The Supreme Court has sided with Google, Twitter and Facebook in lawsuits seeking to hold them liable for terrorist attacks

TEL AVIV, Israel & NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 23, 2023--

LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 11, 2023--

Threads, developed by Meta's Instagram team, is a platform that allows users to publish short posts or updates of up to 500 characters

A federal court upheld a ruling forcing the Biden administration to expand its sale of offshore drilling rights

About 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, a massive structure emerges from the Atlantic Ocean. Nearby it

By David Shepardson WASHINGTON The personal information of 237,000 current and former federal government employees has been exposed

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 24, 2023--

It might sound more like the kind of idle daydream billionaires like Elon Musk would have, but could flooding the Sahara actually be the best way of tackling climate change in the future? The idea of creating a new “sea” in Africa is being discussed, and it’s not the first time that the notion of a great oasis in the Sahara has been discussed among the scientific community. As the ongoing climate crisis continues to worsen, the notion of flooding vast areas of the desert is being returned to once again [via IFL Science]. A new “sea” was first proposed following the study of the Messinian salinity crisis – which saw a dried-out area of the Mediterranean rejuvenated by the Zanclean flood, reconnecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean around 5.33 million years ago. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Given how the Mediterranean was transformed by the flood, the idea of flooding the Sahara to achieve similar results has been thrown around in the scientific community as far back as 1877, the Scottish engineer Donald McKenzie suggested flooding the El Djouf basin in Western Africa. The idea is now returning to popularity as the world looks for solutions to the climate crisis. One proposal centres on the Middle East’s Dead Sea and flooding the area using water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea Depression. A vast sea in Africa could represent a hugely innovative step towards tackling climate change and fostering a new hub of life – but even the people suggesting work such a project acknowledge just how expensive and dangerous it is. Even Y Combinator is a US startup accelerator who has described “desert flooding” as “risky, unproven, even unlikely to work”. Only time will tell whether the notion of a new sea in the Sahara coud ever work, or whether it’ll remain the stuff of dreams. 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.

Researchers have come up with a new way to generate electricity with solar panel technology by harvesting the energy produced by raindrops. The method, proposed by a team from Tsinghua University in China, involves a device called a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) that creates electrification from liquid-solid contact. These are typically used to harvest energy from waves, as droplet-based TENGs (D-TENGs) have previously faced technical limitations that prevented them from working at any significant scale. By using solar panel bridge arrays, the researchers discovered such barriers could be overcome “Referring to the design of solar panels in which multiple solar power generation units are connected in parallel to supply the load, we are proposing a simple and effective method for raindrop harvesting,” said Professor Zong Li, who led the research. “The peak power output of the bridge array generators is nearly five times higher than that of the conventional large-area raindrop energy harvesting. The results of this study will provide a feasible scheme for large-area raindrop energy harvesting.” A study detailing the breakthrough, titled ‘Rational TENG arrays as a panel for harvesting large-scale raindrop energy’, was published in the journal iEnergy. “As an important part of the natural energy and water cycle, rainfall contains abundant renewable energy,” the study notes. “However, this kind of renewable energy lacks effective utilisation today... Therefore, finding a reasonable topology to relieve the inherent constraints of D-TENGs is of great significance for realising the large-scale raindrop energy harvesting.” It is one of a number of promising advances with solar panel technology in recent months, with an Australian team of researchers developing self-healing cells capable of recovering 100 per cent of their original efficiency after suffering degradation from space radiation. Earlier this week, scientist’s at the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) unveiled a design for a double-sided solar panel capable of boosting efficiency rates by up to 20 per cent by harvesting reflected sunlight. Read More Scientists invent double-sided solar panel that generates vastly more electricity How tech could turn our homes into renewable energy power stations Scientists invent double-sided solar panel that generates vastly more electricity Scientists invent self-healing solar panels with ‘miracle material’ ‘Miracle material’ smashes solar panel efficiency threshold

KAWASAKI, Japan--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 12, 2023--

