John McAfee – Wikipedia

British-American programmer and businessman (19452021)

John David McAfee ( MAK--fee;[1][2] 18 September 1945 23 June 2021)[3][4] was a British-American computer programmer, businessman, and two-time presidential candidate who unsuccessfully sought the Libertarian Party nomination for president of the United States in 2016 and in 2020. In 1987, he wrote the first commercial anti-virus software, founding McAfee Associates to sell his creation. He resigned in 1994 and sold his remaining stake in the company.[5] McAfee became the company's most vocal critic in later years, urging consumers to uninstall the company's anti-virus software, which he characterized as bloatware. He disavowed the company's continued use of his name in branding, a practice that has persisted in spite of a short-lived corporate rebrand attempt under Intel ownership.

McAfee's fortunes plummeted in the financial crisis of 20072008. After leaving McAfee Associates, he founded the companies Tribal Voice (makers of the PowWow chat program), QuorumEx, and Future Tense Central, among others, and was involved in leadership positions in the companies Everykey, MGT Capital Investments, and Luxcore, among others. His personal and business interests included smartphone apps, cryptocurrency, yoga, light-sport aircraft[6] and recreational drug use. He resided for a number of years in Belize, but returned to the United States in 2013 while wanted in Belize for questioning on suspicion of murder.[7]

In October 2020, McAfee was arrested in Spain over U.S. tax evasion charges.[8] U.S. federal prosecutors brought criminal and civil charges alleging that McAfee had failed to file income taxes over a four-year period.[9][10] On 23 June 2021, he was found dead due to an apparent suicide by hanging in his prison cell near Barcelona shortly after the Spanish National Court authorized his extradition to the U.S.[11][12][13] His death generated speculation and conspiracy theories about the possibility that he was murdered.[14] McAfee's wife, Janice McAfee, said she did not believe McAfee committed suicide, and claimed the suicide note was a forgery.[15][16]

McAfee was born in Cinderford, in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England,[17] on 18 September 1945,[18] on a U.S. Army base (of the 596th Ordnance Ammunition Company), to an American father, Don McAfee, who was stationed there, and a British mother, Joan (Williams).[19][20] His father was from Roanoke, Virginia, and McAfee was himself primarily raised in Salem, Virginia, United States. He said he felt as much British as American.[21] When he was 15, his father, whom a BBC columnist described as "an abusive alcoholic", killed himself with a gun.[21] He had spent his childhood living in fear that a beating from his father could happen at any time, and struggled to make sense of why this was happening to him.[18]

McAfee received a bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1967 from Roanoke College in Virginia, which subsequently awarded him an honorary Doctor of Science degree in 2008.[22] After receiving his bachelor's degree, McAfee began working towards a doctorate in mathematics at Northeast Louisiana State College but was expelled, in about 1968, because of a relationship with an undergraduate student, who became his first wife.[23]

McAfee was employed as a programmer by NASA's Institute for Space Studies in New York City from 1968 to 1970 working on the Apollo program. From there, he went to Univac as a software designer, and later to Xerox as an operating system architect. In 1978, he joined Computer Sciences Corporation as a software consultant. He worked for consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton from 1980 to 1982.[24] In 1986, while employed by Lockheed, he read about the Brain computer virus made for the PC, and he found it terrifying.[23] Sensing a business opportunity, he went about creating an antivirus software that could detect the computer virus and remove it automatically.[20] In 1987 McAfee created McAfee Associates Inc. to sell this software, which he named VirusScan.[22] This was the first anti-virus software brought to market, and one of the first software products to be distributed over the Internet.[20][22]

Initially McAfee did not seek a large userbase of paying users, but rather wanted to raise awareness of the need to be protected from computer viruses. However, by making people fear such malware, he managed to generate millions of sales, and by 1990 he was making five million dollars a year.[18] The company was incorporated in Delaware in 1992, and had its initial public offering the same year. In August 1993, McAfee stepped down as chief executive and remained with the company as the chief technical officer. He was succeeded by Bill Larson.[25] In 1994 he sold his remaining stake in the company.[26] He had no further involvement in its operations.[5]

After various mergers and ownership changes, Intel acquired McAfee in August 2010.[27] In January 2014, Intel announced that McAfee-related products would be marketed as Intel Security. McAfee expressed his pleasure at the name change, saying, "I am now everlastingly grateful to Intel for freeing me from this terrible association with the worst software on the planet."[28] The business was soon de-merged from Intel, once more under the McAfee name.

Other business ventures that were founded by McAfee include Tribal Voice, which developed one of the first instant messaging programs,[29] PowWow. In 2000, he invested in and joined the board of directors of Zone Labs, makers of firewall software, prior to its acquisition by Check Point Software in 2003.[30]

In the 2000s McAfee invested in and advertised ultra-light flights, which he marketed as aerotrekking.[6]

In August 2009 The New York Times reported that McAfee's personal fortune had declined to $4 million from a peak of $100 million due to the effect of the financial crisis of 20072008 on his investments.[26]

In 2009, McAfee was interviewed in Belize for the CNBC special The Bubble Decade, in which it was reported that he had invested in and/or built many mansions in the USA that went unsold when the 2007 global recession hit. The report also discussed his quest to raise plants for possible medicinal uses on his land in Belize.[31]

In February 2010, McAfee started the company QuorumEx,[32] headquartered in Belize, which aimed to produce herbal antibiotics that disrupt quorum sensing in bacteria.[33][34]

In June 2013, McAfee uploaded a parody video titled How to Uninstall McAfee Antivirus onto his YouTube channel. In it, he critiques the antivirus software while snorting white powder and being stripped by scantily clad women. It received ten million views. He told Reuters the video was meant to ridicule the media's negative coverage of him. A spokesman for McAfee Inc. called the video's statements "ludicrous".[35]

Also in 2013, McAfee founded Future Tense Central, which aimed to produce a secure computer network device called the D-Central.[36] By 2016, it was also an incubator.[37]

In February 2014, McAfee announced Cognizant, an application for smartphones, which displays information about the permissions of other installed applications.[38] In April 2014, it was renamed DCentral 1, and an Android version was released for free on Google Play.[39][40]

At the DEF CON conference in Las Vegas in August 2014, McAfee warned people not to use smartphones, suggesting apps are used to spy on clueless consumers who do not read privacy user agreements.[41] In January 2016, he became the chief evangelist for security startup Everykey.[37]

In February 2016, McAfee publicly volunteered to decrypt the iPhone used by Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik in San Bernardino, avoiding the need for Apple to build a backdoor.[42] He later admitted that his claims regarding the ease of cracking the phone were a publicity stunt, while still asserting its possibility.[43]

In May 2016, McAfee was appointed chairman and CEO of MGT Capital Investments, a technology holding company. It initially said it would rename itself John McAfee Global Technologies,[44] although this plan was abandoned due to a dispute with Intel over rights to the "McAfee" name.[45] He changed MGT's focus from social gaming to cybersecurity, saying "anti-virus software is dead, it no longer works", and that "the new paradigm has to stop the hacker getting in" before he or she can do damage.[46]

Soon after joining MGT, McAfee said he and his team had exploited a flaw in the Android operating system that allowed him to read encrypted messages from WhatsApp.[47] Gizmodo investigated his claim, and reported that he had sent reporters malware-infected phones to make this hack work. He replied: "Of course the phones had malware on them. How that malware got there is the story, which we will release after speaking with Google. It involves a serious flaw in the Android architecture."[48]

McAfee moved MGT into the mining of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, both to make money for the company, and to increase MGT's expertise in dealing with blockchains, which he thought was important for cybersecurity.[49]

In August 2017, McAfee stepped down as CEO, instead serving as MGT's "chief cybersecurity visionary". In January 2018, he left the company altogether. Both sides said the split was amicable; he said he wanted to spend all of his time on cryptocurrencies, while the company told of pressure from potential investors to disassociate itself from him.[50]

On 13 August 2018, McAfee took a position of CEO with Luxcore, a cryptocurrency company focused on enterprise solutions.[51]

McAfee was a libertarian, advocating the decriminalization of cannabis, an end to the war on drugs, non-interventionism in foreign policy, a free market economy which does not redistribute wealth, and upholding free trade. He supported abolishing the Transportation Security Administration.[52]

McAfee advocated increased cyber awareness and more action against the threat of cyberwarfare.[53] He pushed religious liberty, saying that business owners should be able to deny service in circumstances that contradict their religious beliefs, adding: "No one is forcing you to buy anything or to choose one person over another. So why should I be forced to do anything if I am not harming you? It's my choice to sell, your choice to buy."[54]

On 8 September 2015, McAfee announced a bid for president of the United States in the 2016 presidential election, as the candidate of a newly formed political party called the Cyber Party.[19][55] On 24 December 2015, he re-announced his candidacy bid saying that he would instead seek the presidential nomination of the Libertarian Party.[37][56] On the campaign trail, he consistently polled alongside the party's other top candidates, Gary Johnson and Austin Petersen.[57] The three partook in the Libertarian Party's first nationally televised presidential debate on 29 March 2016.[58] His running mate was photographer, commercial real estate broker and Libertarian activist Judd Weiss.[59]

McAfee came in second in the primaries[60] and third at the 2016 Libertarian National Convention.[61]

Contrary to his assertion at the 2016 convention, McAfee tweeted on 3 June 2018 that he would run for president again in 2020, either with the Libertarian Party or a separate party that he would create.[65] He later chose to run as a Libertarian.[66] He mainly campaigned for wider cryptocurrency use.

