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Submission + - Brand Hype Has Existed Since the Bronze Age, Scientists Discover (404media.co)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: Brands have completely taken over the modern world, from established corporate trademarks to the proliferation of online influencers. But the allure of brands is nothing new, according to a study about an ancient style of pottery called Qurayyah Painted Ware that was a progenitor of branding some 3,200 years ago.

This brand of pottery was popular in what is now Saudi Arabia during the Bronze Age. The tradition is distinguished by distinctive black-and-red geometric designs and stylized animal and human figures. These unique visual properties, along with a consistent production technique and quality, suggest that it was an early branded commodity that was made to be recognizable to the wider community.

âoeIt is now understood that brands and proto-brands existed well before modern economies,â said researchers led by Marta Luciani of the University of Vienna. âoeIn this contribution we analyze the process by which the commodity itselfâ"decorated pottery vesselsâ"was developed into a brand not by added symbols but on the virtue of its visual identity, material consistency, technological continuity, centralized production, export circulation, local imitation, intentional commercial scope, and cultural reputation.â

Submission + - Simulated shopping sites (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by sinij
sinij writes:

The cart is full. The items have been picked. The checkout button is waiting. You click "place order" — and then nothing happens. There’s no delivery driver on the way. No charge to your credit card. No package waiting at your door. And that’s the point.

Submission + - Battery fires at recycling centres are costing UK £1bn a year, figures sho (theguardian.com)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: Fires at recycling centres caused by wrongly discarded lithium batteries such as those found in vapes are occurring at the rate of more than 10 a week, according to new figures.

Experts say the sheer volume of battery fires now occurring at waste facilities has reached a crisis that is putting lives at risk, costing £1bn a year and frustrating fire chiefs.

In figures shared with the Guardian, the Environment Services Association (ESA), the trade body for waste management companies, said its members had reported 1,518 fires in the year to March 2026. At least 541 of these fires were directly attributed to lithium ion batteries, the survey found. There were a further 216 battery fires in bin lorries.

Submission + - Microsoft Blames Windows Gaming Issues on RGB Lighting Devices (bleepingcomputer.com)

Submitted by joshuark
joshuark writes: Microsoft says ongoing issues causing games to crash or fail to launch after installing the August 2026 Windows updates may be caused by peripherals with RGB lighting. Microsoft explained when it confirmed it's investigating on Wednesday, this known issue affects games like ARC Raiders, MARVEL Tkon: Fighting Souls, and The Finals on systems running Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2.

"Following the release of Windows updates on August 11, 2026 (KB5121003) and later, Microsoft received reports of issues involving inability to run games as expected," Microsoft said on the Windows release health dashboard.

On impacted PCs, users are also experiencing gaming freezes, "EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION" errors, and even unexpected system restarts.

Embark Studios, the Swedish video game developer behind ARC Raiders and The Finals, also said these issues are caused by inpoutx64.sys, but added that they stem from changes made to the Windows kernel driver.

"We're aware of a crash that has been impacting some players since the most recent Windows update (KB5121003). This is a crash related to the file inpoutx64.sys, which changed with the Windows update," Embark said on Monday.

Until Microsoft ships an official fix, Embark shared a multi-step temporary workaround that requires users to delete the service and remove the inpoutx64 file from the Windows drivers folder.

Submission + - What Does Google's $10M Bid for a Dying Airline's Data Tell Us (medium.com)

Submitted by Thuwarakesh
Thuwarakesh writes: Google offered to pay $10M for Spirit Airlines' data.

The deal isn't final yet amid privacy concerns raised by Spirit's employees. But it has put a clear market value for it's data.

If the court approves, Google will get a gigantic collection of emails, Teams messages, and operational logs.

Think about it. It's not even their customer data. These are purely operational data collected over many years. No one would have thought their Teams messages would be valued.

Submission + - Defamation suit demanding Elsevier retract paper heads closer to trial (retractionwatch.com)

Submitted by sandbagger
sandbagger writes: A trial date has been set in a $1 billion defamation case against Elsevier that alleges the company published what plaintiffs say was a manipulated study about an air purifying technology over objections from peer reviewers. The case has already cost Elsevier a $10,000 sanction from a judge.

Submission + - Chinese Property Developer Evergrande's Founder Sentenced to Life in Prison (npr.org)

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: Chinese property developer Hui Ka Yan, founder of the Evergrande real estate group, has been sentenced to life in prison and the companies fined a total of $2.3 billion, a court in the southern city of Shenzhen said Thursday. The decision marks a milestone in Evergrande's saga after it collapsed with more than $300 billion in liabilities when Chinese authorities cracked down on excessive borrowing in the real estate industry in 2020. That triggered a crunch among many developers and brought on a downturn in the property market that has weighed on the broader economy ever since. Hui pleaded guilty in April to various charges including illegal absorption of public deposits, fraud and bribery after he was arrested in China. Born to a poor family in rural Henan province, Hui was raised by his grandmother before setting up Evergrande in 1996. In 2018 he thanked the Chinese Communist party for providing “everything that Evergrande and I have”.

Submission + - SpaceX's orbital data centers would create a new category of e-waste (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: Elon Musk’s talk about maintaining a million-strong AI data center satellite megaconstellation may not exactly be practical or economical, but it might be unique. It’s about the closest we’ve come to confronting a scheme that would export a considerable amount of valuable materials into space. Humans aren’t doing a great job of material sustainability, but normally we’re talking about stuff escaping a recycling pipeline rather than escaping Earth’s gravitational pull.

