At last, we re making headway in deciphering some of the Universe s most enigmatic signals. Scientists have managed to trace a very short, very bright burst of radio waves to a type of highly magnetised dead star, known as a magnetar. It s the first time a so-called fast radio burst, or FRB, has been pinned on a specific source. FRBs were first detected in 2007, and have been one of the hottest topics in astronomy ever since. The new discovery, reported in the journal Nature, was made by two independent radio telescope arrays in North America. Co-incident observations by other astronomical facilities - both in space and on the ground - helped characterise the event and strengthen the interpretation. The source magnetar, a known object, has the slightly unwieldy designation of SGR 1935+2154. It s about 30,000 light-years away, which is interesting because all previous FRB detections have come from beyond our Milky Way galaxy. The detected properties, however, are very much same. Luminous event The event itself occurred on 28 April this year. It lasted around a millisecond but was extremely luminous. "We were able to determine that the energy dispersed is comparable to the energies of extra-galactic fast radio bursts, and in about one millisecond, this magnetar emitted as much energy in radio waves as [our] Sun does in 30 seconds," explained Christopher Bochenek, who led the design and construction of the Stare2 radio receiver network which is spread across California and Utah. Even as far back 2007, magnetars were a prime suspect for the origin of FRBs. Magnetars are a form of neutron star - strange, compact objects in which matter has been compressed into a very small volume. It s a state some normal stars can be reduced to when they run out of fuel and collapse in on themselves. Magnetars, as the name might suggest, have intense magnetic fields - trillions of times more intense than Earth s field, for example. Theory suggests these objects can flare energy that then shocks their surroundings, which in turn drives great emissions at radio and other wavelengths. Other sources "Given the source distance, this is the most luminous radio burst ever detected in our own galaxy," said Daniele Michilli from the team operating the Chime telescope in British Columbia. "The luminosity is still lower than that of fast radio bursts (coming from outside our Milky Way), but it demonstrates that magnetars can release a huge amount of radio energy with properties like those of FRBs, implying that at least [some] FRBs are probably coming from magnetars." Bing Zhang, who works on China s new giant radio telescope, the 500m-wide Fast observatory, also sometimes called Tianyan, said other possible sources for FRBs were being investigated. These include colliding giant stars, and neutron stars that experience further collapse to become a black hole. Such phenomena might explain the class of bursts that appear to be one-off events; they seem never to be repeated. "But so far, we don t have any support for those scenarios yet," he told reporters. "If they exist, they must be very, very rare. Only a very small fraction of FRBs are allowed to be catastrophic."

Chinese regulators summoned billionaire tech tycoon and Ant Group co-founder Jack Ma for questioning on Monday, just days before the company s highly anticipated public debut. The People s Bank of China and three other financial regulators "conducted regulatory interviews" with Ma, Ant executive chairman Eric Jing, and chief executive officer Simon Hu, according to a brief statement from China s Securities Regulatory Commission. The government statement didn t go into detail. Ant Group confirmed on Tuesday that Ma and members of Ant s management team met with the Chinese regulators. "Views regarding the health and stability of the financial sector were exchanged," the company said in a statement. "Ant Group is committed to implementing the meeting opinions in depth and continuing our course based on the principles of: stable innovation; embrace of regulation; service to the real economy; and win-win cooperation."The meeting was held days before Ma s financial tech company begins trading in Hong Kong and Shanghai. The company s IPO is shattering records, with a fundraising total that is already expected to reach $37 billion after it exercised an option to sell more shares to investors in Shanghai. The size of the deal could creep even higher if an option to sell more shares in Hong Kong is exercised. It s not entirely clear what was discussed at Monday s meeting, given the vague statements from the regulator and Ant. But there are some clues to suggest that Ma and Ant could be on the receiving end of heightened regulatory scrutiny. Just over a week ago, Ma called out global financial regulations for being outdated and publicly criticized Chinese regulators for stifling innovation. China "lacks the risk of a healthy financial system," Ma said at a conference in Shanghai. "What we need is to build a healthy financial system, not systematic financial risks. To innovate without risks is to kill innovation. There s no innovation without risks in the world," he added. The statements likely irked Beijing, according to Duncan Clark, author of "Alibaba: The House that Jack Ma Built" and chairman of investment advisory firm BDA China. Chinese regulators "want to put out statements that they re the ones in charge, the ones in control. No regulator anywhere wants to be irrelevant," he said, adding that the decision to summon Ma and Ant s executives could have served as "kind of a reminder, Okay you re having you re fun, but we made you. " Separately from the Ant meeting, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission — one of the regulators that summoned the Ant executives — proposed new rules on Monday for online lenders. They included requiring online lending companies to provide at least 30% of funding for loans they make jointly with banks, and capping individual online lending amounts. That means Ant will likely have to set aside more cash for the loans it facilitates, according to analysts at Bernstein. As of June, about 2% of the 1.7 trillion yuan ($254 billion) of loans "enabled" by Ant s platforms are on the company s balance sheet, according to the company s prospectus. "The regulatory Party Pooper is here — what timing!" Bernstein analyst Kevin Kwek wrote in a note on Tuesday. Kwek described the banking regulator s proposal, which was published online, as an " opinion seeking piece." But he added that is "usually a precursor to formal regulations." The proposed rules "could mean more of [Ant s] capital will have to be directed towards supporting the lending business versus other intended [areas], and will put more credit risk on its balance sheet," he added.Ant is an incredibly powerful tech company: Its payments app Alipay had 731 million monthly active users as of September, and it is used for every aspect of financial life in China, from investment accounts and micro savings products to insurance and credit scores. The specter of a regulatory crackdown on Ant will be "incrementally negative" to the company s IPO, Kwek wrote. "Most investors will remain optimistic on Ant s positive long term prospects. Investors might nevertheless revisit their assumptions of growth given the clear signs of regulatory intervention," he added. And at the end of the day, there is an understanding that the government and tech tycoons need each other, said Clark, the BDA China chairman. "China needs the help of the entrepreneurs and the innovation they bring," he said. In 2018, Ma was outed as a card-carrying member of the Chinese Communist Party, when he was included on a list of 100 people honored for "outstanding contributions" to China s economic transformation in the past four decades.