On 22 January 2019, McAfee tweeted that he would continue his campaign "in exile", following reports that he, his wife, and four campaign staff were indicted for tax-related felonies by the IRS. He said he was in "international waters", and had previously tweeted that he was going to Venezuela.[67] The IRS has not commented on the alleged indictments.[68] He defended Communist revolutionary Che Guevara on Twitter, putting himself at odds with Libertarian National Committee chairman Nicholas Sarwark, who wrote, "I hear very little buzz about McAfee this time around... making a defense of Che Guevara from Cuba may ingratiate him with the Cuban government, but it didn't resonate well with Libertarians."[69]

In a tweet on 4 March 2020, McAfee simultaneously suspended his 2020 presidential campaign, endorsed Vermin Supreme, and announced his campaign for the Libertarian Party vice presidential nomination.[70] The next day, he returned to the presidential field, reversing the suspension of his bid, as "No one in the Libertarian Party Would consider me For Vice President."[71] The next month, he endorsed Adam Kokesh and became Kokesh's vice-presidential candidate, while still seeking the presidency for himself.[72] At the 2020 Libertarian National Convention, he again lost, now to Jo Jorgensen and Spike Cohen for the presidential and vice-presidential slots.[73]

McAfee contended that taxes were illegal, and claimed in 2019 that he had not filed a tax return since 2010. He referred to himself as "a prime target" of the Internal Revenue Service.[74]

In July 2017, McAfee predicted on Twitter that the price of a bitcoin would jump to $500,000 within three years, adding: "If not, I will eat my own dick on national television."[75] In July 2019, he predicted a price of $1 million by the end of 2020.[76] In January 2020, he tweeted that his predictions were "a ruse to onboard new users", and that bitcoin had limited potential because it is "an ancient technology."[77]

McAfee was named a defendant in a 2008 civil court case related to his Aerotrekking light-sport aircraft venture and the death of nephew Joel Bitow and a passenger.[78]

On 30 April 2012, McAfee's property in Orange Walk Town, Belize, was raided by the Gang Suppression Unit of the Belize Police Department. A GSU press release said he was arrested for unlicensed drug manufacturing and possession of an unlicensed weapon.[34][79][80] He was released without charge.[81]

In 2012, Belize police spokesman Raphael Martinez confirmed that McAfee was neither convicted nor charged, only suspected.[82]

In January 2014, while in Canada, he said that when the Belizean government raided his property, it seized his assets, and that his house later burned down under suspicious circumstances.[83]

On 2 August 2015, McAfee was arrested in Henderson County, Tennessee, on one count of driving under the influence and one count of possession of a firearm while intoxicated.[84]

In July 2019, McAfee and members of his entourage were arrested while his yacht was docked at Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, on suspicion of carrying high-caliber weapons and ammunition. They were held for four days and released.[85] Weapons were seized, according to the Public Ministry.[86]

On 11 August 2020, McAfee falsely stated that he was arrested in Norway during the COVID-19 pandemic after refusing to replace a lace thong with a more effective face mask. He later tweeted a picture of himself with a bruised eye, claiming it occurred during this arrest.[87] The photo of the alleged arrest shows an officer with the German word for "police" on his uniform, invalidating McAfee's claim of having been arrested in Norway. The Augsburg police later said he tried to enter Germany on that day, but was not arrested.[88]

On 12 November 2012, Belize police began to search for McAfee as a person of interest in connection to the homicide investigation of American expatriate Gregory Viant Faull, who was found dead of a gunshot wound the day before, at his home on the island of Ambergris Caye, the largest island in Belize.[89][90] Faull was a neighbor of McAfee's.[91] In a contemporary interview with Wired,[92] McAfee said he had been afraid police would kill him and refused their routine questions and evaded them.[91] He buried himself in sand for several hours with a cardboard box over his head.[18] Belize's prime minister, Dean Barrow, called him "extremely paranoid, even bonkers".[93] He fled Belize rather than cooperate.[94][95][96]

In December 2012, the magazine Vice accidentally gave away McAfee's location at a Guatemalan resort, when a photo taken by one of its journalists accompanying him was posted with the EXIF geolocation metadata still attached.[97]

While in Guatemala, McAfee asked Chad Essley, an American cartoonist and animator, to set up a blog so he could write about his experience while on the run.[98] He then appeared publicly in Guatemala City, where he unsuccessfully sought political asylum.[99]

On 5 December 2012, he was arrested for illegally entering Guatemala. Shortly afterward, the board reviewing his asylum plea denied it and he was taken to a detention center to await deportation to Belize.[100]

On 6 December 2012, Reuters and ABC News reported that McAfee had two minor heart attacks in the detention center and was hospitalized.[101][102] His lawyer said he had no heart attacks, rather high blood pressure and anxiety attacks.[103][104][105] McAfee later said he faked the heart attacks to buy time for his attorney to file a series of appeals that ultimately prevented his deportation to Belize, thus hastening that government's decision to send him back to the United States.[106]

On 12 December 2012, McAfee was released and deported to the United States.[107]

On 14 November 2018, the Circuit Court in Orlando, Florida, refused to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit against him for Faull's death.[108][109]

In January 2019, McAfee announced that he was on the run from U.S. authorities, and living internationally on a boat following the convening of a grand jury to indict him, his wife, and four of his 2020 Libertarian Party presidential primaries staff on tax evasion charges.[110] At the time, the Internal Revenue Service had not independently confirmed the existence of any such indictment.[110]

On 5 October 2020, McAfee was arrested in Spain at the request of the United States Department of Justice for tax evasion. The June indictment, which was unsealed upon his arrest, alleged he earned millions of dollars from 2014 to 2018, and failed to file income tax returns.[111]

On 6 October, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a complaint further alleging McAfee and his bodyguard promoted certain initial coin offerings (ICOs) in a fraudulent cryptocurrency pump and dump scheme.[112] It claims he presented himself as an impartial investor when he promoted the ICOs, despite allegedly getting paid $23 million in digital assets in return.[112]

On 5 March 2021, the U.S. Attorney's Office for theSouthern District of New York formally indicted him and an executive adviser on these charges.[113]

McAfee was jailed in Spain, pending extradition to the United States.[113][114]

On 23 June 2021, the Spanish National Court authorized his extradition to face charges in Tennessee;[115][5] McAfee is suspected to have committed suicide several hours after the authorization. The New York extradition case was still pending in a lower Spanish court.[5]

McAfee married three times. He met his first wife circa 1968 while he was working towards a doctorate at Northeast Louisiana State College and she was an undergraduate student.[23] Their affair led to his expulsion from the college.[23] He married his second wife, Judy, a former flight attendant at American Airlines, circa 1987; they divorced in 2002.[23] The night after McAfee arrived in the United States after being deported from Guatemala in December 2012, he was solicited by and slept with Janice Dyson, then a sex worker 30 years his junior in South Beach, Miami Beach, Florida.[116] They began a relationship and married in 2013.[117] She claims that he saved her from human traffickers.[18]

The couple moved to Portland, Oregon, in 2013.[118]

In a 2012 article in Mensa Bulletin, the magazine of the American Mensa, McAfee said developing the first commercial antivirus program had made him "the most popular hacking target" and "[h]ackers see hacking me as a badge of honor". For his own cybersecurity, he said he had other people buy his computer equipment for him, used pseudonyms for setting up computers and logins, and changed his IP address several times a day.[119] When asked on another occasion if he personally used McAfee's antivirus software, he replied: "I take it off[...]it's too annoying."[120]

In 2015, he resided in Lexington, Tennessee.[84] In December 2018, he tweeted that he has "47 genetic children".[121][122][123][124] His third wife described him in a Father's Day message as "father of many, loved by few".[18]

On 23 June 2021, McAfee was found dead in his prison cell at the Brians 2 Penitentiary Center[ca] near Barcelona, hours after the Spanish National Court ordered his extradition to the United States on criminal charges filed in Tennessee by the United States Department of Justice Tax Division.[5] The Catalan Justice Department said "everything indicates" he killed himself by hanging.[11][125][126][127] An official autopsy confirmed his suicide.[128][13]

McAfee's death ignited speculation and conspiracy theories about the possibility that he was murdered. McAfee's death drew comparisons to the circumstances of the death of American financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was found dead in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.[129][130] Several times, McAfee claimed if he were ever found dead by hanging, it would mean he was murdered.[131] The day after his death, his lawyer told reporters that while he regularly maintained contact with McAfee in prison, there were no signs of suicidal intent.[132] McAfee's widow reaffirmed this position in her first public remarks since her husband's death, and also called for a "thorough" investigation.[133][134]

