Equitrans Midstream Corp. asked the US Supreme Court to allow it to resume construction on its controversial Mountain

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 18, 2023--

TOKYO SoftBank Group has resumed investment in new AI companies, investing $65 million in British firm Tractable, an

When it comes to maintaining an online presence, creators are always looking to be ahead of the curve. Currently, the latest trend that has popped up all over people's For You page is NPC streaming. The basis of this trend is that streamers bizarrely repeat actions over and over again - so what is it all about? Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Here is a breakdown of everything you need to know about the NPC streaming trend. What is NPC streaming? NPC streaming is where the streamers appear animated through their actions, hence being comparable to gaming NPCs, where they often repeat their movements or sayings. In this context, TikTok streamers only interact, speak or perform a specific action when they receive a gift from a viewer, the type of interaction can be dependent on the type of gift. @bobbysie Btw i love ohio final boss and queen Viewers can send a variety of different options such as emotes to the streamer to respond to. For instance, a viewer sends an ice cream and in response, the streamer's reaction would be to pretend to lick it and say “Oh ice cream yum”. Where did this trend begin? Last year, NPC streaming began to rise in popularity, according to Know Your Meme where it all started from Japanese TikToker @natuecoco. She has collaborated with TikToker Satoyu0704 the two of them pretended to be NPCs as they went on to see who could get the most prizes. Over the past year more creators such as Cherry Crush TV and PinkDollReal have been doing popular NPC live streams. Why is this a trend? Perhaps, the reason for the rising popularity of NPC streaming is people's curiosity to see the creator acting like an AI or a character for a video game and want to see if they can keep this act up. Also compared to your average stream, NPC streaming requires increased interaction from the viewer as the streamer is constantly responding to what is being said and sent to them. The trend appears to have celebrity fans, with music producer Timberland reportedly being the #1 viewer on a recent TikTok Live from 19-year-old viral content creator Pinkydoll, according to Pop Crave. Pinkydoll has recently been going viral in July 2023 with her NPC streams where she does things such as popping popcorn with a hair straightener. As a result of Timberland's presence, it caused Pinkydoll to break character. 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.

Nasa has revealed chunks of a distant asteroid that were transported back down to Earth. The dark, dusty sample comes from a 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid, and might include the “building blocks of life”, the space agency said. Already, the material from the asteroid Bennu has been found to include high-carbon content and water, the space agency said. But it will be distributed around the world with a view to finding out everything from the history of our solar system to how life came about. Scientists and space agency leaders showed photos and video of the asteroid material - returned to Earth last month - at a live streamed event at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas. The display came after a capsule containing an estimated 250g of rocks and dust collected from asteroid Bennu, touched down in the Utah desert near Salt Lake City on September 24. Nasa has said it was “the biggest, carbon-rich asteroid sample ever delivered to Earth”, and its contents have now been hailed as “scientific treasure”. Nasa administrator Bill Nelson said the sample will “help scientists investigate the origins of life on our own planet for generations to come”. He added: “Almost everything we do at Nasa seeks to answer questions about who we are and where we come from. “Nasa missions like Osiris-Rex will improve our understanding of asteroids that could threaten Earth while giving us a glimpse into what lies beyond. “The sample has made it back to Earth, but there is still so much science to come - science like we’ve never seen before.” Almost 60 million miles away, asteroid Bennu is a 4.5-billion-year-old remnant of our early solar system and scientists believe it can help shed light on how planets formed and evolved. The spacecraft launched on September 8 2016 and arrived at Bennu in December 2018. It dropped the samples off sealed in a capsule last month. “Already this is scientific treasure,” said the mission’s lead scientist, Professor Dante Lauretta, of the University of Arizona on Wednesday. In a statement, he added: “As we peer into the ancient secrets preserved within the dust and rocks of asteroid Bennu, we are unlocking a time capsule that offers us profound insights into the origins of our solar system. “The bounty of carbon-rich material and the abundant presence of water-bearing clay minerals are just the tip of the cosmic iceberg. “These discoveries, made possible through years of dedicated collaboration and cutting-edge science, propel us on a journey to understand not only our celestial neighbourhood but also the potential for life’s beginnings. “With each revelation from Bennu, we draw closer to unravelling the mysteries of our cosmic heritage.” Nasa‘s mission goal was to collect was 60 grams of asteroid sample. But when the canister lid was opened, Nasa said scientists discovered “bonus material” covering the outside of the collector head, canister lid, and base. There was so much extra material it slowed down the process of collecting and containing the primary sample, Nasa said. Scientists are not sure exactly how much of Bennu they brought back because the main sample chamber has not yet been opened. Mr Lauretta said: “It’s been going slow and meticulous, but the science is already starting.” He said there is “a whole treasure chest of extraterrestrial material” still to be examined. During Wednesday’s press conference, Osiris-Rex sample analyst Daniel Glavin added: “This stuff is an astrobiologist’s dream, I just can’t wait to get at it. “We’re going to learn so much about the origin of the solar system, the evolution and potentially how even life started here on Earth.” Additional reporting by agencies Read More ‘Ring of fire’ solar eclipse this month will be last until 2046 Prada to design Nasa’s next-gen space suits for Artemis astronauts 1.2 mile-high ‘dust devil’ spotted on Mars by Nasa’s Perseverance rover Rover captures one-mile-high whirlwind on Mars Earth hit by a huge solar storm that would devastate civilisation, trees show Scientists see afterglow from huge planets crashing into each other for first time