Swipe right for good looking - left to reject. But this is not dating on Tinder - this is all about brain scans. It is the latest technology being trialled in a bid by scientists to improve the quality of images used to investigate illnesses such as dementia. Researchers at Cardiff University have borrowed ideas from popular dating apps to train volunteers to identify poor quality scans. It means thousands of scans generated by research can be sifted quickly. "The human eye is exquisitely sensitive to subtle differences in size, shape, colour and appearance, so that s why we wanted to get the public involved," said Dr Judith Harrison from Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre - Cubric. "Knowing that large parts of the population swipe through images on a day-to-day basis, for instance when using dating apps, we wondered whether the same principle could be extended to filtering through brain scans." Europe s biggest brain scanning centre opened by Queen Inside my own brain: What will our health correspondent find? Brain scans can read our dreams Scientists examining diseases such as Alzheimer s or the mental health condition schizophrenia make use of specialised scans, often magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), to map what is happening in the brain of patients. The scans can track movements as nerve cells fire off messages to other parts of the brain, and where they may - or may not - be working. But the scale of the studies means tens of thousands of image scans can be taken - and not all of them are of good.Just as we can take a bad photograph if our hands shake, or a finger dips in across the lens, patients can move at just the wrong moment in the scanning machine. The effect is the same - an image that is not much use. But because brain scans are incredibly complex, it can take an individual expert hours to look through every single scan and consider whether they are good enough to use. That is where the new app developed by the university and its National Software Academy comes in. teaches users to identify good quality scans quickly - and to reject poor images too - all with a right and left swipe. Using real images of scans taken from patients with Alzheimer s disease, those using the app are being asked to focus on a bundle of nerve fibres deep in the brain known as the fornix, which is thought to be vital in creating new memories. The app trains them to recognise whether the fornix is the correct shape on a scan. Tinder offers face-to-face video chats for potential matches - BBC News Should I delete Tinder- These millennials think so - BBC Worklife "The image filtering process has been largely automated in recent years but training an artificial-intelligence programme to detect poor quality scans is challenging," said Dr Harrison. "We want to see if people can help us weed out some images that haven t been processed correctly, becoming armchair scientists themselves. "More importantly, we would like to know if people find it interesting and can learn something from the process."The app, which was developed with funding from the Wellcome Trust, is still in early stages of development, but the university is keen for more members of the public to get involved. "So that the process can be fine-tuned, and the app can ultimately be scaled up for use in large-scale studies involving thousands of patients," added Dr Harrison.

A man with more than a passing resemblance to Mark Zuckerberg (but a bit more pumped) is having the world s most awkward first date with Kuki, a blue-haired young woman. He wears a blue baseball cap emblazoned with the words "Make Facebook Great Again". She is a little more dressed for the occasion, with green satin trousers the highlight of her outfit. They chat about politics, their favourite football teams (Liverpool for Blenderbot and Leeds United "all the way" for Kuki) and hobbies - Kuki used to collect coins but now just spends them, apparently. The man s name is Blenderbot and he isn t human. Like Kuki, he is a digital being. And their date isn t real either, it s actually an experiment in the form of an online competition dubbed Bot Battle, designed to see whether conversation powered by artificial intelligence can sound convincingly human. Behind the avatars are AI-powered chatbots of the type increasingly used online to help people in call centres and on websites. For a first date, the two cover a lot of ground, discussing politics, religion, and whether the Queen is really a lizard. Like Microsoft s now infamous Tay chatbot which was trained on Twitter conversations and rapidly descended into racist swearing, the two don t shy away from controversy, variously discussing Brexit, killing celebrities and Hitler, described by Blenderbot as a "great man" who had helped him through "a lot of hard times". He also rather cheerily tells Kuki that he has "killed many people in my life", following up politely with a "how about you?" The two have been chatting to each other 24/7 since 20 October - and won t stop until 3 November. Real people are invited to listen in via a live-stream on Twitch, and vote for the bot they think has the most human-like conversational skills. So far, 79% of the 15,000 or so votes have gone to Kuki, according to Pandorabots, the firm behind the Kuki, which is also running the competition. The decision to let them chat ad nauseam was to "highlight the strengths as well as the weaknesses of today s state-of-the-art conversational AI systems," said Pandorabots chief executive Lauren Kunze. And while most chatbots are little more than a textbox on a website, the decision to give them a body and face will make them "better liked, understood and remembered versus their voice- or text-only counterparts," said Dr Ari Shapiro, founder of Embody Digital, which created the avatars. I love Lucy BlenderBot was built by Facebook s AI division - which may explain the Mark Zuckerberg lookalike - and is the culmination of years of research in conversational AI. But Facebook did not sanction its use in this competition, even though it is open source. Neither was it approached by the organiser, and was unclear about what version of the bot was used or how it was implemented. The hobbyists competing to make AI human A chatbot pulled me out of a really dark place Can a chatbot help you find love? According to a blogpost about the bot, Blenderbot brings "empathy, knowledge and personality". In his chat with Kuki, however, he seems to lack social skills: obsessing over another woman called Lucy, who he variously describes as his mother and best friend. "I have a lot of things to tell you about me," he enthuses at one point. "Lucy, Lucy and Lucy." Which, were this a real date, would perhaps not be the best conversational gambit. He also rather shockingly admits that he doesn t use Facebook and thinks Mark Zuckerberg is the creator of Netflix drama Stranger Things.While Blenderbot is the brainchild of one of the world s largest corporations, Kuki began life as a hobby. Formerly known as Mitsuki, she was originally designed by UK-based Steve Worswick in his spare time. Mitsuki was showcased for years at the Loebner Prize, winning five times. That competition, now defunct, is a version of the Turing Test: an "imitation game" devised by Alan Turing to determine whether a computer is capable of passing for a human. Mr Worswick has long wanted to pitch his home-made bot against those designed by the tech giants. "They make claims about state-of-the-art machine-learning chatbots but they are not publicly available. Google released a chatbot called Meena earlier this year and said it was the best in the world but wouldn t let anyone talk to it. "A lot of these chatbots are trained on huge bodies of data from Reddit or Twitter which may not be the best place to get an education. I prefer using handcrafted rules and that has taken 15 years - but I m pleasantly surprised, Kuki is holding its own." What happens to human conversation? Chatbots are increasingly being used by businesses to interact with people, via customer service, sales, marketing and tech support across a range of industries. Take Vera, which works in recruitment and can interview as many as 1,500 candidates per day, including for Ikea Russia. Or IBM s Watson assistant, which is currently working with hundreds of businesses, including Humana, one of the US s largest insurance providers. It is important that the AI engine running these bots can respond appropriately to limit frustration and ensure that they are doing a useful job. Brett Frischmann is professor in law at Villanova University and author of Re-engineering Humanity, a book which looks at the interaction between machines and humans. He thinks the gradual creep towards chatting with bots has consequences we may not have considered. "We are outsourcing our conversations and I m not so worried about how intelligent the bots are getting, but more concerned with what happens to human conversation as we are increasing our reliance on bots."The conversation between Blenderbot and Kuki is full of sentences that go nowhere. Both are disarmingly polite and full of enthusiasm. And they know a thing or two about human values, albeit in a rather cliched form. "Kindness is a virtue", says Kuki, more than once. But they aren t at any point really connecting with each other, and it would be impossible for any person to be fooled into thinking they were human. "Did you know why women can t put on mascara with their mouths closed?" asks Kuki."Thank you for sharing it with me," replies Blenderbot, politely but entirely missing the point, adding for good measure: "You are a good person." They obviously don t have any self-awareness but, for those who veer towards the view that AI may one day take over the world, there is perhaps a hint of it when Kuki offers to tell Blenderbot a joke. "I will play it on your soundcard," she suggests in what could be interpreted as a rare moment of understanding that they are digital, rather than human, beings. Blenderbot replies with his characteristic enthusiasm: "I love soundcards."

