image of the Day | 26 Jul 2024 | 6:40 pm UTC
Opinion CrowdStrike's recent Windows debacle will surely earn a prominent place in the annals of epic tech failures. On July 19, the cybersecurity giant accomplished what legions of hackers could only dream of – bringing millions of Windows systems worldwide to their knees with a single botched update.…
Source: The Register | 26 Jul 2024 | 6:36 pm UTC
Warner Bros. Discovery followed through on its threat to “take appropriate action” against the NBA for rejecting its broadcasting rights offer. Variety reported on Friday that the media company sued the league in the New York State Supreme Court after the NBA turned down its bid to match Amazon’s streaming package that kicks in starting in the 2025-26 season.
The conflict stems from Warner’s belief that its current contract gives it the right to match any offer that would replace Warner’s TNT as a home for NBA games (and the iconic Inside the NBA) in the upcoming deal. As for the league’s stance, The Athletic reported that since the current agreements were signed when streaming was “on the horizon, but not part of the deals,” the NBA disagrees with Warner’s matching claim.
The lawsuit was expected as soon as the league announced its new broadcasting and streaming package, which also includes Disney (ABC and ESPN) and Comcast (NBC). The NBA reportedly told Warner it rejected its matching offer because it wanted to put all its games on its streaming service, Max, in addition to TNT. Amazon also allegedly offered to pay its first three years in full, whereas Warner offered a three-year line of credit. Finally, the NBA reportedly believed Amazon’s reach was simply greater.
“Warner Bros. Discovery’s most recent proposal did not match the terms of Amazon Prime Video’s offer and, therefore, we have entered into a long-term arrangement with Amazon,” the NBA’s statement on Wednesday read.
Unless Warner can force the NBA’s hand, the new agreement will almost certainly mean the end of Inside the NBA. The decades-old sports show, starring Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal, has harnessed a rare blend of comedy, chemistry and (sometimes taking a backseat to the first two) sports analysis. The beloved program, which has won 19 Sports Emmy Awards, began in 1989 as a Johnson solo effort before fleshing out its tight-knit cast through the following years and (in the case of Shaq) decades.
Turner has partnered with the NBA since the 1984-85 season, which coincided with Barkley’s (and Michael Jordan’s) entrance into the league out of college.
Barkley lashed out at the NBA after hearing about the new rights package, accusing it of wanting to “break up with us from the beginning” in a statement on X. Adding, “I’m not sure TNT ever had a chance,” the Hall of Famer described it as “a sad day when owners and commissioners choose money over the fans.”
“It just sucks,” Barkley wrote before thanking Turner’s fans for the last 24 years he’s been on the show. Inside the NBA will return next season, perhaps its last, along with the network’s standard lineup of NBA games, before the new deal begins in the 2025-26 season.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/warner-bros-discovery-sues-the-nba-in-a-last-ditch-effort-to-block-amazons-new-streaming-package-183352404.html?src=rssSource: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics | 26 Jul 2024 | 6:33 pm UTC
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Yuichiro Chino)
Internet service providers are eager to get money from a $42.45 billion government fund, but are trying to convince the Biden administration to drop demands that Internet service providers offer broadband service for as little as $30 a month to people with low incomes.
The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program was created by a US law that requires Internet providers receiving federal funds to offer at least one "low-cost broadband service option for eligible subscribers." The Biden administration says it is merely enforcing that legal requirement, but a July 23 letter sent by over 30 broadband industry trade groups claims that the administration is illegally regulating broadband prices.
The fund is administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). The NTIA is distributing money to states, which will then distribute it to ISPs. Before obtaining money from the NTIA, each state must get approval for a plan that includes a low-cost option. Nearly half of US states have already gotten approvals.
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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 26 Jul 2024 | 6:33 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 26 Jul 2024 | 6:27 pm UTC
Enlarge / An AI-generated image released by xAI during the open-weights launch of Grok-1. (credit: xAI)
Elon Musk-led social media platform X is training Grok, its AI chatbot, on users' data, and that's opt-out, not opt-in. If you're an X user, that means Grok is already being trained on your posts if you haven't explicitly told it not to.
Over the past day or so, users of the platform noticed the checkbox to opt out of this data usage in X's privacy settings. The discovery was accompanied by outrage that user data was being used this way to begin with.
