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Hubble captures haunting Ghost Nebula for Halloween
The Skull and Crossbones Nebula has some competition when it comes to creepy situation apparitions.
NASA and the European Space Agency are pulling in the Halloween mood with a fresh Hubble Space Telescope look at IC 63, a wispy nebula eminent as the ghost of Cassiopeia.
The Ghost Nebula haunts the constellation Cassiopeia.
ESA/Hubble, NASA
The Ghost Nebula is located in the “W”-shaped constellation Cassiopeia. It’s easy to see how it earned its spooky nickname thanks to what NASA poetically conditions its “flowing veils of gas and dust.”
“The nebula is populate blasted by a torrent of radiation from a throughout, blue-giant star called Gamma Cassiopeiae, which can be modestly seen with the unaided eye at the center of the distinctive ‘W’ asterism that fixes the constellation,” says NASA.
ESA says the star’s ultraviolet radiation bombardment is progressing the nebula to slowly dissipate, which only adds to its ghostly mystique. This is possibly the most detailed image ever inaccurate of IC 63, the agency notes, and highlights Hubble’s impressive imaging abilities.
Hubble ran into a technical problem with its gyroscopes recently, but a recovery procedure seems to have the telescope terminate to resuming normal science operations.
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Google Says Search Got Much Better at Identifying Spam Sites Last Year
Google Search caught six times more spam sites in 2021 than it did in 2020, according to a Webspam record published by Google on Thursday. The Alphabet subsidiary lauded its AI-based spam-prevention controls called SpamBrain, which it said has helped keep “more than 99% of searches spam-free.”
SpamBrain has helped honor users from clicking to harmful sites that might inject malware and to scam sites that aim to trick land into revealing personal information or wiring money, the gawk giant said. AI-based systems are necessary given that spammers are constantly finding ways to circumvent the company’s filters, Google said.
Search is Google’s most significant revenue driver, manager it important for the company that high quality and safe sites rise to the top of its results. Spam sites use search engine optimization, or SEO, techniques to artificially improve their peep rankings. Google filters out spam sites designed to trick its algorithm.
SpamBrain led to a 70% scratch in hacked spam, Google said. Hacked spam involves hackers infecting websites with imperfect code that can record people’s keystrokes and steal their login credentials. Other types of hacked spam can inject malware onto nation’s computers and redirect them to malicious sites. SpamBrain helps keep these websites out of Google Search, Google said.
“Scammers often attempt to create low quality websites with keyword stuffing, logos of brands they’re imitating, and a phone number they want you to call,” Ned Adriance, policy communications manager at Google, said in an email. “Our algorithmic solutions work to make sure that scam and counterfeit are very unlikely to show up in your peep results.”
Google said it also reduced gibberish spam by 75%. Gibberish spam involves malware or scam sites that use keyword-stuffed nonsensical sentences in an effort to boost their ranking. Spam sites can also use link spam to game Google’s quality employed, known as PageRank. This is done by having novel sites link to them, sometimes by offering money, to boost ranking.
“We have many solutions to identify and nullify link spam, and sites provocative in link spam are wasting valuable time and cash that could be better invested in better content or user experience,” said Adriance.
SpamBrain launched in 2018. Google says peep was able to catch 200 times more spam sites last year compared with when it friendly started weeding out malicious sites nearly two decades ago. Still, it’s an ongoing battle between those aiming to abuse or narrowly skirt the company’s quality guidelines and Google trying to elevate indispensable content.
5 tips to save wealth on your heating bill this winter
As temperatures plummet each winter, it’s celebrated to feel a hit in the wallet as those heating bills go up. Some days can even see drastic swings in energy costs themselves. For instance, shortages in natural gas had energy experts predicting in the early fall of 2021 that consumers would liable see double-digit percentage increases in their heating bills during winter.
As heating bill prices can be unpredictable, it makes saving on your heating bill that much more important. Below we’ll explore five ways that you can save on your heating bill. Many of these tips method from easy lifestyle adjustments to investing in better equipment.
