Author name: Mike M.

measles-erupts-in-florida-school-where-11%-of-kids-are-unvaccinated

Measles erupts in Florida school where 11% of kids are unvaccinated

CDC, Florida, health, Infectious disease, measles, Science, Transmission, vaccination rate, virus / /

outbreak potential —

Over 100 children at the school are susceptible to virus.

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A child with measles.

Enlarge / A child with measles.

Florida health officials on Sunday announced an investigation into a cluster of measles cases at an elementary school in the Fort Lauderdale area with a low vaccination rate, a scenario health experts fear will become more and more common amid slipping vaccination rates nationwide.

On Friday, Broward County Public School reported a confirmed case of measles in a student at Manatee Bay Elementary School in the city of Weston. A local CBS affiliate reported that the case was in a third-grade student who had not recently traveled. On Saturday, the school system announced that three additional cases at the same school had been reported, bringing the current reported total to four cases.

On Sunday, the Florida Department of Health in Broward County (DOH-Broward) released a health advisory about the cases and announced it was opening an investigation to track contacts at risk of infection.

At Manatee Bay Elementary School, the number of children at risk could be over 100 students. According to a Broward County vaccine study reported by the local CBS outlet, only 89.31 percent of students at Manatee Bay Elementary School were fully immunized in the 2023/2024 school year, which is significantly lower than the target vaccination coverage of 95 percent. The school currently has 1,067 students enrolled, suggesting that up to 114 students are vulnerable to the infection based on their vaccination status.

Measles is one of the most contagious viruses known. It spreads via respiratory and airborne transmission. The virus can linger in air space for up to two hours after an infected person has been in an area. People who are not vaccinated or have compromised immune systems are susceptible, and up to 90 percent of susceptible people exposed to the virus will become infected. Measles symptoms typically begin around eight to 14 days after exposure, but the disease can incubate for up to 21 days. The symptoms begin as a high fever, runny nose, red and watery eyes, and a cough before the telltale rash develops. Infected people can be contagious from four days before the rash develops through four days after the rash appears, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 1 in 5 unvaccinated people with measles is hospitalized, the CDC adds, while 1 in 20 infected children develop pneumonia and up to 3 in 1,000 children die of the infection.

Those who are not immunocompromised and are fully vaccinated against measles (who have received two doses of the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine) are generally not considered at risk. The two doses are about 97 percent effective at preventing measles and protection is considered to be life-long.

The DOH-Broward said it is now “identifying susceptible contacts that may be candidates for post-exposure prophylaxis through MMR or immunoglobulin.”

While the risk of measles is generally low in the US—the country declared it eliminated in 2000—the threat of large outbreaks is growing as vaccination rates slip. Many cases in the US are linked to travel from countries where the virus still circulates. But, if a travel-related case lands in a pocket with low vaccination coverage, the virus can take off. Such was the case in 2019, when the country tallied 1,274 measles cases and nearly lost its elimination status.

Health officials typically consider vaccination coverage of 95 percent or greater to protect from ongoing transmission. In the years since the COVID-19 pandemic began, vaccination rates among US kindergartners have slipped to 93 percent, and vaccination exemptions reached an all-time high in the latest data from the 2022-2023 school year. There are now at least 10 states that have vaccination exemption rates above 5 percent, meaning that even if every non-exempt child is vaccinated, those states will not have enough coverage to reach the 95 percent target.

The CDC has tallied 20 measles cases in the US so far this year. But that is the tally as of February 15; it does not include any of the Florida cases reported since Friday. In 2023, there were 58 measles cases reported to the CDC.

This story was updated to include additional information about measles infection outcomes.

Measles erupts in Florida school where 11% of kids are unvaccinated Read More »

new-compact-facial-recognition-system-passes-test-on-michelangelo’s-david

New compact facial-recognition system passes test on Michelangelo’s David

3D surface imaging, facial recognition, nanotechnology, optics, Science / /

A face for the ages —

Flatter, simpler prototype system uses 5-10 times less power than smartphone tech.

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A new lens-free and compact system for facial recognition scans a bust of Michelangelo’s David and reconstructs the image using less power than existing 3D surface imaging systems.

Enlarge / A new lens-free and compact system for facial recognition scans a bust of Michelangelo’s David and reconstructs the image using less power than existing 3D-surface imaging systems.

W-C Hsu et al., Nano Letters, 2024

Facial recognition is a common feature for unlocking smartphones and gaming systems, among other uses. But the technology currently relies upon bulky projectors and lenses, hindering its broader application. Scientists have now developed a new facial recognition system that employs flatter, simpler optics that also requires less energy, according to a recent paper published in the journal Nano Letters. The team tested their prototype system with a 3D replica of Michelangelo’s famous David sculpture, and found it recognized the face as well as existing smartphone facial recognition.

The current commercial 3D imaging systems in smartphones (like Apple’s iPhone) extract depth information via structured light. A dot projector uses a laser to project a pseudorandom beam pattern onto the face of the person looking at a locked screen. It does so thanks to several other built-in components: a collimator, light guide, and special lenses (known as diffractive optical elements, or DOEs) that break the laser beam apart into an array of some 32,000 infrared dots. The camera can then interpret that projected beam pattern to confirm the person’s identity.

