Jess Weatherbed / The Verge: Musk says Twitter will start manually authenticating accounts starting next week, with blue check marks for people, gold for companies, and gray for governments — Elon Musk says that Twitter’s check mark program could return on Friday, December 2nd, with a new procedure to verify individual identities …
IMF calls for more crypto regulation in Africa, says 25% of countries in sub-Saharan Africa have regulated crypto and two-thirds have imposed some restrictions (Ana Paula Pereira/Cointelegraph)
Ana Paula Pereira / Cointelegraph: IMF calls for more crypto regulation in Africa, says 25% of countries in sub-Saharan Africa have regulated crypto and two-thirds have imposed some restrictions — FTX’s collapse is one of the reasons why countries in the region should adopt regulation, noted the monetary fund. — 120 Total views
Germany-based Temedica, which offers a health data insight service to pharma companies, raised a €25M Series B extension, bringing its total Series B to €42M (Dan Taylor/Tech.eu)
Dan Taylor / Tech.eu: Germany-based Temedica, which offers a health data insight service to pharma companies, raised a €25M Series B extension, bringing its total Series B to €42M — Aimed at offering a complete and total understanding of medical patient care realities, Munich-based Temedica …
16 Best Black Friday Mattress Deals (2022): Bedsheets, Pillows, Blankets
We’ve found discounts on bedsheets, weighted blankets, and sound machines to help make bedtime a little sweeter.
13 Best Soundbars for Every Budget (2022): Vizio, Sonos, Samsung, Yamaha, Sony
Every television deserves a row of speakers to call its own. These are our favorites.
Thanksgiving Movies Leave a Lot to Be Desired. America Needs a New One—Let’s Make It ‘Coco’
It’s the best all-ages movie in years—and it’s ready to stream. Watch it this week with your own cartoonish family.
Twitter plans to restore next week suspended accounts that haven’t “broken the law or engaged in egregious spam”, after 72.4% of 3M+ voted yes in Musk’s poll (Taylor Lorenz/Washington Post)
Taylor Lorenz / Washington Post: Twitter plans to restore next week suspended accounts that haven’t “broken the law or engaged in egregious spam”, after 72.4% of 3M+ voted yes in Musk’s poll — The Twitter chief says he will reinstate accounts suspended for harassment, abuse and misinformation beginning next week.
Google’s Project Zero reported five security flaws in devices with Mali GPUs in the summer, but Samsung, Xiaomi, Google, and others are yet to release patches (Kris Holt/Engadget)
Kris Holt / Engadget: Google’s Project Zero reported five security flaws in devices with Mali GPUs in the summer, but Samsung, Xiaomi, Google, and others are yet to release patches — Google has disclosed several security flaws for phones that have Mali GPUs, such as those with Exynos chipsets.
Mercedes plans to charge $1,200 per year for “Acceleration Increase” in its EVs; Volkswagen, Toyota, and GM have all trialed similar subscription-based features (Luke Plunkett/Kotaku)
Luke Plunkett / Kotaku: Mercedes plans to charge $1,200 per year for “Acceleration Increase” in its EVs; Volkswagen, Toyota, and GM have all trialed similar subscription-based features — Mercedes are charging $1200 a year for an “Acceleration Increase” — For a few years now some car companies …
BBC documentary used face-swapping AI to hide protesters’ identities
Filmmakers used an AI to swap the faces of anti-government protesters in Hong Kong for those of actors to protect the protestors’ identities while maintaining their facial movements and emotional expressions
New CRISPR-based tool inserts large DNA sequences at desired sites in cells
Building on the CRISPR gene-editing system, MIT researchers have designed a new tool that can snip out faulty genes and replace them with new ones, in a safer and more efficient way. Using this system, the researchers showed that they could deliver genes as long as 36,000 DNA base pairs to several types of human […]
Embrace Ambivalence When Making Big Career Decisions
Your mixed emotions are telling you something. Listen to them.
Does Influencer Marketing Really Pay Off?
Research finds seven variables that impact a campaign’s effectiveness.
65daysofstatic’s ‘Wreckage Systems’ Pushes Algorithmic Music
After pioneering procedurally-generated music with the soundtrack to No Man’s Sky, the band took things a step further and created an endless audio loop.
The 19 Best Thanksgiving TV Episodes, Ranked
Looking for something on-brand to watch during the holiday break? These are all available to stream right now.
‘Gold Hydrogen’ Is an Untapped Resource in Depleted Oil Wells
The fuel can be produced by adding bacteria to spent drill holes—meaning there are thousands of potential hydrogen sources worldwide.
