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

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

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

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

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

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NASA Sets Launch Date for Mission to $10 Quintillion Asteroid

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

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Twitter Working on Plan to Charge Users to Watch Videos

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

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Huge Drone Swarm to Form Giant Advertisement Over NYC Skyline

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

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

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

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Chinese Spaceplane Releases Mystery Object Into Orbit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Cats May Be Tampering With Crime Scenes, Scientists Say

Jeff Bezos' former housekeeper is suing the Amazon founder for workplace discrimination that she says forced her to literally climb out out the window of his house to use the bathroom.

In the suit, filed this week in a Washington state court, the former housekeeper claimed that she and Bezos' other household staff were not provided with legally-mandated eating or restroom breaks, and that because there was no "readily accessible bathroom" for them to use, they had to clamber out a laundry room window to get to one.

In the complaint, lawyers for the ex-housekeeper, who is described as having worked for wealthy families for nearly 20 years, wrote that household staff were initially allowed to use a small bathroom in the security room of Bezos' main house, but "this soon stopped... because it was decided that housekeepers using the bathroom was a breach of security protocol."

The suit also alleges that housekeepers in the billionaire's employ "frequently developed Urinary Tract Infections" that they believed was related to not being able to use the bathroom when they needed to at work.

"There was no breakroom for the housekeepers," the complaint adds. "Even though Plaintiff worked 10, 12, and sometimes 14 hours a day, there was no designated area for her to sit down and rest."

The housekeeper — who, like almost all of her coworkers, is Latino — was allegedly not aware that she was entitled to breaks for lunch or rest, and was only able to have a lunch break when Bezos or his family were not on the premises, the lawsuit alleges.

The Washington Post owner has denied his former housekeeper's claims of discrimination through an attorney.

"We have investigated the claims, and they lack merit," Harry Korrell, a Bezos attorney, told Insider of the suit. "[The former employee] made over six figures annually and was the lead housekeeper."

He added that the former housekeeper "was responsible for her own break and meal times, and there were several bathrooms and breakrooms available to her and other staff."

"The evidence will show that [the former housekeeper] was terminated for performance reasons," he continued. "She initially demanded over $9M, and when the company refused, she decided to file this suit."

As the suit was just filed and may well end in a settlement, it'll likely be a long time, if ever, before we find out what really happened at Bezos' house — but if we do, it'll be a fascinating peek behind the curtain at the home life of one of the world's most powerful and wealthy men.

More on billionaires: Tesla Morale Low As Workers Still Don't Have Desks, Face Increased Attendance Surveillance

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Jeff Bezos' Housekeeper Says She Had to Climb Out the Window to Use the Bathroom

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.

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

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.

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

When we think of tech giants, we tend to think of Silicon Valley.

And rightly so. California has given the world iconic digital brands like Facebook, Google and Uber.

The US leads the way both with listed tech giants and unicorns privately held companies valued at $1 billion or more.

More than half of the worlds unicorns are based in the US, according to research firm CB Insights.

However, the US is still only one part of the global tech story.

China is home to some of the worlds largest tech companies: ecommerce giant Alibaba, search engine Baidu, and ride-sharing platform Didi Chuxing.

And Europe is also proving increasingly fertile ground for tech entrepreneurs.

The chart below shows some of its largest tech companies both listed brands and unicorns:

Although the UK is home to the largest cumulative value of $1 billion-plus tech firms in Europe, the continents biggest companies are found in Scandinavia.

Spotify is by far Europes most highly valued tech company. The Swedish music streaming service is reportedly being valued at around $16 billion. This makes it the most valuable music streaming service on the planet.

It is also the continents biggest unicorn although it will lose that title if, as expected, it floats on the stock market with a valuation that some expect may reach $20 billion.

Spotify is one of three European tech companies to be valued at more than $10 billion by a report published in September called Europes Titans of Tech by investment firm GP Bullhound.

Swedish entrepreneur Daniel Ek is co-founder and CEO of Spotify, Europes most highly valued tech firm.