Packing in all those optical components like lasers makes commercial dot projectors rather bulky, so it can be harder to integrate for some applications such as robotics and augmented reality, as well as the next generation of facial recognition technology. They also consume significant power. So Wen-Chen Hsu, of National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University and the Hon Hai Research Institute in Taiwan, and colleagues turned to ultrathin optical components known as metasurfaces for a potential solution. These metasurfaces can replace bulkier components for modulating light and have proven popular for depth sensors, endoscopes, tomography. and augmented reality systems, among other emerging applications.

Schematic of a new facial recognition system using a camera and meta surface-enhanced dot projector.

Enlarge / Schematic of a new facial recognition system using a camera and meta surface-enhanced dot projector.

W-C Hsu et al., Nanoletters, 2024

Hsu et al. built their own depth-sensing facial recognition system incorporating a metasurface hologram in place of the diffractive optical element. They replaced the standard vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) with a photonic crystal surface-emitting laser (PCSEL). (The structure of photonic crystals is the mechanism behind the bright iridescent colors in butterfly wings or beetle shells.) The PCSEL can generate its own highly collimated light beam, so there was no need for the bulky light guide or collimation lenses needed in VCSEL-based dot projector systems.

The team tested their new system on a replica bust of David, and it worked as well as existing smartphone facial recognition, based on comparing the infrared dot patterns to online photos of the statue. They found that their system generated nearly one and a half times more infrared dots (some 45,700) than the standard commercial technology from a device that is 233 times smaller in terms of surface area than the standard dot projector. “It is a compact and cost-effective system, that can be integrated into a single chip using the flip-chip process of PCSEL,” the authors wrote. Additionally, “The metasurface enables the generation of customizable and versatile light patterns, expanding the system’s applicability.” It’s more energy-efficient to boot.

Nano Letters, 2024. DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c05002  (About DOIs).

Listing image by W-C Hsu et al., Nano Letters, 2024

New compact facial-recognition system passes test on Michelangelo’s David Read More »

reddit-sells-training-data-to-unnamed-ai-company-ahead-of-ipo

Reddit sells training data to unnamed AI company ahead of IPO

AI, Axel Springer, Biz & IT, Bloomberg, chatgpt, chatgtp, image synthesis, large language models, machine learning, openai, reddit, Stable Diffusion, steve huffman, text synthesis / /

Everything has a price —

If you’ve posted on Reddit, you’re likely feeding the future of AI.

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In this photo illustration the American social news

On Friday, Bloomberg reported that Reddit has signed a contract allowing an unnamed AI company to train its models on the site’s content, according to people familiar with the matter. The move comes as the social media platform nears the introduction of its initial public offering (IPO), which could happen as soon as next month.

Reddit initially revealed the deal, which is reported to be worth $60 million a year, earlier in 2024 to potential investors of an anticipated IPO, Bloomberg said. The Bloomberg source speculates that the contract could serve as a model for future agreements with other AI companies.

After an era where AI companies utilized AI training data without expressly seeking any rightsholder permission, some tech firms have more recently begun entering deals where some content used for training AI models similar to GPT-4 (which runs the paid version of ChatGPT) comes under license. In December, for example, OpenAI signed an agreement with German publisher Axel Springer (publisher of Politico and Business Insider) for access to its articles. Previously, OpenAI has struck deals with other organizations, including the Associated Press. Reportedly, OpenAI is also in licensing talks with CNN, Fox, and Time, among others.

In April 2023, Reddit founder and CEO Steve Huffman told The New York Times that it planned to charge AI companies for access to its almost two decades’ worth of human-generated content.

If the reported $60 million/year deal goes through, it’s quite possible that if you’ve ever posted on Reddit, some of that material may be used to train the next generation of AI models that create text, still pictures, and video. Even without the deal, experts have discovered in the past that Reddit has been a key source of training data for large language models and AI image generators.

While we don’t know if OpenAI is the company that signed the deal with Reddit, Bloomberg speculates that Reddit’s ability to tap into AI hype for additional revenue may boost the value of its IPO, which might be worth $5 billion. Despite drama last year, Bloomberg states that Reddit pulled in more than $800 million in revenue in 2023, growing about 20 percent over its 2022 numbers.

Advance Publications, which owns Ars Technica parent Condé Nast, is the largest shareholder of Reddit.

Reddit sells training data to unnamed AI company ahead of IPO Read More »

“so-violated”:-wyze-cameras-leak-footage-to-strangers-for-2nd-time-in-5-months

“So violated”: Wyze cameras leak footage to strangers for 2nd time in 5 months

cameras, Smart Home, Tech, wyze / /
Wyze's Cam V3 Pro indoor/outdoor smart camera mounted outside

Enlarge / Wyze’s Cam V3 Pro indoor/outdoor smart camera.

Wyze cameras experienced a glitch on Friday that gave 13,000 customers access to images and, in some cases, video, from Wyze cameras that didn’t belong to them. The company claims 99.75 percent of accounts weren’t affected, but for some, that revelation doesn’t eradicate feelings of “disgust” and concern.

