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WiFi signals can measure heart rate–no wearables needed

Home Health WiFi signals can measure heart rate—no wearables needed Engineers prove their technique is effective even with the lowest-cost WiFi devices Computer Science and Engineering Ph.D. student Nayan Bhatia demonstrates Pulse-Fi, technology that uses WiFi signals to measure a person's heart rate. Photos by Erika Cardema/UC Santa Cruz Press Inquiries Press Contact Media Access Access Paper Key takeaways The Pulse-Fi system is highly accurate, achieving clinical-level heart rate monitoring

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State Department Agents Are Now Working With ICE on Immigration

As the Trump administration expands its crackdown on immigration, it’s pulling more and more agencies into the effort. The State Department’s law enforcement arm, the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), is now working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on immigration. DSS agents are taking part in immigration enforcement in the US, and, according to emails viewed by WIRED, are now being asked to log time they are spending on immigration enforcement. DSS’s remit is limited in scope to

Google Photos now lets you animate your camera roll with Veo 3 for free

is a NYC-based AI reporter and is currently supported by the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism. She covers AI companies, policies, and products. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Google is adding Veo 3 software capabilities to its video generation feature for Google Photos. US-based users can turn static images into four-second videos by clicking either the “Subtle movements” or, for the more adventurous, the “I’m feeling lucky” options unde

State Department Agents Are Now Working with ICE on Immigration

As the Trump administration expands its crackdown on immigration, it’s pulling more and more agencies into the effort. The State Department’s law enforcement arm, the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), is now working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on immigration. DSS agents are taking part in immigration enforcement in the US, and, according to emails viewed by WIRED, are now being asked to log time they are spending on immigration enforcement. DSS’s remit is limited in scope to

Étoilé – desktop built on GNUStep

Project Goals Our goal is to create a user environment designed from the ground up around the things people do with computers: create, collaborate, and learn. Without implementation details like files and operating-system processes polluting the computer's UI, Étoilé users will be able to: have revision history for all objects in the system collaborate with other people on any type of document (text, drawing, code, etc.) shape their own workflow by combining the provided Services use a sys

Ready to ditch Windows 10? I debunked 7 Linux myths so you can switch with confidence

Jack Wallen / Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's key takeaways Linux has suffered from a litany of myths over the years. If you're on the fence, you'll be glad to know those myths aren't true. Linux is easy, beautiful, and ripe for desktop users. I've been using Linux since the original Jurassic Park movie was released, and it seems every year I have to set some people straight on the truth about the open-source operating system. Sinc

New AI model turns photos into explorable 3D worlds, with caveats

On Tuesday, Tencent released HunyuanWorld-Voyager, a new open-weights AI model that generates 3D-consistent video sequences from a single image, allowing users to pilot a camera path to "explore" virtual scenes. The model simultaneously generates RGB video and depth information to enable direct 3D reconstruction without the need for traditional modeling techniques. However, it won't be replacing video games anytime soon. The results aren't true 3D models, but they achieve a similar effect: The

xAI’s CFO is the latest executive to leave Elon Musk’s AI firm

In Brief Mike Liberatore, xAI’s chief financial officer, has left the company, according to reporting from The Wall Street Journal. This marks the latest in a string of high-profile executive departures. The former Airbnb executive joined the company in April and left around the end of July, per WSJ. While at xAI, he helped orchestrate the company’s $5 billion debt raise, alongside another $5 billion in equity — almost half of which came from SpaceX. He also oversaw some of the Elon Musk-owne

Ready to ditch Windows 10? Don't let these 7 Linux myths stop you

Jack Wallen / Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's key takeaways Linux has suffered from a litany of myths over the years. If you're on the fence, you'll be glad to know those myths aren't true. Linux is easy, beautiful, and ripe for desktop users. I've been using Linux since the original Jurassic Park movie was released, and it seems every year I have to set some people straight on the truth about the open-source operating system. Sinc

Roblox expands use of age-estimation tech and introduces standardized ratings

Amid lawsuits alleging child safety concerns, online gaming service Roblox announced on Wednesday that it’s expanding its age-estimation technology to all users and partnering with the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC) to provide age and content ratings for the games and apps on its platform. The company said that by year’s end, the age-estimation system will be rolled out to all Roblox users who access the company’s communication tools, like voice and text-based chat. This involves sca

Why the US government is taking a stake in Intel

The Trump administration wants the United States to be the dominant force when it comes to artificial intelligence, and one way the administration hopes to achieve primacy is by bringing semiconductor manufacturing back to the U.S. To help with that transition, President Donald Trump has introduced potential chip tariffs and policies in recent months meant to bring more semiconductor manufacturing stateside. In late August, the Trump administration took an unprecedented step toward that goal w

Police disrupts Streameast, largest pirated sports streaming network

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) and Egyptian authorities have shut down Streameast, the world's largest illegal live sports streaming network, and arrested two people allegedly associated with the operation. Streameast, operational since 2018, was a free streaming service supported by advertisements, providing access to HD streams from licensed broadcasters. Streameast reportedly operates 80 domains, which collectively receive 136 million monthly visits. In the past year, t

Roblox experiences are getting ESRB age ratings

is a senior reporter covering technology, gaming, and more. He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Roblox is going to start showing ESRB ratings alongside experiences to help users in the US better understand if an experience is appropriate for a user of a certain age. The new ratings will appear thanks to Roblox’s new partnership with the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC),

Roblox expands use of age estimation tech and introduces standardized ratings

Amid lawsuits alleging child safety concerns, online gaming service Roblox announced on Wednesday that it’s expanding its age estimation technology to all users and partnering with the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC) to provide age and content ratings for the games and apps on its platform. The company said that by year’s end, the age estimation system will be rolled out to all Roblox users who access the company’s communication tools, like voice and text-based chat. This involves sca

