Programmer Stefan Thomas has a big problem. Back in 2011, he was given over 7,000 in a new fangled currency called Bitcoin, which he stashed in a digital wallet and mostly forgot about. But years later, that Bitcoin is now worth almost $400 million. Unfortunately, Thomas long ago lost the password to that wallet — and now has only two tries left to unlock the wallet before the encryption tech inside erases everything, including Thomas’ $400 million windfall....

One way not to get too beaten down by current events is to start planning for what to do once it’s all over. Sure, no one knows the twists and turns our global community may take as a result of COVID-19, but rest assured, it will end eventually. And it pays to start turning your mind at least ever so slightly toward happier thoughts of what’s to come. As these troubles show us, our entire world is in this together, so it may be a good time to start planning ways to go see as much of it as possible....

The team recently created soft robots inspired by jellyfish that can outswim their real-world counterparts. Their average speed of 53.3 millimeters per second will hardly leave Michael Phelps quaking in his Speedos, but the bots have an impressive combination of power and flexibility. The researchers had previously modeled their droids on cheetahs. Like their animal cousins, the bots were seriously quick. However, their movements were restricted by their stiff inner spines....

Racing in tight circles 100 times closer to its star than the Earth maintains from the Sun, TOI-561 b burns with scorching surface temperatures over 2,000 Celsius (3,630 F). This is roughly twice as hot as molten lava on Earth, and is even hotter than magma studied inside laboratories. This proximity to TOI-561 further results in an ultra-short-period orbit, circling its 10-billion-year-old stellar parent once every 12 hours. “For every day you’re on Earth, this planet orbits its star twice,” Stephen Kane, a planetary astrophysicist at UC Riverside, stated....

What if I told you that a group of researchers (a murder of physicists?) came up with a way for you to manipulate the very fabric of time and space so that, no matter who fires first, you both die? That’s probably not the best pitch you’ve heard for developing quantum computers. But it’s an interesting one. The researchers, led by scientists at the University of Queensland, have discovered “a new kind of quantum time order....

Game development doesn’t start the day you decide to build your own Fortnite. That’s the result of hundreds of artists and other game design professionals all contributing thousands of man-hours. Instead, if you’re looking to understand game development and maybe go into the business one day, start small. But not too small, of course. You don’t have to stick to Mindsweeper-level simplicity here. In fact, the training in a package like The Build a Strategy Game Development Bundle ($40, over 90 percent off from TNW Deals) can not only give you a solid foundation in what it takes to make a fun game from scratch, but it also offers exposure to some of the most vital tools in the 2020 arsenal of a professional game designer....

Human populations and cultures died out and were replaced throughout Eurasia during the last 500,000 years. How and why one prehistoric population displaced another is unclear, but these ancient people were exposed to climate changes that changed their natural environment in turn. We looked at the region around Lyon, France, and imagined how Stone Age hunter gatherers 30,000-50,000 years ago would have fared as the world around them changed. Here, as elsewhere in Eurasia during colder periods, the environment would have shifted towards tundra-like vegetation – vast, open habitats that may have been best suited for running down prey while hunting....

The new in-car app is part of Tesla’s 2021.40 software update, released on Tuesday. Here’s the release note: And British English is now official too pic.twitter.com/i5ztuAqKby — green (@greentheonly) November 2, 2021 For audiophiles Tidal’s integration is a BIG improvement. While the two platforms offer about the same selection of artists, Tidal is simply better in terms of sound quality. Spotify’s audio tops at approximately 320kbps, even with the Premium subscription, which basically results in MP3-quality sound....

TikTok released a function called Jump that lets creators use mini-apps with their videos. Here’s how it works: if the feature is enabled, you can include a link for showing stats, ingredients, a Wikipedia article, or a quiz. For starters, TikTok has partnered with Whisk, Breathwrk, Wikipedia, Quizlet, StatMuse, and Tabelog for these app integrations. You can watch the feature in action here. Soon BuzzFeed, Jumprope, IRL, and WATCHA will also have their own Jumps for events, movies, and articles....

We’ve all heard endless stories about the benefits of sleep. But with 50 to 70 million Americans suffering from some form of sleep disorder, many of us already know that a “good night’s sleep” can be a lot easier said than done. In our current COVID-19-impacted world, sleep has never been more important. Just last year, researchers determined that sleep creates a greater activation of T-cells in the human body, key warriors in our immunity system for fighting off illness....