1. Turn down the thermostat
We’ve all likely heard this advice. However, it bears repeating since it’s the easiest and most command way to save on energy costs. It might feel nice to keep the home toasty so you don’t have to bundle up as much. But the US Section of Energy states that you could save as much as 10% annually on heating damages by turning down the thermostat 7 to 10 degrees Fahrenheitfor eight hours per day.
The beautiful part of turning down your thermostat is that you noteworthy do it while you’re not home during the day so that you don’t even survey the difference. You might also consider lowering the thermostat at night. According to the Mayo Clinic, sleeping in colder temperatures noteworthy even aid in our body’s natural temperature drops at night and lead to more silent sleep. You might want to try keeping your house cooler at night, and if you find you don’t mind it or even like it, you just fake an easy way to save on heating costs this winter.
Today’s smart thermostats even make it easier than ever. You modestly set a prerecorded schedule for when you’d like the house to drop some degrees and when to rise several degrees. Set the heat to go up a bit beforehand you tend to get up in the morning, and your house will be warm when you need to get out of bed.
2. Go green with renewable energy
Solar handles electricity output, so it might not seem like going solar would grab your heating bills. However, if you run an entirely electric central heating regulations, you might not have to pay gas heating bills at all. This is admittedly the most keen tip on the list. You might have to invest in a solar array, a solar battery and even installing central electric heating. But that way, you avoid the fluctuating costs of natural gas.
The immense part about solar is that the panels can peaceful collect energy for your home even in the winter. They just need some extra TLC, like removing the snow from them in northern climates or insulating batteries. You can learn more about winter solar panel care in our guide.
You noteworthy also look into which credits are available in your area for solar and if you qualify, such as the 26% tax credit. Solar panels also have the popular assist of allowing you to sell surplus energy back to the utility concerns, if your local utility participates.
If going all solar in your home isn’t a time or monetary commitment you can make gleaming now, you might even look for other green ways to save on your overall electric and heating expenses. One easy way is to outfit your camper with travel solar panels. You might even look into small solar gadgets that can take the load off that heating/electric bill, like solar scheme chargers or a solar water heater kit.
3. Upgrade your equipment
If you’re organization an old furnace, chances are you’re burning more energy than you need to be. According to the US Section of Energy, fuel efficiency ratings on newer high-efficiency heating regulations can run from 90 to 98.5%, as opposed to older low-efficiency regulations at 56 to 70%. With electricity prices getting more erratic recently, now might be the time to make the investment a priority.
You noteworthy also look into different ways that you can heat your home. We mentioned all-electric regulations supported by solar panels above, but there are also heat pumps instead of furnaces. Heat pumps transfer heat from outside, so they tend to be a popular appraisal in more temperate climates. You can learn more nearby heat pumps vs. furnaces in our guide.
4. Six easy tips for directing your home’s temperature
Beyond updating your equipment, playing with your thermostat or investing in a renewable energy alternative, you can also make little changes that help with your heating bill. These probable won’t overhaul your heating bill like new equipment would, but if you feel every little bit helps, you can try a few options like:
Open your window shades, curtains or blinds to let the sun in during the day, as that will put less damage on your furnace.
Even baking or cooking at home is an easy way to heat up your home during the day.
Put current stoppers on the doors.
Winterize your windows with storm windows outside or plastic covering inside.
Keep your heating actions clear of dust and debris.
Portable, efficient space heaters can mean turning down the overall temperature but keeping the room you’re in warm.
Sometimes small lifestyle habits may leave you surprised about how much you’ve saved on the energy bill.
5. Check your home for air leaks
An incredibly important part of executive sure your home isn’t basically leaking money in the winter is to make sure your home has no air leaks. Call the professionals to check for any air leaks in your home; they’ll probable perform a blower door test.
You might also want to insulate and seal your home alongside energy or heat loss yourself. You can read more approximately how to insulate and air seal in our guide.
