Technology News

Get 10% off a website or domain, on any plan, with this exclusive Squarespace promo code from WIRED. Save on your next big project this November.

The European Commission announced Thursday it plans to sign a contract with the continent's leading space companies before the end of the year to begin development of a 290-satellite broadband Internet network estimated to cost more than 10 billion euros (about $10.9 billion).

The press release announcing the contract award to IRIS²—known as Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite—did not specify the financial details of the agreement, but European media has widely reported the 10 billion euro cost. The commission's decision follows an evaluation of the best-and-final offer from the SpaceRISE consortium formed by European satellite network operators SES, Eutelsat, and Hispasat.

We’ll do it ourselves

The European Commission, the European Union's executive arm, is managing the IRIS² program, which will also receive funding from the European Space Agency and European industry in a public-private partnership. European governments previously expected to provide around 60 percent of the funding for the initiative. Under that plan, European industry would supply roughly 40 percent of the money in a public-private partnership. The specifics of the final cost-sharing arrangement were not available Thursday.

Read full article

Comments

Earlier this week, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. used a Zoom call to tell his supporters that Donald Trump had promised him "control" of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the federal agency that includes the Centers for Disease Control, Food and Drug Administration, National Institutes of Health, as well as the Department of Agriculture. Given Kennedy's support for debunked anti-vaccine nonsense, this represents a potential public health nightmare.

A few days after, Howard Lutnick, a co-chair of Trump's transition team, appeared on CNN to deny that RFK Jr. would be put in charge of HHS. But he followed that with a long rant in which he echoed Kennedy's spurious claims about vaccines. This provides yet another indication of how anti-vaccine activism has become deeply enmeshed with Republican politics, to the point where it may be just as bad even if Kennedy isn't appointed.

Trump as Kennedy’s route to power

Kennedy has a long history of misinformation regarding health, with a special focus on vaccines. This includes the extensively debunked suggestion that there is a correlation between vaccinations and autism incidence, and it extends to a general skepticism about vaccine safety. That's mixed with conspiracy theories regarding collusion between federal regulators and pharmaceutical companies.

Read full article

Comments

There's a lot going on in the world of Mac apps for popular AI services. In the past week, Anthropic has released a desktop app for its popular Claude chatbot, and Perplexity launched a native app for its AI-driven search service.

On top of that, OpenAI updated its ChatGPT Mac app with support for its flashy advanced voice feature.

Like the ChatGPT app that debuted several weeks ago, the Perplexity app adds a keyboard shortcut that allows you to enter a query from anywhere on your desktop. You can use the app to ask follow-up questions and carry on a conversation about what it finds.

Read full article

Comments

The Colorado Department of State said it accidentally posted a spreadsheet containing "partial passwords" for voting systems. The department said there is no "immediate security threat" because two passwords are needed for each component, but it is trying to complete password changes by the end of today. There were reportedly hundreds of BIOS passwords accessible on the website for over two months before being removed last week.

A government statement issued Tuesday said the agency "is aware that a spreadsheet located on the Department's website improperly included a hidden tab including partial passwords to certain components of Colorado voting systems. This does not pose an immediate security threat to Colorado's elections, nor will it impact how ballots are counted."

Secretary of State Jena Griswold told Colorado Public Radio that they "do not think there is an immediate security threat to Colorado elections, in part because partial passwords don't get you anywhere. Two unique passwords are needed for every election equipment component. Physical access is needed. And under Colorado law, voting equipment is stored in secure rooms that require secure ID badges. There's 24/7 video cameras. There's restricted access to the secure ballot areas, strict chain of custody, and it's a felony to access voting equipment without authorization."

Read full article

Comments

You might think that since Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (which was released last Friday) is the 21st game in the franchise, it wouldn't be that highly anticipated. You'd be wrong. Last week's entry set multiple records when it launched.

Specifically, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the game set new records for Game Pass subscribers, particularly for a first-day game launch. That's, of course, to be expected—Call of Duty was a major reason why Microsoft acquired Activision, the longtime publisher of the series.

It gets a little zanier, though. The Internet service provider Comcast says Black Ops 6 was directly responsible for 19 percent of its overall traffic the week of the launch, according to a report in The Verge.

Read full article

Comments

Residents in the Southwest District Health in Idaho are no longer able to get COVID-19 vaccines from public health clinics after the district's board of directors voted 4–3 recently to stop administering the shot.

The vote came during a hearing swamped by misinformation and conspiracy theories about the lifesaving vaccines. It's a chilling reminder of how dangerous anti-vaccine sentiment and misinformation have infested communities nationwide, causing vaccination rates to slip across the country and making way for deadly outbreaks of preventable diseases.

Safety net

In a hearing last week, Perry Jansen, the health district’s medical director, gave the only presentation that favored keeping COVID-19 vaccines available through district clinics. He echoed the points that all health experts and major health organizations, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have pointed out for years: that COVID-19 vaccines have proven to be safe, lifesaving immunizations that are recommended for everyone ages 6 months and up.

Read full article

Comments

The richest man in the world appears to have worked in the US without authorization. According to experts, if he did so and lied about it as part of the immigration process, he could be denaturalized.

