Month: October 2024

A California dairy farm worker who had contact with H5N1-infected cows appears to have contracted the avian influenza virus, state health officials reported Thursday.

The person's illness is reported to be mild, with the only symptom being conjunctivitis (eye redness). This echoes the experience of other H5N1 human cases in this outbreak. The person is said to be staying at home and taking an antiviral flu medication.

Testing by a local health department indicated the person was infected with the outbreak virus. The result now awaits confirmation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Automattic Inc. and its founder have been sued by a WordPress hosting company that alleges an extortion scheme to extract payments for use of the trademark for the open source WordPress software. Hosting firm WP Engine sued Automattic and founder Matt Mullenweg in a complaint filed yesterday in US District Court for the Northern District of California.

"This is a case about abuse of power, extortion, and greed," the lawsuit said. "The misconduct at issue here is all the more shocking because it occurred in an unexpected place—the WordPress open source software community built on promises of the freedom to build, run, change, and redistribute without barriers or constraints, for all."

The lawsuit alleged that "over the last two weeks, Defendants have been carrying out a scheme to ban WPE from the WordPress community unless it agreed to pay tens of millions of dollars to Automattic for a purported trademark license that WPE does not even need."

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Automattic Inc. and its founder have been sued by a WordPress hosting company that alleges an extortion scheme to extract payments for use of the trademark for the open source WordPress software. Hosting firm WP Engine sued Automattic and founder Matt Mullenweg in a complaint filed yesterday in US District Court for the Northern District of California.

"This is a case about abuse of power, extortion, and greed," the lawsuit said. "The misconduct at issue here is all the more shocking because it occurred in an unexpected place—the WordPress open source software community built on promises of the freedom to build, run, change, and redistribute without barriers or constraints, for all."

The lawsuit alleged that "over the last two weeks, Defendants have been carrying out a scheme to ban WPE from the WordPress community unless it agreed to pay tens of millions of dollars to Automattic for a purported trademark license that WPE does not even need."

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In 2014, researchers monitoring acoustic recordings from the Mariana Archipelago picked up an unusual whale vocalization with both low- and high-frequency components. It seemed to be a whale call, but it sounded more mechanical than biological and has since been dubbed a "biotwang."

Now a separate team of scientists has developed a machine-learning model to scan a dataset of recordings of whale vocalizations from various species to help identify the source of such calls. Combining that analysis with visual observations allowed the team to identify the source of the biotwang: a species of baleen whales called Bryde's (pronounced "broodus") whales. This should help researchers track populations of these whales as they migrate to different parts of the world, according to a recent paper published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science.

Marine biologists often rely on a powerful tool called passive acoustic monitoring for long-term data collection of the ocean's acoustic environment, including whale vocalizations. Bryde's whale calls tend to be regionally specific, per the authors. For instance, calls in the eastern North Pacific are pretty well documented, with frequencies typically falling below 100 Hz, augmented by harmonic frequencies as high as 400 Hz. Far less is known about the sounds made by Bryde's whales in the western and central North Pacific, since for many years there were only three known recordings of those vocalizations—including a call dubbed "Be8" (starting at 45 Hz with multiple harmonics) and mother-calf calls.

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In 2014, researchers monitoring acoustic recordings from the Mariana Archipelago picked up an unusual whale vocalization with both low- and high-frequency components. It seemed to be a whale call, but it sounded more mechanical than biological and has since been dubbed a "biotwang."

Now a separate team of scientists has developed a machine-learning model to scan a dataset of recordings of whale vocalizations from various species to help identify the source of such calls. Combining that analysis with visual observations allowed the team to identify the source of the biotwang: a species of baleen whales called Bryde's (pronounced "broodus") whales. This should help researchers track populations of these whales as they migrate to different parts of the world, according to a recent paper published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science.

