Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the someone-call-Elizabeth-Holmes department: An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Proteins in the blood could warn people of cancer more than seven years before it is diagnosed, according to research [published in the journal Nature Communications]. Scientists at the University of Oxford studied blood samples from more than 44,000 people in the UK Biobank, including over 4,900 people who subsequently had a cancer diagnosis. They compared the proteins of people who did and did not go on to be diagnosed with cancer and identified 618 proteins linked to 19 types of cancer, including colon, lung, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and liver.

The study, funded by Cancer Research UK and published in Nature Communications, also found 107 proteins associated with cancers diagnosed more than seven years after the patient's blood sample was collected and 182 proteins that were strongly associated with a cancer diagnosis within three years. The authors concluded that some of these proteins could be used to detect cancer much earlier and potentially provide new treatment options, though further research was needed.
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the power-to-the-people department: Karl Bode writes via Techdirt: Tired of being underserved and overbilled by shitty regional broadband monopolies, back in 2002 a coalition of local Utah governments formed UTOPIA -- (the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency). The inter-local agency collaborative venture then set about building an "open access" fiber network that allows any ISP to then come and compete on the shared network. Two decades later and the coalition just announced that 18 different ISPs now compete for Utah resident attention over a network that now covers 21 different Utah cities. In many instances, ISPs on the network are offering symmetrical (uncapped) gigabit fiber for as little as $45 a month (plus $30 network connection fee, so $75). Some ISPs are even offering symmetrical 10 Gbps fiber for around $150 a month: "Sumo Fiber, a veteran member of the UTOPIA Open Access Marketplace, is now offering 10 Gbps symmetrical for $119, plus a $30 UTOPIA Fiber infrastructure fee, bringing the total cost to $149 per month."

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Posted by Black Convoy from TFW2005


Coming to us via @lamleygroup on Instagram and YouTube we can share for you our first in-hand images of the recently revealed Mattel Creations Hot Wheels Transformers Optimus Prime. This is an official sample sent by Mattel for review and we have a clear look a this unique transformable die-cast Hot Wheels Optimus Prime as well as his impressive packaging which is designed as a reversible box for you to display him in robot or alt mode. It will be up for pre-order on May 21, 2024 9am PT for $80.00 exclusively via Mattel Creations website. See the new images » Continue Reading.

The post Mattel Creations Hot Wheels Transformers Optimus Prime In-Hand Images appeared first on Transformer World 2005 - TFW2005.COM.
Posted by from MMO Champion
Cataclysm Expansion Recap - Patch by Patch

Blizzard has released a recap of Cataclysm's major storylines and features, including the new changes coming with the official launch on May 20.
Posted by from MMO Champion
Season of Discovery Developer Update - May 17

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Greetings,

The team has been hard at work on Season of Discovery and Cataclysm Classic. There’s a lot happening in Classic right now, and while we’ve been working incredibly hard, we’ve also been fairly quiet, so we felt it would be a good time to provide an update on a few things, including Season of Discovery Phase 4.

Phase 4 Release Update

Cutting straight to it, and as you have no doubt likely noticed, the World of Warcraft team has been delivering a lot of exciting content lately, and this will (of course) continue well through the next few months and beyond. As such, to land Phase 4 at just the right time, our current phase (Phase 3) is going to last longer than previous Season of Discovery content phases. We can’t share Phase 4’s release date just yet, and we know this news and the longer Phase 3 may be disappointing to some, but our timeline will ensure that our Classic team delivers an experience worthy of our players at the high-quality bar we are setting for ourselves.

We’re so very excited to share what’s next with you.

We also want to make sure that we take the time we need to deliver equally awesome experiences in both Season of Discovery and Cataclysm Classic, and give Cataclysm Classic’s launch the time it deserves to breathe, without players feeling the pressure of needing to choose between it and all of the other fun things that are happening in WoW right now. We understand our players love to plan, so we wanted to signal our intentions now and let you know that we intend to share the exact timing of Phase 4’s launch, and start discussing what it will include, as early as it is possible to do so.

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Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the welcome-back department: Western Digital has unveiled new 6TB external hard drives -- "the first new capacity point for this hard drive drive form factor in about seven years," reports Tom's Hardware. "There is a catch, though: the HDD is slow and will unlikely fit into any mobile PCs, so it looks like it will exclusively serve portable and specialized storage products." From the report: Western Digital's 6TB 2.5-inch HDD is currently used for the latest versions of the company's My Passport, Black P10, and G-Drive ArmorATD external storage devices and is not available separately. All of these drives (excluding the already very thick G-Drive ArmorATD) are thicker than their 5 TB predecessors, which may suggest that in a bid to increase the HDD's capacity, the manufacturer simply installed another platter and made the whole drive thicker instead of developing new platters with a higher areal density.