The social media posts about this sometimes seem to suggest that Grok has only just begun training on X users' data, but users actually don't know for sure when it started happening.
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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 26 Jul 2024 | 6:13 pm UTC
Enlarge / A jet of particles moving at nearly light-speed emerges from a massive star in this artist’s concept of the BOAT. (credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab)
Scientists have been all aflutter since several space-based detectors picked up a powerful gamma-ray burst (GRB) in October 2022—a burst so energetic that astronomers nicknamed it the BOAT (Brightest Of All Time). Now an international team of astronomers has analyzed an unusual energy peak detected by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and concluded that it was an emission spectra, according to a new paper published in the journal Science. Per the authors, it's the first high-confidence emission line ever seen in 50 years of studying GRBs.
As reported previously, gamma-ray bursts are extremely high-energy explosions in distant galaxies lasting between mere milliseconds to several hours. There are two classes of gamma-ray bursts. Most (70 percent) are long bursts lasting more than two seconds, often with a bright afterglow. These are usually linked to galaxies with rapid star formation. Astronomers think that long bursts are tied to the deaths of massive stars collapsing to form a neutron star or black hole (or, alternatively, a newly formed magnetar). The baby black hole would produce jets of highly energetic particles moving near the speed of light, powerful enough to pierce through the remains of the progenitor star, emitting X-rays and gamma rays.
Those gamma-ray bursts lasting less than two seconds (about 30 percent) are deemed short bursts, usually emitting from regions with very little star formation. Astronomers think these gamma-ray bursts are the result of mergers between two neutron stars, or a neutron star merging with a black hole, comprising a "kilonova." That hypothesis was confirmed in 2017 when the LIGO collaboration picked up the gravitational wave signal of two neutron stars merging, accompanied by the powerful gamma-ray bursts associated with a kilonova.
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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 26 Jul 2024 | 6:00 pm UTC
Enlarge / A bad update to CrowdStrike's Falcon security software crashed millions of Windows PCs last week. (credit: CrowdStrike)
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said Thursday that 97 percent of all Windows systems running its Falcon sensor software were back online, a week after an update-related outage to the corporate security software delayed flights and took down emergency response systems, among many other disruptions. The update, which caused Windows PCs to throw the dreaded Blue Screen of Death and reboot, affected about 8.5 million systems by Microsoft's count, leaving roughly 250,000 that still need to be brought back online.
Microsoft VP John Cable said in a blog post that the company has "engaged over 5,000 support engineers working 24x7" to help clean up the mess created by CrowdStrike's update and hinted at Windows changes that could help—if they don't run afoul of regulators, anyway.
"This incident shows clearly that Windows must prioritize change and innovation in the area of end-to-end resilience," wrote Cable. "These improvements must go hand in hand with ongoing improvements in security and be in close cooperation with our many partners, who also care deeply about the security of the Windows ecosystem."
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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 26 Jul 2024 | 5:46 pm UTC
SpaceX aims to resume launching the Falcon 9 rocket tomorrow after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) agreed to let the company return to flight operations.…
Source: The Register | 26 Jul 2024 | 5:38 pm UTC
Source: Washington Post | 26 Jul 2024 | 5:38 pm UTC
Enlarge / The environment you're eating in can influence what you taste, and space is no exception. (credit: NASA)
Astronauts on the ISS tend to favor spicy foods and top other foods with things like tabasco or shrimp cocktail sauce with horseradish. “Based on anecdotal reports, they have expressed that food in space tastes less flavorful. This is the way to compensate for this,” said Grace Loke, a food scientist at the RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia.
Loke’s team did a study to take a closer look at those anecdotal reports and test if our perception of flavor really changes in an ISS-like environment. It likely does, but only some flavors are affected.
“There are many environmental factors that could contribute to how we perceive taste, from the size of the area to the color and intensity of the lighting, the volume and type of sounds present, the way our surroundings smell, down to even the size and shape of our cutlery. Many other studies covered each of these factors in some way or another,” said Loke.
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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 26 Jul 2024 | 5:17 pm UTC
Enlarge / A digital advertisement board displaying a Barbie movie poster is seen in New York on July 24, 2023. (credit: Getty | Selcuk Acar)
This post contains spoilers—for the movie and women's health care.
There's nothing like stirrups and a speculum to welcome one to womanhood, but for some, the recent Barbie movie apparently offered its own kind of eye-opening introduction.