The group has nearly 50,000 members, many enthusiastically sharing debunked claims about voting fraud. “It's just an election denier jamboree,” says one expert.

What's the point of recruiting hundreds of thousands of X users to fact-check misleading posts before they go viral if those users' accurate Community Notes are never displayed?

That's the question the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) is asking after digging through a million notes in a public X dataset to find out how many misleading claims spreading widely on X about the US election weren't quickly fact-checked.

In a report, the CCDH flagged 283 misleading X posts fueling election disinformation spread this year that never displayed a Community Note. Of these, 74 percent were found to have accurate notes proposed but ultimately never displayed—apparently due to toxic X users gaming Community Notes to hide information they politically disagree with.

Read full article

Comments

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he’ll make big changes in the US government if Donald Trump is elected. He may find them hard to pull off, no matter what position he’s appointed to.

The Franchise, The Penguin, and It's Florida, Man are just a few of the shows you need to be watching on Max this month.

Halloween is upon us, which means costumes, candy, and settling in for a nice long night of scary movies. For those who crave a bit of humor with their blood-soaked scares, I've compiled a list of some of my favorite horror comedies for your viewing pleasure.

What constitutes a horror comedy? Is it merging classic creature features with goofy slapstick humor? Is it primarily super scary with a few notes of humor? Is the humor sharply satirical or primarily delivered by wisecracking characters? Is it parody? Or does good horror comedy go full meta, poking fun at the tropes while sneaking in incisive cultural commentary?

Horror comedy is all of those things and more, which is why picking films to include on this list proved so tricky. For instance, The Mummy (1999) features a classic monster, but it fits just as well in the action/comedy category, while Ghostbusters (1984) is pretty much straight-up comedy. Yet I could have included both on this list without too many complaints. In the end, I cut the list down to 20, opting for a sampler that features blockbusters, vintage films, cult classics, and contemporary offerings, each with its own unique mix of horror and comedic elements. Feel free to add your own favorites in the comments.

Read full article

Comments

Google's stated mission is to "organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful." For a very long time, then, it has been odd that one of its biggest platforms, Android, lacked for a real default weather app. You know, weather—the kind of information that's relevant to almost everybody, every single day and is one of humanity's default topics of conversation.

Android phones had, for a while, a "Weather" widget (and an icon inside the "At a Glance" widget) that essentially provided a framed webpage of useful weather data, accompanied by a plucky frog who illustrated the conditions. The frog was popular (even getting his own New Year's doodle), and the basic weather stats were useful. But it couldn't compare to Apple's weather, which nabbed the minute-by-minute precipitation of Dark Sky and ended its life on Android. There were lots of third-party weather apps—Ars staffers like RadarScope and Carrot Weather, for example—but it remained an odd choice for Google to mostly ignore the category.

Google, and its all-in AI obsession, cedes no longer. As suggested by Google in October, and spotted by blogs like 9to5Google, an honest-to-goodness weather app, named "Weather," is rolling out to Pixel phones model 6 and newer running Android 15, having started on the Pixel 9 models. As with most Android things, the rollout is gradual, and you may not have it right away; check that you're updated to the latest Android 15 and Play Services versions to clear the way.

Read full article

Comments

In the week leading up to the election, former state representative and gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams talks democracy, conspiracies, and Kamala Harris’ chance at winning Georgia.

More than 500 Amazon workers reportedly signed a letter to Amazon Web Services' (AWS) CEO this week, sharing their outrage over Amazon's upcoming return-to-office (RTO) policy that will force workers into offices five days per week.

In September, Amazon announced that starting in 2025, workers will no longer be allowed to work remotely twice a week. At the time, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the move would make it easier for workers "to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture."

Reuters reported today that it viewed a letter from a swath of workers sent to AWS chief Matt Garman on Wednesday regarding claims he reportedly made during an all-hands meeting this month. Garman reportedly told attendees that 9 out of 10 employees he spoke with support the five-day in-office work policy. The letter called the statements “inconsistent with the experiences of many employees” and “misrepresenting the realities of working at Amazon,” Reuters reported.

Read full article

Comments

Russia has fined Google an amount that no entity on the planet could pay in hopes of getting YouTube to lift bans on Russian channels, including pro-Kremlin and state-run news outlets.

The BBC wrote that a Russian court fined Google two undecillion rubles, which in dollar terms is $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. The amount "is far greater than the world's total GDP, which is estimated by the International Monetary Fund to be $110 trillion."

The fine is apparently that large because it was issued several years ago and has been repeatedly doubling. An RBC news report this week provided details on the court case from an anonymous source.

Read full article

Comments

Physical Intelligence, a well-funded startup chasing breakthroughs in robotic intelligence, has developed a robot capable of doing various household chores remarkably well.

Physical Intelligence, a well-funded startup chasing breakthroughs in robotic intelligence, has developed a robot capable of doing various household chores remarkably well.

OpenAI just launched its newest artificial intelligence search experience for ChatGPT. Here’s how to get the AI search update, and WIRED’s initial impressions.