Walmart Is Making Its First Move Into the Metaverse With Virtual Worlds on Roblox Walmart is making its first move into the metaverse. Starting Monday, the retailer will unveil two immersive experiences on Roblox’s virtual platform. Walmart Land will feature fashion, beauty and entertainment items, while Walmart’s Universe of Play will showcase toys, the company announced. From a report: Walma … ⌘ Read more

Interpol Issues Red Notice For Terra Founder Do Kwon Interpol has issued a red notice for Do Kwon, requesting law enforcement agencies worldwide to search and arrest the Terraform Labs founder whose blockchain startup collapsed earlier this year. From a report: The collapse of Terra cryptocurrency (Luna) and the so-called stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) wiped out investors’ $40 billion, prompting an uproar that caused the prosec … ⌘ Read more

Cloudflare Launches an eSIM To Secure Mobile Devices An anonymous reader shares a report: Are smartphones ever entirely secure? It depends on one’s definition of “secure,” particularly when dealing with corporate environments. Most companies with bring-your-own-device policies install apps or agents on workers’ smartphones to help secure them, leveraging the management capabilities built into operating systems like Android … ⌘ Read more

Drone Startup Claims It Flew Its Ion-Propulsion Drone On 4.5-Minute Test Flight An anonymous reader quotes a report from Interesting Engineering: Florida-based tech startup Undefined Technologies announced its unique ionic propulsion drone has passed an outdoor flight test, meaning it’s on track for commercial release in 2024, according to a report from New Atlas. The drone, called Silent Ventus, … ⌘ Read more

Belgium Shuts Down Nuclear Reactor For First Time In compliance with the country’s nuclear phase-out law, Belgium’s Doel 3 reactor was shut down on Friday after being in operation for 40 years. From a report: Despite the energy crisis in Europe, the nuclear reactor in the town of Doel, north of the port city of Antwerp, will close on Friday. This is the first time a nuclear reactor will be permanently shut down in Belgium … ⌘ Read more

New Binary Pulsar Detected With CHIME Using the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), astronomers have detected a new radio pulsar in a binary system with a massive non-degenerate companion star. The discovery of the pulsar, which received designation PSR J2108+4516, was detailed in a paper published September 14 on the arXiv pre-print server. Phys.Org reports: Pulsars are highly magnetized, rotating neutron stars e … ⌘ Read more

Kia Plans To Build EVs In the US To Comply With New Federal Tax Credit Kia is planning to manufacture its electric vehicles in the US, according to South Korean media sources Maeil Business and SBS (via The EV Officials). The Verge reports: The automaker currently builds its flagship electric car and North American sales hit, the Kia EV6, in South Korea at its Hwasung plant. But now, Kia will shift some … ⌘ Read more

Richard Nixon Exposed To Radiation On Moscow Trip In 1959, Documents Reveal An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: Richard Nixon and his wife, Pat, were exposed to potentially harmful radiation while staying at the US ambassador’s residence in Moscow in 1959, according to declassified Secret Service documents. Nixon, who was vice-president at the time, was not informed of the threat, a … ⌘ Read more

Hackathon Finds Dozens of Ukrainian Refugees Trafficked Online An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Earlier this year, the International Organization for Migration reported that more than 3 million refugees fleeing war-torn Ukraine were “at heightened risk of exploitation.” Human trafficking cases, they warned, involved refugees more likely to leave home suddenly without secure financial resource … ⌘ Read more

Gurman: New iPads and Macs Could Be Announced Through a Press Release, No October Event Apple could decide to release its remaining products for 2022, which includes an updated iPad Pro, Mac mini, and 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros, through a press release on its website rather than a digital event, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. MacRumors reports: In his latest Power On newsl … ⌘ Read more

Almost Half of Industrial Robots Are In China According to a new report from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), China now has almost half of all the world’s robot installations and that it is increasing its lead rapidly. Engineering.com reports: The IFR, which exists to “promote research, development, use and international co-operation in the entire field of robotics,” has been reporting that China has been the … ⌘ Read more

When’s the Best Time To Charge Your EV? Not at Night, Stanford Study Finds The vast majority of electric vehicle owners charge their cars at home in the evening or overnight. We’re doing it wrong, according to a new Stanford study. From the report: In March, the research team published a paper on a model they created for charging demand that can be applied to an array of populations and other factor … ⌘ Read more

Neal Stephenson’s Lamina1 Drops White Paper On Building the Open Metaverse An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: Neal Stephenson’s Lamina1 blockchain technology startup dropped a white paper today on building the open metaverse. It’s quite the manifesto. In the document, the company said its mission is to deliver a Layer 1 blockchain, interoperating tools and decentralized services opt … ⌘ Read more