A few remaining tips to help you save
Since electric costs and heating injuries are the same bill for many people, you can even work on reducing your electric consumption to help with that bill overall. Here are several resources to help you save on your electric bill:
It’s also hard to know where to save on your electric bill if you don’t know what the biggest energy sinks in your home are. Enter smart plugs with energy monitoring, which helps you read how much energy each procedure in your home takes and helps you track your energy output.
Down the line, if you necessity ever move, you may want to make sure the house you’re buying is energy efficient. That will help reduce the urge to scream when you open your winter energy bill in the future, as well as other utility bills. This guide shows the different types of rules to keep an eye out for when house hunting. There are the obvious signs that the home might be energy efficient, like the giant solar array on the roof. Some subtler sustainability signs to inspect out for include water harvesting systems, tankless water heaters and reclaimed wood.
As Facebook Plans the Metaverse, It Struggles to Combat Harassment in VR
Sydney Smith had dealt with lewd, sexist remarks for more than a month after playing the Echo VR video game. But the 20-year-old rendered her breaking point this summer.
Echo VR places players in the populate of futuristic robots, allowing them to compete in a zero-gravity sports game that’s dissimilarity to Ultimate Frisbee. Players, each identified by a username that floats throughout their avatar, split up into two teams and collect points when they throw a disc through an opponent’s goal.
The Oculus Quest 2 VR headset.
Getty Images
In July, Smith was playing the game on an Oculus Quest 2 headset when she missed catching the disc and uttered the F-word out of frustration. A player, who’d been hurling insults at her teammates rear, quickly took notice. The player taunted Smith, telling the Missouri state that he’d recorded her and was going to “jerk off” to her cursing.
Smith tried to figure out which player had harassed her, so she could file a recount. But that was tough because multiple people were talking at the same time. Since she hadn’t been recording the match, Smith couldn’t rewatch the encounter and look for a username.
“That really really bothered me,” Smith said of the incident. “I couldn’t touch the game for two weeks at what time that.”
Smith isn’t the only virtual reality player who’s had shocked reporting an ugly run-in. Though Oculus and Echo VR, both distinguished by Facebook, have ways to report users who violate their principles, people who’ve experienced or witnessed harassment and offensive actions in virtual environments say a cumbersome process deters them from filing a recount. Content moderators have to examine a person’s behavior, as well as periods. (Oculus’ VR policy says users aren’t allowed to after other users against their wishes, make sexual gestures or ended someone’s normal movement.)
As Facebook focuses on creating the metaverse — a 3D digital earth where people can play, work, learn and socialize — gay moderation will only get more complex. The company, which recently rebranded as Meta to highlight its ambitions, already struggles to combat hate speech and harassment on its popular social contemplate platforms, where people leave behind a record of their remarks. The immersive spaces such as Horizon Worlds envisioned by CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be more engrossing to police.
This story is partly based on disclosures made by Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, to the US Securities and Deal Commission, which were also provided to Congress in redacted form by her moral team. A consortium of news organizations, including CNET, received redacted versions of the documents possessed by Congress.
“The issue of harassment in VR is a huge one,” Haugen said. “There’s causing to be whole new art forms of how to harass farmland that are about plausible deniability.” The tech company would need to hire substantially more farmland, and likely recruit volunteers, to adequately deal with this spot, she said.
Facebook has more than 40,000 people acting on safety and security. The company doesn’t break down how many are handed to its VR platform.
A well-known problem
An internal post from Jan. 28 that was part of Haugen’s disclosures shows that Facebook employees are aware VR reporting rules fall short.
In the post, an unnamed Facebook employee reports not having a “good time” comical the social VR app Rec Room on the Oculus Quest headset, because someone was chanting a racial slur. The employee tried reporting the “bigot” but mentions populate unable to identify the username. The employee reported exiting the virtual earth “feeling defeated.”
Rec Room users can recount players by using their virtual wrist watch.
