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Apple Watch to come without a charging plug in the box, Apple says – and iPhone 12 likely to do the same
The Apple Watch will come without its charging plug, Apple has said – and the iPhone 12 is likely to do the same.The company will continue to ship the wire and small puck that sits on the back of the Watch while it is charging. But it will no longer sell the small brick that plugs into a wall socket and allows that USB wire to be plugged in for charging.Apple said it had made the decision for environmental reasons. Given that so many people already have the chargers from previous phones, watches and other devices, it does not feel the need to increase its environmental footprint by including the plug within the box, it said.Lisa Jackson, Apple’s head of sustainability, said that it had made the decision because it’s “not what we make, but what we don’t make that counts”. He said that the change would be the equivalent of having 50,000 fewer cars on the roads.Excluding the charging plug also presumably cuts down the cost of making the Watch, as well as allowing for a reduction in the size of the box needed to ship it.Watch moreRumours have already suggested that Apple will make the same move with the upcoming iPhone 12. The decision to remove it from the Apple Watch could indicate those rumours are true, and all of the arguments apply equally to removing the plug from the box of the iPhone too.Apple says its 18-watt power adapter through its store, for £29 each.In addition to coming without the brick, rumours suggest that the iPhone 12 – or the four phones likely to come under that name – will include an entirely new design, a LiDAR sensor for mapping 3D environments, as well as other improvements.
Garmin Forerunner 745: New triathlon smartwatch launched that tells you when and how to work out
Garmin has launched a new smartwatch, the Forerunner 745, that will tell you when to work out.It is the first of the company’s trackers that not only gathers data while out running, but uses that information to recommend whether and how intensely its owner should exercise.In addition to those tools, the watch brings a host of features, including a blood oxygen monitor. A similar feature is already present in many of Garmin’s higher-end watches, and has just been introduced to the Apple Watch with the new Series 6.The blood oxygen sensor, which Garmin calls Pulse Ox, is intended to allow people to see how well they are sleeping, and whether they have adjusted to changes in altitude. The watch is intended to be worn all the time to collect such information, as well as to power other features such as the “Body Battery” tool which can show an estimate of how run down its owner is.The Forerunner 745 replaces the 735XT, Garmin’s triathlon watch that has not been updated for four years. As such, it brings a variety of features that have been present in other, more recently released Garmin watches, such as music storage and contactless payments, as well as new fitness tools.Read moreIt also adds features that have not been present in other watches from the company: it can now recognise track workouts specifically to gather better location data, as well as being able to suggest how intensely people should work out or if they should take a rest day.As well as releasing the new watch, Garmin also revealed its new HRM-Pro, a heart rate tracker that goes around the chest. It can also monitor running metrics such as cadence, cycling information such as how long you spend standing, and can go under water for tracking while swimming.
Nasa spots first ever planet orbiting around its sun's corpse
Nasa believes it has found the first ever planet to be closely orbiting around a white dwarf, the leftover of its once Sun-like star.Some researchers had previously believed that such a search would be fruitless, given that the creation of the white dwarf was expected to destroy any planets that came too close.But new data from Nasa’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and its retired Spitzer Space Telescope appear to indicate that the planet known as WD 1856 b is intact and in close orbit around its star.The huge planet – much larger than the star that it orbits around – could offer a hint at what the future of Earth might look like, as well as prompting excitement about the possibility of life on other, similar planets elsewhere in the universe.”WD 1856 b somehow got very close to its white dwarf and managed to stay in one piece,” said Andrew Vanderburg, an assistant professor of astronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The white dwarf creation process destroys nearby planets, and anything that later gets too close is usually torn apart by the star’s immense gravity.”We still have many questions about how WD 1856 b arrived at its current location without meeting one of those fates.”Watch moreUsually, when a star like our Sun runs out of fuel, it starts to swell up, going to hundreds of thousands of times its previous size, and turns into a cooler red giant. The gas is then thrown out into space, which causes it to shrink down again, casting out 80 per cent of its mass and leaving the remnants behind in the form of a white dwarf.When that happens, anything that is nearby is usually engulfed and burned away. If WD 1856 b was as close to the star as it is today, it would have suffered the same fate – but researchers speculate that it actually began about 50 times further away, and was pulled in.”We’ve known for a long time that after white