Over in the US, Alabama-based DCH Health System said it paid the hackers after the attack severely disrupted operations at three hospitals, the Tuscaloosa News reports. Specifically, computers at the DCH Regional Medical Center in Tuscaloosa, Fayette Medical Center, and Northport Medical Center were infected from October 1 onwards. DCH Health System said there was no indication that patients records had been compromised. It comes after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a warning highlighting that the number of sophisticated attacks on businesses and state and local government, was on the rise....

For example, if a job advertises free snacks, meals and drinks, could that mean that you’ll be expected to work long hours and not leave the office during lunchtime? Or, if a business says they have a small “tight-knit team” could you be dealing with a cliquey group who are suspicious of outsiders? Of course, free snacks could just mean they’ve got an assortment of chips and cookies to munch on (nice)....

Abloh worked together with the automaker’s chief design officer Gorden Wagener to develop a new design language for Mercedes-Maybach’s luxury identity. Every element of Project Maybach is created from scratch, the company says, and this has resulted into a car design “unlike anything that has been developed by Mercedes-Benz.” Inspired by the idea “luxury meets the great outdoors,” the concept car is full of stark contracts and unexpected features, which somehow find a way to complement each other....

The telecommunications giant is the latest in a string of companies to have left the Libra Association, alongside Mastercard, Visa, Stripe, and Ebay, CoinDesk reports. [Read: Facebook’s Libra ‘cryptocurrency’ is turning into a soap opera — and it’s gonna be a long season] Libra, a stablecoin-esque digital currency first revealed in mid-2019, has faced an onslaught of criticism from regulators worldwide, who’ve shared concerns its success could destabilize world economies by undermining the Euro....

It’s clear that the Volkswagen Group has continued to gain momentum with its electric offensive in the first half of 2021. Up to the end of June, a total of 170,939 BEV models were delivered worldwide, which works out to an increase of 165.2% compared to the same period of 2020 (64,462 units). This means that nearly thrice as many electric vehicles were sold. Interestingly, BEV deliveries nearly doubled also between the first and the second quarter of 2021: from 59,948 units in Q1 to 110,991 units in Q2....

The development was first reported by Matt Navara on Friday, which has since been confirmed by Facebook. The feature — called group stories and available since December last year — allowed a group’s administrators and members to post ephmeral photos and videos that vanish within 24 hours. “We’re sunsetting group stories because we want to make sure that features in groups enable people to connect in fun and useful ways, and we’re always looking at ways to improve the overall experience for communities on Facebook,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement to CNET....

A spokesperson representing the firm confirmed to CoinDesk that Walmart has joined MediLedger, but they did not provide any further comments. MediLedger is aiming to create an “open and decentralized network for the pharmaceutical supply chain,” designed to address the tightening regulations that govern the supply chains of drugs and medications. That said, according to the MediLedger website, network nodes are run and operated by industry participants, so it doesn’t sound entirely open and decentralized....

It’s also worth noting that while EVs might contain lots of potentially dangerous electronics, there are safety systems in place to prevent these circuits from causing a danger to people. All high voltage lines are sheathed in bright orange cable housing too. If you’ve ever looked under an EV and seen orange cables, that’s why; it’s best not to mess around with them. Check out this video from car safety testers Euro NCAP as they smash a Volkswagen ID....

In recent weeks, a TikTok campaign called for Em to be “canceled” for glorifying violence against women in his single “Love the Way You Lie.” Inevitably, Marshall Mathers fired back with a diss track taking aim at his critics. But he could surely find some more deserving adversaries than TikTok teens. A new AI music video gives the rapper a more progressive target for his ire: the patriarchy. The track was created by Calamity Ai, the same group who used bots to produce a new song for Hamilton and a previous Eminem diss of Mark Zuckerberg....

This competition is sometimes called the “AI race”. In practice, though, there are hundreds of “AI races” heading towards different objectives. Some research centers are racing to produce digital marketing AI, for example, while others are racing to pair AI with military hardware. Some races are between private companies and others are between countries. Because AI researchers are competing to win their chosen race, they may overlook safety concerns in order to get ahead of their rivals....

