El famoso incidente de Gormogon Puede que se lleve la palma como la peor historia de “Bones”. Según algunos miembros del elenco, pero es “El fantasma en la máquina”, otro showrunner de la temporada 8, como “El diamante en bruto”, el que Ocupa el último lugar en IMDb (Por el valor que le pongas). Coescrito por Hanson, “Ghost” es el mayor fracaso que jamás haya visto el programa Desde una perspectiva puramente estilística. El episodio se desarrolla casi en su totalidad desde el punto de vista del cráneo de la adolescente víctima de asesinato Colleen Gibson (Cameron DeFaria), lo que significa que obtenemos una gran cantidad de imágenes de la antropóloga forense Dra. Temperance “Bones” Brennan (Emily Deschanel), la FBI. El agente Seely Booth (David Boreanaz) y otros empleados del Instituto Jeffersonian miran o hablan directamente a la cámara.
Al igual que su predecesor espiritual en Fox, “The viceversa. The Ghost in the Machine en particular va más allá y plantea la cuestión de si la esencia de Colin (su alma, por así decirlo) todavía está unida a las partes en deterioro de su forma física y solo puede seguir adelante después de haber sido asesinado. Resuelto. No te explicaré exactamente cómo responder a esta pregunta, pero digamos que existe una gran posibilidad de que los momentos finales te dejen jadeando en voz alta o con ganas de tirar algo a la pared. A juzgar por las reseñas en IMDb, creo que muchos fans de “Bones” hicieron lo último cuando se emitió por primera vez.
“Bones” se transmite actualmente en Hulu y Amazon Prime Video.
The event also gave us a new Magic Keyboard for the iPad, which was a welcome inclusion, but there’s still one Apple accessory that I absolutely hate, and wish Apple would show some love to. Of course, I’m talking about the Magic Mouse.
The iconic Magic Mouse has remained virtually unchanged in terms of design since its release in 2009, and while it feels good to use thanks to its clean design and multi-touch gesture support, it’s frankly not a great mouse. Not only is it expensive, but it also lacks any side buttons, doesn’t utilize its multi-touch capabilities enough, and worst of all: the charging port is on the bottom!
Time for a redesign
With Apple making waves in the AI space as well as forging ahead with new silicon in the M4 chip, it’s about time that the humble Magic Mouse got a redesign. It doesn’t need to be anything huge; just accept that convenience is better than aesthetics and no mouse should be unusable while charging. I personally use a trusty Logitech G502 Lightspeed as my day-to-day mouse at home, which I can plug in and keep using whenever it runs low on battery.
Apple has something of a history of prioritizing form over function, from the lack of buttons on the 3rd-generation iPad Shuffle to the ridiculous charging method for the original Apple Pencil. The Magic Mouse is probably the most egregious example of this – having to flip the mouse upside down to charge it is just absurd, reducing its functionality for the sake of a ‘more perfect’ appearance. The long battery life is no excuse, Apple.
I’m hoping we’ll see an overhaul for the Magic Mouse – and possibly the Magic Keyboard for Mac, another (admittedly far superior) accessory that could also use a fresh look – at Apple’s WWDC 2024 event in June. With the M4 chip now officially revealed, we’re likely to see predictions of a new M4 Mac and MacBook lineup come true – so hopefully Mac accessories won’t be left behind.
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The Great Barrier Reef in Australia is undergoing its worst coral-bleaching event on record.Credit: David Gray/AFP via Getty
Australia’s iconic Great Barrier Reef is experiencing its fifth mass bleaching event in eight years — and this one is the worst on record. A report by the Australian government’s reef management agency analysed aerial surveys of 1,080 of the reef’s estimated 3,000 individual reefs, and some in-water surveys. Corals ‘bleach’ when stressed by warming waters brought on by climate change, expelling their colourful resident zooxanthellae. Marine biologist Terry Hughes says the solution to the bleaching problem is clear: “Reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Full stop.”
The laboratory stalwart Caenorhabditis elegansforgets new information a couple of hours after learning it — unless it is quickly put on ice. Worms trained to dislike a smell retained their aversion while chilled for many hours. Worms given lithium also hung onto their memories for longer than normal. “Why do they forget, when the worms are perfectly capable of maintaining the memories longer?” ponders geneticist and study co-author Oded Rechavi. “Perhaps there’s a reason for holding memories for the particular duration that they do.”
Hopes that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) would finally settle the debate over how fast the Universe is expanding were dashed after two teams that used JWST data calculated different values. Observations of the current Universe typically find the expansion rate — the Hubble constant — to be about 9% faster than predictions based on early-Universe data. Multiple techniques will need to agree before the disparity is resolved, says astronomer Wendy Freedman.