Yesterday, the Delhi high court directed Twitter to comply with these rules within three weeks. Notably, Twitter had asked the government of India for at least a three-month extension to implement the necessary steps. [Read: This dude drove an EV from the Netherlands to New Zealand — here are his 3 top road trip tips] Lawyer Amit Acharya had filed the petition against the social network last week to register a grievance against “defamatory, false and untrue” tweets of some users....

The government of India today confirmed to the Delhi High Court that the social network has now fulfilled all requirements of the country’s content policing rules. The new rules mandated that significant social media intermediaries — platforms with more than 5 million users — need to have had to appoint a nodal officer, a compliance officer, and a grievance officer residing in India. While the company had an interim grievance officer based in India, there were no other permanent hires made until last month....

The company is finally changing that. Going forward, the site will preserve the quality of your photos in JPEG format. Nolan O’Brien, a software engineer working at Twitter, revealed the updated functionality. For example: the attached photo is actually a guetzli encoded JPEG at 97% quality with no chroma subsampling.https://t.co/1u37vTopkY pic.twitter.com/Eyq67nfM0E — Nolan O’Brien (@NolanOBrien) December 11, 2019 Don’t jump with joy just yet. There are plenty of caveats to the preservation of the quality including the size and resolution of the photo....

On the one hand it sounds great, on the other… it takes Uber even further down the path of becoming like an old-school taxi firm. The deal Announced earlier today, the pair are working together to develop the “Arrival car” an “affordable, purpose-built electric vehicle for ride-hailing,” Reuters reports. The car will go into production at the end of next year. It all comes as part of Uber’s plan to become a fully electric mobility platform in London by 2025, and North America and Europe by 2030....

The case was thrown out of court on grounds that it was “weak,” “lacking in detail,” and “inappropriate.” High Court Judge Sir Matthew Nicklin said there was little evidence to support Craig Wright‘s claims of damage to his reputation, and highlighted that Wright had failed to provide enough evidence of “the global reputation he enjoys and, more particularly, the extent to which it has been damaged.” The judge’s decision, which surfaced today, brands the case as a form of “libel tourism,” a term used to refer to opportunistic cases seeking to get damages in plaintiff-friendly jurisdictions....

This article discusses the “killer robot” technology being used by both sides in Russia’s war in Ukraine. Our main takeaway is that the “killer” part of “killer robots” doesn’t apply here. Read on to find out why. Uncrewed versus autonomous This war represents the first usage of the modern class of uncrewed vehicles and automated weapons platforms in a protracted invasion involving forces with relatively similar tech. While Russia’s military appears, on paper, to be superior to Ukraine’s, the two sides have fielded forces with similar capabilities....

Facebook said last Tuesday that it had shut down accounts, apps, pages, and platform access associated with the NYU Ad Observatory due to privacy violations. The company said the bans were due to concerns about a browser extension used by the researchers. The plugin, called Ad Observer, was used by volunteers to copy Facebook ads they saw. This was used to create a public database containing information on who the ads target and how they’re funded....

The Curiosity rover has been exploring Gale Crater on Mars since 2012. That region may have resembled modern Iceland, careful examination of the geology of Gale Crater reveals. Curiosity has been examining mudstones for more than eight years. However, that analysis can not reveal climatic conditions upstream from the sample, where the sediment was produced. “Ancient rivers and streams on Mars physically and chemically altered the surface, then transported and deposited sediments, resulting in sedimentary rock production in downstream basins, as we observe in the remnants of Gale crater,” researchers describe in a paper published in JGR Planets....

As an applicant, you can choose to not declare that you don’t use social media, but the authorities will perform a check to see if you’re lying. Last March, the state department had originally proposed the idea of collecting social media handles, email addresses used in the last five years, and phone numbers. This new policy came under effect starting last week. “As we’ve seen around the world in recent years, social media can be a major forum for terrorist sentiment and activity....

According to Autocar, the decision has been made as the company works to achieve its sustainability goals. Despite the ethical concerns attached to leather products, some 54% of MINI vehicles sold last year were shipped with leather interiors. [Read: How much does it cost to buy, own, and run an EV? It’s not as much as you think] “We don’t need leather anymore in the future, because we don’t believe it’s sustainable,” said MINI boss Oliver Heilmer....