While this is a legitimate way to expand the capacity of a hard drive, it is necessary to note that 5TB 2.5-inch HDDs already feature a 15-mm z-height, which is the highest standard z-height for 2.5-inch form-factor storage devices. As a result, these 6TB 2.5-inch drives will unlikely fit into any desktop PC. When it comes to specifications of the latest My Passport, Black P10, and G-Drive ArmorATD external HDDs, Western Digital only discloses that they offer up to 130 MB/s read speed (just like their predecessors), feature a USB 3.2 Gen 1 (up to 5 GT/s) interface using either a modern USB Type-C or Micro USB Type-B connector and do not require an external power adapter.
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the bleak-and-surreal department: An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian, written by Caroline Haskins: On May 7th and 8th in Washington, D.C., the city's biggest convention hall welcomed America's military-industrial complex, its top technology companies and its most outspoken justifiers of war crimes. Of course, that's not how they would describe it. It was the inaugural "AI Expo for National Competitiveness," hosted by the Special Competitive Studies Project -- better known as the "techno-economic" thinktank created by the former Google CEO and current billionaire Eric Schmidt. The conference's lead sponsor was Palantir, a software company co-founded by Peter Thiel that's best known for inspiring 2019 protests against its work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) at the height of Trump's family separation policy. Currently, Palantir is supplying some of its AI products to the Israel Defense Forces.

The conference hall was also filled with booths representing the U.S. military and dozens of its contractors, ranging from Booz Allen Hamilton to a random company that was described to me as Uber for airplane software. At industry conferences like these, powerful people tend to be more unfiltered – they assume they're in a safe space, among friends and peers. I was curious, what would they say about the AI-powered violence in Gaza, or what they think is the future of war?

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Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the there's-no-escaping-it department: Emilia David reports via The Verge: OpenAI has signed a deal for access to real-time content from Reddit's data API, which means it can surface discussions from the site within ChatGPT and other new products. It's an agreement similar to the one Reddit signed with Google earlier this year that was reportedly worth $60 million. The deal will also "enable Reddit to bring new AI-powered features to Redditors and mods" and use OpenAI's large language models to build applications. OpenAI has also signed up to become an advertising partner on Reddit.

No financial terms were revealed in the blog post announcing the arrangement, and neither company mentioned training data, either. That last detail is different from the deal with Google, where Reddit explicitly stated it would give Google "more efficient ways to train models." There is, however, a disclosure mentioning that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is also a shareholder in Reddit but that "This partnership was led by OpenAI's COO and approved by its independent Board of Directors." "Reddit has become one of the internet's largest open archives of authentic, relevant, and always up-to-date human conversations about anything and everything. Including it in ChatGPT upholds our belief in a connected internet, helps people find more of what they're looking for, and helps new audiences find community on Reddit," Reddit CEO Steve Huffman says.

Reddit stock has jumped on news of the deal, rising 13% on Friday to $63.64. As Reuters notes, it's "within striking distance of the record closing price of $65.11 hit in late-March, putting the company on track to add $1.2 billion to its market capitalization."
Posted by Zack Zwiezen from Kotaku
The people behind the immensely popular iOS retro game emulator, Delta, have been forced to quickly change the app’s logo after receiving legal threats from Adobe and warnings from Apple.

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Cataclysm Cinematic Remaster 2024-05-17 15:00:02
Posted by from MMO Champion
Cataclysm Cinematic Remaster

Blizzard has uploaded a 4K remaster of the original Cataclysm Cinematic Trailer.
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the dangerous-precedents department: In what's marked as an EU first, the French government has blocked TikTok in its territory of New Caledonia amid widespread pro-independence protests. Politico reports: A French draft law, passed Monday, would let citizens vote in local elections after 10 years' residency in New Caledonia, prompting opposition from independence activists worried it will dilute the representation of indigenous people. The violent demonstrations that have ensued in the South Pacific island of 270,000 have killed at least five people and injured hundreds. In response to the protests, the government suspended the popular video-sharing app -- owned by Beijing-based ByteDance and favored by young people -- as part of state-of-emergency measures alongside the deployment of troops and an initial 12-day curfew.

