157289995
submission
PolygamousRanchKid writes:
Apple's color-coding of SMS communications in green in iMessage plays a role alongside other feature in getting teenagers to switch from Android to iPhone, a report claims, with a pressure to fit in with their peers promoting moves to turn their messages blue. The use of green and blue to show whether a message to a user is made through iMessage or via other devices has become more than a simple convenience indicator for users. It's also a form of status indicator, showing the user not only owns an iPhone, but can also make use of features on the platform that others cannot. In a profile of the color-indication system by the Wall Street Journal, teenagers and students explain how not having an iPhone and seeing green messages are seemingly a negative to them.
New York masters student Jocelyn Maher said she was mocked by her friends and younger sister when dating, if the potential suitor used Android. "I was like, Oh my gosh, his texts are green,' and my sister literally went Ew, that's gross,'" said Maher.
Apple is apparently well aware that iMessage is a serious draw to its users, with it surfacing in the Epic-Apple trial as part of a series of claims it was used to lock users into its ecosystem. Epic pointed to statements by senior Apple management that the company had blocked the creation of an Android version of iMessage.
154903149
submission
PolygamousRanchKid writes:
Rolls-Royce has been backed by a consortium of private investors and the UK government to develop small nuclear reactors to generate cleaner energy. However, critics say the focus should be on renewable power, not new nuclear.
Rolls-Royce SMR said one of its power stations would occupy about one tenth of the size of a conventional nuclear plant — the equivalent footprint of two football pitches — and power approximately one million homes. The firm said a plant would have the capacity to generate 470MW of power, which it added would be the same produced by more than 150 onshore wind turbines. Warren East, Rolls-Royce chief executive, said the company's SMR technology offered a "clean energy solution" which help tackle climate change.
However, Paul Dorfman, chairman of the Nuclear Consulting Group think tank, told the BBC's Today programme there was danger that the money spent on nuclear power would hit funding for other power sources.
"If nuclear eats all the pies which it is looking to be doing we won't have enough money to do the kind of things we need to do which we know practically and technologically we can do now," he said.
154117787
submission
PolygamousRanchKid writes:
HT Aero, an affiliate of Chinese electric vehicle maker Xpeng Inc., launched a new flying car on Sunday that it says can also drive on roads. The company says it plans for a rollout in 2024.
HT Aero’s vehicle will have a lightweight design and a rotor that folds away, the company said. That will allow the car to drive on roads and then fly once the rotors are expanded. The vehicle will have a number of safety features including parachutes, the company said.
Flying cars — also called electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles — have garnered a lot of interest from automakers and start-ups. However, there are a number of challenges for these vehicles to become wide-scale including regulation and safety issues.
152242615
submission
PolygamousRanchKid writes:
Iran’s chief military nuclear scientist and the father of its weapons program, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was assassinated in November 2020 by the Mossad using a remote-controlled artificial intelligence operated sniper machine gun, The New York Times reported on Saturday. According to the report, “Iranian agents working for the Mossad had parked a blue Nissan Zamyad pickup truck on the side of the road connecting the town of Absard to the main highway. Hidden beneath tarpaulins and decoy construction material in the truck bed was a 7.62-mm sniper machine gun.”
The report details how the sniper who took out Fakhrizadeh did so remotely from Israel, over 1,600 kilometers away, since the hit squad had long ago left Iran. The gun which was used was a special model of a Belgian-made FN MAG machine gun attached to an advanced robotic apparatus. It was smuggled into the country in small pieces over several months because, taken together, all of its components would have weighed around a full ton.Link to Original Source
147683540
submission
PolygamousRanchKid writes:
A dose of laughing gas may just help some people with hard-to-treat depression, suggests a new, small clinical trial published Wednesday. The study found that people who inhaled nitrous oxide reported improvements in their depression symptoms afterward. It also found that people felt similar improvements with a smaller dose as they did with a larger one, but experienced substantially fewer side effects.
Nitrous oxide (NO) is a colorless, non-flammable gas at room temperature that’s long been used as an anesthetic and sometimes as a recreational drug, due to the euphoria and dissociative hallucinations it can cause upon inhalation. But several years ago, Peter Nagele, a researcher and trauma anesthesiologist at the University of Chicago, and his colleagues began looking into nitrous oxide as a potential treatment for depression.
The small trial recruited 28 participants in a crossover design, which is when all the volunteers go through each of the trial’s conditions and their responses are compared to one another (as opposed to two or more distinct groups that either take the drug or placebo). The team found that these volunteers on average experienced a greater improvement in depression symptoms when they took the nitrous oxide at either dose than they did after taking the placebo (based on the primary survey they completed)—an improvement that lasted for up to two weeks.
Some doctors and patients had been using generic ketamine, taken through IV, as an experimental depression treatment for years. But Johnson & Johnson didn’t fund expensive clinical trials to secure an approval for ketamine as a depression treatment; it instead developed a patentable form taken as a nasal spray, called esketamine. That sort of commercialization isn’t something that’s possible with nitrous oxide, according to Nagale.
