PayPal has launched a new cryptocurrency that is tied to and backed by the US dollar. PayPal USD, issued by Paxos Trust Company, is a type of digital currency called a stablecoin, which differs to other cryptocurrencies like bitcoin as their values are tied to traditional fiat currencies like dollars, pounds or euros. “The shift toward digital currencies requires a stable instrument that is both digitally native and easily connected to fiat currency like the US dollar,” said PayPal chief executive Dan Schulman. “Our commitment to responsible innovation and compliance, and our track record delivering new experiences to our customers, provides the foundation necessary to contribute to the growth of digital payments through PayPal USD.” The new crypto token will roll out first to US PayPal customers, offering the ability to send and transfer PayPal USD to other people, as well as fund purchases when checking out at online stores. The new cryptocurrency comes at a time of increased scrutiny at the crypto industry, with regulators looking to avoid a repeat of the TerraUSD stablecoin collapse that wiped tens of billions of dollars from markets in 2022. The TerraUSD token was also pegged to the US dollar, however unlike PayPal USD it was not backed up by any dollar reserves. Instead, it used a partner cryptocurrency to maintain its value algorithmically, which ultimately caused both cryptocurrencies to crash in tandem. Other companies have also attempted to launch stablecoins, including Facebook’s Libra project, which was shut down last year after facing push back from regulators. The US House Financial Services Committee has since advanced a bill aiming to set up a federal framework for stablecoins in order to integrate them into modern payment systems. “We are currently at a crossroads to keep America at the forefront of digital asset innovation,” US Representative Patrick McHenry, who chairs the committee, said in a statement following PayPal’s announcement. “Congress is making significant, bipartisan progress on legislation to ensure the US leads the financial system of the future.” Read More What is Elon Musk’s ‘everything app’ X? Kenya suspends eyeball-scanning crypto worldcoin

TikTok has filed a lawsuit challenging Montana’s recently announced ban of the video sharing app. The social media firm argued that the new law, which is set to come into effect on 1 January next year, is an unconstitutional violation of free speech. The company, which is owned by China-based ByteDance, said the attempt to block users from accessing TikTok is based on “unfounded speculation” that the Chinese government could access their data. The lawsuit by TikTok itself follows one filed last week by five content creators who made the same arguments, including that the state of Montana has no authority to take action on matters of national security. Both lawsuits were filed in federal court in Missoula. Republican Govenor Greg Gianforte signed the bill last Wednesday and the content creators’ lawsuit was filed hours later. TikTok has not shared and would not share US user data with the Chinese government and has taken measures to protect the privacy and security of its users, including storing all US user data in the United States, the company stated in its complaint. Some lawmakers, the FBI and officials at other agencies are concerned that the video-sharing app could be used to allow the Chinese government to access information on US citizens or push pro-Beijing misinformation that could influence the public. Chinese law compels Chinese companies to share data with the government for whatever purposes it deems to involve national security. TikTok says this has never happened. “TikTok is spying on Americans. Period,” Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, whose office drafted the bill, told a legislative committee in March. Knudsen’s office has said they expected lawsuits and were prepared to defend the new law. The federal government and about half the US states, including Montana, have banned TikTok from government-owned devices. Montana’s new law prohibits downloads of TikTok in the state. It would fine any “entity” – an app store or TikTok – $10,000 per day for each time someone “is offered the ability” to access the social media platform or download the app. The penalties would not apply to users. Even if the law comes into force in 2024, security experts have warned that it would be nearly impossible to prevent TikTok users from accessing the app. Oded Vanunu, head of products vulnerability research at the cyber security firm Check Point, said last week that it would be difficult for any single state to ban the app, as easily available technologies like virtual private networks (VPNs) would allow users to bypass any geolocation blocks. Additional reporting from agencies Read More TikTok ban in numbers: Charting the controversial rise of the world’s most popular app Schoolboy almost dies from swallowing magnets for TikTok challenge Woman shares honest review of New York City apartment TikTok mom slammed after making 5-year-old son run in 104 degree heat