The top ten papers most-cited in policy documents worldwide are dominated by economics research: the number one most-referenced, with around 1,300 citations, is a 2003 study about the impact of trade. A list that excludes economics is topped by a 1990 book on the evolution of institutions by Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom and a 1997 paper about Earth’s natural capital. Paediatrician Peter Gluckman, former chief science adviser to New Zealand’s prime minister, is not surprised that the list includes broad-brush papers rather than those reporting incremental advances. “The thing that worries me most is the age of the papers that are involved,” he says — more recent work on climate change, food security and similar areas hasn’t made it onto the list.
A coalition of scientists has published a declaration that there is “a realistic possibility of conscious experience” in all vertebrates and in many invertebrates, such as octopuses and insects. The group focuses on sentience — an aspect of consciousness often defined as being able to have subjective experiences — pointing to research suggesting that octopuses feel pain and that bees show play behaviour. “When there is a realistic possibility of conscious experience in an animal, it is irresponsible to ignore that possibility in decisions affecting that animal,” says the declaration.
Some people experience intense visual imagery, called hyperphantasia, that means they can replay memories or imagine scenes that are as vivid as real life. Once thought to be rare, research now suggests as many as 1 in 30 people have such vivid imaginations. At the other end of the spectrum are people with ‘aphantasia’, who have no visual imagery at all. Science is just catching up with this neurodiversity and how it influences memory, childhood, and even mental health.
Physicists are finally getting to grips with the mysterious strong force, which binds quarks into protons and neutrons and holds the nucleus together. The physicists who made the first measurements in the range of distances where the strong force becomes especially strong and difficult to calculate, and came up with theoretical predictions to match, describe their breakthrough. We at last have the ability to calculate aspects of quantum chromodynamics — the fiendishly complex theory that describes how the force works — from first principles, write Alexandre Deur, Stanley Brodsky and Craig Roberts. It could lead to progress on a unifying theory of the universe and help us discover how many dimensions exist.
As CERN, Europe’s particle-physics laboratory, celebrates its 70th anniversary this year, researchers argue that its impact goes beyond its 23 member states and discoveries in particle physics. Advances made at CERN, including the development of the World Wide Web, have affected society as a whole. “I think it is a great model for international collaboration,” says physicist Rainer Wallny. “It has a lot of facilities available that are beyond the scope of individual user groups. No one has a particle accelerator in their backyard.” (Nature | 9 min read)
QUOTE OF THE DAY
Psychologist Naa Oyo Kwate reviews two new books — physician-scientist Uché Blackstock’s memoir Legacy and evolutionary historian Constance Hilliard’s Ancestral Genomics — and explores how racism steals time from Black people in the United States, harming their health and well-being. (Los Angeles Review of Books | 14 min read)
With contributions by Katrina Krämer, Smriti Mallapaty and Sarah Tomlin
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Windows 11 could conceivably get what surely everyone would regard as an unwelcome addition, or at least a very controversial change in terms of a potential new button for the taskbar that’s been uncovered in the innards of the desktop OS.
Apparently, Microsoft might just be mulling a ‘recommended’ button for the taskbar, and the theory is that it could surface various suggestions and thinly veiled adverts.
A new button is coming to the Windows 11 Taskbar right alongside system ones like Task View, Widgets, etc. It’s called “Recommended” & has all strings stripped from production, guess the UI team doesn’t want people to know. Concerned about recommendations becoming this integral😬 pic.twitter.com/XnvPhcGhvPApril 9, 2024
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The workings for such a button were discovered by well-known Microsoft leaker Albacore on X (formerly Twitter).
As Albacore makes clear, the button has had all its related strings (in the background) stripped from production builds, as if Microsoft’s team working on the interface wants to keep this as low-profile on the radar as possible.
As the leaker points out, the worry is that Microsoft is really thinking about making ‘suggestions,’ or nudges, recommendations, or whatever you want to call them, an integral part of the desktop, with a whole dedicated button on the taskbar.
Albacore notes that the description of the button is that it ‘controls visibility of recommendations on the taskbar’ and it’s filed under the term ‘taskbar sites,’ so the leaker theorizes that perhaps we could get website suggestions right on the taskbar, with the button’s icon changing to be the favicon of any given recommended site.
We’d further guess that maybe the idea would be to make these context-sensitive, so suggestions given would depend on what you’re doing in Windows 11 at the time – but that really is just guesswork.
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Analysis: Paying twice for Windows 11 isn’t fair
As Albacore observes, we can hope that this might just be a piece of work from times gone past which has been abandoned, but references to it are still hanging around in the background of Windows 11. It’s entirely possible nothing will come of this, in short, and even if Microsoft is currently exploring the idea, it might ditch the button before it even comes to testing.
