WhatsApp Gets EU Ultimatum After New Terms Spark Backlash

Meta Platforms' WhatsApp was given a month to answer European Union concerns over new terms and services that sparked outrage among consumers and privacy campaigners. From a report: WhatsApp must provide "concrete commitments" to address EU concerns about a possible lack of "sufficiently clear information" to users, or the exchange of user data between...

37m

Congress's Big Tech Stock Stakes Make Regulation Awkward

A proposed antitrust bill has cast a spotlight on the immense portfolios of dozens of lawmakers. From a report: At a December press conference, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was asked her opinion of proposed restrictions on stock trading by members of Congress. Her response was quick and clear: She hated the idea. "We are a free-market economy," Pelosi,...

1h

Unknown Space Object Beaming Out Radio Signals Every 18 Minutes Remains a Mystery

While mapping radio waves across the universe, astronomers happened upon a celestial object releasing giant bursts of energy -- and it's unlike anything they've ever seen before. From a report: The spinning space object, spotted in March 2018, beamed out radiation three times per hour. In those moments, it became the brightest source of radio waves...

2h

LG Announces New Ad Targeting Features for TVs

LG has announced a new offering to advertisers that promises to be able to reach the company's millions of connected devices in households across the country, pummeling TV viewers with -- you guessed it -- targeted ads. From a report: While ads playing on your connected TV might not be anything new, some of the metrics the company plans to hand over...

2h

Spotify Removes Neil Young's Music After He Objects To Joe Rogan's Podcast

Spotify has removed famed singer-songwriter Neil Young's recordings from its streaming platform. From a report: On Monday, Young had briefly posted an open letter on his own website, asking his management and record label to remove his music from the streaming giant, as a protest against the platform's distribution of podcaster Joe Rogan. Rogan has...

3h

Moderna Starts Trial of an Omicron-specific COVID-19 Vaccine

Moderna gave its omicron-specific COVID-19 vaccine to the first participant in a clinical trial, the company announced Wednesday. The report comes a few days after Pfizer / BioNTech launched a trial of its shot targeting the fast-spreading variant. From a report: The announcement coincides with the release of data showing that the two-dose series of...

3h

Spotify Removes Neil Young's Music After He Objects To Joe Rogan's Podcast

Spotify has removed famed singer-songwriter Neil Young's recordings from its streaming platform. From a report: On Monday, Young had briefly posted an open letter on his own website, asking his management and record label to remove his music from the streaming giant, as a protest against the platform's distribution of podcaster Joe Rogan. Rogan has...

3h

Frogs Without Legs Regrow Leglike Limbs In New Experiment

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: African clawed frogs are masters of putting themselves back together, handily regenerating lost tails and hind limbs, when they are tadpoles. But these powers dim with maturity. Wait for an adult frog to regrow a lopped-off limb and you'll see only a tapered spike, more like a talon than a...

5h

'Burning' Hydrogen Plasma In the World's Largest Laser Sets Fusion Records

The secret behind a record-breaking nuclear fusion experiment that spit out 10 quadrillion watts of power in a split second has been revealed: a "self-heating" -- or "burning" -- plasma of neutron-heavy hydrogen inside the fuel capsule used in the experiment, according to researchers. Live Science reports: Last year, scientists at the Lawrence Livermore...

8h

Covid-19 Infection Can Reactivate the Latent Retroviruses In Human DNA

He Who Has No Name writes: In a synopsis posted Monday, John Hewitt at Phys.org points out some fairly unsettling implications of an ugly trick by Covid-19 (more formally, SARS-CoV-2) -- it wakes up latent viruses that we are born with in our DNA. A quick version for those not familiar with virology: retroviruses are a subclass of viruses that leave...

11h