X is developing a method to prevent links in responses

X is working on a new feature to combat spam posts on its platform, according to Nima Owji, an independent app researcher. The feature will allow users to disable links in replies, as shown in an image posted by Owji. Users can choose to prevent others from responding with a link to their posts by ticking a box for this option. X is working on the ability to let you disable links in the replies of your posts! pic.twitter.com/dddP0a8l5w — Nima Owji (@nima_owji) July 19, 2024 Christopher Stanley, X’s director…

Switzerland will soon debut the Sarco, a $20 suicide pod designed for controversial assisted dying. (Ennio Leanza)

News

Switzerland introduces unique tourism concept: Rent a 3D-printed suicide pod for ₹1700

Jim HendlerJuly 20, 24

Switzerland is close to introducing a new assisted dying method with the Sarco, a portable suicide pod created through 3D printing. The introduction of this device is seen as a major advancement in the country’s end-of-life options by The Last Resort, an organisation that focuses on assisted dying. How the Sarco Pod works The Sarco pod, designed to facilitate a controlled and pain-free end of life, was originally unveiled in 2019 and has since generated much discussion. The device works by filling its chamber with nitrogen, which quickly lowers oxygen…

Space

Newly discovered black hole near the center of the galaxy could be another ‘missing link’

Jim HendlerJuly 20, 24Science

Recently, a team of international researchers at the University of Cologne in Germany uncovered one of the most uncommon types of black holes in the universe. While studying a group of stars near the supermassive black hole known as Sagittarius A (Sgr A) at the heart of the Milky Way galaxy, they detected indications of an intermediate-mass black hole. NASA has described this type of black hole as the “missing link” in the study of black holes. Black holes vary in size from supermassive to primordial, and the intermediate form…

News

Samsung halts shipments of Galaxy Buds 3 Pro due to quality control concerns

Sanjay PatilJuly 20, 24Earbuds, Samsung

Samsung has paused the shipment of Galaxy Buds 3 Pro due to concerns about product quality. The company is taking steps to improve quality control before the earbuds are released, citing the infamous Galaxy Note incident from eight years ago. This decision was announced in a statement provided to ReturnByte and Android Authority. Some users who received the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro before its launch on July 24 reported that their ear tips were easily torn. Considering how often the tips might need to be removed and replaced to find…

Gaming

Twitch reinstates ex-President Trump’s Twitch account

Sanjay PatilJuly 20, 24Gaming, Politics, Streaming, Twitch

Twitch has announced that the three-year ban of former president and current Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on the gaming stream platform has been lifted. A statement from Twitch confirmed the reversal of Trump’s ban from the platform. “We have reinstated former President Trump’s Twitch channel,” the statement read. “We believe it is valuable to hear directly from the presidential candidates whenever possible. Trump is now the official Republican nominee for President of the United States. The Amazon-owned platform temporarily suspended President Trump’s account in 2020 for violating its hateful…

News

Teenage boy arrested by police in relation to the MGM Resorts ransomware attack

Nitin MisraJuly 20, 24Crime, hacking, ransomware

A ransomware attack that caused the shutdown of MGM Resorts in Las Vegas last year may have been carried out by a teenage boy. The West Midlands Police Department in England announced the arrest of a 17-year-old from Walsall on Thursday in connection with the incident at the resort and casino on the Las Vegas strip. The teenager was arrested on suspicion of blackmail and breaching the UK’s Computer Misuse Act. He was released on bail, according to a statement from the police department. Officers were tracking down the teenage…

Ewoud van der Werf/Nils Slijkerman/Extra Nice/PLAYISM

Gaming

Schim is a creative and visually stunning platformer, but it suffers from some repetitive gameplay.

Jim HendlerJuly 20, 24Gaming

Schim, a highly anticipated game this year, proved to be an enjoyable experience for me. This charming platformer features unique creatures called Schims, which inhabit every object and living being in the game. These frog-like entities rely on their host for sustenance, but can become lost if the host is neglected, damaged, or undergoing significant changes. You play as Schim, a stand-out person who is going through a difficult spell in her life. No prizes if you guess the goal is to reconnect with them. You’ll have to navigate some…

Gaming

Mario became a playable character in Donkey Kong Country in 1994 thanks to a clever hack.

