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The report, produced by a committee of 16 experts from diverse fields, does not take a position but concludes that the concept should be studied. It calls for creating a multidisciplinary research program, in coordination with other countries and managed by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, that seeks to fill in the many knowledge gaps on this issue. The study emphasizes that such research is not a substitute for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and should be a minor part of the U....

Fitness bands and watches have thrown around numbers at our faces and motivate us to be more healthy. All these smart wearables have two primary measures: the number of steps taken and the number of active calories burnt in a day. Apple pioneered the system to display three rings for calories, steps, and standing. It edges you to complete them out for the day to feel we’ve been active enough....

The company has tied up with several local merchants to let customers chat with them and easily make payments. You have to add your debit or debit-enabled combo card just once to start transacting with your friends and businesses. For now, the company will support debit or credit cards from Banco do Brasil, Nubank, and Sicredi on the Visa and Mastercard networks. The chat apps said sending money or making purchases on WhatsApp is free for individual users: In future, WhatsApp wants to enable people using a single card across Facebook’s family of services....

Meanwhile, many users are increasingly aware of how much time they are spending staring and tapping at their favorite apps. Apple has even made users more aware of just how much time they are spending on their phones with their iOS 12 update. In the face of these emerging trends, it seems like the perfect time to ask how mobile apps should focus on enhancing and supplementing existing real-world experiences, rather than replacing them....

If you didn’t just leap out of your seat, that’s okay. The science community’s been teasing fusion for decades and, like a lot of technologies, it’s always about another decade away. But here’s the thing: this time really is different. There are numerous fusion projects closing in on “ignition,” the point where a reactor produces more power than it takes to run. We might really be a decade away from a useful fusion reactor....

The response was overwhelmingly positive. Since then the Thoughtful Marketing Movement has blossomed, and 130 businesses have signed up, with marketers sharing their ideas on how to be more empathetic. Empathy is becoming ever more important to individuals, communities, and organizations. Two years ago, Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella said empathy is one of the key sources of innovation. At TNW2020, Jacob Andreou, VP of Product at Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, hosted a panel called ”Leading with empathy....

New Horizons took only a handful of minutes to fly past the object at its closest approach of about 3,500km – but those minutes were well spent, recording a huge amount of information. It has taken many months to download the data from the spacecraft because of its distance from Earth and the slow rate of data transfer. Now, though, a series of papers from the mission team, published in Science (see here and here), illustrate what can be learned with a few minutes of carefully planned and coordinated recording time....

As of August this year, Windows XP still maintained a greater market share than its successor, Windows Vista. When mainstream support for XP ended in April 2009, it was running on a huge 75% of Windows computers and about 19% of people were still using XP when extended security support finished in 2014. Microsoft provided security support in a few special cases, such as for military use, until 2019 — an incredible 18 years after the initial release....

If you have any responsibility for a brand or play any role in marketing, then you know about search engine optimization (SEO). And you probably know that deft use of SEO practices can draw a straight line from you and your product to heightened web exposure and higher sales. Google drives over 2.5 trillion web searches a year and controls over 86 percent of the search engine market. And the top ranked item in any Google search gets clicked almost a third of the time....

The Netherlands plays host to a number of apparent alternatives. For one, there’s Adyen, the Amsterdam-based payments provider. Adyen is a publicly traded stock, and its share price is up a teeth-grinding 112% this year. There’s also fellow Amsterdam native Mollie, which just reached unicorn status with its latest $106 million funding round. Mollie is still a private company, yet to undergo an IPO. Just like Wirecard, consumers could be unaware these companies increasingly power everyday ecommerce....

One day, all trucks will be electric. But it won’t be soon. Still, they still struggle with a number of big-ass painpoints: cost, range anxiety, and the need for charging infrastructure. But what if there was a way to not have to worry about charging your pickup truck on a sunny day? The solution just might be solar. Don’t get too excited, no one’s offering a fully functional solar truck....

To reduce light diffraction while taking selfies, the company has used a new transparent curved wiring Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) material in the circuit. All of these techniques sound similar to Oppo’s newly revealed prototype under-the-screen camera tech. But Xiaomi is the first one going to market with it. Apart from the under-the-screen camera tech, the phone also has some neat features such as ceramic unibody design, and support for 120W fast charging....

Who goes to Disneyland just to buy overpriced souvenirs aimed at drooling tourists? Normally that sentence would have answered the question it asked. But the opportunity to relive the best part of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic – designing and building your own Lightsaber – and/or step into Anakin Skywalker’s shoes by building your own Droid might make a trip to the happiest place on Earth a bit more appealing for Jedi and Sith alike....

Zapier was remote before it was cool/mandatory. We’ve been running on video calls for almost a decade, and we’re all big end-of-meeting wavers. I did a quick Slack poll (which was unnecessary because I already know that every call here ends with a lot of waving), and the group unanimously favors waving. I literally can’t remember the last time we all agreed on anything — it’s possible it’s never happened before....

The problem is that traditional lingerie and sports clothing stores have long offered standard sizes, fabrics, designs, and capabilities, with little chance for customization. Industry giants like Victoria’s Secret are now seeing major criticism and declining sales numbers due to the demand for lingerie that isn’t just sexy but also designed for different shapes, activities, functions, and, most importantly, comfort. The relative lack of innovation in the bra industry and high demand (it’s set to reach $30....

The firm is pricing the service at $49.99 per year as an introductory offer, and aims to change it to $84 at an unspecified time. The launch price is close to what some other services such as Apple TV+ ($4.99 per month) charge. But if you and your family are fans of south asian content in various languages, it’s probably worth it. Zee Entertainment Enterprises launched Zee5 in India in 2018 with content in 12 languages....

Zoom CEO Eric Yuan today said that the video conferencing app’s upcoming end-to-end encryption feature will be available to only paid users. After announcing the company’s financial results for Q1 2020, Yuan said the firm wants to keep this feature away from free users to work with law enforcement in case of the app’s misuse: In the past, platforms with end-to-end encryption, such as WhatsApp, have faced heavy scrutiny in many countries because they were unable to trace the origins of problematic and misleading messages....

You can share NFTs on your feed, in stories, and in messages. But for now, you have to be in the US and you have to be one of the “handful of creators and collectors” chosen by Instagram to use the feature. So much for decentralization, eh? Instagram’s head, Adam Mosseri, said in a video that you’ll be able to see NFTs with a “digital collectibles” tag. If you tap on it, you’ll see details like a description of the NFT, the name of the creator, and the owner....

In new guidelines posted on its website, the Cupertino giant says that “[s]ome fabrics, like leather and denim, might cause permanent discoloration that will not wash off.” This basically means that your elegant leather wallet and cool denim jeans’ pockets might not be the best place to keep the Apple Card. Instead, the iPhone-maker advises carrying it “in a wallet, pocket, or bag made of soft materials.” You also shouldn’t place it directly next to other cards....

With this growth has come renewed scrutiny, with critics attacking Bitcoin in particular as a speculative bubble that uses vast amounts of electricity and produces no real value. A new cryptocurrency called Chia, which has just begun trading, sets out to remedy these flaws while upholding cryptocurrency’s promise of a secure, decentralized form of payment. Chia is the brainchild of Bram Cohen, who invented the BitTorrent peer-to-peer filesharing system. He claims it will be more reliable than other cryptocurrencies, and more environmentally friendly too....