List of All Articles with Tag 'tec'

An eight billion-year-old radio signal containing extreme levels of energy has been discovered by astronomers. According to the journal Science, a “fast radio burst” was recorded as lasting for just a millisecond. The radio-frequency electromagnetic radiation was identified as FRB 20220610A, and it contained a truly staggering level of energy – releasing the same amount that the sun releases in 30 years. As CNN reports, the true nature of these blasts can often be hard to determine, given that they last for such a short length of time. It is believed, however, that they result from galaxies merging to create new stars. Furthermore, they could also be 'weighed', in order to measure the mass of the elements in the universe which are found between galaxies and unaccounted for. Coauthor Ryan Shannon said: “If we count up the amount of normal matter in the universe - the atoms that we are all made of - we find that more than half of what should be there today is missing. “We think that the missing matter is hiding in the space between galaxies, but it may just be so hot and diffuse that it’s impossible to see using normal techniques.” The huge signal was discovered using the Australian SKA Pathfinder radio telescope, before further observation was undertaken using a telescope in China – which was able to determine that the fast radio burst was the oldest and more remote example discovered to date. It comes after scientists were left baffled following the discovery of a mysterious object which sends radio waves every 21 minutes earlier this year. The really strange thing is, it’s been doing the same thing for 45 years and astronomers are still unsure about what it could be. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings

A former employee of Twitter/X has spoken about the working conditions under Elon Musk, claiming that it was the ‘hardest experience of her life’. The social media platform’s head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, resigned from the company in June, confirming the decision to Reuters. Her decision to leave the company came after Musk doubled down on his stance on trans issues, confirming he would be lobbying legislators to “criminalise making severe, irreversible changes to children below the age of consent” through gender-affirming surgery, and that “nobody knows who they are as a child”. Writing in June, Irwin said that it had become clear “there was no longer alignment” between her “nonnegotiable principles” and the policies of Twitter/X. Now, Irwin has spoken further about her decision and criticised the “terrible” decisions made by Musk. Irwin released a statement to NBC News, saying: “It absolutely was the hardest experience that I've gone through in my career. Speaking about Musk’s decision making, Irwin said: “There's more emotion behind his decisions than I would have maybe expected before I met him. “I think that contributes to some of the impulsiveness… I think there were a lot of situations in which I would have handled things very differently.” Reflecting on Musk’s leadership, Irwin added: “There were things that I wouldn't have tweeted in the middle of the night, [and] there were certainly things that could have been stated better.” It comes after Kanye West accused Musk of taking advantage of his clout in a bid to boost the “struggling” platform’s numbers. West is used to causing outrage on Twitter/X, having been banned from the platform in the past. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings

Roche Holding AG’s lung cancer drug scored a big win against a standard therapy in a study this

Paddy Cosgrave has stepped down from his role as chief executive officer of Web Summit after his remarks

A man had a meteor crash through his roof. Now he's a millionaire. Josua Hutagalung was stunned when a space rock crashed into his home in Kolang, Indonesia. Hutagalung was working outside when the meteor smashed through his veranda next to the living room. It managed to bury itself 15cm deep in the soil. The meteor turned out to be 4.5 billion years old, weighing 2.1kg, boasting a price tag of £1.4 million. It was classified as an extremely rare CM1/2 carbonaceous Chondrite. The meteor was bought by a specialist collected for the equivalent to 30 years' salary. Talking of his newfound wealth, Hutagalung said he wanted to use it to build a church in his community. "I have also always wanted a daughter," he told The Sun, saying he saw the meteor as a "sign that I will be lucky enough now to have one". Three other fragments of the meteor were also found nearby. After it was bought from a collector in Indianapolis, the meteorite was shipped to the US. Jared Collins, a meteorite expert from America, who bought part of the rock, said: "My phone lit up with crazy offers for me to jump on a plane and buy the meteorite. "It was the middle of the Covid crisis and frankly it was a toss-up between buying the rock for myself or working with scientists and collectors in the US. "I carried as much money as I could muster and went to find Josua, who turned out to be a canny negotiator." Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Web Summit Chief Executive and founder Paddy Cosgrave on Saturday resigned after comments he made on the Israeli-Hamas

A massive shipwreck which hasn’t been seen since it sank 128 years ago has been discovered by a crew making a nature documentary. Filmmakers were working on a project about a mussel species which lives in the Great Lakes in the US when they made the unexpected find. Yvonne Drebert and Zach Melnick were researching the invasive quagga mussel when they stumbled upon the steamship Africa, Fox Weather reports. The ship was sunk in 1895 after travelling from Ohio to Ontario on Lake Huron in dangerous conditions. The wreck was found after the filmmakers’ underwater drone detected something big and a camera was sent down to take a look. “It got more and more definition as we got closer and closer, and all of a sudden, we could see, ‘Wow, this is a steamship, a wooden steamship!'” Melnik said. “So this is old, and it is incredibly well intact.” The discovery was made possible due to the mussel species, which had covered the wreckage. The ship was identified as the Africa. Since the discovery, families of the people who were lost on board have been in touch with the filmmakers. “One of the incredible things that’s happened since this story has come to light just a couple of weeks ago is that several of the descendants of family members who died on this wreck so many years ago have reached out to us,” Melnick said. “We’re working with those families to try to find a way to remember those sailors who had died 128 years ago.” The mussel species will eventually destroy the wreckage, and the quagga can be hugely damaging to natural environments. The Center of Invasive Species Research in Riverside, California, reports that quagga [and zebra mussels] invasions “have had catastrophic impacts in the ecosystems in which they have established.” “These organisms clog water intake structures (e.g., pipes and screens), which greatly increases maintenance costs for water treatment and power plants,” the organization adds on its website. “Recreational activities on lakes and rivers are adversely affected as mussels accumulate on docks, buoys, boat hulls, anchors and beaches can become heavily encrusted.” “Interestingly, invasions by quagga and zebra mussels have been documented as having some positive affects on receiving ecosystems. For example, filtration of water by mussels as they extract food removes particulate matter. This filtration has improved water clarity, and reduced the eutrophication of polluted lakes.” Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings

Google and Meta have pulled out of the upcoming Web Summit technology conference, following fallout from the event’s founder’s social media comments relating to the Israel-Hamas conflict. Siemens and Intel have also pulled out of next month’s event due to be held in Lisbon, Portugal after posted commentary made by Paddy Cosgrove about western support for Israel. It has also been reported that actress Gillian Anderson has withdrawn from her speaking role at the conference. Mr Cosgrave, the chief executive of Ireland-based Web Summit, issued an apology on Tuesday where he said he unreservedly condemns Hamas’s attack on October 7. That followed a controversial post on X last Friday when he said he was “shocked at the rhetoric and actions of so many Western leaders and governments, with the exception in particular of Ireland’s government, who for once are doing the right thing. “War crimes are war crimes even when committed by allies, and should be called out for what they are.” Mr Cosgrave said his comments were to urge Israel not to cross the boundaries of international law in its response to Hamas atrocities. In his later apology, he said: “I unequivocally support Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself. I unequivocally support a two-state solution. “I understand that what I said, the timing of what I said, and the way it has been presented has caused profound hurt to many. “To anyone who was hurt by my words, I apologise deeply. “What is needed at this time is compassion, and I did not convey that. “My aim is and always has been to strive for peace. “Ultimately, I hope with all my heart that this can be achieved.” We will no longer have a presence at Web Summit Google spokesman Tickets for Web Summit range from 1,095 euro for general attendance up to 24,950 euro for a “chairperson” ticket which includes a “personal event fulfilment manager” and access to an exclusive lounge – with prices set to increase later this month. The event aims to attract more than 70,000 people including “companies redefining the tech industry”. On Friday, a spokeswoman for Google said: “We will no longer have a presence at Web Summit.” It is understood Meta is also no longer attending the event. A spokesman for Siemens said: “Following recent developments surrounding Web Summit, we have reviewed the situation and determined that Siemens will not attend in 2023.” Intel said in a statement: “We can confirm that Intel has withdrawn from this year’s Web Summit.” Read More ‘Game-changing’ facial recognition technology catches prolific shoplifters Facial recognition firm Clearview AI overturns UK data privacy fine Sadiq Khan, Met Commissioner to ask phone companies to ‘design out’ theft Microsoft gets go-ahead to buy Call of Duty maker Activision Incels using TikTok to spread ‘hateful beliefs’, research suggests Duke and Duchess of Sussex call for overhaul of social media

By Kanishka Singh WASHINGTON A U.S. Senate panel's Republican lawmakers sent a letter on Friday to tech companies

Workplace messaging app Slack is retiring its status update account on X – formerly Twitter – where it previously shared updates about issues such as outages on the platform. “We made the decision to retire the @SlackStatus account,” the company posted on X. “We’ll continue to share other Slack news and provide support through our main account, @SlackHQ,” it said. The X account had been a useful source of information about ongoing issues with the platform and about problems being investigated by the company. Slack said it is consolidating news related to incidents in its status site. “Moving forward, the Slack Status site, https://status.slack.com, will be the source of truth for all incident news,” the company noted, adding that users can also reach out at feedback@slack.com “with any questions or feedback.” “Alerts will also be available through the RSS and Atom feeds linked at the bottom of the Slack Status home page,” Slack noted. Slack has undergone a number of technical issues this year with the app going offline during the workday for many users globally multiple times. The latest move by Slack to stop providing updates via its status account on X comes as the number of daily active users has declined on the social media platform following Tesla chief Elon Musk’s purchase of the company last year. X chief Linda Yaccarino said earlier this year that the company had about 225 million daily active users at the time – marking a decline of over 10 per cent of users from just before Mr Musk acquired the company. Market intelligence firm Similarweb also noted in a report recently that X’s global traffic is down by about 14 per cent year-on-year in September. Similarweb said the drop in user retention is “a bad sign for app user loyalty” for Twitter following the launch of rival app Threads by Instagram. Mr Musk also noted in July that the platform’s ad revenue was down 50 per cent as social media competition mounts. Other companies, including American Express and Air France have also stopped providing customer service over X. American Express had made its @AskAmex account private, while AirFrance said in April that it would stop offering support to customers via direct messages on the social media platform, The Verge reported. Read More Tesla’s profits dip as Musk goes on rant about staff working from home Elon Musk’s X may charge some users $1 a year to post on platform EU to investigate X’s handling of disinformation over Hamas attack on Israel Could X’s creditors push the social media company into bankruptcy? Slack down: Work chat app goes down as the working day begins Why taking a mental health day could be bad… for your mental health

(Reuters) -Elon Musk said on Friday social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, will soon launch two new tiers

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is dismissing aiding and abetting claims against Ripple Labs executives in its