Marine biologists often rely on a powerful tool called passive acoustic monitoring for long-term data collection of the ocean's acoustic environment, including whale vocalizations. Bryde's whale calls tend to be regionally specific, per the authors. For instance, calls in the eastern North Pacific are pretty well documented, with frequencies typically falling below 100 Hz, augmented by harmonic frequencies as high as 400 Hz. Far less is known about the sounds made by Bryde's whales in the western and central North Pacific, since for many years there were only three known recordings of those vocalizations—including a call dubbed "Be8" (starting at 45 Hz with multiple harmonics) and mother-calf calls.

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The HP TouchPad holds a rather strange place in the history of modern tablet computers. First launched in 2011 as a $500 tablet running webOS 3.0 software, the tablet was canceled just a few months later when HP pulled the plug on webOS. Suddenly a tablet that nobody was buying became a hot commodity as […]

The post HP TouchPad hack replaces the micro USB port with USB Type-C appeared first on Liliputing.

When news broke in August that Telegram founder Pavel Durov had been arrested after his private plane touched down in France, speculation on the reasons behind that were in plentiful supply.

After letting the rumor mill boil for a few days, French authorities said they had charged Durov with criminal offenses related to his role at Telegram and the platform’s “near-total absence” of cooperation with French authorities. After initially being quite bullish, Durov appeared to adopt a more conciliatory tone, noting that staff had deployed AI tools in an effort to remove problematic content.

Telegram Promises to Comply With Valid Legal Requests

Another supposed change was an update of Telegram’s terms of service and privacy policy, to make it clear that in response to valid legal requests, Telegram will in future hand over alleged infringers’ personal details, including IP addresses and telephone numbers.

“We won’t let bad actors jeopardize the integrity of our platform of almost a billion users,” Durov said.

While Telegram has a reputation for failing to live up to rightsholders’ standards, the platform has blocked many piracy-related channels in recent years. On the user data front, in 2022 a court in India ordered Telegram to hand over information to identify alleged infringers. The company appeared to drag its feet, but there were clear indications that the platform eventually complied.

As previously reported, Telegram recently took action against Z-Library’s channels on copyright grounds, although who or what prompted that is still unclear. In any event, it appears that Telegram’s approach to moderation is changing, including reports from France that rightsholders have witnessed a shift too.

Takedown Speed Increases Considerably

Following Durov’s assurances that Telegram would start cooperating more with the authorities, reports began to emerge that some pirates, who presumably (and naively) considered Telegram a safe haven, are now feeling a little spooked.

Indeed, in an interview with Le Figaro, the CEO of anti-piracy company LeakID confirmed that for some football-focused streamers, the pressure was beginning to show.

“We have learned from concordant sources that at least three major streamers are stopping,” Hervé Lemaire told the publication, adding that Telegram also appears to be more responsive to takedown requests.

“We noticed that Telegram closed illicit streams more quickly, in 10, 15, 20 minutes, whereas this was not the case before,” Lemaire added. “Previously, Telegram generally took 24 to 48 hours to close these pirate links.”

Similar changes were also observed at beIN Sports, a company that sees most of its content pirated on a continuous basis, with Telegram-based pirates typically playing a role in illicit distribution.

“We have indeed seen a significant drop in streams of pirated content on Telegram in recent days,” confirmed Sarah d’Arifat, legal director at beIN Sports. “However, it is still too early to draw any conclusions, even if we hope that this improvement will be confirmed over time.”

“Mafia Groups” on Telegram

The Association for the Protection of Sports Programs (APPS) counts several major rightsholders and broadcasters among its members, including Canal+, beIN Sports, the Professional Football League (LFP) and the French National Olympic and Sports Committee (CNOSF).

In an August interview, APPS president Xavier Spender described IPTV providers and illegal streamers operating on Telegram as organized criminals, and Telegram as falling short on cooperation.

“What you have to keep in mind is that today the players on these platforms are real mafia groups. They make a significant profit from this activity of pirating content, whether it is sports content or other types,” Spender said. “Telegram is not very responsive when asked to cut off streams, that’s clear.”