146706340
submission
PolygamousRanchKid writes:
California is requiring ride-sharing companies such as Uber and Lyft to transition from gasoline to electric vehicles (EVs) in their networks by the end of this decade. The state’s clean-air regulator on Thursday unanimously approved the Clean Miles Standard mandating that EVs account for 90 percent of ride-hailing vehicle miles traveled in California by 2030. The ride-share companies will have to begin the electrification of their fleets in 2023.
“The transportation sector is responsible for nearly half of California’s greenhouse gas emissions, the vast majority of which come from light-duty vehicles,” CARB (California Air Resources Board) Chair Liane M. Randolph said in a statement.
Both Uber and Lyft have already committed to converting their fleets entirely to EVs by 2030 and have made efforts to help drivers make the shift. The companies have said, however, California needs to spend more money to help drivers afford the zero emissions vehicles, according to Reuters.
Pin the tail on the donkey; Pin the bill on the Taxpayer.
146201610
submission
PolygamousRanchKid writes:
The hacker group DarkSide claimed on Wednesday to have attacked three more companies, despite the global outcry over its attack on Colonial Pipeline this week, which has caused shortages of gasoline and panic buying on the East Coast of the U.S.
Over the past 24 hours, the group posted the names of three new companies on its site on the dark web, called DarkSide Leaks. The information posted to the site includes summaries of what the hackers appear to have stolen but do not appear to contain raw data. DarkSide is a criminal gang, and its claims should be treated as potentially misleading.
The posting indicates that the hacker collective is not backing down in the face of an FBI investigation and denunciations of the attack from the Biden administration. It also signals that the group intends to carry out more ransom attacks on companies, even after it posted a cryptic message earlier this week indicating regret about the impact of the Colonial Pipeline hack and pledging to introduce “moderation” to “avoid social consequences in the future.”
One of the companies is based in the United States, one is in Brazil and the third is in Scotland. None of them appear to engage in critical infrastructure. Each company appears to be small enough that a crippling hack would otherwise fly under the radar if the hackers hadn’t received worldwide notoriety by crippling gasoline supplies in the United States.
144514190
submission
PolygamousRanchKid writes:
In November 2019, twelve bottles of Chateau Petrus 2000—a rare and expensive red wine from Bordeaux, France—hitched a ride to the International Space Station aboard a Northrop Grumman spacecraft. It was followed several months later by 320 snippets of grapevine, or canes, of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. For a year, both viticultural products were exposed to the unique stress of the station’s microgravity environment.
On January 1st, the wine bottles and canes returned to earth aboard a SpaceX cargo vessel, and were hurried back to the Institute of Vine and Wine Science (ISVV) at the University of Bordeaux. Researchers have already begun analyzing the changes they underwent while in orbit, and during a press conference on Wednesday, revealed their preliminary findings. They had also, of course, tasted the wine.
Scientists at the European startup behind the experiment, Space Cargo Unlimited (SCU), hope that observing a difference in the structural makeup of both the wines and canes, compared with the control samples that remained on earth, will contribute to an SCU program called Mission WISE. That initiative is aimed at harnessing the potential of microgravity to produce agricultural products resistant to climate change.
138244872
submission
PolygamousRanchKid writes:
The country's prime minister said the mutated virus, found on mink farms, "may pose a risk to the effectiveness of a future vaccine."
The mutated virus was found in a dozen people who got infected by minks. Half of the 783 human Covid-19 cases in northern Denmark "are related to mink," Health Minister Magnus Heunicke said.
There are between 15 million and 17 million minks in Denmark, one of the world's main mink fur exporters. According to government estimates, culling the country's mink population could cost up to $785 million. National police head Thorkild Fogde urged that “it should happen as soon as possible."
136018446
submission
PolygamousRanchKid writes:
SoftBank is set to sell the UK’s Arm Holdings to US chip company Nvidia for more than $40 billion, just four years after its founder Masayoshi Son bought the chip designer and said it would be the linchpin for the future of the Japanese technology group.
Multiple people with direct knowledge of the matter said a cash-and-stock takeover of Arm by Nvidia may be announced as soon as Monday, and that SoftBank will become the largest shareholder in the US chip company.
Nvidia had a market valuation of roughly similar to that of Arm’s at the time of the 2016 deal, but now trades with a market value of $300 billion, or roughly 10 times the amount SoftBank paid in cash for Arm. By paying for a large portion of the deals with its own shares, it is also passing part of the risk of the transaction to SoftBank.
To pave the way for the deal, SoftBank reversed an earlier decision to strip out an internet-of-things business from Arm and transfer it to a new company under its control. That would have stripped Arm of what was meant to be the high-growth engine that would power it into a 5G-connected future. One person said that SoftBank made the decision because it would have put it in conflict with commitments made to the U.K. over Arm, which were agreed at the time of the 2016 deal to appease the government.