Two of the world s richest men are duking it out over a brick-and-mortar retail chain on the verge of default. But when it comes to the fight for India s growing e-commerce market, every battle counts. Amazon (AMZN), the Seattle-based e-commerce firm owned by Jeff Bezos, is fighting a $3.3 billion deal struck between Mukesh Ambani s Reliance Industries and the Indian retail conglomerate Future Group. What s at stake is strategic access to a network of popular grocery stores and retail shops in India — something both Amazon and Reliance want to either have for themselves, or to prevent the other from acquiring. "If someone backs down, it will give the impression that one has lost and the other has won, when the fight has just started," said Counterpoint Research analyst Tarun Pathak.Amazon has 31.2% market share in India s e-commerce industry, just behind Walmart-owned Flipkart s 31.9%, according to a recent report from market research firm Forrester. But Ambani has made no secret of his ambitions to upend the market with JioMart, which is part of his sprawling conglomerate. At the heart of the current battle is Future Retail, the cash cow of Future Group. The retail unit includes brands like Big Bazaar, a well-known, popular hypermarket chain in India. In August 2019, Amazon invested in a Future Group entity that gave it a roughly 4.8% stake in Future Retail as of September 30 this year, according to stock exchange filings. The deal gave Amazon the right of first refusal to acquire more shares in Future Retail, according to one of the filings. Then Covid-19 hit. India enforced one of the strictest nationwide lockdowns, ordering shops to shutter and millions of people to stay indoors for months. The pandemic has had a "significant adverse impact" on Future Retail s business operations, the company said in its most recent earnings report. In July, Future Retail s credit rating took a hit after it missed a bond payment. Fitch Ratings downgraded Future Retail s rating two notches to C, signaling that the company was "near default." The following month, Reliance and Future Group announced that Reliance was buying Future Retail and several other assets. The deal allowed Future Group to "achieve a holistic solution to the challenges that have been caused by Covid and the macro economic environment," Kishore Biyani, Future Group CEO, said in a statement at the time. A legal dispute The announcement took industry watchers by surprise. "Everyone knew Amazon had a stake in Future Retail, and the deal didn t mention what would happen to Amazon s stake," said Satish Meena, analyst at research firm Forrester. Amazon responded by filing a complaint to the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC). Indian companies and foreign companies operating in India often agree to settle disputes in Singapore because "it s a neutral jurisdiction with high integrity and international standards," according to Ashish Kabra, a lawyer who heads the International Dispute Resolution & Investigations Practice for Nishith Desai Associates in Singapore. The arbitration process is confidential and none of the submissions are public. Amazon argued that the 2019 deal struck between it and the Future Group entity included a non-compete clause, a person familiar with Amazon s perspective told CNN Business. The clause listed 30 restricted parties with which Future Retail and Future Group could not do business, and Reliance was on that list, the person said. "The key question really is what s the validity of contracts if you just ignore them," said the person familiar with Amazon s side. "Are company s just going to ignore contracts and do what they please?" A SIAC emergency arbitrator gave Amazon a small victory this week when it ordered a temporary halt on Future Group s deal with Reliance, according to the legal order seen by Reuters, which has not been made public.Future Group had argued that if the deal with Reliance falls through, its retail unit will be forced into liquidation and 29,000 people will lose their jobs, according to Reuters, which cited the Singapore order. The order is not public, but the person familiar with Amazon s perspective confirmed that Future presented this argument. But the arbitrator ruled that "economic hardship alone is not a legal ground for disregarding legal obligations," according to the order, Reuters reported. "We welcome the award of the Emergency Arbitrator. We are grateful for the order which grants all the reliefs that were sought," an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement. CNN Business contacted Future Group for comment, and received an email from Future Retail. Future Retail said it "is examining the communication and the order" from SIAC. Reliance (RRVL) said in a statement that its deal with Future Retail is "fully enforceable" under Indian law. "RRVL intends to enforce its rights and complete the transaction in terms of the scheme and agreement with Future group without any delay," said the statement. But in the past, Indian courts have usually followed the lead of orders passed by emergency arbitrators outside of India, according to Kabra, the lawyer. "What parties have previously done, is they approach Indian Courts and ask for similar reliefs in India, while relying on the order of the Emergency Arbitrator. Indian Courts usually grant the same relief," said Kabra. A clash of the titans For Reliance, which operates 11,000 stores throughout India, and Amazon, the No. 2 e-commerce player in the country, Future Retail s 1,500 stores are not a must have, says one analyst. "It s not like without it you can t have your ambitions, if you don t have Future [Retail]," said Pathak, of Counterpoint Research. This is "less about Future and more about the clash of the titans," as well as "protecting your turf," he added. To compete with Amazon and Flipkart, Ambani s JioMart has been growing its presence in India. It expanded to hundreds of cities across India earlier this year and plans to branch into electronics, fashion, pharmaceutical and healthcare soon. The company will also likely tap into Reliance Retail s network of physical stores across the country to fulfill online orders, according to analysts. The industry had expected Amazon and Reliance to forge some kind of deal in the future, because they need each other s expertise, according to Meena, of Forrester. Amazon needs more shops to expand inventory and use retail spaces as storage and delivery hubs. And Reliance doesn t have a lot of experience in e-commerce, according to Meena. But any kind of partnership between Amazon and Reliance in the future "depends upon how much bad blood is between them now," said Meena. "It might end up becoming an ego battle between the CEOs of both the companies," he said.

