The sad tale of a US resident who fell ill while traveling abroad has prompted an ominous warning from health experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—that is, that the most horrifying, highly drug-resistant infections known to health experts tend to travel in packs.
The patient who prompted the warning was traveling in Kenya in the late summer of 2018 when a cerebral hemorrhage struck. The brain bleed landed the traveler in a hospital there for a month, during which time doctors performed a variety of procedures. Those included placing a feeding tube and inserting a breathing tube into the neck. The patient encountered several complications during the treatments, including sepsis, pneumonia, and a urinary tract infection, requiring courses of potent antibiotic and anti-fungal medications.
In September, the severely ill patient was medically evacuated to an acute-care hospital in Maryland. There, doctors found that the patient had become infected with several of the most dreaded multi-drug-resistant bacteria. These include oxacillinase-48-like-producing carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae and the New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase-producing carbapenem-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Both germs are notoriously difficult to treat and can be deadly.
They lead to slightly less watery clouds, which means less cooling than suspected.
Enlarge/ Taken on August 2, 2018, by an astronaut on the International Space Station, this image shows a pyrocumulus cloud rising from the Ferguson fire near Yosemite National Park. (credit: NASA / Flickr)
While humans have been enthusiastically overheating our planet for the last couple of centuries, other forms of our pollution have been quietly offsetting a bit of the damage, helping to cool the climate by affecting cloud formation.
But the extent of the cooling provided by aerosols isn't thoroughly understood, and getting an accurate picture of it is crucial for accurate models of climate change. A paper in Nature this week uses a vast database of cloud data to show that aerosol particles may not lead to as much cooling as we thought.
Aerosols cool the planet, but how much?
Aerosols are tiny atmospheric particles of sea spray, smoke, dust, and other substances. They can come from natural sources like sandstorms, as well as from human activities like fossil fuel combustion.
For extremists, the Internet’s craziest conspiracies inspire deadly violence.
Enlarge/ The seal of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) hangs on a wall before a news conference at the FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, on Thursday, June 14, 2018. (credit: Al Drago/Bloomberg | Getty)
The modern era of the Internet has given us a seemingly never-ending bounty of farfetched conspiracy theories. Some of the loudest of those fringe movements have become pervasive enough and serious enough to qualify as domestic terror threats, the FBI says.
The memo, dated May 30, describes "anti-government, identity-based, and fringe political conspiracy theories" as likely to motivate extremists "to commit criminal or violent activity."
Windows 10 includes some troubleshooting tools that allow you remove a problematic Windows update, attempt to reset your PC (while keeping or wiping your files) if you run into more serious problems. But if you need to completely reinstall Windows for …
Windows 10 includes some troubleshooting tools that allow you remove a problematic Windows update, attempt to reset your PC (while keeping or wiping your files) if you run into more serious problems. But if you need to completely reinstall Windows for some reason, you typically need to create installation media by preparing a USB flash […]
Cisco is paying $8.6 million to settle claims that it sold a video-surveillance product the company knew made federal and state agencies vulnerable to serious hacking attacks. This is believed to be the first time a company has made a payout under a federal whistleblower lawsuit alleging failure to have adequate security protections.
The settlement stems from a Video Surveillance Manager package Cisco sold, starting more than a decade ago, to a raft of government agencies. These agencies include the Department of Homeland Security, the Secret Service, the Department of Defense Biometrics Taskforce, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, NASA, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Marine Corps. Known as VSM, the surveillance package was also used by government agencies in at least 15 states, including New York and California.
A 2011 lawsuit unsealed on Wednesday alleged that Cisco knowingly sold VSM to customers even after learning of a critical vulnerability. This vulnerability allowed hackers to spy on video footage in real time, turn cameras on or off, delete footage, and tamper with locks and other physical security systems connected on the same network. The lawsuit was filed under the False Claims Act in the US District Court for the Western District of New York. The act allows individuals with inside knowledge to bring suits on behalf of the government when they believe a contractor is committing fraud.
A California Federal Court ordered the now-defunct IPTV service SET TV to pay $7.6 million in piracy damages. In addition, the company is forbidden from operating a similar service in the future. The default judgment was issued in favor of several major Hollywood studios, Amazon, and Netflix, which filed the lawsuit last year.
Last year the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), an anti-piracy partnership forged between Hollywood studios, Netflix, Amazon, and others, sued Florida-based SET Broadcast, LLC.
At the time, the company offered a popular software-based IPTV service and also sold pre-loaded set-top boxes.
While it was marketed as a legal service, according to ACE members SET TV’s software was little more than a pirate tool, allowing buyers to stream copyright-infringing content.
“Defendants market and sell subscriptions to ‘Setvnow,’ a software application that Defendants urge their customers to use as a tool for the mass infringement of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted motion pictures and television shows,” the complaint read.
Initially, SET TV hired an attorney who informed the court that it had stopped offering its service and subscriptions. At the same time, it denied the copyright infringement allegations. After this initial response, however, things went quiet.
SET TV stopped responding, even to requests for payments from its own lawyer, who eventually withdrew from the case. This lack of progress eventually prompted the copyright holders to request a default judgment.
According to Netflix, Amazon and the Hollywood studios, SET TV is guilty of willful copyright infringement. The service caused their entire business model “immense damage” and to compensate these losses, they requested the maximum statutory damages for a total of 51 works.
After a careful review of the paperwork, US District Judge Michael Fitzgerald sided with the copyright holders.
In a default judgment released this week, the court orders SET TV to pay $7,650,000. This reflects the maximum statutory damages of $150,000 for each of the 51 works that were infringed by the defunct IPTV provider.
from the judgment
The Judge notes that awarding the maximum amount of damages is appropriate in this case, as the 51 works are just a small fraction of the actual number works that were infringed.
