Month: July 2022

Specific breeds of dogs, like border collies, can learn the verbal names of their favorite toys, but what is going on in the dog's mind when it's told to fetch a given toy? According to a recent paper published in the journal Animal Cognition, these dogs store key sensory features about their toys—notably what they look like and how they smell—and recall those features when searching for the named toy.

"If we can understand which senses dogs use while searching for a toy, this may reveal how they think about it," said co-author Shany Dror, a biologist at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest, Hungary. "When dogs use olfaction or sight while searching for a toy, this indicates that they know how that toy smells or looks like."

Prior studies suggested that dogs typically rely on vision, or a combination of sight and smell, to locate target objects. Few dogs can also identify objects based on verbal labels, which the authors call "gifted word learner" (GWL) dogs. "Just like humans, GWL dogs not only recognize the labeled objects—or categories of objects—as stimuli they have already encountered, but they also identify them among other similarly familiar named objects, based on their verbal labels," the authors wrote. They wanted to investigate whether GWL dogs have an enhanced ability to discriminate and/or recognize objects compared to typical dogs.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. (credit: Facebook)

Meta and Apple are entering a period of "very deep, philosophical competition" that will define the future of the Internet, according to comments by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg obtained by The Verge.

Both Apple and Meta are planning to invest heavily in mixed reality over the next decade, but they have diametrically opposed visions for what the AR/VR/XR landscape should ideally look like.

The Verge obtained an audio recording of an all-hands employee meeting at Meta, in which Zuckerberg answered an employee question about the company's future competition with Apple in great detail. His comments shed some light on how Meta, at least, sees the rivalry.

Enlarge / Artist's conception of the FTC fighting back against Meta's latest proposed acquisition.

The Federal Trade Commission has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Meta in an attempt to stop the Facebook parent company from purchasing Within, which makes the popular virtual reality fitness app Supernatural.

Meta's plans to spend a reported $400 million on Within have reportedly been under FTC scrutiny after the proposed acquisition was announced last October. That proposed deal, according to the suit, "would substantially lessen competition, or tend to create a monopoly, in the relevant market for VR dedicated fitness apps and the broader relevant market for VR fitness apps."

Cornering the VR fitness market?

Meta has been on something of a VR acquisition spree in the last two years, scooping up game developers including Sanzaru Games (Asgard's Wrath), Ready at Dawn (Lone Echo), Twisted Pixel (Wilson's Heart), Downpour Interactive (Onward) and BigBox VR (Population: One). But the planned purchase of Within seems to be setting off antitrust alarm bells at the FTC because of the overlap with Beat Saber maker Beat Games, which Meta purchased in 2019.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Microsoft said on Wednesday that an Austria-based company named DSIRF used multiple Windows and Adobe Reader zero-days to hack organizations located in Europe and Central America.

Multiple news outlets have published articles like this one, which cited marketing materials and other evidence linking DSIRF to Subzero, a malicious toolset for “automated exfiltration of sensitive/private data” and “tailored access operations [including] identification, tracking and infiltration of threats.”

Members of the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center, or MSTIC, said they have found Subzero malware infections spread through a variety of methods, including the exploitation of what at the time were Windows and Adobe Reader zero-days, meaning the attackers knew of the vulnerabilities before Microsoft and Adobe did. Targets of the attacks observed to date include law firms, banks, and strategic consultancies in countries such as Austria, the UK, and Panama, although those aren’t necessarily the countries in which the DSIRF customers who paid for the attack resided.

Enlarge (credit: Caroline Brehman / Contributor | CQ-Roll Call, Inc.)

The US continues to struggle with pandemic management. Where cases are rising right now, some cities and counties are considering reinstating mask mandates, and many hospitals are confronting a chronic nursing shortage.

Despite new concerns and a recent uptick in daily deaths recorded in the US and globally, however, Meta is already thinking about what a return to normal might look like. That includes recently speculating that normalcy might mean it's time to go back to the company's heydays of allowing health misinformation to spread through posts on Facebook and Instagram.

On Tuesday, Meta's president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, wrote in a statement that Meta is considering whether or not Facebook and Instagram should continue to remove all posts promoting falsehoods about vaccines, masks, and social distancing. To help them decide, Meta is asking its oversight board to weigh whether the "current COVID-19 misinformation policy is still appropriate" now that "extraordinary circumstances at the onset of the pandemic" have passed and many "countries around the world seek to return to more normal life."

Enlarge (credit: Ars Technica)

It's Wednesday, which means the time has come for another Dealmaster. Our latest roundup of the best tech deals from around the web includes a strong discount on Google's Nest Hub, as the 7-inch smart display is down to $55 at several retailers. We've seen a handful of discounts on the device in recent months, but this deal matches the lowest price we've tracked, coming in at $45 off Google's MSRP.

