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Ars Technica
Nearly three years since launch, Webb is a hit among astronomers
From its halo-like orbit nearly a million miles from Earth, the James Webb Space Telescope is seeing farther than human eyes have ever seen.
In May, astronomers announced that Webb detected the most distant galaxy found so far, a fuzzy blob of red light that we see as it existed just 290 million years after the Big Bang. Light from this galaxy, several hundreds of millions of times the mass of the Sun, traveled more than 13 billion years until photons fell onto Webb's gold-coated mirror.
A few months later, in July, scientists released an image Webb captured of a planet circling a star slightly cooler than the Sun nearly 12 light-years from Earth. The alien world is several times the mass of Jupiter and the closest exoplanet to ever be directly imaged. One of Webb's science instruments has a coronagraph to blot out bright starlight, allowing the telescope to resolve the faint signature of a nearby planet and use spectroscopy to measure its chemical composition.
Categories: Technology News
For fame or a death wish? Kids’ TikTok challenge injuries stump psychiatrists
Kids and teens can make some pretty hairbrained choices sometimes. But when a kid's choice is to engage in a TikTok challenge that threatens their life, psychiatrists can struggle to understand if it was just an exasperating poor choice born out of impulsivity and immaturity or something darker—an actual suicide attempt.
In a Viewpoint published today in JAMA Psychiatry, two psychiatrists from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center at Memphis raise the alarm about the dangers and complexities of TikTok challenges. They're an "emerging public health concern" for kids, the psychiatrists write, and they're blurring the lines between unintentional injuries and suicide attempts in children and teens.
The child and adolescent psychiatrists Onomeasike Ataga and Valerie Arnold say that their psychiatry team first saw injuries from TikTok challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the trend has continued since the pandemic eased. Over recent years, they've seen children and teens hospitalized from a variety of challenges, including the "blackout challenge," in which participants attempt to choke themselves until they pass out; the "Benadryl challenge," in which participants ingest a large amount of the allergy medicine to get high and hallucinate; and the "fire challenge," in which participants pour a flammable liquid on their body and light it on fire. In these cases, the psychiatry team is sometimes called in to help assess whether the children and teens had an intent to self-harm. It's often hard to determine—and thus hard to decide on treatment recommendations.
Categories: Technology News
Fate of Google’s search empire could rest in Trump’s hands
A few weeks before the US presidential election, Donald Trump suggested that a breakup of Google's search business may not be an appropriate remedy to destroy the tech giant's search monopoly.
"Right now, China is afraid of Google," Trump said at a Chicago event. If that threat were dismantled, Trump suggested, China could become a greater threat to the US, because the US needs to have "great companies" to compete.
Trump's comments came about a week after the US Department of Justice proposed remedies in the Google monopoly trial, including mulling a breakup.
Categories: Technology News
Trump plans to dismantle Biden AI safeguards after victory
Early Wednesday morning, Donald Trump became the presumptive winner of the 2024 US presidential election, setting the stage for dramatic changes to federal AI policy when he takes office early next year. Among them, Trump has stated he plans to dismantle President Biden's AI Executive Order from October 2023 immediately upon taking office.
Biden's order established wide-ranging oversight of AI development. Among its core provisions, the order established the US AI Safety Institute (AISI) and lays out requirements for companies to submit reports about AI training methodologies and security measures, including vulnerability testing data. The order also directed the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to develop guidance to help companies identify and fix flaws in their AI models.
Trump supporters in the US government have criticized the measures, as TechCrunch points out. In March, Representative Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) warned that reporting requirements could discourage innovation and prevent developments like ChatGPT. And Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) characterized NIST's AI safety standards as an attempt to control speech through "woke" safety requirements.
Categories: Technology News
The Ars redesign is out. Experience its ad-free glory for just $25/year.
Whew—the big event is finally behind us. I'm talking, of course, about the Ars Technica version 9 redesign, which we rolled out last month in response to your survey feedback and which we have iterated on extensively in the weeks since. The site is now fully responsive and optimized for mobile browsing, with a sleek new look and great user options.
In response to your comments, our tireless tech and design team of Jason and Aurich have spent the last few weeks adding a font size selector, tweaking the default font and headline layout, and adding the option for orange hyperlinks. Plus, they rolled out an all-new, subscriber-only "wide mode" for Ars superfans who need 100+ character line lengths in their lives. Not enough? Jason and Aurich also tweaked the overall information density (especially on mobile), added next/previous story buttons to articles, and made the nav bar "sticky" on mobile, all in response to your feedback. (Read more about our two post-launch rounds of updates here and here.)
If that's still not enough site goodness, Jason and Aurich are currently locked in their laboratory, cooking up a brand-new "true light" theme and big improvements to commenting and comment voting.