Image: REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

The exclusive $10 billion-plus club also includes German ecommerce firm Zalando, and Spotifys Scandinavian neighbour Supercell.

Finland-based mobile gaming company Supercell is famous for such games as Clash of Clans. Last year Chinese tech group Tencent bought an 84% stake in the company, valuing Supercell at $10.2 billion.

According to GP Bullhound, the UK is home is to nearly $50 billion-worth of $1 billion-plus tech companies, making it the epicentre of Europes digital revolution.

Its biggest listed tech company is online retailer ASOS, while CB Insights identifies the UKs top unicorns as data centre provider Global Switch and online food delivery service Deliveroo.

In the World Economic Forums Global Competitiveness Report 2017-18, the UK is ranked 8th overall, thanks to its technological readiness and the sophistication of its business sector.

However, the report warns that the UKs Brexit negotiations to leave the European Union could undermine its global competitiveness.

Freedom of movement for EU citizens forms a central part of the ongoing negotiations between the British government and the EU.

GP Bullhounds report claims much of the UKs tech success is due to Londons gravitational pull for entrepreneurs from across the continent.

This is backed up by the fact that of the 29% of tech founders in Europe who are expatriates, 60% chose the UK as the place to start up their business.

In total more than a third of European tech founders are based in the UK.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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Meet Europes tech giants - World Economic Forum

In a boxing match, both opponents know that each round may be the last. But they often assume that the first rounds are moments of observation to try to destabilize the adversary; see if the lessons learned from the sparring partner were the right ones. Both opponents also know that if they take a violent uppercut it could just be the end of the fight. In any case, an uppercut or a knockout will send a clear message to future opponents: they are vulnerable.

Amazon (AMZN) - Get Amazon.com, Inc. Reporthas just taken one such hit in its standoff to avoid the formation of unions within the company.

Workers at an Amazon warehouse in New York voted Friday to join an upstart union, a historic victory for organized labor union. But in doing so, they inflicted a resounding defeat on Amazon, which did everything to block their efforts.

This vote is the first entry of unions at Amazon in the United States and it is likely an encouraging message and a positive signal for workers seeking to organize themselves at other companies like Apple (AAPL) - Get Apple Inc. Report.

The vote took place in the Amazon warehouse on Staten Island in New York, known as JFK8.Besides the defeat, what is also worrying for the e-commerce giant is that the result was not close.

The vote count gave2,654 "Yes" to join the union and 2,131 "No."There were 67 challenged ballots, which means that even by classifying them in the No, the vote in favor of unionization prevails.Approximately 8,325 workers were eligible to vote whether to become part of the Amazon Labor Union.

The results still need to be formally certified by the National Labor Relations Board (NRLB).

By voting in the Amazon Labor Union, Staten Island workers could challenge the companys current labor model, which is the backbone of its Prime two-day shipping promise, according to CNBC. Unions stand to disrupt the level of control that Amazon exerts over its warehouse and delivery employees, such as its ability to unilaterally set the pace of work and hourly wages.

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Unless the company can get the result overturned, Amazon will have to start contract negotiations that potentially could affect the organization of work. The company has until April 8 to dispute the results.

"Were disappointed with the outcome of the election in Staten Island because we believe having a direct relationship with the company is best for our employees," the company said in a statement. "Were evaluating our options, including filing objections based on the inappropriate and undue influence by the NLRB that we and others (including the National Retail Federation and U.S. Chamber of Commerce) witnessed in this election."

Amazon did everything to prevent the Yes victory. The group has even set up a special website: "We invest in the full you your wellness, your career, and your life," the company wrote.

"@amazon wanted to make me the face of the whole unionizing efforts against them. welp there you go!@JeffBezos @DavidZapolsky CONGRATULATIONS," Christian Smalls, one of the leaders of union activism at Amazon,rejoiced on Twitter. "@amazonlabor We worked had fun and made History #ALU # ALUfortheWin welcome the 1st union in America for Amazon."

Smalls, a former JFK8 manager, who was fired by Amazon in 2020 because he violated social distancing rules, the company said. Smalls said he was fired in retaliation for staging a protest in the early weeks of the coronavirus pandemic to call for stronger safety measures.

