About: blatcho

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Immerok, which is building an Apache Flink-based cloud service for data streaming, raised a $17M seed led by CUSP Capital, 468 Capital, and others  —  In 2011, the Apache Software Foundation released Flink, a high-throughput, low-latency engine for streaming various data types.

Mike Calia / CNBC: Kim Kardashian settles with the SEC for $1.26M after not reporting a $250K payment to promote EthereumMax on Instagram and won’t promote crypto for three years  —  – Kim Kardashian agreed to pay more than $1 million to settle SEC charges for failing to disclose a payment she received for touting […]

The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has named MIT President L. Rafael Reif as the winner of its 2022 Simon Ramo Founders Award. Reif, who has served at MIT’s president for more than 10 years, is being honored “for pioneering leadership to reimagine and advance higher education, university-based entrepreneurship, the future of computing, the future […]

Elizabeth Dwoskin / Washington Post: From shutting down services only in Texas to letting users opt out of hateful content, tech companies are gaming out responses to the state’s social media law  —  Experts said the measure, which bars companies from moderating content, could prove challenging for platforms to deal with

Kadhim Shubber / Financial Times: Sources: Celsius founder Alex Mashinsky withdrew $10M from the crypto lender weeks before the company froze user accounts; a source says ~$8M was used for taxes  —  Scrutiny of Alex Mashinsky grows after crypto lender was left with hole in balance sheet  —  Celsius Network founder Alex …

Grace Browne / Wired: A look at the AI chatbots designed to improve mental health, like Wysa and Woebot, which have millions of users despite scant research to support their efficacy  —  With human therapists in short supply, AI chatbots are trying to plug the gap—but it’s not clear how well they work.  —  Bots […]

For the Ragnarok sequel, Santa Monica Studio incorporated regular feedback from disabled gamers, hosted public conversations on social media, and more.

From using less mobile data to live captions for videos, these settings will make your phone run more smoothly.

Neural networks can use self-supervised learning to figure out what matters. This process might be what helps humans do the same.

Jeanny Yu / Bloomberg: Tencent is no longer China’s most valuable company after its shares dropped 64% since Jan. 2021, wiping $623B in market value, more than any other firm globally  —  Tencent Holdings Ltd. has lost its title as China’s biggest company to liquor giant Kweichow Moutai Co., the latest sign …

Amy Forliti / Associated Press: JD.com founder Richard Liu agreed to settle a US lawsuit filed by a former University of Minnesota student who alleged he raped her in 2018  —  Chinese billionaire and JD.com founder Richard Liu agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by a former University of Minnesota student who alleged he raped […]

Zecharias Zelalem / Context: The UN Food Programme and the WHO say a nearly two-year internet and phone shutdown in Ethiopia’s Tigray region is hampering aid delivery and health monitoring  —  As fighting rages on in Ethiopia’s war-torn Tigray region, one of the world’s longest telecommunications shutdowns is hampering aid deliveries …

Juncal Arbelaiz Mugica is a native of Spain, where octopus is a common menu item. However, Arbelaiz appreciates octopus and similar creatures in a different way, with her research into soft-robotics theory.  More than half of an octopus’ nerves are distributed through its eight arms, each of which has some degree of autonomy. This distributed […]

Don’t let busted pipes or an overflowing washing machine dampen your day. These WIRED-tested smart water sensors can reduce the risk of damage to your home.

Plus: CIA failures allegedly got US informants killed, a former NSA worker is charged under the Espionage Act, and more.

Plus: Intel’s new app syncs PCs and mobile phones, and Apple slows down iPhone production.

Ryan Gajewski / The Hollywood Reporter: Bruce Willis refutes a report that he sold his digital likeness rights to Deepcake, which confirms and says the company created his “digital twin” for 2021 ads  —  Recent reports claimed that the star had become the first Hollywood figure to sell his rights to a company …

Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer: Symantec details an ongoing campaign by the Witchetty hacking group, potentially tied to a China-backed threat actor, that hides malware in a Windows logo image  —  Security researchers have discovered a malicious campaign by the ‘Witchetty’ hacking group, which uses steganography to hide a backdoor malware in a Windows logo.

Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch: Stadia was doomed from the start because Google knows next to nothing about gaming and no one wants to invest in services they don’t trust Google to keep around  —  There’s a lot of chatter right now about the “surprise” shutdown of Stadia, Google’s game-streaming service.

From the Danube to the Loire, these lifelines for the continent’s economy are running low after five months of brutal drought and years of dry weather.

Celebrate your favorite drink with discounts on home barista essentials.

One of the best things about the free chat service is how you can customize it to work for you.

