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The Playdate is an adorable indie game machine – 1:28
Samsung’s Pokemon-themed Galaxy Z Flip 3 is delightful – 17:48
Apple Fitness+: Now featuring BTS dance workouts – 20:11
Netflix announces that it lost subscribers for the first time in a decade – 26:53
There’s going to be a Netflix series based on “Exploding Kittens” – 33:04
WhatsApp is testing an option to hide its “last seen” feature – 37:57
Researchers in Japan invented electric chopsticks to make food taste saltier – 40:56
Working on – 45:33
Pop culture picks – 48:30
Video livestream
Credits Hosts: Cherlynn Low and Jessica Conditt Producer: Ben Ellman Livestream producers: Julio Barrientos, Luke Brooks Graphics artists: Luke Brooks, Brian Oh Music: Dale North and Terrence O’Brien
The Large Hadron Collider, the particle accelerator that enabled the discovery of the Higgs boson, is back in action after over three years in hiatus. CERN shut the accelerator down for maintenance and upgrade work that was extended due to delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, it’s ready to smash particles for various research projects throughout its third run that’s scheduled to last until 2026. In fact, two beams of protons had already circulated in opposite directions around the 27-kilometer collider as of April 22nd at 12:16 CEST (6:16AM Eastern Time).
It’s just a start, however: The beams contained a relatively small number of protons and circulated at 450 billion electronvolts. The LHC team will ramp up the energy and intensity of the beams until the accelerator can perform collisions at a record energy of 13.6 trillion electronvolts.
Mike Lamont, CERN’s Director for Accelerators and Technology, said:
“The machines and facilities underwent major upgrades during the second long shutdown of CERN’s accelerator complex. The LHC itself has undergone an extensive consolidation programme and will now operate at an even higher energy and, thanks to major improvements in the injector complex, it will deliver significantly more data to the upgraded LHC experiments.”
Research teams using the accelerator for their studies are expecting to be able to perform a lot more collisions — one, in particular, is expecting a 50 times increase — thanks to the upgrade. The more powerful LHC will allow scientists to study the Higgs boson more closely and to resume their hunt for a particle that proves the existence of dark matter with a more capable tool at hand.
At the moment, dark matter is but a hypothetical form of matter that’s believed to be five times more prevalent than its ordinary counterpart. It’s invisible, doesn’t reflect or emit light, and all attempts at looking for it have so far been unsuccessful. LHC researchers have narrowed down the regions where the particle may be hidden, though, and the upgraded accelerator could bring us closer to its discovery. To note, CERN previously approved plans to build a more powerful $23 billion super-collider that’s 100 km in circumference, but its construction isn’t expected to begin until 2038.
CNN+, the streaming service launched by the Cable News Network just three weeks ago, is shutting down on April 30th. The closure comes after reports that the high-profile project had reached just 10,000 daily users. It didn’t help that WarnerMedia is merging with Discovery with the explicit aim of consolidating their streaming services into one cohesive whole.
The service, which reportedly cost around $100 million to launch, will have survived for just 32 days, stealing Quibi’s title for most notorious and swift closure. CNN said at-risk employees will receive 90 days salary and benefits and get opportunities to move elsewhere within the Warner Bros. Discovery empire.
On one hand, it always seemed like a stretch to ask people to pay Netflix-level prices for even premium cable news. With the exception of blue-chip brands like NYT and WSJ, or the mega billionaire-backed Washington Post, paid-for journalism has been totally undermined. On the other hand, it’s a shame to see something bold and potentially paradigm-shifting “do a Quibi” so quickly.
Amazon will share its logistics power with others, for a price.
Amazon has launched Buy with Prime, a service that enables rival online retailers to leverage Prime’s speedy shipping. It means any e-commerce platform can add a Prime button to its page and make items available for next-or two-day delivery. The program will begin with sellers that already use Amazon’s fulfillment service before rolling out to merchants who have no presence on Amazon whatsoever. This is another neat way Amazon can both fold its competitors under its own umbrella but, given the SEC is investigating how Amazon uses the data it collects about third-party sellers, one that may deserve extra scrutiny.
What’s Elon been up to over the last 24 hours, you ask?
Well, in a fresh SEC filing, the billionaire has said he’s received backing to make his hostile-ish bid for Twitter. That includes $13 billion in debt financing from lenders like Morgan Stanley and a further $12.5 billion in loans leveraged against Musk’s Tesla shareholding. It’s thought the remainder of the cash will come from Musk himself, although we wouldn’t bet that even someone who loves posting as much as ol’ Elon would spend north of $21 billion to do so.
The Boring Company, meanwhile, has raised fresh funding to the tune of $675 million, valuing the company at $5.7 billion. That cash will go toward hiring more engineers who can build more of the company’s signature taxis-in-a-tunnel Loop projects. At the same time, the company said its second-generation tunnel boring machine can carve out up to a mile of tunnel a week. It also made the unbelievable claim that its third-generation hardware will be able to crunch up to seven miles of bedrock per day.
Was it that much of a surprise given the video was titled I Crashed My Plane.
Trevor Jacob / YouTube
Trevor Jacob is a former Olympic snowboarder-turned-YouTuber who, in December 2021, published a well-shot video titled I Crashed My Plane. The beautifully shot clip, with multiple cameras set up on the pilot side wing and tail, sees the plane apparently stall out in mid air. Jacob then climbs out of the cabin and parachutes to the ground. Unfortunately for him, the FAA accused Jacob of intentionally crashing the plane for online clout and revoked his pilot’s license. If Jacob doesn’t hand it back to officials, he’ll be liable for a daily fine of up to $1,644.
