Month: August 2022

Enlarge (credit: Bloomberg / Contributor | Bloomberg)

It’s been four years since users alleging harm caused by the Cambridge Analytica scandal sued Facebook (now Meta) for selling tons of easily identifying personal information to third parties, allegedly doing so even when users thought they had denied consent. In 2018, plaintiffs alleged in a consolidated complaint that Facebook acted in “astonishingly reckless” ways and did “almost nothing” to protect users from the potential harms of this “intentionally” obscured massive data market. The company, they said, put 87 million users at “a substantial and imminent risk of identity theft, fraud, stalking, scams, unwanted texts, emails, and even hacking.” And users’ only option to avoid these risks was to set everything on Facebook to private—so even friends wouldn’t see their activity.

Because of Facebook’s allegedly deceptive practices, plaintiffs said that “Facebook users suffered concrete injury in ways that transcend a normal data breach injury.” Plaintiffs had gotten so far in court defending these claims that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was scheduled to take the stand for six hours this September, along with lengthy depositions scheduled for former Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and current Meta Chief Growth Officer Javier Olivan. However, it looks like none of those depositions will be happening now.

On Friday, a joint motion was filed with the US District Court for the Northern District of California. It confirmed that the plaintiffs and Facebook had reached a settlement agreement that seems to have finally ended the class action lawsuit that Meta had previously said it hoped would be over by March 2023.

Enlarge / This is not the brand-new Apple Watch "Pro," just the current model, so you'll have to imagine the titanium, the larger size, and the nearly $1,000 price. (credit: Apple)

Numerous Apple-watching outfits have reported that the company is working on a rugged, fitness-minded "Apple Watch Pro," to be announced at its September 7 event. The device could be even more of an upgrade than some expect, as the latest rumor has the wider, more square-shaped "Pro" watch requiring all-new bands.

Weibo user "Uncle Pan," who has shared accurate information before on AirPods and MagSafe cases, posted Monday from Guangdong that an Apple Watch with a 47 or 48 mm screen will be offered this year. The new band will be wider, indicating a likely square design, Uncle Pan wrote. The user embedded an image from Twitter account Apple Hub, which offered a quirky rendering of the rumored Pro design and cited a price "close to $1,000."

Uncle Pan's post conflicts with Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, who reported in late July that while the Pro watch will be larger than existing Apple Watch models, it will not be squared or feature flat sides.

Enlarge / Neil Gaiman's classic "unfilmable" graphic novel series gets the adaptation he always wanted. (credit: Netflix)

Like many nerds of a certain age, I have long adored Neil Gaiman's Sandman graphic novel series; it was an enormous influence on my younger self. So I was thrilled to hear of Netflix's planned adaptation when it was announced in 2019—but I also experienced some trepidation given the past misguided efforts to bring the story to the screen. That trepidation was unwarranted because The Sandman is a triumph. It's everything I had hoped to see in an adaption, and it has been well worth the wait.

(Warning: Some spoilers for the original graphic novels and the Netflix series below.)

The titular "sandman" is Dream, but he is also called Morpheus, among other names. He is one of seven entities known as the Endless. (The other Endless are Destiny, Destruction, Despair, Desire, Delirium, and Death.) Gaiman's 75-issue revival of the DC character is an odd mix of mythology, fantasy, horror, and history, rife with literary references and a fair bit of dark humor. There really is nothing quite like it, and the series proved to be hugely popular and enduring. One standalone story, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (The Sandman No. 19) even won the 1991 World Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction, the only time a comic has been so honored.

Enlarge / A Honda worker assembles a battery pack. (credit: Honda)

North American lithium-ion battery production is set to soar over the next decade. The Biden administration and Congress have both put policies in place to incentivize domestic manufacturing over imports, and startups, battery companies, and automakers are responding. Honda and LG Energy Solutions are the most recent to make moves; on Monday morning, the companies announced that they are forming a $4.4 billion joint venture to build a US battery factory.

"Our joint venture with Honda, which has significant brand reputation, is yet another milestone in our mid- to long-term strategy of promoting electrification in the fast-growing North American market," said Youngsoo Kwon, CEO of LG Energy Solution. "Since our ultimate goal is to earn our valued customers' trust and respect, we aspire to position ourselves as a leading battery innovator, working with Honda in achieving its core initiatives for electrification, as well as providing sustainable energy solutions to discerning end consumers."

In May, the Department of Energy announced $3 billion in funding to boost domestic battery production. Much of that battery production will be destined for electric vehicles, particularly since President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law this month. The law ties an EV's tax credit to where its battery pack was made—if an ever-increasing proportion of the pack is not domestic, there is no credit.

Enlarge / A smoggy sunrise in Krakow, Poland earlier this summer. (credit: NurPhoto via Getty Images)

On the morning news, you see the weather forecast is for high heat, and there is an “excessive heat watch” for later in the week. You were hoping the weather would cool down, but yet another heat wave is threatening human health and increasing the chance of wildfires. On top of these warm days and nights, air quality data has been showing unhealthy levels of pollution.

Sound familiar? This scenario is increasingly the new normal in many parts of the world.

High heat and air pollution are each problematic for human health, particularly for vulnerable populations such as older adults. But what happens when they hit at the same time?