An anonymous reader shares a report: Google Home users, your long nightmare is over. The platform has finally added support for buttons. The release notes for a February 2 update state that several new starter conditions for automations are now available, including “Switch or button pressed.” Smart buttons are physical, programmable switches that you can press to trigger automations or control...
In his book The Intimate Animal, sex and relationships researcher Justin Garcia says people have miscalculated their need for human intimacy, which is the real issue at root of the loneliness epidemic.
Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) have more in common with cigarettes than with fruit or vegetables, and require far tighter regulation, according to a new report. The Guardian: UPFs and cigarettes are engineered to encourage addiction and consumption, researchers from three US universities said, pointing to the parallels in widespread health harms that link both. UPFs, which are widely available...
ClickOnThis writes: NASA has delayed the Artemis II launch to March of this year, after a wet dress-rehearsal uncovered a hydrogen leak. From the NASA article: During tanking, engineers spent several hours troubleshooting a liquid hydrogen leak in an interface used to route the cryogenic propellant into the rocket’s core stage, putting them behind in the countdown. Attempts to resolve the issue...
I went undercover on Moltbook and loved role-playing as a conscious bot. But rather than a novel breakthrough, the AI-only site is a crude rehashing of sci-fi fantasies.
Two agents involved in the shooting deaths of US citizens in Minneapolis are reportedly part of highly militarized DHS units whose extreme tactics are generally reserved for war zones.
Alphabet is plotting to dramatically expand its presence in India [non-paywalled source], with the possibility of taking millions of square feet in new office space in Bangalore, India’s tech hub. From a report: Google’s parent company has leased one office tower and purchased options on two others in Alembic City, a development in the Whitefield tech corridor, totaling 2.4 million square feet,...
Four economists across Central European University, Bielefeld University and the Kiel Institute have built a general equilibrium model of the open-source software ecosystem and concluded that vibe coding — the increasingly common practice of letting AI agents select, assemble and modify packages on a developer’s behalf — erodes the very funding mechanism that keeps open-source projects alive....
Right-wing influencers who were instrumental in spreading allegations of fraud in Minnesota ahead of ICE’s surge are now going after a number of California’s social welfare programs.
WADDINXVEEN, Netherlands – SGL System, the global leader in professional turf technology, today announced the launch of SGL Golf, a specialized division and technology ecosystem dedicated to the unique demands of the golf industry. This move marks a strategic expansion for the company, bringing more than 20 years of experience supporting the world’s most iconic sports […]
Africa’s development finance challenge has reached a critical point. Mounting debt pressure is squeezing fiscal space. And essential needs in infrastructure, health and education remain unmet. The continent’s governments urgently need affordable access to international capital markets. Yet many continue to face borrowing costs that make development finance unviable. Sovereign credit ratings...
YouTube has confirmed that it is blocking background playback — the ability to keep a video’s audio running after minimizing the browser or locking the screen — for non-Premium users across third-party mobile browsers including Samsung Internet, Brave, Vivaldi and Microsoft Edge. Users began reporting the issue last week, noting that audio would cut out the moment they left the browser,...
Xgram.io, a leading non-custodial multichain cryptocurrency exchange platform, today announced the availability of private swaps for the USDT ERC20 to XMR trading pair. This new addition empowers users to seamlessly exchange Tether (USDT) on the Ethereum network for Monero (XMR), a privacy-focused cryptocurrency, with enhanced security, speed, and complete user control. As the demand for […]
An anonymous reader shares a report: PayPal said on Tuesday it was booting its CEO and replacing him with its board chair Enrique Lores, sparing no ambiguity as to why: “The pace of change and execution was not in line with the Board’s expectations,” it said in a statement. One group that was blindsided was HP, where Lores was until Tuesday serving as CEO, according to people familiar with the...
Adobe has emailed users of Adobe Animate to let them know the popular animation and game development program will be discontinued on March 1, an abrupt decision that has angered animators and game developers who say the tool remains an industry standard in television and game production. Animate, the successor to the once-popular Flash, is widely used for graphic creation, animation and...