About: blatcho

Powering plant growth with solar panels instead of photosynthesis could be a more efficient way of using the Sun’s energy for food. But it’s not all good news.

Jane Clinton / Guardian: The UK Army confirms its Twitter and YouTube accounts were compromised on July 3 and used to promote cryptocurrency giveaway scams before being restored  —  Investigation under way after interview with Elon Musk uploaded to video channel and picture of cartoon monkey seen on Twitter

Sarah Butler / The Guardian: Amazon launches a “micromobility” hub in Hackney, London with a fleet of e-cargo bikes and on-foot delivery staff to replace thousands of van deliveries  —  Online retailer opening ‘micromobility’ hub in Hackney as part of efforts to cut carbon emissions

Dan Milmo / The Guardian: Chainalysis: NFT sales totaled just over $1B in June 2022, a 12-month low since June 2021 when sales were $648M; sales reached a peak of $12.6B in January 2022  —  Sales of non-fungible tokens totalled just over $1bn in June, compared with peak of $12.6bn in January

Zoom into peoples’ offices and living rooms with the best version of your on-camera self.

Pew Research Center: Survey: experts split on the likely evolution of an immersive metaverse by 2040, worry about the dominant platforms building it, and expect more useful AR/MR  —  Hype?  Hope?  Hell?  Maybe all three.  Experts are split about the likely evolution of a truly immersive ‘metaverse.’ They expect …

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: As Apple ramped up Mac chip investments, improvements in its other chips slowed down; sources: Apple Watch Series 8 may be able to tell if users have a fever  —  When it comes to Apple’s chip advancements, the company’s iPhone and watch are taking a back seat to the Mac.

Whether you want to protect your ears or just standardize sound across apps, these tips can help.

Robots will venture into the sunless depths of lunar craters to find ancient water ice, while studies find hints about how water arrives on rocky worlds.

Gareth Damian Martin sat down with WIRED to explain the “passive cruelty” of corporate culture and the game’s visceral economic fears.

Chris Gilliard / Wired: ML-powered surveillance systems will never eliminate the risk of school shootings in the US, no matter how expansive and intricate those systems become  —  The failure is not only in the spurious systems, but in the belief that more data can improve them.  —  If we are to believe the purveyors […]

Todd Bishop / GeekWire: Q&A with Microsoft President Brad Smith on assistance for employees seeking abortion, labor and employment reforms, pending antitrust regulation, and more  —  Brad Smith, like many in tech and the broader world, thought 2022 might bring a bit of a break.  Halfway through, the reality has been anything but.

Megha Paul / Tech.eu: London-based Vita Mojo, which makes restaurant software for digital ordering and kitchen management, has raised $30M led by Battery Ventures  —  UK-based platform enables digital ordering in restaurants and more efficient kitchen and delivery operations through its software

It’s spendy, but this portable board folds up compact enough to fit in (relatively) small spaces.

Plus: Indian hacker-for-hire groups, Chinese student espionage efforts, and more.

Plus: Insta-delete your Instagram account, TikTok is eyeing your wallet, and Google makes it easier to switch from iOS.

Nelson Rauda Zablah / New York Times: How El Salvador President Nayib Bukele weaponized bitcoin to whitewash his government’s growing authoritarianism on the world stage and spread local propaganda  —  SAN SALVADOR — Bitcoiners — enthusiasts of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency — aren’t supposed to trust government.

Ionut Ilascu / BleepingComputer: HackerOne says an employee stole vulnerability reports submitted through its bug bounty platform and disclosed them to seven companies for financial rewards  —  A HackerOne employee stole vulnerability reports submitted through the bug bounty platform and disclosed them to affected customers to claim financial rewards.

Yiwen Lu / Washington Post: RadioShack, purchased by private equity firm REV in 2020, reintroduces itself as a crypto exchange trying to attract users with a stream of often profane tweets  —  Gen Z may not be familiar with the RadioShack of their grandparents, but they’re getting to know its replacement.

Whether you’re on a train, in the mountains, or at home when your wifi cuts out, you can still get a lot done. All it takes is a little preparation.

By studying the so-called mean temperature of restaurant seafood, scientists have shown how the species that fill our plates have changed with time.

Independence Day is here, and so are the savings. We’ve rounded up plenty of sales on air purifiers, smart speakers, massage guns, and more.

