Month: August 2024

Enlarge / A recall notice is posted next to Boar's Head meats that are displayed at a Safeway store on July 31, 2024, in San Rafael, California. (credit: Getty | Justin Sullivan)

A third person has died in a nationwide bacterial outbreak linked to Boar's Head brand deli meats. Last week, the company recalled more than 7 million pounds of its meats, which was in addition to a recall of over 200,000 pounds of meat from July 26. In all, 71 types of products made between May 10, 2024, and July 29, 2024, and sold nationwide have been recalled.

According to an update Thursday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the outbreak has now sickened a total of 43 people, an increase from 34 last week. There have been 43 hospitalizations, up from 33 last week. The illnesses are reported from 13 states. The three deaths in the outbreak include one from Illinois and one from New Jersey, and the newly reported death is from Virginia. The CDC expects the tally of illnesses so far to be a significant undercount of actual cases, and additional states may be affected.

The illnesses in the outbreak are caused by Listeria monocytogenes, a foodborne bacterium that is particularly dangerous to people who are pregnant, people aged 65 years or older, and people who have weakened immune systems. In these high-risk groups, the bacteria are more likely to move beyond the gastrointestinal system to cause an invasive infection called listeriosis. During pregnancy, listeriosis can cause miscarriage, stillbirth, premature delivery, or a life-threatening infection in newborns. For non-pregnant people who develop listeriosis, nearly 90 percent require hospitalization, and one in six die.

Enlarge / A recall notice is posted next to Boar's Head meats that are displayed at a Safeway store on July 31, 2024, in San Rafael, California. (credit: Getty | Justin Sullivan)

A third person has died in a nationwide bacterial outbreak linked to Boar's Head brand deli meats. Last week, the company recalled more than 7 million pounds of its meats, which was in addition to a recall of over 200,000 pounds of meat from July 26. In all, 71 types of products made between May 10, 2024, and July 29, 2024, and sold nationwide have been recalled.

According to an update Thursday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the outbreak has now sickened a total of 43 people, an increase from 34 last week. There have been 43 hospitalizations, up from 33 last week. The illnesses are reported from 13 states. The three deaths in the outbreak include one from Illinois and one from New Jersey, and the newly reported death is from Virginia. The CDC expects the tally of illnesses so far to be a significant undercount of actual cases, and additional states may be affected.

The illnesses in the outbreak are caused by Listeria monocytogenes, a foodborne bacterium that is particularly dangerous to people who are pregnant, people aged 65 years or older, and people who have weakened immune systems. In these high-risk groups, the bacteria are more likely to move beyond the gastrointestinal system to cause an invasive infection called listeriosis. During pregnancy, listeriosis can cause miscarriage, stillbirth, premature delivery, or a life-threatening infection in newborns. For non-pregnant people who develop listeriosis, nearly 90 percent require hospitalization, and one in six die.

Enlarge / The round lens of PrivacyLens captures standard digital video while the square lens senses heat. The heat sensor improves the camera's ability to spot and remove people from videos. (credit: Brenda Ahearn, Michigan Engineering)

Roombas can be both convenient and fun, particularly for cats who like to ride on top of the machines as they make their cleaning rounds. But the obstacle-avoidance cameras collect images of the environment—sometimes rather personal images, as was the case in 2020 when images of a young woman on the toilet captured by a Romba leaked to social media after being uploaded to a cloud server. It's a vexing problem in this very online digital age, in which Internet-connected cameras are used in a variety of home monitoring and health applications, as well as more public-facing applications like autonomous vehicles and security cameras.

University of Michigan (UM) engineers have been developing a possible solution: PrivacyLens, a new camera that can detect people in images based on body temperature and replace their likeness with a generic stick figure. They have filed a provisional patent for the device, described in a recent paper published in the Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium, held last month.

"Most consumers do not think about what happens to the data collected by their favorite smart home devices. In most cases, raw audio, images and videos are being streamed off these devices to the manufacturers' cloud-based servers, regardless of whether or not the data is actually needed for the end application," said co-author Alanson Sample. "A smart device that removes personally identifiable information (PII) before sensitive data is sent to private servers will be a far safer product than what we currently have."

Enlarge / The round lens of PrivacyLens captures standard digital video while the square lens senses heat. The heat sensor improves the camera's ability to spot and remove people from videos. (credit: Brenda Ahearn, Michigan Engineering)

Roombas can be both convenient and fun, particularly for cats who like to ride on top of the machines as they make their cleaning rounds. But the obstacle-avoidance cameras collect images of the environment—sometimes rather personal images, as was the case in 2020 when images of a young woman on the toilet captured by a Romba leaked to social media after being uploaded to a cloud server. It's a vexing problem in this very online digital age, in which Internet-connected cameras are used in a variety of home monitoring and health applications, as well as more public-facing applications like autonomous vehicles and security cameras.

University of Michigan (UM) engineers have been developing a possible solution: PrivacyLens, a new camera that can detect people in images based on body temperature and replace their likeness with a generic stick figure. They have filed a provisional patent for the device, described in a recent paper published in the Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium, held last month.

"Most consumers do not think about what happens to the data collected by their favorite smart home devices. In most cases, raw audio, images and videos are being streamed off these devices to the manufacturers' cloud-based servers, regardless of whether or not the data is actually needed for the end application," said co-author Alanson Sample. "A smart device that removes personally identifiable information (PII) before sensitive data is sent to private servers will be a far safer product than what we currently have."

Enlarge (credit: NurPhoto / Contributor | NurPhoto)

FTX, the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange formerly helmed by fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried, has agreed to pay $12.7 billion to customers blindsided by Bankman-Fried's deceptions covering up FTX's flagrant misuse of customer funds.

In an order yesterday, US District Judge P. Kevin Castel said that FTX must pay $8.7 billion in restitution to victims of Bankman-Fried's fraudulent scheme, as well as disgorge another $4 billion in "gains received in connection with the violations" to further compensate customers who suffered significant losses.

According to Ian McGinley, the division of enforcement director for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), "this multi-billion-dollar recovery for victims" is "the largest such recovery in CFTC history." And the CFTC "achieved it with remarkable speed," McGinley boasted.

Enlarge (credit: NurPhoto / Contributor | NurPhoto)

FTX, the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange formerly helmed by fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried, has agreed to pay $12.7 billion to customers blindsided by Bankman-Fried's deceptions covering up FTX's flagrant misuse of customer funds.

In an order yesterday, US District Judge P. Kevin Castel said that FTX must pay $8.7 billion in restitution to victims of Bankman-Fried's fraudulent scheme, as well as disgorge another $4 billion in "gains received in connection with the violations" to further compensate customers who suffered significant losses.

According to Ian McGinley, the division of enforcement director for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), "this multi-billion-dollar recovery for victims" is "the largest such recovery in CFTC history." And the CFTC "achieved it with remarkable speed," McGinley boasted.