dwarfs are born, distant small objects such as asteroids and comets can scatter inward towards these stars. They’re usually pulled apart by a white dwarf’s strong gravity and turn into a debris disk,” said co-author Siyi Xu, an assistant astronomer at the international Gemini Observatory in Hilo, Hawaii, which is a program of the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab.”We’ve seen hints that planets could scatter inward, too, but this appears to be the first time we’ve seen a planet that made the whole journey intact.”WD 1856 b is thought to be no more than 14 times the size of Jupiter, based on the information they were able to gather as it passed in front of the star, as well as the age of the white dwarf itself. Further research is required to confirm that conclusion and allow scientists to decisively know that they have spotted the first such example of a planet in close orbit around a white dwarf.But it has already led researchers to speculate that if planets are able to survive that dramatic journey, there may be more rocky, Earth-sized planets waiting out there to be found – and that the conditions in orbit around a white dwarf could be favourable to alien life.”Even more impressively, Webb could detect gas combinations potentially indicating biological activity on such a world in as few as 25 transits,” said Lisa Kaltenegger, the director of Cornell’s Carl Sagan Institute and an author on the paper.”WD 1856 b suggests planets may survive white dwarfs’ chaotic histories. In the right conditions, those worlds could maintain conditions favorable for life longer than the time scale predicted for Earth. Now we can explore many new intriguing possibilities for worlds orbiting these dead stellar cores.”An article describing the research, ‘A Giant Planet Candidate Transiting a White Dwarf’, is published in Nature today.
Alert issued to universities about spike in cyber attacks
British universities and colleges have been warned about a spike in ransomware attacks targeting the education sector by the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), a part of GCHQ.
Academic institutions are being urged to follow NCSC guidance following a sharp increase in attacks which have left some teachers fearing they won’t be able to accept students when term begins.
Last week staff at Newcastle University warned Sky News they had “no idea how we are going to welcome students in three weeks’ time” following one such ransomware attack, which has impacted IT services across the whole university.
Image: Newcastle has been ‘completely crippled’ by an attack. Pic: Newcastle Uni
Similar attacks in which criminal hackers infiltrated computer networks and stole data before encrypting the machines and demanding a ransom payment to unlock them again, have hit Northumbria University, Bolton Sixth Form College, Leeds City College and others in August alone.
Speaking to Sky News, NCSC’s director of operations Paul Chichester said the agency had seen an increase in the “utterly reprehensible” attacks over the past 18 months and was concerned they would disrupt young people’s education.
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There are more than a dozen criminal groups which are currently earning millions by encrypting their victim’s computer networks and then leaking stolen documents online to pressure the victims into paying up.
Brett Callow, a senior researcher at cyber security company Emsisoft which specialises in these incidents, told Sky News “the fact that many ransomware groups now routinely steal data, using the threat of releasing or auctioning it as additional leverage to extort payment compounds the problem”.
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He added: “This means that ransomware incidents are no longer simply costly and disruptive inconveniences; they’re now data breaches and expose organisations to multiple potential problems from the loss of intellectual property to regulatory penalties.”
He warned that the demands being made by the criminals are steadily increasing as well, encouraged by the high rewards available for successful attacks.
“The average demand is currently somewhere between $150k and $250k, with the highest demand to date being a staggering $42 million,” Mr Callow said.
Image: Ransomware attacks against education institutions have risen sharply
“Our advice is always not to pay the ransom,” said the NCSC’s Paul Chichester. “We don’t believe that ultimately helps.”
Instead he encouraged any victims to reach out to the NCSC, or the National Crime Agency, or to regional organised crime units, all of whom have expertise is dealing with cyber attacks.
“Help is there. It can feel really isolating as a victim when you receive these extortion messages – but I would really strong advise organisations when they are hit by a ransomware attack to please report it.
“We are there to help, advise and guide you on the way to respond to these things.”
The NCSC’s guidance for organisations on defending against ransomware attacks is available here.
Kim Kardashian freezes Instagram account in protest against 'hate and misinformation'
Kim Kardashian West is shunning the social media site that helped make her a star – freezing her Instagram account for the day.
She is among a group of celebrities who have paused their Insta and Facebook feeds for 24 hours, protesting against the spread of “hate, propaganda and misinformation”.
Kardashian, who has more than 218 million followers across the two social networking sites, announced her action in posts on both platforms.
