ars technica

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Medical Association sent out separate but similar pleas on Monday for unvaccinated Americans to get vaccinated against the extremely contagious measles virus as vaccination rates have slipped, cases are rising globally and nationally, and the spring-break travel period is beginning.In the first 12 weeks of 2024, US measles cases have already matched and likely exceeded the case total for all of 2023. According to the CDC, there were 58 measles cases reported…

The Federal Communications Commission this week voted to raise its internet speed benchmark for the first time since January 2015, concluding that modern broadband service should provide at least 100 Mbps download speeds and 20 Mbps upload speeds.An FCC press release after Thursday's 3-2 vote said the 100 Mbps/20 Mbps benchmark “is based on the standards now used in multiple federal and state programs,” such as those used to distribute funding to expand networks. The new benchmark also reflects “consumer usage patterns,…

Two of Blue Origin's earliest employees, former president Rob Meyerson and chief architect Gary Lai, have started a company that seeks to extract helium-3 from the lunar surface, return it to Earth, and sell it for applications here.The company has been operating in stealth since its founding in 2022, but it emerged on Wednesday by announcing it has raised $15 million, adding to previous rounds of angel investments.This is a notable announcement because, while the funding is small, the implications are potentially large.…

A 62-year-old man in Germany decided to get 217 Covid-19 vaccinations over the course of 29 months —for “private reasons.” But, somewhat surprisingly, he doesn't seem to have suffered any ill effects from the excessive immunization, according to a newly published case study in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.The case is just one person, of course, so the findings can't be extrapolated to the general population. But, they conflict with a widely held concern among researchers that such overexposure to vaccination could lead…

Blue Origin, the aerospace company founded by Jeff Bezos, is finally setting some ambitious timelines, saying it plans to conduct an uncrewed Moon landing in as little as a year from now, deploying a demonstration version of its Blue Moon Mark 1 (MK1) cargo lander. This ramps up the space rivalry big time, putting Bezos head-to-head with Musk in a potential lunar showdown.China's Plan to Land Astronauts on the MoonJohn Couluris, senior vice president for lunar permanence at Blue Origin, discussed these plans during an…

For the first time in more than half a century, a US-built spacecraft has made a soft landing on the moon.There was high drama and plenty of intrigue on Thursday evening as Intuitive Machines attempted to land its Odysseus spacecraft in a small crater not all that far from the south pole of the moon. About 20 minutes after touchdown, NASA declared success, but some questions remained about the health of the lander and its orientation. Why? Because while Odysseus was phoning home, its signal was weak.But after what the…

Florida health officials on Sunday announced an investigation into a cluster of measles cases at an elementary school in the Fort Lauderdale area with a low vaccination rate, a scenario health experts fear will become more and more common amid slipping vaccination rates nationwide.On Friday, Broward County Public School reported a confirmed case of measles in a student at Manatee Bay Elementary School in the city of Weston. A local CBS affiliate reported that the case was in a third-grade student who had not recently…

After months of resisting, Air Canada was forced to give a partial refund to a grieving passenger who was misled by an airline chatbot inaccurately explaining the airline's bereavement travel policy.On the day Jake Moffatt's grandmother died, Moffat immediately visited Air Canada's website to book a flight from Vancouver to Toronto. Unsure of how Air Canada's bereavement rates worked, Moffatt asked Air Canada's chatbot to explain.The chatbot provided inaccurate information, encouraging Moffatt to book a flight immediately…

Photo: Rokas Tenys (Shutterstock)Amazon allegedly tricked users into buying more expensive products through the use of its “Buy Box,” according to a class action lawsuit filed last week. The Buy Box, which features a “Buy Now” and “Add to Cart” button next to eligible items, funnels users into terrible deals through the ease of one-click shopping according to the complaint, Ars Technica reports on Monday.Prime Day Ain't That 'Green'“Amazon customers reasonably believe that the Buy Box—which presents the only way for a…

Voyager 1 is still alive out there, barreling into the cosmos more than 15 billion miles away. However, a computer problem has kept the mission's loyal support team in Southern California from knowing much more about the status of one of NASA's longest-lived spacecraft.The computer glitch cropped up on November 14, and it affected Voyager 1's ability to send back telemetry data, such as measurements from the craft's science instruments or basic engineering information about how the probe was doing. As a result, the team…