ConsenSys says it collects user data related to its on-chain wallet service MetaMask, following a similar announcement by decentralized exchange Uniswap (Parikshit Mishra/CoinDesk)
Parikshit Mishra / CoinDesk: ConsenSys says it collects user data related to its on-chain wallet service MetaMask, following a similar announcement by decentralized exchange Uniswap — The firm said when using Infura as an RPC on MetaMask, a user’s IP address and wallet address information would also be collected.
Sources: Elon Musk disbands Twitter’s Brussels team, sparking compliance concern among EU officials after policy executives departed the small but vital office (Financial Times)
Financial Times: Sources: Elon Musk disbands Twitter’s Brussels team, sparking compliance concern among EU officials after policy executives departed the small but vital office — Digital policy executives’ departure elicits unease over adherence to EU rules on disinformation and hate speech
Elon Musk says Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Beta is now available on request to anyone in North America who has paid for the $15,000 feature (Jon Porter/The Verge)
Jon Porter / The Verge: Elon Musk says Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Beta is now available on request to anyone in North America who has paid for the $15,000 feature — Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” Beta, which has been gradually rolling out over the past couple of years, is now available to anyone who’s paid for the […]
Where might James Bond go next, in terms of science and technology?
From Goldfinger to No Time to Die, James Bond has long showcased the latest tech advances. Might 007’s next adventure involve protecting a low-cost, lightweight, high-capacity battery from sinister forces, asks Kathryn Harkup
25 Best Apple Black Friday Deals (2022): Apple Watch, iPads, AirPods
Need a new Apple Watch, MacBook, or iPhone case? Now’s the time to snag one at a discount.
Omega’s New Bond Watch Plays a Movie on Its Back
To celebrate the 60th anniversary of James Bond films, the company has made new Seamaster divers that mechanically animate 007’s iconic opening sequence.
9 Best Action Cameras (2022): Underwater, 360, Compact, and More
Gearing up to shred the slopes or dive into the seas? These photography tools are made for danger.
Mark Cuban’s interactive streaming app Fireside acquires streaming platform Stremium and plans to launch on smart TVs, Amazon Fire TV, Roku, and other devices (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Mark Cuban’s interactive streaming app Fireside acquires streaming platform Stremium and plans to launch on smart TVs, Amazon Fire TV, Roku, and other devices — Mark Cuban-backed streaming app Fireside, which today offers podcasters and other creators a way to host interactive …
Microsoft says hackers used vulnerabilities in Boa web server, discontinued in 2005 but pervasive across IoT devices, to target the Indian power sector (Sergiu Gatlan/BleepingComputer)
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer: Microsoft says hackers used vulnerabilities in Boa web server, discontinued in 2005 but pervasive across IoT devices, to target the Indian power sector — Microsoft said today that security vulnerabilities found to impact a web server discontinued since 2005 have been used to target and compromise organizations in the energy sector.
Sources: Amazon plans to spend $1B+ per year to produce and release movies for theaters, starting with a few releases in 2023, and eventually 12 to 15 annually (Lucas Shaw/Bloomberg)
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg: Sources: Amazon plans to spend $1B+ per year to produce and release movies for theaters, starting with a few releases in 2023, and eventually 12 to 15 annually — Amazon.com Inc. plans to spend more than $1 billion a year to produce movies that it will release in theaters …
Prosthetic leg can ‘change gears’ to make going up stairs easier
A robotic leg with a big toe and motors that can “change gear” like a bicycle can enable a wearer to walk up stairs and slopes
A volunteer project used GPS to detect a North Korean missile test
An open-source intelligence project is using GPS satellites to track intercontinental ballistic missiles, such as the one tested by North Korea last week
Teresa Gao named 2024 Mitchell Scholar
MIT senior Teresa Gao has been named one of the 12 winners of the George J. Mitchell Scholarship’s Class of 2024. After graduating next spring with a double major in computer science and engineering as well as brain and cognitive sciences, she will study augmented and virtual reality at Trinity College Dublin. Gao is the […]
Why Your FP&A Team Needs a Single Planning Platform – SPONSOR CONTENT FROM WORKDAY
Sponsor content from Workday.
How Great Leaders Communicate
Four strategies to motivate and inspire your team.
Ancestry CEO Deb Liu Says Women Need to Reframe Their Relationship to Power
While overt discrimination against women may be on the decline, unconscious bias can be just as limiting.
America’s Billion-Dollar Tree Problem Is Spreading
Grasslands are being overrun by drought-resistant invaders that wreck animal habitats, suck up water supplies, and can cost landowners a fortune.
Dyson V12 Detect Slim Review: A Powerful and Lightweight Cordless Stick Vacuum
This compact, cordless vacuum is expensive—but it’s a dust-buster you’ll want to use over and over again.
Truth Social Is Rising as the Anti-Mastodon
Amid Twitter chaos and Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential bid, the conservative social network is having a moment of its own.