Given the roughly five-year expected lifetime for data center GPUs, about 200,000 of the 1 million proposed SpaceX AI1 satellites would be decommissioned each year. Based on their May 29 FCC filing, about 40,000 would definitely deorbit and burn up in the atmosphere. (Those materials would largely be dispersed throughout the atmosphere, turning a resource into a diffuse contaminant that slowly settles over the globe. One related issue: the aluminum would cause an unknown amount of ozone depletion over a period of decades.) Some or all of the remaining 160,000 satellites would be moved outward into a distant “disposal” orbit, instead. Either way, they’re lost from a “material life cycle” point of view.

Submission + - US Moves Medical Marijuana Off Schedule I (justice.gov)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: US cannabis law has moved more in the past year than in the previous fifty. In April 2026, following a Trump executive order, the DOJ rescheduled FDA-approved and state-licensed medical marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III, the first federal acknowledgment of accepted medical use in over 50 years. Recreational cannabis stays Schedule I, but a DEA administrative hearing on extending Schedule III to all cannabis ran through July, with a decision pending. Schedule III also frees medical operators from the 280E tax ban and eases research rules. Separately, a November 2025 law redefines legal hemp by total THC starting November 12, 2026. This 2026 cannabis law update breaks down each change.

Submission + - Microsoft Cut Office 2021's Support to Five Years (microsoft.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft will end support for Office 2021 on October 13, 2026, with no extension and no paid Extended Security Updates. After that date the perpetual-license apps keep running, but Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook stop getting security patches, so any newly found vulnerability stays open. The notable part for anyone who bought a one-time license: this is a five-year support window, half the ten-year lifecycle older perpetual Office releases received, and the same cutoff also ends the one-year Windows 10 consumer reprieve. Microsoft's pitch is to move to a Microsoft 365 subscription, though Office LTSC 2024 stays supported to 2029. A retailer guide runs through the Office 2021 upgrade options for holdouts.

Submission + - Nations hiding censorship in cybercrime bills. UN treaty could make things worse (fire.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The likely outcome here is obvious: The treaty will streamline unfree countries’ involvement with other unfree countries’ repression and pressure freer ones into helping, too. And it can all take place confidentially, without the knowledge of the public or even those being targeted . . .

And as though existing national laws punishing political expression aren’t enough, the treaty could even incentivize governments to enact harsher penalties on expressive acts. After all, if you’d like other nations to assist you in punishing your critics on the internet, you’ll want to ensure their expression qualifies for inclusion under the treaty’s definition of “serious crimes.”

It's already happening in the UK
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne...

Submission + - American Airlines Changed Passengers' Flights w/o Asking and No Human Oversight (inc.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: In recent years, American Airlines has embraced artificial intelligence. Now the new technology appears to be changing flight tickets.

Earlier this week, columnist Marc Thiessen took to social media to voice his frustration with American‘s rebooking system. He claimed the airline rebooked his connecting flight in Chicago without his knowledge when his inbound flight was delayed. “Since when do you change my itinerary without asking?” Thiessen wrote on X.

The rebooking automation appears to be part of an American Airlines system called AURA (for AUtomated ReAccommodation). The system, which initially rolled out in 2023, is meant to help passengers with their connecting flights. “Our Automated Reaccommodation tool proactively rebooks customers impacted by flight cancellations and delays, and exchanges tickets,” the company said on its site. However, the automated system appears to have negatively impacted more than one traveler.

Below Thiessen’s post, media consultant Beverly Hallberg replied that American had done the same thing to her the day before. “I had to call and switch my connecting flight back to the original itinerary, and I had enough time to do that since we were stuck on the tarmac for so long. But, like you, they didn’t ask,” she wrote on X.

https://x.com/danikkk_wqs/stat...

Submission + - The Chemistry That Turns a Boiled Crawfish Red (manchester.ac.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A live crawfish is a drab blue-gray, but boil it and the shell turns red. The red was there the whole time. Crustacean shells are loaded with astaxanthin, the same orange-red carotenoid that colors salmon and flamingos, but while the animal is alive that pigment sits clamped inside a protein called crustacyanin, which twists it and masks the color. Heat denatures the protein, the same unfolding that turns an egg white opaque, and the freed astaxanthin snaps back to red. The pigment is heat-stable; only its protein cage isn't. The exact mechanism went unexplained for centuries and was finally pinned down in 2015. It plays out in every Louisiana crawfish boil.

Submission + - Scientists Have Built Miniature Brains That Experience The Passage of Time (sciencealert.com)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: Our brains comprise 86 billion neurons and the trillions of connections between them, whipping up an orchestrated storm of electricity and chemicals that pulse within a 3-pound lump of jellified fat, protein, and water.

The intricate biological machine that defines us humans requires about 20 years to mature, a much lengthier developmental period than in most other species.

This, along with the added inconvenience that it's locked within our craniums, makes our developing brains experimentally inaccessible.

So, scientists are building brains in the lab, no big deal.

In a breakthrough described in the journal Nature, researchers have created miniature brains, called organoids, that can 'sense' the passage of time and retain a cellular 'memory' of how long they have already spent developing.

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... though his invention worked superbly -- his theory was a crock of sewage from beginning to end. -- Vernor Vinge, "The Peace War"

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