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'Peak flower power era': The story of first ever Glastonbury Festival in 1970

'It was the peak of the flower power era': The story of the first ever Glastonbury Festival in 1970 4 days ago Share Save Myles Burke Share Save Alamy Almost 55 years ago, Michael Eavis hosted the first of his legendary music festivals. In 1970, the BBC visited his Somerset dairy farm to find out what made it unique. "I think this is the quickest way of clearing my overdraft," said Michael Eavis on 18 September 1970 when he was asked on the BBC why he had booked glam rocker Marc Bolan to per

Tovala Meal Kit and Oven Review (2025): We’re Nearing Robot Chef

Tovala is the only meal kit I know of that comes with its own oven—and I speak as someone who has tested a lot of meal kits and also ovens. Still, the idea isn't merely wacky. The biggest pitfall of preprepared meal delivery is almost always the microwave, as I noted in my review of HelloFresh's often delicious but sometimes soggy Factor meals. These almost always benefited from an improvised turn in the air fryer. And so the brainstorm on Tovala is both sophisticated and simple. Make mostly pr

Should we be letting flies eat our food waste?

Should we be letting flies eat our food waste? 51 minutes ago Share Save MaryLou Costa Technology Reporter Reporting from Vilnius, Lithuania Share Save Energesman Fly larvae are excellent at converting food waste into protein Most people are inclined to shoo flies away from food, and the thought of maggots in your bins is enough to make anyone's stomach turn. But a handful of city councils have embraced maggots - more formally known as fly larvae - and their taste for rotting food. In Vilnius

AlphaGenome: AI for better understanding the genome

Science AlphaGenome: AI for better understanding the genome Share Copy link × Introducing a new, unifying DNA sequence model that advances regulatory variant-effect prediction and promises to shed new light on genome function — now available via API. The genome is our cellular instruction manual. It’s the complete set of DNA which guides nearly every part of a living organism, from appearance and function to growth and reproduction. Small variations in a genome’s DNA sequence can alter a

RFK Jr.’s CDC panel ditches some flu shots based on anti-vaccine junk data

The vaccine panel hand-selected by health secretary and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to drop federal recommendations for seasonal flu shots that contain the ethyl-mercury containing preservative thimerosal. The panel did so after hearing a misleading and cherry-picked presentation from an anti-vaccine activist. There is extensive data from the last quarter century proving that the antiseptic preservative is safe, with no harms identified beyond sl

The time is right for a DOM templating API

TL;DR: I want to propose adding a declarative templating API to the web platform. Here's why... The web platform is the most successful application runtime of all time. While the largest reason for this is the web's reach, it wouldn't be possible without the DOM API, which turns a mostly static document viewer into a highly dynamic and expressive runtime. For as much hate as the DOM sometimes receives (some of that deserved, but some really not!) the DOM is undeniably a very powerful API. This

Facing Rising Seas, Thousands in Tuvalu Seek an Escape Through Australia

As rising sea levels gradually swallow the world’s low-lying island nations, many citizens will have no choice but to leave their homes behind. In Tuvalu, one of the world’s most climate-threatened archipelagos, the migration has already begun. Nearly a third of Tuvalu’s roughly 11,000 residents are seeking Australian visas to escape the encroaching waters. In 2023, Australia announced that it would launch these visas as part of a bilateral treaty it signed with Tuvalu—the world’s first to crea

Check out these Nothing Phone 3 renders showing off its black and white colorways

TL;DR New renders of the Nothing Phone 3 have leaked. The device is said to be available in black and white. The launch of the Nothing Phone 3 is just around the corner. While Nothing has shared teasers leading up to the event, that hasn’t stopped leaks from rolling in. The latest leak provides some high-quality renders of the company’s next flagship phone. We have a gallery of fresh Nothing Phone 3 renders to check out, courtesy of Android Headlines. The handset is said to be available in bl

The Steam Summer Sale is live with a fresh batch of big discounts

Get ready for your game library to grow, because the Steam Summer Sale is open and ready for business. The promotion runs through July 11, so you've got plenty of time to peruse all of the available deals, but there are a couple fun highlights in this season's selections. For starters, two likely contenders for 2025 game of the year are on sale. You can pick up the spectacular puzzle game Blue Prince for 15 percent off or about $25, and the lush Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has a slight discount

RFK Jr.’s Vaccine Panel Votes Against Thimerosal Flu Shots, Citing Debunked Risks

Robert F. Kennedy’s war against vaccines has garnered another victory. An outside advisory panel newly reassembled by RFK Jr. has voted today to recommend against people using vaccines containing thimerosal, a once-common ingredient that anti-vaccination advocates have wrongly blamed for causing autism and other health problems. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices met this week to issue several vaccine-related recommendations. In a majority vote, the ACIP recommended against childr

Volkswagen's ID Buzz AD self-driving van is ready for mass production

In a nutshell: After years of testing, Volkswagen is now ready to bring its new all-electric vehicle to the US and European markets. The ID. Buzz AD isn't just a minivan for carrying passengers, it's part of a broader platform the German automaker hopes to sell to companies looking to launch their own autonomous transportation services. The self-driving, all-electric version of the ID. Buzz minivan is reportedly ready for mass production, according to the company's software subsidiary, Moia. Th

Google DeepMind Releases AlphaGenome

Science AlphaGenome: AI for better understanding the genome Share Copy link × Introducing a new, unifying DNA sequence model that advances regulatory variant-effect prediction and promises to shed new light on genome function — now available via API. The genome is our cellular instruction manual. It’s the complete set of DNA which guides nearly every part of a living organism, from appearance and function to growth and reproduction. Small variations in a genome’s DNA sequence can alter a

