Period

Some fossil specimens of the cold water coral Desmophyllum dianthus from the Tasman Sea. Credit: Eleni Anagnostou Located between Australia and New Zealand, the Tasman Sea is an important but so far neglected component of the global ocean conveyor belt. Now a new study has discovered evidence that this marginal sea in the South Pacific also played an important role in the exchange of water masses between the large ocean…

But what about the data in aggregate? The simplest way to combine data from multiple users is to average them. For example, the most popular period tracking app, Flo, has an estimated 230 million users. Imagine three cases: a single user, the average of 230 million users, and the average of 230 million users plus 3.5 million users submitting junk data. An individual’s data may be noisy, but the underlying trend is more obvious when averaged over many users, smoothing out the noise to make the trend more obvious. Junk data…

The U.S. House Oversight Committee is probing a collection of period tracking apps and data brokers in light of emerging concerns about how private health data might be weaponized in the dawning post-Roe v. Wade era. The committee issued letters today to data brokers SafeGraph, Babel Street, Digital Envoy, Placer.ai and Gravy Analytics and app makers Flo Health, Glow, GP International, Clue developer BioWink and Digitalchemy Ventures. In the letters, the representatives requested information on the companies’ data…

Artist’s illustration of a black hole. A star was discovered zipping around the black hole at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way, at an astonishing speed of 8,000 km/s.A newly discovered star only takes four years to travel around the black hole at the center of our Milky Way.Astronomers have discovered the fastest known star, which travels around a <span class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>black hole</div><div…

Tech companies are scrambling to adjust their data privacy practices in response to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and subsequent criminalizing of abortion in several states, as the larger public realizes that the data those services collect could be used to prosecute abortion seekers. Google, for example, recently announced that it will automatically delete location data if people visit medical facilities, including abortion clinics (it still, of course, collects that data). And the period…

Broadcom $61 billion (nearly Rs. 4.8 lakh crore) deal for VMware will move forward after a rival bidder failed to emerge to break up the deal for the cloud-computing company during its so-called “go-shop” period, according to people familiar with the matter.VMware, which had 40 days to solicit rival offers, may disclose the outcome of that effort, although its plans haven't been finalised, said one of the people, who asked to not be identified because the matter isn't public. VMware had until 11:59 PM Pacific time Tuesday…

From Ashes to Fire The Fallout 76 content drops seemingly never end, which is…a good thing for folks who bought it and always wanted the game to improve. The next one involves a new Fallout 76 PTS period, which will add content to the live version “later this summer.” It’s more stuff for The Pitt! Through the PTS you can partake in the “From Ashes to Fire” mission, as well as any quality of life upgrades and fixes that are part of the new build (a “new round of bug fixes” is already confirmed). To diffuse the…

Some stars burn bright but brief. These transitory novae pepper the sky, with one flaring into naked eye visibility every few years… but it was a recent brief appearance of just such a 'new star' that gave astronomers a chance to probe the secrets of the Universe.  Japanese amateur astronomer Seidji Ueda was the first to raise the alarm worldwide.Amateurs are always on the hunt for galactic novae, as it's one of the key fields where they can contribute to real science. The American Association of Variable Star Observers…

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry continues to grow, with a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the latest year-end reports. Global spending across iOS, Google Play and third-party Android app stores in China grew 19% in 2021 to reach $170 billion. Downloads of apps also grew by 5%, reaching 230…

Mahindra has been bringing blockbuster cars to the Indian market in recent years. The trend started with the all-new Mahindra Thar that saw a spectacular waiting period. The next in line was the XUV700, which became one of the most advanced vehicles in the segment with futuristic tech like ADAS but the waiting period soared to more than a year. The latest report by Bloomberg reveals that the shortage of semiconductors and disruption in the global supply chain is causing the waiting period to increase. According to the…