“Thus, the actual damages in this case would likely be astronomically higher than the measure provided by the maximum statutory damages for the furnished representative works,” Judge Fitzgerald writes.
In addition to the damages, the Court also issued a permanent injunction to prevent any future copyright infringement. Among other things, SET TV is prohibited from operating its Settv now service, as well as any website, system, software, or service that is substantially similar.
Karen Thorland, Senior Vice President & Deputy General Counsel at the MPAA, which is also part of ACE, is happy with the outcome.
“SetTVNow and other piracy outfits threaten millions of creators, damage economic growth, and hurt consumers,” Thorland says.
“The victory over SetTVNow is a great step forward to reducing the piracy of movies and television shows, including the theft of live TV. It also continues ACE’s legal and operational victories, which continue to protect the legitimate market for creative content,” she adds.
Whether SET TV, which is incorporated as Set Broadcast LLC, can pay the full damages is unknown. The company previously reached a settlement with Dish last November, agreeing to pay more than $90 million in damages. Considering this, it’s doubtful that there is much money left.
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A copy of the default judgment against Set Broadcast LLC is available here (pdf).
Over the past three years, Microsoft has been relatively quiet about growing Mixer, the game-streaming site it acquired in 2016. All that changed on Thursday when the site announced a move that might finally turn the tide in its direction: the site's first major talent acquisition.
Effective immediately, Tyler "Ninja" Blevins—arguably the most "household" name in the game-streaming universe—will stream his gameplay of popular shooters like Fortniteexclusively on Mixer. That means Blevins has left the West's largest game-streaming service, Amazon's Twitch.tv, after more than eight years on that site.
While at Twitch, Blevins racked up some of the site's biggest simultaneous viewership numbers. That includes an explosion of activity after he hosted a surprise streaming session in March 2018 with musicians such as hip-hop phenom Drake. His Twitch run ends with a "follower" count of over 14 million, along with a continued run in the site's top-20 ranks in terms of simultaneous viewers and number of viewer hours accrued. However, Ninja's prior reign as Twitch's number-one streamer has faded in recent months, all while he continues to rack up endorsement deals and promote a series of upcoming books.
Greetings, Arsians! The Dealmaster is back with more deals to share today. Topping our list this time is our favorite Thunderbolt 3 dock, which is discounted on Apple's online store. Now you can get the CalDigit TS3 Plus for just $249.95, which is $60 less than its normal price of $310. Apple has had the TS3 Plus dock for $250 for a few weeks now, but it remains the lowest price we've seen on this versatile and powerful docking station. It's currently our favorite Thunderbolt 3 dock for many reasons: we love its unassuming yet professional metal design, its 15-port array, its 85W power delivery, and its fast performance.
If you have a PC that primarily uses USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 ports for connectivity, chances are that you have accessories and peripherals that aren't compatible thanks to their older connections. CalDigit's dock fixes that problem by giving you basically any port you need—it has multiple Thunderbolt 3, USB-C, and USB-A ports, as well as a DisplayPort, an SD card reader, and various audio in and out ports. It can also support two external 4K displays running at 60Hz, or one 5K display running at 60Hz.
While $250 may still seem steep for a dock, most other Thunderbolt 3 docks that are actually worth buying are around that price as well. To put it in perspective, our runner-up Thunderbolt 3 dock from Cable Matters typically costs $239. If you're willing to spend $250 on a dock like this, we recommend snagging CalDigit's TS3 Plus while Apple has it at this low price.
The Federal Communications Commission voted today to collect more accurate data about which parts of the US have broadband and which parts lack high-speed connectivity. From now on, home Internet providers will have to give the FCC geospatial maps of where they provide service instead of merely reporting which census blocks they offer service in.
The FCC's current broadband mapping system has serious limitations. The Form 477 data-collection program that requires ISPs to report census-block coverage lets an ISP count an entire census block as served even if it can serve just one home in the block. There are millions of census blocks across the US, and each one generally contains between 600 and 3,000 people.
Perhaps even worse, ISPs can count a census block as served in some cases where they don't provide any broadband in the block. That's because the FCC tells ISPs to report where they could offer service "without an extraordinary commitment of resources." An ISP could thus count a census block as served if it's near its network facilities, but in practice ISPs have charged homeowners tens of thousands of dollars for line extensions.
But oval races like the Indy 500 will probably do without.
Enlarge/ The #7 Honda IndyCar of Marcus Ericsson races on the track during the IndyCar race at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach in 2019. (credit: Brian Cleary | Getty Images)
I can't tell you who's going to win the 2022 IndyCar championship. I can't tell you which team they'll be driving for. But I can tell you that they'll do it with hybrid power. On Thursday morning, IndyCar together with Honda and Chevrolet (who supply the sport with engines) announced that the next iteration of its race car will boast a hybrid system to go with new turbocharged V6 engines. The series is aiming for a combined output of around 900hp (670kW) for the next-generation open-wheel cars, with an electric motor-generator unit contributing about 50hp (37kW) to the party.
"It's an exciting time for IndyCar with the forthcoming evolution of the cars and innovations like the hybrid powertrain being incorporated into the new engine," IndyCar President Jay Frye said. “As we move toward the future, we will remain true to our racing roots of being fast, loud and authentic, and simultaneously have the ability to add hybrid technology that is an important element for the series and our engine manufacturers.”
IndyCar says this will consist of a multiphase motor-generator unit, an inverter, and an electrical storage system. A similar move is already in store for the next generation of IMSA prototypes, which will also be introduced in 2022. However, unlike in Formula 1 or the World Endurance Championship, every team will use the same components to help control costs in these instances. This does somewhat undermine arguments about technology transfer and road-relevance, although that's not really the preserve of open-wheel racing in the first place.
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