Categories: Technology News
The next Starship launch may occur in less than two weeks
Less than a month has passed since the historic fifth flight of SpaceX's Starship, during which the company caught the booster with mechanical arms back at the launch pad in Texas. Now, another test flight could come as soon as Nov. 18, the company announced Wednesday.
The improbable but successful recovery of the Starship first stage with "chopsticks" last month, and the on-target splashdown of the Starship upper stage halfway around the world, allowed SpaceX to avoid an anomaly investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration. Thus, the company was able to press ahead on a sixth test flight if it flew a similar profile.
And that's what SpaceX plans to do, albeit with some notable additions to the flight plan.
Categories: Technology News
Corning faces antitrust actions for its Gorilla Glass dominance
The European Commission (EC) has opened an antitrust investigation into US-based glass-maker Corning, claiming that its Gorilla Glass has dominated the mobile phone screen market due to restrictive deals and licensing.
Corning's shatter-resistant alkali-aluminosilicate glass keeps its place atop the market, according to the EC's announcement, because it both demands, and rewards with rebates, device makers that agree to "source all or nearly all of their (Gorilla Glass) demand from Corning." Corning also allegedly required device makers to report competitive offers to the glass maker. The company is accused of exerting a similar pressure on "finishers," or those firms that turn raw glass into finished phone screen protectors, as well as demanding finishers not pursue patent challenges against Corning.
"[T]he agreements that Corning put in place with OEMs and finishers may have excluded rival glass producers from large segments of the market, thereby reducing customer choice, increasing prices, and stifling innovation to the detriment of consumers worldwide," the Commission wrote.
Categories: Technology News
Trump’s 60% tariffs could push China to hobble tech industry growth
Now that the US presidential election has been called for Donald Trump, the sweeping tariffs regime that Trump promised on the campaign trail seems imminent. For the tech industry, already burdened by the impact of tariffs on their supply chains, it has likely become a matter of "when" not "if" companies will start spiking prices on popular tech.
During Trump's last administration, he sparked a trade war with China by imposing a wide range of tariffs on China imports, and President Joe Biden has upheld and expanded them during his term. These tariffs are taxes that Americans pay on restricted Chinese goods, imposed by both presidents as a tactic to punish China for unfair trade practices, including technology theft, by hobbling US business with China.
As the tariffs expanded, China has often retaliated, imposing tariffs on US goods and increasingly limiting US access to rare earth materials critical to manufacturing a wide range of popular products. And any such retaliation from China only seems to spark threats of more tariffs in the US—setting off a cycle that seems unlikely to end with Trump imposing a proposed 60 percent tax on all China imports. Experts told Ars that the tech industry expects to be stuck in the middle of the blow-by-blow trade war, taking punches left and right.
Categories: Technology News
Trump’s election win spells bad news for the auto industry
Yesterday, Donald Trump won a second presidential term from American voters. His first term was marked, among other things, by attempts to water down environmental laws and regulations aimed at the auto industry. And as a candidate in 2024, Trump has promised plenty of disruption to the sector through both trade policy and an abrogation of the government's commitment to fight climate change. Here are some of the more significant changes we think are coming.
Electric vehicle adoptionThe Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 was one of President Joe Biden's signature policy achievements, part of a $450 billion climate package. One of its many sections revised the way we incentivize consumers to buy electric vehicles, with an update to the clean vehicle tax credit that requires final assembly in North America, as well as ever-increasing amounts of US-sourced battery components and minerals to be eligible.
But such policies are not loved by the Republican Party. During his first term, Trump repeatedly criticized EVs, saying that "all-electric is not going to work," and he vociferously attacked EVs during his campaign, telling supporters at his party's national convention in July that "I will end the electric vehicle mandate on day one," referring to a current White House goal to reach 50 percent EV adoption by 2030, and calling the most significant climate legislation ever "the new green scam."
Categories: Technology News
The PS5 Pro’s biggest problem is that the PS5 is already very good
In many ways, the timing of Sony's 2016 launch of the PS4 Pro couldn't have been better. The slightly upgraded version of 2013's PlayStation 4 came at a time when a wave of 4K TVs was just beginning to crest in the form of tens of millions of annual sales in the US.
Purchasing Sony's first-ever "mid-generation" console upgrade in 2016 didn't give original PS4 owners access to any new games, a fact that contributed to us calling the PS4 Pro "a questionable value proposition" when it launched. Still, many graphics-conscious console gamers were looking for an excuse to use the extra pixels and HDR colors on their new 4K TVs, and spending hundreds of dollars on a stopgap console years before the PS5 served that purpose well enough.
Fast-forward to today and the PS5 Pro faces an even weaker value proposition. The PS5, after all, has proven more than capable of creating excellent-looking games that take full advantage of the 4K TVs that are now practically standard in American homes. With 8K TVs still an extremely small market niche, there isn't anything akin to what Sony's Mike Somerset called "the most significant picture-quality increase probably since black and white went to color" when talking about 4K TV in 2016.
