the digest (Page 160)

Latest in the digest

Researchers were able to easily fool facial recognition systems at a variety of places, including banks, border crossings, and airports using a mask.

Facial recognition

Hackers Dupe Facial Recognition Systems With Creepy Mask

By Victor Tangermann

Creeps have used Ring cameras to hack into customers' homes, using the internet-connected cameras to spy on and harass families and children.

Watch Terrifying Creeps Hack Ring Cameras and Spy on Families

By Dan Robitzski

Scientists thought they ruled out dark matter as the source of bizarre cosmic gamma rays coming from the core of the Milky Way. New evidence disagrees.

Science & Energy

MIT: Dark Matter At Our Galaxy’s Core May Be Blasting Gamma Rays

By Dan Robitzski

Elon Musk might send a Tesla Cybertruck into space aboard a SpaceX Starship rocket, which he mused on Twitter has "the payload capacity."

Elon Musk Might Send a Tesla Cybertruck to Space

By Kristin Houser

Makr Shakr, the company behind a robot bartender called Toni, says it will offer monthly stipends to displaced workers for every robot it sells.

Robot Bartender Developer Wants to Pay the Humans It Replaces

By Dan Robitzski

After analyzing the atmospheres of 19 exoplanets, researchers determined that 14 contained water vapor — more than they'd anticipated.

Science & Energy

Survey Finds That Water Is Common Around Exoplanets

By Kristin Houser

Toys "R" Us has opened two new stores after closing hundreds in 2018, and these ones are equipped with sensors that spy on every move shoppers make.

Artificial Intelligence

Toys “R” Us Says Tech Used to Spy on Shoppers Ignores Children

By Kristin Houser

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has resurfaced his idea to turn 10,000 square miles in the U.S. desert into a solar farm that can power the entire nation.

Elon Musk Is Talking About Powering All of America with Solar

By Victor Tangermann

Ohio University pulled a press release detailing a professor’s “evidence” that Mars is home to bugs, but won’t say if it stands behind the research.

Ohio University Has Yet to Deny Professor’s ‘Bugs on Mars!’ Claim. So.

By Kristin Houser

A startup just shipped 40,000 pounds of butter 2,800 miles from California to Pennsylvania in under three days using a truck that was driving itself.

Self-Driving Vehicles

Self-Driving Truck Completes First Cross-Country Freight Run

By Victor Tangermann

The Canadian airline Harbour Air just successfully tested an electric plane for the first time, potentially marking a new era of clean travel.

Advanced Transport

New First: A Fully Electric Plane Just Flew for 15 Minutes

By Dan Robitzski

In March 2020, SpaceX will deliver cannabis plant cultures to the International Space Station for agri-tech company Front Range Biosciences.

SpaceX Is Delivering Cannabis to the Space Station

By Kristin Houser

A group of Tesla owners in Croatia organized an ICEing protest at a gas station to bring attention to the problem of non-EVs blocking charging stations.

Tesla Owners Block Gas Pumps in ICEing Protest

By Kristin Houser

Toys "R" Us has opened two new stores after closing hundreds in 2018, and these ones are equipped with sensors that track every move shoppers make.

Internet Of Things

Smart Toys Often Contain Child-Endangering Security Flaws

By Dan Robitzski

TIME magazine has chosen 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg as its 2019 Person of the Year for launching a global movement.

Climate Activist Greta Thunberg Is TIME’s Person of the Year

By Kristin Houser

The World Wildlife Fund published a report arguing that if we want to stop the worst impacts of climate change, world leaders need to take stronger action.

WWF: Climate Change Efforts Need “Dramatic Increase” in Response

By Dan Robitzski

Car enthusiast Instagram account hypercarslands uploaded a render of Tesla's Cybertruck if it were amphibious, going for a dip with a passenger fishing.

Tesla Cybertruck Goes Amphibious in Hilarious Fan-Made Video

By Victor Tangermann

A bizarre plot to steal a domain name at gunpoint has earned Instagram influencer Rossi Lorathio Adams II a 14-year prison sentence.

Man Behind Plot to Steal a Domain at Gunpoint Is Headed to Prison

By Kristin Houser

A new study reveals that extreme weather events have been linked, almost without fail, to the worsening effects of climate change.

Study: Many Extreme Weather Events Were Caused by Climate Change

By Dan Robitzski

NVIDIA has built an AI that can create a detailed 3D model of an object in less than 100 milliseconds from just a single image of it.

New AI Can Create a 3D Model of an Object From a Single 2D Image

By Kristin Houser

A team of scientists wants to colonize and populate another world to protect humanity from Earth's eventualy demise or destruction.

Scientists Are Planning a 1,000 Year Trip to Another Planet

By Dan Robitzski

The U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) is reportedly testing bullets that can be shot underwater.