On 13 February 2022, a Spanish court ruled McAfee died by suicide.[135]

In a Netflix documentary released on August 24, 2022, entitled Running With the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee, McAfee's ex-girlfriend, identified as Samantha Herrera, alleged that McAfee faked his death to avoid tax evasion charges. This allegation has not been proven, however.[136][137]

Gringo: The Dangerous Life of John McAfee is a Showtime Networks documentary about the portion of McAfee's life spent in Belize. It began airing in September 2016.[138] It covers allegations against him of raping his former business partner, Allison Adonizio, and murdering Belizean David Middleton and American expat Gregory Faull.[139][140] In an interview with Bloomberg's Pimm Fox and Kathleen Hayes on 8 September 2016, he said these incidents were fabricated, and "Belize is a third-world banana republic and you can go down there and make any story you want if you pay your interviewees, which Showtime did."[141][142]

In March 2017, it was reported that Glenn Ficarra and John Requa would direct a film about McAfee titled King of the Jungle, written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. At various points, Johnny Depp, Michael Keaton, and Seth Rogen were reported to have taken roles and later to have left the project. In November 2019, Zac Efron was reported to star as journalist Ari Furman.[143][144][145][146]

On 12 May 2017, McAfee and his wife were interviewed on ABC News's 20/20 regarding Faull's alleged murder.[147]

The aforementioned documentary Running With the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee includes footage from an unreleased documentary by Vice, and interviews by Rocco Castoro, Alex Cody Foster, and Robert King.[148]

Read this article:

John McAfee - Wikipedia

What happened to John McAfee? Death, prison, net worth | GoodTo

Netflix is back with another gripping true crime documentary, and viewers are in for a a wild ride with Running with the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee. But many will be asking, what happened to John McAfee?

First came The Most Hated Man on the Internet about revenge porn criminal Hunter Moore (opens in new tab), closely followed by the bingeworthy I Just Killed My Dad documentary about Anthony Templet (opens in new tab). Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn't Exist similarly shocked Netflix viewers with the true story of catfishRonaiah Tuiasosopo (opens in new tab) - but if you thought those were wild you've got another thing coming. Running with the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee, tells the colourful story of John McAfee, the creator of one of the most successful pieces of computer software of all time, McAfee Anti-Virus. But while he was hugely successful, John also found himself in trouble with the law several times and eventually fled when police sought him for questioning about the murder of his neighbour and he took a film crew with him.

Netflix says of the feature-length documentary: "With access to hundreds of hours of never-before-broadcast footage of McAfee as hes pursued by the authorities, this is the definitive story of a larger-than-life character, a man who ran for President, escaped from prison multiple times, and claimed to have hacked the world." Many who have tuned in are keen for up-to-date details about John McAfee and his wife Janice McAfee now - and we've shared exactly what happened to him.

John McAfee was found dead at age 75 in a prison cell in theBrians 2 Penitentiary Centre near Barcelona, Spain on 23 June 2021. His death occurred shortly after theSpanish National Courtauthorised hisextraditionto the U.S.

Before his arrest, John McAfee had been on the run on and off for years. The Netflix documentary follows McAfee on the run and fleeing Belize police after being suspected of murdering of his neighbour.

He was later arrested in Guatemala (opens in new tab) for illegally entering the country, and was eventually released and deported to the United States in 2012 after faking a heart attack.

While back in the States, John, who believed that taxes were "illegal," decided to try and run for president in 2016 and again in 2020.

Over the years, John's behaviour became increasingly erratic and paranoid and he often believed he was 'targeted' by police.

John McAfee's cause of death was officially ruled as suicide by hanging. He was allegedly found with a suicide note in his pocket. TheCatalan Justice Departmentsaid 'everything indicates' he killed himself by hanging and this was later confirmed in an official autopsy.

However, John's wife Janice doesn't believe his death was suicide and has been campaigning to have an independent autopsy performed on John's body since July of 2021, to determine if the official cause of death can be challenged, or investigated privately.

John's body has been in the custody of the Spanish legal system since the date of his death, June 23, 2021, and Janice is petitioning to have his body released (opens in new tab) back to her.

Explaining how he didn't appear suicidal when they last spoke, Janice said: "His last words to me were 'I love you and I will call you in the evening. Those words are not words of somebody who is suicidal.

She also pointed out a tattoo that John got two years prior to his death and of which he tweeted: I got a tattoo today just in case. If I suicide myself, I didn't. I was whackd. Check my right arm.

John was arrested on 5 October 2020 in Spain at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice for tax evasion. John had avoided paying taxes on his income from 2014 to 2018 despite earning millions, federal investigators said. The tax-related criminal charges carried a sentence of up to 30 years in prison.

In 2019, John told Fox News that he had paid no tax since 2010 and has made it clear he thinks taxes are 'illegal.'

The day after he was arrested, on 6 October, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) (opens in new tab) filed a complaint alleging that John and his bodyguard promoted certain initial coin offerings in a fraudulent cryptocurrency pump and dump scheme.

On 5 March 2021, theU.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New Yorkformally indicted him (opens in new tab) and an executive adviser on these charges. He was held in Spain following his arrest until his death in June 2021.

John McAfee was on the run several times throughout his life. He first stint was in 2012, following the death of his neighbour, Gregory Faull, in Belize.

A local resident explains in the documentary how John and Gregory had fallen out earlier in the year over John's four dogs, which were harassing his neighbour's parrot.

John's dogs were poisoned and killed, and just a day later, Gregory was found dead with a single gunshot through his head.

Paranoid John believed authorities in Belize would kill him if he turned himself in for questioning, to which Belizes then-Prime Minister Dean Barrow called John 'paranoid and bonkers.'

John was never charged in Gregory Faulls murder. However, John went on the run again in 2019 - this time from US authorities over tax evasion charges. He lived on a boat until his arrest in Spain in October 2020.

(Image credit: Netflix)

Even before the murder of Gregory, John claimed to have been targeted by the police, especially when he was arrested for unlicensed drug manufacturing and possession of an unlicensed weapon in Belize.

Other charges in the US against him started to build up too, including a civil lawsuit after two deaths related to his involvement in a aerotrekking accident, plus a DUI and possession of a firearm charge in Tennessee.

John got caught for the first time thanks to two VICE reporters, who had joined him on the run. They inadvertently revealed his hiding place by publishing a geo-tagged photo in an article titled Were with John McAfee right now, suckers!" (opens in new tab)

They travelled with him to Guatemala, where he was arrested for illegally entering the country. He was due to be deported back to Belize, but John faked a heart attack which led to him being hospitalised. He then flew back to America after being released.

John later explainedthat he faked the heart attacks to buy time for his attorney to file a series of appeals that ultimately prevented his deportation to Belize.

He was caught and subsequently arrested at Barcelona's El Prat airport in October 2020 while trying to travel to Instanbul, Turkey. A Spanish police source said: He was travelling to Istanbul and when his documents were run through the database, it emerged that he was the subject of a US warrant on fraud charges."

John McAfee's net worth at the time of his death was $4million. His net worth was as high as $100 million after he resigned as chief executive of McAfee in 1994 and sold his stock holdings in the business.

However, he lost much of it thanks to bad investments, increasing legal troubles and the 2008 global recession.According to Celebrity Net Worth: A series of bad investments, including a large bet on Lehman Brothers' bonds, cost McAfee millions and forced him to sell real estate and other assets for pennies on the dollar.

"McAfee sold a $25mColorado estate for just $5.7m. He also sold a mansion in Hawaii, a ranch in New Mexico and a Cessna private jet."

The Lehman Brothers went bankrupt in the 2008 global financial crisis.

(Image credit: Getty)

John sold his stake in McAfee in 1994 for a reported$100 million. In August 1993, McAfee stepped down as chief executive, but remained with the company as the chief technical officer. He was succeeded by Bill Larson (opens in new tab).

After various mergers and ownership changes,Intelacquired McAfee in August 2010. In January 2014, Intel announced that McAfee-related products would be marketed as Intel Security.

John expressed his joy at the name change, saying: "I am now everlastingly grateful to Intel for freeing me from this terrible association with the worst software on the planet."

John continued tobad-mouth the company and the business was soon de-merged from Intel, once more under the McAfee name.

In March 2022, McAfee went private via a buyout from an investor group led byAdvent International Corporation, in a deal valued at more than $14 billion.

Back in October 2020, the company returned to the public stock market and was valued at about $8.6 billion based on the outstanding shares listed in its prospectus.

McAfee shares were traded on theNASDAQstock exchange under ticker symbol MCFE, which marked its return to the public market after 9 years. However, less than two years later, the stock were delisted when the company was taken private.

The current CEO of McAfee is Greg Johnson (opens in new tab).