Arthur Hayes / Entrepreneur’s Handbook: After 3AC’s collapse, centralized lenders with 3AC exposure had failed, while their decentralized counterparts liquidated collateral and continued operating  —  This current crypto nuclear bear market marks my third brush with generalised market carnage.  And while they can sometimes feel like reruns …

Cameron Thompson / CoinDesk: PolySign, which provides blockchain-enabled digital asset infrastructure for institutional investors, has raised a $53M Series C from Cowen Digital and others  —  The funding round follows the firm’s acquisition of fund administrator MG Stover in April.  —  Blockchain fintech firm PolySign …

Kevin McLaughlin / The Information: Sources: at least 24 Azure data centers are operating with limited server capacity amid the global chip shortage that has made it harder to get new hardware  —  In March 2020, Microsoft’s Azure cloud buckled under the strain of companies around the world shifting to remote work …

Deck out your new phone with wallet cases, kickstands, wireless chargers, and charging adapters.

The Economic Times: IDC: global shipments for VR headsets jumped 241.6% during Q1 2022, with Meta capturing 90% of market share thanks to its Quest 2 headset  —  Meta (formerly Facebook) which has 90% share in the virtual reality (VR) headset market is set for some tough challenge and all eyes will be on Apple […]

Jeremy Hill / Bloomberg: Three Arrows Capital files for Chapter 15 bankruptcy, a move that protects its US assets while a liquidation is carried out in the British Virgin Islands  —  Crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital has filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy, a move that protects its US assets while a liquidation is carried […]

Olga Kharif / Bloomberg: Meta will shut down Novi, its digital wallet pilot, on September 1; users will no longer be able to add money to their accounts starting July 21  —  The remainder of the cryptocurrency project that Meta Platforms Inc.’s Founder Mark Zuckerberg took a beating over from Congress is officially shutting down.

As they warm up, quantum computers can slow down or stop working altogether. A new kind made with specially engineered diamonds cools as it calculates

A chip-sized biocomputer uses molecules moving through a network of channels to solve problems. It uses much less energy per calculation than a traditional computer

Employees are renegotiating their social contracts with work. Here’s what employers need to do to honor their end of the bargain.

Silence doesn’t necessarily mean rejection.

The era of removable SIM cards will come to an end. It’s time to get acquainted with its next, tinier evolution.

Scientists are getting closer to understanding the neurology behind the memory problems and cognitive fuzziness that an infection can trigger.

Abortion access groups and activists say they have been dealing with algorithmic censorship for years.

Dan Milmo / The Guardian: EU agrees on new crypto rules, including measures guarding against market abuse and requiring crypto firms to disclose environmental impact of their assets  —  MiCA law contains measures to guard against market abuse and manipulation  —  The EU has moved to rein in the “wild west” …

Che Pan / South China Morning Post: Over 10 Chinese entities establish open-source code community, “openKylin”, to develop a homegrown desktop OS amid efforts to cut reliance on Windows and macOS  —  The city has matured considerably despite being new to governing itself following the handover in 1997.

Katie Adams / MedCity News: New York-based Tomorrow Health, whose data-driven marketplace matches patients with home-based care suppliers, has raised a $60M Series B led by BOND  —  Tomorrow Health — a platform that makes it easier for patients, providers and payers to coordinate home-based care …

Researchers analyzed pay data for Massachusetts bus and train operators — who work at union-negotiated rates — and found women still took home 11% less than men.

The court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA doesn’t go as far as some climate activists feared it might. But it’s a road map for future challenges.

A new European Union law will set rules for what the technology can and can’t do to people, like whether it’s OK to deploy lie detectors at borders.

Researchers say the remote-access Trojan ZuoRAT is likely the work of a nation-state and has infected at least 80 different targets.

Manya Saini / Reuters: Short-form video app Triller confidentially files for a US IPO, after ending its $5B merger with video ad software provider SeaChange on June 14  —  Short video app Triller Inc has confidentially filed paperwork for an initial public offering of its class A common stock with the U.S. Securities …

Prarthana Prakash / Bloomberg: Uber received 3,824 reports of sexual assault and misconduct in 2019 and 2020, down 38% from 2017 and 2018, but the rate of fatal physical assaults rose 18%  —  Uber Technologies Inc. said it received 3,824 reports of sexual assault and misconduct on its ride-hailing app in 2019 and 2020 …

Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times: As avatars for metaverse applications grow in popularity, a look at Understanding Comics, a 30-year-old illustrated lecture considered an avatar design bible  —  First published 30 years ago, Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics is the definitive comic book about comic books.

An artificial intelligence that scours crime data can predict the location of crimes in the coming week with up to 90 per cent accuracy, but there are concerns how systems like this can perpetuate bias

Cooperation is a core part of life for many organisms, ranging from microbes to complex multicellular life. It emerges when individuals share resources or partition a task in such a way that each derives a greater benefit when acting together than they could on their own. For example, birds and fish flock to evade predators, […]

Access to reproductive health care isn’t just a political stance — it’s a critical workplace issue that companies need to address.

It’s hard to call yourself a green company if your cash assets are underwriting global warming.