134256937
submission
PolygamousRanchKid writes:
NASA's Doug Hurley and his crewmate Bob Behnken had a satellite phone at their disposal after splashdown on Sunday. At a press conference later that day, Hurley filled us in on what they did with their spare time as they floated around.
"Five hours ago we were in a spaceship bobbing around making prank satellite phone calls to whoever we could get ahold of," Hurley said. "Which was kind of fun, by the way." Hurley suggested the satellite phone bill should go to SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who was sitting nearby.
SpaceX's Crew Dragon successfully made it though the historic Demo-2 mission as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. SpaceX and NASA hope to start regular operational missions to the ISS later this year.
That means there could be more prank calls incoming if this post-splashdown time-killer becomes a tradition for Crew Dragon astronauts. After blasting through space, you need to do something to unwind.
122980596
submission
PolygamousRanchKid writes:
We’ve already seen Samsung’s new rugged smartphone with a removable battery, the Galaxy XCover Pro, because the company revealed it on its Finnish website before taking it down. Today, though, the company is officially announcing the phone and that it’s coming to the US for $499.
For that price, you’re getting a phone with a swappable battery that’s a meaty 4,050mAh, and the phone even supports 15W fast charging, as well as with special docks that use pogo pins. The XCover Pro is intended to be used by workers in industrial settings or out in the field, so that huge battery should theoretically let workers use their phones for longer and give them the option to swap in a fresh battery in a pinch.
Otherwise, the phone’s specs are mid-range: a 6.3-inch AMOLED 2220 x 1080 display (which Samsung says you can use when you have gloves on), a 2GHz octa-core Exynos 9611 processor, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of internal storage (with support for microSD storage up to 512GB). For cameras, the phone has a 13-megapixel front-facing camera in a corner of the screen and two rear cameras: a 25-megapixel camera and an 8-megapixel camera.
119712854
submission
PolygamousRanchKid writes:
Essentially the entirety of physics centers on four forces that control our known, visible universe, governing everything from the production of heat in the sun to the way your laptop works. They are gravity, electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force, and the strong force. New research may be leading us closer to one more.
Scientists at the Institute for Nuclear Research at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Atomki) have posted findings showing what could be an example of that fifth force at work.
The scientists were closely watching how an excited helium atom emitted light as it decayed. The particles split at an unusual angle, 115 degrees, which couldn't be explained by known physics.
The study's lead scientist, Attila Krasznahorkay, told CNN that this was the second time his team had detected a new particle, which they call X17, because they calculated its mass at 17 megaelectronvolts.
"X17 could be a particle, which connects our visible world with the dark matter," he said in an email.
Jonathan Feng, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Irvine, told CNN he's been following the Hungarian team's work for years, and believes their research is shaping up to be a game changer. "Some people said they screwed up," Feng said.
But he believed the Hungarians were for real. His research group published a paper on the heels of the Hungarians' 2016 work, laying out a theory to observe what Krasznahorkay's experimental team had seen. They referred to this unseen fifth force in action as a "photophobic force," meaning that it was as though the particles were "afraid of light." The only way to explain X17 was a hitherto undetected "fifth force."
"There's no reason to stop at the fifth," Feng said. "There could be a sixth, seventh, and eighth force."
118586220
submission
PolygamousRanchKid writes:
New anti-addiction guidelines for minors that set out limits for time and money spent on mobile games have been introduced by China’s state censor, following previous calls to curb excessive gaming. State media published the new rules on Tuesday, which introduced a stricter real-name registration system and, for the first time, an age rating system. The State Administration of Press and Publications (SAPP) guidelines also include limiting gaming to between 8am and 10pm, with no more than 1.5 hours each day – or three hours on holidays – and no more than 400 yuan (US$57) to be spent each month on in-game purchases.
SAPP said it was working with the Ministry of Public Security to build a central personal identification system for the gaming industry so companies could verify the identities and ages of users. Companies found to have broken the rules will face a range of penalties, including losing their games publishing licenses in the most severe cases.
“The guideline’s introduction and implementation will strengthen and improve the management of online games. It will protect the physical and mental health of minors and build a healthy internet environment,” a SAPP spokesman said, according to Xinhua.
118466560
submission
PolygamousRanchKid writes:
Silvia Galva, 32, was impaled by a spear-tipped bed post in a struggle with her boyfriend, Adam Reechard Crespo, at their Hallandale Beach home. Mr Crespo, 43, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder. He says her death was a tragic accident. Police want to establish if the smart-speaker, Alexa, recorded the dispute.
A police warrant obtained by US media says "audio recordings capturing the attack on victim Silvia Crespo... may be found on the server[s] maintained by or for Amazon.com". The major brands record and analyse snippets of audio internally to detect words like "Alexa", "Ok Google" or "Hey Siri", but if those words are not detected, the audio is discarded. If the wake word is said, however, then the audio is recorded and sent to the voice recognition service at the company.
