Month: March 2024

Enlarge / Chickenpox on a 1-year-old. (credit: BSIP/UIG Via Getty Images)

Thanks to the vaccination program that began in 1995, chickenpox is now relatively rare. Cases of the miserable, itchy condition have fallen more than 97 percent. But, while children have largely put the oatmeal baths and oven mitts behind them, doctors have apparently let their diagnostic skills get a little crusty.

According to a study published Thursday, public health researchers in Minnesota found that 55 percent of people diagnosed with chickenpox based on their symptoms were actually negative for the varicella-zoster virus, the virus that causes chickenpox. The study noted that the people were all diagnosed in person by health care providers in medical facilities. But, instead of chickenpox, lab testing showed that some of the patients were actually infected with an enterovirus, which can cause a rash, or the herpes simplex virus 1, which causes cold sores.

The study, published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, supports expanding laboratory testing for suspected chickenpox cases in the state's program and highlights that diagnoses based on symptoms are "unreliable."

Enlarge / The United Nations building in New York. (credit: Getty Images)

On Thursday, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously consented to adopt what some call the first global resolution on AI, reports Reuters. The resolution aims to foster the protection of personal data, enhance privacy policies, ensure close monitoring of AI for potential risks, and uphold human rights. It emerged from a proposal by the United States and received backing from China and 121 other countries.

Being a nonbinding agreement and thus effectively toothless, the resolution seems broadly popular in the AI industry. On X, Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith wrote, "We fully support the @UN's adoption of the comprehensive AI resolution. The consensus reached today marks a critical step towards establishing international guardrails for the ethical and sustainable development of AI, ensuring this technology serves the needs of everyone."

The resolution, titled "Seizing the opportunities of safe, secure and trustworthy artificial intelligence systems for sustainable development," resulted from three months of negotiation, and the stakeholders involved seem pleased at the level of international cooperation. "We're sailing in choppy waters with the fast-changing technology, which means that it's more important than ever to steer by the light of our values," one senior US administration official told Reuters, highlighting the significance of this "first-ever truly global consensus document on AI."

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | NurPhoto)

The US Department of Justice is angry about green message bubbles. Announcing today's antitrust lawsuit against Apple, US Attorney General Merrick Garland devoted a portion of his speech to the green bubbles that appear in conversations between users of iPhones and other mobile devices such as Android smartphones.

"As any iPhone user who has ever seen a green text message, or received a tiny, grainy video can attest, Apple's anticompetitive conduct also includes making it more difficult for iPhone users to message with users of non-Apple products," Garland said while announcing the suit that alleges Apple illegally monopolized the smartphone market.

The attorney general accused Apple of "diminishing the functionality of its own messaging app" and that of messaging apps made by third parties. "By doing so, Apple knowingly and deliberately degrades quality, privacy, and security for its users," Garland said. "For example, if an iPhone user messages a non-iPhone user in Apple Messages, the text appears not only as a green bubble, but incorporates limited functionality."

Enlarge / We like the interior styling, and it rides well and is rather efficient. But the interior build quality needs work. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

It probably hasn't escaped notice that electric vehicles, having captured everyone's attention, are having a bit of a slide into what Gartner calls "the trough of depression." But as skeptics push back on battery EVs, another style of electrified car looks set to travel back up the slope of enlightenment. Plug-in hybrids are finding their second wind, as automakers and regulators look to PHEVs as a way to reduce transport-related carbon emissions.

Lincoln's Corsair Grand Touring is not a particularly new PHEV, but since we hadn't tested one yet and there was an example on the local press fleet, it seemed prudent to schedule a week with this compact crossover from one of America's luxury brands.

The first thing to note is that, despite the way it might look in photos, this is not a huge land barge. The Corsair is 181.4 inches (4,608 mm) long, 76.4 inches (1,941 mm) wide, and 64.1 inches (1,628 mm) tall, so about the same size as a Toyota RAV4, or six inches shorter than a Tesla Model Y. The shape uses plenty of curved edges, dominated by the large Lincoln grille up front, with a hint of late-teens Audi SUV to it.

Enlarge / Rush Rhees Library at the University of Rochester. (credit: Kickstand)

We've been following the saga of Ranga Dias since he first burst onto the scene with reports of a high-pressure, room-temperature superconductor, published in Nature in 2020. Even as that paper was being retracted due to concerns about the validity of some of its data, Dias published a second paper claiming a similar breakthrough: a superconductor that works at high temperatures but somewhat lower pressures. Shortly afterward, that got retracted as well.

On Wednesday, the University of Rochester, where Dias is based, announced that it had concluded an investigation into Dias and found that he had committed research misconduct. (The outcome was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.)

The outcome is likely to mean the end of Dias' career, as well as the company he founded to commercialize the supposed breakthroughs. But it's unlikely we'll ever see the full details of the investigation's conclusions.

Enlarge / The Android 15 logo. This is "Android V," if you can't tell from the logo. (credit: Google)

Android 15 continues its march toward release with the Android 15 Developer Preview 2. Android 15 won't be out until around October, but the first preview shipped a month ago. It's time for another one!

Android's satellite messaging support has been in the works for about a year now, and it sounds like Android 15 is going to launch the feature for apps. The new OS is including notifications and better status bar indicators for when you're connected to space. A "NonTerrestrialNetwork" API will let apps know when they're limited to barely there satellite connectivity. Google says Android 15 will let third-party SMS and MMS applications tap into the satellite connectivity APIs, but enhanced messaging with RCS support will be limited to "preloaded" applications only. It seems incredible that Google doesn't have public APIs for third-party RCS apps, but here's your confirmation that Android 15 will continue locking out Play Store apps from RCS.

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  Android 15's new satellite messaging UI. [credit: Google ]

Android's PDF support can be all over the place depending on what device you have, so Android 15 is including making some big improvements to the built-in PDF render. First it's going to end up as a module so it can be updated via the Play Store. Google says this Android 15 version is getting "advanced features such as rendering password-protected files, annotations, form editing, searching, and selection with copy."