She said she could not “sit by and stay silent” while content was “created by groups to sow division and split America apart”.
She said the platforms were allowing such information to be shared “only to take to the steps after people are killed”.
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Kardashian, who is currently in training to become a lawyer, went on: “Misinformation shared on social media has a serious impact on our elections and undermines our democracy.”
It is an important year for the US politically, with Donald Trump standing for re-election in November.
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Earlier this year, Kardashian’s husband rapper Kanye West attempted to join the presidential race but missed the deadline to register in key states.
Other stars supporting the #StopHateForProfit campaign include pop star Katy Perry, actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.
Image: Perry quoted George Orwell in her stand against fake news
They are calling on Facebook, which owns both platforms, to do more to stop hate speech and disinformation, and called on their fans to follow their lead in freezing their accounts for the day.
Perry, who recently announced the birth her first child with British actor Orlando Bloom via social media, quoted British novelist George Orwell in her Instagram post, writing: “In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
Baron Cohen shared an image on Twitter, showing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg with his face covered in white sunscreen while surfing.
The only thing more terrifying than Mark Zuckerberg surfing in whiteface…Is the white supremacy and lies Facebook spreads every day.This Weds Sept 16 I’m freezing my Instagram to tell Mark to #StopHateForProfit.Who’s in?! pic.twitter.com/nM5VB9YVZd
— Sacha Baron Cohen (@SachaBaronCohen) September 14, 2020
The comic wrote: “The only thing more terrifying than Mark Zuckerberg surfing in whiteface… is the white supremacy and lies Facebook spreads every day.
“This Weds Sept 16 I’m freezing my Instagram to tell Mark to #StopHateForProfit. Who’s in?!”
Despite widespread support, some fans called the act “a stunt” and drew attention to the fact that, after 24 hours, the stars would be back posting as normal.
The Stop Hate For Profit campaign was launched in June, and since then thousands of businesses and major civil rights groups have signed up, including the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People and the Anti-Defamation League.
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In July, the campaign successfully persuaded 1,000 of Facebook’s advertisers, including Ben & Jerry’s and Puma, to temporarily pull their ads from the platform.
The earlier boycott led to a dramatic fall in Facebook’s shares, and US media reported that Zuckerberg’s personal net worth had taken a hit of over $7bn ($5.4bn).
Facebook has previously said it is taking steps to tackle disinformation online and said it will label potentially misleading posts to flag their news value (or lack of it).
Sky News has contacted Facebook and Instagram for comment.
World's oldest sperm found perfectly preserved after 100m years
Perfectly preserved sperm dating back 100 million years has been found trapped in amber.
The sperm – roughly 50 million years older than the previous oldest fossil record – belonged to an ostracod, a class of small crustacean that has been in existence for 450 million years. It was found in modern-day Myanmar.
Based on the fossil record and the behaviour of modern ostracod, the male used their fifth limb to transfer extraordinarily long but immotile sperm into the female.
The sperm was enormous too, being about 4.6 times the length of the female’s body.
“This is equivalent to about 7.3m (23ft) in a 1.7m (5.5ft) human,” said Dr Renate Matzke-Karasz of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
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Sadly for the two little critters, they were enveloped by tree resin while in the throes of passion.
This resin fossilised into amber, preserving not just the lovers but dozens of other ostracods.
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Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences were able to use X-rays to obtain high-resolution images of the remarkably well-preserved soft parts of the ostracods.
These images provided direct evidence of the male clasper, the sperm pumps, the hemipenes (they had two penises) as well as the female’s eggs and seminal receptacles (they had two of these as well) which contained the giant sperm.
Fascinatingly, research has revealed that sexual behaviour in ostracods, which features a wide number of morphological adaptations, has remained pretty much unchanged over the past 100 million years.
There are a number of conflicting theories about what the evolutionary value of such long sperm would be, according to Dr Matzke-Karasz.
“For example, experiments have shown that in one group, a high degree of competition between males can lead to a longer sperm life, while in another group, a low degree of competition also led to a longer sperm life,” she added.
Whatever the mechanism, the findings reveal “that reproduction with giant sperm is not an evolutionary extravagance on the brink of extinction, but a serious long-term advantage for the survival of a species,” Dr Matzke-Karasz concluded.
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