Related Netflix features:

Video of the Week

Follow this link:

What happened to John McAfee? Death, prison, net worth | GoodTo

NASA Sets Launch Date for Mission to $10 Quintillion Asteroid

After disappointing setbacks and delays, NASA has finally got its mission to an invaluable asteroid made of precious metals back on track.

Rock of Riches

After disappointing setbacks and a delay over the summer, NASA says it's finally reviving its mission to explore a tantalizing and giant space rock lurking deep in the Asteroid Belt.

Known as 16 Psyche, the NASA-targeted asteroid comprises a full one percent of the mass of the Asteroid Bet, and is speculated to be the core of an ancient planet. But Psyche's size isn't what intrigues scientists so much as its metal-rich composition, believed to be harboring a wealth of iron, nickel, and gold worth an estimated $10 quintillion — easily exceeding the worth of the Earth's entire economy. Although, to be clear, they're not interested in the metals' monetary value but rather its possibly planetary origins.

Back On Track

Initially slated to launch in August 2022, NASA's aptly named Psyche spacecraft became plagued with a persistent flight software issue that led the space agency to miss its launch window that closed on October 11.

But after surviving an independent review determining whether the mission should be scrapped or not, NASA has formally announced that its spacecraft's journey to Psyche will be going ahead, planned to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket as early as October 10, 2023.

"I'm extremely proud of the Psyche team," said Laurie Leshin, director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a statement. "During this review, they have demonstrated significant progress already made toward the future launch date. I am confident in the plan moving forward and excited by the unique and important science this mission will return."

Although the new launch date is only a little over a year late, the expected arrival at the asteroid Psyche is set back by over three years — 2029 instead of 2026 — due to having to wait for another opportunity to slingshot off of Mars' gravity.

Peering Into a Planet

Once it arrives, the NASA spacecraft will orbit around the asteroid and probe it with an array of instruments, including a multispectral imager, gamma ray and neutron spectrometers, and a magnetometer, according to the agency.

In doing so, scientists hope to determine if the asteroid is indeed the core of a nascent planet known as a planetesimal. If it is, it could prove to be an invaluable opportunity to understand the interior of terrestrial planets like our own.

More on NASA: NASA Announces Plan to Fix Moon Rocket, and Maybe Launch It Eventually

The post NASA Sets Launch Date for Mission to $10 Quintillion Asteroid appeared first on Futurism.

Read more from the original source:

NASA Sets Launch Date for Mission to $10 Quintillion Asteroid

Scientists Found a Way to Control How High Mice Got on Cocaine

A team of neuroscientists at the University of Wisconsin claim to have found a way to control how high mice can get on cocaine.

A team of neuroscientists at the University of Wisconsin claim to have found a way to control how high mice can get on a given amount of cocaine.

And don't worry — while that may sound like a particularly frivolous plot concocted by a team of evil scientists, the goal of the research is well-meaning.

The team, led by University of Wisconsin neuroscientist Santiago Cuesta, was investigating how the gut microbiome can influence how mice and humans react to ingesting the drug.

The research, detailed in a new paper published this week in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, sheds light on a vicious feedback loop that could explain cases of substance abuse disorders — and possibly lay the groundwork for future therapeutic treatments.

In a number of experiments on mice, the researchers found that cocaine was linked to the growth of common gut bacteria, which feed on glycine, a chemical that facilitates basic brain functions.

The lower the levels of glycine in the brain, the more the mice reacted to the cocaine, exhibiting abnormal behaviors.

To test the theory, the scientists injected the mice with a genetically modified amino acid which cannot break down glycine. As a result, the behavior of mice returned to normal levels.

In other words, the amino acid could curb cocaine addiction-like behaviors — at least in animal models.

"The gut bacteria are consuming all of the glycine and the levels are decreasing systemically and in the brain," said Vanessa Sperandio, senior author, and microbiologist from the University of Wisconsin, in a statement. "It seems changing glycine overall is impacting the glutamatergic synapses that make the animals more prone to develop addiction."

It's an unorthodox approach to treating addiction, but could be intriguing — if it works in people, that is.

"Usually, for neuroscience behaviors, people are not thinking about controlling the microbiota, and microbiota studies usually don't measure behaviors, but here we show they’re connected," Cuesta added. "Our microbiome can actually modulate psychiatric or brain-related behaviors."

In short, their research could lead to new ways of treating various psychiatric disorders such as substance use by adjusting the gut microbiome and not making changes to the brain chemistry.

"I think the bridging of these communities is what's going to move the field forward, advancing beyond correlations towards causations for the different types of psychiatric disorders," Sperandio argued.

READ MORE: How gut bacteria influence the effects of cocaine in mice [Cell Press]

More on addiction: Study: Magic Mushrooms Helped 83% of People Cut Excessive Drinking

The post Scientists Found a Way to Control How High Mice Got on Cocaine appeared first on Futurism.

See the rest here:

Scientists Found a Way to Control How High Mice Got on Cocaine

Twitter Working on Plan to Charge Users to Watch Videos

According to an internal email obtained by The Washington Post, Musk wants to have Twitter charge users to view videos posted by content creators.

Now that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has taken over Twitter, the billionaire has been frantically shuffling through ambitious plans to turn the ailing social media platform into a revenue-driving business.

Case in point, according to internal email obtained by The Washington Post, Musk is plotting for Twitter to charge users to view videos posted by content creators and take a cut of the proceeds — a highly controversial idea that's already been met with internal skepticism.

The team of Twitter engineers has "identified the risk as high" in the email, citing "risks related to copyrighted content, creator/user trust issues, and legal compliance."

In short, Musk is blazing ahead with his infamously ambitious timelines — a "move fast and break things" approach that could signify a tidal change for Twitter's historically sluggish approach to launching new features.

Musk has already made some big structural changes to Twitter, having fired high-up positions at the company and dissolved its board of directors.

The company will also likely be facing mass layoffs, according to The Washington Post.

The new feature detailed in the new email, which is being referred to as "Paywalled Video," allows creators to "enable the paywall once a video has been added to the tweet" and chose from a preset list of prices, ranging from $1 to $10.

"This will also give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators," Musk tweeted on Tuesday, adding that "creators need to make a living!"

But whether Twitter users will be willing to pay for stuff that was previously free remains anything but certain.

Musk has already announced that he is planning to charge $8 a month for Twitter users to stay verified, which has been met with derision.

The billionaire CEO is facing an uphill battle. Now that the company is private, he has to pay around $1 billion in annual interest payments, a result from his $44 buyout, according to the WaPo.

Compounding the trouble, Reuters reported last week that Twitter is bleeding some of its most active users.

Meanwhile, Musk's chaotic moves are likely to alienate advertisers, with the Interpublic Group, a massive inter-agency advertising group, recommending that its clients suspend all paid advertising for at least the week.

That doesn't bode well. It's not out of the question that a paywalled video feature may facilitate the monetization of pornographic content, which may end up scaring off advertisers even further — but Twitter's exact intentions for the feature are still unclear.

According to Reuters, around 13 percent of the site's content is currently marked not safe for work (NSFW).

It's part of Musk's attempt to shift revenue away from advertising on the platform. In a tweet last week, he promised advertisers that Twitter wouldn't become a "free-for-all hellscape."

But that hasn't stopped advertisers from already leaving in droves.

All in all, a paywalled video feature could mark a significant departure for Twitter, a platform still primarily known for short snippets of text.

For now, all we can do is watch.

READ MORE: Elon Musk’s Twitter is working on paid-video feature with ‘high’ risk [The Washington Post]

More on Twitter: Elon Musk Pleads With Stephen King to Pay for Blue Checkmark

The post Twitter Working on Plan to Charge Users to Watch Videos appeared first on Futurism.

Original post:

Twitter Working on Plan to Charge Users to Watch Videos

Cats May Be Tampering With Crime Scenes, Scientists Say

Cats, ever the mischievous and frisky pets, may be harboring a lot more human DNA than once thought, possibly tampering crime scenes, a new study says.

Cat Burglar

Cats are known for not really minding their own business, getting their furry paws on just about anything they can.

And it turns out, this makes them effective vectors for DNA evidence, according to a study published last month in the journal Forensic Science International: Genetic Supplement Series.

Researchers collaborating with the Victoria Police Forensic Services Department in Australia found detectable human DNA in 80 percent of the samples collected from 20 pet cats, with 70 percent of the samples strong enough that they could be linked to a person of interest in a crime scene investigation.

"Collection of human DNA needs to become very important in crime scene investigations, but there is a lack of data on companion animals such as cats and dogs in their relationship to human DNA transfer," said study lead author Heidi Monkman, a forensic scientist at Flinders University, in a statement.

"These companion animals can be highly relevant in assessing the presence and activities of the inhabitants of the household, or any recent visitors to the scene."

Here Kitty

One possible takeaway is that cats — and other companion pets like dogs — could be harboring DNA that could help solve a case.

