Is There An Android App That Can Help Me Pronounce Foreign Place Names
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Fatty Acid Found In Palm Oil Linked To Spread of Cancer (theguardian.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the potent-promoter dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Scientists have shown how a fatty acid found in palm oil can encourage the spread of cancer, in work that could pave the way for new treatments. The study, on mice, found that palmitic acid promoted metastasis in mouth and skin cancers. In future, this process could be targeted with drugs or carefully designed eating plans, but the team behind the work cautioned against patients putting themselves on diets in the absence of clinical trials. The study adds to emerging evidence that diet can be used to enhance existing cancer treatments because certain nutrients are disproportionately relied on by tumor cells, or are required at critical stages such as metastasis.
The study built on previous work by the same team showing that, within a tumor, just a small subset of cells have the capacity to spread by traveling out of the tumor, reaching other organs and colonizing them. These specialized cancer cells appeared to rely particularly heavily on fatty acids and the latest work narrowed this down to palmitic acid, which is found in palm oil -- but also in a wide variety of foods such as butter and olive oil. The study, published in Nature, found that when palmitic acid was supplemented into the diet of mice, mouth and skin cancers were more likely to spread. Other fatty acids called oleic acid and linoleic acid -- omega-9 and omega-6 fats found in foods such as olive oil and flaxseeds -- did not show the same effect. Neither of the fatty acids tested increased the risk of developing cancer in the first place. The study suggested that exposure to palmitic acid caused changes to the function of genes in cancer cells that allowed them to sense fatty acids and consume them more efficiently. The presence of palmitic acid also appeared to send cancer cells into a "regenerative state" allowing them to form signaling networks beyond the tumor, which is known to be a crucial step towards spreading.
Steam Deck Delayed, Valve Apologizes (kotaku.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the blame-the-supply-chain dept.
Valve has delayed the release of its Steam Deck handheld by several months, it announced in a statement today. The anticipated handheld will now start rolling out in February 2022, pushed back from an initial December release. Kotaku reports: "We're sorry about this -- we did our best to work around the global supply chain issues, but due to material shortages, components aren't reaching our manufacturing facilities in time for us to meet our initial launch dates," Valve wrote. "Based on our updated build estimates, Steam Deck will start shipping to customers February 2022. This will be the new start date of the reservation queue -- all reservation holders keep their place in line but dates will shift back accordingly." Further reading: Valve Launches Steam Deck, a $400 PC Gaming Portable
Apple Will No Longer Break Face ID On Repaired iPhone 13s (arstechnica.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the crisis-averted dept.
Apple says it will back off its plan to break Face ID on independently repaired iPhones. Ars Technica reports: The company's often contentious relationship with the repair community was tested again when "unauthorized" iPhone 13 screen replacements started resulting in broken Face ID systems. A new report from The Verge says that Apple "will release a software update that doesn't require you to transfer the microcontroller to keep Face ID working after a screen swap." Screen replacements are the most common smartphone repairs. Apple included a new microcontroller in the iPhone 13's display that pairs each screen with other components in the phone. As iFixit reported, if a third-party repair shop replaced the iPhone 13 display, Apple would disable the phone's Face ID system. [...] After a wave of bad press, it's "crisis averted" for the repair community. It would be nice if this was never an issue in the first place, though.
Unity To Buy 'The Lord of the Rings' VFX Studio Weta Digital In $1.63 Billion Deal (reuters.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the making-moves dept.
Hmmmmmm shares a report from Reuters: Unity will buy Weta Digital, a visual effects (VFX) studio known for its work in movies such as "Godzilla vs. Kong" and "Avatar" in a $1.63 billion cash-and-stock deal, the companies said on Tuesday. The deal would help Unity, which makes software for video games and animation, tap into Weta Digital's technology and talent to develop VFX tools and focus on metaverse opportunities.
Weta Digital was founded by film director Peter Jackson of "The Lord of the Rings" fame and has won several Academy and BAFTA Awards. It is known for its animated characters such as Gollum and Caesar from "Planet of the Apes." Unity, which made the software behind the popular mobile phone game Temple Run, will roll out tools for artists and developers across a number of industries, including film and gaming. [...] Weta Digital's Academy Award-winning VFX team will remain a standalone entity known as WetaFX, and is expected to become Unity's largest customer in the media and entertainment space, the companies said. Weta FX will license back the technologies and tools from Unity, sign an annual agreement worth $50 million and a contract for commercial services, they added.
Three Out of Four Adults Think Facebook Is Making Society Worse, Poll Finds (cnn.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the Zuck-it dept.
