"14 dead as Hezbollah walkie-talkies explode in second, deadlier attack."

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14 dead as Hezbollah walkie-talkies explode in second, deadlier attack

Hezbollah communication devices explode in Lebanon

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Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images) Wireless communication devices have exploded again today across Lebanon in a second attack even deadlier than yesterday's explosion of thousands of Hezbollah pagers . According to Lebanon's Ministry of Health, the new attack has killed at least 14 more people and injured more than 450. Today's attack targeted two-way radios ("walkie-talkies") issued

Redwood Materials signs deal to recycle BMW’s EV batteries in the US

BMW partners with Redwood Materials

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Enlarge / BMW is moving to cylindrical cells for its sixth-generation EV powertrain, which debuts in the Neue Klasse. And now it has a recycling partner. (credit: BMW) Battery recycling company Redwood Materials gained a new automaker partner today. It has agreed to a deal with BMW of North America to recycle lithium-ion battery packs from BMW's electrified vehicles and will eventually use recycl

Tesla’s Superchargers open up to GM EVs today—adapters needed

GM EVs access Tesla Superchargers

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Enlarge / The Hummer EV and its gargantuan 205 kWh pack is among the GM EVs that gain access to the Tesla Supercharger network today. (credit: GMC) Starting today, electric vehicles made by General Motors gain access to the Tesla Supercharger network for the first time. GM signed a deal with Tesla last June to allow its customers access to more than 17,000 DC fast chargers around North America, f

Yesterday

Nintendo, The Pokemon Company sue Palworld-maker Pocketpair

Nintendo and Pokémon sue Pocketpair

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Enlarge / Artist's conception of Pocketpair lawyers establishing a defensive position against Nintendo's coming legal onslaught. (credit: Pocketpair) Nintendo and The Pokemon Company announced they have filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Pocketpair, the makers of the heavily Pokémon-inspired Palworld . The Tokyo District Court lawsuit seeks an injunction and damages "on the grounds that

“Dead Internet theory” comes to life with new AI-powered social media app

SocialAI introduces AI diary app

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Enlarge (credit: gremlin via Getty Images ) For the past few years, a conspiracy theory called " Dead Internet theory " has picked up speed as large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT increasingly generate text and even social media interactions found online. The theory says that most social Internet activity today is artificial and designed to manipulate humans for engagement. On Monday, softwa

After 20 years, World of Warcraft will now let players do solo raids

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Enlarge / The final boss of the new WoW raid, who will now be beatable as a solo player in Story Mode. (credit: Blizzard) After 20 years, it's now possible for solo players to finish storylines in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft that previously required a group to do an intensive raid. That's thanks to " Story Mode ," a new raid difficulty that was added for t

Patents for software and genetic code could be revived by two bills in Congress

Patent reform bills spark debate

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Enlarge / An image from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, where in 1874, the newest thing was not software or genetic compositions, but shutter fastenings from H.L. Norton. (credit: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images) The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to consider two bills Thursday that would effectively nullify the Supreme Court's rulings against patents on broad software pro

Landmark AI deal sees Hollywood giant Lionsgate provide library for AI training

Lionsgate partners with Runway AI

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Enlarge (credit: Benj Edwards / Malte Mueller via Getty Images ) On Wednesday, AI video synthesis firm Runway and entertainment company Lionsgate announced a partnership to create a new AI model trained on Lionsgate's vast film and TV library. The deal will feed Runway legally clear training data and will also reportedly provide Lionsgate with tools to enhance content creation while potentially r

Massive China-state IoT botnet went undetected for four years—until now

Chinese hackers create massive botnet

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Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) The FBI has dismantled a massive network of compromised devices that Chinese state-sponsored hackers have used for four years to mount attacks on government agencies, telecoms, defense contractors, and other targets in the US and Taiwan. The botnet was made up primarily of small office and home office routers, surveillance cameras, network-attached storage, and othe

Age of Mythology: Retold is surprisingly playable with a controller

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Enlarge / I hope you like radial menus, because you'll be looking at a lot of them. Age of Mythology: Retold brings a lot of the usual advancements that you'd expect for a reboot of both the increasingly dated 2002 original game and its previous reboot: 2014's Extended Edition, which is still perfectly playable and available on Steam . The newest version of this real-time strategy classic comes w

ISPs tell Supreme Court they don’t want to disconnect users accused of piracy

ISPs support Cox's Supreme Court appeal

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Enlarge / The Supreme Court of the United States in Washington, DC, in May 2023. (credit: Getty Images | NurPhoto) Four more large Internet service providers told the US Supreme Court this week that ISPs shouldn't be forced to aggressively police copyright infringement on broadband networks. While the ISPs worry about financial liability from lawsuits filed by major record labels and other copyri

Backlash over Amazon’s return to office comes as workers demand higher wages

Amazon raises warehouse worker pay

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Enlarge / Warehouse workers at the STL8 Amazon Fulfillment Center marched on the boss Wednesday to demand a $25 an hour minimum wage for all workers. (credit: via Justice Speaks) Amazon currently faces disgruntled workers in every direction. Office workers are raging against CEO Andy Jassy's return to office mandate , Fortune reported —which came just as a leaked document reportedly showed that A