The U.S. Military Is Reportedly Testing Underwater Bullets

By Victor Tangermann

The European Space Agency has officially approved funding for ClearSpace-1 — the world's first mission dedicated to cleaning up space junk.

The ESA Is Sending a Robotic Junk Collector Into Space

By Kristin Houser

Elizabeth Warren just announced a package of environmental protection policies focused on the ocean that she's calling the Blue New Deal.

Elizabeth Warren Announces Ocean-Protecting “Blue New Deal”

By Dan Robitzski

United States forces reportedly killed a terrorist using an R9X missile — a "ninja bomb" that crushes its target while also slicing them up with blades.

Robots and Machines

Sword-Covered “Ninja Bomb” Reportedly Used to Crush Terrorist

By Kristin Houser

New York City plans to replace its infamous Riker's Island prison with four high-rise prisons spread throughout the NYC boroughs.

NYC Is Planning Giant High-Rise Prisons

By Dan Robitzski

Waymo is now offering cusomters the chance to take rides in its self-driving taxis but without a human safety driver behind the wheel

Self-Driving Vehicles

Waymo Is Taking the Safety Drivers out of Its Autonomous Taxis

By Dan Robitzski

A Tesla Model 3 with Autopilot engaged crashed into the back of a police cruiser parked on Connecticut's Interstate 95 to help a disabled vehicle.

Tesla With Autopilot Engaged Rear-Ends Parked Police Car

By Kristin Houser

Iran is the latest country to propose its own state-run internet, a tool that would effectively end online freedom and crush protests.

Iran’s President Wants to Build a State-Controlled Internet

By Dan Robitzski

SpaceX has announced it will coat one of its third batches of Starlink satellites with a special, less reflective coating.

SpaceX: We’re Working to Fix Sky-Killing Starlink Satellites

By Victor Tangermann

Future studies researcher Roey Tzezana says workplace automation will mean the destruction of the middle class and the "end of the world as we know it."

Futurist Predicts “The End of the World as We Know It”

By Dan Robitzski

Videos captured by TMZ show Tesla CEO Elon Musk driving the Cybertruck, and swiping a traffic pylon while exiting a Malibu restaurant's parking lot.

Elon Musk Drives Cybertruck to Restaurant, Hits Traffic Cone

By Victor Tangermann

The Tennessee Aquarium's electric eel, Miguel Wattson, can control the lights on a Christmas tree next to his tank through his shocks.

Science & Energy

Watch an Electric Eel Light up a Christmas Tree

By Kristin Houser

Scientists built a new remote acoustic survey tool to track wild frog populations. The best part is they decided to name it the FrogPhone.

Scientists Built a “FrogPhone” to Remotely Survey Frog Habitats

By Dan Robitzski

Scientists have a new guess for what triggers white dwarf stars to blow up in supernovae: tiny black holes made of dark matter growing in their cores.

Science & Energy

New Theory: Dark Matter Black Holes Are Detonating Stars

By Dan Robitzski

A new roleplaying game uses a powerful AI algorithm to generate a text-based adventure in real time. And unlike past versions, the story makes sense.

Artificial Intelligence

This Roleplaying AI Makes a Great Dungeon Master

By Dan Robitzski

Elon Musk spent $100 million to buy seven homes in Los Angeles' pricey Bel-Air neighborhood in recent years, along with an estate near Tesla's HQ upstate.

Elon Musk Keeps Buying Mansions in a Particular Neighborhood

By Dan Robitzski

Over the last two years, almost 6,000 Uber passengers reported sexual assault. While the company has taken steps to stop it, it also downplays the problem.

Uber Gets Thousands of Sexual Assault Complaints per Year

By Dan Robitzski

For the first time ever, scientists have discovered a giant exoplanet orbiting a white dwarf — the extremely dense remains of an exploded dead star.

Science & Energy

Scientists Find Dead Star Roasting Its Giant Exoplanet

By Victor Tangermann

Scientists observed surprisingly complex behavior from a single-celled organism that strongly resembles active decisionmaking.

This Single-Celled Creature Is Weirdly Smart

By Dan Robitzski

SoftBank Robotics has opened the Pepper PARLOR, a cafe where robots work alongside human staff to serve and entertain customers.

Cafe Staffed by Robots Opens in Japan

By Kristin Houser

British clothing design firm Vollebak devised a futuristic hoodie that could help astronauts sleep while drifting through space inside a cramped spacecraft.

This Futuristic Space Hoodie is a “Self-Contained Microhabitat”

By Victor Tangermann

Niantic, the company behind Pokémon Go, announced that it partnered up with Qualcomm to develop new augmented reality (AR) glasses.