The latest luminary to grab a ticket is British inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who’s auctioning off his original source code for the web as a non-fungible token. [Read: Why entrepreneurship in emerging markets matters] For those of you lucky enough to have missed the hype train, NFTs are unique digital tokens secured by blockchain tech. They’re used to authenticate claims of ownership to digital and physical assets that can be sold or traded, such as digital artworks....

Arresting this incline will be the first step towards a sustainable system of international travel – but how could it be done? A frequent flyer tax would be relatively easy to implement but it could mean the richest can still afford to fly while the poorest are priced out. Most plane passengers are already relatively wealthy. Only 18% of the world’s population has ever flown and in any given year, an elite 3% of the world flies....

But you also expect the book has its own independent existence behind those appearances. So when you put the book down on the coffee table and walk into the kitchen, or leave your house to go to work, you expect the book still looks, feels, and smells just as it did when you were holding it. Expecting objects to have their own independent existence – independent of us, and any other objects – is actually a deep-seated assumption we make about the world....

I’ve come to care about the men – as far as I can tell, it’s just men – who make up the emotional support group that is r/The_Donald. The plight of the US president’s most devoted followers is a sympathetic one (if you can academically ignore their hatred and bigotry) and, if I’m being honest, makes for some good guilty pleasure political pulp fiction. I added the subreddit to my daily news consumption at the beginning of the month because I wanted to study these people in the wild....

We’re expecting updates to iOS, macOS, WatchOS, and tvOS, along with privacy-focused features across Apple’s ecosystem. Plus, there might be some hardware announcements too. Let’s dive into it. iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 Apple introduced grouped notifications in iOS 12, and now it might bring a refresh to that system. According to a report by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, you’ll be able to set custom notification context modes. These include modes such as working, sleeping, or driving....

The page will have info regarding how to use WhatsApp during the outbreak. These tips and recommendations are just basic guides on how educators, governments, and health professionals can use different features of the app to communicate better during the outbreak. The company said the portal will also include info regarding direct messaging hotlines by WHO and UNICEF. These hotlines will be helpful for people seeking information about COVID-19 from trusted sources....

But does it mean that our digital assistants are ready to escape the confines of smartphones, smart speakers and computers (and a bunch of weird gadgets)? Prasad didn’t explicitly say what it means to “give [Alexa] eyes and let it explore the world,” the statement strongly hints at an Alexa-powered robot (at least that’s how MIT Tech Review has interpreted his words). While the idea of putting a face on the voices of Alexa, Siri and Cortana sounds appealing, the truth is that with today’s AI technology, such an idea is doomed to fail....

In 2017, I launched Lokalise, a B2B SaaS platform. It wasn’t my first tech company – back in the ‘90s, I was one of the first people in post-soviet Latvia with access to the Internet. That’s when I co-founded OK.ru, which quickly became the leading social media platform for the Russian-speaking population worldwide. In between OK.ru and Lokalise, I had also launched Megogo.net, the leading video-streaming platform in former Soviet Union countries....

Thank you for supporting me to the point where I consider anything more than that unnecessary. To anyone that was more generous- please support growing channels, charities, and treat yourselves.❤️? pic.twitter.com/QhrusbDFxD — pokimane (@pokimanelol) November 2, 2020 Twitch streamers have several ways they can make money. Sponsorships, advertisements, subscriptions… you get the idea. Donations, direct monetary tips from the viewer to the streamer, can be given either through Twitch’s built-in Bits tipping system, or via third-party software....

As distasteful as it may feel to discuss the future of unborn businesses while a virus is impacting and ending so many lives, history proves that the Facebook posts about shiny, new companies starting up and finding immense success during and after turmoil are true. A good crisis should never go to waste, some say. But these seemingly pithy and overly simplistic posts are missing the point. A big, glimmering, successful business is not the point at all....