An anonymous reader shares the results of a new poll (PDF) from CNN, adding: "Facebook should be treated like cigarettes." From the report: Roughly three-quarters of adults believe Facebook is making American society worse, a new CNN poll (PDF) conducted by SSRS finds [...]. Americans say, 76% to 11%, that Facebook makes society worse, not better, according to the survey. Another 13% say it has no effect either way. That broadly negative appraisal holds across gender, age and racial lines. Even frequent Facebook users -- those who report using the site at least several times a week -- say 70% to 14% that the social network harms, rather than helps, US society. Although majorities across parties say Facebook is doing more harm than good, that feeling spikes among Republicans (82%).
Among the majority overall who think Facebook is worsening society, however, there's less of an overwhelming consensus on whether or not the platform itself is primarily to blame: 55% say that the way some people use Facebook is more at fault, with 45% saying it's more due to the way Facebook itself is run. Overall, about one-third of the public -- including 44% of Republicans and 27% of Democrats -- say both that Facebook is making American society worse and that Facebook itself is more at fault than its users.
Netflix Starts Rolling Out AV1 Codec To TVs (9to5google.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the ready-for-the-masses dept.
This week, following successful tests on Android smartphones and tablets, Netflix has announced that it will bring AV1 to TVs. 9to5Google reports: In a blog post this week, Netflix confirms it will start using the AV1 codec on some TVs. AV1, which has been available since 2018, allows for the more efficient encoding and decoding of data for streaming, leading to higher quality for the end user and better use of bandwidth for providers. However, the codec relies on hardware support. To ensure that TVs using AV1 streams will provide a good experience, Netflix says it analyzes the steam to ensure the device is spec-compliant for AV1 decoding.
For the time being, Netflix isn't specifically announcing which devices will support AV1 outside of the Netflix app on Sony's PS4 Pro console. On other TVs, support is only specified as working on "a number of AV1 capable TVs." In theory, this should include a considerable number of Android TV models.
Rivian Goes Public In One of the Biggest IPOs Ever (theverge.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the scorching-debut dept.
Electric vehicle startup Rivian is now a publicly traded company after executing one of the biggest initial public offerings in history. The Verge reports: Rivian shares started trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange Wednesday at around $78 per share. That gave Rivian an overall valuation of nearly $80 billion and helped it net $12 billion in fresh cash, despite the fact that it only just recently started to make and ship its first electric pickup trucks. It's the sixth-largest IPO ever on a US stock exchange, according to Bloomberg, and it's hard to imagine the company picking a better time to debut. Tesla has generated an incredible amount of interest in electric vehicles and is now one of the most highly valued companies in the world. The public markets have also been on an outrageous run over the last few years -- a run that was supercharged over the last 18 months by an influx of retail traders and a boom in electric vehicle companies going public.
Rivian, which has a steady CEO and founder and relatively modest goals for the next few years, could be a good test of all that hype. It has received a little more than 55,000 preorders for its pricey electric pickup truck (the R1T) and SUV (the R1S) and has said it won't be able to deliver all of those until the end of 2023. Where other EV startups went public with big promises of near-term growth, Rivian has been very conservative in the few estimates it's offered for what the next few years look like and has instead emphasized that it will be largely focused on making vans for Amazon, which owns about 20 percent of the startup. And yet, shares of Rivian jumped to $106 as they began trading on the Nasdaq exchange Wednesday and climbed from there, lifting the company's valuation well over $100 billion -- higher than all other automakers on the planet, save for Tesla, Toyota, Volkswagen, and China's BYD.
Infrastructure Bill's Drunk Driving Tech Mandate Leaves Some Privacy Advocates Nervous (gizmodo.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the pros-and-cons dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: The recently passed $1 trillion infrastructure package is jam-packed with initiatives but sprinkled in there alongside $17 billion in funding for road safety programs is a mandate requiring carmakers to implement monitoring systems to identify and stop drunk drivers. The mandate, first noted by the Associated Press could apply to new vehicles sold as early as 2026. Courts have ordered some drunk drivers to use breathalyzers attached to ignition interlocks to start their vehicles for years, but the technology noted in this bill would take that concept much further and would need to be capable of "passively monitor[ing] the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired."
Though the Department of Transportation has yet to put its foot down on the exact type of technology it will use for this program, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and 17 automakers have been working on something called the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS) since 2008. DADSS is exploring both a breath and touch-based system to detect whether or not a driver has a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) at or above 0.08%. The breath-based system aims to measure alcohol readings based on a driver's breath with the goal of distinguishing between the driver and passengers. The touch-based system meanwhile would shine an infrared light through a driver's fingertip to measure blood alcohol levels under the skin's surface. [...]
