Month: February 2023

Enlarge / The Comirnaty (Pfizer/BioNTech) and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. (credit: Getty | Marcos del Mazo)

Two Republican lawmakers in Idaho have introduced a bill that would make it a misdemeanor for anyone in the state to administer mRNA-based vaccines—namely the lifesaving and remarkably safe COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. If passed as written, it would also preemptively ban the use of countless other mRNA vaccines that are now in development, such as shots for RSV, a variety of cancers, HIV, flu, Nipah virus, and cystic fibrosis, among others.

The bill is sponsored by Sen. Tammy Nichols of Middleton and Rep. Judy Boyle of Midvale, both staunch conservatives who say that stand for freedom and the right to life. But their bill, HB 154, proposes that "a person may not provide or administer a vaccine developed using messenger ribonucleic acid [mRNA] technology for use in an individual or any other mammal in this state." If passed into law, anyone administering lifesaving mRNA-based vaccines would be guilty of a misdemeanor, which could result in jail time and/or a fine.

While presenting the bill to the House Health & Welfare Committee last week, Nichols said their anti-mRNA stance stems from the fact that the COVID-19 vaccines were initially allowed under emergency use authorizations (EUAs) from the Food and Drug Administrations, not the agency's full regulatory approval. "We have issues that this was fast-tracked," she told fellow lawmakers, according to reporting from local news outlet KXLY.com.

Enlarge / Scientists have built a smart bionic finger that mimics the tactile perception mechanism of a human finger. (credit: Y. Li et al., 2023)

The human fingertip is an exquisitely sensitive instrument for perceiving objects in our environment via the sense of touch. A team of Chinese scientists has mimicked the underlying perceptual mechanism to create a bionic finger with an integrated tactile feedback system capable of poking at complex objects to map out details below the surface layer, according to a recent paper published in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science.

“We were inspired by human fingers, which have the most sensitive tactile perception that we know of,” said co-author Jianyi Luo of Wuyi University. “For example, when we touch our own bodies with our fingers, we can sense not only the texture of our skin, but also the outline of the bone beneath it. This tactile technology opens up a non-optical way for the nondestructive testing of the human body and flexible electronics."

According to the authors, previously developed artificial tactile sensors could only recognize and discriminate between external shapes, surface textures, and hardness. But they aren't capable of sensing subsurface information about those materials. This usually requires optical technologies, such as CT scanning, PET scans, ultrasonic tomography (which scans the exterior of a material to reconstruct an image of its internal structure), or MRIs, for example. But these all also have drawbacks. Similarly, optical profilometry is often used to measure the surface's profile and finish, but it only works on transparent materials.

Enlarge / The big old question mark just got a lot bigger... (credit: Nintendo)

As the Nintendo Switch approaches the sixth anniversary of its launch, Nintendo has been extremely coy about the prospects for a true successor to the console (no, the Switch OLED doesn’t count). This week, though, a stray redaction in a government document regarding the proposed Microsoft/Activision merger has some industry watchers speculating that the announcement of a Switch successor could be coming in the near future.

All that speculation focuses on a single line buried in 43 sprawling pages of appendices in a report from the UK's Competition and Markets Authority, which recently came down against Microsoft's planned acquisition of Activision. In discussing services that could plausibly compete with the cloud-gaming features of Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass, the appendix notes that Nintendo Switch Online "is only available on the Nintendo Switch device and [redacted]."

That telltale "and" is interesting, of course, because Nintendo Switch Online is currently only available on the Nintendo Switch (as the name implies). The CMA redaction following that "and" could easily describe a forthcoming console that Nintendo doesn't want formally announced via a regulatory filing (e.g., "...available on the Nintendo Switch device and [another console Nintendo is currently developing]").

Enlarge / Let's see, you landed on my "Google Ads" space, and with three houses... that will be $1,400. (credit: Ron Amadeo / Hasbro)

Google is being forced to revamp how it licenses Android in yet another country: India. While these agreements with manufacturers are always a big secret, we occasionally get to know more about them via various leaks. The latest happened over the weekend from Kuba Wojciechowski, which shows how manufacturers can now sell Android in India versus the rest of the world.

Android has an incredible 97 percent market share in India, and as the world's second-largest smartphone market after China, that accounts for 600 million devices. About three weeks ago, Google lost an antitrust case in India, with the Competition Commission of India (CCI) issuing new rules for how Google can bundle Android with other Google services. The CCI also fined Google $161 million—about five hours' worth of Alphabet's $282 billion in yearly revenue, or about 25 cents for each of the 600 million phones in India.

India's new competition rules sound a lot like what the European Union laid down years ago, so much so that Google accused India of "plagiarism" in its antitrust ruling, saying the CCI "copy-pasted extensively from a European Commission decision." Google's blog post on the ruling outlined some of the changes, like that OEMS would be able to license individual Google apps, the default search engine would be chosen via a ballot screen, forking Android would be allowed, and that users would be able to pick their billing provider.

Enlarge / The Fire TV Stick 4K Max. You're pretty much stuck with those streaming-service buttons on the bottom of the remote. (credit: Amazon)

Amazon doesn't want you messing with the Fire TV remote's buttons. After all, those buttons connecting users to streaming services like Netflix and Hulu are a source of ad revenue for Amazon. The company recently issued a software update to the Fire TV Stick 4K Max that blocks the functionality of Remapper, a free app that lets users reprogram the remote's third-party app-launcher buttons.

Buttons dedicated to a specific TV-streaming service, like Disney+ or Peacock, have been a way for streaming services to attempt to drive subscriptions and viewership since 2011 when Netflix started doing it. Companies like Amazon and Roku receive money for placing a button for a streaming service on their remotes. Amazon hasn't disclosed how much money it makes from this function, but in 2019, Bloomberg reported that Roku charges streaming companies $1 for every remote sold with one of the service's buttons.

With that in mind, Amazon's apparent resistance to Remapper isn't surprising. But for users who don't have a Netflix subscription, for example, they may want to reprogram a Fire TV remote's dedicated Netflix button to launch a service they have a subscription to.

Enlarge / A Starlink satellite dish. (credit: Getty Images | olegda88)

SpaceX's Starlink division has invited some potential users to try a "Global Roaming" service for $200 a month, saying the new plan "allows your Starlink to connect from almost anywhere on land in the world."

"Global Roaming makes use of Starlink's inter-satellite links (aka space lasers) to provide connectivity around the globe. As this is a new technology, you can expect Starlink's typical high-speed, low-latency service intermixed with brief periods of poor connectivity, or none at all. However this will improve dramatically over time," said an email from Starlink shared on Reddit. Average Starlink speeds have dropped as more users sign up for the satellite service, speed-test data shows.

It appears that at least some of the Global Roaming invitations were sent to people who are still on the waiting list for Starlink's regular home Internet service. "Participating in Global Roaming will not impact your place in line for Residential service," the Starlink email said.

Enlarge / Lance Bass attends the 2022 iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas. (credit: Gabe Ginsberg/Getty Images for iHeartRadio)

At the height of his fame as a member of the internationally famous boy band NSYNC, Lance Bass came within about two weeks of going to space in 2002.

Bass had completed four months of rigorous training in Russia's Star City during the spring and summer of that year, learning Russian and passing several challenging pre-launch tests. The plan was to fly up to the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft alongside two cosmonauts and spend about 10 days in orbit.

This was not a well-trodden path, especially for a 23-year-old musician who would have been by far the youngest person to fly into space. By mid-2002, only two wealthy businessmen, Dennis Tito and Mark Shuttleworth, had ever taken privately paid trips to space.