Wyze claims that an outage on Friday left customers unable to view camera footage for hours. Wyze has blamed the outage on a problem with an undisclosed Amazon Web Services (AWS) partner but hasn’t provided details.

Monday morning, Wyze sent emails to customers, including those Wyze says weren’t affected, informing them that the outage led to 13,000 people being able to access data from strangers’ cameras, as reported by The Verge.

Per Wyze’s email:

We can now confirm that as cameras were coming back online, about 13,000 Wyze users received thumbnails from cameras that were not their own and 1,504 users tapped on them. Most taps enlarged the thumbnail, but in some cases an Event Video was able to be viewed. …

According to Wyze, while it was trying to bring cameras back online from Friday’s outage, users reported seeing thumbnails and Event Videos that weren’t from their own cameras. Wyze’s emails added:

The incident was caused by a third-party caching client library that was recently integrated into our system. This client library received unprecedented load conditions caused by devices coming back online all at once. As a result of increased demand, it mixed up device ID and user ID mapping and connected some data to incorrect accounts.

In response to customers reporting that they were viewing images from strangers’ cameras, Wyze said it blocked customers from using the Events tab, then made an additional verification layer required to access the Wyze app’s Event Video section. Wyze co-founder and CMO David Crosby also said Wyze logged out people who had used the Wyze app on Friday in order to reset tokens.

Wyze’s emails also said the company modified its system “to bypass caching for checks on user-device relationships until [it identifies] new client libraries that are thoroughly stress tested for extreme events” like the one that occurred on Friday.

“So violated”: Wyze cameras leak footage to strangers for 2nd time in 5 months Read More »

international-nest-aware-subscriptions-jump-in-price,-as-much-as-100%

International Nest Aware subscriptions jump in price, as much as 100%

Google, google nest, Tech / /

pricing pain —

Modern plans get a 25 percent increase, while older plans double in price.

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The indoor/outdoor, battery-powered (or wired) Google Nest Cam with battery.

Enlarge / The indoor/outdoor, battery-powered (or wired) Google Nest Cam with battery.

Google’s “Nest Aware” camera subscription is going through another round of price increases. This time it’s for international users. There’s no big announcement or anything, just a smattering of email screenshots from various countries on the Nest subreddit. 9to5Google was nice enough to hunt down a pile of the announcements.

Nest Aware is a monthly subscription fee for Google’s Nest cameras. Nest cameras exclusively store all their video in the cloud, and without the subscription, you aren’t allowed to record video 24/7. There are two sets of subscriptions to keep track of: the current generation subscription for modern cameras and the “first generation Nest Aware” subscription for older cameras. To give you an idea of what we’re dealing with, in the US, the current free tier only gets you three hours of “event” video—meaning video triggered by motion detection. Even the basic $8-a-month subscription doesn’t get you 24/7 recording—that’s still only 30 days of event video. The “Nest Aware Plus” subscription, at $15 a month in the US, gets you 10 days of 24/7 video recording.

The “first-generation” Nest Aware subscription, which is tied to earlier cameras and isn’t available for new customers anymore, is doubling in price in Canada. The basic tier of five days of 24/7 video is going from a yearly fee of CA$50 to CA$110 (the first-generation sub has 24/7 video on every tier). Ten days of video is jumping from CA$80 to CA$160, and 30 days is going from CA$110 to CA$220. These are the prices for a single camera; the first-generation subscription will have additional charges for additional cameras. The current Nest Aware subscription for modern cameras is getting jumps that look similar to the US, with Nest Aware Plus, the mid-tier, going from CA$16 to CA $20 per month, and presumably similar raises across the board.

Japan is seeing jumps, too, with annual Nest Aware for modern cameras going from 6,300 yen to 8,000 yen. Again, there’s no full list of price increases anywhere for every country; at the moment, we’re working from email screenshots, but it sounds like Google is rolling out similar price increases everywhere. The bill increases are happening in about a month, on March 25, 2024. The US already saw a 25–33 percent price increase in September, and it looks like, for the modern Nest Aware plan, the prices internationally are being brought in line with those increases. Users don’t seem too happy about the price increases, naturally.

Google’s austerity era, which CEO Sundar Pichai kicked off in the second half of 2022, has come with a wave of price increases across almost every Google subscription. YouTube Premium, YouTube Music, YouTube TV, Google Workspace, and Google Cloud storage all saw price increases. The one subscription that hasn’t seen a price jump is Google One, the consumer storage plan. Not that we’re trying to give Google any more ideas.

International Nest Aware subscriptions jump in price, as much as 100% Read More »

new-app-always-points-to-the-supermassive-black-hole-at-the-center-of-our-galaxy

New app always points to the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy

AI, astronomy, Biz & IT, chatgpt, chatgtp, Galactic Center, Galactic Compass, machine learning, Matt Webb, Space, Tech / /

the final frontier —

iPhone compass app made with AI assistance locates the heart of the Milky Way.

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A photo of Galactic Compass running on an iPhone.