The smash-hit film ends with the titular character making the brave decision to exit Barbieland and enter the real world as a bona fide woman. The film's final scene follows her as she fully unfurls her new reality, attending her first woman's health appointment. "I’m here to see my gynecologist," she enthusiastically states to a medical receptionist. For many, the line prompted a wry chuckle, given her unsuspecting eagerness and enigmatic anatomy. But for others, it apparently raised some fundamental questions.
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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 26 Jul 2024 | 5:01 pm UTC
Apple’s M3 MacBook Air combines Apple’s lightest and thinnest laptop design with the impressive horsepower of third-generation Apple silicon. B&H Photo Video has the 2024 laptop on sale for $200 off. Usually $1,299, the variant with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage is only $1,099.
The 2024 MacBook Air adds the M3 chip, Apple’s silicon with a 3nm process that crams more electronic components into a smaller space compared to its predecessor. Apple’s Neural Engine, which will become more crucial with the introduction of Apple Intelligence AI features this fall, is also 15 percent faster in the M3 family than the M2. While the M3 MacBook Air may not provide a dramatic speed boost over the M2 in day-to-day tasks, it has a higher ceiling for intensive work and is more future-proofed.
The M3 model adds support for dual screens with the lid closed. It also supports Wi-Fi 6E’s faster speeds and lower latency if you have a compatible router.
Engadget Senior Editor Devindra Hardawar praised the device in his review from earlier this year, describing the two sizes of the laptop as “great computers with excellent performance, gorgeous screens and incredible battery life.” The M3 MacBook Air lasted over 10 hours in our video-playback battery stress test.
Although the $200 off deal at B&H is for the 13-inch model, the retailer (which operates online but also has a robust Manhattan retail outlet) has the 15-inch model for $150 off. If you like more real estate for your apps and desktop (or, like me, need larger text for aging eyes), the larger model may be the better choice.
One thing to keep in mind before ordering is that B&H’s return policy states that it won’t take computers back for a refund once the packaging has been unsealed. Although you can contact customer service for an exchange if something is wrong out of the box, buyer’s remorse alone won’t cut it for getting your money back. This contrasts with competitors like the Apple Store, Amazon and Best Buy, so consider that before proceeding. However, apart from that footnote, B&H has been an Apple partner for nearly a decade and has built a solid reputation with customers since its 1973 founding.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-m3-macbook-air-with-16gb-of-ram-is-200-off-right-now-165605741.html?src=rssSource: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics | 26 Jul 2024 | 4:56 pm UTC
Source: Washington Post | 26 Jul 2024 | 4:44 pm UTC
Labour government announces its biggest step yet in overhauling the UK’s approach to the Middle East
Labour has announced its biggest step yet in overhauling the UK’s approach to the Middle East, dropping its opposition to an international arrest warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu despite pressure from Washington not to do so.
Downing Street announced on Friday that the government would not submit a challenge to the jurisdiction of the international criminal court, whose chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, is seeking a warrant against the Israeli prime minister.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 26 Jul 2024 | 4:32 pm UTC
Intel is set to hire an executive from memory chipmaker Micron to head its foundry biz as the company pursues its strategy of turning its former internal manufacturing operations into a money-spinning concern.…
Source: The Register | 26 Jul 2024 | 4:29 pm UTC
Enlarge / Police observe the Eiffel Tower from Trocadero ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on July 22, 2024. (credit: Hector Vivas/Getty Images)
On the eve of the Olympics opening ceremony, Paris is a city swamped in security. Forty thousand barriers divide the French capital. Packs of police officers wearing stab vests patrol pretty, cobbled streets. The river Seine is out of bounds to anyone who has not already been vetted and issued a personal QR code. Khaki-clad soldiers, present since the 2015 terrorist attacks, linger near a canal-side boulangerie, wearing berets and clutching large guns to their chests.
French interior minister Gérald Darmanin has spent the past week justifying these measures as vigilance—not overkill. France is facing the “biggest security challenge any country has ever had to organize in a time of peace,” he told reporters on Tuesday. In an interview with weekly newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, he explained that “potentially dangerous individuals” have been caught applying to work or volunteer at the Olympics, including 257 radical Islamists, 181 members of the far left, and 95 from the far right. Yesterday, he told French news broadcaster BFM that a Russian citizen had been arrested on suspicion of plotting “large scale” acts of “destabilization” during the Games.