Categories: Technology News
Nintendo confirms Switch 2 will play original Switch games
As US states were busy counting votes to confirm who would be the next president Tuesday night, Nintendo's Japanese Twitter account was busy confirming a key backward-compatibility feature for the upcoming "Nintendo Switch successor," which is still only pre-announced, officially.
"At today's Corporate Management Policy Briefing, we announced that Nintendo Switch software will also be playable on the successor to Nintendo Switch," Nintendo posted in a social media update attributed to company President Shintaro Furukawa. "Nintendo Switch Online will be available on the successor to Nintendo Switch as well."
This is Furukawa. At today's Corporate Management Policy Briefing, we announced that Nintendo Switch software will also be playable on the successor to Nintendo Switch. Nintendo Switch Online will be available on the successor to Nintendo Switch as well. Further information about…
— 任天堂株式会社（企業広報・IR） (@NintendoCoLtd) November 6, 2024
In the full policy briefing referenced in that post, Nintendo adds that it "believe[s] that it is important for Nintendo’s future to make use of Nintendo Account and carry over the good relationship that we have built with the over 100 million annual playing users on Nintendo Switch to its successor." The company also makes the (perhaps obvious) clarification that "in addition to being able to play Nintendo Switch software they currently own, consumers will be able to choose their next purchase from a broad selection of titles released for Nintendo Switch [on its successor]."
Categories: Technology News
“Havard”-trained spa owner injected clients with bogus Botox, prosecutors say
A Massachusetts spa owner has been arrested for what prosecutors describe as a blundering scheme in which she conspicuously smuggled counterfeit Botox and skin fillers into the US, then peddled them to clients by falsely claiming to be a nurse with a degree from "Havard" [sic] and a license from the state's "Estate Board."
Nevertheless, the woman—Rebecca Fadanelli, 38, of Stoughton—allegedly performed over 2,700 illegal injections between 2021 and 2024, raking in over $900,000 with the scam.
According to an affidavit from a special agent with the Food and Drug Administration, Fadanelli was smuggling in counterfeit Botox and fillers from China and Brazil. Between November 2023 and March 2024, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized at least six parcels from China addressed to Fadanelli or her employees. The packages included various counterfeit injectable drugs, including products labeled as Botox and skin fillers Sculptra and Juvederm.
Categories: Technology News
Anthropic’s Haiku 3.5 surprises experts with an “intelligence” price increase
On Monday, Anthropic launched the latest version of its smallest AI model, Claude 3.5 Haiku, in a way that marks a departure from typical AI model pricing trends—the new model costs four times more to run than its predecessor. The reason for the price increase is causing some pushback in the AI community: more smarts, according to Anthropic.
"During final testing, Haiku surpassed Claude 3 Opus, our previous flagship model, on many benchmarks—at a fraction of the cost," Anthropic wrote in a post on X. "As a result, we've increased pricing for Claude 3.5 Haiku to reflect its increase in intelligence."
"It's your budget model that's competing against other budget models, why would you make it less competitive," wrote one X user. "People wanting a 'too cheap to meter' solution will now look elsewhere."
Categories: Technology News
RTO mandate was attempt at thwarting Grindr workers unionizing: US labor board
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is accusing Grindr of using a return-to-office (RTO) mandate as an attempt to block employee efforts to form a union.
On July 20, 2023, employees at the LGBTQ+ dating app announced plans to unionize. On August 3, 2023, Grindr told employees that they had two weeks to decide if they would start working in an office location two days per week or exit Grindr with six months of severance, per The New York Times, which reported that it saw the memo. Grindr also reportedly offered up to $15,000 for relocation expenses to its offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Washington, DC. Before the RTO mandate, Grindr allowed fully remote work.
Despite the announcement's timing, Grindr said in August 2023 that it had been working on an RTO mandate for months and that employees were notified of this in early summer 2023, per the NYT. On August 4, 2023, the Communications Workers of America Union, which Grindr employees were working to join, filed a complaint with the NLRB.
Categories: Technology News
Suspect arrested in Snowflake data-theft attacks affecting millions
Canadian authorities have arrested a man on suspicion he breached hundreds of accounts belonging to users of cloud-storage provider Snowflake and used that access to steal personal data belonging to millions of people, authorities said Tuesday.
“Following a request by the United States, Alexander Moucka (aka Connor Moucka) was arrested on a provisional arrest warrant on Wednesday, October 30, 2024,” an official with the Canada Department of Justice wrote in an email Tuesday. “He appeared in court later that afternoon, and his case was adjourned to Tuesday, November 5, 2024. As extradition requests are considered confidential state-to-state communications, we cannot comment further on this case.”