Enlarge / A photo of Galactic Compass running on an iPhone.

Matt Webb / Getty Images

On Thursday, designer Matt Webb unveiled a new iPhone app called Galactic Compass, which always points to the center of the Milky Way galaxy—no matter where Earth is positioned on our journey through the stars. The app is free and available now on the App Store.

While using Galactic Compass, you set your iPhone on a level surface, and a big green arrow on the screen points the way to the Galactic Center, which is the rotational core of the spiral galaxy all of us live in. In that center is a supermassive black hole known as Sagittarius A*, a celestial body from which no matter or light can escape. (So, in a way, the app is telling us what we should avoid.)

But truthfully, the location of the galactic core at any given time isn’t exactly useful, practical knowledge—at least for people who aren’t James Tiberius Kirk in Star Trek V. But it may inspire a sense of awe about our place in the cosmos.

Screenshots of Galactic Compass in action, captured by Ars Technica in a secret location.

Enlarge / Screenshots of Galactic Compass in action, captured by Ars Technica in a secret location.

Benj Edwards / Getty Images

“It is astoundingly grounding to always have a feeling of the direction of the center of the galaxy,” Webb told Ars Technica. “Your perspective flips. To begin with, it feels arbitrary. The middle of the Milky Way seems to fly all over the sky, as the Earth turns and moves in its orbit.”

Webb’s journey to creating Galactic Compass began a decade ago as an offshoot of his love for casual astronomy. “About 10 years ago, I taught myself how to point to the center of the galaxy,” Webb said. “I lived in an apartment where I had a great view of the stars, so I was using augmented reality apps to identify them, and I gradually learned my way around the sky.”

While Webb initially used an astronomy app to help locate the Galactic Center, he eventually taught himself how to always find it. He described visualizing himself on the surface of the Earth as it spins and tilts, understanding the ecliptic as a line across the sky and recognizing the center of the galaxy as an invisible point moving predictably through the constellation Sagittarius, which lies on the ecliptic line. By visualizing Earth’s orbit over the year and determining his orientation in space, he was able to point in the right direction, refining his ability through daily practice and comparison with an augmented reality app.

With a little help from AI

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is thought to look similar to Andromeda (seen here) if you could see it from a distance. But since we're inside the galaxy, all we can see is the edge of the galactic plane.

Enlarge / Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is thought to look similar to Andromeda (seen here) if you could see it from a distance. But since we’re inside the galaxy, all we can see is the edge of the galactic plane.

Getty Images

In 2021, Webb imagined turning his ability into an app that would help take everyone on the same journey, showing a compass that points toward the galactic center instead of Earth’s magnetic north. “But I can’t write apps,” he said. “I’m a decent enough engineer, and an amateur designer, but I’ve never figured out native apps.”

That’s where ChatGPT comes in, transforming Webb’s vision into reality. With the AI assistant as his coding partner, Webb progressed step by step, crafting a simple app interface and integrating complex calculations for locating the galactic center (which involves calculating the user’s azimuth and altitude).

Still, coding with ChatGPT has its limitations. “ChatGPT is super smart, but it’s not embodied like a human, so it falls down on doing the 3D calculations,” he says. “I had to learn a lot about quaternions, which are a technique for combining 3D rotations, and even then, it’s not perfect. The app needs to be held flat to work simply because my math breaks down when the phone is upright! I’ll fix this in future versions,” Webb said.

Webb is no stranger to ChatGPT-powered creations that are more fun than practical. Last month, he launched a Kickstarter for an AI-rhyming poetry clock called the Poem/1. With his design studio, Acts Not Facts, Webb says he uses “whimsy and play to discover the possibilities in new technology.”

Whimsical or not, Webb insists that Galactic Compass can help us ponder our place in the vast universe, and he’s proud that it recently peaked at #87 in the Travel chart for the US App Store. In this case, though, it’s spaceship Earth that is traveling the galaxy while every living human comes along for the ride.

“Once you can follow it, you start to see the galactic center as the true fixed point, and we’re the ones whizzing and spinning. There it remains, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, Sagittarius A*, steady as a rock, eternal. We go about our days; it’s always there.”

New app always points to the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy Read More »

eu-accuses-tiktok-of-failing-to-stop-kids-pretending-to-be-adults

EU accuses TikTok of failing to stop kids pretending to be adults

child safety, default settings, Digital Services Act, DSA, European Commission, European Union, online child safety, Online Privacy, Policy, push notifications, Social Media, tiktok, Twitter, X / /

Getting TikTok’s priorities straight —

TikTok becomes the second platform suspected of Digital Services Act breaches.

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EU accuses TikTok of failing to stop kids pretending to be adults

The European Commission (EC) is concerned that TikTok isn’t doing enough to protect kids, alleging that the short-video app may be sending kids down rabbit holes of harmful content while making it easy for kids to pretend to be adults and avoid the protective content filters that do exist.

The allegations came Monday when the EC announced a formal investigation into how TikTok may be breaching the Digital Services Act (DSA) “in areas linked to the protection of minors, advertising transparency, data access for researchers, as well as the risk management of addictive design and harmful content.”

