Millions of Fortnite users can now claim their small part of the $245 million that the game's parent company agreed to pay as part of a settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission.

The US is getting its first commercial facility to soak up carbon dioxide from the ambient air for

A US government shutdown would have deep, far-reaching consequences and imperil efforts to protect people from lead and

A scientist who found the oldest water ever discovered on Earth decided the best course of action was, of course, to drink it. Professor Barbara Sherwood Lollar was leading a team of geologists studying a Canadian mine in 2016 when she made the remarkable discovery. The flowing water about three kilometres below the surface was between 1.5bn and 2.6bn years old, according to tests, making it the oldest water found on Earth. “When people think about this water they assume it must be some tiny amount of water trapped within the rock,” said Prof Sherwood Lollar. “But in fact it’s very much bubbling right up out at you. These things are flowing at rates of litres per minute – the volume of the water is much larger than anyone anticipated.” Upon tasting the ancient water, she found that it was “very salty and bitter” and “much saltier than seawater”. That was an encouraging sign, because saltier water tends to be older. In this case, where the water has been ageing for billions of years, it is hardly surprising. “If you’re a geologist who works with rocks, you’ve probably licked a lot of rocks,” said Sherwood Lollar. Her team also found that life had once been present in the water, by looking at the sulphate – the composition of salts – in it. “We were able to indicate that the signal we are seeing in the fluids has to have been produced by microbiology – and most importantly has to have been produced over a very long time scale. “The microbes that produced this signature couldn’t have done it overnight. “This has to be an indication that organisms have been present in these fluids on a geological timescale.” Fortunately, the scientist had no terrifying sci-fi movie-esq reaction to drinking the ancient water, and lived to tell the tale. The paper was published in Nature in 2016. How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Sign up to 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.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and two other House Republicans fired off letters to financial industry giants including

The European Union rolled out its mammoth data privacy regulation five years ago this week, and has since handed...

The app is designed to provide a more intimate and streamlined experience for staying connected with your closest contacts on Instagram

UPDATE: Jun. 24, 2023, 5:00 a.m. EDT This post has been updated to reflect the

Apple has unveiled its new Watch, with a new, faster processor and hands-free features. The Apple Watch Series 9 brings an updated chip that makes the phone up to 30 per cent faster, Apple said. That should make animations and effects smoother, it said, as well as allowing for new features. In addition to those new tools, the Watch Series 9 is Apple’s first carbon neutral product. That has been achieved by a range of changes, including dropping leather from its bands and all new products. Those include a new feature called “Double Tap”, which lets people control their Watch without actually touching it. By clicking their two fingers together – the same gesture as on the upcoming Vision Pro headset – users can click buttons on the screen. :: Follow our live coverage of the Apple event here. Apple said the feature would be useful when the other hand is occupied, such as when carrying a coffee or walking the dog, for instance. It may also be helpful for accessibility, and Apple has already rolled out similar features as part of those tools. The new feature relies on the machine learning smarts within the new chip, Apple said, which are able to analyse data from the sensors “in a completely new way”. It watches for the changes in movement and “blood flow” that happen when people bring their fingers together, and then uses that to click. The new processor will also allow Siri requests to be processed on the Apple Watch itself, which should make them faster and more secure. The most common requests no longer have to go to the cloud, Apple said, so that they should not be impeded by slow WiFi or data connections. Apple will also let people ask Siri for health data, which it said was powered by the new hardware, though did not explain exactly why. Users can ask how much they slept, for instance. Dictation will also be improved by that chip. It can run a more smart machine learning model, which should make dictation up to 25 per cent more accurate. The chip will also make the Watch better at finding its paired iPhone. Apple has always offered the option to ping the phone, but the Watch will now offer the distance and direction to the iPhone. A similar feature will work with the HomePod. When the Apple Watch comes close to that smart speaker, it will offer media suggestions for what to listen to. The Series 9 also brings a new display. It now goes up to 2,000 nits – making it easier to see outside – as well as going all the way down to one nit, for dark situations. Read More Apple Watch 7 pre-order: How to buy the new smartwatch in the UK Apple introduces new version of Watch with complete redesign iPhone 13 - live: UK contract deals and prices for Apple, EE and O2 Apple to stop using leather in all new products Apple is about to reveal the new iPhone – and a lot more Here’s when you will actually be able to get the new iPhone

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These home office essentials can help remote workers stay on task and tackle everything on their to-do lists.