The bigger issue, though, is that pets could introduce foreign DNA that muddles a crime scene, possibly leading to an innocent person being implicated. A pet could be carrying the DNA of a complete stranger, or it might bring the DNA of its owner into a crime scene that they had nothing to do with.

Monkman's colleague and co-author of the paper, Maria Goray, is an experienced crime scene investigator and an expert in DNA transfer. She believes their findings could help clear up how pets might tamper a crime scene by carrying outside DNA.

"Are these DNA findings a result of a criminal activity or could they have been transferred and deposited at the scene via a pet?" Goray asked.

It's a question worth asking — especially because innocent people have been jailed off botched DNA science far too often.

More on DNA evidence: Cops Upload Image of Suspect Generated From DNA, Then Delete After Mass Criticism

The post Cats May Be Tampering With Crime Scenes, Scientists Say appeared first on Futurism.

Read the original:

Cats May Be Tampering With Crime Scenes, Scientists Say

There’s Something Strange About How These Stars Are Moving, Scientists Say

Astronomers are puzzled by the strange behavior of a crooked cluster of stars, which appears to be following an alternative theory of gravity.

Astronomers are puzzled by the strange behavior of certain crooked clusters of stars, which appear to be violating our conventional understanding of gravity.

Massive clusters of stars usually are bound together in spirals at the center of galaxies. Some of these clusters fall under a category astrophysicists call open star clusters, which are created in a relatively short period of time as they ignite in a huge cloud of gas.

During this process, loose stars accumulate in a pair of "tidal tails," one of which is being pulled behind, while the other moves ahead.

"According to Newton’s laws of gravity, it’s a matter of chance in which of the tails a lost star ends up," Jan Pflamm-Altenburg of the University of Bonn in Germany, co-author of a new paper published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, in a statement. "So both tails should contain about the same number of stars."

But some of their recent observations seemingly defy conventional physics.

"However, in our work we were able to prove for the first time that this is not true," Pflamm-Altenburg added. "In the clusters we studied, the front tail always contains significantly more stars nearby to the cluster than the rear tail."

In fact, their new findings are far more in line with a different theory called "Modified Newtonian Dynamics" (MOND).

"Put simply, according to MOND, stars can leave a cluster through two different doors," Pavel Kroupa, Pflamm-Altenburg's colleague at the University of Bonn and lead author, explained in the statement. "One leads to the rear tidal tail, the other to the front."

"However, the first is much narrower than the second — so it’s less likely that a star will leave the cluster through it," he added. "Newton’s theory of gravity, on the other hand, predicts that both doors should be the same width."

The researchers' simulations, taking MOND into consideration, could explain a lot. For one, they suggest that open star clusters survive a much shorter period of time than what is expected from Newton's laws of physics.

"This explains a mystery that has been known for a long time," Kroupa explained. "Namely, star clusters in nearby galaxies seem to be disappearing faster than they should."

But not everybody agrees that Newton's laws should be replaced with MOND, something that could shake the foundations of physics.

"It’s somewhat promising, but it does not provide completely definitive evidence for MOND," University of Saint Andrews research fellow Indranil Banik told New Scientist. "This asymmetry does make more sense in MOND, but in any individual cluster there could be other effects that are causing it — it’s a bit unlikely that would happen in all of them, though."

The researchers are now trying to hone in on an even more accurate picture by stepping up the accuracy of their simulations, which could either support their MOND theory — or conclude that Newton was, in fact, correct the first time around.

More on star clusters: Something Is Ripping Apart the Nearest Star Cluster to Earth

The post There's Something Strange About How These Stars Are Moving, Scientists Say appeared first on Futurism.

Continued here:

There's Something Strange About How These Stars Are Moving, Scientists Say

Greta Thunberg Says UN Climate Conference Is a Scam and She’s Not Attending

The UN's upcoming COP27 climate conference in Egypt is basically a

COP Out

Ever since she lambasted world leaders at a UN conference in 2018 when she was only 15 years old, Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg has had the ear of the international community.

Now, Thunberg says she's skipping out on next week's COP27 UN climate summit in Egypt. Why? Because it's rife with "greenwashing."

"I'm not going to COP27 for many reasons, but the space for civil society this year is extremely limited," Thunberg said at a press event for her book, "The Climate Book," as quoted by The Guardian. "The COPs are mainly used as an opportunity for leaders and people in power to get attention, using many different kinds of greenwashing."

Ultimately, in Thunberg's view, the COP conferences "are not really meant to change the whole system" and instead only promote incremental change. Bluntly put, they're feel-good events that don't accomplish much, so she's bowing out.

Wasted Breath

It's not an unfair assessment. For all the pledges made to drastically cut back emissions and achieve net carbon zero by 2050, very few nations have followed through in the short term. And in Europe, the energy crisis in the wake of the war in Ukraine has further sidelined those climate commitments.

So we can't blame her for not going. But it's a bit disheartening that even a tenacious young spokesperson like Thunberg has given up on convincing world leaders at the biggest climate summit in the world.

Maybe it's indicative of the frustrations of her generation at large. When Thunberg was asked what she thought about the recent wave of Just Stop Oil protests that included activists throwing soup on a Van Gogh painting, she said that she viewed what many detractors perceived as a dumb stunt to be symptomatic of the world's failure to effect meaningful environmental change.

"People are trying to find new methods because we realize that what we have been doing up until now has not done the trick," she replied, as quoted by Reuters. "It's only reasonable to expect these kinds of different actions."

Maybe the real question is: if even a UN climate conference isn't the place to get the message out and change hearts, where's the right place, and what's the right way? If the headlines are any indication, zoomers are struggling to figure that out.

More on Greta Thunberg: Greta Thunberg Thinks Germany Shutting Down Its Nuclear Plants Is a Bad Idea

The post Greta Thunberg Says UN Climate Conference Is a Scam and She's Not Attending appeared first on Futurism.

More here:

Greta Thunberg Says UN Climate Conference Is a Scam and She's Not Attending

Scientists Spot "Stripped, Pulsating Core" of Star Caused By Horrific Accident

In a

Core Dump

Scientists studying a group of stars made an astonishing but "serendipitous" discovery when they realized that Gamma Columbae, a fairly average celestial body, might actually be the "stripped pulsating core of a massive star," according to a study published this week in Nature Astronomy.

If true, that means Gamma Columbae is missing the envelope, or vast shroud of gas, that hides a star's nuclear fusion powered core.

What caused the stripping of this atmospheric envelope is not definitively known, but the scientists posit that Gamma Columbae running out of hydrogen could've caused its envelope to expand and swallow up a nearby star, likely its binary partner. But in the middle of that relatively common process, something appears to have horrifically gone wrong and ejected the envelope — and possibly even led to the two stars merging.

Naked Core

Before the disaster, the scientists believe Gamma Columbae could have been up to 12 times the mass of our Sun. Now, it's a comparatively meager 5 stellar masses.

Although a naked stellar core missing its envelope has been theorized to exist, it's never been observed in a star this size.

"Having a naked stellar core of such a mass is unique so far," said study co-author Norbert Pryzbilla, head of the Institute for Astro- and Particle Physics at the University of Innsbruck, in an interview with Vice.

Astronomers had an idea of what the cores of massive and low mass stars looked like, Pryzbilla continued, but there wasn't "much evidence" for cores of masses in between.

Star Power

It's an exceedingly rare find because the star is in a "a short-lived post-stripping structural re-adjustment phase" that will only last 10,000 years, according to the study.

That's "long for us humans but in astronomical timescales, very, very short," Przybilla told Vice. "It will always stay as a peculiar object."

The opportunity to study such a rarely exposed stellar core could provide scientists an invaluable look into the evolution of binary star systems. And whatever astronomers learn from the star, it's a fascinating glimpse at stellar destruction at a nearly incomprehensible scale.

More on stars: Black Hole Spotted Burping Up Material Years After Eating a Star

The post Scientists Spot "Stripped, Pulsating Core" of Star Caused By Horrific Accident appeared first on Futurism.

Go here to see the original:

Scientists Spot "Stripped, Pulsating Core" of Star Caused By Horrific Accident

Manslaughter Case Has a Strange Twist: Tesla That Killed Couple Was on Autopilot

A court case is about to kick off in Los Angeles later this month, involving a fatal crash caused by a Tesla vehicle, which was on Autopilot.

A provocative manslaughter case is about to kick off in Los Angeles later this month, involving a fatal crash caused by a Tesla vehicle that had the company's controversial Autopilot feature turned on.

It's the first case of its kind, and one that could set a precedent for future crashes involving cars and driver-assistance software, Reuters reports.

We won't know the exact defense until the case gets under way, but the crux is that the man who was behind the wheel of the Tesla is facing manslaughter charges — but has pleaded not guilty, setting up potentially novel legal arguments about culpability in a deadly collision when, technically speaking, it wasn't a human driving the car.

"Who's at fault, man or machine?" asked Edward Walters, an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University, in an interview with Reuters. "The state will have a hard time proving the guilt of the human driver because some parts of the task are being handled by Tesla."