“We must spare no effort to protect our children,” Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for Internal Market, said in the press release, reiterating that the “protection of minors is a top enforcement priority for the DSA.”

This makes TikTok the second platform investigated for possible DSA breaches after X (aka Twitter) came under fire last December. Both are being scrutinized after submitting transparency reports in September that the EC said failed to satisfy the DSA’s strict standards on predictable things like not providing enough advertising transparency or data access for researchers.

But while X is additionally being investigated over alleged dark patterns and disinformation—following accusations last October that X wasn’t stopping the spread of Israel/Hamas disinformation—it’s TikTok’s young user base that appears to be the focus of the EC’s probe into its platform.

“As a platform that reaches millions of children and teenagers, TikTok must fully comply with the DSA and has a particular role to play in the protection of minors online,” Breton said. “We are launching this formal infringement proceeding today to ensure that proportionate action is taken to protect the physical and emotional well-being of young Europeans.”

Likely over the coming months, the EC will request more information from TikTok, picking apart its DSA transparency report. The probe could require interviews with TikTok staff or inspections of TikTok’s offices.

Upon concluding its investigation, the EC could require TikTok to take interim measures to fix any issues that are flagged. The Commission could also make a decision regarding non-compliance, potentially subjecting TikTok to fines of up to 6 percent of its global turnover.

An EC press officer, Thomas Regnier, told Ars that the Commission suspected that TikTok “has not diligently conducted” risk assessments to properly maintain mitigation efforts protecting “the physical and mental well-being of their users, and the rights of the child.”

In particular, its algorithm may risk “stimulating addictive behavior,” and its recommender systems “might drag its users, in particular minors and vulnerable users, into a so-called ‘rabbit hole’ of repetitive harmful content,” Regnier told Ars. Further, TikTok’s age verification system may be subpar, with the EU alleging that TikTok perhaps “failed to diligently assess the risk of 13-17-year-olds pretending to be adults when accessing TikTok,” Regnier said.

To better protect TikTok’s young users, the EU’s investigation could force TikTok to update its age-verification system and overhaul its default privacy, safety, and security settings for minors.

“In particular, the Commission suspects that the default settings of TikTok’s recommender systems do not ensure a high level of privacy, security, and safety of minors,” Regnier said. “The Commission also suspects that the default privacy settings that TikTok has for 16-17-year-olds are not the highest by default, which would not be compliant with the DSA, and that push notifications are, by default, not switched off for minors, which could negatively impact children’s safety.”

TikTok could avoid steep fines by committing to remedies recommended by the EC at the conclusion of its investigation.

Regnier told Ars that the EC does not comment on ongoing investigations, but its probe into X has spanned three months so far. Because the DSA does not provide any deadlines that may speed up these kinds of enforcement proceedings, ultimately, the duration of both investigations will depend on how much “the company concerned cooperates,” the EU’s press release said.

A TikTok spokesperson told Ars that TikTok “would continue to work with experts and the industry to keep young people on its platform safe,” confirming that the company “looked forward to explaining this work in detail to the European Commission.”

“TikTok has pioneered features and settings to protect teens and keep under-13s off the platform, issues the whole industry is grappling with,” TikTok’s spokesperson said.

All online platforms are now required to comply with the DSA, but enforcement on TikTok began near the end of July 2023. A TikTok press release last August promised that the platform would be “embracing” the DSA. But in its transparency report, submitted the next month, TikTok acknowledged that the report only covered “one month of metrics” and may not satisfy DSA standards.

“We still have more work to do,” TikTok’s report said, promising that “we are working hard to address these points ahead of our next DSA transparency report.”

EU accuses TikTok of failing to stop kids pretending to be adults Read More »

reports:-switch-successor-is-now-set-for-early-2025

Reports: Switch successor is now set for early 2025

gaming, Nintendo, Switch, switch 2 / /

Waiting is the hardest part —

Nintendo’s publishing partners were reportedly told of new plans last week.

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I took this photo nearly seven years ago, and I'm still waiting for a new game console from Nintendo.

Enlarge / I took this photo nearly seven years ago, and I’m still waiting for a new game console from Nintendo.

Throughout 2023, we saw multiple credible reports that Nintendo was planning to release its long-awaited Switch follow-up sometime in 2024. Now, a new flurry of new reports say third-party developers have recently been advised that Nintendo’s next console is aiming for an early 2025 release.

Brazilian journalist Pedro Henrique Lutti Lippe was among the first to report on the new planned release window on Friday, and Video Games Chronicle expanded on that report the same day. The outlet cited its own sources in reporting that “third-party game companies were recently briefed on an internal delay in Nintendo’s next-gen launch timing, from late 2024 to early the following year.”

By late Friday, those reports had been corroborated by Eurogamer, which said the launch would slip past the 2024 calendar year “but still [be] within the coming financial year” (ending in March 2025). Over the weekend, Bloomberg cited unnamed “people with knowledge of the matter” in reporting that some publishers have been told “not to expect the console until March 2025 at the earliest.”

A quiet 2024?