Amazon faces a second union drive at a Bessemer, Alabama warehouse. The company won rejection of a union last year, but the National Labor Relations Board held that it had acted improperly and ordered a revote. The result of that vote is not yet officially known because there are enough ballots in dispute to change the outcome. A court hearing on the ballot challenges is expected later this month.

The unions' victory at Amazon Staten Island could galvanize workers at other big companies because the e-commerce giant has fought so hard to block union organizing efforts so far.

Groups at at least two Apple retail stores are backed by major national unions and are preparing to file paperwork with NLRB in the near future

Read the rest here:

Amazon Receives a Violent Slap That Sends Warning to Other Tech Giants - TheStreet

Banks and fintechs will have to get used to it: Apple (AAPL) - Get Apple Inc. Reportshould soon become their competitor. The tech brand has made services one of its most important growth areas.

"We continue to invest in innovation across our services business, which set another all-time revenue record last quarter and performed even better than we had anticipated," CEO Tim Cook told analysts during earnings' call in January.

Apple posted record revenues of $124 billion for the three months ending in December. Services revenues, which includes payments, rose 24% to a record $19.5 billion. Services gross margin was 72.4%.

"The growth of Apple Pay has just been stunning. It's been absolutely stunning. And there's still obviously a lot more there to go," Cook explained. "And because there's still a lot of cash in the environment. And so I think that both of these and whatever else we might do have a great future ahead."

It seems that Apple is determined to attract this money. The iPhone maker is in the process of developing a project called "Breakout", which aims at replacing its Fintech partners, according to Bloomberg.

Specifically, Apple is working on payment processing technology and infrastructure for future financial products. The company wants to offer a wide range of financial products and services ranging from payment processing, financial risk assessment for loan transactions, fraud analysis, credit verification and risk and dispute management with clients.

Apple didn't return a request for comment from TheStreet.

Apple

If the economic model of this new service remains uncertain for start-ups, the question does not arise for tech giants. Those who venture into the payment market do so primarily to retain their members and amortize their costs in other ways. According to experts, they are also attacking this market in the hope of recovering financial data on consumers, useful for developing other services.

If Apple materialized all these projects, the company would become a true fintech powerhouse.

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Apple has already been present in mobile payments since 2014 and the launch of Apple Pay, which makes it possible to pay at merchants. The company also offers a peer-to-peer payment service,Apple Pay Cash, which is operated by Green Dot Bank on behalf of Apple.

Apple's Wallet app allows users to add, use, pay with their credit and debit cards, add discount vouchers, loyalty cards.

Apple's finance offensive gained momentum in February with the launch of a game-changing product in payment services.

The firm introduced Tap to Pay functionality. The concept is very simple: instead of using a dedicated payment terminal, the iPhone lends its NFC chip to authenticate the transaction. The iPhone screen displays the amount to be paid and a small NFC logo to indicate to the customer where to affix their iPhone, Apple Watch or NFC-compatible bank card.

The rest works like a classic contactless transaction. The Tap to Pay functionality, resulting from the takeover of the startup Mobeewave two years ago, was developed in partnership with financial institutions which will be able to offer this option to their business customers.

Stripewill be the first to offer the feature to its customers this spring, with integration with Shopify (SHOP) - Get Shopify, Inc. Class A Report.Apple said that other payment platforms and applications are planned later this year. Apple Stores will also use this feature in the coming months.

Merchants must rely on additional hardware, such as Square's external terminal, to accept contactless credit card payments. With Tap to Pay, Apple is attacking this market head-on, or in any case offering an alternative option for small businesses, single-person sellers and other independents.

Apple specified that it will require an iPhone XS or a later model to support Tap to Pay .

Apple is also working on a subscription service for the iPhone and other hardware products, a move that could make device ownership similar to paying a monthly app fee. The service will enable users to subscribe to hardware, rather than just digital services.

Finally, the Cupertino, California-based company is working on a new product/service, called Apple Pay Later. Basically, a kind of loan that could be repaid in at most four installments without interest for short-term transactions and with interest for long-term transactions.