Granted, even if a recommended taskbar button is realized, we’d assume that Windows 11 will come with the option to turn it off – but it’s still a worrying hint about the direction Microsoft is at least considering here with a future update. A dedicated button like this would be a huge move in the direction of what might be termed soft advertising (or nudging).
Sadly, a further recent development as highlighted by another leaker on X, PhantomOfEarth, is that the ‘Recommended’ section in Windows 11’s Start menu could be getting something called promoted apps.
Looks like the Start menu’s Recommended section will be getting app promotions, similar to suggested apps in Start in Windows 10. This can be toggled off from Settings (Show recommendations for tips, app promotions, and more). pic.twitter.com/zYYnTKs9qwApril 9, 2024
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These would be apps Microsoft is actively promoting – there’s no bones about the advertising here, this isn’t badging or nudging – and again, it’s a dangerous move that very much runs the risk of annoying Windows 11 users. (Albeit it can be switched off – and remember, this is only in testing so far).
Given all this, we very much get the feeling that advertising-focused recommendations along these lines is something Microsoft is seriously considering doing more of. And given the past history of the software giant, that’s not surprising.
If you recall, recommended websites in the Start menu has long been a controversial topic – Microsoft previously toyed with the idea, abandoned it, but then brought it back in again last year to the disbelief of many folks (ourselves included).
As we’ve discussed in-depth elsewhere, the pushy advertising around Microsoft’s Edge browser and Bing search has been taken to new and unacceptable levels in recent times.
How about we abandon this line of thinking entirely, Microsoft? Just stop with the incessant promotion of your own services, or indeed possibly third-party services or websites, within Windows 11. This is an operating system we, the users, pay for – so we shouldn’t have to suffer adverts in various parts of the Windows interface.
Either make Windows completely free and ad-supported, or charge for it, with no ads, suggestions, nudges, or other promotional tomfoolery to be seen anywhere in the OS. Or give us a choice of either route – but don’t make us pay twice for Windows 11, once with an initial lump sum fee to buy the OS, and then again with further ongoing monetization by way of a constant drip-feed of ads here, there and everywhere.
March 28, 1996: In a dire message to Wall Street, Apple warns that it will report a $700 million after-tax loss for its most recent quarter.
Apple’s biggest quarterly loss in history, the shocking news reveals a company in far more financial trouble than previously thought. More than half the loss comes from $1 billion of unsold products.
Apple’s worst quarter ever
The $700 million loss more than tripled Apple’s previous low-water mark, which occurred during the third quarter of 1993. (At that time, the company recorded a $188 million deficit.) In addition to unsold products, Cupertino faced two other key challenges: clone Macs and the company’s decision to slash its prices to remain competitive.
As I’ve noted before, the clone Macs — while making perfect sense in theory — turned out to be a disaster for Apple. Third-party manufacturers only paid Apple $50 as a licensing fee for each machine produced. This might have been good for Apple if clone Mac sales exploded overnight. However, the end result of the clones was not more Macs, but cheaper Macs.
The decision to slash Mac prices also proved dangerous, since Apple sustained much higher costs than most computer manufacturers due to its development of both hardware and software. As one final boot in the teeth, Apple underestimated the popularity of some of its new products. As a result, Cupertino simply could not deliver them in the quantities demanded.
Start of the Apple turnaround
While things certainly looked bad for Apple in the early days of 1996, reasons for optimism remained despite the company’s worst quarter ever. New Apple CEO Gil Amelio took the reins from previous CEO Michael Spindler, who got dumped following a failed merger attempt between Apple and Sun Microsystems.
Amelio previously built a reputation as a turnaround artist at National Semiconductor. As CEO there, he took a company that lost $320 million over four years and made it profitable. Amelio also possessed a strong engineering background, which made him one of the strongest technical people ever to run Apple.
“I’m confident at this point that I know what the problems are and that they are fixable,” Amelio said in a statement concerning Apple’s $700 million loss. “The strategic and operating plans we are currently developing will enable us to build upon Apple’s fundamental strengths and competitive position.”
Apple in the 1990s
On the ground, Apple products continued to do well. But being an Apple fan in the 1990s often proved frustrating. The picture seemed very different from how it looked at the top. Many local Mac retailers reported that the computers sold well. Even post-Windows 95, a gulf in quality existed between the seamless experience Apple delivered and what Windows users endured.
Before too long, Jobs started running Apple. Amelio got the boot, and one of the most famous turnarounds in tech history got underway.
