About: blatcho

Military interest in balloon surveillance had been increasing even before a Chinese-launched balloon wandered across the continental US

Keep the planet—and your budget—in mind with these eco-friendly services. But if you can, shop local.

Stuck for a good film on Netflix? Here are our picks for the best Netflix movies to feast your eyes on, updated weekly.

From You to Wednesday, these are our picks for the best streaming titles to binge this week.

Financial Times: Sources: China Telecom and China Mobile withdrew their ~20% investment in an Asia-Europe subsea cable project after US firm SubCom was chosen to build the line  —  Telecoms groups withdrew investment in Sea-Me-We 6, which will transmit data between Asia and western Europe

Bloomberg: Source: PayPal is pausing work on its stablecoin as regulators increase their scrutiny of cryptocurrencies and its key partner Paxos faces a probe in New York  —  PayPal Holdings Inc. is pausing work on its stablecoin as regulators increase scrutiny of cryptocurrencies and a key partner …

Kevin McLaughlin / The Information: Source: Microsoft shut its Industrial Metaverse Core team, formed in October 2022 to build tools for industrial settings, and laid off the team’s ~100 employees  —  In a surprising reversal, Microsoft has killed a team it formed four months ago to help customers use the metaverse in industrial settings …

The US Pentagon has shot down an unidentified object over frozen waters around Alaska. Officials say they don’t know who owns the object

The US has recovered the wreckage of a Chinese surveillance balloon after shooting it down with a fighter jet last week – here’s what has been discovered and what it might mean

Companies today are incorporating artificial intelligence into every corner of their business. The trend is expected to continue until machine-learning models are incorporated into most of the products and services we interact with every day. As those models become a bigger part of our lives, ensuring their integrity becomes more important. That’s the mission of […]

As we shift away from the unique conditions that fueled global growth for the past 30 years, investors will need more capital — and more patience.

Employees who feel genuine care from their colleagues are less exhausted, more present, better teammates, and more satisfied.

Silence speaks volumes.

The world’s most prolific crypto thieves have used Sinbad.io to launder tens of millions. Its creator, “Mehdi,” answers WIRED’s questions.

Integrating large language models into search engines could mean a fivefold increase in computing power and huge carbon emissions.

Scientists say a mild Covid infection increased immune benefits from a later flu vaccine, but with a biological twist.

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Sources: Amazon is in talks with Times Internet to buy MX Player, one of India’s top VOD streaming services; Times Internet bought MX Player for $140M in 2018  —  Amazon is engaging with Times Internet to explore the acquisition of MX Player, one of the largest on-demand video streaming services …

Chris Stokel-Walker / Fast Company: Former staff say Twitter needs to update its systems to enact changes sought by Elon Musk, but mass layoffs have forced frequent code freezes  —  Twitter’s outage on Wednesday, which saw the site rendered unusable for most users by blocking people from tweeting within the app …

Michael Wayland / CNBC: GM signs a long-term deal with GlobalFoundries to establish exclusive production capacity at the chip maker’s New York facility for GM’s key auto suppliers  —  – GM has signed a long-term agreement with GlobalFoundries to establish exclusive production capacity of U.S.-produced semiconductor chips, the companies announced Thursday.

Microsoft’s chatty search interface was impressive. But it also served up glitches, ethical dilemmas—and talk of a mysterious “Sydney.”

This week, the AI-generated parody “Nothing, Forever” got temporarily banned from the streaming site following some transphobic jokes.

From discounted sex toys to instant cameras, we’ve got plenty of gift ideas to spread the love.

Rachael Levy / Reuters: The US DOT says it is investigating Neuralink over the potentially illegal movement of hazardous pathogens, after an alert from an animal welfare advocacy group  —  The U.S. Department of Transportation said on Thursday it is investigating Elon Musk’s brain-implant company Neuralink …

Reinhardt Krause / Investor’s Business Daily: Cloudflare reports Q4 revenue up 42% YoY to $274.7M, vs. $274.1M est., and FY 2023 revenue guidance between $1.33B and $1.34B, vs. $1.31B est.; stock is up 10%+  —  Cloudflare (NET) on Thursday reported fourth-quarter earnings and revenue that edged by Wall Street targets.