Jennifer A. Kingson / Axios: Surveys of ~16,000 US adults per brand shows that 86% Gen Z adults have a “somewhat” or “very” favorable opinion of YouTube, 73% of Instagram, and 69% of TikTok  —  The youngest generation of adults is so crazy for tech companies that YouTube, Google …

Ellen Barry / New York Times: A look at the research project tracking people at risk for suicide using data from smartphones and wearables to identify periods of high danger and intervene  —  A unique research project is tracking hundreds of people at risk for suicide, using data from smartphones and wearable biosensors …

Emily Nicolle / Bloomberg: Singapore will not permit crypto ads at the track and in local areas at this weekend’s F1 Singapore GP, underscoring a changing regulatory stance toward crypto  —  At Formula One’s Miami Grand Prix in May, the dizzying displays of crypto companies sponsoring the sport were inescapable …

People around the world are rallying to subvert Iran’s internet shutdown, but actually pulling it off is proving difficult and risky.

At the heart of every bot-detection tool is a human’s gut feeling—and all the messiness that comes with it.

These WIRED-tested memory sticks are a virtual filing cabinet in your pocket.

Jessica Hagen / MobiHealthNews: NYC-based Grow Therapy, which offers tools for mental health providers to set up virtual practices, raised a $75M Series B, bringing its total funding to $90M  —  The new allocation will help the company expand its insurance coverage, including Medicare and Medicaid, across the U.S.

Mari Yamaguchi / Associated Press: Japan says it will provide Micron a subsidy of up to ~$322M to help the company produce advanced memory chips at a Hiroshima factory  —  Japan is providing a major U.S. chipmaker a subsidy of up to 46.6 billion yen ($322 million) to support its plan to produce advanced memory […]

Reuters: SEC filing: Intel’s self-driving car unit Mobileye files for an IPO and reports a H1 2022 revenue of $854M, up 21% from H1 2021  —  Mobileye, Intel Corp’s (INTC.O) self-driving unit, on Friday filed for an initial public offering in the United States, revealing a 21% jump in revenue for the first half of […]

A prototype computer built using a magnetic material called a skyrmion has been programmed to recognise handwritten digits. The approach could be particularly energy-efficient

Computer simulations found that a material made from three layers of rubber could absorb most frequencies used for sonar, which if affixed to a submarine would make it difficult to detect

Artificial intelligences are increasingly making important decisions that affect our lives, but people consider the calls made to be fairer and more acceptable if a human is in the loop too

Richard “Dick” Eckaus, Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics, emeritus, in the Department of Economics, died on Sept. 11 in Boston. He was 96 years old. Eckaus was born in Kansas City, Missouri on April 30, 1926, the youngest of three children to parents who had emigrated from Lithuania. His father, Julius Eckaus, was a […]

Graduate student Jacob Jaffe wants to improve the administration of American elections. To do that, he is posing “questions in political science that we haven’t been asking enough,” he says, “and solving them with methods we haven’t been using enough.” Considerable research has been devoted to understanding “who votes, and what makes people vote or […]

Allies play a crucial role in mitigating the harm caused by microaggressions.

Surviving, let alone succeeding, requires constant adaptation.

You can grow out of your slump.

Plus: WhatsApp plugs holes that could be used for remote execution attacks, Microsoft patches a zero-day vulnerability, and more.

Astronomers mourn the end of an infrared observatory that flew aboard a jumbo jet. It was expensive, but it saw what Earth-based telescopes can’t.

At RE:WIRED Green, scientist Sylvia Earle and climate activist Sophia Kianni discussed ways younger and older generations can work together to face the crisis.

Dan Milmo / The Guardian: In a closely watched case, a UK coroner rules 14-year-old Molly Russell died by suicide after consuming extensive self-harm material on Instagram and Pinterest  —  Inquest told 14-year-old took her own life while suffering from depression and had interacted with harmful social media content

TechCrunch: Amazon rolls out its QVC-style livestream service Amazon Live in India, running ~15 per day hosted by 150+ creators from 10am-1am, covering electronics and more  —  Amazon has launched a QVC-style livestream shopping in India, the company said Friday, broadening its offerings in the key overseas market …

Bloomberg: Bloomberg Intelligence: Apple moving just 10% of its production capacity out of China, where ~98% of iPhones are made, would take around eight years  —  Supply Lines is a daily newsletter that tracks Covid-19’s impact on trade.  Sign up here, and  —  American companies have had a growing list …

The atmosphere of discovery generated by MIT’s research and innovation activities has been described as magic by many. But that magic can sometimes seem obscure or even intimidating to outsiders. Now the MIT Museum, which opens to the public on Oct. 2, is inviting everyone to take part in MIT’s magic with a new 56,000-square-foot […]

In the closing session of Re:WIRED GREEN, the Louisiana lawyer urged the audience to join the front lines of climate activism.

At RE:WIRED Green, actress Regina Hall and Sarah Shanley Hope of The Solutions Project spoke about the work being done by communities hardest hit by crisis.

The RE:WIRED Green speaker explains how smaller, more efficient reactors will be the bedrock of energy independence.

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica: Microsoft says the Lazarus group is weaponizing open-source software such as PuTTY, KiTTY, TightVNC, and Sumatra PDF Reader, compromising numerous organizations  —  PuTTY, KiTTY, TightVNC, Sumatra PDF Reader, and muPDF/Subliminal Recording all targeted.  —  Hackers backed by the North Korean government …