One unnamed publishing source told Video Games Chronicle that the push for a 2025 hardware launch was “so that Nintendo could prepare stronger first-party software for the [upcoming] console.” That could be bad news for this year’s crop of upcoming Switch software, as Nintendo and other developers might adapt current Switch projects for the upcoming hardware instead. Thus far, Nintendo has only announced three first-party Switch titles that it plans to release this year, a list that includes two HD remakes of games from earlier console generations (though additional game announcements could come at any point).

“Nintendo is likely looking at a pretty dry pipeline this year,” Japanese industry analyst Serkan Toto told Bloomberg. “The company will still try to keep the blockbusters for the next console, so 2024 might see more remakes of old Nintendo hits. In any case, 2024 will be a lot tougher for Nintendo without a new device.”

Yet Nintendo still seems bullish about the current Switch, which was approaching 140 million cumulative sales through the end of 2023 despite never dropping its initial $300 asking price. Earlier this month, Nintendo raised its official expectations for hardware sales in the current fiscal year (which ends next month) from 15 to 15.5 million units.

An early 2025 launch for Nintendo’s next console would mark roughly eight years since the Switch’s March 2017 launch. That would be a historically long gap between home consoles for Nintendo, which has launched a new TV-based console every five or six years since the NES first hit North America in the mid-’80s. The Switch hit the market just four and a half years after the ill-fated Wii U, which failed to capture even a fraction of the Wii’s success.

An eight-year gap between consoles wouldn’t be unprecedented in the history of Nintendo portable hardware, though. Nintendo waited over nine years after the Game Boy’s 1989 release before unleashing the Game Boy Color on the market.

Shares in Nintendo on the Japanese stock market dropped nearly 6 percent in Monday trading after rising to their highest price point since the summer of 2021. Nintendo has not publicly commented on any plans for new gaming hardware, though the company has offered vague hints regarding its plans for backward compatibility going forward.

Reports: Switch successor is now set for early 2025 Read More »

webb-telescope-spots-hints-that-eris,-makemake-are-geologically-active

Webb telescope spots hints that Eris, Makemake are geologically active

astronomy, dwarf planet, Eris, geology, Kuiper belt, Makemake, planetary science, Science / /
Image of two small planets, one more reddish, the second very white.

Enlarge / Artist’s conceptions of what the surfaces of two dwarf planets might look like.

Active geology—and the large-scale chemistry it can drive—requires significant amounts of heat. Dwarf planets near the far edges of the Solar System, like Pluto and other Kuiper Belt objects, formed from frigid, icy materials and have generally never transited close enough to the Sun to warm up considerably. Any heat left over from their formation was likely long since lost to space.

Yet Pluto turned out to be a world rich in geological features, some of which implied ongoing resurfacing of the dwarf planet’s surface. Last week, researchers reported that the same might be true for other dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt. Indications come thanks to the capabilities of the Webb telescope, which was able to resolve differences in the hydrogen isotopes found on the chemicals that populate the surface of Eris and Makemake.

Cold and distant

Kuiper Belt objects are natives of the distant Solar System, forming far enough from the warmth of the Sun that many materials that are gasses in the inner planets—things like nitrogen, methane, and carbon dioxide—are solid ices. Many of these bodies formed far enough from the gravitational influence of the eight major planets that they have never made a trip into the warmer inner Solar System. In addition, because there was much less material that far from the Sun, most of the bodies are quite small.

While they would have started off hot due to the process by which they formed, their small size means a large surface-to-volume ratio, allowing internal heat to radiate out to space relatively quickly. Since then, any heat has come from rare collision events or the decay of radioactive isotopes.

Yet New Horizons’ visit to Pluto made it clear that it doesn’t take much heat to drive active geology, although seasonal changes in sunlight are likely to account for some of its features. Sunlight is less likely to be an influence for worlds like Makemake, which orbits at a distance one and a half times Pluto’s closest approach to the Sun. Eris, which is nearly as large as Pluto, orbits at over twice Pluto’s closest approach.

Sending a mission to either of these planets would take decades, and none are in development at the moment, so we can’t know what their surfaces look like. But that doesn’t mean we know nothing about them. And the James Webb Space Telescope has added to what we know considerably.

The Webb was used to image sunlight reflected off these objects, obtaining its infrared spectrum—the amount of light reflected at different wavelengths. The spectrum is influenced by the chemical composition of the dwarf planets’ surfaces. Certain chemicals can absorb specific wavelengths of infrared light, ensuring they don’t get reflected. By noting where the spectrum dips, it’s possible to figure out which chemicals are present.

Some of that work has already been done. But Webb is able to image parts of the spectrum that were inaccessible earlier, and its instruments are even able to identify different isotopes of the atoms composing each chemical. For example, some molecules of methane (CH4) will, at random, have one of their hydrogen atoms swapped out for its heavier isotope, deuterium, forming CH3D. These isotopes can potentially act as tracers, telling us things about where the chemicals originally came from.

Webb telescope spots hints that Eris, Makemake are geologically active Read More »

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Report: Apple is about to be fined €500 million by the EU over music streaming

antitrust, Apple, Apple Music, EU, Policy, Spotify, streaming, syndication / /

Competition concerns —

EC accuses Apple of abusing its market position after complaint by Spotify.