Bloomberg: Meta submits data to the EU showing that pop up content warnings stopped Facebook users sharing 25% of flagged posts and 38% on Instagram; TikTok reports 29%  —  The warnings that pop up when someone tries to share potentially false or misleading posts on TikTok Inc., Instagram and Facebook are ignored most of the […]

MIT’s 49th annual Celebration of the Life and Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. took place Wednesday before an overflow crowd at Morss Hall and featured activist and author Angela Y. Davis as its keynote speaker. The celebration luncheon was the lead event in a week of activities honoring the civil rights leader, and […]

Launched in November 2022, ChatGPT is a chatbot that can not only engage in human-like conversation, but also provide accurate answers to questions in a wide range of knowledge domains. The chatbot, created by the firm OpenAI, is based on a family of “large language models” — algorithms that can recognize, predict, and generate text […]

A certain amount of noise is inherent in any quantum system. For instance, when researchers want to read information from a quantum computer, which harnesses quantum mechanical phenomena to solve certain problems too complex for classical computers, the same quantum mechanics also imparts a minimum level of unavoidable error that limits the accuracy of the […]

Sponsor content from Deloitte.

From gun violence to catastrophic weather events, companies need new operational strategies to secure their organizations.

People find them to be more socially fulfilling than the office or home, according to a new survey.

People in Europe are making GDPR requests to have their private messages erased, but Elon’s team is ignoring them.

How the irrational mathematics of measuring, ranking, and rating distort the value of stuff, work, people—everything.

Broken bones. Eye trauma. Brain injuries. How America’s sketchy “less-lethal” weapons industry exports its insidious brand of violence around the world.

The Guardian: Investigation: AI tools rate photos of women as more sexually suggestive than photos of men, especially if nipples, pregnant bellies, or exercise are involved  —  Guardian exclusive: AI tools rate photos of women as more sexually suggestive than those of men, especially if nipples, pregnant bellies or exercise is involved

Dietrich Knauth / Reuters: A judge grants FTX approval to subpoena Sam Bankman-Fried, his parents, brother, former FTX CTO Garry Wang, COO Constance Wang, and Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison  —  Failed crypto firm FTX received court approval on Wednesday to issue subpoenas to its founder Sam Bankman-Fried and members …

Bloomberg: Nintendo’s upcoming Zelda sequel will cost $70, up $10 over previous new titles, matching Sony and Microsoft and opening the door for more expensive video games  —  Nintendo Co.’s upcoming Zelda sequel will be pricier than the company’s other Switch games, clearing the way for more game makers to also lift their prices.

Seeking an opportunity to do something impactful in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, Julian Zulueta applied for an internship with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, through MIT’s PKG Public Service Center. During the summer of 2020, he analyzed requisition data to better understand how different regions across the United States were affected […]

Biden’s speech calling for better data protections got a standing ovation from both sides of the aisle. So, where’s a federal privacy law?

Zoom was a pandemic star. It’s the latest tech company to find that status isn’t sustainable.

Within hours of the disaster, software engineers were rolling out applications to help locate people in need and distribute aid.

Todd Spangler / Variety: Disney reports 161.8M Disney+ global subscribers in Q1, down 1% QoQ, its first drop since launching in 2020; Hulu had 48M and ESPN+ had 24.9M, both up 2% QoQ  —  Overall, Disney posted revenue of $23.51 billion (up 8%) and adjusted earnings per share of 99 cents for the quarter ended […]

Scott Stein / CNET: Meta says it has completed its acquisition of Within, originally announced in October 2021, after a judge denied the FTC’s request to stop the deal  —  The held-up acquisition has gone through, adding a major fitness platform to Meta’s toolkit.  —  As the VR headset race heats up in 2023 …

Michael Potuck / 9to5Mac: Many Twitter users report issues with the site and say they are not able to tweet, except via an API or by scheduling tweets; Twitter says it’s working on a fix  —  Shortly after Twitter launched its huge increase in max character count to 4,000 today, many users aren’t able to […]

A promotion for Google’s AI search tool Bard shows it making a factual error about the James Webb Space Telescope, heightening fears that these tools aren’t ready to be integrated into search engines

Over the course of several years of research, surveys, and focus groups, MIT students and Physical Education and Wellness instructors and coaches in the Department of Athletics, Physical Education, and Recreation (DAPER) worked on developing a fun and innovative way to promote student health and well-being at the Institute. Now, MIT undergraduates can earn a […]

Steven Spear SM ’93 analyzes the framework of relationships and interactions by which an organization runs, to better harness the intellectual horsepower distributed throughout the enterprise. In almost any industry, some few companies dramatically outperform their peers and near-peers, generating and delivering far more value to society by getting far more yield out of the […]

Despite increased awareness and substantial media coverage, the addiction and overdose crisis continues across the United States. According to the 2021 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 46.3 million people aged 12 or older had a substance use disorder (SUD). Among people aged 12 or older in 2021, only 4.1 million (or 1.5 percent) […]

Researchers studied 400 e-commerce firms to understand how they balanced efficiency and compliance.

A wave of recent studies looks at the impact of new laws on equity, productivity, turnover, and more.