Ooni’s newest pizza oven adds AI to your slice

is a news editor with over a decade’s experience in journalism. He previously worked at Android Police and Tech Advisor. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Have you ever looked at your pizza oven and wished it was just a little bit smarter? Ooni has, and so its new Volt 2 comes loaded with “Pizza Intelligence,” an adaptive heating system designed to deliver a more even and consistent cooking temperature. The Volt 2 is an indoor oven, able t

Chinese social media platforms roll out labels for AI-generated material

Major social media platforms in China have started rolling out labels for AI-generated content to comply with a law that took effect on Monday. Users of the likes of WeChat, Douyin, Weibo and RedNote (aka Xiaohongshu) are now seeing such labels on posts. These denote the use of generative AI in text, images, audio, video and other types of material, according to the South China Morning Post . Identifiers such as watermarks have to be included in metadata too. WeChat has told users they must pro

Vibration Plates: Can You Use Them to Lose Weight, Build Muscle and Get Stronger?

Vibration plates are all the rage right now. They claim to help you lose weight or build muscle -- all while standing on the vibrating surface. But is this for real? Does standing on a shaking platform really help you get stronger or shed pounds, or is it just another short-lived trend? To find out, we talked to personal trainers and other fitness experts. These experts explained how vibration plates are supposed to work, the benefits you might get from using them, the risks you should watch ou

A Crack in the Cosmos

Some time around the year 466 BCE – in the second year of the 78th Olympiad, the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder tells us – a massive meteor blazed across the sky in broad daylight, crashing to the earth with an enormous explosion near the small Greek town of Aegospotami, or ‘Goat Rivers’, on the European side of the Hellespont in northeastern Greece. Pliny’s younger contemporary, the Greek biographer Plutarch, wrote that the locals still worshipped the scorched brownish metallic boulder, the s

We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own

Sideloading has been a hot topic for the last decade. Most recently, Google has announced further restrictions on the practice in Android. Many hundreds of comment threads have discussed these changes over the years. One point in particular is always made: “I should be able to run whatever code I want on hardware I own”. I agree entirely with this point, but within the context of this discussion it’s moot. “I should be able to run whatever code I want on hardware I own” When Google restricts y

How Does Timecode Vinyl Work? (Pt. 3)

How Does Timecode Vinyl Actually Work? (Pt. 3) Since its release in 2011, the Traktor Control Vinyl MK2 has sparked curiosity among digital DJs and audio developers alike. Its timecode format stands apart from Serato’s, which we explored in the previous posts. With the MK2 system, Native Instruments introduced a more advanced timecode that boosts resolution and accuracy by applying advanced cryptographic techniques. In this post, we’ll break down how it works at a basic level and how Mixxx is

Can cheaper lasers handle short distances?

Optical technology is well established for long-haul communications, but the distances it serves are shrinking — especially in the data center. Vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) already drive short fiber links. But efforts are underway to further scale them down to provide more connections through waveguides than fiber can provide. “We have seen the transition from long haul to metro-to-local area networks and then into the data center,” said Suresh Jayaraman, senior director fo

Why did books start being divided into chapters? A new history

Perhaps it is the inevitable fate of any convention, but literary history does not, it turns out, have many examples of people appreciating great chaptering. In The History of English Prose Rhythm (1912) – one of the sources for James Joyce’s virtuosic-or-unreadable parodies of the evolution of English prose in Ulysses – George Saintsbury remarks on Thomas Malory’s decision to insert a chapter break at a decisive moment in his fifteenth-century Morte d’Arthur. At the end of chapter ten of the Mo

Are we decentralized yet?

This page measures the concentration of user data on the Fediverse and the Atmosphere according to the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI), an indicator from economics used to measure competition between firms in an industry. Mathematically, HHI is the sum of the squares of market shares of all servers. Values close to zero indicate perfectly competitive markets (eg. many servers, with users spread evenly), while values close to 10000 indicate highly concentrated monopolies (eg. most users on a si

Is AI Running the Government? Here’s What We Know

The Trump administration is letting the generative AI chatbots loose. Federal agencies such as the General Services Administration and the Social Security Administration have rolled out ChatGPT-esque tech for their workers. The Department of Veterans Affairs is using generative AI to write code. The U.S. Army has deployed CamoGPT, a generative AI tool, to review documents to eliminate references to diversity, equity, and inclusion. More tools are coming down the line. The Department of Educati

Do the simplest thing that could possibly work

When designing software systems, do the simplest thing that could possibly work. It’s surprising how far you can take this piece of advice. I genuinely think you can do this all the time. You can follow this approach for fixing bugs, for maintaining existing systems, and for architecting new ones. A lot of engineers design by trying to think of the “ideal” system: something well-factored, near-infinitely scalable, elegantly distributed, and so on. I think this is entirely the wrong way to go a

A Dark Money Group Is Funding High-Profile Democratic Influencers

In a private group chat in June, dozens of Democratic political influencers discussed whether to take advantage of an enticing opportunity. They were being offered $8,000 per month to take part in a secretive program aimed at bolstering Democratic messaging on the internet. But the contract sent to them from Chorus, the nonprofit arm of a liberal influencer marketing platform, came with some strings. Among other issues, it mandated extensive secrecy about disclosing their payments and had restr

Google warns that mass data theft hitting Salesloft AI agent has grown bigger

Google is advising users of the Salesloft Drift AI chat agent to consider all security tokens connected to the platform compromised following the discovery that unknown attackers used some of the credentials to access email from Google Workspace accounts. In response, Google has revoked the tokens that were used in the breaches and disabled integration between the Salesloft Drift agent and all Workspace accounts as it investigates further. The company has also notified all affected account hold