Month: April 2024

Enlarge / Aerial view of the Pentagon on March 31. (credit: Photo by Daniel Slim/AFP via Getty Images)

A strategy document released by the Pentagon this week lays out where the US military can most effectively rely on the commercial space industry and what missions should remain in government hands.

"This marks a new effort to harness the remarkable innovation of the commercial space sector to enhance our resilience and strengthen integrated deterrence as a department," said John Plumb, assistant secretary of defense for space policy.

The Space Force already buys a lot from the commercial space industry. The military doesn't build or own satellite launch vehicles—those come from commercial companies. While the Space Force operates government-owned reconnaissance and surveillance satellites, it also buys supplementary data and imagery from the commercial industry.

Enlarge / You think this cute little search robot is going to work for free? (credit: Getty Images)

Google might start charging for access to search results that use generative artificial intelligence tools. That's according to a new Financial Times report citing "three people with knowledge of [Google's] plans."

Charging for any part of the search engine at the core of its business would be a first for Google, which has funded its search product solely with ads since 2000. But it's far from the first time Google would charge for AI enhancements in general; the "AI Premium" tier of a Google One subscription costs $10 more per month than a standard "Premium" plan, for instance, while "Gemini Business" adds $20 a month to a standard Google Workspace subscription.

While those paid products offer access to Google's high-end "Gemini Advanced" AI model, Google also offers free access to its less performant, plain "Gemini" model without any kind of paid subscription.

Enlarge / Chicken eggs are disposed of at a quarantined farm with bird flu in Israel's northern village of Margaliot on January 3, 2022. (credit: Getty | JALAA MAREY )

The flare-up of highly pathogenic bird flu continues to widen in US livestock after federal officials confirmed last week that the virus has spread to US cows for the first time. The virus has now been detected in dairy cows in at least five states, a single person in Texas exposed to infected cows, and an egg farm in Texas, all spurring yet more intense monitoring and biosecurity vigilance as the situation continues to evolve.

As of Tuesday, seven dairy herds in Texas, two in Kansas, and one each in Idaho, Michigan, and New Mexico had tested positive for the virus. The affected dairy herd in Michigan had recently received cows from one of the infected herds in Texas. It remains unclear if there is cow-to-cow transmission of the flu virus.

The virus—a highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza or HPAI—has been devastating wild birds worldwide for the past several years. Throughout the devastating outbreak, the flu virus has spilled over to various species, including big cats in zoos, river otters, bears, dolphins, seals, squirrels, and foxes. While cows were an unexpected addition to the list, federal officials noted last week that affected dairy farms had found dead wild birds on their farms, suggesting that wild birds introduced the virus to the cows, not an intermediate host.

Enlarge (credit: Getty)

Spotify Premium subscriptions include up to 15 hours of audiobook listening. But starting in April, the company will charge an extra $1 to $2 per month for the feature, Bloomberg reported today, citing anonymous “people familiar with the matter.” The reported price hike would be the second that Spotify customers have faced in nine months.

Currently, Spotify charges nothing for its free plan with ads, $5.99/month for students, $10.99/month for its Premium plan, $14.99/month for its Duo Premium plan for two users, and $16.99/month for its Family Premium plan with up to six users.

Bloomberg reported that individual plan prices will go up by approximately $1 per month and multi-member plans will increase by $2 per month.

Enlarge / Three examples of the video screen tampering. (credit: US DOJ)

Was someone messing with the Jacksonville Jaguars' giant jumbotron?

On September 16, 2018, the Jaguars were playing the New England Patriots when the in-stadium screen experienced, in the US government's words, "a loss in reference sync which manifested as a large horizontal green lines [sic] appearing across one whole video board."

On November 18, during a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, it happened again—but this time, entire video sub-boards filled with green.

Enlarge (credit: Malte Mueller | fStop)

A high-level Iowa hospital systems administrator, Matthew Kierans, has admitted to stealing a coworker's identity and posing as William Donald Woods for more than 30 years, The Register reported.

On top of using Woods' identity to commit crimes and rack up debt, Kierans' elaborate identity theft scheme led to Woods' incarceration after Kierans' accused his victim of identity theft and Los Angeles authorities failed to detect which man was the true William Donald Woods. Kierans could face up to 32 years in prison, The Register reported, and must pay a $1.25 million fine.

According to a proposed plea agreement with the US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Iowa, Kierans met Woods "in about 1988" when they worked together at a hot dog stand in New Mexico. "For the next three decades," Kierans used Woods' "identity in every aspect of his life," including when obtaining "employment, insurance, a social security number, driver's licenses, titles, loans, and credit," as well as when paying taxes. Kierans even got married and had a child using Woods' name.