South African state power utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. said pollution from its coal-fired plants that supply more

The Prince of Wales has hailed “amazing” eco-friendly start-up technology businesses in London. William was shown building material made from food waste during a visit to Sustainable Ventures, a working space which helps fund and support green firms, on Thursday afternoon. He remarked: “It’s amazing, and shows if we put our minds to something what we can discover.” William met businesses such as ENSO, which has created a more efficient electric vehicle tyre reducing harmful particles worn off during travel. ENSO was among the finalists of this year’s Earthshot Prize, established by William to find solutions to “repair” the planet. Founder Gunnlaugur Erlendsson said, after showing the prince a taxi which had the tyres, that the recognition has helped the business. William was also shown thermal imaging used to detect heat loss from buildings anywhere on Earth by firm SatVu. He later joined a discussion with start-ups to hear how Sustainable Ventures is helping them to expand. Among them was AirEx, which created the world’s first smart air brick to reduce home energy bills, and Depop, an online platform which allows users to buy and sell vintage and second-hand clothing. Since 2011, Sustainable Ventures, based in County Hall, near the Houses of Parliament, has supported over 500 businesses, including Notpla, one of the 2022 Earthshot Prize winners. It is dubbed the centre of the UK’s climate tech revolution and the largest hub of its type in Europe. Andrew Wordsworth, managing partner of Sustainable Ventures, who showed William around, said: “The Prince of Wales is known for his dedication to sustainability. “It’s inspiring for Sustainable Ventures’ members to know that someone of his influence understands that they need to scale to have impact in the next decade. “He has shown by his actions that we need optimistic solutions in a world dominated by negative headlines.” Read More Royal website subject to ‘denial of service attack’, royal source says TikTok finds and shuts down secret operation to stir up conflict in Ireland Spotify will not ban all AI-powered music, says boss of streaming giant Vehicle scam reports surged by 74% in the first half of 2023, says Lloyds Bank Standard Life confirms plans for pensions dashboard You need to update your new iPhone if you want to avoid it getting hot

New leaks suggest tactical sprint will be nerfed in Fortnite Chapter 5 as Epic Games reduces the speed multiplier from x1.4 to x1.3.

The first-ever US government auction of leases to build wind farms in the Gulf of Mexico ended with

Apollo, a popular client app for Reddit, is shutting down. Reddit had required that Apollo pay an unsustainable amount of money to be able to access the data required to make the app run, according to its developer Christian Selig. In recent weeks, Reddit announced that it was making changes to its API, the technology that allows other apps to communicate with its forum. It said that it had been required to make the move because providing that data was proving too expensive, and that it was currently unfair for Reddit to be paying for busy apps. Shortly after, it announced that it would be pricing access to that API at such a rate that it would cost the developer of Apollo some $2 million per month, and that the new rates would go into effect in 30 days. Mr Selig said that would make running the app impossible. That led to outcry across Reddit, with many forums on the site announcing that they would go dark in protest against the company’s actions. Some of the most popular subreddits on the site joined the boycott, and some indicated they would never come back if the company did not change the terms of access on the pricing. Now, Mr Selig has announced that the situation has become untenable and that the app will shut down at the end of June. “It’s been an amazing run thanks to all of you,” he wrote in a long post on Reddit. In that same post, Mr Selig gave a long explanation of the situation with the site, and how he had come to the decision to shut down the app. He also included recordings of conversations with Reddit, which he said contradicted some of the site’s public statements about how it had behaved. He said that he had considered a host of other options, including increasing the price and changing the way the app works. But many users are already subscribed for a year, he said, and it would not be possible to alter the app enough in the time before the new terms go into effect. Mr Selig also noted that many users had asked whether he would build an alternative to Reddit. “While I’m very flattered, that’s not something I’m interested in doing,” he wrote. And he said that he supported the protests “abundantly”, noting that Reddit is largely run by people who moderate the site for free and so he understood their “anger and frustration”. “While I haven’t personally mobilized anyone to participate in the blackout out of fear of retaliation from Reddit, the last thing I want is for that to feel like I don’t support the folks speaking up. I wholeheartedly do,” he wrote. Apollo was previously one of the most well-regarded apps in the App Store. It was even featured in Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference keynote this week, where it was mentioned by software boss Craig Federghi and included on a list of apps that would work on the company’s upcoming Vision Pro headset. Mr Selig said that was likely a “coincidence” given the amount of preparation that was required for those keynotes. The app should keep working until 30 June, he said, when the new pricing goes into effect and the app will be switched off from Reddit. He said that he would release an explanation and a tool to export data from the app before then. In recent months, Twitter has also made changes to its API that have led to prohibitive costs for access to its data and the closure of a number of well-respected Twitter clients. Mr Selig has suggested that those changes at Twitter could have helped inspire Reddit’s decisions around its own pricing. Read More Millions of Reddit users face a blackout over pricing revolt Mark Zuckerberg reveals what he thinks about Apple’s headset – and it’s not good Can Apple make us love virtual reality? | You Ask The Questions Mark Zuckerberg reveals what he thinks about Apple’s headset – and it’s not good Can Apple make us love virtual reality? | You Ask The Questions Instagram has stopped working properly

Before Microsoft adds features and makes changes to Windows, the company relies on users to

Omers Ventures, the venture capital arm of the Canadian pension plan, is pulling out of Europe, marking a