Technology
China says it has ‘solved’ children’s addiction to online games, but attention shifted to videos
- China has “basically solved” the problem of online gaming addiction among its youth, according to a new report co-authored by the country’s top gaming industry body.
- The report, titled “2022 China Game Industry Progress Report on the Protection of Minors,” says the share of minors who spend less than three hours a week on online games has grown to more than 75%, all thanks to anti-addiction policies.
- Back in September 2021, the National Press and Publication Administration, which oversees the licensing of video games in China, began to require game companies to ban children from playing more than three hours per week.
- In March, the Cyberspace Administration of China also released a draft that asked companies to improve gaming rules to prevent addiction and ensure that children avoid contact with content that could affect their physical and mental health.
- While Chinese children no longer spend as much time on online games, all those lost hours are now spent on watching short videos, according to the report.
China has “basically solved” the problem of online gaming addiction among its youth, according to a new report co-authored by the China Game Industry Group Committee, the country’s top gaming industry body.
Back in September 2021, the National Press and Publication Administration, which oversees the licensing of video games in China, began to require game companies to ban children from playing more than three hours per week. This window is set from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Fridays, weekends and on public holidays.
‘It’s Japan-centric’: Elon Musk names Japan as Twitter’s ideal market
- Elon Musk reportedly told employees on Monday that Japan’s strong usage of Twitter is what the company should aim for “ideally in every country without exception.”
- Despite having a smaller population, Japan has roughly the same number of daily active users as the U.S., Musk said.
- For this reason, the world’s richest man branded his newly acquired platform as “Japan-centric” instead of “U.S.-centric.”
- Twitter’s popularity in Japan reportedly rose in 2011 out of a need for updates surrounding the Tohoku earthquake-tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster.
- Musk, who is reportedly hiring again, is also planning to “decentralize” his social media company by installing engineering teams in Japan, India, Indonesia and Brazil.
Owner and Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk wants Twitter to view Japan as a model for other markets instead of the U.S.
In an all-hands meeting on Monday, Musk said Japan’s strong usage of Twitter is what the platform should aim for “ideally in every country without exception,” according to The Verge.
Georgia man pleads guilty to stealing bitcoin worth $3.4 billion
- The Southern District of New York revealed on Monday that real estate developer James Zhong pleaded guilty to stealing over 50,000 bitcoin from the dark web marketplace Silk Road about a decade ago.
- Zhong, who is now facing a 20-year prison sentence, reportedly used nine anonymous accounts to trigger quick transactions on Silk Road to deceive its withdrawal-processing system into transfering bitcoin into his accounts.
- The Justice Department recovered devices storing the cryptocurrency from Zhong’s home in November when it was worth $68,000 per coin, totalling $3.4 billion.
- The recovered crypto is purportedly the second largest that the government has seized following the $3.6 billion recovered in February from a couple who reportedly hacked the virtual currency exchange Bitfinex in 2016.
- "For almost ten years, the whereabouts of this massive chunk of missing bitcoin had ballooned into an over $3.3 billion mystery," Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, was quoted as saying.
A real estate developer has pleaded guilty to stealing over 50,000 bitcoin from the dark web marketplace Silk Road about a decade ago.
On Monday, the Southern District of New York revealed in a statement that the Justice Department recovered $3.4 billion worth of the cryptocurrency last year from the alleged perpetrator, identified as James Zhong.
FDA reviews evidence pulse oximeters less accurate on people with darker skin
- A panel from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently met to review the reported inaccuracy of pulse oximetry in patients with darker skin.
- Members of the FDA’s Anesthesiology and Respiratory Therapy Devices Panel heard from patients, regulators, researchers and medical device developers to get relevant insights and recommendations.
- Pulse oximeters, which estimate the amount of oxygen in the blood through the use of light beams, have been found to give inaccurate readings as the skin’s pigmentation could affect how its sensor absorbs the light.
- In the U.S., groups are already conducting research on how to address the biases by either canceling out melanin’s effects on existing devices or developing entirely different methods to read oxygen levels.
