Month: June 2023

Enlarge / Saturn stars in this near-infrared image taken June 25 by the James Webb Space Telescope. (credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STSci)

The James Webb Space Telescope has observed Saturn for the first time, completing a family portrait of the Solar System’s ringed planets nearly a year after the mission’s first jaw-dropping image release.

Webb’s near-infrared camera took the picture of Saturn on June 25. Scientists added orange color to the monochrome picture to produce the image released Friday.

The picture shows Saturn’s iconic icy rings shining around the disk of the gas giant, which appears much darker in near-infrared due to the absorption of sunlight by methane particles suspended high in the planet’s atmosphere.

Enlarge / One of the medical clinics suspended by Mexican health authorities in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico, on May 19, 2023. (credit: Getty | AFP)

Three more people in the US have died from fungal meningitis in an outbreak linked to tainted surgeries in Mexico, bringing the total deaths to seven, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday.

The total case count remains unchanged from an update earlier this month, with 34 cases in the US: nine confirmed, 10 probable, and 15 suspected. Health officials are investigating 161 others who may have been exposed.

The outbreak is linked to cosmetic surgeries involving epidural anesthesia at two clinics in Matamoros, Mexico, just across the border from Brownsville, Texas. Mexican and US officials suspect that a component of the anesthetic was contaminated, resulting in the pathogenic fungus Fusarium solani being injected directly into people's spinal cords. The tainted surgeries are thought to have occurred between January 1, 2023, to May 13, 2023, around when the clinics were shut down by local health officials.

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  The Asus Zenfone 10 in a variety of colors. [credit: Asus ]

Lovers of small phones: Meet the Asus Zenfone 10, a tiny little device headlined by a 144 Hz, 5.9-inch, 2400×1080 OLED display. For those asking for a one-hand device, this 146.5 mm×68.1mm×9.4 mm phone is one of the smallest on the market, and it has flagship specs. It's not quite the size of the iPhone SE (138.4 mm×67.3 mm×7.3 mm) or the microscopic iPhone 13 Mini (131.5 mm×64.2mm×7.7 mm) but on Android, this is as small as you're going to get.

With those flagship specs, you get a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 gen 2 SoC, a baseline of 8GB of RAM with an option for 16GB, and UFS 4.0 storage options of 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB. The big downside to a small phone is the battery, which here is only 4300 mAh. Asus somehow found room to pack in a 3.5-mm headphone jack, along with 15 W wireless charging (wired is 30 W), stereo speakers, NFC, IP68 dust and water resistance, Wi-Fi 7, and Bluetooth 5.3.

Enlarge (credit: Roberto Machado Noa / Contributor | LightRocket)

Last month, the FBI created a national online database to finally start coordinating law enforcement reports about "swatting" attacks nationwide, NBC News reported yesterday.

Swatting is a form of domestic terrorism that is sometimes deadly and has become more widespread in the US, according to a March report from Hal Berghel, a computer science professor at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Berghel's report defined swatting as:

A malicious act that involves making fraudulent 911 calls to cause emergency response teams, such as law enforcement special weapons and tactics teams, or SWAT teams (that’s where the gerund’s root comes from), to react forcefully to a nonexistent public threat.

Scott Schubert, of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services, told NBC News that the database will help combat the growing swatting problem by facilitating "information sharing between hundreds of police departments and law enforcement agencies across the country pertaining to swatting incidents."

Enlarge (credit: Getty)

It's been a contentious journey, but Reddit's new API pricing will take effect on July 1. What started as a fight over creating an affordable option for valued third-party Reddit apps has evolved into a bitter battle pitting Reddit against indignant developers, mods, and users. Protests remain, but some users are now preparing to exit the platform, including some of Reddit's most seasoned moderators.

Where does that leave third-party developers, some of which said they would have to pay Reddit $20 million annually to continue? Ars Technica spoke with developers to learn where their apps stand, how some will manage to stay afloat, and what Reddit's changes mean for the future.

Surviving apps

When Reddit announced that, starting on July 1, it would no longer permit free API access except for certain non-commercial apps, many Reddit app developers responded by telling users that they were unsure if they could keep the apps running. Now that the new API pricing ($12,000 per 50 million API requests) is set to be reality, here's a look at the most popular apps that will still be available.

Enlarge / A Google sign at the Viva Tech fair in Paris on June 15, 2023. (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg)

In response to a new Canadian law requiring payments to news organizations, Google said it will remove links to Canadian news sources from Google Search and Google News for users who access the services in Canada. Google's announcement yesterday followed a similar announcement by Meta that it will end news access on Facebook and Instagram.

The new law's "duty to bargain" requires large search engines and social media services to negotiate payments with news businesses or groups of news businesses. The law requires mediation and then arbitration if negotiations don't result in a deal. The law is expected to take effect in six months.

"We have now informed the Government that when the law takes effect, we unfortunately will have to remove links to Canadian news from our Search, News and Discover products in Canada, and that [bill] C-18 will also make it untenable for us to continue offering our Google News Showcase product in Canada," Google President of Global Affairs Kent Walker wrote yesterday.

Enlarge / A Miami-Dade mosquito control inspector sprays a pesticide to kill adult mosquitos on June 29, 2023, in Miami. The Miami-Dade mosquito control department continues its regular spraying and inspection of neighborhoods and is ready to react if malaria-carrying mosquitos are found, as they were in the Sarasota area. (credit: Getty | Joe Raedle)

Three mosquitoes collected near Sarasota, Florida, have tested positive for malaria amid an unusual cluster of locally acquired cases. It is the first time in two decades that US mosquitoes have tested positive for malaria in connection to US-based cases.

Four cases have so far been confirmed in Florida, all in close geographic proximity, health officials reported on Monday. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported Wednesday that officials are investigating a possible fifth case.

With outbreak response efforts ongoing, officials have been trapping and testing local mosquitoes. In a statement to CBS News, Sarasota County Mosquito Management Services manager said the three positive insects were among more than a hundred sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for testing.