About: blatcho

By resolving a paradox about light in a box, researchers hope to clarify the concept of energy in quantum theory.

This retrofit robot makes your drapes smart, so you can open or close them on a schedule or with a voice command.

You don’t want just anyone in your inbox. Here’s how to take control.

Max A. Cherney / Protocol: Interview with Arm CEO Rene Haas on Arm’s future plans, investing more in R&D, its competitor RISC-V, the company’s relationship with Intel, and more  —  The new path for Arm is beginning to come into focus.  —  Weeks after Nvidia’s $40 bid to acquire Arm from SoftBank collapsed …

Silicon Canals: London-based SaaS management startup Vertice, which aims to help businesses reduce their annual SaaS spend by 20%-30%, emerges from stealth with a $26M Series A  —  London-based SaaS purchasing platform Vertice ‘has come out of stealth’ and announced on Thursday that it has secured $26M …

Plus: The Conti ransomware gang shuts down, Canada bans Huawei and ZTE, and more of the week’s top security news.

Plus: Some beefier Qualcomm Snapdragon chips are on the way, and the right-to-repair movement hits a speed bump.

And you can even keep your custom email address! But you need to confirm that your account is for personal, not business, use—here’s how.

Sean Hollister / The Verge: iFixit will sell nearly every part of the Steam Deck, including its $350 motherboard with the AMD Aerith chipset, and upgrades to fans and screen  —  You might even be able to upgrade your fan or screen  —  The era of fixing your own gadgets has nearly arrived, and Valve’s […]

Cagan Koc / Bloomberg: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde says crypto assets should be regulated, as they are “worth nothing” and “based on nothing”  —  European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said crypto-currencies are “based on nothing” and should be regulated …

Sara Morrison / Vox: A look at the antitrust woes of Google, which is potentially in more trouble than other Big Tech companies as several bills and lawsuits target its businesses  —  The synonym for search finds itself in big antitrust trouble. … There’s a new Big Tech antitrust bill in town, and this one […]

You don’t have to go with the big name in the email newsletter business. Here’s how to make the switch to a feature-rich alternative.

As Big Tech tried to block the state’s ban on content moderation, Texas leaned on the US Supreme Court justice’s interpretation of free speech law.

In Oregon, the tree-killing Humongous Fungus never would have gotten so large without the accidental help of modern fire suppression tactics.

Christopher Beam / Bloomberg: A look at Indexed Finance’s legal fight with a Canadian teenager who exploited the DeFi platform for $16M, which is raising several tricky legal questions  —  On Oct. 14, in a house near Leeds, England, Laurence Day was sitting down to a dinner of fish and chips on his couch when […]

Jonathan Greig / The Record: At Pwn2Own Vancouver 2022, several bugs were exploited in Microsoft, Ubuntu, and Tesla products; first day saw $800K+ awarded for exploiting 16 zero-day bugs  —  Several bugs in Microsoft, Ubuntu and Tesla products were found and exploited during the three-day Pwn2Own hacking conference in Vancouver this week.

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Heartex, an AI-focused data labeling and annotation service, raises a $25M Series A led by Redpoint Ventures, bringing its total funding to $30M  —  Heartex, a startup that bills itself as an “open source” platform for data labeling, today announced that it landed $25 million in a Series A funding round […]

It’s the most wonderful time of the year—when we start prepping for summer fun with titanium chopsticks and foldable kayaks.

The Showtime sequel to Nicolas Roeg’s film takes place 45 years after the events in the original.

Plus: A visit to Stratolaunch, the music of the future, and prices America can’t run on.

Ethan Gach / Kotaku: Report: EA is looking to sell or merge its business; sources say EA has held talks with Disney, Apple, Amazon, and NBCUniversal  —  The Madden and Apex Legends publisher is apparently looking for a way out  —  Alerts  —  The video game market is consolidating like never before, and Electronic Arts […]

Loni Prinsloo / Bloomberg: Dutch e-commerce company Prosus says it is exiting Russia and is looking to sell Avito, its classifieds ads business in the country valued at an estimated $6B  —  Prosus NV is looking to sell its Russian classifieds ads business Avito, the latest international company to dispose of assets …

Reuters: Singapore-based online fashion marketplace Zilingo fires CEO Ankiti Bose after a probe found “serious financial irregularities”; Bose was suspended in April  —  Singapore-based Zilingo said on Friday it had fired Chief Executive Ankiti Bose after an independent investigation …

The world entered 2022 with growing weariness after two years of a global pandemic that has claimed 5.61 million lives, and continuing humanitarian and climate crises, with energy-related emissions set to rise by 87 million metric tonnes (about 96 million tons), and 274 million people in need of lifesaving humanitarian assistance. None of these issues […]

The Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) at MIT has awarded eight MIT principal investigators with 2022 J-WAFS seed grants. The grants support innovative MIT research that has the potential to have significant impact on water- and food-related challenges. The only program at MIT that is dedicated to water- and food-related research, […]

Forming metal into the shapes needed for various purposes can be done in many ways, including casting, machining, rolling, and forging. These processes affect the sizes and shapes of the tiny crystalline grains that make up the bulk metal, whether it be steel, aluminum or other widely used metals and alloys. Now researchers at MIT […]

The more you say, the less people listen.