Muvera: Making multi-vector retrieval as fast as single-vector search

Neural embedding models have become a cornerstone of modern information retrieval (IR). Given a query from a user (e.g., “How tall is Mt Everest?”), the goal of IR is to find information relevant to the query from a very large collection of data (e.g., the billions of documents, images, or videos on the Web). Embedding models transform each datapoint into a single-vector “embedding”, such that semantically similar datapoints are transformed into mathematically similar vectors. The embeddings are

What Makes a Phone Ethical? I Talked With Someone Who Builds One to Find Out

Fairphone is a David among Goliaths in the phone world. We're talking about a tiny Dutch social enterprise that shipped just over 100,000 phones in 2023, versus tech giants such as Apple and Samsung, which routinely ship hundreds of millions of phones annually. On Wednesday, Fairphone CEO Raymond van Eck unveiled the latest device, the sixth generation, in its family of phones. Intended to be known simply as the Fairphone (but in reality more likely to be referred to as the Fairphone 6), this m

Tovala Meal Kit and Oven Review (2025): We're Nearing Robot Chef

Tovala is the only meal kit I know of that comes with its own oven—and I speak as someone who has tested a lot of meal kits and also ovens. Still, the idea isn't merely wacky. The biggest pitfall of pre-prepared meal delivery is almost always the microwave, as I noted in my review of HelloFresh's often delicious but sometimes soggy Factor meals. These almost always benefited from an improvised turn in the air fryer. And so the brainstorm on Tovala is both sophisticated and simple. Make mostly p

Earths largest camera:3B pixel images

Earth’s Largest Camera Takes 3 Billion-Pixel Images of the Night Sky At the heart of the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile is the world’s largest digital camera. About the size of a small car, it will create an unparalleled map of the night sky. The observatory’s first public images of the sky are expected to be released on June 23. Here’s how its camera works. Sensor 3 inches RAFT Dead segment Noisy segment Damaged sensor Relative size of the moon A series of slides highlighting details

All childhood vaccines in question after first meeting of RFK Jr.’s vaccine panel

A federal vaccine panel entirely hand-selected by health secretary and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gathered for its first meeting Wednesday—and immediately announced that it would re-evaluate the entire childhood vaccination schedule, as well as the one for adults. The meeting overall was packed with anti-vaccine talking points and arguments from the new panel members, confirming public health experts' fears that the once-revered panel is now critically corrupted and that Kenned

Team Fortress 2 is getting another major update with a little help from the community

In a nutshell: Valve has announced a pending update for Team Fortress 2, the popular team-based multiplayer first-person shooter originally released in 2007 for Windows and Xbox. The long-awaited update focuses on the game's Mann vs. Machine PvE mode and will include new community-created content. It's set to roll out before Halloween. Valve is inviting the community to submit Mann vs. Machine maps and missions by August 27 for potential inclusion in the update. The company clarified that, desp

The Switch 2 is coming to Walmart tonight at 9PM ET — but there's a catch

Engadget has been testing and reviewing consumer tech since 2004. Our stories may include affiliate links; if you buy something through a link, we may earn a commission. Read more about how we evaluate products . Sam Rutherford for Engadget Walmart has confirmed that the Switch 2 will be available on its site tonight at 9PM ET, but the first hour of availability will only be open to paid Walmart+ members. So, in order to potentially add the new Nintendo console to your cart, you'll need to be

California's Corporate Cover-Up Act Is a Privacy Nightmare

California lawmakers are pushing one of the most dangerous privacy rollbacks we’ve seen in years. S.B. 690, what we’re calling the Corporate Cover-Up Act, is a brazen attempt to let corporations spy on us in secret, gutting long-standing protections without a shred of accountability. The Corporate Cover-Up Act is a massive carve-out that would gut California’s Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) and give Big Tech and data brokers a green light to spy on us without consent for just about any reason.

WhatsApp rolls out Meta AI-powered message summaries in the U.S.

A couple of weeks ago, WABetaInfo spotted signs that Meta was gearing up to bring AI-generated summaries for WhatsApp messages. Today, the feature is officially live for users in the U.S. Here’s how to use it. Summarization is perhaps one of the most useful applications of generative AI, especially when it comes to quickly catching up on transactional information. Which is why, provided it’s well-implemented, using AI to condense notifications and group chats can genuinely save time. Which is

How Avast's free AI-powered Scam Guardian protects you from online con artists

Screenshot by Lance Whitney/ZDNET Online scammers will use all kinds of tricks to steal anything -- from your money to your identity. And not all security products are able to fully defend you against their tactics. Now, Avast has beefed up its free security software with a new feature that aims to thwart scams no matter what the source. Known as Scam Guardian, the protection tries to do more than just detect malicious or suspicious URLs. Trained on scam data, Scam Guardian uses AI to analyze

The photographer using AI to reconstruct stories lost to censorship

Video screens glow softly from the floor, looping footage of salt lakes, steppe villages, and decaying nuclear test sites. Suspended above them is a large handwoven textile map, crafted by artisans in Kazakhstan. The tapestry maps 12 significant sites across Kazakhstan and the surrounding region, each corresponding to one of the flickering videos below. This is Posthuman Matter: The Map of Nomadizing Reimaginings #3, the latest large-scale installation by photographer and multimedia artist Almag

Team Fortress 2 is getting a major update after 8 years, with a little help from the community

In a nutshell: Valve has announced a pending update for Team Fortress 2, the popular team-based multiplayer first-person shooter originally released in 2007 for Windows and Xbox. The long-awaited update focuses on the game's Mann vs. Machine PvE mode and will include new community-created content. It's set to roll out before Halloween. Valve is inviting the community to submit Mann vs. Machine maps and missions by August 27 for potential inclusion in the update. The company clarified that, desp