*follows
News Image 'Escaping Gravity' Takes a Brutally Honest Look at NASA

Lori Garver's new memoir details her struggles to get NASA colleagues to embrace SpaceX and Blue Origin.

Business Read on WIRED Culture
News Image Google appeals judge’s decision forcing app store competition on Android

Today, Google filed its official notice of appeal against the district court ruling and jury verdict in Epic v. Google. Judge James Donato’s ruling earlier this week would force the company to distribute third-party app stores on Google Play and drop requirements that Google Play apps use its billing system, among other competition-friendly changes. Google had said it would be appealing the verdict. “As we have already stated, these changes would put consumers’ privacy and security at risk, make it harder for developers to promote their apps, and reduce competition on devices,” Google VP of regulatory affairs Lee-Anne Mulholland said in a blog post on Monday. “Ultimately, while these changes presumably satisfy Epic, they will cause a...

Business Read on The Verge Tech
News Image Giant Magnetic Halo Discovered Wrapped Around The Milky Way

The first detailed measurements are revealed.

Environment Read on ScienceAlert
News Image Xbox will sell games directly in the Android app next month

Microsoft is planning to update its Xbox mobile app on Android to allow US users to purchase and then play Xbox games on their mobile devices next month. Following a US court ruling earlier this week that forces Google to stop requiring Google Play Billing for apps in the Play Store on November 1st, Microsoft is ready to take advantage of the changes. “The court’s ruling to open up Google’s mobile store in the US will allow more choice and flexibility,” says Xbox president Sarah Bond in a post on X. “Our mission is to allow more players to play on more devices so we are thrilled to share that starting in November, players will be able to play and purchase Xbox games directly from the Xbox App on Android.” The court's ruling to open up...

Business Read on The Verge Tech
Amazon team in charge of Just Walk Out loses three execs, gains one

Three Amazon executives in charge of developing new technologies for checking out of physical stores – including Just Walk Out, Dash Carts, and Amazon One – are leaving or have left the division, TechCrunch has learned. In addition, a former high-ranking advertising executive at Amazon, Colleen Aubrey, was recently put in charge of Just Walk […]

Business Read on TechCrunch
Intel’s Core Ultra 200S CPUs are its biggest desktop refresh in three years

Intel's 14th-generation desktop processors were a mild update on top of a mild update: a barely faster revision of the 13th-gen Core CPUs, which were themselves a modest tweak to 2021's 12th-gen Core processors. The new Core Ultra CPUs (and their underlying architectural changes) were exclusive to laptops. Today, that changes: The Core Ultra 200S processors (codenamed Arrow Lake) will bring to desktops many of the changes Intel has made to its Core Ultra 100- and 200-series laptop CPUs (Meteor Lake and Lunar Lake, respectively). Changes include a new chiplet-based design, new manufacturing technologies, updated CPU and GPU architectures, and a neural processing unit (NPU) for accelerating some AI and machine learning workloads. All of the new processors launch on October 24th. Read full article

Business Read on Ars Technica
Breakdancers at risk for “headspin hole,” doctors warn

Breakdancing has become a global phenomenon since it first emerged in the 1970s, even making its debut as an official event at this year's Summer Olympics. But hardcore breakers are prone to injury (sprains, strains, tendonitis), including a bizarre condition known as "headspin hole" or "breakdance bulge"—a protruding lump on the scalp caused by repeatedly performing the power move known as a headspin. A new paper published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) describes one such case that required surgery to redress. According to the authors, there are very few published papers about the phenomenon; they cite two in particular. A 2009 German study of 106 breakdancers found that 60.4 percent of them experienced overuse injuries to the scalp because of headspins, with 31.1 percent of those cases reporting hair loss, 23.6 percent developing head bumps, and 36.8 percent experiencing scalp inflammation. A 2023 study of 142 breakdancers reported those who practiced headspins more than three times a week were much more likely to suffer hair loss. So when a male breakdancer in his early 30s sought treatment for a pronounced bump on top of his head, Mikkal Bundgaard Skotting and Christian Baastrup Søndergaard of Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark seized the opportunity to describe the clinical case study in detail, taking an MRI, surgically removing the growth, and analyzing the removed mass. Read full article

Health Read on Ars Technica
Ukraine arrests rogue VPN operator providing access to Runet

Ukraine's cyber police have arrested a 28-year-old man who operated a massive virtual private network (VPN) service, allowing people from within the country to access the Russian internet (Runet)....

Politics Read on Bleeping Computer
In a rare disclosure, the Pentagon provides an update on the X-37B spaceplane

After more than nine months in an unusual, highly elliptical orbit, the US military's X-37B spaceplane will soon begin dipping its wings into Earth's atmosphere to lower its altitude before eventually coming back to Earth for a runway landing, the Space Force said Thursday. The aerobraking maneuvers will use a series of passes through the uppermost fringes of the atmosphere to gradually reduce its speed with aerodynamic drag while expending minimal fuel. In orbital mechanics, this reduction in velocity will bring the apogee, or high point, of the X-37B's orbit closer to Earth. The Space Force called the aerobraking a "novel space maneuver" and said its purpose was to allow the X-37B to "safely dispose of its service module components in accordance with recognized standards for space debris mitigation." Read full article

Environment Read on Ars Technica
Akira and Fog ransomware now exploit critical Veeam RCE flaw

Ransomware gangs now exploit a critical security vulnerability that lets attackers gain remote code execution (RCE) on vulnerable Veeam Backup & Replication (VBR) servers....

Crime and Courts Read on Bleeping Computer
News Image Ticketmaster will start using Apple Wallet’s more useful tickets this month

Ticketmaster announced today that it will be the first ticketing company to use Apple’s upgraded Apple Wallet tickets for iOS 18. With the improved tickets, you’ll be able to see event information “such as a map of the venue and parking details, recommended playlists from Apple Music, local forecasts from Weather, and easy access to location sharing to help fans find their friends when they arrive,” Ticketmaster says. Venues and teams will also be able to add links to their app or website. The first Ticketmaster event to use the upgraded tickets will be the October 19th Los Angeles Football Club game at BMO Stadium. Ticketmaster says the Miami Heat will be “next to debut” the new ticket experience, though the company didn’t say exactly...

Business Read on The Verge
News Image Will Elon Musk Tip the Election for Trump?

The increasingly outspoken tech mogul spoke at a Trump rally this weekend in one of the most contested battleground states.

Entertainment Read on WIRED Top Stories
Tesla Robotaxi reveal: What to expect

Tesla is gearing up to reveal its Robotaxi this Thursday, and everyone wants to know what it will look like, whether Tesla will unveil a commercialization strategy, and what outrageous timelines Elon Musk might announce to bump Tesla’s stock.  The “We, Robot” event will take place at 7 p.m. PT at Warner Bros. Discovery’s movie […]

Entertainment Read on TechCrunch