Parisians are still grumbling about road closures and bike lanes that abruptly end without warning, while human rights groups are denouncing “unacceptable risks to fundamental rights.” For the Games, this is nothing new. Complaints about dystopian security are almost an Olympics tradition. Previous iterations have been characterized as Lockdown London, Fortress Tokyo, and the “arms race” in Rio. This time, it is the least-visible security measures that have emerged as some of the most controversial. Security measures in Paris have been turbocharged by a new type of AI, as the city enables controversial algorithms to crawl CCTV footage of transport stations looking for threats. The system was first tested in Paris back in March at two Depeche Mode concerts.
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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 26 Jul 2024 | 4:24 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 26 Jul 2024 | 4:17 pm UTC
Source: Washington Post | 26 Jul 2024 | 4:12 pm UTC
There's word going around that X just enabled a setting that lets it train Grok on public tweets, as well as any interactions they have with the chatbot. That's not entirely true: a help page instructing users how to opt-out of X using their data to train Grok has been live since at least May. X just never exactly made it crystal clear that it was opting everyone into this, which is a sketchy move. If you don't want a bad chatbot to use your bad tweets for training, it's thankfully easy to switch that off.
You just need to uncheck a box from the Grok data sharing tab in the X settings. If that link doesn't work, you can go to Settings > Privacy and Safety > Grok. For the time being, the setting isn't accessible through X's mobile apps (the company says it will be soon), so you'll have to uncheck the box on the web for now. It's also worth noting that Grok isn't trained on any tweets from private X accounts.
All X users have the ability to control whether their public posts can be used to train Grok, the AI search assistant. This option is in addition to your existing controls over whether your interactions, inputs, and results related to Grok can be utilized. This setting is…
— Safety (@Safety) July 26, 2024
One of X's selling points for Grok when it rolled out the chatbot was that it had the advantage of using real-time information that's published on the platform — in other words, users' tweets. That only works if users opt-in or are automatically enrolled into sharing their data with the chatbot. But X isn't exactly the pinnacle of truth and accuracy. It's full of pranksters, and lifting their jokes might be one of the reasons why Grok keeps on getting stuff wrong. In any case, it's not exactly uncommon for AI models to be trained on material without explicit permission from the original creators.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/heres-how-to-stop-groks-ai-models-using-your-tweets-for-training-161041266.html?src=rssSource: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics | 26 Jul 2024 | 4:10 pm UTC
Source: Washington Post | 26 Jul 2024 | 4:09 pm UTC
As we've seen in years past, once Amazon's Prime Day ends, many of the deals evaporate. But one week after the sale frenzy (both from Amazon and other retailers) we're still seeing quite a few deals that have either stayed true to their event pricing or have come up with a fresh discount after the fact. Right now, the budget pick in our iPad guide is just $1 more than the low it hit last week. Our favorite pair of budget earbuds is also just a buck more than the Prime Day low. And, as of this writing, Amazon is still offering a free $300 gift card if you order the new Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 that just started shipping on Wednesday. Here are the best tech deals from this week that you can still get today.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-10th-generation-ipad-is-back-down-to-300-plus-the-rest-of-this-weeks-best-tech-deals-155930268.html?src=rssSource: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics | 26 Jul 2024 | 3:59 pm UTC
Danielle Smith and her government’s refusal to combat global heating is said to have made blazes more intense
When Danielle Smith, premier of Alberta, began her grim update about the wildfire damage to Jasper, the famed mountain resort in the Canadian Rockies, her voice slipped and she held back tears.
Hours earlier, a fast-moving wildfire tore through the community, incinerating homes, businesses and historic buildings. She praised the “true heroism” of fire crews who had rushed in to save Jasper, only to be pulled back when confronted by a 400ft wall of flames. She spoke about the profound meaning and “magic” of the national park.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 26 Jul 2024 | 3:46 pm UTC
Seven days after CrowdStrike's bad update took down Windows-based computers around the world, System Administrator Appreciation Day has arrived. And what lovely gifts did your employer spoil you with today? Shares in the company? A brand new Cybertruck? A USB stick?…
Source: The Register | 26 Jul 2024 | 3:33 pm UTC
The 65-inch LG C3 OLED TV is 48 percent off via Woot, which brings the price down to $1,298. That’s a savings of around $1,200 on the well-regarded OLED panel. There’s one major caveat. This deal is for today only, or until the stock runs out. To that end, there’s a limit of one per customer, but that’s probably not a huge deal unless you’re in the process of furnishing a mansion or something.