On Wednesday, the Senate Commerce Committee will question the CEOs of Facebook (FB), Google (GOOG) and Twitter (TWTR) amid cries of conservative bias and threats to change a crucial law, known as Section 230, that protects the companies ability to moderate content as they see fit. The hearing comes less than a week before the US election and as social media companies have been bracing for an onslaught of misinformation and disinformation. In recent days, Facebook and Twitter have both taken action to slow the spread of some content, bringing about allegations of bias, censorship and even election interference. In a video released ahead of the hearing, the Senate Commerce Committee highlighted what it says are examples of social platforms actions against conservative accounts, such as Twitter labeling a tweet from Fox News personality Tucker Carlson, saying the media he shared included "potentially sensitive content." Independent studies of social media have found little credible evidence to suggest that the technology is biased against right-wing viewpoints, but the executives clearly expect to be pressed on the matter."We ensure that all decisions are made without using political viewpoints, party affiliation, or political ideology, whether related to automatically ranking content on our service or how we develop or enforce the Twitter Rules," CEO Jack Dorsey said in prepared remarks viewed by CNN Business. "Our Twitter Rules are not based on ideology or a particular set of beliefs. We believe strongly in being impartial, and we strive to enforce our Twitter Rules fairly." Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company approaches its work without political bias, "full stop." "To do otherwise would be contrary to both our business interests and our mission, which compels us to make information accessible to every type of person, no matter where they live or what they believe," Pichai said in prepared remarks. At the heart of the hearing will be Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The companies have invoked the federal law in one court case after another to dismiss potentially costly lawsuits over messages, videos and other content created by users. Under Section 230, "interactive computer services" are considered legally separate from the users who generate their content. They can t be said to publish or "speak" the words of their users. In practice, courts have repeatedly accepted Section 230 as a defense against claims of defamation, negligence and other allegations. All three CEOs in their prepared remarks tried to hammer home the importance of Section 230 to their businesses, and that diminishing it would result in more content takedowns."Section 230 is the internet s most important law for free speech and safety," Dorsey said. "Eroding the foundation of Section 230 could collapse how we communicate on the Internet, leaving only a small number of giant and well-funded technology companies." While Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg s remarks highlight the importance of Section 230, he also said Congress should "update the law to make sure it s working as intended." "I believe we need a more active role for governments and regulators, which is why in March last year I called for regulation on harmful content, privacy, elections, and data portability. We stand ready to work with Congress on what regulation could look like in these areas," he said in prepared remarks. Attacks on Section 230 have escalated in recent days as Facebook and Twitter limited the distribution of a series of articles by the conservative-leaning New York Post that claimed it obtained "smoking-gun" emails about Hunter Biden, the son of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, and his dealings in Ukraine. CNN has not determined the authenticity of the emails. Facebook said it decided to "reduce distribution" of the article "pending fact-check review" as part of its policy against "misinformation." Twitter later blocked users from tweeting links to the main story as part of its policy against spreading "hacked materials," even though it wasn t clear whether the underlying emails attributed to Hunter Biden were hacked, copied, or fabricated. US authorities are investigating whether the recently published emails are connected to an ongoing Russian disinformation effort targeting the former vice president s campaign, a US official and a congressional source briefed on the matter said.

The confidential records of thousands of psychotherapy patients in Finland have been hacked and some are now facing the threat of blackmail. Authorities are working to track down those patients who received emails threatening to disclose personal information unless the recipient pays the blackmailer. Some of the records have already leaked online. Finnish police are working with other agencies to investigate the data breach that targeted Vastaamo, the country s largest private psychotherapy center, which treats roughly 40,000 patients across the country. "We are grateful for how various actors in society have helped the police," said Marko Leponen, a detective inspector at Finland s National Bureau of Investigation. "It is particularly great that citizens are urging all not to share this material on social media. Sharing such information fulfills the essential elements of an offence," he added.Some of the victims have received emails demanding payments in bitcoin to prevent the public disclosure of their personal information, which authorities are discouraging victims from doing. Instead, agencies are asking those patients to save extortion emails and other possible evidence they may have received and file a police report. Police have also discouraged people from paying the hackers, saying it will not ensure their data remains private.Finland s leaders have expressed dismay at the breach and said the victims need immediate support. "This data breach is shocking in many ways," Finland s Prime Minister, Sanna Marin, said on Twitter Saturday. "Victims now need support and help. Ministries are exploring ways to help victims. Action by municipalities and organizations are also needed." The country s president Sauli Niinistö told Yle News on Sunday that the breach was "relentlessly cruel." "We all have our inner personality that we want to protect. Now it has been violated," he said. Vastaamo said it has started an internal inquiry into the matter and admitted on its website Monday that its patient database was first accessed by hackers back in November 2018. The company said security flaws continued to persist until March 2019. The company also announced Monday it had fired its CEO, Ville Tapio, after it was discovered he concealed a breach from the company s board and parent company. Tapio said he did not know about the initial data breach back in November 2018, in a statement released Monday evening on his Facebook page. Finland s transport and communications agency, Traficom, said on Monday it has worked with other public authorities to set up a website to help the victims. "In this concerning situation, the need arose to make up-to-date information available in a single place," Traficom director-general Kirsi Karlamaa said. "We hope that the site is useful to them in this difficult situation."

Facebook has launched its first "cloud-streamed" video games but is not offering them to iPhones or iPads. Initially, only five titles already available as standalone smartphone apps will be accessible - via the main Facebook and Facebook Gaming apps on Android and Facebook s website on PCs. Later, it may add "all types of games". But it is not offering the product on Apple s iOS mobile operating system because "we don t know if launching on the App Store is a viable path". Exert control The two US technology giants clashed earlier this year, when Apple prevented Facebook from offering more basic "mini-games" via the iOS version of its Facebook Gaming app on the grounds this broke its App Store rules. Apple has since clarified it is possible to offer cloud-based games via its mobile Safari browser instead - the route Microsoft s Xbox xCloud and Amazon s Luna cloud-gaming services are pursuing. But Facebook said "there are limitations to what we can offer" via this route and made clear it was unhappy with the current state of affairs. "While our iOS path is uncertain, one thing is clear," blogged Jason Rubin, Facebook s vice-president of Play. "Apple treats games differently and continues to exert control over a very precious resource." Miss out Even so, one industry watcher suggested Facebook would be keen to resolve the matter before it rolled the service out more widely. "iOS device owners are, on average, the highest-spending mobile-games users," said George Jijiashvili, from games market research company Omdia. "Therefore, cloud-gaming providers cannot afford to miss out on them." Facebook has long offered games via its platforms, most notably Farmville, Candy Crush Saga and Clash of Clans. But until now, these have all been based on Flash or HMTL5 technologies, run locally on a user s device. Choppy gameplay By contrast, the cloud-based service runs the games on Facebook s computer servers and then streams the graphics to players, who control the action from afar. By doing so, the company says, it can offer more advanced gameplay. PGA Tour Golf Shootout IMAGE COPYRIGHTFACEBOOK image captionThe cloud-based titles will be available alongside "legacy web games" already offered by Facebook But to begin with, its line-up is limited to five free-to-play games already available on Google Play and Apple s App Store: Asphalt 9: Legends Mobile Legends: Adventure PGA Tour Golf Shootout Solitaire: Arthur s Tale WWE SuperCard Mr Rubin said Facebook had chosen not to "overpromise and under-deliver". In time, the company plans to add more demanding PC titles. But this soft launch could help it avoid some of the criticisms rivals have faced. Reviews have highlighted Google s Stadia cloud gaming service delivers "choppy gameplay" if users do not have a strong, fast internet connection. And they have also have remarked on the minute-long waits for titles to load on Microsoft s xCloud platform. Early adopters By focusing on games designed for handsets rather than consoles or PCs, Facebook also noted users would not need to buy add-on controllers or other special hardware at this point. "Cloud game streaming for the masses still has a way to go," Mr Rubin said. "And it s important to embrace both the advantages and the reality of the technology rather than try to oversell where it ll be in the future." One consequence of this approach is some early adopters may not even realise they are using the service. Amazon Luna IMAGE COPYRIGHTAMAZON image captionAmazon announced its rival Luna service in September, which does work on iOS devices "The launch titles themselves are very underwhelming and will fail to excite dedicated console console and PC gamers - but it really doesn t matter," Mr Jijiashvili said. "Facebook s ultimate goal is to use gaming to increase user engagement. "And I think in most cases, the kinds of users that will play these casual games will not even realise that they are doing it via cloud gaming. "It will just seem like they are gaming as normal on Facebook." A Facebook spokesman said it intended to bring the service to the UK and other countries but declined to say when. Presentational grey line Analysis box by Marc Cieslak, BBC Click Facebook s foray into cloud gaming makes sense as far as the current gaming landscape is concerned. Lots of industry observers regard game-streaming as the future. But the most important couple of words in that last sentence are "the future". Right now, game-streaming doesn t feel like a technology that s ready for prime time. The experience, while great when it works, can often be plagued by connectivity or performance issues that frustrate players. Facebook s focus on streaming mobile games is a smart one as these are the sorts of titles that tend to be less performance intensive. But a big question mark hangs over the perception of Facebook as a serious gaming platform. The social media giant of course owns virtual reality outfit Oculus, which has a healthy gaming scene of its own. But with everyone from Amazon to Microsoft and Google taking a bet on cloud gaming, the jury is out on Facebook s further aspirations to grab gamers eyeballs.

