Month: October 2024

NASA said Friday one its astronauts is in a hospital in Florida for medical observation after a "normal" predawn splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico inside a SpaceX capsule.

The mission's other three crew members were cleared to return to their home base at Johnson Space Center in Houston after their own medical evaluations, NASA said.

The hospitalized astronaut "is in stable condition and under observation as a precautionary measure," a NASA spokesperson said in a statement. The agency did not identify the astronaut or provide any more details about their condition, citing medical privacy protections.

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News and talk of GLP-1 drugs are everywhere these days—from their smash success in treating Type 2 diabetes and obesity to their astronomical pricing, drug shortages, compounding disputes, and what sometimes seems like an ever-growing list of other conditions the drugs could potentially treat. There are new headlines every day.

Although the drugs have abruptly stolen the spotlight in recent years, researchers have been toiling away at developing and understanding them for decades, stretching back to the 1970s. Despite all the time and effort, the drugs still hold mysteries and unknowns. For instance, researchers thought for years that they worked directly in the gut to decrease blood sugar levels and make people feel full. After all, the drugs mimic an incretin hormone, glucagon-like peptide-1, that does exactly that. But, instead, studies have since found that they work in the brain.

In fact, the molecular receptors for GLP-1 are sprinkled in many places around the body. They're found in the central nervous system, the heart, blood vessels, liver, and kidney. Their presence in the brain even plays a role in inflammation. As such, research on GLP-1 continues to flourish as scientists work to understand the role it could play in treating a range of other chronic conditions.

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The Banana Pi BPI-M1S is a 92 x 62mm (3.62″ x 2.44″) single-board computer with a Rockchip RK3528 quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor, Mali-450 graphics, and support for 4K video output over an HDMI 2.0b port. It also has a pretty decent set of networking features including 2.5 GbE and Gigabit Ethernet ports, support for WiFi […]

The post Banana Pi BPI-M1S is a RK3528 single-board PC with HDMI 2.0 and 2.5 GbE LAN appeared first on Liliputing.

The integrated development environment (IDE) Rider by Jetbrains is now available for free for the first time ever.

After trialing non-commercial free licenses with other products like RustRover and Aqua, Jetbrains has introduced a similar option for Rider. It also says this is a permanent situation, not a limited-time initiative.

In a blog post announcing the change, Jetbrains' Ekaterina Ryabukha acknowledges that there are numerous cases where people use an IDE without any commercial intent—for example, hobbyists, open source developers, and educators or students. She also cites a Stack Overflow survey that 68 percent of professional developers "code outside of work as a hobby."

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In a blockbuster story published Friday morning, The Wall Street Journal reports that Elon Musk has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin for about two years, with the discussions covering a range of issues from geopolitics to business to personal matters.

There are no on-the-record sources confirming the regular conversations between Musk and Putin, and Musk did not comment to the news organization. A Putin spokesperson said the Russian leader and Musk have had just one telephone call. However, the report is plausibly true, and the Journal cites "several current and former US, European, and Russian officials." This is also not the first time there have been reports of contact between Musk and Putin.

The new story about Musk's direct links to an avowed enemy of the United States immediately raised concerns among some prominent US officials who work with the billionaire entrepreneur, including NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

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Consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge today hailed a decision by the US Copyright Office to "grant an exemption specifically allowing for repair of retail-level food preparation equipment—including soft serve ice cream machines similar to those available at McDonald's."

The group, which teamed with iFixit to request the exemption last year, said the government ruling will "free the McFlurry." Public Knowledge Senior Policy Counsel Meredith Rose called the decision a victory for "franchise owners, independent repair shops, and anyone who's had to bribe their kids with a chilly treat on lengthy road trips."

The change should "spark a flurry of third-party repair activity and enable businesses to better serve their customers," Rose said. "While we are disappointed that the Register recommended a narrower exemption than we had proposed, this does not soften our enthusiasm. We will continue to chip away at half-baked laws blocking the right to repair, sprinkling consumer victories as we go. Today's win may not be parfait, but it's still pretty sweet."

