Scientists from the University of Sussex recently stumbled upon a startling discovery: black holes emit quantum pressure. What’s quantum pressure? Nobody’s quite sure, but it’s very exciting! Up front: To put this discovery into perspective, the last time someone discovered a new mechanical facet of black holes was when Stephen Hawking determined they emit thermal radiation in 1974. The Sussex researchers were conducting a study on a Schwarzchild black hole – considered the simplest of all black hole types – when they stumbled across a mathematical outlier....

Researchers from Warwick University’s manufacturing arm WMG have developed a new system for testing the potential life of used Nissan Leaf batteries to determine whether they should be reused, recycled, or disposed of, Warwick University writes. Importantly, the new process is far faster than current methods. Grading a batch of battery modules can take just three minutes, compared to the three hours of previous methods. Researchers say the new grading process is far cheaper than conventional methods, too....

Prioritizing design and testing is bound to accelerate learning speed, however, skipping the research phase entirely ought not to be something we tolerate as product designers. Yes, there are situations in which the traditional UX research process just won’t cut it. In these cases, you’re still better off doing research — but in a scrappy way. You should find ways to tweak and play with the UX process to fit your project needs....

If you’re using the app in the UK, Germany, Mexico or Brazil, you’ll soon be given the option to listen to your ‘Shazamed’ tracks instantly through Deezer’s music streaming service. It makes Shazam a far more useful tool, as it links the discovery service to another method of actually listening to your tracks. Shazam is also planning a major redesign of its mobile app, which will include better sharing options to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, WhatsApp and Pinterest, as well as overhauled album and track review pages....

Now, an attack ad campaign by Signal has shone some light on the opaque surveillance dragnet. The privacy-focused messaging app tried to buy “multi-variant targeted” ads on Instagram to show what parent company Facebook knows about its users. The campaign aimed to expose how Facebook’s array of services harvest user information to personalize ads. Advertisers can use the enormous range of data points to target audiences based on their location, age, demographics, interests, and behavior....

Over the past decade, Sofia’s startup scene has flourished — even if it’s noticeably absent from the top positions in most tech rankings. “Sofia is not London, Paris, or Berlin — but it has an excellent shot of coming right after them,” says Svilen Rangelov, the co-founder and CEO of Dronamics, a Sofia-based startup seeking to democratize airfreight. “Just thinking about how much has been achieved with so little in just one decade, I really believe that in another 10 years, Sofia will be competing for the top three in Europe — and will certainly be in the top five with Tel Aviv,” Mr Rangelov adds....

Researchers imagine it might be possible to transform the world’s largest desert, the Sahara, into a giant solar farm, capable of meeting four times the world’s current energy demand. Blueprints have been drawn up for projects in Tunisia and Morocco that would supply electricity for millions of households in Europe. While the black surfaces of solar panels absorb most of the sunlight that reaches them, only a fraction (around 15%) of that incoming energy gets converted to electricity....

This time, a clever soul named Ryan Edgar has managed to get Doom to run on, of all things, a McDonald’s cash register. He revealed his results on Twitter, and it’s kind of beautiful: I give you DOOM … …. ….. Running on a McDonald’s cash register. pic.twitter.com/kQhrkZ1ScV — Ry (@Raio_Ken) September 29, 2019 According to Kotaku, Ryan managed to get the game to work by using a USB stick and ZDOOM, a modernized port of Doom that works on modern computers....

All the atoms around us have witnessed the most violent explosions in the universe. Their journeys through space are the longest, roughest and loneliest voyages imaginable. The hydrogen in the water we drink is the lightest of all the elements, and it dates back to the Big Bang at the beginning of the universe. Heavier elements, like the iron in our blood and the oxygen in the air we breathe, were forged in stars and ejected when they exploded at the end of their lives....

By streamlining communication between educational institutions, teachers, parents, and students the platform tried to provide incentives to improve performance at the individual and organizational levels. [Read: Lessons learned from my company’s crisis] Despite our lack of knowledge in the industry, we thought that with our coding and entrepreneurial savvy, we could conquer the world of education. As with many startups, things didn’t pan out the way we expected, (66% of all startups fail in the first 10 years according to the US Small Business Administration) and two years later we had to shut the startup down....