The Medical Devices Advisory Committee of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently met to review the reported inaccuracy of pulse oximetry in patients with darker skin.
The meeting conducted on Tuesday was aimed at providing relevant insights and recommendations while the FDA conducts its evaluation of pulse oximeters’ accuracy and overall performance.
Workers filmed fleeing major iPhone factory in China
- Viral videos on Chinese social media apparently show workers fleeing one of the largest iPhone assembly factories in China following a reported COVID-19 outbreak.
- Foxconn, a major manufacturer for Apple, confirmed that it quarantined a “small number of employees” who tested positive for coronavirus in its site in Zhengzhou, the capital and largest city of Henan Province.
- Based on local reports, the fleeing Foxconn employees complained about the poor quality of food and claimed there was no sufficient medical care provided to those quarantined.
- Surrounding cities have started formulating plans to isolate the fleeing workers who may end up in their hometowns.
Dramatic footage of workers purportedly fleeing one of the largest iPhone assembly factories in China due to a COVID-19 outbreak emerged online over the weekend.
Among the widely shared videos is a clip uploaded by BBC correspondent Stephen McDonell apparently showing employees climbing over fences of a facility owned by Foxconn, a major manufacturer for Apple, in the city of Zhengzhou.
Lego Singapore’s Halloween-themed gaming PC promises scary fast loading times
- Lego Singapore created a custom Halloween-themed gaming PC with over 20,000 bricks in collaboration with Aftershock PC.
- On Sunday, the toy company posted a video of the build on its various social media accounts, including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
- "Just in time for Halloween. This monster, one-off, brick-built gaming PC is giving us the chills,” the posts’ captions all read.
- The video features several different objects that evoke Halloween, from spiderwebs and skeletons to Minifigures of vampires, zombies and mad scientists.
- According to Geek Culture, Lego Singapore’s build has a GeForce RTX 3090 and an Intel i9-12900KF processor.
- Meanwhile, to prevent the PC from overheating, it has an open-loop water cooling system.
Lego Singapore has created a custom Halloween-themed gaming personal computer made up of over 20,000 bricks.
On Sunday, Lego posted a video of the huge one-off project, which was built in collaboration with Aftershock PC, on its various social media accounts, including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
‘Like drinking a cup of milk tea’: China debuts world’s first inhalable COVID-19 vaccine
- China began administering the world’s first inhalable COVID-19 vaccine in Shanghai.
- The vaccine is a mist that is inhaled through the mouth.
- It was developed by Chinese biopharmaceutical company CanSino Biologics and was approved for use as a booster in September.
- Scientists believe that the aerosol vaccine will appeal to those afraid of needles and could boost vaccination rates in poorer countries because they are easier to administer.
China has started administering the world’s first inhalable COVID-19 vaccine in Shanghai.
Fully vaccinated residents in Shanghai lined up on Wednesday to receive the needle-free booster dose.
Japan creates laughing robot that can ‘coexist alongside people’
- A team of researchers led by Inoue Koji, an assistant professor at Kyoto University's Graduate School of Informatics in Japan, recently demonstrated their latest breakthrough in A.I.: the laughing humanoid robot ERICA.
- The Kyoto University research team demonstrated ERICA’s new features on Wednesday.
- They explained that they had their existing model of the robot listen to recordings of 82 conversations to analyze laughs using A.I.
- The robot can reportedly tune into the voice of whoever it is speaking to and attempt to adjust the volume of its laugh accordingly.
- “By developing a robot that laughs naturally, we hope to create a robot that can coexist alongside people,” Koji said.
Kyoto University researchers have recently made a breakthrough in A.I. technology after demonstrating their latest laughing humanoid robot last week.
The team, led by Inoue Koji, an assistant professor at Kyoto University’s Graduate School of Informatics in Japan, demonstrated the capabilities of the robot on Sept. 28, showing the A.I.-powered machine conversing with a human and laughing.
New personal fryer can help fuel your tempura addiction
Japanese electronics company Thanko has come up with another brilliant way to cook your favorite struggle meals: the new Kalari portable fryer.