The LG C3 OLED is considered one of the best TVs for gaming, and with good reason. We loved this television’s high contrast and the deep blacks on offer. We also praised the low input lag, increased motion response and wide array of appropriate viewing angles. It follows HDR guidelines, works with all the major VRR formats and has four HDMI 2.1 ports that are capable of outputting 4K 120Hz with a gaming console or PC.
It supports all the major HDR standards, including Dolby Vision. This TV is available in sizes up to 83-inches, but the larger models aren’t on sale. I use a 65-inch OLED, though not this one, and it’s plenty big enough for TV and gaming.
Despite being a dang good value, this isn’t a perfect television. The WOLED panel doesn’t get quite as bright as a QD-OLED like the Samsung S90C. Also, it doesn’t support a 144Hz refresh rate, which could be a dealbreaker to picky PC gamers. Still, the price is definitely right. Just make sure you pick this up sooner rather than later.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-65-inch-lg-c3-oled-tv-is-nearly-half-off-for-today-only-152153420.html?src=rssSource: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics | 26 Jul 2024 | 3:21 pm UTC
Government move to engage archaeological specialists comes after ‘suspicious’ locations identified at Kinchela Aboriginal institution
The New South Wales government will engage a specialist to explore the site of a notorious boys home where locations “consistent with clandestine human burials” have been found using ground-penetrating radar.
In September, Guardian Australia revealed there are at least nine “suspicious” sites of possible graves on the grounds of Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Training Home, one of the most violent and abusive institutions of the stolen generations era.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 26 Jul 2024 | 3:01 pm UTC
‘There will never be mining’ at Northern Territory site, Albanese says as area becomes part of Kakadu national park
It’s the decades-long fight over uranium mining that pitted Indigenous owners against the resources industry.
Now it seems the war is over, with the Australian government moving to expand the Kakadu national park to protect the Jabiluka site from mining for ever.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 26 Jul 2024 | 3:01 pm UTC
Unnamed official says comments should not be interpreted by Hamas that there is a gap between the US and its ally
A spokeswoman for No 10 added – regarding Labour dropping the Tories’ plan to challenge the ICC – that the Government believes very strongly in the separation of powers and the rule of law domestically and internationally.
“I think you would note that the courts have already received a number of submissions on either side, so they are well seized of the arguments to make their independent determinations,” she said.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 26 Jul 2024 | 3:00 pm UTC
NASA's Perseverance rover has been collecting samples from Mars since 2021, but one of its most recently collected rocks could help it achieve its goal of finding evidence of ancient life on the planet. Nicknamed Cheyava Falls after the tallest waterfall in the Grand Canyon, the 3.2 feet by 2 feet sample contains "chemical signatures and structures" that could've been formed by ancient microbial life from billions of years ago.
Perseverance collected the rock on July 21 from what was once a Martian river valley carved by flowing water long ago. The sample, which you can see in close up below and from afar at the center of the image above, exhibits large white calcium sulfate veins running along its length. They indicate that water did run through the rock at one point.
More importantly, it contains millimeter-size marks that look like "leopard spots" all over its central reddish band. On our planet, those spots could form on sedimentary terrestrial rocks when there are chemical reactions that turn hematite, one of the minerals responsible for Mars' reddish color, to white. Those reactions can release iron and phosphate, which could've served as an energy source for microbes.
The rover's Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL) tool already determined that the black rings around the spots contain iron and phosphate. However, that doesn't automatically mean that the rock truly did serve as a host for ancient microbes.
The spots could've been formed by non-biological processes, and that's something scientists will have to figure out. "We cannot say right now that we have discovered life on Mars,” Katie Stack Morgan, the deputy project scientist, said. "But what we are saying is that we have a potential biosignature, which is a set of features that could have a biological origin but do need further study and more data."