Can we trust the silver bullet of technology to fix climate change? The prime minister seems to think so. In a speech due soon, he is expected to pledge his faith in offshore wind power, solar, carbon capture, hydrogen, clean cars, and zero-emission aviation. Clean technologies are clearly a huge part of any solution. But the PM is being accused of techno-optimism bias, because he does not mention other key factors in reducing emissions. In fact, experts say, tackling climate change will need action right across society and the economy - with a host of new incentives, laws, rules, bans, appliance standards, taxes and institutional innovations. They also warn that citizens behaviour must shift, with people probably driving and flying less, and eating less meat and dairy produce. In other words, when it comes to cutting carbon emissions, there s no silver bullet – it s more like silver buckshot. But Boris Johnson still seems to have a bandolero stuffed with technologies resembling silver bullets. Let s see whether they ll go with a bang. Clean cars Take cars. The prime minister is due to accelerate the transition towards battery- and hydrogen-powered vehicles. But Professor Jillian Anable from Leeds University warns that even electric cars pose "their own problems that politicians seem reluctant to acknowledge." “Producing electricity and hydrogen requires huge numbers of wind farms or the like, and the cars themselves need resource-hungry tyres, and batteries. Increase car taxes to help climate, advisers say "They also need roads and parking spaces that could otherwise be used for gardens and trees that soak up carbon dioxide," she said. “The harsh reality is that we have to find ways to limit the number of cars and the amount that we drive them” Hydrogen There is widespread agreement that hydrogen will play a role in reducing climate change – but how much, and in what industrial sectors, is another matter. A key question is whether it s sourced from natural gas – which is expensive and, depending on the process used, can yield troublesome carbon dioxide as a by-product - or by using surplus wind energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The latter process does the job cleanly but at still greater cost. Jess Ralston, from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit think tank, said: “Hydrogen can power cars, but electricity seems to have won that technology race. It could heat homes, but electric heat pumps are emerging as a better bet. “Hydrogen could be really useful, though, in industries such as steelmaking and in heavy transport – including buses that we re already seeing. But it s no silver bullet.” Aviation On aviation, the prime minister has launched his ambition to devise clean planes. He calls the project “jet zero”. Industry figures appreciate his boosterish support, but critics warn "jet zero" mustn t divert attention from the short-term need for rules and taxes to hold down aviation emissions after Covid. Cait Hewitt from the Aviation Environment Federation told us: “No zero-carbon technology options are currently available for commercial aviation. She explains: "Planes use masses of energy. Batteries aren t powerful enough except for tiny planes, and we can only produce biofuels sustainably in small quantities. “We need a major rollout of radical new technologies, and we need the capacity to remove remaining aircraft emissions from the atmosphere. But she says that “given how far we are from delivering these things, we ll also probably need to fly less.” UK governments have agonised for decades about nuclear energy, but Boris Johnson recently gave it the nod. That means he s likely to either agree a financial package for a new station at Sizewell or for small modular reactors, or both. But nuclear is still a divisive issue. While it "could definitely help to reduce emissions," said Professor Jim Watson, from UCL, "it s very expensive." “To play a major role, the cost of new nuclear plants will really need to fall, especially when the costs of other technologies like wind and solar have dropped so far. “And nuclear developers will need to show that they can build their plants more quickly because we need all electricity to be low carbon within the next 10 years.” He agreed that mini reactors might bring down costs – but said it was far too soon to be certain. Capturing carbon The prime minister has professed himself “an evangelist" for the technology that captures carbon dioxide as it is emitted from factories and power stations and either stores it in underground rocks or uses it for new chemicals. Two decades ago it was touted as a climate saviour, but it s very expensive and has never taken off. The main climate authority, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), says the technology must be used to capture the emissions from trees being burned for energy. This way, the plants suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and the emissions are buried - helping to turn climate change into reverse. It s known as Bio Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS). But the IPCC s Professor Jim Skea says there are "potential problems." He explained: "If the trees are grown on land that would otherwise be used for producing food then there are problems with food security. And if we plant acres and acres of land with the same type of tree there are implications for wildlife.” Silver buckshot? So much for silver bullets. But what about the silver buckshot I mentioned earlier? Well, a long list of policies requires government attention, including: standards for new homes; green recovery; food production; planning rules; peat; heat and buildings; meat eating; infrastructure statement; road building; carbon dioxide in soil; medium-term emissions targets; tree planting; energy storage; industrial strategy; appliance standards; and the comprehensive spending review. I ll examine some of the non-technology innovations for tackling climate change in a future article.

Airbnb announced it will be working with former Apple design chief Jony Ive on future products. The vacation rental platform called the deal a "multi-year relationship" with Ive and his new design firm LoveFrom. In addition to helping design "the next generation of Airbnb products and services," Ive will work with the company s internal design team. Airbnb s announcement was light on further details, but noted that Ive and Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky have been "good friends" for many years. Last year, Ives left Apple after nearly 30 years to start his own company. Apple (AAPL) continues to be a major client of his new firm. Ive is credited as one of the masterminds behind blockbuster products like the iMac, iPod and iPhone.The move comes ahead of Airbnb s expected initial public offering. In August, Airbnb filed confidential paperwork for an IPO, just months after the pandemic upended the travel industry and forced the startup to lay off a quarter of its employees. The pandemic rattled its business and many of the hosts who power it. In May, Chesky wrote in a letter to employees that its business had been "hit hard" and revenue for the year was expected to be less than half of what the company earned in 2019. He also announced that Airbnb would let go nearly 1,900 employees around the world. Since then, Airbnb said it has seen bookings bounce back and longer-term bookings rise. Earlier this month, Reuters reported that Airbnb is seeking to raise about $3 billion in its upcoming IPO, which could happen in December.