The Kalari has a wide range of temperature settings, up to 392 degrees Fahrenheit. A personal fryer, it only holds up to 16.9 ounces of oil. Its size makes the Kalari a perfect personal fryer for your college dorm room or that box in New York City you pay nearly $3,000 a month for.
Bangkok wants to become ‘Silicon Valley of food tech’ through anti-hunger project
- Dr. Pun-Arj Chairatana, executive director of Thailand’s National Innovation Agency, said the agency aims to make the country the “kitchen of the world” through its SPACE-F project.
- “Not only that Thailand has sufficient raw material to serve growing demands, the country also has a top-notch logistics service,” Chairatana said in a press release on Thursday. “These attributes make the Thai food industry exceptional and position Thailand as the kitchen of the world.”
- The SPACE-F project, an incubator and accelerator program founded in 2019 in partnership with the Thai Union, NIA and Mahidol University, was billed as the “first-ever food tech innovation program in Thailand.”
- “The project brings together FoodTech startups and corporates through innovative mentorship, business connections, and a co-working program,” Chairatana explained.
Bangkok is aiming to become the Silicon Valley of food technology through its SPACE-F project, which aims to tackle the global food security crisis and make Bangkok the “kitchen of the world,” Thailand’s National Innovation Agency (NIA) said.
Citing the UN’s “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World” 2022 report, Dr. Pun-Arj Chairatana, executive director of the NIA, said in a press release on Thursday that around 800 million people — or 10 percent of the world’s population — are suffering from hunger brought by the COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis.
Interpol issues red notice for Luna, TerraUSD co-founder Do Kwon
- Interpol granted South Korean prosecutors’ request to issue a red notice for Do Kwon, the South Korean co-founder of the defunct cryptocurrencies Luna and TerraUSD (UST), on Monday.
- South Korean authorities issued an arrest warrant on Kwon — born Kwon Do-hying — and five other individuals linked to the Terraform Labs cryptocurrencies on Sept. 14 for violating South Korea’s Capital Markets Act.
- The 31-year-old Stanford University graduate was reportedly living in Singapore when UST and Luna imploded in May.
- The Singapore Police Force (SPF) confirmed in a statement on Sept. 17 that Kwon was no longer in the city-state at the time of the prosecutors' request.
- “SPF will assist the Korean National Police Agency (KNPA) within the ambit of our domestic legislation and international obligations. Do Kwon is currently not in Singapore,” the SPF said.
- Luna, the sister token of UST, fell from a $116 high to less than $0.0002 in April. Global investors reportedly lost an estimated $42 billion from the crash in May, prompting South Korean authorities to open a case against the incident.
A red notice has been issued for Do Kwon, the South Korean co-founder of the defunct cryptocurrencies Luna and TerraUSD (UST), effectively making him a wanted man among the 195 member countries of Interpol.
Prosecutors in Seoul told Bloomberg on Monday that the international police organization has issued a red notice for Kwon, who faces charges for the $60 billion meltdown of Terraform Labs’ Luna and TerraUSD cryptocurrencies.
China’s space program discovers new mineral from the Moon in 46-year first
- China has discovered a new mineral from the Moon for the first time in the country’s history, 46 years after Russia’s Luna 24 mission in 1976.
- The mineral, which has been named Changesite-(Y), was confirmed by the New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification of the International Mineralogical Association as a new type of mineral on Friday.
- Changesite-(Y) was included in the 1,731 grams of lunar samples that the Chang’e-5 probe collected from Oceanus Procellarum, a basalt area on the Moon formed by lunar volcanic eruptions billions of years ago, during the moon mission in December 2020.
- "We brought back 1,731 grams of lunar samples from the Chang'e-5 probe. And through joint research, we've achieved substantial scientific results,” Liu Jizhong, director of China's Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center, said.
China has discovered a new mineral from the Moon after sifting through the first lunar samples gathered in 46 years.
The new mineral, Changesite-(Y), named after China’s lunar exploration project Chang’e Project, was included among the 140,000 lunar sample particles studied by the Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology through high-tech procedures like X-ray diffraction.