Word of the arrest first came from Bloomberg News and was later confirmed by 404 Media.
Categories: Technology News
Endurance tells story of two expeditions, centuries apart
The story of Arctic explorer Ernest Shackleton's failed 1914 expedition to be the first to traverse the continent of Antarctica has long captured the popular imagination, as have the various efforts to locate the wreckage of his ship, the Endurance. The ship was finally found in 2022, nearly 107 years after it sank beneath the ice. The stories of Shackleton's adventures and the 2022 expedition are told in parallel in Endurance, a new documentary from National Geographic now streaming on Disney+.
Endurance is directed by Oscar winners Jimmy Chin and Chai Vasarhelyi (Free Solo). According to Vasarhelyi, she and Chin had been obsessed with the Shackleton story for a long time. The discovery of the shipwreck in 2022 gave them the perfect opportunity to tell the story again for a new audience, making use of all the technological advances that have been made in recent years.
"I think the Shackleton story is at the heart of the DNA of our films," Vasarhelyi told Ars. "It's the greatest human survival story ever. It really speaks to having these audacious objectives and dreams. When everyone tells you that you can't, you want to do it anyway. It requires you to then have the actual courage, grit, discipline, and strength of character to see it through. Shackleton is that story. He didn't sensibly achieve any of his goals, but through his failure he found his strength: being able to inspire the confidence of his men."
Categories: Technology News
Google has no duty to refund gift card scam victims, judge finds
There's nothing unfair about Google collecting fees to profit off Google Play gift card scams while refusing to refund victims who collectively lost millions, federal Judge Beth Freeman ruled Monday.
Largely granting Google's motion to dismiss a proposed class-action suit seeking substantial damages for a range of allegedly unfair practices, Freeman found that Google is shielded from liability because the tech giant did not induce victims to purchase the gift cards—scammers did.
The lawsuit was filed by Judy May, who lost $1,000 in 2021 when scammers tricked her into buying Google Play gift cards by claiming she was eligible for a government grant. May was told she could send codes from the gift cards to cover "certain costs upfront to receive same-day delivery of the grant money." After she fell for it, she realized she'd been scammed, but Google refused to provide a refund, citing terms May considered "unconscionable."
Categories: Technology News
NRO chief: “You can’t hide” from our new swarm of SpaceX-built spy satellites
The director of the National Reconnaissance Office has a message for US adversaries around the world.
"You can’t hide, because we’re constantly looking," said Chris Scolese, a longtime NASA engineer who took the helm of the US government's spy satellite agency in 2019.
The NRO is taking advantage of SpaceX's Starlink satellite assembly line to build a network of at least 100 satellites, and perhaps many more, to monitor adversaries around the world. So far, more than 80 of these SpaceX-made spacecraft, each a little less than a ton in mass, have launched on four Falcon 9 rockets. There are more to come.
Categories: Technology News
Kia says its new EV camper concept is the “ideal escape pod”
Whenever we write about electric vans, the comments reveal a growing but pent-up demand for a camper version. Well, it seems that those vibes are being felt at Kia. It has created a pair of concepts for the Specialty Equipment Marketing Association (SEMA) automotive trade show, which got underway in Las Vegas today.
One of the two concepts will look more familiar—the EV9 ADVNTR is based on the popular electric three-row SUV. But the other is the PV5 WKNDR, a rugged off-road camper based on a forthcoming Kia electric van platform.
The EV9 ADVNTR makes good use of the existing EV9's angular design, with new sections filled in with protective cladding. There's a suspension lift and all-terrain tires, plus a roof rack, to distinguish it from lesser EV9s, but otherwise it's relatively stock.
Categories: Technology News
Ever heard of “Llady Gaga”? Universal files piracy suit over alleged knockoffs.
Universal Music Group yesterday sued a music firm that allegedly distributes pirated songs on popular streaming services under misspelled versions of popular artists' names—such as "Kendrik Laamar," "Arriana Gramde," "Jutin Biber," and "Llady Gaga." The UMG Recordings lawsuit against the French company Believe and its US-based subsidiary, TuneCore, alleges that "Believe is fully aware that its business model is fueled by rampant piracy" and "turned a blind eye to the fact that its music catalog was rife with copyright infringing sound recordings."
Believe is a publicly traded company with about 2,020 employees in over 50 countries and reported $518 million (474.1 million euros) in revenue in the first half of 2024. Believe says its "mission is to develop independent artists and labels in the digital world."
UMG alleges that Believe achieved "dramatic growth and profitability in recent years by operating as a hub for the distribution of infringing copies of the world's most popular copyrighted recordings." Believe has licensing deals with online platforms "including TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, Instagram and hundreds of others," the lawsuit said.
Categories: Technology News
