Category: Uncategorized

The Russian blockade and bombardments are cutting off thousands of tons of grain, threatening the food supply in countries that rely on wheat exports.

These are tantalizing hints that microbes might have lived on Mars billions of years ago, but scientists need to study the rocks back on Earth to be sure.

The Information: Memo to staff: Adam Mosseri says Instagram’s creator surveys show the app lags behind TikTok and YouTube on the most important creator satisfaction dimensions  —  For the past couple of years, as Instagram has sought to better compete with TikTok, becoming more appealing to creators has been a top priority.

Casey Newton / Platformer: Source: Meta Chief Product Officer Chris Cox directed the New Product Experimentation division to scale back and focus entirely on short-form video innovation  —  Facebook’s New Product Experimentation division is scaling back its mission dramatically, Platformer has learned.

Sandali Handagama / CoinDesk: Chainalysis: emerging markets, led by Vietnam and the Philippines, drove global cryptocurrency adoption over the past year; China remained active despite a ban  —  The blockchain analytics firm’s 2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index also shows China remains active despite a ban on crypto trading.

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and their ilk were meant to let us chat freely in a digital public square, but the firms running social media are just as corporate as old media, says Annalee Newitz

If you have a LinkedIn account, your connections probably consist of a core group of people you know well, and a larger set of people you know less well. The latter are what experts call “weak ties.” Now a unique, large-scale experiment co-directed by an MIT scholar shows that on LinkedIn, those weak ties are […]

Say you live across from a bakery. Sometimes you are hungry, and therefore tempted when odors waft through your window, but other times satiety makes you indifferent. Sometimes popping over for a popover seems trouble-free, but sometimes your spiteful ex is there. Your brain balances many influences in determining what you’ll do. A new MIT […]

Swirling around the planet’s equator, the rings of Saturn are a dead giveaway that the planet is spinning at a tilt. The belted giant rotates at a 26.7-degree angle relative to the plane in which it orbits the sun. Astronomers have long suspected that this tilt comes from gravitational interactions with its neighbor Neptune, as […]

Today’s algorithms still largely lack empathy, ethics, and the ability to see the bigger picture.

You don’t stay in business for generations without diversifying.

“The power of being an outsider is you are constantly building your own alternative.”

This week, we talk about the Sony PSVR2, the still-secret next Meta headset, and how virtual reality technology needs to improve to earn mainstream acceptance.

Casey Newton / Platformer: TikTok and ByteDance’s links to China mean wrongdoing will be punished more harshly in the US than Meta and Twitter, no matter how “transparent” the company is  —  In new testimony to Congress, the company faces stern questions on China  —  Ever since TikTok became …

Bloomberg: Sources: Adobe plans to acquire UI design and prototyping tool Figma, which could be announced as early as today; one source values the deal at $15B  —  Adobe Inc. is nearing a deal to acquire Figma, a startup that makes online design collaboration tools, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Laura Cappelle / New York Times: French director Marion Siéfert blames Meta’s policies for banning livestreams of her “Instagram play” about teenage sexuality, even though it contains no nudity  —  Marion Siéfert’s “_jeanne_dark_,” about a shy teenager beginning to express her sexuality …

Over 17 years, YouTube has transformed from a place to share home videos to a cultural juggernaut that helps elect presidents. A new book from Mark Bergen gives unparalleled insights into the platform’s rise

A simulation consisting of 27 AIs representing different regions in climate negotiations is part of a competition to find out which policies and incentives could have the best chances of success

Pharmaceutical companies make some remarkable advances. Could they make significantly more of them? It’s possible, but for that to happen, the industry would likely have to change some of its core habits, according to the research of Danielle Li, an associate professor of economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management. In a recent paper, […]

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Intel, Arm, and Nvidia propose a new open, license-free specification with 8-bit floating point, or FP8, precision as a common interchange format for AI  —  In pursuit of faster and more efficient AI system development, Intel, Arm and Nvidia today published a draft specification for what they refer …

At a high-profile meeting in Geneva, international negotiators are moving closer toward developing rules for space actors in low Earth orbit and beyond.

Your old earbuds might not be cutting it for school or work. Here are some nice discounts on WIRED-tested favorites.

Peiter “Mudge” Zatko’s allegations about the social media platform renewed a sense of urgency for lawmakers to rein in Big Tech.

David Pan / Bloomberg: Ethermine, the largest Ethereum mining firm, will shut down its servers for miners after Ethereum’s Merge, switching its mining pool to withdraw-only mode  —  Ethermine, the largest Ethereum mining services provider by computing power, will shut down its servers for miners after the blockchain completes its historic technical upgrade.

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Tel Aviv-based Groundcover, a performance monitoring service for cloud apps, raised a $20M Series A led by Zeev Ventures, bringing its total funding to $24.5M  —  Groundcover, a performance monitoring platform for cloud apps, today announced that it raised $20 million in a Series A round led …

Sony’s first virtual reality device in six years arrives in 2023. Here’s a preview of the PSVR2, and the games that will run on it.