So with the more recent changes, are rightsholders optimistic for the future?

Luke-Warm Reception From Other Rightsholders

“Telegram’s announcement of increased moderation and collaboration with the French justice system also appears to concern illegal sports broadcasts: blocking and announcements of the cessation of illegal broadcasts of sports content by streamers,” Spender confirmed to Le Figaro.

For the Professional Football League, which suffers high levels of piracy along with its football counterparts all over Europe, any positive change is welcomed. In Telegram’s case, however, much more will be needed to effectively tackle the unique problems associated with piracy of live sports, in particular the need for ultra-fast takedowns.

“Telegram’s initial efforts are interesting but not sufficient,” the LFP said. “The removal times observed on Telegram remain random and can still extend to several hours. These times are therefore unfortunately still not, overall, compatible with the effective protection of content broadcast live.”

Hervé Lemaire at Leak ID prefers to see how Telegram handles big events before drawing any firm conclusions. But of course, he’s seen it all before and understands the brutal reality of fighting piracy online, even if Telegram suddenly meets demanding industry standards.

“If it is no longer Telegram, the streamers will go to something else,” he said. “All platforms must play the game. Telegram is a step. But it is not the end of the war.”

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

We tend to think of agriculture as a human innovation. But insects beat us to it by millions of years. Various ant species cooperate with fungi, creating a home for them, providing them with nutrients, and harvesting them as food. This reaches the peak of sophistication in the leafcutter ants, which cut foliage and return it to feed their fungi, which in turn form specialized growths that are harvested for food. But other ant species cooperate with fungi—in some cases strains of fungus that are also found growing in their environment.

Genetic studies have shown that these symbiotic relationships are highly specific—a given ant species will often cooperate with just a single strain of fungus. A number of genes that appear to have evolved rapidly in response to strains of fungi take part in this cooperative relationship. But it has been less clear how the cooperation originally came about, partly because we don't have a good picture of what the undomesticated relatives of these fungi look like.

Now, a large international team of researchers has done a study that traces the relationships among a large collection of both fungi and ants, providing a clearer picture of how this form of agriculture evolved. And the history this study reveals suggests that the cooperation between ants and their crops began after the mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs, when little beyond fungi could thrive.

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We tend to think of agriculture as a human innovation. But insects beat us to it by millions of years. Various ant species cooperate with fungi, creating a home for them, providing them with nutrients, and harvesting them as food. This reaches the peak of sophistication in the leafcutter ants, which cut foliage and return it to feed their fungi, which in turn form specialized growths that are harvested for food. But other ant species cooperate with fungi—in some cases strains of fungus that are also found growing in their environment.

Genetic studies have shown that these symbiotic relationships are highly specific—a given ant species will often cooperate with just a single strain of fungus. A number of genes that appear to have evolved rapidly in response to strains of fungi take part in this cooperative relationship. But it has been less clear how the cooperation originally came about, partly because we don't have a good picture of what the undomesticated relatives of these fungi look like.

Now, a large international team of researchers has done a study that traces the relationships among a large collection of both fungi and ants, providing a clearer picture of how this form of agriculture evolved. And the history this study reveals suggests that the cooperation between ants and their crops began after the mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs, when little beyond fungi could thrive.

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Any striking marketing claims in companies' ads about the gut benefits of a popular probiotic may be full of, well, the same thing that has their target audience backed up.

In a randomized controlled trial, the probiotic Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis—used in many probiotic products, including Dannon's Activia yogurts—did nothing to improve bowel health in people with constipation, according to data from a randomized triple-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial published Wednesday in JAMA Network Open.

The study adds to a mixed and mostly unconvincing body of scientific literature on the bowel benefits of the bacterium, substrains of which are sometimes sold with faux scientific-sounding names in products. Dannon, for instance, previously marketed its substrain, DN-173 010, as "Bifidus regularis."

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