TikTok To Ban All Political Fundraising On Its Platform TikTok says it plans to ban all fundraising activity soon – only six weeks before the November midterm elections. The Verge reports: In a blog post, TikTok’s president of global business solutions, Blake Chandlee, said the company would immediately turn off all advertising and monetization features, like gifting and tipping, for politicians and parties on the … ⌘ Read more

Brussels Tests Cultural Visits To Treat Anxiety Psychiatrists in Brussels can now prescribe free visits to cultural venues to people suffering from depression, stress or anxiety. The Guardian reports: Delphine Houba, a Brussels deputy mayor in charge of culture, believes the project is the first of its kind in Europe. The first objective is to reinforce access to culture after the pressured days of lockdown, she told the Ob … ⌘ Read more

Belgium Shuts Down Nuclear Reactor For First Time In compliance with Belgium nuclear phase-out law, the Doel 3 reactor was shut down on Friday after being in operation for 40 years. From a report: Despite the energy crisis in Europe, the nuclear reactor in the town of Doel, north of the port city of Antwerp, will close on Friday. This is the first time a nuclear reactor will be permanently shut down in Belgium. The Doel 3 … ⌘ Read more

California First State To Ban Natural Gas Heaters and Furnaces An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: A new proposal passed by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) cements the state as the first to ban natural gas heaters and furnaces. The decision, which was passed unanimously, aims to phase out sales of the space heater and water heater appliances by 2030. The commitment is part of a broader ra … ⌘ Read more

James Earl Jones Signs Off on Using Recordings to Recreate Darth Vader’s Voice with AI James Earl Jones is stepping away from the role of Darth Vader after nearly 40 years. According to Vanity Fair, he has signed off on using archival voice recordings to recreate the iconic voice with artificial intelligence. From a report: “He had mentioned he was looking into winding down this p … ⌘ Read more

Mozilla Reaffirms That Firefox Will Continue To Support Current Content Blockers Martin Brinkmann writes via gHacks: From next year onward, extensions for Google Chrome and most other Chromium-based browsers, will have to rely on a new extension manifest. Manifest V3 defines the boundaries in which extensions may operate. Current Chromium extensions use Manifest V2 for the most part, even thoug … ⌘ Read more

Amazon Hires Unsafe Trucking Firms Twice As Often As Peers, WSJ Finds An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: For years, people in cars stuck behind blue delivery trucks in traffic have echoed media reports criticizing Amazon for clogging American roadways. It’s well-known that the Amazon drivers steering these fleets of trucks and vans don’t actually work for Amazon but are hired by companie … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI Open-Sources Whisper, a Multilingual Speech Recognition System Speech recognition remains a challenging problem in AI and machine learning. In a step toward solving it, OpenAI today open-sourced Whisper, an automatic speech recognition system that the company claims enables “robust” transcription in multiple languages as well as translation from those languages into English. TechCrunch reports: Coun … ⌘ Read more

NASA Waves Off Next Artemis I Launch Attempt Due To Tropical Storm The Artemis I rocket will not have its third launch attempt on Tuesday as planned due to concerns over Tropical Storm Ian making its way toward Cuba and Florida. CNN reports: After meeting on Saturday morning, NASA’s Artemis team decided to forgo the September 27 launch opportunity and is now preparing the mega moon rocket stack for rollba … ⌘ Read more

Saul Kripke, Philosopher Who Found Truths In Semantics, Dies At 81 Saul Kripke, a math prodigy and pioneering logician whose revolutionary theories on language qualified him as one of the 20th century’s greatest philosophers, died on Sept. 15 in Plainsboro, N.J. He was 81. The New York Times reports: His death, at Penn Medicine Princeton Medical Center, was caused by pancreatic cancer, according to Romina P … ⌘ Read more

Cybersickness Could Spell an Early Death For the Metaverse An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Daily Beast: Luis Eduardo Garrido couldn’t wait to test out his colleague’s newest creation. Garrido, a psychology and methodology researcher at Pontificia Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra in the Dominican Republic, drove two hours between his university’s campuses to try a virtual reality experience that wa … ⌘ Read more

Newsom Vetoes ‘Premature’ Crypto Oversight Bill For California California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would require crypto financial-service businesses to get a special license to operate, calling it premature and costly. Bloomberg reports: Newsom on Friday declined to sign the legislation known as the Digital Financial Assets Law, which was passed by the state assembly and senate last month. While the … ⌘ Read more