The new mandate struck a positive note with some car safety groups, including Mothers Against Drunk Driving which has advocated for more detection tech in the past. "It's monumental," Alex Otte, national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving told the AP. Otte went on to describe the package as the "single most important legislation" in the group's history. At the same time though, the mandate has drawn concerns from safety experts and digital rights groups that warn driver monitoring technology could have knock-on privacy implications. In a letter sent last year by the American Highway Users Alliance, the organization urged support of the NHTSA's DADSS Research Program but expressed concerns that the technology could potentially infringe on driver's civil liberties.
"The group also expressed concerns over how the collection and storage of driver data would work and who would have the rights to that data," adds Gizmodo. Others have also expressed concerns over the accuracy of driving monitoring technology and potential risks of bias. Amazon Discussing Renaming IMDb TV To Help Draw More Viewers (theinformation.com)
Posted by msmash from the what's-in-a-name dept.
First it was called Freedive, then it was dubbed IMDb TV. Now, less than three years after launching its free ad-supported video-streaming service, Amazon is looking to rename it, The Information reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the situation. From a report: Amazon executives believe the existing name is too hard for people to pronounce, which hurts its popularity, said people familiar with the situation. Several alternatives have been tossed around in internal discussions, including Zon -- short for Amazon -- as well as Free TV and Free Streaming TV. The Zon idea was shot down but otherwise Amazon is yet to make a decision about the new name, the people said.
China Pledges More Aggressive Climate Action in Joint Statement with US (axios.com)
Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
China vowed more aggressive steps on emissions Wednesday in a joint announcement with the U.S. -- a move that signals an easing of tensions evident at the COP26 climate summit. From a report: The two nations' joint statement calls for "accelerated actions in the critical decade of the 2020s," as well as cooperation on measurement and reductions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane. The statement also represents a rhetorical pivot from China, even though it does not explicitly change China's existing pledge under the Paris agreement to have its emissions peak before 2030 -- a stance that has disappointed advocates who want more aggressive action. "Climate change is becoming increasingly urgent and severe," Xie Zhenhua, China's top climate negotiator, said via a translator at a briefing in Glasgow, warning of an "existential crisis." China accounts for nearly a third of global energy-related CO2 emissions in particular. Its emissions path is key to whether the temperature-limiting goals of the Paris agreement can remain within reach.
Justice Department Sues Uber Over Charging Wait-Time Fees for Disabled People (wsj.com)
Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
The Justice Department said Wednesday that it was suing Uber for charging wait-time fees to passengers with physical disabilities. From a report: The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that the company violated the Americans with Disabilities Act for charging fees to passengers who, because of disability, need more time to enter a car.
Twitter is Launching a Dedicated Crypto Team, Part of Its Push Toward Decentralization (theverge.com)
Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
Twitter is building a new division for "all things blockchain at Twitter," called Twitter Crypto, and has hired Tess Rinearson as the team's engineering lead to "set the strategy for the future of crypto at (and on) Twitter," the company said in a release Wednesday. From a report: "First, we'll be exploring how we can support the growing interest among creators to use decentralized apps to manage virtual goods and currencies, and to support their work and communities," Rinearson said on Twitter. "Looking farther ahead, we'll be exploring how ideas from crypto communities can help us push the boundaries of what's possible with identity, community, ownership and more." She added that her team would be working closely with Bluesky, an independent Twitter-funded effort to create a decentralized social network standard.
Tuvalu Looking at Legal Ways To Be a State if it is Submerged (reuters.com)
Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Tuvalu is looking at legal ways to keep its ownership of its maritime zones and recognition as a state even if the Pacific island nation is completely submerged due to climate change, its foreign minister said on Tuesday. From a report: "We're actually imagining a worst-case scenario where we are forced to relocate or our lands are submerged," the minister, Simon Kofe, told Reuters in an interview. "We're looking at legal avenues where we can retain our ownership of our maritime zones, retain our recognition as a state under international law. So those are steps that we are taking, looking into the future," he said. Images of Kofe recording a speech to the United Nations COP26 climate summit standing knee-deep in the sea have been widely shared on social media over recent days, pleasing the tiny island nation which is pushing for aggressive action to limit the impact of climate change. [...]
