Meta has responded to Elon Musk’s lawsuit threat against its new platform Threads saying that none of the staff working on the app are former Twitter employees. On Thursday, Twitter threatened Meta with legal action over its new social media app Threads, claiming it is a “copycat” platform it built by hiring former Twitter staff. Since its roll out, Meta’s text-based platform built in partnership with Instagram, has racked up tens of millions signups, seemingly becoming the most rapidly downloaded app ever and the most popular Twitter alternative yet. Just hours after its launch, however, Twitter attorney Alex Spiro sent a letter to Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg arguing that his company was guilty of “systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property”, according to Semafor. “Twitter intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights, and demands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information,” Mr Spiro said in the letter. “Twitter reserves all rights, including, but not limited to, the right to seek both civil remedies and injunctive relief without further notice to prevent any further retention, disclosure, or use of its intellectual property by Meta,” the attorney added. Mr Spiro alleged that Meta hired dozens of former Twitter staff who “had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information”. He said “Meta’s copycat ‘Threads’ app” was built with the “specific intent” that they use “Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property “in order to accelerate the development of Meta’s competing app”. The attorney argued that this was “in violation of both state and federal law as well as those employees’ ongoing obligations to Twitter”. Andy Stone, Meta’s communications director, responded to the claims on Friday saying that the Threads engineering team does not have any former Twitter employee. “To be clear: No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee – that’s just not a thing,” Mr Stone wrote on Threads. Mr Musk reponded to Twitter threatening Meta with a lawsuit saying: “Competition is fine, cheating is not.” Read More What is Threads? All your questions about Meta's new Twitter rival, answered. Threads is already more than three times bigger than every Twitter rival combined I tried Mark Zuckerberg’s Twitter rival, Threads – I’m not impressed Mark Zuckerberg accused of hypocrisy for shielding children’s faces in Instagram post Kim Kardashian, Rylan Clark and Dalai Lama among those joining new app Threads Twitter threatens legal action against Meta over new ‘Threads’ app

The Rockefeller Foundation, established in 1913 by Standard Oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, announced today that it aims

It’s one of the biggest questions humans have asked themselves since the dawn of time, but we might be closer than ever to understanding how the universe developed the way it did and we all came to be here. Computer simulations are happening all the time in the modern world, but a new study is attempting to simulate the entire universe in an effort to understand conditions in the far reaches of the past. Full-hydro Large-scale structure simulations with All-sky Mapping for the Interpretation of Next Generation Observations (or FLAMINGO for short), are being run out of the UK. The simulations are taking place at the DiRAC facility and they’re being launched with the ultimate aim of tracking how everything evolved to the stage they’re at now within the universe. The sheer scale of it is almost impossible to grasp, but the biggest of the simulations features a staggering 300 billion particles and has the mass of a small galaxy. One of the most significant parts of the research comes in the third and final paper showcasing the research and focuses on a factor known as sigma 8 tension. This tension is based on calculations of the cosmic microwave background, which is the microwave radiation that came just after the Big Bang. Out of their research, the experts involved have learned that normal matter and neutrinos are both required when it comes to predicting things accurately through the simulations. "Although the dark matter dominates gravity, the contribution of ordinary matter can no longer be neglected, since that contribution could be similar to the deviations between the models and the observations,” research leader and astronomer Joop Schaye of Leiden University said. Simulations that include normal matter as well as dark matter are far more complex, given how complicated dark matter’s interactions with the universe are. Despite this, scientists have already begun to analyse the very formations of the universe across dark matter, normal matter and neutrinos. "The effect of galactic winds was calibrated using machine learning, by comparing the predictions of lots of different simulations of relatively small volumes with the observed masses of galaxies and the distribution of gas in clusters of galaxies," said astronomer Roi Kugel of Leiden University. The research for the three papers, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, was undertaken partly thanks to a new code, as astronomer Matthieu Schaller of Leiden University explains. "To make this simulation possible, we developed a new code, SWIFT, which efficiently distributes the computational work over 30 thousand CPUs.” Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings

VELIZY-VILLACOUBLAY, France--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 21, 2023--

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 17, 2023--

Threads, Mark Zuckerberg's Instagram-based challenge to dethrone Elon Musk's troubled Twitter, has already secured tens of millions of downloads, but it remains to be seen whether this Twitter...

A caterer who pretended to be a plastic surgeon has been arrested after performing a fatal penis enlargement on a 'patient'. Torben K, a 46-year-old man from Solingen, Germany, administered silicone injections into the victim's penis and scrotum area. He reportedly refused to disclose the type of silicone oil. The 32-year-old patient died from sepsis seven months after the procedure in July 2019. An investigation found that Torben had no medical qualifications and previously carried out the same procedure on another man earlier in the year. Judges in Wuppertal District Court found Torben guilty of causing death by grievous bodily harm. The sister of the unnamed victim said her brother had doubts about the treatment but Torben convinced him to go ahead. He was said to experience breathing difficulties as soon as he returned home. The man reportedly visited several hospitals but later died of blood poisoning and liver and kidney failure. Speaking to local media, High State Prosecutor Wolf-Tilman Baumert said: "Unfortunately, the silicone oil ended up in the person's bloodstream. This led to severe health complications and, eventually, to his death." Torben claimed he had only done what the patient requested, to which Baumert responded: "The fact that the man asked for the treatment is irrelevant from our point of view. The defendant acted in a highly immoral manner." Torben was jailed for five years, though the verdict is not yet legally binding. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Black Friday brings many discounts. Here are the leading retailers selling PlayStation 5 consoles at discounted prices.

Binance will roll out full services on its new platform for Japan in August, the crypto exchange’s founder

Five US senators are set to reintroduce legislation Wednesday that would block companies including TikTok from transferring Americans' personal data to countries such as China, as part of a proposed broadening of US export controls.

The annual Apple Event is tantalizingly close. Best get your plans for watching it figured

BP Plc and Chubu Electric Power Co.’s carbon capture and storage project for Japan’s busiest port could be