We reviewed the latest Nest Hub positively after it launched last year, deeming it particularly useful as a bedside companion. The device includes an optional sleep-tracking feature, which our testing found to work surprisingly well, providing largely accurate and consistent data about how long you're in bed, how long it takes you to fall asleep, how many times you get out of bed, and when you wake up, among other details. The approach here is more about detailing if you're sleeping enough than digging deep in the weeds about the quality of your sleep, but it works, and the whole process should be more comfortable than keeping a sleep-tracking smartwatch or fitness wearable strapped on throughout the night. There is a caveat, though: While the feature is free for now, Google plans to roll it into Fitbit's $10-a-month Premium service next year.

Besides the sleep-tracking hook, the Nest Hub does just about all the other Google Assistant things you'd expect (answering search queries, controlling smart home devices, showing recipes in the kitchen, etc.), which we generally find more useful in this class of device than Amazon's Alexa. The device's built-in speakers, while not amazing in a vacuum, are improved enough over the first-gen model to make casual music or podcast streaming not-aggravating. The 1024×600 resolution display isn't especially sharp, either, but it's enough to get by on a 7-inch touchscreen. The hardware as a whole doesn't call too much attention to itself, and while you likely know where you stand when it comes to the privacy concerns inherent to all voice assistant-based devices, the Nest Hub does omit any sort of built-in cameras, which might provide some extra peace of mind.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Grace Cary)

Twitter is moving ahead with a shareholder vote on the merger with Elon Musk a few weeks before its lawsuit against Musk goes to trial. Twitter yesterday sent a letter to shareholders inviting them to a September 13 special meeting where they will be asked to approve the merger agreement that Musk is now trying to get out of.

"We are committed to closing the merger on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk," Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and Board Chairman Bret Taylor wrote. "Your vote at the special meeting is critical to our ability to complete the merger. Twitter's Board of Directors unanimously recommends that you vote 'FOR' each of the proposals at the special meeting."

Noting that a five-day court trial is set to begin in October, the letter said, "Adoption of the merger agreement by our stockholders is the only remaining approval or regulatory condition to completing the merger under the merger agreement." While Musk sent a "notice purporting to terminate the merger agreement," the Twitter letter said the company "believes that Mr. Musk's purported termination is invalid and wrongful, and the merger agreement remains in effect."

Enlarge / Left: Google Maps bike info shows detailed information about hill size and bike lane quality. Right: A location-sharing notification. (credit: Google)

Google Maps is launching a few new features today, and, after a decade of trying, Google is finally launching Street View in India. What took so long?!

First up, we have a few new features from Google's latest blog post. Cyclists will now see a lot more information explaining what a route will be like. Maps now breaks down a route by percentages, showing how long you'll be in a marked bike line, a shared path, on a steep hill, or on a major road. The route selection screen is also able to break down routes into categories like "more bike lanes" and "less turns."

Location sharing is now getting notifications. If any friends or family members share their location with you, you'll soon be able to watch a certain area and get notified when they arrive or leave. Google imagines that if you're all meeting up somewhere, you can flag that location and get a push notification when each person arrives. This would also be great to know when someone lands at an airport.

Action legend Sylvester Stallone has dabbled in the superhero genre before, most notably as Judge Dredd (1995), the Ravager Stakar Ogord in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. (2017), and the voice of King Shark in The Suicide Squad (2021). (He's reprising his Ravager role for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.) With his new film Samaritan, Stallone gets to play an aging superhero living anonymously as a garbage man, tormented by his past. Judging by the official trailer, it's the perfect role for the 73-year-old action star, combining all the best elements of his long, illustrious career.

Samaritan is the brainchild of screenwriter Bragi Schut, best known for Escape Room (2019) and 2011's Season of the Witch. He first penned a spec script for the film about 10 years ago. But spec scripts can meander through the Hollywood studio ecosystem for years before even being optioned, never mind going into development. So in the meantime, Schut adapted his screenplay into a series of graphic novels for Mythos Comics—the opposite of the usual process these days, with studios competing for recognizable IP to adapt into blockbuster films.

First published in 2014, the comic book version upends the genre's typical setting of a superhero arriving at a crime-ridden cesspool of a city to take on the bad guys and clean things up. This version depicts the gradual degradation of fictional city of Acropolis after its superhero, Samaritan, is presumably killed in battle against the aptly named superhuman Nemesis inside a burning warehouse. (Nemesis is also killed).