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal didn't detail the reasons for shutting down the platform. The local telecom regulator began blocking the app earlier on Wednesday. "It is regrettable that an administrative decision to suspend TikTok's service has been taken on the territory of New Caledonia, without any questions or requests to remove content from the New Caledonian authorities or the French government," a TikTok spokesperson said. "Our security teams are monitoring the situation very closely and ensuring that our platform remains safe for our users. We are ready to engage in discussions with the authorities."

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Bloom Filter 2024-05-17 14:50:01
Posted by Randall Munroe from XKCD
Sometimes, you can tell Bloom filters are the wrong tool for the job, but when they're the right one you can never be sure.
Posted by Timothy Monbleau from Kotaku
Animal Well is a very puzzle-driven game, and solving those puzzles often requires creative use of the items in your inventory. However, Animal Well also contains some standalone brainteasers that even a full set of tools can’t overcome. Take, for instance, the three-lever wave chart puzzle you’ll encounter in the…

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Posted by Zack Zwiezen from Kotaku
Following the release of Amazon’s live-action Fallout TV show, it seems everyone is playing a Fallout game again. Even Fortnite is adding Fallout content soon. It seems like the post-apocalyptic franchise is bigger than ever thanks to the recently released hit series.

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Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the changing-with-the-times department: An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has adopted amendments to Regulation S-P that require certain financial institutions to disclose data breach incidents to impacted individuals within 30 days of discovery. Regulation S-P was introduced in 2000 and controls how some financial entities must treat nonpublic personal information belonging to consumers. These rules include developing and implementing data protection policies, confidentiality and security assurances, and protecting against anticipated threats.

The new amendments (PDF) adopted earlier this week impact financial firms, such as broker-dealers (funding portals included), investment firms, registered investment advisers, and transfer agents. The modifications were initially proposed in March of last year to modernize and improve the protection of individual financial information from data breaches and exposure to non-affiliated parties. Below is a summary of the introduced changes:

- Notify affected individuals within 30 days if their sensitive information is, or is likely to be, accessed or used without authorization, detailing the incident, breached data, and protective measures taken. Exemption applies if the information isn't expected to cause substantial harm or inconvenience to the exposed individuals.
- Develop, implement, and maintain written policies and procedures for an incident response program to detect, respond to, and recover from unauthorized access or use of customer information. This should include procedures to assess and contain security incidents, enforce policies, and oversee service providers.
- Expand safeguards and disposal rules to cover all nonpublic personal information, including that received from other financial institutions.
- Require documentation of compliance with safeguards and disposal rules, excluding funding portals.
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Posted by Ethan Gach from Kotaku
Recipes are always lying about how long they take. Forty-five minutes to prep a lasagna. Twenty minutes to caramelize some onions. Fifteen minutes to bake cookies. Except in the case of cookie baking speedrunners, that’s actually not as outrageous as it sounds. In fact, it’s way longer than it took Twitch streamer…

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Posted by Kenneth Shepard, Carolyn Petit, Willa Rowe, and Zack Zwiezen from Kotaku
Assassin’s Creed Shadows is adding two new heroes to the pantheon of brave and stealthy killers that span the centuries of the series’ historical fiction. One is Naoe, a ninja who will don the hood and hidden blade commonly associated with the titular Assassins of Ubisoft’s open-world action franchise. The other is Y…

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Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the scrutiny-intensifies department: The head of Canada's Security Intelligence Service warned Canadians against using video app TikTok, saying data gleaned from its users "is available to the government of China," CBC News reported on Friday. From a report: "My answer as director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) is that there is a very clear strategy on the part of the government of China to be able to acquire personal information from anyone around the world," CSIS Director David Vigneault told CBC in an interview set to air on Saturday.

"These assertions are unsupported by evidence, and the fact is that TikTok has never shared Canadian user data with the Chinese government, nor would we if asked," a TikTok spokesperson said in response to a request for comment. Canada in September ordered a national security review of a proposal by TikTok to expand the short-video app's business in the country. Vigneault said he will take part in that review and offer advice, CBC reported.
Posted by Claire Jackson from Kotaku
One of the joys of the original Final Fantasy VII is unlocking everyone’s limit breaks and finding all of their weapons. But one character needs to gather all of her best stuff before she departs the party for good, that being our beloved flower girl, Aerith (or Aeris, as we’re talking about the original game here).

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Posted by Timothy Monbleau from Kotaku
Animal Well is a game that communicates almost exclusively in riddles, even when it comes to its core gameplay mechanics. Take fast travel, for example. At the start of your journey, you might wonder if fast travel is even possible. You don’t even get a map until you’ve explored the opening sections of the game, so…

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