Virtual Reality

The Company Behind Pokémon Go Is Making AR Glasses

By Dan Robitzski

A new deepfake shows Trump announcing to the world that Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself. And the technology is getting good enough to be convincing.

Artificial Intelligence

Watch a Deepfaked Trump Say Epstein Didn’t Kill Himself

By Dan Robitzski

An Uber office in Rhode Island had separate bathrooms for the company's drivers and its employees, a move Uber says it "regrets."

Advanced Transport

Uber Admits It Didn’t Let Drivers Use Employee Bathrooms

By Kristin Houser

A Roman Catholic priest launched a Vatican-themed Minecraft server that he hoped would be a haven from online toxicity. It was attacked immediately.

Trolls Immediately Attack Vatican Minecraft Server

By Dan Robitzski

The chief of India's space agency claimed their orbiter had spotted Vikram, the perished lunar lander, months before NASA announced it had found it.

India’s Space Chief: We Found Our Lander Months Before NASA

By Victor Tangermann

Music website Genius is suing Google and its lyrics partner, LyricFind, for $50 million for allegedly copying lyrics directly from its site.

Genius Sues Google for Allegedly Stealing Its Music Lyrics

By Kristin Houser

Astronomers discovered 19 new galaxies that appear to be missing their dark matter. The discovery challenges our models of how galaxies form.

Science & Energy

19 Newly Discovered Galaxies Appear to Be Missing Dark Matter

By Dan Robitzski

DARPA-funded scientist Christoffer Heckman argues that some sort of new guidelines are needed to keep engineers from building autonomous weapons.

DARPA Scientist: Engineers Must Stop Making Autonomous Weapons

By Dan Robitzski

NASA's exoplanet-hunting satellite TESS captured footage of a comet suddenly exploding in a bizarre phenomenon called a comet outburst.

Science & Energy

Watch NASA’s New Footage of a Comet Exploding

By Dan Robitzski

The latest space supply mission to the ISS will include “mighty mice,” rodents genetically engineered to grow larger muscles than normal.

SpaceX Is Sending Super-Muscular Mice to the Space Station

By Kristin Houser

Chinese construction company Winsun has finished building a 3D-printed river revetment more than 500 meters (1,640 feet) long.

China Just Completed the World’s Largest 3D-Printed Structure

By Kristin Houser

Astronomers developed a new trick that will help them determine whether so-called Earth-like exoplanets actually have their own atmospheres.

Science & Energy

Scientists’ New Trick Can Tell if an Exoplanet Has an Atmosphere

By Dan Robitzski

The Department of Homeland Security is proposing regulations that would require all travellers to have their faces scanned when entering or leaving the U.S.

U.S. Homeland Security Wants to Scan the Face of All Travelers

By Victor Tangermann

New studies suggest that planet-wide dust storms and gigantic plumes called dust towers could have sucked up the planet's surface water.

Science & Energy

NASA Suggests Giant Dust Storms Blew Mars’ Water Into Space

By Dan Robitzski

Hackers stole the personal data of women who bought plus-size clothing, selling the records to online advertisers who can now target the victims.

Science & Energy

Hackers Stole, Sold Data of Women Who Bought Plus-Sized Clothes

By Dan Robitzski

Infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar's brother Roberto Escobar is now selling a folding phone he claims is practically unbreakable.

Robots and Machines

Pablo Escobar’s Brother Is Selling An “Unbreakable” Folding Phone

By Kristin Houser

A Boeing 767 airplane losing the evacuation slide off the jet while flying over a Boston suburb, landing just feet away from where two people were standing.

Advanced Transport

Evacuation Slide Falls off Boeing Jet, Lands in Backyard

By Kristin Houser

The cops of San Luis Potosi, Mexico just announced plans to buy a Cybertruck fleet, making it the second police force interested in the vehucle.

Advanced Transport

Mexican Cops Pre-Order Fleet of Cybertrucks

By Dan Robitzski

The Russian government confirmed it will replace Wikipedia with an online version of the "Great Russian Encyclopedia," Reuters reports.

Russia Says It Will Replace Wikipedia With State-Run Site

By Victor Tangermann

IKEA interior designer Christina Levenborn just helped researchers outfit the Mars Desert Research Station, a Mars analogue habitat in the Utah desert.

IKEA Designed the Interior of a Mars Habitat

By Victor Tangermann

Amazon just unveiled its new quantum computer cloud service, Braket, which will give developers a chance to test out their quantum applications.

Quantum Physics

Amazon Is Now Letting Anyone Run Programs on Its Quantum Computer

By Dan Robitzski

NASA just announced that it finally found the crash site debris and remains of India's long lost lunar lander called Vikram.

NASA Spots Remains of India’s Lost Lunar Lander

By Victor Tangermann