A proposed SEC rule could pull back the curtain on the carbon emissions of the global economy.

This cuddly robotic bedfellow helps you fall asleep faster and sleep better, but the price will give you nightmares.

Alex Garland’s latest cerebral genre piece is a timely bit of storytelling. But the people who need to see it may never seek it out.

Every time we look at our phones, it seems something terrible has happened. Here’s how to monitor current events in a healthy way.

Sean Hollister / The Verge: Qualcomm unveils the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1, says it will offer 10% faster CPU performance, 10% faster GPU clocks, and have up to 30% better power efficiency  —  Bragging rights (and battery life?) for gaming phones  —  Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 set the stage for the biggest Android […]

Jay Peters / The Verge: In its annual diversity report, Google saw its “largest increases in representation of Black and Latinx Googlers in the US” at 20% YoY and 8% YoY, respectively  —  Its US workforce is still two-thirds men  —  Google has released its annual diversity report …

Nilesh Christopher / Rest of World: Koo, an app touted as India’s answer to Twitter, has self-verification features that Elon Musk may want but shows risks of handing over data to the government  —  “Already doing what Elon Musk wants to do is such a high,” co-founder of Koo, Aprameya Radhakrishna, posted on Twitter.  —  […]

DeepMind has released what it calls a “generalist” AI called Gato that can perform 600 tasks – but does this mean it is truly intelligent?

A treatment process can turn old pieces of wood into a new super-strong material called “healed wood”

Matt Orosz’s mission for the last 20 years can be explained with a single picture: a satellite image of the world at night, with major cities blazing with light and large swaths of land shrouded in darkness. The image reminds Orosz SM ’03, SM ’06, PhD ’12 of what he’s trying to change. Orosz is […]

The miseducation of algorithms is a critical problem; when artificial intelligence mirrors unconscious thoughts, racism, and biases of the humans who generated these algorithms, it can lead to serious harm. Computer programs, for example, have wrongly flagged Black defendants as twice as likely to reoffend as someone who’s white. When an AI used cost as […]

Seven practical steps for managers.

Rich McHugh / Insider: Docs: SpaceX paid $250K to settle a flight attendant’s sexual misconduct claim that alleged Elon Musk offered a horse in exchange for an erotic massage in 2016  —  – A flight attendant for SpaceX said Elon Musk asked her to “do more” during a massage, documents show.

Wall Street Journal: Analysis: insurers significantly raised cyber coverage premiums in 2021, after high profile hacks; direct-written premiums by the largest insurers rose 92% YoY  —  Insurance market resets after a ransomware boom and the threat of spillover from Ukraine  —  Insurers significantly increased premiums …

MK Manoylov / The Block: Sacramento-based Azra Games, a blockchain gaming startup developing a sci-fi fantasy game with virtual collectibles, raises a $15M seed led by a16z  —  Azra Games, a blockchain gaming startup, raised $15 million in seed funding, according to a Thursday announcement.

What will it take to make our electronics smarter, faster, and more resilient? One idea is to build them from materials that are topological. Topology stems from a branch of mathematics that studies shapes that can be manipulated or deformed without losing certain core properties. A donut is a common example: If it were made […]

Thirteen MIT undergraduates, graduate students, and alumni have been awarded Fulbright fellowships to pursue projects overseas in the 2022-23 grant year. Another MIT affiliate was offered an award but has not yet decided whether to accept, and others were named alternates and may be promoted in the coming weeks. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of […]

With the MIT values statement recently published and MIT’s Strategic Action Plan for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion nearly complete, Provost Cynthia Barnhart provides her thoughts on the importance of diversity within the context of MIT’s commitment to excellence.  Q: Why is MIT pursuing a plan to address diversity, equity, and inclusion? A: Over decades, MIT […]

You might not be seeing potential hurdles.

Sponsor content from Deloitte.

And a few to avoid.

Surveillance devices are becoming more ubiquitous. Do those who unknowingly appear in cam footage have rights—and who gets to decide?

This week, we cover the basics of cycling for fun and transportation, including selecting, maintaining, and accessorizing your two-wheeler.