WIRED talked to Jane Jensen about her prolific publishing, shape-shifting dogs, and the hope of seeing Gabriel Knight 4.

These four alternatives to the newsletter platform offer just as many—if not more—features, and can be easier on your wallet.

Wall Street Journal: Sources: after its funds performed poorly, SoftBank considers launching a third Vision Fund; Vision Fund 2 is now worth 19% less than the $49B invested  —  Despite massive losses, Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son has tried to chart a new path for the tech investment giant

Todd Spangler / Variety: Denmark-based Podimo, a subscription service for podcasts and audiobooks, raised €58.6M led by 83North, Highland, and Saban, bringing its total funding to €162M  —  Listen up: Podimo, the Denmark-based subscription service for podcasts and audiobooks, said it secured €58.6 million …

The Verge: PlayStation VR2 hands-on: easy to set up, a joy to use, the OLED display looks great, refreshed Sense controllers are an improvement, gameplay is fun, and more  —  And it’s pretty good … Sony’s PlayStation VR2 may not be coming out until next year, but after months of drip-feeding news …

Betar Gallant, MIT associate professor and Class of 1922 Career Development Chair in Mechanical Engineering, grew up in a curious, independently minded family. Her mother had multiple jobs over the years, including in urban planning and in the geospatial field. Her father, although formally trained in English, read textbooks of all kinds from cover to […]

Brady Dale / Axios: The US Treasury clarifies its guidance on Tornado Cash and provides a way for users to lawfully withdraw their funds by applying for a license  —  New guidance from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control provides a roadmap for people who used Tornado Cash for lawful transactions to […]

The electricity consumption of the Ethereum cryptocurrency rivals that of some countries, but a controversial update to how it works will slash this by 99 per cent – here’s the low-down on what’s going on

Kif Leswing / CNBC: In an email to developers, Apple says that new App Store ad placements will be available for the 2022 holiday season  —  – Apple is planning to release new ad “placements” as soon as the holiday season of this year.  — The new ad units represent a significant expansion in Apple’s […]

Leah Nylen / Bloomberg: NY judge rules the bulk of the state AGs’ ad tech antitrust suit against Google can proceed, but dismissed the claim Meta and Google colluded via Jedi Blue  —  An antitrust suit by state attorneys general accusing Alphabet Inc.’s Google of monopolizing the technology underlying online advertising …

Image-generating AIs seem to produce mythical characters that look consistently recognisable – but their appearance has a rational explanation

The health of the planet is one of the most important challenges facing humankind today. From climate change to unsafe levels of air and water pollution to coastal and agricultural land erosion, a number of serious challenges threaten human and ecosystem health. Ensuring the health and safety of our planet necessitates approaches that connect scientific, […]

The wandering albatross is the poster bird for avian monogamy. The graceful glider is known to mate for life, partnering up with the same bird to breed, season after season, between long flights at sea. But on rare occasions, an albatross pair will “divorce” — a term ornithologists use for instances when one partner leaves […]

Research shows that 25% of failed transitions are the result of an unprepared heir.

Working memory, that handy ability to consciously hold and manipulate new information in mind, takes work. In particular, participating neurons in the prefrontal cortex have to work together in synchrony to focus our thoughts, whether we’re remembering a set of directions or tonight’s menu specials. A new study by researchers based at The Picower Institute […]

American PCPs are more burned out than ever. It’s up to health systems to address the underlying issues and help doctors build more balanced careers.

A conversation about leading writers and other creative talent at a major publication.

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Litmus, which helps manufacturers collect data from IoT devices for applications like AI, raised a $30M Series B led by industrial automation company Belden  —  In recent years, a cottage industry has sprung up around the industrial internet of things (IoT) landscape — and the data generated by it.

For decades, the EU has had some of the tightest restrictions on genetically altered agriculture. That could be about to change.

The xkcd author and former NASA engineer tackles our questions about science education, solvable climate issues, and his latest What If? book.

Land Rover has finally brought out some proper luxury SUV hybrids, and it looks like it was just about worth the wait.

Bloomberg: Seeking to combat the FTC’s 2020 antitrust lawsuit, Meta subpoenas 132+ companies, including Snap, ByteDance, and Clubhouse, drawing rebukes over sensitive data  —  To defend itself against the federal government, Meta Platforms Inc. says it needs its rivals to divulge some of their most closely held secrets.

Reuters: An investigation details Twitter’s business in China: local governments and state media buying ads, a growing non-US revenue stream, internal tensions, and more  —  Even as China bars 1.4 billion citizens from Twitter, its local authorities are splurging on global advertising on the site …

The latest software for your Apple Watch is here, complete with fresh faces, sleep stages, and low-power mode.