Tag: report

Square To Buy Jay-Z’s Music Service Tidal

Square has agreed to buy a majority stake in Tidal, the streaming music service led by rapper Jay-Z, as part of an effort to expand the company’s suite of financial tools to musicians and emerging artists. From a report: Square will pay $297 million in a mix of cash and stock to become Tidal’s “significant majority” owner, though Jay-Z and Tidal’s…

SpaceX Launches 60 New Starlink Satellites

SpaceX has launched another batch of its Starlink satellites — the usual complement of 60 of the low Earth orbit spacecraft, which will join the more than 1,000 already making up the existing constellation. This is the fifth launch of Starlink satellites for SpaceX this year, and the 20th overall. From a report: Earlier this year, SpaceX opened up Starlink access…

Giant iceberg breaks off Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica

A giant iceberg, about twice the size of Chicago, broke off from Antartica’s Brunt Ice Shelf in late February 2021. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/giant-iceberg-breaks-off-antarctica-brunt-ice-shelf…

Space Hurricane Seen Above Magnetic North Pole Was Raining Electrons

The first space hurricane ever was spotted in August 2014, consisting of “an eddy of plasma, a type of superhot, charged gas found throughout the solar system,” reports Business Insider. “And instead of rain, this storm brought showers of electrons.” From the report: In August 2014, satellites observed a swirling mass with a quiet center more than 125 miles above the…

US Issues Warning After Microsoft Says China Hacked Its Mail Server Program

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: The U.S. has issued an emergency warning after Microsoft said it caught China hacking into its mail and calendar server program, called Exchange. The perpetrator, Microsoft said in a blog post, is a hacker group that the company has “high confidence” is working for the Chinese government and primarily spies on American…

Cephalopod Passes Cognitive Test Designed For Human Children

mi shares a report from ScienceAlert: The marshmallow test, or Stanford marshmallow experiment, is pretty straightforward. A child is placed in a room with a marshmallow. They are told, if they can manage not to eat the marshmallow for 15 minutes, they’ll get a second marshmallow, and be allowed to eat both. This ability to delay gratification demonstrates cognitive abilities such…

How Worried Should You Be About Those Tom Cruise Deepfakes?

Are the TikTok deepfake videos of Tom Cruise doing magic and playing golf a threat to global democracy? Not exactly. “[T]he reality is that they took a lot of time, technical expertise, and the skilled performance of a real actor,” reports VICE News. “Rather than predicting a dark future of disinformation for the masses, they’re simply another example of what can…

Arizona Advances Bill Forcing Apple and Google To Allow Fortnite-style Alternative Payment Options

The Arizona House of Representatives just passed landmark app store legislation in a 31-29 vote on Wednesday that could have far-reaching consequences for Apple and Google and their respective mobile operating systems. From a report: The legislation, a sweeping amendment to Arizona’s existing HB2005 [PDF], prevents app store operators from forcing a developer based in the state to use a preferred…

US Navy is Liable for Mass Software Piracy, Appeals Court Rules

The United States Navy is liable for a mass copyright infringement. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sided with the German software company Bitmanagement, which accused the Navy of copying software without permission. Bitmanagement claimed more than $500 million in damages, but the final amount has yet to be determined. From a report: The dispute started when the US…