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Beyond Apple Pay: Tech Giant Prepares to Take on Banks, Fintech - TheStreet

A new streaming service has arrived (or is about to) in CNN Plus, and with it comes a slate of exclusive original series, including Land of the Giants: Titans of Tech. This five-part docu-series will look at the rise of the biggest tech companies in the world today.

The streaming service for the cable news network is offering hours of programming that is meant to supplement its live news coverage. This will include featuring classic CNN shows like Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy, Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell, as well as brand new original programming, like Land of the Giants and No Mercy No Malice with Scott Galloway.

Here is everything you need to know about Land of the Giants: Titans of Tech.

When CNN Plus officially debuts on Tuesday, March 29, it will do so with the first episode of Land of the Giants: Titans of Tech. Following its March 29 premiere, new episodes of the docu-series will then premiere weekly on Thursdays.

The episodes will be available exclusively on CNN Plus.

Land of the Giants: Titans of Tech is based on the podcast from Recode by Vox, which investigated the rise of some of the biggest tech companies in the world, including Meta (formerly Facebook), Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google.

The docu-series will explore the full history of these companies, "from their humble beginnings to their present-day standing as global powerhouses," CNN Plus says. The show will feature archival footage and exclusive interviews with experts and tech insiders providing insights into the origin stories on these companies and their founders: Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Reed Hasting, Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Here is what CNN Plus is aiming for the docu-series to do:

"The technologies created by Meta, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google have transformed modern society, forever altering the way we communicate, shop, date, work and think. But at what cost? Over this season, Land of the Giants: Titans of Tech will answer this question through a careful exploration of the current controversies surrounding these tech giants, pondering what the future holds for them and for the world at large."

Here is the trailer for Land of the Giants, which gives just a taste of the insight that interview subjects will provide about the tech moguls at the center of the docu-series and what makes them so successful and, in some cases, dangerous.

Land of the Giants will be available exclusively on CNN Plus, so what will you need to do to watch the docu-series?

Well, first things first, youll have to sign up for the CNN Plus streaming service. At launch on March 29, CNN Plus is only going to be available for US consumers at a monthly subscription of $5.99. A special deal has been announced, however, that anyone who signs up in the first four weeks of CNN Plus launch will get 50% off their monthly fee "for life," as long as they remain a subscriber.

The streaming service will be available to download and watch on smartphones, tablets, computers and other smart TVs.

Read the rest here:

Land of the Giants: Titans of Tech release date, trailer and everything we know - What To Watch

This is a big catch for the crypto sphere. Binance, the largest crypto platform in terms of trading volume, has managed to poach great talent from Microsoft (MSFT) - Get Microsoft Corporation Report.

Rohit Wad has been Binances new chief technology officer (CTO) for four weeks, according to a blog post released on Friday by the company.

Wad was until this announcement "Corporate Vice President (Product and Engineering)" at Microsoft. His LinkedIn page has still not been updated as of time of writing. We can read there that he joined the software giant in October 2016 from Facebook, now known as Meta Platforms (FB) - Get Meta Platforms Inc. Class A Report,where he was engineering director.

He stayed a little over four years with the social media group. Before Facebook, Wad also worked a little over a year at Google (GOOGL) - Get Alphabet Inc. Class A Report, but he had already spent 20 years at Microsoft.

It is therefore a fine connoisseur of the tech sector and of Silicon Valley that Binance, which is in the midst of an offensive to gain the trust of regulators, has just recruited.

At Binance, Wad will "engineer scalable, compliant, and fast Web3 services and solutions that will welcome the next billion crypto users," the company said. "Beyond Web3, he wants to ensure that Binance continues to be the most secure, fastest, and liquid exchange in the world."

"Web3 and traditional tech companies that started in Web2 (like Amazon and Microsoft) will continue to coexist within their own spheres, or pockets, of innovation," Wad said in the blog post.

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The race for talent has grown and intensified recently with the emergence of the crypto industry, the metaverse, and web3, the new generation of the internet. In other words, tech giants are no longer just in competition with their traditional rivals but now with startups to attract the best talents.