Child protection experts have fiercely criticised social media giant Meta over its plans for end-to-end encryption, accusing the tech firm of prioritising profit over children’s safety. Simon Bailey, a former police chief constable who was national lead for child protection at the National Police Chiefs’ Council, accused Meta of a “complete loss of social and moral responsibility” over the plans. John Carr, who is secretary of a coalition of UK children’s charities to deal with internet safety, called the move “utterly unconscionable”. Their comments came after head of the National Crime Agency Graeme Biggar said introducing end-to-end encryption on Facebook would be like “consciously turning a blind eye to child abuse”. Speaking at a lecture in Westminster earlier this month, the law enforcement chief said it should be up to the government rather than technology companies to draw the line between privacy and child safety. Meta responded by saying it has robust measures in place to combat abuse and that it expects to make more reports to law enforcement after end-to-end encryption is brought in. Mr Bailey said as he had seen the scale of online sexual abuse grow, he also saw “big tech companies, like Meta, absolve themselves of any responsibility when it comes to tackling online child sexual abuse”. The former chief constable said: “Big tech facilitates and, through their algorithms, encourages this abuse to take place. It is time their complete loss of social and moral responsibility is highlighted and challenged Simon Bailey “In response to what they know and can see as a global pandemic of online child sexual abuse, they have consciously decided to take the easy way out of dealing with the problem. “Meta, one of the largest carriers of this abuse, has decided to implement end-to-end encryption by default, and effectively stop law enforcement’s ability to identify and arrest offenders and, ultimately, to protect children. “They are using the guise of privacy to justify their position and in doing so, are continuing to put profit before child protection. It is time their complete loss of social and moral responsibility is highlighted and challenged.” Mr Carr, who is secretary of the UK Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety said: “If introduced without the appropriate safeguards that will allow law enforcement to detect and prevent online child sexual abuse, end-to-end encryption threatens to deny justice to huge numbers of children. “Children are major user of social media. A great many use Meta’s platforms, including Facebook Messenger and Instagram Direct. “The design and nature of these platforms make them a perfect space for dangerous people to discover, befriend, groom and sexually abuse children – and if end-to-end encryption is introduced without appropriate safeguards, Meta will be willingly blinding itself to the abuse taking place online. “Their plans are utterly unconscionable – particularly when there are tech solutions out there that enable end-to-end encryption to exist and child sexual abuse to be detected, reported, and justice to be served. “Big tech companies, like Meta, must think again before introducing a blanket roll-out of end-to-end encryption across their platforms. “If they don’t, thousands of children will be at risk, and we will fail to solve the growing problem of online child sexual abuse. Do better Meta – it’s time to prioritise child safety over profit.” I cannot emphasise enough the impact this has on me and other victims of this abuse Rhiannon-Faye McDonald Rhiannon-Faye McDonald, head of advocacy at the Marie Collins Foundation, was herself sexually assaulted at the age of 13 after a predator contacted her online. She said: “To say I am disappointed that Meta is continuing with their plans to roll out end-to-end encryption is an understatement. The measures they say will be in place – using metadata to identify patterns of behaviour rather than content – are not good enough. “This move gives child sex abusers the ability to act undetected on its platforms as Meta will also lose the ability to use technology to detect and remove child sexual abuse images and videos. “As a victim of child sexual abuse myself, where my abuse was documented and shared online by the perpetrator, I cannot emphasise enough the impact this has on me and other victims of this abuse. “I am horrified that the images of my abuse could be infinitely reshared across the globe with no hope of them being blocked or taken down. How is this protecting my privacy?” She said it is “incredibly worrying” that big tech companies “can unilaterally make decisions that limit our ability to protect children”. A Meta spokesperson said: “The overwhelming majority of Brits already rely on apps that use encryption to keep them safe from hackers, fraudsters and criminals. “We don’t think people want us reading their private messages so have spent the last five years developing robust safety measures to prevent, detect and combat abuse while maintaining online security. “We recently published an updated report setting out these measures, such as restricting people over 19 from messaging teens who don’t follow them and using technology to identify and take action against malicious behaviour. “As we roll out end-to-end encryption, we expect to continue providing more reports to law enforcement than our peers due to our industry-leading work on keeping people safe.” Read More Call of Duty launch sparks record traffic on broadband networks Crypto investment fraud warning issued by major bank Council investigating extent of cyber attack that affected website and systems Setback for Ireland as EU legal adviser recommends revisit of Apple tax case Smartphones ‘may be able to detect how drunk a person is with 98% accuracy’ Ireland and Apple await major development in long-running EU tax dispute