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Earlier this year, we reported on the video game archivists asking for a legal DMCA exemption to share Internet-accessible emulated versions of their physical game collections with researchers. Today, the US Copyright Office announced once again that it was denying that request, forcing researchers to travel to far-flung collections for access to the often-rare physical copies of the games they're seeking.

In announcing its decision, the Register of Copyrights for the Library of Congress sided with the Entertainment Software Association and others who argued that the proposed remote access could serve as a legal loophole for a free-to-access "online arcade" that could harm the market for classic gaming re-releases. This argument resonated with the Copyright Office despite a VGHF study that found 87 percent of those older game titles are currently out of print.

"While proponents are correct that some older games will not have a reissue market, they concede there is a 'healthy' market for other reissued games and that the industry has been making 'greater concerted efforts' to reissue games," the Register writes in her decision. "Further, while the Register appreciates that proponents have suggested broad safeguards that could deter recreational uses of video games in some cases, she believes that such requirements are not specific enough to conclude that they would prevent market harms."

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A trend on Reddit that sees Londoners giving false restaurant recommendations in order to keep their favorites clear of tourists and social media influencers highlights the inherent flaws of Google Search’s reliance on Reddit and Google's AI Overview.

In May, Google launched AI Overviews in the US, an experimental feature that populates the top of Google Search results with a summarized answer based on an AI model built into Google’s web rankings. When Google first debuted AI Overview, it quickly became apparent that the feature needed work with accuracy and its ability to properly summarize information from online sources. AI Overviews are “built to only show information that is backed up by top web results," Liz Reid, VP and head of Google Search, wrote in a May blog post. But as my colleague Benj Edwards pointed out at the time, that setup could contribute to inaccurate, misleading, or even dangerous results: “The design is based on the false assumption that Google's page-ranking algorithm favors accurate results and not SEO-gamed garbage."

As Edwards alluded to, many have complained about Google Search results' quality declining in recent years, as SEO spam and, more recently, AI slop float to the top of searches. As a result, people often turn to the Reddit hack to make Google results more helpful. By adding "site:reddit.com” to search results, users can hone their search to more easily find answers from real people. Google seems to understand the value of Reddit and signed an AI training deal with the company that’s reportedly worth $60 million per year.

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A trend on Reddit that sees Londoners giving false restaurant recommendations in order to keep their favorites clear of tourists and social media influencers highlights the inherent flaws of Google Search’s reliance on Reddit and Google's AI Overview.

In May, Google launched AI Overviews in the US, an experimental feature that populates the top of Google Search results with a summarized answer based on an AI model built into Google’s web rankings. When Google first debuted AI Overview, it quickly became apparent that the feature needed work with accuracy and its ability to properly summarize information from online sources. AI Overviews are “built to only show information that is backed up by top web results," Liz Reid, VP and head of Google Search, wrote in a May blog post. But as my colleague Benj Edwards pointed out at the time, that setup could contribute to inaccurate, misleading, or even dangerous results: “The design is based on the false assumption that Google's page-ranking algorithm favors accurate results and not SEO-gamed garbage."

As Edwards alluded to, many have complained about Google Search results' quality declining in recent years, as SEO spam and, more recently, AI slop float to the top of searches. As a result, people often turn to the Reddit hack to make Google results more helpful. By adding "site:reddit.com” to search results, users can hone their search to more easily find answers from real people. Google seems to understand the value of Reddit and signed an AI training deal with the company that’s reportedly worth $60 million per year.

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Twenty-six more cases have been identified in a multistate E. coli O157:H7 outbreak linked to McDonald's Quarter Pounder burgers, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday.

The 26 new cases represent a 50 percent increase in the case count from October 22, bringing the total to 75 cases. With the new cases, health officials also reported 12 more hospitalizations, including one new adult case of hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a severe complication to an E. coli O157:H7 infection. Three more states are also newly affected: Michigan, New Mexico, and Washington.

In all, the outbreak now stands at 75 cases, including 22 hospitalizations and two cases of HUS, across 13 states. The number of deaths linked to the outbreak remains at one. The most recent illness onset for the cases identified so far is October 10.

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