"We didn't think it would go viral as we saw over the last few days. We have been very pleased with that and hopefully that carries the message and emphasises the challenges that we are facing in Tuvalu at the moment," Kofe said. Tuvalu is an island with a population of around 11,000 people and its highest point is just 4.5m (15 ft) above sea level. Since 1993, sea levels have risen about 0.5cm (0.2 inches) per year, according to a 2011 Australian government report.
YouTube is Removing the Dislike Count on All Videos Across its Platform (techcrunch.com)
Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
YouTube today announced its decision to make the "dislike" count on videos private across its platform. The decision is likely to be controversial given the extent that it impacts the public's visibility into a video's reception. From a report: But YouTube believes the change will better protect its creators from harassment and reduce the threat of what it calls "dislike attacks" -- essentially, when a group teams up to drive up the number of dislikes a video receives. The company says that while dislike counts won't be visible to the public, it's not removing the dislike button itself. Users can still click the thumbs down button on videos to signal their dislike to creators privately. Meanwhile, creators will be able to track their dislikes in YouTube Studio alongside other analytics about their video's performance, if they choose. The change follows an experiment YouTube ran earlier this year whose goal was to determine if these sorts of changes would reduce dislike attacks and creator harassment. At the time, YouTube explained that public dislike counts can affect creators' well-being and may motivate targeted campaigns to add dislikes to videos. While that's true, dislikes can also serve as a signal to others when videos are clickbait, spam, or misleading, which can be useful.
Bezos-Backed Real Estate App To Accept Bitcoin as Payment (bloomberg.com)
Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
La Haus, a Latin American property tech startup backed by Bezos Expeditions, said it will accept Bitcoin for real estate transactions, adding to the region's growing adoption of the cryptocurrency as a means of payment. From a report: The company, which allows users to purchase homes through an app, will allow buyers to pay with the digital currency, starting with a housing development in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. It will eventually open the rest of its inventory of more than 80,000 properties to Bitcoin, according to the company. "We think that Bitcoin will be the reserve currency of the future," said Rodrigo Sanchez-Rios, president and co-founder of La Haus, in an interview. "At our core, we're a tech company. It's natural for us to be pioneers with this technology." The company is partnering with Los Angeles-based payment processor OpenNode to allow for transactions both on-chain and over the Lightning Network, which was designed to make purchases quicker and easier. La Haus will act as an intermediary, paying the sellers in fiat. The company has not decided how much Bitcoin it will keep on its balance sheets, he said.
Google Loses Challenge Against EU Antitrust Ruling, $2.8 Billion Fine (reuters.com)
Posted by msmash from the tough-luck dept.
Alphabet unit Google lost an appeal against a 2.42-billion-euro ($2.8-billion) antitrust decision on Wednesday, a major win for Europe's competition chief in the first of three court rulings central to the EU push to regulate big tech. From a report: Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager fined the world's most popular internet search engine in 2017 over the use of its own price comparison shopping service to gain an unfair advantage over smaller European rivals. The shopping case was the first of three decisions that saw Google rack up 8.25 billion euros in EU antitrust fines in the last decade. The company could face defeats in appeals against the other two rulings involving its Android mobile operating system and AdSense advertising service, where the EU has stronger arguments, antitrust specialists say. The court's support for the Commission in its latest ruling could also strengthen Vestager's hand in her investigations into Amazon, Apple and Facebook.
Google is Taking Sign-ups for Relate, a Voice Assistant that Recognizes Impaired Speech (theverge.com)
Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
Google launched a beta app today that people with speech impairments can use as a voice assistant while contributing to a multiyear research effort to improve Google's speech recognition. From a report: The goal is to make Google Assistant, as well as other features that use speech to text and speech to speech, more inclusive of users with neurological conditions that affect their speech. The new app is called Project Relate, and volunteers can sign up at g.co/ProjectRelate. To be eligible to participate, volunteers need to be 18 or older and "have difficulty being understood by others." They'll also need a Google account and an Android phone using OS 8 or later. For now, it's only available to English speakers in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. They'll be tasked with recording 500 phrases, which should take between 30 to 90 minutes to record.
Number of Credit Cards in US Hits All-time High (axios.com)
Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
The number of credit cards in America hit an all-time high of 520 million in the third quarter of this year, per the New York Fed's household debt and credit report, released Tuesday. From a report: There was a precipitous plunge of more than 100 million credit cards between 2008 and 2010, but we've now more than made up for that decline. Buy now, pay later companies like Affirm aren't included in this tally -- they're still too small to merit their own line in the report. Household debt now totals more than $15 trillion, of which $800 billion is in credit cards, and another $1.4 trillion is in auto loans. "Issuance to borrowers of all scores returned to, or even surpassed, pre-pandemic levels," wrote Fed researchers on the Liberty Street Economics blog.