Adarsh V.KJuly 20, 24Gaming

Mario and Donkey Kong, who have a long history as rivals, frenemies, go-kart competitors, and tennis partners, have never appeared as playable characters in each other’s platforming adventures. However, thanks to a clever hack, this has now changed. The Italian plumber once kidnapped Donkey Kong’s son, while DK once took over Mario’s toy company and stole a bunch of little figurines. They have a complicated past, but now they can finally team up in each other’s games. Mario is a playable character in a hacked version of the SNES classic…

Gaming

The FTC shares your frustration over the Xbox Game Pass price hike

Febin MathewJuly 20, 24Call of Duty, FTC, Gaming, Microsoft, xbox

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) expressed concerns in a letter to the US Appeals Court about Microsoft’s recent changes to its Xbox Game Pass service following its acquisition of Activision. The FTC highlighted a price increase for the Game Pass Ultimate, now costing $20 a month, which is $3 more than before and a 17 percent year-over-year increase. The agency described these changes as “exactly the sort of consumer harm” they were worried about. In addition, the agency drew attention to Microsoft’s decision to end the $11 console Game Pass…

News

Google will discontinue its goo.gl shortener links next year.

Adriana MaraisJuly 19, 24Google

As of August 23, users clicking on a goo.gl link may encounter a warning message stating that the link will soon be inactive before being redirected to their intended website. Google discontinued its goo.gl URL shortening service in 2018, preventing users from generating new links. The company has now revealed that all existing goo.gl links will cease to be supported, resulting in a “404 page not found” error by August 25, 2025. Google is giving developers plenty of time to switch to other mitigations by displaying the aforementioned warning page…

News

Top free resources and services for college students

Nitin MisraJuly 19, 24Shopping

Space

How a ‘mundane’ galaxy could offer insights into the evolution of the universe

Adriana MaraisJuly 19, 24NASA, Science, Space

NASA and the European Space Agency have unveiled a photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of a small irregular galaxy that initially appeared unremarkable. However, further analysis reveals a complex structure in NGC 5238, located 14.5 million light-years away in the Canes Venatici constellation. Scientists are conducting extensive research on the galaxy, suspecting that its star distribution may have been altered due to a past merger with another galaxy. They estimate that due to the stellar population of NGC 5238 (which Hubble is adept at helping to image), it…

CrowdStrike-powered Windows PCs are suffering for the infamous Blue Screen of Death issue. (Microsoft Designer AI)

News

Issue with CrowdStrike causing Windows to reboot

Jim HendlerJuly 19, 24Microsoft

UPDATE: The CEO of CrowdStrike has issued an apology for the Microsoft Windows outage and has assured that systems will begin to recover shortly. CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz apologized for the widespread global IT outage affecting the Windows operating system. In an interview with NBC News, he “vowed” to work with CrowdStrike’s partners to get the services back online. “Many of the customers reboot the system and it’s coming and it’s up and running. It can take a while for some systems that don’t automatically recover,” Kurtz said. “We deeply regret…

Nagpur Police adopts SIMBA, an AI tool by Staqu, to enhance crime detection and public safety. (Staqu)

Here’s how SIMBA, an AI system, is assisting Indian police in crime detection

Febin MathewJuly 19, 24Artificial Intelligence

The Nagpur Police has partnered with Gurugram-based startup Staqu Technologies to implement a new AI tool called SIMBA, following the success of their previous collaboration on CrimeGPT with the Uttar Pradesh police. SIMBA is designed to improve crime detection capabilities in Nagpur by utilizing advanced AI technology. SIMBA’s AI capabilities SIMBA, short for Surveillance, Investigation, Monitoring and Big-data Analytics, integrates advanced generative artificial intelligence to provide instant insights from various data sources, including CCTV feeds, images and audio related to crime and criminals. SIMBA, built on Staqu’s own JARVIS platform,…

Airtel introduces new 5G data booster packs with unlimited 5G data for its customers. (Bloomberg)

News

Details of Airtel’s new 5G data booster plans featuring unlimited data and customizable pricing released

Febin MathewJuly 19, 24Airtel

Bharti Airtel has launched new 5G data booster packs to complement its existing 1GB and 1.5GB daily data plans, following in the footsteps of Reliance Jio. The goal is to improve Airtel’s data services for its users. Airtel 5G Data Booster Packs Details Airtel’s new data booster packs come in three tiers priced at Rs. 51, Rs. 101 and Rs. 151. These packs offer 3GB, 6GB and 9GB of 4G data respectively, while also offering unlimited 5G data. Customers can activate these packages alongside their existing plans, in which case…

OpenAI considering making its own AI chips to address GPU shortage. (AP)

The Information reports that OpenAI is in discussions with Broadcom to create a new AI chip

Febin MathewJuly 19, 24Artificial Intelligence

According to sources familiar with the matter, OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, is in talks with chip manufacturers such as Broadcom to collaborate on the development of a new artificial intelligence chip, as reported by The Information on Thursday. OpenAI is exploring the idea of making AI chips on its own to overcome the shortage of expensive graphics processors it relies on to develop AI models such as ChatGPT, GPT-4 and DALL-E3. The Microsoft-backed company is hiring former Google employees who produced the web search giant’s own artificial intelligence chip,…