The advantage of these startups is that they have money, lots of money because venture capital firms are currently investing in their promises to completely disrupt traditional industries and tech.

Apple (AAPL) - Get Apple Inc. Reporthas just signed large checks in the space of a few months to avoid the departure of its talent, in particular to Facebook (FB) - Get Meta Platforms Inc. Class A Report, which focuses on the metaverse, a virtual world in which we will interact via avatars.

The iPhone maker will give its engineers bonuses ranging from $100,000 to $200,000 in the form of restricted stock units that are set to vest over the course of four years if the employees stay with Apple and do not take jobs at other companies. They could become more valuable over time if Apples stock price continues to rise.

Binance is currently on all fronts.

The platform wants to restore its reputation with regulators, particularly in the United States where they face questioning over its practices in terms of money laundering and illicit trading.

Binance also has ambitions to acquire companies outside the crypto space.

In February, Binance invested a $200 million in Forbes, a media that once sued the exchange giant for defamation. In an interview with The Financial Times in March,CEO Changpeng Zhao said the crypto exchange giant plans to invest in one or two firms across several business sectors. The aim of this investment spree is to bring them into crypto.

Read more here:

Microsoft Loses Executive to Crypto as Talent War Heats Up - TheStreet

Alphabet ( GOOG 0.75% ) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) is a dominant company in a unique position with its many winning businesses. In this Motley Fool Live segment from "The Rank," recorded on March 14, Fool.com contributors Travis Hoium, Jason Hall, and Danny Vena discuss the elements that set Alphabet apart.

Travis Hoium: Just an incredible business built on the core of search. I think for the longest time that was what I had the biggest problem with is, if search is your core, can't somebody just make a better search engine? The answer is no. [laughs] Once you realize that the new bolt-on mail and the whole G-Suite that businesses are starting to run on in the cloud and all kinds of services, YouTube. This is just such a powerful company and it's in such a unique position. Even YouTube as an example, as many streaming companies as there are nobody is doing what YouTube does, really.

Jason Hall: YouTube is a bigger business than Netflix now. It passed it.

Travis Hoium: Yeah, it's just crazy. The core and the main businesses that as we all know are awesome and then you've got all these moonshots. Waymo could be a trillion-dollar company 10 or 20 years from now.

Jason Hall: That's why I rated it as high as I did, Travis because none of the other bets have really hit yet. None of them really hit yet, right?

Travis Hoium: No.

Jason Hall: YouTube was an acquisition. This wasn't anything that they've developed in-house, so that's why I rated it number 1.

Travis Hoium: Yeah. I just think we're seeing over and over again that this is one of those companies that has the kind of moat that nobody is going to be able to penetrate in any meaningful way. Once you're one of these big tech giants, it's just a matter of like which one is going to grow faster and I think that's the battle that we're having here is like, do you prefer Alphabet to Microsoft? Well they're both going to do well, but I think everything Alphabet is the number 1 there. That's why I picked it number 1. It's an incredible business and I'm in more of it every day despite the fact that I am not an investor.

Jason Hall: Danny, my question; I am an investor in this is one and I'm happy I decided to reinvest when I did about a year or so ago. Danny, was there any particular reason why this one was middle of the pack for you or was it just more conviction in some of the other companies?

Danny Vena: It was mostly more conviction in the other companies. I think that investors are taking a fresh look at Alphabet recently because they grew when a lot of the other tech giants' growth decelerated. But this is one of those companies that I've had in my retirement portfolio for years and years and years and years and not something I'm ever going to sell. I think that we don't know. It's probably going to be Waymo. I think Waymo is going to be the next phase of Alphabet's growth. But it throws off so much cash flow, from so much digital advertising that the company can continue to add next-generation businesses, whether it grows them in-house or if it buys them. But I think there are still more phases for Alphabet, for Google that we don't know yet either.

Jason Hall: We are still in the digital transformation with advertising.

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis even one of our own helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

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I'm Never Selling This Tech Giant With Huge Growth Ahead - The Motley Fool