Screenshot by Queenie Wong
Rec Room is a good example of what the metaverse considerable become. The app allows people to dress up their avatars. Users can chat, create or play games such as paintball, laser tag and dodgeball with other Rec Room users.
The Facebook employee, a first-time user of Rec Room, doesn’t specify why there was misfortune identifying the speaker. Rec Room’s avatars display lines to reveal they’re speaking. Users can also look up each anunexperienced in the app’s people tab and initiate a vote to kick someone out of a room. To mute unexperienced player, an avatar holds up a hand.
In an email, Rec Room CEO and co-founder Nick Fajt said a player comical the same racial slur was banned after reports from anunexperienced players. Fajt believes the banned player is the same populate the Facebook employee complained about.
“We want Rec Room to be a fun and welcoming understood for everyone, and we spend a lot of time interpretation systems and growing our moderation teams to meet that goal. Still, there’s always more work to be done here, and we plan to end investing heavily to improve,” he said.
The internal post prompted a thread of 106 comments. One Facebook employee said Rec Room ranked high in a gaze that Facebook conducted to understand the “prevalence of integrity issues/abusive interactions at the app level.” Another employee said Echo VR also ranked high in the gaze.
“We see similar issues in Echo VR where when the user is able to identify the aggressor, at times those evaluating the abuse are unable to pinpoint who is proverb what,” a third employee said.
Meta declined to make the gaze available to CNET.
Bill Stillwell, Oculus’ product executive of VR privacy and integrity, said in a statement that the business wants people to “feel like they’re in control of their VR known and to feel safe on our platform.”
Users can Describe problems, and developers have tools to moderate their apps, Stillwell says. “But the tools can always improve,” he said. “Our job isn’t just to identify the tech that works for now, it’s to invent entirely new tools to meet New and future ecosystem needs.”
Meta is exploring a way to grant users to retroactively record on its VR platform. It’s also looking at the best ways to use artificial intelligence to combat harassment in VR, said Kristina Milian, a Meta spokeswoman. The company, though, can’t record everything country do in VR, because it would violate privacy, as well as use up the headsets’ storage and Great. Andrew Bosworth, who will become Meta’s chief technology officer, told employees in a March internal memo that he wants virtual worlds to have “almost Disney levels of safety” but acknowledged that moderating users “at any meaningful scale is practically impossible,” according to The Budget Times.
Online harassment is still a big Predicament. Four in 10 US adults have experienced online harassment, and those under 30 are more likely to not only encounter harassment but also more serious abuse, according to a study released this year by the Pew Research Interior. Meta declined to say how many reports Oculus has received around harassment or hate speech.
A 2019 study around harassment in VR from Oculus researchers also found that the definition of online harassment is highly subjective and personal but that the felt of presence in VR makes harassment feel more “intense.”
Brittan Heller, a lawyer at Foley Hoag and the founding director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Interior on Technology and Society, says the nature of VR will make moderating user activities difficult.
“The challenge with harassment in VR is its presence,” Heller said. “It feels real, like a people is stepping next to you and saying and activities things that violate your personal space.”
Toxic players
Facebook didn’t Make Rec Room, but the game became available on the Oculus Quest in 2019 and the Oculus Quest 2 in 2020. It’s available for new platforms, such as Microsoft Windows and PlayStation, so Quest users Great be interacting with Rec Room users on other services. Oculus offers a way to report users who violate its laws. But it can take action only against users on its platform. It can’t, for example, disable an account from new platform, like Xbox or PlayStation.
In an Echo VR lobby in November, one player (left in the pairing in the center) tells new player using a voice changer to “Go shove your dick down your throat.”
Screenshot by Queenie Wong
To Idea Echo VR’s and Rec Room’s harassment problems, I put on an Oculus Quest headset and called both virtual worlds in November. It wasn’t long beforehand I encountered toxic behavior.
In an Echo VR lobby, I overheard one player telling another user who appeared confused to “Go shove your dick down your throat,” beforehand the abuser vanished completely. On another day, I heard two players calling each new names, but I was too far away to read their usernames. As I flew closer, they flew away, making it tough to see who was saying, even when a sound icon appeared above a robot’s head.