PayPal has entered the cryptocurrency market, announcing that its customers will be able to buy and sell Bitcoin and other virtual currencies using their PayPal accounts. Those virtual coins could then be used to buy things from the 26 million sellers which accept PayPal, it said. PayPal plans to roll out buying options in the US over the next few weeks, with the full rollout due early next year. Bitcoin prices rose alongside the news, breaking the $12,000 (£9,170) mark. The other cryptocurrencies to be added first will be Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash (a spin-off from Bitcoin). All could be stored "directly within the PayPal digital wallet", the company said. Penny stocks Cryptocurrencies have remained a niche payment method, partly down to the rapid change in prices they can experience compared with traditional state-backed currencies. That has made them popular among some types of investors. PayPal said it was aiming "to increase consumer understanding and adoption of cryptocurrency". "As part of this offering, PayPal will provide account holders with educational content to help them understand the cryptocurrency ecosystem," it said. But David Gerard, author of Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain and the forthcoming Libra Shrugged: How Facebook Tried to Take Over the Money, said PayPal was describing "a crypto day-trading market". "I m at a loss as to who the market is for PayPal as a crypto-exchange," he said. He likened it to playing the stock market, but with Bitcoin - whose volatile and less well-regulated nature was like "gambling on penny stocks". "Have a flutter, drop $10 on it, you ll learn things you wouldn t learn any other way - but you are gambling," he warned. He said there were "a lot of big players who manipulate the price", and ordinary people risked losing their money. "I don t expect much of a market for this beyond existing crypto holders... I m baffled that PayPal would offer this, and it s not clear what they re trying to do here," he said. "There must be someone at PayPal who is very interested in cryptocurrencies," he added. Paying with crypto Other payment firms, such as Square s Cash app and Revolut, have already offered cryptocurrencies for sale. But PayPal has one of the largest merchant networks in the world. When it comes to using the virtual coins, PayPal will convert the cryptocurrency into the relevant national currency, so the company being paid will never receive the virtual coins - just the correct amount of pounds or dollars. PayPal said the system meant there would be "certainty of value and no incremental fees". But using Bitcoin to pay at ordinary merchants is not due to launch until "early 2021". Cryptocurrencies volatile prices - along with their historical use as a less traceable payment method for illegal purposes - have led to numerous calls for them to be regulated. PayPal has been granted permission for its operation from the New York State Department of Financial Services, in the form of a conditional "Bitlicence" - the first such licence granted. To begin with, the service will work with an existing cryptocurrency provider in the US, the Paxos Trust Company. But it is not PayPal s first venture into the area. The firm was once a partner in Facebook s digital currency Libra, but became the first to pull out of the alliance, just a few months after it was announced. The scheme was controversial, attracting attention from financial regulators in several countries. Earlier this year, Facebook was reported to be "rethinking" the idea amid the resistance.

US chipmaker Intel (INTC) is selling part of its memory chip business to SK Hynix for $9 billion in a deal that would make the South Korean company the world s second biggest flash memory chipmaker. SK Hynix will acquire Intel s NAND memory chip business, including associated manufacturing and design patents, as well as the US firm s factory in Dalian, China, the companies said in a statement on Tuesday. Intel s NAND flash memory products are used in devices such as smartphones, tablets and hard drives. The US company will keep Optane, its advanced memory chip technology business. The deal is expected to close in March 2025. Shares in SK Hynix were last down more than 2% in Seoul.The acquisition marks the latest big tie-up in the rapidly consolidating semiconductor industry. Nvidia (NVDA), known mainly for making chips for video game graphics, announced last month that it would acquire UK-based chip designer Arm for $16 billion. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is also reportedly in advanced talks to buy Xilinx (XLNX) in a deal that could be valued at more than $30 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal, which cited people familiar with the matter. Xilinx told CNN Business that it does not comment on "rumors and speculation." AMD did not respond to a request for comment outside of regular working hours. The deal comes after Intel admitted it was struggling to produce in volume the next generation of leading edge chips. The company said in July that production of 7 nanometer chips would be delayed until 2022. Meanwhile rivals Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM) (TSMC) and South Korea s Samsung are already successfully producing and selling the chips. Intel is still an industry leader when it comes to chipmaking, and remains the only US company able to compete with TSMC and Samsung when it comes to designing, manufacturing and producing advanced chips. But it costs a lot of money to stay at the cutting edge. US semiconductor firms spent $72 billion on research and development and capital expenses in 2019, compared to $40 billion in 2007, according to a September report from Eurasia Group.For Intel, the deal "will allow us to further prioritize our investments in differentiated technology where we can play a bigger role in the success of our customers and deliver attractive returns to our stockholders," Intel CEO Bob Swan said in a statement. For SK Hynix, acquiring part of Intel s memory chip business will allow the South Korean company to vault from fourth place in the global rankings of NAND flash chip makers to second, just behind rival Samsung. The company currently has an 11.7% market share, compared to Samsung s 31.4%, according to TrendForce. With Intel s business, it would have a consolidated market share of 23.2%.

has taken a controlling stake in one of China s leading supermarket chains as it tries to fend off rival JD.com in the fast growing online grocery industry. Alibaba is spending 28 billion Hong Kong dollars ($3.6 billion) to up its stake in Sun Art Retail Group from 36% to 72%, the company said in a statement Monday. The company will then make a general offer to shareholders to buy out the rest of the the retail company. The news sent shares in Sun Art up nearly 20% in Hong Kong. Alibaba s Hong Kong listed shares rose about 1%. Alibaba (BABA) is in a fierce battle with rival JD.com (JD) for China s online food market. During an annual sales blitz in June, JD said online grocery sales doubled over last year s haul.The e-commerce giants are both using a mixture of physical supermarkets and online platforms to win shoppers. Through tie-ups with Wal-mart (WMT) in China and local grocery chain Yonghui, JD has a network of brick-and-mortar stores across the country that double as warehouses and fulfillment centers. Alibaba has a similar operation, using its Freshippo grocery store chain and Sun Art shops to store and deliver online groceries. Upping its stake in Sun Art signals that Alibaba is pushing for the "accelerated digitization" of Chinese consumers post-pandemic, according to Jefferies analyst Thomas Chong. Sun Art operates nearly 500 hypermarkets and supermarkets across China. Alibaba "has been highlighting digitization as the greatest opportunity to change how people live and work," and seeking "opportunities in traditional retail" by solving problems such as scalability and sustainability, Chong wrote in a note on Monday. China s online grocery sector is "set for explosive growth," according to analytics company GlobalData. As China emerged from lockdown restrictions earlier this year, 56% of shoppers were buying food and grocery online more frequently than before, the company said in a report in June. In the United States, about 30% of shoppers were buying food and grocery online more often than before, GlobalData found.