Robert Pattinson gets the crappiest immortality in trailer for Mickey 17

Mickey 17 teaser released featuring Pattinson

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Robert Pattinson's character didn't read his contract's fine print in Mickey 17 , director Bong Joon-ho's latest film. It has been five long years since director Bong Joon-ho's film Parasite topped Ars' list for best films of the year, whose prior work on Snowpiercer and Okja are also staff favorites. We're finally getting a new film from this gifted director: the sci-fi comedy Mickey 17 , based

Amazon “tricks” customers into buying Fire TVs with false sales prices: Lawsuit

Amazon sued for misleading Fire TV pricing

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Enlarge / A promotional image for Amazon's 4-Series Fire TVs. (credit: Amazon ) A lawsuit is seeking to penalize Amazon for allegedly providing "fake list prices and purported discounts" to mislead people into buying Fire TVs. As reported by Seattle news organization KIRO 7 , a lawsuit seeking class-action certification and filed in US District Court for the Western District of Washington on Sept

Researchers spot largest black hole jets ever discovered

Massive black hole jets discovered

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Enlarge / Artist's conception of a dark matter filament containing a galaxy with large jets. (Caltech noted that some details of this image were created using AI.) (credit: Martijn Oei (Caltech) / Dylan Nelson (IllustrisTNG Collaboration).) The supermassive black holes that sit at the center of galaxies aren't just decorative. The intense radiation they emit when feeding helps drive away gas and

Hawaii hikers report exploding guts as norovirus outbreak hits famous trail

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Enlarge / The Kalalau Valley between sheer cliffs in the Na Pali Coast State Park on the western shore of the island of Kauai in Hawaii, United States. This view is from the Pihea Trail in the Kokee State Park. (credit: Getty | Jon G. Fuller ) The Hawaiian island of Kauai may not have any spewing lava, but hikers along the magnificent Napali coast have brought their own volcanic action recently,

Elon Musk threatens to sue FAA after feds propose fining SpaceX $633,000

FAA fines SpaceX $633000 for violations

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Enlarge / NASA officials inside SpaceX's launch control center at Hangar X watch the liftoff of a Falcon 9 rocket a few miles away on March 3, 2024. (credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani) The Federal Aviation Administration alleged Tuesday that SpaceX violated its launch license requirements on two occasions last year by using an unauthorized launch control center and fuel farm at NASA's Kennedy Space C

Bricked iPhones 16 feature wireless recovery mode for phone-to-phone resuscitation

iPhone 16 enables wireless firmware restore

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Enlarge / The iPhone 16. (credit: Apple) If you've ever had an iPhone update go bad, you may have used recovery mode to resuscitate your device. A device booted into recovery mode can't do anything by itself, but it can be connected to a working Mac or PC with a cable, and that Mac or PC can download a fresh copy of iOS and all of your phone's related firmware to restore it to a factory-default s

Google gets win from European court as €1.5 billion fine overturned

Apple Google face EU legal defeats

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(credit: Shutterstock) Google has won an appeal against a €1.5 billion competition fine from the European Commission in a victory for the Big Tech group as it comes under growing scrutiny from Brussels regulators. The EU’s General Court said on Wednesday that while it accepted “most of the commission’s assessments” that the company had used its dominant position to block rival online advertisers,

Sep 17, 2024

Due to AI fakes, the “deep doubt” era is here

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Enlarge (credit: Memento | Aurich Lawson) Given the flood of photorealistic AI-generated images washing over social media networks like X and Facebook these days, we're seemingly entering a new age of media skepticism: the era of what I'm calling "deep doubt." While questioning the authenticity of digital content stretches back decades—and analog media long before that—easy access to tools that g

Apple pauses iPadOS 18 rollout for M4 iPad Pro after bricking complaints

iPadOS 18 bricking M4 iPad Pros

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Enlarge / iPads running iPadOS 18. (credit: Apple) Apple has temporarily paused the rollout of the iPadOS 18 update for M4 iPad Pros. The company has stopped signing the update for these iPads, meaning it will no longer be offered to users when they check, and Apple's servers won't activate the update if it's installed some other way. Apple confirmed to Ars that it had "temporarily removed" the u

AT&T fined $13M for data breach after giving customer bill info to vendor

AT&T pays 13M for data breach

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Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Ronald Martinez ) AT&T agreed to pay a $13 million fine because it gave customer bill information to a vendor in order to create personalized videos, then allegedly failed to ensure that the vendor destroyed the data when it was no longer needed. In addition to the fine, AT&T agreed in a consent decree announced today by the Federal Communications Commission to str

Troubled Lotus shows off wedge-like vision for an EV sportscar

Lotus unveils Theory 1 sports car

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Enlarge / Theory 1 is Lotus' vision for the future of its cars. (credit: Lotus) Earlier today, Lotus Cars revealed its idea of an "intelligent performance vehicle." The wedge-shaped concept, called Theory 1, is meant to be Lotus' new design manifesto for all its future cars and combines some eye-popping technical specs along with an adaptive driving experience that uses haptics and binaural sound