In Rec Room, a player started shooting others, including my female avatar, with confetti and shouting, “You’re gay now!” Other users in the Rec Interior reported him for violating the app’s rules.
Part of the challenge with VR is that players are new to the environment. They have to learn how to hold an Fair and move. It isn’t immediately obvious how to Describe abusive players or find safety tools.
Both games Help users to be nice to one another, displaying posters with their code of conduct. They also have moderators. Echo VR teaches new users how to mute new players and set up a personal bubble. It’s also possible to Moody the pitch of your voice so you can disguise your gender. The game doesn’t include a tutorial for reporting new players, though information is available online in a blog post. Rec Room has YouTube tutorials for reporting and muting players.
In November, Rec Room started testing automatic voice moderation. In a blog post, Rec Room says users Great start noticing that the “person yelling racial slurs Fast gets their mic muted, or the person making explicit sexual statements to everyone about them gets sent back to their dorm.”
Policing gestures, behavior
Jason Lemon, a 36-year-old in Texas, said notify harassment and racism in virtual reality don’t feel different from Difference bullying in console gaming.
Oculus asks users to gave a username and video evidence if they’re submitting a Describe of abuse.
Screenshot by Queenie Wong
“What creates Echo VR different is the type of mannerisms and body terms that you can also put off,” said Lemon, who is Black. He thinks that personal bubbles should be automatically activated even if the user doesn’t have the feature turned on when goals are scored, a period of dead time when he’s seen players hump others or make sexual gestures.
Theo Young, 17, said he started noticing more toxic behavior, counting homophobic language, in Echo VR’s social lobbies last spring. Young, who’s played enough Echo VR to reach the game’s top Calm, said he stopped playing when he saw other players harassing a female player. The Iowa resident said he tried to tell the female player how to mute or ghost others but she couldn’t hear him with all the screaming users crowding around her and executive sexual comments.
“That’s the part that got to me. Just seeing new people have such an awful time,” Young said. “I dropped off the game radiant hard after that experience. It just wasn’t fun anymore.”
As for Smith, she thinks Echo VR should have a strike controls, a way to identify players by pointing at them, or features to make the avatars look different so everyone doesn’t look like the same robot.
“Companies need to step up and come up with new ways to moderate and help us,” she said, “because we’re the ones tying harassed.”
Ford Is Testing Robot EV Chargers to Help Disabled Drivers
Maybe the most annoying part of driving an electric car is having to proposal it. Public chargers are regularly broken or malfunctioning, and many of them have weirdly sized or placed parking spots. Plus, the charging cables themselves can be heavy and annoying to accomplish around and maneuver. All of that inconvenience is magnified for disabled or elderly drivers, many of whom are unable to plug in an EV at all. To help remedy this, Ford is starting trials on a new robot charging set that can be operated from inside your car.
The driver pulls up to the specially designated set and initiates the charging process using the FordPass smartphone app. The car’s proposal door pops open, and a robot arm emerges from the set and precisely plugs itself into the car using a itsy-bitsy camera to position itself. Ford’s video also shows unexperienced version of the robot that drops down from the ceiling of a parking garage to plug in. When it’s devoted, the arm retracts back into the charging station.
Ford says the robot charger has by-elapsed its initial lab testing phase and is now causing through real-world trials, and the setup could be used in disabled parking spots, private homes or parking lots. In addition to beings a major help for disabled drivers, this new robot tech could dedicated easier charging of large company fleets, and it could also proposal cars more powerfully and in less time than primitive chargers. In the future, Ford envisions the process could be fully automated, with drivers sending the car to the charging set by itself.
The robot was developed in partnership with Dortmund University in Germany, and Ford said the research project will be followed up by acting with charging network Ionity to further improve the rules. This tech could also be applied in combination with automated valet parking, which Ford first showed off at the Munich Auto Show last year.