The UK’s National Audit Office says a 2% digital services tax on the gross revenue of Amazon, Apple, and other US giants reaped almost £360M in its first year (Mark Sweney/The Guardian)
Mark Sweney / The Guardian: The UK’s National Audit Office says a 2% digital services tax on the gross revenue of Amazon, Apple, and other US giants reaped almost £360M in its first year — Figure raised exceeds what most of the digital businesses have been paying in UK corporation tax
Amazon’s Twitch makes changes to address child predation concerns, including mandatory phone verification and improving account termination for users under 13 (Cecilia D’Anastasio/Bloomberg)
Cecilia D’Anastasio / Bloomberg: Amazon’s Twitch makes changes to address child predation concerns, including mandatory phone verification and improving account termination for users under 13 — Twitch, the video game livestreaming site popular with teens and kids, announced changes it’s making on the platform to increase safety …
Baidu EVP Dou Shen downplays the impact of US semiconductor restrictions, after the company stockpiled parts, and says its AI business would benefit long term (Shen Lu/Wall Street Journal)
Shen Lu / Wall Street Journal: Baidu EVP Dou Shen downplays the impact of US semiconductor restrictions, after the company stockpiled parts, and says its AI business would benefit long term — Executive says the search-engine giant’s AI and cloud businesses don’t rely heavily on chips restricted by the U.S.
A simpler path to better computer vision
Before a machine-learning model can complete a task, such as identifying cancer in medical images, the model must be trained. Training image classification models typically involves showing the model millions of example images gathered into a massive dataset. However, using real image data can raise practical and ethical concerns: The images could run afoul of […]
A far-sighted approach to machine learning
Picture two teams squaring off on a football field. The players can cooperate to achieve an objective, and compete against other players with conflicting interests. That’s how the game works. Creating artificial intelligence agents that can learn to compete and cooperate as effectively as humans remains a thorny problem. A key challenge is enabling AI […]
Here’s Proof Hate Speech Is More Viral on Elon Musk’s Twitter
Researchers monitoring a “firehose” of public tweets found signs of increasing toxicity—before Elon Musk reversed bans on Trump and other divisive figures.
The US Has a Bomb-Sniffing Dog Shortage
Finding high-quality detection canines is hard enough—and the pandemic only dug a deeper hole.
How to Renew Your US Passport Online
The government soft-launched an entirely digital application process. Here’s what you need to know about eligibility and navigating the website.
Interviews and messages show how SBF used PACs, nonprofits, and consulting firms to woo politicians, regulators, and others to support his crypto goals (New York Times)
New York Times: Interviews and messages show how SBF used PACs, nonprofits, and consulting firms to woo politicians, regulators, and others to support his crypto goals — In just three years, the FTX co-founder built a massive operation to woo politicians, regulators and nonprofits to support his crypto goals.
Sources: Sequoia apologized to its fund investors for the $150M it lost on FTX and told them it would improve its due diligence process on future investments (Berber Jin/Wall Street Journal)
Berber Jin / Wall Street Journal: Sources: Sequoia apologized to its fund investors for the $150M it lost on FTX and told them it would improve its due diligence process on future investments — Venture-capital firm tells fund investors that it will improve due diligence on future investments after $150 million loss on crypto exchange
US Senators Elizabeth Warren, Richard Durbin, and Tina Smith ask Fidelity to reconsider its upcoming Bitcoin 401(k) offerings announced in April 2022 (Camomile Shumba/CoinDesk)
Camomile Shumba / CoinDesk: US Senators Elizabeth Warren, Richard Durbin, and Tina Smith ask Fidelity to reconsider its upcoming Bitcoin 401(k) offerings announced in April 2022 — The asset management giant said in April it would offer retail investors the option to put bitcoin in their 401(k) accounts at some point this year.
Meta’s board game-playing AI can pass as a human in game negotiations
An AI developed by researchers at Meta convincingly negotiated with humans while playing an online version of the board game Diplomacy. It was also ranked in the top 10 per cent of players
International team observes innermost structure of quasar jet
At the heart of nearly every galaxy lurks a supermassive black hole. But not all supermassive black holes are alike: there are many types. Quasars, or quasi-stellar objects, are one of the brightest and most active types of supermassive black holes. An international group of scientists has published new observations of the first quasar ever […]
Alzheimer’s risk gene undermines insulation of brain’s “wiring”
It’s well-known that carrying one copy of the APOE4 gene variant increases one’s risk for Alzheimer’s disease threefold and two copies about tenfold, but the fundamental reasons why, and what can be done to help patients, remain largely unknown. A study published by an MIT-based team Nov. 16 in Nature provides some new answers as […]
When CEOs Engage Directly with Customers
A look at the pros and cons.