Google seeks authenticity in the age of AI with new content labeling system

Google to identify real images

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Enlarge / Under C2PA, this stock image would be labeled as a real photograph if the camera used to take it, and the toolchain for retouching it, supported the C2PA. But even as a real photo, does it actually represent reality, and is there a technological solution to that problem? (credit: Smile via Getty Images ) On Tuesday, Google announced plans to implement content authentication technology a

TCL accused of selling quantum dot TVs without actual quantum dots

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Enlarge / TCL's C655 Pro TV is advertised as a quantum dot Mini LED TV. (credit: TCL ) TCL has come under scrutiny this month after testing that claimed to examine three TCL TVs marketed as quantum dot TVs reportedly showed no trace of quantum dots. Quantum dots are semiconductor particles that are several nanometers large and emit different color lights when struck with light of a certain freque

No “offensive or inappropriate” Final Fantasy XVI mods, producer pleads

Final Fantasy 16 producer warns against offensive

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Final Fantasy Enlarge / This screenshot of a "Cloud in a dress" mod is being used in place of some other Final Fantasy PC mods that are way too inappropriate for publication on Ars. (credit: Nexus Mods ) Final Fantasy XVI finally arrives on Windows PCs today , over a year after its launch on the PlayStation 5 . That means expanded access for a game that sold below Square Enix's expectations on co

A key NASA commercial partner faces severe financial challenges

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Enlarge / Rendering of an individual crew quarter within the Axiom habitat module. (credit: Axiom Space) Axiom Space is facing significant financial headwinds as the company attempts to deliver on two key commercial programs for NASA—the development of a private space station in low-Earth orbit and spacesuits that could one day be worn by astronauts on the Moon. Forbes reports that Axiom Space, w

Zynga owes IBM $45M after using 1980s patented technology for hit games

IBM wins $45 million from Zynga

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Enlarge (credit: via Zynga ) Zynga must pay IBM nearly $45 million in damages after a jury ruled that popular games in its FarmVille series, as well as individual hits like Harry Potter: Puzzles and Spells, infringed on two early IBM patents. In an SEC filing , Zynga reassured investors that "the patents at issue have expired and Zynga will not have to modify or stop operating any of the games at

11 dead, thousands injured in explosive supply chain attack on Hezbollah pagers

Explosions in Lebanon injure hundreds

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Enlarge / An ambulance arrives at the site after wireless communication devices known as pagers exploded in Sidon, Lebanon, on September 17, 2024. (credit: Ahmad Kaddoura/Anadolu via Getty Images ) A massive wave of pager explosions across Lebanon and Syria beginning at 3:30 pm local time today killed at least 11 people and injured more than 2,700, according to local officials. Many of the injure

Russian state media outlet RT banned by Facebook “for foreign interference”

Meta bans Russian state media

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Enlarge / Russia President Vladimir Putin presents flowers to editor-in-chief of Russian broadcaster RT Margarita Simonyan after awarding her with the "Order of Alexander Nevsky" during a ceremony at the Kremlin in Moscow on May 23, 2019. (credit: Getty Images | Evgenia Novozhenina) Meta yesterday announced a ban on Russian state media outlets RT (formerly Russia Today) and Rossiya Segodnya, taki

How crypto bros wrested Flappy Bird from its creator

Flappy Bird returns with new features

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Enlarge / Imagine owning one of those funky birds as an NFT! (credit: Flappy Bird Twitter/X ) Fans of ultra-viral mobile gaming hit Flappy Bird who were stunned by the game's sudden removal from the iOS App Store 10 years ago were probably even more stunned by last week's equally sudden announcement that Flappy Bird is coming back with a raft of new characters and game modes. Unfortunately, the n

Physicists discover “hidden turbulence” throughout van Gogh’s Starry Night

Van Gogh's Starry Night reveals turbulence

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Enlarge / Many have seen a reflection of Vincent van Gogh's inner turmoil in the swirling vortices of The Starry Night . (credit: Public doman) Vincent van Gogh's most famous painting is The Starry Night (1889), created (along with several other masterpieces) during the artist's stay at an asylum in Arles following his breakdown in December 1888. Where some have seen the swirling vortices of the

Driver assists become de facto autopilots as drivers multitask, study finds

Drivers distracted using partial automation

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Enlarge / Lane keeping systems let you take your hands off the wheel while you drive. (credit: Getty Images) The seductive lure of cars that drive themselves has led to an awful lot of hype over the past decade. Not everyone enjoys driving, after all, and the idea of freeing up the occupant to read their emails or watch a movie as their car grinds its way to their job led to billions in investmen

Rare woolly rhino mummies emerge from the permafrost

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Enlarge / Portion of a reproduction of cave paintings in France, showing rhinos (among other species). (credit: JEFF PACHOUD ) For most people, an extinct species is an abstraction, a set of bones they might have seen on display in a museum. For Gennady Boeskorov, they are t