The FAA was also in the news yesterday for accidentally causing an emergency evacuation of Congress. FAA officials reportedly failed to notify the Capitol police and security services about a planned parachute demonstration by the US Army Golden Knights over Nationals Stadium. Nobody was hurt, and the Golden Knights followed proper procedure, avoiding restricted airspace and communicating with air traffic control at all times. But that didn’t stop House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from saying the FAA’s failure to communicate was “outrageous and inexcusable.”
A team of UK scientists has analyzed the complete genetic makeup of 12,000 tumors from NHS patients and discovered 58 new mutations that provide clues about their potential causes. The team, composed of scientists from Cambridge University Hospitals and the University of Cambridge, used data from the 100,000 Genomes Project. That’s a British initiative to sequence the whole genomes of patients with cancers and rare diseases.
Team leader Professor Serena Nik-Zainal said this is the largest study of its kind and that the vast amount of data her team worked with allowed them to detect patterns in the genetic alterations or “mutational signatures” found in the tumors. By comparing their results with other studies, they were able to confirm that 58 of the mutational signatures they found were previously unknown. Some of them are pretty common, while some are rare.
“The reason it is important to identify mutational signatures is because they are like fingerprints at a crime scene — they help to pinpoint cancer culprits,” Nik-Zainal explained. Some signatures could show that past exposure to environmental causes such as smoking or UV light had triggered the cancer, while others could have treatment implications. They could, for instance, pinpoint genetic abnormalities that could be targeted by specific drugs.
Professor Matt Brown, chief scientific officer of Genomics England said: “Mutational signatures are an example of using the full potential of [whole genome sequencing]. We hope to use the mutational clues seen in this study and apply them back into our patient population, with the ultimate aim of improving diagnosis and management of cancer patients.”
In addition to conducting DNA analysis and publishing its results in Science, the team also developed an algorithm called FitMS that will give clinicians easy access to the new information they discovered. FitMS looks for both common and rare signatures in the results of a patient’s whole genome sequencing test. Doctors can use the algorithm to find out if their patients exhibit any of the newly discovered mutations for a more accurate diagnosis and for personalized treatments.
Google is introducing a new Play Store policy that will effectively block third-party call recording apps from the Play Store by May 11th, according to a Reddit post seen by 9to5Google. Such apps currently use the Accessibility API (designed for people with disabilities) to gain access to the audio functions on Android devices.
“Apps with a core functionality intended to directly support people with disabilities are eligible to use the IsAccessibilityTool,” the policy states. “Apps not eligible for IsAccessibilityTool may not use the flag and must meet prominent disclosure and consent requirements. The Accessibility API is not designed and cannot be requested for remote call audio recording. ”
Google has gradually been trying to eliminate call recording on Android, mainly due to privacy concerns. It was largely blocked on Android 6, and the use of the microphone for call recording was eliminated in Android 10. The last resort for call recording apps was to use the Accessibility API.
Google addressed the issue in a webinar video, saying that “remote in this context refers to call audio recording where the person on the other end is unaware of the recording is taking place.” It added that dialer apps like Google Phone and Mi Dialer with native call recording functionality will be unaffected by the change.
“If the app is the default dialer on the phone and also pre-loaded, accessibility capability is not required to get access to the incoming audio stream,” said Google content global operations lead Moun Choi. “Hence would not be in violation. Since this is a clarification to an existing policy, the new language will apply to all apps starting on May 11th.” It’s not clear if the new policy means existing call recorder apps will be pulled from the Play Store.
Amazon is pursuing the “aggressive geographic and use case expansion” of a scheme that sends injured warehouse workers to non-profits for light duty, according to The Financial Times. Under the scheme that’s officially called Amazon Community Together, workers get their full salary instead of compensation benefits that typically only cover a portion of their usual pay. While the program sounds beneficial for both workers and local non-profits, workers’ rights advocates argue that it’s a tool Amazon uses to hide the real number of serious injuries at its warehouses.
Participants in the Community Together program are sent to charities like Salvation Army and Habitat for Humanity to do whatever work they’re capable of with their injuries. Over 10,000 workers have been placed at non-profits since it the program launched in 2016, but Amazon had to scale back its operations during the pandemic. Amazon spokesperson Lisa Campos said the program is voluntary and that the company gets “overwhelmingly positive” feedback from participants and partner non-profits. Indeed, the workers The Times talked to said they’re treated well at their placements, and partner non-profits are thankful for the “amazing amount of work” the workers do for them.
As the publication points out, though, it also gives Amazon a way to reduce its Lost Time Incident Rate (LTIR), which is a standard OSHA metric that gives authorities concrete data on the number of severe incidents in a facility. Based on figures from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Amazon’s rate of injury is more than double that of the national warehousing industry average. And according to Strategic Organizing Center (SOC), a coalition of North American labor unions, there were 34,001 serious injuries at Amazon’s US facilities last year, up 36 percent from 2020. (Company CEO Andy Jassy blamed that high injury rate to new workers in a letter to shareholders and in an interview with CNBC.)
Amazon published its own report (PDF) in January that claims a 49 percent drop in LTIR in the US and a 43 percent drop worldwide in 2020. It didn’t, however, mention the growing number of Community Together placements, which had reportedly gone up by 22 percent over the same period. Eric Frumin from SOC said the program “can create a good social environment for people,” but “it can be highly abusive because the job could be contributing to the recurrence of the injury, or preventing recovery.”