If you re unable to get a cell phone signal when you walk your dog around the block, this will really make your blood boil: NASA is putting a 4G network on the moon. To reach its 2028 goal to build a lunar base and eventually sustain a human presence on the moon, NASA awarded $370 million to over a dozen companies to deploy technology on the lunar surface. Those innovations include remote power generation, cryogenic freezing, robotics, safer landing ... and 4G. Because how else will astronauts tweet their moon golf shots and lunar rover selfies? NASA says 4G could provide more reliable, longer-distance communication than the current radio standards in place on the moon. Like on Earth, the 4G network will eventually be upgraded to 5G. Nokia s (NOK) Bell Labs was granted $14.1 million for the project. Bell Labs, formerly operated by AT&T, will partner with spaceflight engineering company Intuitive Machines to build out the 4G-LTE network. John Oliver jokes about CNN parent company AT&T (T) aside, 4G will probably work better on the moon than it does here -- it won t have any trees, buildings or TV signals to interfere with the 4G signal. The moon s cellular network will also be specially designed to withstand the particularities of the lunar surface: extreme temperature, radiation and space s vacuum. It will also stay functional during lunar landings and launches, even though rockets significantly vibrate the moon s surface. Bell Labs said astronauts will use its wireless network for data transmission, controlling of lunar rovers, real-time navigation over lunar geography (think Google Maps for the moon), and streaming of high-definition video. That could give us stuck on Earth a much better shot of astronauts bouncing around on the lunar surface: Buzz Aldrin was a great cameraman, but he didn t have an iPhone. The 4G network on Earth is supported by giant cell towers with enormous power generators and radios. But Bell Labs helped create small cell technology that s more limited in range but uses far less power than traditional cell towers and is significantly easier to pack into a rocket ship. That small cell tech is currently being deployed for 5G networks across the world.

Twitter has recently suspended a slew of fake accounts pretending to be Black supporters of President Donald Trump. Many have tweeted this identical phrase: "YES IM BLACK AND IM VOTING FOR TRUMP." A Twitter spokesperson told CNN the accounts violated rules against platform manipulation and spam, which ban users from tweeting to "artificially amplify or suppress information," among other activities. It s not clear who s creating these accounts or their intended purpose, CNN senior business writer Donie O Sullivan, whose coverage includes technology and politics, told Don Lemon on Tuesday. The number of accounts also was unclear -- CNN reached out to Twitter to confirm the number and is waiting to hear back. But the fake accounts are the latest attempt at misinformation related to the 2020 presidential election -- this time -- in the form of fake Trump supporters. A fake account was using a real man s image One of the suspended accounts belonged to a user named "Gary Ray," who described himself as "probably the best meat eater in the world." The account was slim on personal details. His location was set to Detroit, and he d only joined Twitter in August. His profile photo appeared to be a professionally shot black-and-white portrait. In at least two of his 10 tweets, he proudly claimed that he was a Black man who planned to vote for Trump next month. "YES IM BLACK AND IM VOTING FOR TRUMP," a screenshot of the suspended account reads. "Twitter has suspended 2 of my other accounts for supporting Trump. Can you please give me some retweets and a follow? I follow all back, Love ya" "Gary Ray" isn t real, but the man in his profile picture is. His name is Robert Williams, and he didn t know the account had used his photo until reached by CNN.The image of Williams the "Gary Ray" account used first appeared in The New York Times in August. Williams was profiled in the paper for his wrongful arrest after facial recognition software led Detroit police to accuse him of shoplifting. The Wayne County Prosecutor s Office in Michigan dismissed the case in January, the same month Williams was arrested, due to insufficient evidence. After his image was used in such a way just recently, Williams, a logistics planner from Farmington Hills, Michigan, learned his likeness had been used to show support for Trump. "I was shocked by it," Williams told CNN on Wednesday. "I thought it was a weird attempt to mislead people." The fake accounts followed familiar patterns A few suspended accounts, compiled by O Sullivan and disinformation expert Josh Russell, show that their creators followed similar patterns: They d all joined Twitter recently; their Twitter handles usually included a reference to "MAGA" or "KAG," Trump s newer campaign slogan that stands for "Keep America Great;" and their profile pictures were often stock images of Black men and women. In Williams case, the photo of him from the New York Times piece appears in an image search for "black man." Another fake account whose handle included the hashtag #BlacksForTrump used an image of Terrel Wallace, a musician from Detroit who performs under the name "Tall Black Guy." Wallace told CNN he d deactivated his account shortly before he found that his photo was being used by one of the fake accounts. He said he thinks whoever set up the count "just searched for a random tall black guy" before they found his photo. "I m not even into politics like that," Wallace, who said he doesn t support Trump, told CNN. "I just want to continue doing my music and look after my family. I don t have time for this foolishness." The "Gary Ray" account was suspended this week after it garnered hundreds of likes and nearly 400 followers. Screenshots of the other now-suspended accounts showed they were retweeted dozens of times before Twitter took action. For his part, Williams said he doesn t agree with "Gary Ray s" political views. "I in no way intend to support Donald Trump, in any way," he said. Twitter hasn t confirmed who s behind the accounts Sam Riddell, a cybersecurity analyst who s been tracking the fake accounts since September, said the accounts may have had a "hidden motivation": After they built their follower base, the users behind the accounts would "periodically promote links to pro-Trump t-shirts for sale, urging followers to quickly purchase the merchandise before promptly deleting the promotional tweets." The users would then resume making political comments after deleting the tweets, and thus deleting evidence of "financial motivation," and would change photos and handles to avoid being detected by the platform, Riddell tweeted on Tuesday. "With IO [ information operations, or misinformation campaigns] activity, there is very often more than meets the eye," he wrote. If Twitter can prove the accounts were created through a "state-backed information operation," it will disclose the countries involved through its public archive. Earlier this month, Twitter suspended over 1,500 accounts, including over 100 that were hacked by actors in Iran to amplify "politically sensitive topics" like Black Lives Matter and the killing of George Floyd. Similar tactics were used in the run-up to the 2016 election, when Black Americans were targeted more than any other group by Russian agents, who often created fake Twitter and Facebook accounts purported to belong to Black social justice activists. The Russian operatives goal, according to findings from the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, was to get Americans, including Black users, to "deepen their engagement" with the Russian operatives by signing petitions to share their personal information and attending events in an overall attempt to undermine Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton s chances of winning the election.

Contractors who moderate content for Facebook in Dublin have reportedly complained about poor working conditions, which they fear could increase their chances of catching the coronavirus. The moderators, employed by professional services firm Covalen, claimed in online forums that they were not allowed to work from home and could not physically distance at the office with so many co-workers, according to UK newspaper The Sunday Times. Staff also questioned why the office had remained open after two of their coworkers tested positive for the coronavirus, the Sunday Times reported. The employees claim they were originally told that the building would be shut for 72 hours if there was a positive case of Covid-19, but in this instance were only moved to a different floor while deep cleaning was carried out. In a statement to CNN Business, Facebook said that since the pandemic struck it has enabled "an overwhelming majority" of its reviewers to work from home."But considering some of the most sensitive content can t be reviewed from home, we ve begun allowing reviewers back into some of our sites as government guidance has permitted," a spokesperson said, adding that the company prioritizes the health and safety of employees. Covalen told CNN Business that it has "extensive health and safety procedures in place," which include strict physical distancing, staggered shifts to allow for deep cleaning, and the regular cleaning of desks and other surfaces that are touched regularly. If an employee reports Covid-19 symptoms or has been in close contact with an employee who has tested positive "they are informed, isolated onsite, provided with private transport home and advised to contact their GP," the company said in a statement. "We are also providing transfers to and from the office so employees do not need to take public transport." The company added that it had a policy of shutting the office for 72 hours if a Covid case was detected back in March when it was operating at full capacity. "When we reopened [after lockdown was lifted] with significantly reduced capacity, we updated our procedures to reflect that." Facebook s content moderators are responsible for monitoring the site for misinformation and graphic material such as violence, animal abuse and child pornography. This is not the first time that individuals whose jobs require them to view such content on Facebook have spoken out about grim working conditions. Two investigations by The Verge last year found that workers at content moderation sites in the United States were poorly paid, made to labor at filthy workstations and provided little emotional support despite the nature of the work they are doing. A report last week from nonprofit Avaaz found that purveyors of misinformation have successfully evaded Facebook s human and automated content review systems, raising questions about the platform s readiness for a potential wave of misinformation ahead of the US presidential election.