The upcoming trial is about a fatal collision that took place in 2019. The crash involved Kevin George Aziz Riad, who ran a red light in his Tesla Model S, and collided with a Honda Civic, killing a couple who were reportedly on their first date.

According to vehicle data, Riad did not apply the brakes but had a hand on the steering wheel. Perhaps most critically, though, the Tesla's Autopilot feature was turned on in the moments leading up to the crash.

Riad is facing manslaughter charges, with prosecutors arguing his actions were reckless.

Meanwhile, Riad's lawyers have argued that he shouldn't be charged with a crime, but have so far stopped short of publicly placing blame on Tesla's Autopilot software.

Tesla is not directly implicated in the upcoming trial and isn't facing charges in the case, according to Reuters.

A separate trial, however, involving the family of one of the deceased is already scheduled for next year — but this time, Tesla is the defendant.

"I can't say that the driver was not at fault, but the Tesla system, Autopilot, and Tesla spokespeople encourage drivers to be less attentive," the family's attorney Donald Slavik told Reuters.

"Tesla knows people are going to use Autopilot and use it in dangerous situations," he added.

Tesla is already under heavy scrutiny over its Autopilot and so-called Full Self-Driving software, despite conceding that the features "do not make the vehicle autonomous" and that drivers must remain attentive of the road at all times.

Critics argue that Tesla's marketing is misleading and that it's only leading to more accidents — not making the roads safer, as Tesla CEO Elon Musk has argued in the past.

In fact, a recent survey found that 42 percent of Tesla Autopilot said they feel "comfortable treating their vehicles as fully self-driving."

Regulators are certainly already paying attention. The news comes a week after Reuters revealed that the Department of Justice is investigating Tesla over Autopilot.

Last year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced an investigation of accidents in which Teslas have smashed into emergency response vehicles that were pulled over with sirens or flares.

This month's trial certainly stands the chance of setting a precedent. Was Riad fully at fault or was Tesla's Autopilot at least partially to blame as well?

The answer now lies in the hands of a jury.

READ MORE: Tesla crash trial in California hinges on question of 'man vs machine' [Reuters]

More on Autopilot: Survey: 42% of Tesla Autopilot Drivers Think Their Cars Can Drive Themselves

The post Manslaughter Case Has a Strange Twist: Tesla That Killed Couple Was on Autopilot appeared first on Futurism.

Go here to see the original:

Manslaughter Case Has a Strange Twist: Tesla That Killed Couple Was on Autopilot

Scientists Use Actual Lunar Soil Sample to Create Rocket Fuel

A team of Chinese researchers claim to have turned lunar regolith samples brought back by the country's Chang'e 5 mission into a source of fuel.

Fill 'Er Up

A team of Chinese researchers say they managed to convert actual lunar regolith samples into a source of rocket fuel and oxygen — a potential gamechanger for future space explorers hoping to make use of in-situ resources to fuel up for their return journey.

The researchers found that the lunar soil samples can act as a catalyst to convert carbon dioxide and water from astronauts' bodies and environment into methane and oxygen, as detailed in a paper published in the National Science Review.

"In situ resource utilization of lunar soil to achieve extraterrestrial fuel and oxygen production is vital for the human to carry out Moon exploitation missions," lead author Yujie Xiong said in a new statement about the work. "Considering that there are limited human resources at extraterrestrial sites, we proposed to employ the robotic system to perform the whole electrocatalytic CO2 conversion system setup."

That means we could have a much better shot at carrying out longer duration explorations of the lunar surface in the near future.

Set It, Forget It

According to the paper, which builds on previous research suggesting lunar soil can generate oxygen and fuel, this process can be completed using uncrewed systems, even in the absence of astronauts.

In an experiment, the team used samples from China's Chang'e-5 mission, which landed in Inner Mongolia back in December 2020 — the first lunar soil returned to Earth since 1976.

The Moon soil effectively acted as a catalyst, enabling the electrocatalytic conversion of carbon dioxide into methane and oxygen.

"No significant difference can be observed between the manned and unmanned systems, which further suggests the high possibility of imitating our proposed system in extraterrestrial sites and proves the feasibility of further optimizing catalyst recipes on the Moon," the researchers conclude in their paper.

Liquified

But there's one big hurdle to still overcome: liquifying carbon dioxide is anything but easy given the Moon's frosty atmosphere, as condensing the gas requires a significant amount of heat, as New Scientist reported earlier this year.

Still, it's a tantalizing prospect: an autonomous machine chugging away, pumping out oxygen and fuel for future visitors. But for now, it's not much more than a proof of concept.

READ MORE: Scientists investigate using lunar soils to sustainably supply oxygen and fuels on the moon [Science China Press]

More on lunar soil: Bad News! The Plants Grown in Moon Soil Turned Out Wretched

The post Scientists Use Actual Lunar Soil Sample to Create Rocket Fuel appeared first on Futurism.

Excerpt from:

Scientists Use Actual Lunar Soil Sample to Create Rocket Fuel

This Deepfake AI Singing Dolly Parton’s "Jolene" Is Worryingly Good

Holly Herndon uses her AI twin Holly+ to sing a cover of Dolly Parton's

AI-lands in the Stream

Sorry, but not even Dolly Parton is sacred amid the encroachment of AI into art.

Holly Herndon, an avant garde pop musician, has released a cover of Dolly Parton's beloved and frequently covered hit single, "Jolene." Except it's not really Herndon singing, but her digital deepfake twin known as Holly+.

The music video features a 3D avatar of Holly+ frolicking in what looks like a decaying digital world.

And honestly, it's not bad — dare we say, almost kind of good? Herndon's rendition croons with a big, round sound, soaked in reverb and backed by a bouncy, acoustic riff and a chorus of plaintive wailing. And she has a nice voice. Or, well, Holly+ does. Maybe predictably indie-folk, but it's certainly an effective demonstration of AI with a hint of creative flair, or at least effective curation.

Checking the Boxes

But the performance is also a little unsettling. For one, the giant inhales between verses are too long to be real and are almost cajolingly dramatic. The vocals themselves are strangely even and, despite the somber tone affected by the AI, lack Parton's iconic vulnerability.

Overall, it feels like the AI is simply checking the boxes of what makes a good, swooning cover after listening to Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah" a million times — which, to be fair, is a pretty good starting point.

Still, it'd be remiss to downplay what Herndon has managed to pull off here, and the criticisms mostly reflect the AI's limited capabilities more than her chops as a musician. The AI's seams are likely intentional, if her previous work is anything to go off of.

Either way, if you didn't know you were listening to an AI from the get-go, you'd probably be fooled. And that alone is striking.

The Digital Self

Despite AI's usually ominous implications for art, Herndon views her experiment as a "way for artists to take control of their digital selves," according to a statement on her website.

"Vocal deepfakes are here to stay," Herndon was quoted saying. "A balance needs to be found between protecting artists, and encouraging people to experiment with a new and exciting technology."

Whether Herndon's views are fatalistic or prudently pragmatic remains to be seen. But even if her intentions are meant to be good for artists, it's still worrying that an AI could pull off such a convincing performance.

More on AI music: AI That Generates Music from Prompts Should Probably Scare Musicians

The post This Deepfake AI Singing Dolly Parton's "Jolene" Is Worryingly Good appeared first on Futurism.

Original post:

This Deepfake AI Singing Dolly Parton's "Jolene" Is Worryingly Good

Huge Drone Swarm to Form Giant Advertisement Over NYC Skyline

Someone apparently thought it was a great idea to fly 500 drones over NYC as part of an ad experiment without much warning.

Droning On

Someone thinks it's a great idea to fly 500 drones over New York City to create a huge ad in the sky on Thursday evening. Because New Yorkers certainly don't have any historical reason to mistrust unknown aircraft over their skyline, right?

As Gothamist reports, the drone swarm is part of a "surreal takeover of New York City’s skyline" on behalf of — we shit you not — the mobile game Candy Crush.

Fernanda Romano, Candy Crush's chief marketing officer, told Gothamist that the stunt will "turn the sky into the largest screen on the planet" using the small, light-up drones.

Though this is not the first time the Manhattan skyline has been used as ad space — that distinction goes to the National Basketball Association and State Farm, which did a similar stunt this summer during the NBA draft — local lawmakers are ticked off about it nonetheless.

"I think it’s outrageous to be spoiling our city’s skyline for private profit," Brad Hoylman, a state senator that represents Manhattan's West Side in the NY Legislature, told the local news site. "It’s offensive to New Yorkers, to our local laws, to public safety, and to wildlife."

Freak Out

Indeed, as the NYC Audubon Society noted in a tweet, the Candy Crush crapshoot "could disrupt the flight patterns of thousands of birds flying through NYC, leading to collisions with buildings" as they migrate.

Beyond the harm this will do to birds and the annoyance it will undoubtedly cause the famously-grumpy people of New York, this stunt is also going down with very little warning, considering that Gothamist is one of the only news outlets even reporting on it ahead of time.