India Holds Back on Climate Pledge Until Rich Nations Pay $1 Trillion (bloomberg.com)
Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
India has declined to update its official climate goal at the United Nations climate negotiations, holding out for rich countries to first offer $1 trillion in climate finance by the end of the decade. From a report: The resistance from India stands in contrast to its surprise announcement on Nov. 1, just as COP26 negotiations got underway, that it would set an ambitious new goal to reach net-zero emissions by 2070. Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened the talks in Glasgow, Scotland, with a decision to increase his nation's share of renewable electricity generation capacity alongside the long-term target to zero out carbon. At the same time, Modi demanded rich countries provide as much as $1 trillion in climate finance just for India -- far more than the $100 billion a year for all poor countries sought under previous deals. Until now, however, it wasn't clear whether India's demand came with a fixed timeline. Officials on Wednesday confirmed that India is seeking that sum by 2030 to fund the build out of renewables, energy storage, decarbonization of the industrial sector and defending infrastructure to a warming planet.
Apple Can't Delay App Store December Deadline As Epic Legal Battle Continues (bloomberg.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the clock-is-ticking dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Apple failed to persuade a federal judge to push back a December deadline to change the lucrative business model for its App Store while the iPhone maker's legal fight with Epic Games is appealed. Unless the iPhone maker wins a reprieve from an appeals court, it will soon have to start allowing developers to steer customers to payment methods outside the App Store, an overhaul the judge ordered in September that could cost the tech giant a few billion dollars annually. Apple asked U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers to put on hold a part of the injunction that said the company must undo its rule forbidding developers from using web links or other means within apps to inform consumers about payment methods outside the App Store. "Apple's motion is based on a selective reading of this court's findings and ignores all of the findings which supported the injunction," Rogers said in an order Tuesday. "The motion is fundamentally flawed."
"Apple believes no additional business changes should be required to take effect until all appeals in this case are resolved," the company said in a statement. While Apple largely won its showdown with Epic, the world's most valuable technology company isn't out of danger from challenges to its role as a gatekeeper to the digital economy. The iPhone maker continues to face a plethora of antitrust lawsuits in and outside the U.S seeking to open up the App Store to competition, monopolization enforcement investigations brought by federal and state agencies, and legislative bids to restrict its business practices. Bloomberg Intelligence has said that pressure on Apple to lower its App Store commissions on developers, which currently run as high as 30%, could squeeze revenue by $2 billion to $4 billion in a worst-case scenario.
New York's Incoming Mayor Says Crypto Should Be Taught In Schools (cnbc.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the talking-a-big-game dept.
New York City mayor-elect Eric Adams thinks that schools should add cryptocurrency and blockchain technology to the curriculum. CNBC reports: In an interview with CNN's "State of the Union," Eric Adams said that bitcoin is the "new way of paying for goods and services throughout the entire globe" and that schools "must" teach the technology behind it, as well as "this new way of thinking." "When I talked about blockchain and bitcoins, young people on the street stopped and asked me, 'What is that?'" Adams told CNN on Sunday. The mayor-elect did not specify whether he was referring to elementary, high school, or tertiary-level education. When asked whether he would encourage businesses in New York City to accept bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, Adams said that they were "going to look at it" and "tread carefully." "We are going to get it right," continued Adams. Since winning office last Tuesday, Adams has been talking a big game on cryptocurrency. Not only does he have dreams of putting the Big Apple on the blockchain, but he's said that he plans to take his first three paychecks in bitcoin.
New Company Develops Vacuum-Sealed Centrifuge To Launch Satellites Into Orbit (spinlaunch.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the alternative-methods dept.
Camel Pilot writes: SpinLaunch is developing a launch system that uses kinetic energy as a cheap method to launch a projectile into orbit. They propose using a vacuum-sealed centrifuge spinning the projectile at near escape velocity speeds and releasing into orbit. A rocket engine would still be used to maneuver and position the satellite. They have built a 1/10th scale prototype in the New Mexican desert and have already launched test objects 10s of thousands of feet.
In a recent interview, CEO Jonathan Yaney said: "I find that the more audacious and crazy the project is, the better off you are just working on it -- rather than being out there talking about it. We had to prove to ourselves that we could actually pull this off."
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Is There An Android App That Can Help Me Pronounce Foreign Place Names
Source: https://slashdot.org/?issue=20211110
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