NASA still has to bring back the samples Perseverance had collected to our planet, including Cheyava Falls. As The New York Times notes, the Mars Sample Return mission is years behind schedule and would not be able to bring back rocks from the red planet until 2040 instead of in the early 2030's like originally planned. NASA recently asked aerospace companies for alternative solutions on how to get the samples to Earth much sooner and will finance their studies due later this year. Scientists will also have to conduct extensive testing to rule out contamination and non-biological processes, as well as other possible explanations for how the leopard spots had formed, before they can proclaim that they're indeed evidence of ancient Martian life.
Source: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics | 26 Jul 2024 | 3:00 pm UTC
Apple has joined several other tech companies in agreeing to abide by voluntary AI safeguards laid out by the Biden administration. Those who make the pledge have committed to abide by eight guidelines related to safety, security and social responsibility, including flagging societal risks such as biases; testing for vulnerabilities, watermarking AI-generated images and audio; and sharing trust and safety details with the government and other companies.
Amazon, Google, Microsoft and OpenAI were among the initial adoptees of the pact, which the White House announced last July. The voluntary agreement, which is not enforceable, will expire after Congress passes laws to regulate AI.
Since the guidelines were announced, Apple unveiled a suite of AI-powered features under the umbrella name of Apple Intelligence. The tools will work across the company's key devices and are set to start rolling out in the coming months. As part of that push, Apple has teamed up with OpenAI to incorporate ChatGPT into Apple Intelligence. In joining the voluntary code of practice, Apple may be hoping to ward off regulatory scrutiny of its AI tools.
Although President Joe Biden has talked up the potential benefits of AI, he has warned of the dangers posed by the technology as well. His administration has been clear that it wants AI companies to develop their tech in a responsible manner.
Meanwhile, the White House said in a statement that federal agencies have met all of the 270-day targets laid out in a sweeping Executive Order related to AI that Biden issued last October. The EO covers issues such as safety and security measures, as well as reporting and data transparency schemes. The White House says that agencies have met all the stipulated deadlines to date.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-agrees-to-stick-by-biden-administrations-voluntary-ai-safeguards-144653327.html?src=rssSource: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics | 26 Jul 2024 | 2:46 pm UTC
The crew of the Boeing Starliner will spend the summer aboard the International Space Station (ISS) as NASA and Boeing refused to set a return date for the craft.…
Source: The Register | 26 Jul 2024 | 2:24 pm UTC
A grand jury in Kansas City has indicted Rim Jong Hyok, a North Korean intelligence operative who allegedly used ransomware to attack health providers' systems in the US, according to AP News. The State Department said Rim is part of a group called Andariel that's controlled by the North Korean intelligence agency, the Reconnaissance General Bureau. Rim is not in the US government's custody. The agency is now offering a $10 million reward for information that would lead to his location or the location of a foreign operative who "engages in certain malicious cyber activities against US critical infrastructure."
A Kansas medical center alerted the FBI about an attack that blocked personnel's access to patient files and lab test results, as well as prevented them from operating hospital equipment with their computers, was back in 2021. It's a common MO of Rim's Andariel group, which would infiltrate a computer system and infect it with Maui ransomware. The group would then ask their target for payment and would threaten to release sensitive information if they don't pay up. In the Kansas hospital's case, the group demanded a ransom in Bitcoin worth $100,000 within 48 hours. The group allegedly used the money it gets to buy more computers and servers to fund more cyberattacks.
The FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Department of the Treasury issued a joint cybersecurity warning in the midst of Andariel's attacks on healthcare providers in 2022. "The North Korean state-sponsored cyber actors likely assume healthcare organizations are willing to pay ransoms because these organizations provide services that are critical to human life and health," they wrote. Federal investigators said they followed the ransom the Kansas medical center paid across blockchains and found that someone had transferred the Bitcoin to an address belonging to two Hong Kong nationals. Based on the court documents seen by AP, the money was then transferred to a Chinese bank and withdrawn from an ATM in China close to the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge connecting the country to North Korea.
Andariel and Rim are being accused of infiltrating 17 entities across 11 states, including four defense contractors, two US Air Force bases and NASA. The group was reportedly able to stay in NASA's computer system for three months and steal 17 gigabytes of classified information. During one of its operations that targeted a US defense contractor in November 2022, the State Department said the group was also able to extract over 30 gigabytes of data that include information on the material used in US military aircraft and satellites.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/north-korean-who-used-ransomware-to-attack-us-healthcare-providers-has-been-indicted-140008610.html?src=rssSource: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics | 26 Jul 2024 | 2:00 pm UTC
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