While most viewers will hopefully be able to figure out what's going on pretty quickly, the concept of seeing unknown aircraft above the skyline is a little too reminiscent of 9/11 for comfort — and if Candy Crush took that into consideration, they haven't let on.

So here's hoping this event shocks and awes Thursday night city-goers in a good way, and not in the way that makes them panic.

More drone warfare: Russia Accused of Pelting Ukraine Capital With "Kamikaze" Drones

The post Huge Drone Swarm to Form Giant Advertisement Over NYC Skyline appeared first on Futurism.

See the article here:

Huge Drone Swarm to Form Giant Advertisement Over NYC Skyline

China Plans to Send Monkeys to Space Station to Have Sex With Each Other

Chinese astronauts are reportedly planning to let monkeys loose on their brand-new space station to have them have sex with each other.

Chinese scientists are reportedly planning to send monkeys to its new Tiangong space station for experiments that will involve the animals mating and potentially reproducing, the South China Morning Post reports.

It's a fascinating and potentially controversial experiment that could have major implications for our efforts to colonize space: can mammals, let alone humans, successfully reproduce beyond the Earth?

According to the report, the experiment would take place in the station's largest capsule, called Wentian, inside two biological test cabinets that can be expanded.

After examining the behavior of smaller creatures, "some studies involving mice and macaques will be carried out to see how they grow or even reproduce in space," Zhang Lu, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, said during a speech posted to social media earlier this week, as quoted by the SCMP.

"These experiments will help improve our understanding of an organism’s adaptation to microgravity and other space environments," he added.

Some simpler organisms, including nematodes and Japanese rice fish, have been observed reproducing in space.

But more complex life forms have struggled. In 2014, a Russian experiment to see whether geckos could produce offspring in space failed when all the critters died.

And the failure rate for mammals, so far, has been total. Soviet Union scientists got mice to mate during a space flight in 1979, but none of them gave birth after being returned to Earth.

In other words, getting monkeys to reproduce on board a space station will be anything but easy. For one, just dealing with living creatures in space can pose immense challenges. The astronauts will "need to feed them and deal with the waste," Kehkooi Kee, a professor with the school of medicine at Tsinghua University, told the SCMP.

Then there's the fact that astronauts will have to keep the macaques happy and comfortable, something that experts say will be challenging since long term confinement in the spartan environments of space habitats could cause immense stress for the simians.

And even if astronauts successfully set the mood for the monkeys, the physics of sex in space are predicted to be challenging.

"Firstly, just staying in close contact with each other under zero gravity is hard," Adam Watkins, an associate professor of reproductive physiology at University of Nottingham, wrote in a 2020 open letter highlighted by the SCMP. "Secondly, as astronauts experience lower blood pressure while in space, maintaining erections and arousal are more problematic than here on Earth."

With its new space station in nearly full operation, China isn't shying away from asking some big questions — but whether these experiments will play out as expected is anything but certain.

READ MORE: Chinese scientists plan monkey reproduction experiment in space station [South China Morning Post]

More on sex in space: Scientists Say We Really Have to Talk About Boning in Space

The post China Plans to Send Monkeys to Space Station to Have Sex With Each Other appeared first on Futurism.

Visit link:

China Plans to Send Monkeys to Space Station to Have Sex With Each Other

AOC Says Her Twitter Account Broke After She Made Fun of Elon Musk

Another day, another Elon Musk feud on Twitter — except now, he's the owner of the social network, and he's beefing with AOC.

Latest Feud

Another day, another Elon Musk feud on Twitter — except now, he's the owner of the social network, and he's beefing with a sitting member of Congress.

The whole thing started innocently enough earlier this week, when firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY, and better known by her initials, "AOC") subtweeted the website's new owner.

"Lmao at a billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that 'free speech' is actually a $8/mo subscription plan," the New York Democratic Socialist tweeted in a post that, upon Futurism's perusal, appeared to load only half the time.

Sweat Equity

Not one to be shown up, Musk later posted a screenshot of an AOC-branded sweatshirt from the congressperson's website, with its $58 price tag circled and an emoji belying the billionaire's alleged affront at the price.

In response, Ocasio-Cortez said she was proud her sweatshirts were made by union labor, and that the proceeds from their sales were going to fund educational support for needy kids. She later dug in further, noting that her account was "conveniently" not working and joking that Musk couldn't buy his way "out of insecurity."

Yo @elonmusk while I have your attention, why should people pay $8 just for their app to get bricked when they say something you don’t like?

This is what my app has looked like ever since my tweet upset you yesterday. What’s good? Doesn’t seem very free speechy to me ? pic.twitter.com/e3hcZ7T9up

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 3, 2022

Bricked

To be clear, any suggestion that Musk personally had anything to do with any Twitter glitches on AOC's part would seem ludicrously petty. But then again, this is a guy who once hired a private detective to investigate a random critic.

Occam's razor, though, suggests that it was probably AOC's mega-viral tweet that broke the site's notoriously dodgy infrastructure. Of course, that's not a ringing endorsement of the site that Musk just acquired for the colossal sum of $44 billion.

More on Twitter: Twitter Working on Plan to Charge Users to Watch Videos

The post AOC Says Her Twitter Account Broke After She Made Fun of Elon Musk appeared first on Futurism.

Read more:

AOC Says Her Twitter Account Broke After She Made Fun of Elon Musk

US Gov to Crack Down on "Bossware" That Spies On Employees’ Computers

In the era of remote work, employers have turned to invasive

Spying @ Home

Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic drove a wave of working from home, companies have been relentless in their efforts to digitally police and spy on remote employees by using what's known as "bossware." That's the pejorative name for software that tracks the websites an employee visits, screenshots their computer screens, and even records their faces and voices.

And now, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), an agency of the federal government, is looking to intervene.

"Close, constant surveillance and management through electronic means threaten employees' basic ability to exercise their rights," said NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, in a Monday memo. "I plan to urge the Board to apply the Act to protect employees, to the greatest extent possible, from intrusive or abusive electronic monitoring and automated management practices."

Undoing Unions

In particular, Abruzzo is worried about how bossware could infringe on workers' rights to unionize. It's not hard to imagine how such invasive surveillance could be used to bust unionization. Even if the technology isn't explicitly deployed to impede organization efforts, the ominous presence of the surveillance on its own can be a looming deterrent, which Abruzzo argues is illegal.

And now is the perfect moment for the NLRB to step in. The use and abuse of worker surveillance tech in general — not just bossware — has been "growing by the minute," Mark Gaston Pearce, executive director of the Workers' Rights Institute at Georgetown Law School, told CBS.

"Employers are embracing technology because technology helps them run a more efficient business," Gaston explained. "… What comes with that is monitoring a lot of things that employers have no business doing."

Overbearing Overlord

In some ways, surveillance tech like bossware can be worse than having a nosy, actual human boss. Generally speaking, in a physical workplace employees have an understanding of how much privacy they have (unless they work at a place like Amazon or Walmart, that is).

But when bossware spies on you, who knows how much information an employer could be gathering — or even when they're looking in. And if it surveils an employee's personal computer, which more often than not contains plenty of personal information that a boss has no business seeing, that's especially invasive.

Which is why Abruzzo is pushing to require employers to disclose exactly how much they're tracking.

It's a stern message from the NLRB, but at the end of the day, it's just a memo. We'll have to wait and see how enforcing it pans out.

More on surveillance: Casinos to Use Facial Recognition to Keep "Problem Gamblers" Away

The post US Gov to Crack Down on "Bossware" That Spies On Employees' Computers appeared first on Futurism.

Original post:

US Gov to Crack Down on "Bossware" That Spies On Employees' Computers

Elon Musk Meeting With Advertisers, Begging Them Not to Leave Twitter

Advertisers are fleeing Twitter in droves now that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has taken over control. Now, he's trying to pick up the pieces and begging them to return.

Advertisers are fleeing Twitter in droves now that Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has taken over control.

Ever since officially closing the $44 billion deal, Musk has been busy gutting the company's executive suite and dissolving its board. Senior executives, as well as Twitter's advertising chief Sarah Personette, have departed as well.

After all, Musk has been very clear about his disdain for advertising for years now.

The resulting uncertainty has advertisers spooked — major advertising holding company IPG has already advised clients to pull out temporarily — and the billionaire CEO is in serious damage mode.

Now, Reuters reports, Musk is spending most of this week meeting with advertisers in New York, trying to reassure them that Twitter won't turn into a "free-for-all hellscape."

According to one of Reuters' sources, the meetings have been "very productive" — but plenty of other marketers are far from satisfied.

Advertisers are reportedly grilling Musk over his plans to address the rampant misinformation being spread on the platform, a trend that Musk himself has been actively contributing to since the acquisition.

And if he's succeeding in ameliorating advertisers in private, he's antagonizing them publicly. On Wednesday, Musk posted a poll asking users whether advertisers should support either "freedom of speech," or "political 'correctness'" — a type of false dichotomy that echoes the rhetoric of far-right conspiracy theorists and conservative pundits.