Do you remember when Apple reported its worst quarter ever? Were you a fan, an Apple employee or someone who relied on Apple in some other capacity? Leave your comments below.
If I’ve learned nothing else from watching Netflix’s 3 Body Problem it’s that there are limits to what I want to experience in virtual reality.
I haven’t watched the full season of the sci-fi drama, which means I’m unlikely to spoil anything (but if you’d rather be careful, I suggest you stop reading now).
However, I’ve seen enough to be both blown away by the alien-built headset technology and also absolutely horrified by what this wearable gear can do.
For those who haven’t dipped into the show, which is based on an acclaimed novel, the story revolves, in part, around alien contact with inhabitants of a dying planet. We apparently reached out to them first, and they answered enthusiastically, and now seem to be enlisting humans in an effort to save their planet, possibly by destroying all of us.
The headset plays a crucial role in the plot in that it’s being used to recruit the earth’s brightest minds (or at least I thought it was).
Wear this at your peril
As a technologist, I have a habit of fixating on technology in TV and movies, even when it’s only there to advance the plot. I don’t think I’m alone in this, and I have good reason. When it comes to innovation, the past (or the future as depicted in the past) is prologue. Tom Cruises’ gesture-based computers in Minority Report presaged our own gesture-based, eye-tracking Apple Vision Pro. Most sci-fi films and movies hand characters ultra-thin transparent smartphones and tablets that are now starting to seem less like fantasy and more like near-term reality,
3 Body Problem’s headset, though, is not the same kind of near-future incremental tech fantasy. The metallic headsets are vastly more powerful than the best VR gear, including Meta Quest 3 and Apple‘s Vision Pro.
Sure, the show’s headset probably uses both eye- and gesture tracking but most of its best work appears to be at a neural level. The headset not only tracks brain activity, but it fills it with imagery and experiences that could best be described as lucid dreaming.
This woman is not your friend and that blade will not feel virtual. (Image credit: Netflix)
For as much as we can see, hear, and examine in current VR, headsets like Vision Pro can’t deliver taste, smells, touch, or sensations. Yes, you could strap on some haptic gear to feel a virtual gut-punch but none of that hardware is natural or organic. It’s a poor simulation of the real feel of touch, slap, hug, or kiss.
In 3 Body Problem, headset wearers can taste dirt, smell body odor, and feel a blade slicing through their neck. No one is claiming that what the characters see and feel is real. In one scene, a character reminds her companion that, while they appear to be boiling alive, “it’s not real” and with that simple phrase, she’s able to ignore the psychic pain, dive down to the bottom of the pot and touch the base to enable a core game function (fast forward).
The show struggles with realism, and to immerse yourself in this world, you must employ a fairly strong suspension of disbelief. Requisite for buying into the show’s conceit is an acceptance that extraterrestrial life is real, that there’s a technology that can erase people from not just videos but the actual view, and that a headset with no visible technology can alter your brain waves in such a way that you completely buy into the fiction it’s delivering.
Inside the fantasy
I will grant the show creators (Game of Thrones showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff) this, they get the initial VR headset experience right. Every time someone puts on the stylish headgear, they see their own eyes, which then merge together before they’re thrust into the fully immersive and often dangerous 360-degree environment.
There’s almost zero insight into how these headsets work. We know nothing of how they’re powered and I noticed that even when seated in their slightly Vision Pro moon-case-like containers, there’s no indication that they’re charging up. Maybe the headset and case charge wirelessly.
While the headsets are too thin to hold much battery, I do believe they could house a decent Qualcomm Snapdragon AR2 Gen 1 chip. Do I think that chip has the processing chops to power the 3 Body Problem’s fictional game? No, I do not.
Image 1 of 2
Choose your VR weapon(Image credit: Future)
Why is this man smiling?(Image credit: Future)
The headset looks like stainless steel but that would be too heavy and uncomfortable for the head. I’ll grant that this is probably some alien alloy. By the way, I wore a replica of the headset at Netflix’s 3 Body Problem activation at CES 2024. It was made of plastic and offered just an OK VR experience. At various intervals, Netflix pumped heat, cold, and wind into the room to approximate the show’s in-game experience. (see my TikTok below).
Whatever the technology, I don’t want this level of immersion. For one thing, I never want to know what it would feel like to be sliced in two by a ninja blade. For another, this is just the kind of experience that might encourage some to never return to the real world.
Perhaps I simply don’t get the point of this show. For me, it’s about a VR experience gone awry. More discerning viewers will probably connect with the parable of stability and chaos and how if we don’t take care of our world, someone or something will come to take it from us, while also trapping us in VR that looks like fun but is surely our worst VR nightmare.