Giving talks at tech events is a goal for many technologists, for good reason: it’s a great way to meet people who share similar interests, raise your profile in a specific community, and sharpen your storytelling and technical skills. My colleagues and I put together this introduction to speaking for our internal folks at CircleCI, and realized that many of the tips and guidelines would likely be useful for a broader audience....

And to a large degree, it succeeded. Yep, my colleague Ivan Mehta even wrote that you should leave your DSLR at home as long as you bring the P30 Pro along on your travels. As someone who dabbles in photography, the P30 Pro immediately piqued my curiosity. So I decided to reach out to Huawei with a proposition: lend me a P30 Pro and let me put the camera though its paces....

But what was seen over the election period was not the work of fringe actors. Instead, major political parties appeared to adopt tactics previously associated with shady players operating at the edges of the information ecosystem. No major party was entirely innocent, as evidenced by First Draft’s Cross Check project. But the Conservatives’ campaign repeatedly adopted controversial tactics. Tactics such as having its press office pose as a fact-checking service and editing BBC news footage to imply that prominent journalists supported the party’s line on Brexit....

I’ve never been to the CES in person, but the coronavirus pandemic forced the event to be virtual this year, and I could ‘attend’ the event for the first time. While CES is all about new gadgets with new standards such as Wi-Fi 6 and mini-LED, it’s also about crazy home devices. I got to explore a lot of these devices through pitches in my inbox, a few articles, and tweets going around....

This time, the NHTSA is investigating the Passenger Play feature. This “allows the gameplay to function on the front center touchscreen while the vehicle is in motion and may present a distraction to the driver,” according to the agency’s official report. As a result, on Wednesday the Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) opened a Preliminary Evaluation (PE), covering 580,000 Tesla Model 3, S, X, and Y vehicles from 2017 to 2022....

That’s precisely what TCL has done with its new “Fold ‘n Roll” concept. Behold (start around the 30-minute mark): The device has a hinge that can both fold as well as unfurl the flexible screen tucked inside the body of the device, going from a 6.87-inch phone to a 10-inch tablet. It also appears to feature a stylus, at the bottom of the device, making it enticing for scribbling on the go....

The accident took place on November 3, somewhere in Brea, California. Fortunately, there were no injuries or fatalities, but disturbingly enough, the owner blames the FSD for causing the crash. Specifically, the car kept entering the wrong lane and didn’t respond to driver input. This is the driver’s statement on NHTSA’s official page: That’s strange. And frightening, to be honest. The car gave an alert 1/2 way through the turn so I tried to turn the wheel to avoid it from going into the wrong lane but the car by itself took control and forced itself into the incorrect lane creating an unsafe maneuver putting everyone involved at risk....

[Read: Tesla finally returns Autopilot to second-hand Model S owner after secretly wiping it from his car] According to a tweet last week, the Model S now has an estimated range of 390 miles (around 630 km). — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 15, 2020 The Model X also received a small bump in battery performance too. Its estimated range has increased from 328 miles (528 km) to 351 miles (565 km)....

While this technological disruption is enabling better treatment, earlier and more accurate diagnoses, and improvements to supply chain management, implementation rates are still slow and uneven. Worldwide, many outdated systems remain in place. An increasing global population also means it could become harder to reach everyone’s healthcare needs, leading to rising demand for on-demand healthcare and telehealth. Life expectancy is increasing while the demand from the geriatric demographic is simultaneously growing, adding to financial strain, along with staff shortages, increased costs of labor, and prolongment of chronic diseases....

Some of my favorite fictional characters include Spock and Seven of Nine from Star Trek, Dr Martin Ellingham from Doc Martin and Shaun Murphy from The Good Doctor. Apart from being brilliant at their jobs, they are all considered to be autistic by the autism community. It is no coincidence that what makes these characters so good at their jobs are characteristics associated with autistic or non-neurotypical people. Leaving aside The Good Doctor’s and Seven’s savant abilities, they are all logical thinkers, curious, evidence-based decision makers, tenacious, persistent at solving problems and focused....