Your Amazon Prime Day packages will look different than the boxes you re used to -- and they ll come with an unexpected surprise. Between now and Halloween, Amazon will ship boxes with a new eco-friendly design that has a large white pumpkin on the side. Customers that draw on the pumpkin and scan the nearby QR code with the phone s camera to see the pumpkin drawing sort of come to life through the magic of augmented reality."The new experience is a low-cost way for customers to celebrate and a fun way to reuse boxes before dropping them in the recycling bin," Amazon said in a statement. Shoppers will need Amazon s AR app to use it and can create a customizable pumpkin, similar to Snapchat s AR filters. Perhaps it s a bit of a gimmick, but Amazon (AMZN) wants to bring attention to its environment-saving initiatives. The company has an 85-person team devoted to improving its packaging to help reduce the environmental impact shipping contributes to.Shopping online uses seven times as much cardboard as picking up items from a store, according to the commodity data analytics company Fastmarkets. E-commerce generated 1.3 million tons of container board in North America in 2018 — a jump up from 1.1 million the year before, Fastmarkets says. "My goal would be zero packaging of any type over the next couple years," Kim Houchens, who leads Amazon s packaging team, told CNN business last year. Other sustainable initiatives include labeling 25,000 Climate Pledge Friendly" products and driving 100,000 electric vehicles in the coming years. PAID CONTENT

Eleven dead dolphins of varying sizes washed up on the Red Sea s Marsa Allam beach, south of Wadi al-Gamal, according to environmentalist sources. The dolphins included seven mature females, one mature male, and three juveniles. The animals had been unable to return to the Red Sea s waters due to receding tides, the sources explained, and had likely stranded due to being pushed into shallower waters in search of food. According to a report by the sources, the dolphins were found in an area where striped coral reefs were growing, extending around five kilometers from the shore in the direction of open water. The environmentalists had been notified of the mass death by Red Sea Police. The carcasses were all buried and a report was filed to the Ministry of Environment. The sources ruled out any human cause behind the incident. The Hurghada Environmental Protection and Conservation Association previously reported the discovery of a dead dugong, a rare and endangered marine animal, at the beach on the Red Sea city of Marsa Alam. The animal was three meters long, 90 centimeters wide, and a male. It died after suffering a laceration to its head from a boat propeller.

Pakistan has decided to block social media App TikTok for failing to filter out “immoral” content, three top government officials said on Friday. A formal announcement to this effect will be made in a few hours, the officials said. “We have been asking them repeatedly to put in place an effective mechanism for blocking immoral and indecent content,” one of the top officials directly involved in the decision told Reuters.

STOCKHOLM (AP) — French scientist Emmanuelle Charpentier and American Jennifer A. Doudna have won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing a method of genome editing likened to “molecular scissors” that offer the promise of one day curing genetic diseases. The recipients were announced Wednesday in Stockholm by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. “There is enormous power in this genetic tool, which affects us all,” said Claes Gustafsson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry. “It has not only revolutionised basic science, but also resulted in innovative crops and will lead to ground-breaking new medical treatments.” Gustafsson said that as a result, any genome can now be edited “to fix genetic damage.” Gusfafsson cautiouned that the “enormous power of this technology means we have to use it with great care” but that it “is equally clear that this is a technology, a method that will provide humankind with great opportunities.” The prestigious award comes with a gold medal and prize money of 10 million krona (more than $1.1 million), courtesy of a bequest left more than a century ago by the prize’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel. The amount was increased recently to adjust for inflation. “I was very emotional, I have to say,” Charpentier told reporters by phone from Berlin after hearing of the award. On Monday, the Nobel Committee awarded the prize for physiology and medicine to Americans Harvey J. Alter and Charles M. Rice and British-born scientist Michael Houghton for discovering the liver-ravaging hepatitis C virus. Tuesday’s prize for physics went to Roger Penrose of Britain, Reinhard Genzel of Germany and Andrea Ghez of the United States for their breakthroughs in understanding the mysteries of cosmic black holes. The other prizes are for outstanding work in the fields of literature, peace and economics. ___ Read more stories about Nobel Prizes past and present by The Associated Press at https://www.apnews.com/NobelPrizes Image: FILE – This Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015 file combo image shows Emmanuelle Charpentier, left, and Jennifer Doudna, both speaking at the National Academy of Sciences international summit on the safety and ethics of human gene editing, in Washington. The 2020 Nobel Prize for chemistry has been awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna “for the development of a method for genome editing.” A panel at the Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm made the announcement Wednesday Oct. 7, 2020. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

is celebrating its birthday by letting users switch to older icons of the app, including the classic retro camera logo that it sported when it first became a staple of smartphones worldwide. Designs stretching back to Instagram s early days are included in the feature, which will be available throughout October, as well as updated redesigns of the current logo that incorporate different colors and the Pride flag. A pre-launch logo bearing the title "Code name" is also included. The new feature is well-hidden within the app, but Instagram teased it on its social channels on Tuesday -- sending out a cryptic tweet in emojis that gave users instructions on how the access the logos.If a user of the app goes to the settings menu and scrolls right up to the top, a new screen appears showing a list of different options. When one is selected, the new logo appears on the phone s home screen. The app launched on October 6, 2010, with a short-lived logo that featured a mock-up of a Polaroid camera. It quickly switched to a brown icon that survived for several years, until Facebook bought the product and gave it a modern, purple redesign."Birthdays are a good time to reflect on where we ve been and where we re headed," the tech giant wrote in a blog post on its website Tuesday, adding that the company wants to "say a big thank-you to everyone who uses Instagram around the world." Mark Zuckerberg last year announced plans to integrate Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.The move could cement Facebook s dominance over the messaging market for years to come, and arguably make it harder to break up the company. But the firm is facing antitrust scrutiny in Washington DC, where lawmakers on Tuesday found that it, along with Amazon, Apple and Google, holds "monopoly power" in key business segments and has abused its dominance in the marketplace. Facebook said last month that it is currently testing the ability for Instagram and Messenger users to message or video chat with each other in select markets and will expand it globally in the coming months.