They may not be as stylish as a DeLorean or as sturdy as a blue police box, but wormholes in space could hold the key to real-life time travel – and a team of experts think they’ve figured out how. The trio of scientists delved deep into the laws of physics and discovered that it might be possible for humans to one day zip across galaxies in a matter of seconds, or journey through time itself. Now, this is all to do with the general theory of relativity and quantum physics, so don’t expect to get your head around it too easily. However, in their paper, Valeri P. Frolov and Andrei Zelnikov of Canada’s University of Alberta, and Pavel Krtouš of Prague’s Charles University proposed that a specific kind of wormhole would “inevitably” be “transformed into a time machine” if it was subject to particular conditions. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter For the uninitiated, wormholes can be described as spacetimes in which a “kind of tunnel exists connecting distant parts in the universe”. The main problem with them is… they don’t actually exist. At least not in any tangible way. As Drs Eric Christian and Louis Barbier put it in an explainer for NASA: “Wormholes are allowed to exist in the math of ‘General Relativity’, which is our best description of the Universe. “Assuming that general relativity is correct, there may be wormholes. But no one has any idea how they would be created, and there is no evidence for anything like a wormhole in the observed Universe.” Still, numerous experts in the field of gravitation and general relativity have spent years or even decades working on them, including Stephen Hawking in his time. For their paper, Frolov, Krtouš, and Zelnikov explored what is known as a ring wormhole, which was first described in 2016 by theoretical physicist Gary Gibbons, of Cambridge University, and Mikhail Volkov of the University of Tours. Unlike the spherical contortions of spacetime we might attribute to black holes, the ring wormhole proposed by Gibbons and Volkov connects sections of the universe (or, indeed, different universes) which are generally described as “flat”, as ScienceAlert notes. Ring-shaped masses could potentially create some pretty remarkable distortions in what would otherwise be flat spacetime if you consider how their electrical and magnetic fields might interact. And so Frolov, Krtouš, and Zelnikov decided to consider two types of such wormholes: “a wormhole connecting to flat spaces; and a wormhole connecting two distant domains in the same space”. For the latter, they concluded that if a “massive thin shell” surrounded one of the mouths of the ring wormhole, a “closed timelike curve” would form. This, as the name suggests, would mean that any travelling object (or ray of light) would come back to the exact same point whence it began. In other words, you could travel in space and time and return to your point of departure. The most exciting aspect of ring wormholes, as the authors point out is that: “For the ring wormhole an observer passing through it moves in a flat (or practically flat spacetime), while in the case of ‘standard’ (spherical) wormholes he/she should pass a domain filled with the matter violating the null energy condition.” Even without knowing what the “null energy condition” is, you can appreciate that the first option sounds a lot simpler. Now, before you start calling yourself Marty McFly or making a list of all the past mistakes you’d like to correct, we should stress that we’re a long way off seeing the creation of a bonafide, buckle-your-seatbelt time machine. But at least, thanks to the efforts of experts like Frolov, Krtouš, and Zelnikov, we’re at least one step closer to going back in the future. 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.

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Toyota has revealed plans for a next-generation electric vehicle battery capable of delivering close to 1,500 kilometres (932 miles) of range. The Japanese automotive giant said it aims to produce the commercial solid-state battery by 2027, claiming that it will have a charge time of just 10 minutes. “With the evolution of the vehicle’s operating system, the next-generation battery EV will also enable customization of the ‘driving feel,’ with a focus on acceleration, turning and stopping,” the company said in a technology briefing. The company said that several recent breakthroughs with battery technology meant it was ready to move from the research stage to production of solid-state batteries, which offer a number of advantages over lithium-ion batteries that are currently used in commercial electric cars. Despite range and charging limitations of lithium-ion batteries, they have been favoured over solid-state batteries due to cost and durability issues. Toyota claimed that a “technological breakthrough” had overcome these issues, though did not specify which. The company said it would continue to push forward development of lithium-ion batteries, with plans for a more efficient battery capable of 1,000km of range – nearly double that of the long-range version of Tesla’s Model Y. Lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) batteries will also be developed as a lower cost alternative to lithium-ion and solid-state batteries, Toyota said. Other innovations unrelated to batteries that were detailed in the briefing included aerodynamic technology “based on rocket hypersonic aerodynamics”, as well as manufacturing upgrades designed to reduce costs. Among these is a production process called Giga casting, which was pioneered by Tesla in order to streamline the manufacturing of electric vehicles. Toyota President Koji Sato has previously said that the company had fallen behind in the EV sector and was forced to play catchup. The latest announcement saw Toyota’s share price jump to its highest level since last August. Read More Solar trees offer unique solution to charging electric cars Electric car drives for 100 hours non-stop on futuristic road Three and Vodafone are merging. Here’s what that means for your phone EU makes major statement on the future of Google Reddit’s blackout protest is set to continue indefinitely

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In a 13-minute long video, Nas Daily and Alyne Tamir expanded on how different priorities and goals did not allow them to be compatible