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Report: Apple is about to be fined €500 million by the EU over music streaming

Brussels is to impose its first-ever fine on tech giant Apple for allegedly breaking EU law over access to its music streaming services, according to five people with direct knowledge of the long-running investigation.

The fine, which is in the region of €500 million and is expected to be announced early next month, is the culmination of a European Commission antitrust probe into whether Apple has used its own platform to favor its services over those of competitors.

The probe is investigating whether Apple blocked apps from informing iPhone users of cheaper alternatives to access music subscriptions outside the App Store. It was launched after music-streaming app Spotify made a formal complaint to regulators in 2019.

The Commission will say Apple’s actions are illegal and go against the bloc’s rules that enforce competition in the single market, the people familiar with the case told the Financial Times. It will ban Apple’s practice of blocking music services from letting users outside its App Store switch to cheaper alternatives.

Brussels will accuse Apple of abusing its powerful position and imposing anti-competitive trading practices on rivals, the people said, adding that the EU would say the tech giant’s terms were “unfair trading conditions.”

It is one of the most significant financial penalties levied by the EU on Big Tech companies. A series of fines against Google levied over several years and amounting to about 8 billion euros are being contested in court.

Apple has never previously been fined for antitrust infringements by Brussels, but the company was hit in 2020 with a 1.1 billion-euro fine in France for alleged anti-competitive behavior. The penalty was revised down to 372 million euros after an appeal.

The EU’s action against Apple will reignite the war between Brussels and Big Tech at a time when companies are being forced to show how they are complying with landmark new rules aimed at opening competition and allowing small tech rivals to thrive.

Companies that are defined as gatekeepers, including Apple, Amazon, and Google, need to fully comply with these rules under the Digital Markets Act by early next month.

The act requires these tech giants to comply with more stringent rules and will force them to allow rivals to share information about their services.

There are concerns that the rules are not enabling competition as fast as some had hoped, although Brussels has insisted that changes require time.

Brussels formally charged Apple in the anti-competitive probe in 2021. The commission narrowed the scope of the investigation last year and abandoned a charge of pushing developers to use its own in-app payment system.

Apple last month announced changes to its iOS mobile software, App Store, and Safari browser in efforts to appease Brussels after long resisting such steps. But Spotify said at the time that Apple’s compliance was a “complete and total farce.”

Apple responded by saying that “the changes we’re sharing for apps in the European Union give developers choice—with new options to distribute iOS apps and process payments.”

In a separate antitrust case, Brussels is consulting with Apple’s rivals over the tech giant’s concessions to appease worries that it is blocking financial groups from its Apple Pay mobile system.

The timing of the Commission’s announcement has not yet been fixed, but it will not change the direction of the antitrust investigation, the people with knowledge of the situation said.

Apple, which can appeal to the EU courts, declined to comment on the forthcoming ruling but pointed to a statement a year ago when it said it was “pleased” the Commission had narrowed the charges and said it would address concerns while promoting competition.

It added: “The App Store has helped Spotify become the top music streaming service across Europe and we hope the European Commission will end its pursuit of a complaint that has no merit.”

The Commission—the executive body of the EU—declined to comment.

© 2024 The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved. Not to be redistributed, copied, or modified in any way.

Report: Apple is about to be fined €500 million by the EU over music streaming Read More »

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Building durable basketball players from the ground up (way up)

Science / /

he got game (and a good stretching regimen) —

Can new scientific insights help the newest crop of NBA stars stay healthy?

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Victor Wembanyama of the San Antonio Spurs drives on Moritz Wagner of the Orlando Magic

Enlarge / Victor Wembanyama of the San Antonio Spurs drives on Moritz Wagner of the Orlando Magic during a game on February 8 in Orlando, Florida.

The NBA’s tallest rookie is 7 feet 4 inches tall with an 8-foot wingspan, but last year, a series of video clips highlighted his surprisingly nimble, and often shoeless, feet. In one clip, he’s pressing knees and ankles together while wiggling his toes and hopping forward. In another, he’s bear crawling along the baseline. And in yet another, his right heel and left toes are gliding in opposite directions, gym music pounding in the background, as he eases into the splits.

Victor Wembanyama (pronounced wem-ben-YAH-muh), was selected first in last June’s NBA draft at the age of 19. By then, he had played four years of professional basketball in his native France. With a preternatural blend of size, athleticism, and skill, Wembanyama is routinely described as a generational talent. And if the toe-exercise videos are any indication, his trainers appear determined to protect that talent: Sports medicine experts say that long limbs and feet—Wembanyama’s shoe size is 20.5—confer potential physical vulnerabilities.

Leg, arm, and foot bones all function like levers, and the longer they are, the more force is needed to stabilize them. Tall athletes may find it harder to control their movement as they land from a jump or quickly shift direction. Seven-footers, of course, aren’t the only athletes who get hurt while playing. Across the NBA, injuries are on the rise, with knee, ankle, and foot problems leading the way. Anecdotally, physicians and trainers also report seeing children, some as young as 10 years old, with severe sports-related injuries and chronic wear-and-tear that was once seen mainly in adults.

