Month: June 2022

Enlarge / Charles Leclerc of Monaco driving the (16) Ferrari F1-75 on track during the F1 Grand Prix of Azerbaijan at Baku City Circuit on June 12, 2022, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

The sport of Formula 1 racing went through a massive change at the beginning of this season as it introduced new cars that harness aerodynamic ground effects to push them down onto the track. The aerodynamic approach was last used in F1 in the late 1970s and early 1980s before being banned on safety grounds.

One issue, then, that perhaps should have been anticipated this time was a condition called porpoising, where the cars oscillate vertically at a rather high frequency while traveling at high speed, violently shaking the driver in the process. As this season has progressed, the Grand Prix Drivers' Association has become more and more vocal about the potential health risk this poses for these athletes. And on Thursday, the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (or FIA, the sport's governing body) announced it has a plan to do something about it.

What’s porpoising?

As the air travels underneath the body of an F1 car, it expands as it reaches the venturis at the rear of the car. The faster the car goes, the more downforce it generates via this expansion, until at a certain point the airflow detaches from the floor and stalls. This wipes out all the downforce immediately, and without that effect sucking the car to the ground, it raises up on its suspension.

Enlarge / This Buzz Lightyear is supposed to be the "real-life" version of the character, which the real-life humans in Toy Story saw before buying the cuter toy version of the Buzz character. Still with me? Yes, this week's new Pixar film is weird. (credit: Disney / Pixar)

Hollywood has produced quite a few superhero, sci-fi, and fantasy "origin" films, which rewind a series' timeline to take a deeper look at a popular character. But I'm not sure we've ever seen a film that goes to the trouble of telling the origin story... of a manufactured toy in a fictional universe.

That is what this week's Lightyear is: a fictional film that explains why a fictional toy was created in another fictional film. The overly serious Toy Story hero Buzz Lightyear, full of catch phrases and push-action tricks on his plastic spacesuit, wasn't originally a children's cartoon character, Pixar now says. The toy we grew to love was actually the children's-toy version of a serious "live-action" sci-fi hero—or, at least, live in the way that Andy was a "real" person in the Toy Story universe.

Buzz looks lost—in more ways than one. (credit: Disney / Pixar)

Part of me hoped that such a twist on an existing fictional character would let Pixar run wild with classic sci-fi inspirations. But that's not what Lightyear is. This new film, debuting exclusively in theaters, is nowhere near the tribute to past boundary-pushing blockbusters that its trailer suggested.

Enlarge (credit: Microsoft)

The Microsoft Defender antivirus product built into Windows 10 and 11 is generally good enough at detecting and removing malware that most people don't need to pay for a separate antivirus product. Today, Microsoft is extending the consumer version of the product. Called Microsoft Defender for Individuals, the new app will provide malware protection for multiple operating systems and security tips and the ability to check on the protection status of all devices signed in to your or your family's Microsoft account. It's available now for Microsoft 365 subscribers and will run on Windows, macOS, iOS/iPadOS, and Android devices.

This new Defender software is an offshoot of Microsoft's Defender product for businesses, which offers anti-malware protection and centralized monitoring for IT admins. The Defender app supports different features on different operating systems. On macOS and Android, it provides real-time malware protection. On Windows, it doesn't include this feature since the Defender Antivirus software is already included by default with all installs of Windows 10 and 11. Antivirus protection is also unavailable on iOS and iPadOS, where Apple restricts the kinds of things third-party apps can do. "Security tips" will only be provided in the Windows and macOS versions of the app.

Like the version of the Defender antivirus app built into Windows, the Microsoft Defender app will defer to other antivirus software from the likes of Norton or McAfee if you have it installed, enabling itself only if those other apps are uninstalled or disabled first. The Defender app also doesn't replace the functionality of the Windows Security app in Windows 10 or 11, which provides a centralized dashboard for scanning for malware and checking and changing device security settings but doesn't provide info for any system other than the PC you're currently using.

Enlarge / Elon Musk arrives for the 2022 Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 2, 2022, in New York. (credit: Getty Images | Angela Weiss)

SpaceX employees are circulating a letter that urges company executives to condemn CEO Elon Musk's public behavior. The letter was reported today and published in full by The Verge, which said it was shared Wednesday "in an internal SpaceX Microsoft Teams channel with more than 2,600 employees."

The letter says executives should "publicly address and condemn Elon's harmful Twitter behavior."

"SpaceX must swiftly and explicitly separate itself from Elon's personal brand," the letter says. The letter is the result of a collaboration between "employees across the spectra of gender, ethnicity, seniority, and technical roles," it says. The letter also asks for an in-person meeting with executives to discuss the employees' requests.

Enlarge / Elon Musk arrives for the 2022 Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 2, 2022, in New York. (credit: Getty Images | Angela Weiss)

SpaceX employees are circulating a letter that urges company executives to condemn CEO Elon Musk's public behavior. The letter was reported today and published in full by The Verge, which said it was shared Wednesday "in an internal SpaceX Microsoft Teams channel with more than 2,600 employees."

The letter says executives should "publicly address and condemn Elon's harmful Twitter behavior."

"SpaceX must swiftly and explicitly separate itself from Elon's personal brand," the letter says. The letter is the result of a collaboration between "employees across the spectra of gender, ethnicity, seniority, and technical roles," it says. The letter also asks for an in-person meeting with executives to discuss the employees' requests.

Enlarge / Taking a close look... (credit: Aurich Lawson / Ars Technica)

Last November, The Wall Street Journal published a damning report alleging that Activision CEO Bobby Kotick withheld information about harassment allegations from his board of directors. The report also suggested that Activision executives failed to act decisively to address the kind of widespread complaints contained in a California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) lawsuit filed last July.

In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Thursday, Activision's board of directors said the company has concluded its own thorough investigation of those claims, which it says shows that "we are not a company that looks the other way."

After consulting with external advisers, talking with employees, and reviewing contemporaneous notes, Activision writes "that there is no evidence to suggest that Activision Blizzard senior executives ever intentionally ignored or attempted to downplay the instances of gender harassment that occurred and were reported." The company's board of directors also didn't withhold any information from the company, Activision writes.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

A tracking tool installed on many hospitals’ websites has been collecting patients’ sensitive health information—including details about their medical conditions, prescriptions, and doctor’s appointments—and sending it to Facebook.

The Markup tested the websites of Newsweek’s top 100 hospitals in America. On 33 of them we found the tracker, called the Meta Pixel, sending Facebook a packet of data whenever a person clicked a button to schedule a doctor’s appointment. The data is connected to an IP address—an identifier that’s like a computer’s mailing address and can generally be linked to a specific individual or household—creating an intimate receipt of the appointment request for Facebook.