Mobile carriers around the world are busy plowing resources into 5G networks that could vastly increase connection speeds. That’s not going to happen overnight, though. Some 5G networks are actually . A small but vocal minority claims the rush to 5G had more serious consequences. They believe 5G is damaging to human health and have gone so far as to wear special accessories to ward off the 5G boogeyman. According to Dutch regulators, many of the products are themselves radioactive. It almost makes you miss the days when snake oil was just a placebo. The anxiety over wireless signals is not new — people crusaded against Wi-Fi when it began to appear, and many still believe talking on a cell phone can cause brain tumors.
Far, far away from the presumably toasty place you’re reading this, on the Walgreen Coast of Antarctica, there’s a massive chunk of ice known as the Thwaites Glacier. It’s the widest glacier in the world, and scientists are worried that a large volume of its ice could end up in the oceans very soon. This has earned Thwaites a nickname: Doomsday Glacier. Researchers from the American Geophysical Union (AGU) warned in a press briefing this past week that near-term changes in the Doomsday Glacier . The Thwaites Glacier has been receding for some time, but we’ve been spared from the worst of the effects by a handy ice shelf that blocks most of the ice from escaping into the surrounding water.
Leave it to the criminal underworld to come up with new and clever uses for cutting-edge technology. News reports have begun to trickle in that car thieves are using Apple’s newest tracking device to locate cars they want to steal, so they can find them later and pull off a heist. The original reports of this type of activity emanated from Canada, but the practice has now made its way stateside, with the latest account coming from a town just outside of Detroit, Michigan. According to , a man named John Nelson purchased a brand new and very swanky Dodge Charger and drove it to a shopping mall a few days later.
Former AMD chief and current Intel graphics guru, Raja Koduri, has written a puff piece on the Intel PR site about the company’s plans for creating the “plumbing” of the Metaverse, which includes some interesting projections for the future. Since it’s Intel PR the piece naturally leans in the direction of how Intel can power all kinds of amusing interactions, and has been doing so for a long time now (no argument there), but what the article from Koduri makes clear is the Metaverse as demonstrated by Mark Zuckerberg recently is both a huge deal, and a very, very long way from being anywhere close to reality.
Sorry to our fellow hopeful space nerds, but we have to burst everyone’s warp bubble. Despite recent reports that scientists have “accidentally created a warp bubble,” it looks like warp speed is still a few baby steps away. But all hope is not lost: a group of scientists led by Dr. Harold G. “Sunny” White has proposed a structure that could actually be built in the real world and used to study the Casimir effect. It might be a baby step, but it’s a real one. The Casimir effect, for the uninitiated, is a very small attractive force that exists between two uncharged but conductive parallel plates that are held very, very close together.
(Photo: Desiree Stover/NASA)Last month, we the James Webb Space Telescope’s new December 22 launch date would constitute the last of its delays. Our wish wasn’t granted—the eagerly-awaited launch has now been postponed to December 24. “The James Webb Space Telescope team is working a communication issue between the observatory and the launch vehicle system. This will delay the launch date to no earlier than Friday, Dec. 24,” NASA said in a brief earlier this week. Webb has faced numerous delays since its launch date in 2018, due in part to hiccups and a handful of technical challenges.
In the space of a mere two weeks, in-game NFTs have suddenly become a lightning rod in the gaming industry. Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are in-game items with blockchain-verified ownership, which is a novel concept in the gaming world. However, both game developers and gamers are already pushing back on the concept, despite its nascent status. Many appear to see NFTs as simply a more pernicious version of loot boxes and micro transactions, with the argument being it is just a way for developers to coax more money from their customers, instead of something that actually makes games more immersive or enjoyable.
(Photo: LG)LG has unveiled a new TV, and it’s one you’ll never need to wall-mount. The StanbyME, a 27-inch display on a wheeled stand, can be rolled into any room in the house without even needing to be unplugged. As funky as the StanbyME’s appears at first glance, its unexpected design may make it more practical than its competitors. Its built-in battery makes the power cable optional, while its wheels—concealed under the base of its stand—lend the unit mobility. Users can not only adjust the stand’s height, but can also swivel and rotate the screen itself to customize the viewing experience based on the user’s needs.
Apple raised many eyebrows earlier this year when it announced a plan to combat child sexual abuse with a multi-pronged approach of several new technologies that would be implemented in iOS 15. The most controversial was a program that would scan users’ iCloud libraries for CSAM, which stands for Child Sexual Abuse Material. With the rollout of iOS 15.2 this week, Apple did implement one of these anticipated features — the ability to detect nude photos in the children’s version of Messages — but the aforementioned scanning technology was notably absent. As of today, it appears all references to the image scanning part of Apple’s plan have been removed from its website, leading people to wonder if Apple has scuttled the technology for good due to the fierce backlash.