News

Major companies worldwide affected by faulty cybersecurity update, including banks and airlines

Jim HendlerJuly 19, 24Microsoft, Windows 11

An extensive outage of Microsoft Windows BSOD (blue screen of death) has affected numerous companies globally, including airlines, broadcasters, and others. The issue stemmed from a flawed update from security company CrowdStrike, which resulted in PCs and servers getting stuck in an unrecoverable boot loop. Although the update has been reversed, many machines continue to be impacted by the glitch. “We have widespread reports of BSODs on Windows hosts occurring on multiple sensor versions,” CrowdStrike wrote in a pinned Reddit post. “[We’ve] identified the deployment of content associated with this…

Windows laptop restarting unexpectedly? You’re not alone—millions of people around the world are experiencing the same issue. (REUTERS)

News

Blue screen appearing on millions of Windows PCs worldwide, causing restarts

Nitin MisraJuly 19, 24Microsoft

Microsoft Windows Outage: If you are reading this, chances are you have experienced the Windows outage or heard someone else talk about the issue that is impacting millions of Windows computers globally. So, what exactly is causing this outage and why is it affecting so many computers worldwide? In essence, users are encountering random restarts and the dreaded ‘Blue Screen of Death’ (BSOD) error on their Windows PCs. This disruption has had a significant impact on various industries, including aviation, with airlines like Indigo, SpiceJet, and Akasa confirming that their…

OpenAI GPT 4o mini is here, and it makes it cost-effective for developers to leverage generative AI. (OpenAI)

News

OpenAI introduces GPT-4o Mini, a cost-effective model for developers – Exploring its differences from larger models

Febin MathewJuly 19, 24Artificial Intelligence

OpenAI has introduced the GPT 4o mini, targeting the affordable small model market. Unlike its predecessors GPT 3.5 and GPT 4o, this new model is smaller and lighter but boasts greater capabilities, as claimed by OpenAI. The aim is to address cost concerns for developers using AI models and make app development more accessible with the GPT 4o. OpenAI GPT 4o: What’s new Recently, we’ve seen how popular some other lighter models have become, including the Google Gemini 1.5 Flash, due to their cost-saving features. Here, GPT 4o brings more…

Proton Mail introduces AI writing assistant with a focus on privacy

Febin MathewJuly 19, 24Artificial Intelligence, Email, Proton

Proton Mail has introduced a new AI-driven feature called Proton Scribe, aimed at enhancing its email service to compete with Google and Microsoft. This writing assistant helps users compose and refine their drafts while prioritizing privacy. Unlike its competitors, Proton Scribe does not have access to users’ inbox data due to the platform’s strict encryption policies. Additionally, Proton Mail does not store or track any information from email drafts. According to Proton, the writing assistant was one of the most requested features in a recent user survey. The company designed…

X is developing a method to prevent links in responses

Switzerland introduces unique tourism concept: Rent a 3D-printed suicide pod for ₹1700

Newly discovered black hole near the center of the galaxy could be another ‘missing link’

Samsung halts shipments of Galaxy Buds 3 Pro due to quality control concerns

Twitch reinstates ex-President Trump’s Twitch account

Teenage boy arrested by police in relation to the MGM Resorts ransomware attack

Schim is a creative and visually stunning platformer, but it suffers from some repetitive gameplay.

Mario became a playable character in Donkey Kong Country in 1994 thanks to a clever hack.

The FTC shares your frustration over the Xbox Game Pass price hike

Google will discontinue its goo.gl shortener links next year.

Top free resources and services for college students

How a ‘mundane’ galaxy could offer insights into the evolution of the universe

Issue with CrowdStrike causing Windows to reboot

Here’s how SIMBA, an AI system, is assisting Indian police in crime detection

Details of Airtel’s new 5G data booster plans featuring unlimited data and customizable pricing released

The Information reports that OpenAI is in discussions with Broadcom to create a new AI chip

Major companies worldwide affected by faulty cybersecurity update, including banks and airlines

Blue screen appearing on millions of Windows PCs worldwide, causing restarts

OpenAI introduces GPT-4o Mini, a cost-effective model for developers – Exploring its differences from larger models

Proton Mail introduces AI writing assistant with a focus on privacy

The Bioshock movie is moving forward with a smaller budget

Amazon releases the first teaser for its upcoming Yakuza adaptation

Modders create miniature Nintendo Wii that can be used as a keychain

Modders create miniature Nintendo Wii that can be used as a keychain

Respawn is reversing its unpopular alterations to the Apex Legends battle pass

World of Warcraft employees achieve ‘form a union’ milestone