Month: March 2022

Enlarge / The US Food and Drug Administration in Silver Spring, Maryland. (credit: Getty | Xinhua News Agency)

Vaccine-makers Moderna and Pfizer have now both submitted requests for the US Food and Drug Administration to authorize fourth doses—second boosters—of their COVID-19 vaccines.

Pfizer, along with vaccine partner BioNTech, announced Tuesday that they had asked the FDA to authorize fourth doses for adults age 65 and above. The move followed days of Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla saying in press interviews that a fourth shot is "necessary" for everyone.

Late Thursday, Moderna announced that it, too, had asked the FDA to authorize fourth doses—for all adults. Moderna addressed the broader request in its announcement, saying it’s intended to "provide flexibility" for the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to decide for themselves who should get a fourth dose—whether it's specific age groups and/or groups with higher risks of disease.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | fotograzia)

Minnesota state lawmakers are trying to prohibit social media platforms from using algorithms to recommend content to anyone under age 18. The bill was approved Tuesday by the House Commerce Finance and Policy Committee in a 15-1 vote. The potential state law goes next to the House Judiciary Finance and Civil Law Committee, which has put it on the docket for a hearing on March 22.

The algorithm ban applies to platforms with at least 1 million account holders and says those companies would be "prohibited from using a social media algorithm to target user-created content at an account holder under the age of 18." There are exemptions for content created by federal, state, or local governments and by public or private schools.

"This bill prohibits a social media platform like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp, TikTok, and others, from using algorithms to target children with specific types of content," the bill summary says. "The bill would require anyone operating a social media platform with more than one million users to require that algorithm functions be turned off for accounts owned by anyone under the age of 18." Social media companies would be "liable for damages and a civil penalty of $1,000 for each violation."

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

The developer of a popular open source package has been caught adding malicious code to that package, which wiped files from computers located in Russia and Belarus, in a protest that has enraged many users and raised concerns about the safety of free and open source software.

The application, node.ipc, adds remote Inter Process Communication and neural networking capabilities to other open source code libraries. As a dependency, node.ipc is automatically downloaded and incorporated into other libraries, including ones like Vue.js CLI, which has more than 1 million weekly downloads.

A deliberate and dangerous act

Two weeks ago, the node.ipc author pushed a new version of the library that sabotaged computers located in Russia and Belarus, the countries invading Ukraine and providing support for the invasion, respectively. The new release added a function that checked the IP address of developers who used the node.ipc in their own projects. When an IP address geolocated to either Russia or Belarus, the new version wiped files from the machine and replaced it with a heart emoji.

Enlarge (credit: Apple | Getty Images | Aurich Lawson)

With the new Mac Studio and Studio Display, Apple has essentially told enthusiasts and professionals that if they want higher-performance computing, they’ll need to move on from the 27-inch iMac all-in-one. That means buying two separate products that are made in two separate locations, shipped on two separate planes and trucks and arriving in two separate boxes.

If you’re an enthusiast or pro who is looking to maximize performance while minimizing your climate impacts, that doesn’t seem to be a winning combination. But according to Apple’s environmental reports, the combination of a Mac Studio and Studio Display produces nearly 50 percent fewer carbon emissions over its lifetime than the iMac Pro.

How did that happen?

Enlarge / Samsung OLED (S95B) TV. (credit: Samsung)

Samsung revealed new details for its highly anticipated QD-OLED TV on Thursday. The company's first OLED TV in a decade costs $2,200 for the 54.6-inch model and $3,000 for the 64.5-inch model.

Samsung hadn't released an OLED TV since 2012, but in January, the company announced its reentrance into the market. Samsung is getting around LG Display's hold on OLED panels by going with a proprietary OLED technology called QD-OLED. QD-OLED applies quantum dots to OLED to deliver greater color coverage that is more consistent across brightness levels, as well as more detailed highlights and improved shadows.

The Samsung OLED (S95B) series, as it's now called, costs more than many OLED TVs, putting it in line with LG's high-end G-series of (non-QD) OLED TVs. LG hasn't revealed pricing for its 2022 G2 TVs in the US, but in Europe, the 55- and 65-inchers have been announced at €2,500 (about $2,758) and €3,600 (about $3970), respectively. The LG G1 55-inch model debuted at $2,000, with the 65-inch coming in at $2,800. LG's flagship C-series, meanwhile, costs $1,250 for 55 inches.

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  For the first time, a fully stacked Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft rolled out of the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center on Thursday evening. [credit: Trevor Mahlmann ]

On Friday morning, NASA's titanic Space Launch System reached the launch pad. The rocket is not yet ready to fly, and it may not lift off the planet for several more months. But as the fully assembled, skyscraper-sized rocket rolled into a serene Florida evening on Thursday at Kennedy Space Center, no one could deny that it is finally here.

Frankly, it is hard to know how to feel about this rocket. Certainly, one cannot help but be awed by a rocket that is as tall as a US football field is long. Designing, building, and testing such a large and complex machine represents a significant engineering achievement. But it's impossible to have a rational discussion about the Space Launch System rocket and its payload, the Orion spacecraft, without considering its enormous expense, ongoing delays, and looming obsolescence.

One thing seems clear: although this fully stacked SLS rocket and Orion crew capsule have set the stage for the uncrewed Artemis I test launch later this year, the rollout does not mark the end of the beginning for this launch system. Rather, it's the beginning of the end. This is probably the last gasp of the Apollo era of NASA that has gripped the space agency for six decades.