"Those type of provocations are not helping to calm the waters," an unnamed media buyer told Reuters.

Some are going public with the same sentiment.

"Unless Elon hires new leaders committed to keeping this 'free' platform safe from hate speech, it's not a platform brands can/should advertise on," Allie Wassum, global media director for the Nike-owned shoe brand Jordan, wrote in a LinkedIn post.

So far, Musk's plans for the social media platform remain strikingly muddy. In addition to the behind-the-scenes advertising plays, he's also announced that users will have to pay to retain their verification badge, though he's engaged in a comically public negotiation as to what the cost might be.

He's also hinted that previously banned users — former US president Donald Trump chief among them — might eventually get a chance to return, but only once "we have a clear process for doing so, which will take at least a few more weeks."

The move was seen by many as a way to wait out the impending midterm elections. After all, Twitter has played a huge role in disseminating misinformation and swaying elections in the past.

While advertisers are running for the hills, to Musk advertising is clearly only a small part of the picture — even though historically, social giants like Twitter have struggled to diversify their revenue sources much beyond display ads.

Musk nodded to that reality in a vague open letter posted last week.

"Low relevancy ads are spam, but highly relevant ads are actually content!" he wrote in the note, addressed to "Twitter advertisers."

Big picture, Twitter's operations are in free fall right now and Musk has yet to provide advertisers with a cohesive plan to pick up the pieces.

While he's hinted at the creation of a new content moderation council made up of both "people from all viewpoints" and "wildly divergent views," advertisers are clearly going to be thinking twice about continuing their business with Twitter.

With or without advertising, Twitter's finances are reportedly in a very deep hole. The billions of dollars Musk had to borrow to finance his mega acquisition will cost Twitter around $1 billion a year in interest alone.

The company also wasn't anywhere near profitable before Musk took over, losing hundreds of millions of dollars in a single quarter.

Whether that picture will change any time soon is as unclear as ever, especially in the face of a wintry economy.

But, of course, Musk has proved his critics wrong before. So anything's possible.

READ MORE: Advertisers begin to grill Elon Musk over Twitter 'free-for-all' [Reuters]

More on the saga: Elon Musk Pulling Engineers From Tesla Autopilot to Work on Twitter

The post Elon Musk Meeting With Advertisers, Begging Them Not to Leave Twitter appeared first on Futurism.

Go here to see the original:

Elon Musk Meeting With Advertisers, Begging Them Not to Leave Twitter

Chinese Spaceplane Releases Mystery Object Into Orbit

After launching into orbit three months ago, China's top-secret spaceplane has released a mysterious object, which is now circling the Earth behind it.

Spaceplane Buddy

After launching into orbit roughly three months ago, China's top-secret spaceplane has released a mysterious object, which is now circling the Earth behind it, SpaceNews reports.

There's very little we know about China's "reusable experimental spacecraft," except that it launched atop a Long March 2F rocket back in August. We don't know its purpose, what it looks like, or what cargo it was carrying during launch — but it's an intriguing development, nonetheless, for China's reusable launch platform.

Mysterious Object

The object was released between October 24 and October 31, according to tracking data being analyzed by the US Space Force's 18th pace Defense Squadron.

We can only hazard a guess as to what the mysterious object's purpose is. According to Harvard astronomer and space tracker Jonathan McDowell, it "may be a service module, possibly indicating an upcoming deorbit burn."

Based on the size and weight of payloads Long March rockets usually carry, China's mysterious spaceplane is likely similar to the Air Force's X-37B spaceplane, which is similarly shrouded in mystery and currently on its sixth mission.

We also don't know when the Chinese model will make its return back to Earth, but given recent activity at the Lop Nur base in Xinjiang suggests, it may land there in the near future, according to the report.

It's a puzzling new development for China's secretive spacecraft — but it does raise the possibility of a renewed interest in spaceplanes, a potentially affordable and reusable way to launch payloads into orbit.

More on the spaceplane: China Launches Mysterious "Reusable Test" Spacecraft

The post Chinese Spaceplane Releases Mystery Object Into Orbit appeared first on Futurism.

Read the rest here:

Chinese Spaceplane Releases Mystery Object Into Orbit

That "Research" About How Smartphones Are Causing Deformed Human Bodies Is SEO Spam, You Idiots

That

You know that "research" going around saying humans are going to evolve to have hunchbacks and claws because of the way we use our smartphones? Though our posture could certainly use some work, you'll be glad to know that it's just lazy spam intended to juice search engine results.

Let's back up. Today the Daily Mail published a viral story about "how humans may look in the year 3000." Among its predictions: hunched backs, clawed hands, a second eyelid, a thicker skull and a smaller brain.

Sure, that's fascinating! The only problem? The Mail's only source is a post published a year ago by the renowned scientists at... uh... TollFreeForwarding.com, a site that sells, as its name suggests, virtual phone numbers.

If the idea that phone salespeople are purporting to be making predictions about human evolution didn't tip you off, this "research" doesn't seem very scientific at all. Instead, it more closely resembles what it actually is — a blog post written by some poor grunt, intended to get backlinks from sites like the Mail that'll juice TollFreeForwarding's position in search engine results.

To get those delicious backlinks, the top minds at TollFreeForwarding leveraged renders of a "future human" by a 3D model artist. The result of these efforts is "Mindy," a creepy-looking hunchback in black skinny jeans (which is how you can tell she's from a different era).

Grotesque model reveals what humans could look like in the year 3000 due to our reliance on technology

Full story: https://t.co/vQzyMZPNBv pic.twitter.com/vqBuYOBrcg

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) November 3, 2022

"To fully realize the impact everyday tech has on us, we sourced scientific research and expert opinion on the subject," the TollFreeForwarding post reads, "before working with a 3D designer to create a future human whose body has physically changed due to consistent use of smartphones, laptops, and other tech."

Its sources, though, are dubious. Its authority on spinal development, for instance, is a "health and wellness expert" at a site that sells massage lotion. His highest academic achievement? A business degree.

We could go on and on about TollFreeForwarding's dismal sourcing — some of which looks suspiciously like even more SEO spam for entirely different clients — but you get the idea.

It's probably not surprising that the this gambit for clicks took off among dingbats on Twitter. What is somewhat disappointing is that it ended up on StudyFinds, a generally reliable blog about academic research. This time, though, for inscrutable reasons it treated this egregious SEO spam as a legitimate scientific study.

The site's readers, though, were quick to call it out, leading to a comically enormous editor's note appended to the story.

"Our content is intended to stir debate and conversation, and we always encourage our readers to discuss why or why not they agree with the findings," it reads in part. "If you heavily disagree with a report — please debunk to your delight in the comments below."

You heard them! Get debunking, people.

More conspiracy theories: If You Think Joe Rogan Is Credible, This Bizarre Clip of Him Yelling at a Scientist Will Probably Change Your Mind

The post That "Research" About How Smartphones Are Causing Deformed Human Bodies Is SEO Spam, You Idiots appeared first on Futurism.

Here is the original post:

That "Research" About How Smartphones Are Causing Deformed Human Bodies Is SEO Spam, You Idiots

Hackers Just Took Down One of the World’s Most Advanced Telescopes

ALMA is one of the largest and most advanced radio telescopes in the world. And for reasons still unknown to the public, hackers decided to take it down.

Observatory Offline

The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) Observatory in Chile has been hit with a cyberattack that has taken its website offline and forced it to suspend all observations, authorities there said.

Even email services were limited in the aftermath, illustrating the broad impact of the hack.

Nested high up on a plateau in the Chilean Andes at over 16,000 feet above sea level, ALMA is one of the most powerful and advanced radio telescopes in the world. Notably, ALMA helped take the first image of a black hole in 2019, in a collaborative effort that linked radio observatories worldwide into forming the Event Horizon Telescope.

Thankfully, ALMA's impressive arsenal of 66 high-precision antennas, each nearly 40 feet in diameter, was not compromised, the observatory said, nor was any of the scientific data those instruments collected.

In High Places

What makes ALMA so invaluable is its specialty in observing the light of the cooler substances of the cosmos, namely gas and dust. That makes ALMA a prime candidate for documenting the fascinating formations of planets and stars when they first emerge amidst clouds of gas.

Since going fully operational in 2013, it's become the largest ground-based astronomical project in the world, according to the European Southern Observatory, ALMA's primary operators.

So ALMA going offline is a distressing development, especially to the thousands of astronomers worldwide that rely on its observations and the some 300 experts working onsite. Getting it up and running is obviously a top priority, but the observatory said in a followup tweet that "it is not yet possible to estimate a date for a return to regular activities."

As of now, there's no information available on who the hackers were, or exactly how they conducted the attack. Their motivations, too, remain a mystery.

More on ALMA: Astronomers Think They Found the Youngest Planet in the Galaxy

The post Hackers Just Took Down One of the World's Most Advanced Telescopes appeared first on Futurism.

Read more here:

Hackers Just Took Down One of the World's Most Advanced Telescopes