All of this has fueled a small but growing body of scientific research into basketball and other sports-related injuries. In biomechanics laboratories, experts are creating detailed assessments of how players move on the court. Epidemiologists are poring over reams of data. And NBA teams have been experimenting with new approaches for player safety, including an emphasis on load management, which seeks to optimize an athlete’s ratio of stress to rest.

Much of this science is still unsettled, and there is no foolproof method for injury prevention. But experts who spoke with Undark said there is a solid evidence base for specific warm-up programs, stretches, and exercises that reduce injuries. The findings have not been fully disseminated and implemented. Yet, there’s clearly interest in the topic.

The shoes of Victor Wembanyama, size 20.5, before a game in January. Across the NBA, injuries are on the rise, with knee, ankle, and foot problems leading the way. And experts say long limbs and feet confer potential physical vulnerabilities.

Enlarge / The shoes of Victor Wembanyama, size 20.5, before a game in January. Across the NBA, injuries are on the rise, with knee, ankle, and foot problems leading the way. And experts say long limbs and feet confer potential physical vulnerabilities.

Wembanyama’s barefoot calisthenics have inspired explanatory videos with titles like “Victor Wembanyama’s Weird Toe Workout EXPLAINED!” as well as comments and replies asserting that such exercises could have benefitted previous generations of tall players. “This is smart they’re trying to keep his feet healthy,” wrote a New York Knicks superfan on X, formerly known as Twitter. “[Too] many big men have gone down with foot injuries.”

Danny Seidman, a Michigan-based sports medicine physician (and self-described NBA fanatic), said he’s glad the videos went viral. They got people talking about injury prevention, which has come a long way over the past few decades. “It’s sad for me to see previous athletes in their 50s and 60s who are limping around or hunched over,” said Seidman. “We think we can avoid those sorts of things now.”

Building durable basketball players from the ground up (way up) Read More »

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Fake grass, real injuries? Dissecting the NFL’s artificial turf debate

american football, astroturf, Features, Football, nfl, Science, sports injuries, Super Bowl, super bowl lviii / /
Fake grass, real injuries? Dissecting the NFL’s artificial turf debate

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Super Bowl LVIII will be played on a natural grass field in an indoor stadium in Las Vegas on February 11, 2024. How do you keep a grass field vibrant in such a hostile growing environment like the Nevada desert?

The answer: You don’t. By the end of the regular NFL season, paint was used to camouflage the reality that only a few scant patches of grass remained in Allegiant Stadium, home to the Las Vegas Raiders. Immediately after the Raiders’ last game on January 7, 2024, the field crew ripped up the remaining grass, installed California-grown sod over three days, and began the tedious process of keeping the grass alive long enough for the big game.

Herculean efforts to prepare a vibrant natural grass field for 2024’s Super Bowl LVIII are especially questionable when one realizes that Allegiant Stadium also has an artificial turf playing surface available (used by UNLV Football). Why don’t teams in hostile environments switch to more robust artificial turf, which is designed to overcome the many limitations of natural grass fields?

The answer lies in a debate over the safety of synthetic playing surfaces. While artificial turf manufacturers tout research that their products result in fewer injuries, the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) claims it raises injury risk and is advocating for its use to be abolished in the NFL. Let’s explore some key arguments of this debate, which continues to grab headlines with each high-profile NFL injury.

Super Bowl gridirons

Pressure for NFL field managers is especially high following the embarrassingly poor field conditions of last year’s Super Bowl. Super Bowl LVII took place at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona—another natural grass field in the desert (with a retractable roof, closed at night to protect the grass). Despite two years of preparation and an $800,000 investment, the grass field was a disaster, as players struggled to find footing on its slippery surface.

Veteran NFL groundskeeper George Toma attributed the mess to woefully improper field preparation. Players also complained about the slipping issue the previous time the Super Bowl was hosted at the natural grass field in State Farm Stadium eight years prior for Super Bowl XLIX in 2015. That year, the poor traction was blamed on the green paint used on the grass.

For perspective, some of the best sports field managers in the nation oversee field preparations for the Super Bowl. However, maintaining natural grass in desert conditions is so unfavorable (especially when the grass is sometimes indoors) that even the best can mess it up.

None of these issues existed when the Super Bowl was last played on artificial turf. Super Bowl LVI in 2022 was held at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, home to both the Los Angeles Rams and Chargers. Not only did the artificial turf stand up to double the workload during the regular season (hosting home games for the LA Rams and the LA Chargers), but it also withstood a busy playoff season. The artificial turf field at SoFi Stadium hosted NFL games through the regular season and right up to the last playoff game when the LA Rams beat the San Francisco 49ers. Two weeks later, the Rams ended up winning Super Bowl LVI on the very same surface.

While turf avoids the durability issues seen with grass surfaces, players have widespread concerns about its safety—a recent poll by the NFLPA reported 92 percent of players favored grass.

Fake grass, real injuries? Dissecting the NFL’s artificial turf debate Read More »