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On Friday June 25, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released its eagerly awaited unclassified intelligence report, titled “Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena”. The document is a brief nine-page version of a larger classified report provided to the Congressional Services and Armed Services Committees. It assesses “the threat posed by unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) and the progress the Department of Defence Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force has made in understanding this threat”....

Since the early 2000s, it’s been possible to read all of Jane Austen’s works online, including Mansfield Park. But as of this year, the list of places her words are published has had a bizarre addition. [Read: 3 new technologies ecommerce brands can use to connect better with customers] In a new study, a team from the University of Texas at Austin has encoded a quote from Mansfield Park on a tiny plastic molecule....

Introducing the second episode of Data Market Services Inspiration Series, a new podcast produced and hosted by Tech.eu to support startups in the current crisis with advice and experienced insight. This episode will look into how the mobility industry is adapting and changing in the current landscape, and the new challenges that lie ahead, in Europe and beyond. This podcast is produced in collaboration with Data Market Services Accelerator, a European Commission-backed initiative involving TNW and nine other partners from across Europe....

It’s going to be a bloodbath. I’m going to assume most people only allot enough money for one video game every couple of weeks at most, and the revelation that the new Pokémon game is going to be hitting in the same period as two other highly-anticipated games leaves me wondering: exactly who is going to win in terms of sales? I’m sure the audience for all three overlaps to a certain degree, and it’s interesting to consider which one gamers in general will spend their money on first....

This post includes affiliate links to products that you can buy online. If you purchase them through our links, we get a small cut of the revenue. Also if you buy other stuff, the more expensive, the better. Go nuts. 

Of all the Prime Day deals out there, this is one of the best. Strap yourself in, because you can get an unlocked 128GB Samsung Galaxy S10 for only $599.99. Yup, that’s a full 33 percent, or a cool $300, off its list price. Features-time. For that $599 (such a good price), you get a 6.1” dynamic AMOLED display that goes to the edge of the phone. It really is a looker....

Security researcher Dhiraj Mishra found these bugs in Telegram’s stable macOS client (version 7.3) and reported them to the firm in December. Telegram patched them in the latest release of the app that was rolled out in January. [Read: How Polestar is using blockchain to increase transparency] Telegram allows you to send self-destructing messages in a secret chat. Ideally, the app should delete text, image, audio, or video that you sent after the specified time in this mode....

If you’re a console gamer, you’ll have to pay the big bucks up front: The Mass Effect: Legendary Edition will cost $60 at launch. That’s a lot of cash to shell out for a remaster but, if you ask me, it’s worth it. You’re getting all three original Mass Effect titles and over 40 DLC (including promo DLC and original pre-order items). They’ve been graphically modernized and, in the case of the first game in the series, updated with the more player-friendly mechanics introduced in ME:2....

It’s a bit of a chicken and the egg situation too. After all, developers aren’t going to want to update their apps to support ARM natively if they don’t anticipate users making the switch. And users aren’t going to make the switch if they can’t run all the apps they want with the performance they’ve come to expect. Compare that with Apple’s M1 launch. Apple demonstrated impressive performance-per-watt with M1, making sure users didn’t feel like they were missing out on horsepower when they made the switch....

Several countries around the world have urged citizens to remain indoors and forgo direct human contact except where necessary. The J. Paul Getty Museum, perhaps rightly seeing its moment to strike a blow for art appreciation, challenged the internet to recreate famous works of art with three objects in their homes. And considering a large portion of the world is stuck indoors with literally nothing else to do, they rose to the occasion....

To make these newly designed ventilators, a lot of manufacturers are using the Raspberry Pi Zero, a $5 computer developed for small scale projects. While a single-core 1GHz processor with 512MB RAM might not sound too powerful, it’s enough to power a ventilator. [Read: Apple Maps will soon direct you to your nearest coronavirus testing center] Eben Upton, CEO and Founder of Raspberry Pi, told Tom’s Hardware in an interview that the company is ramping up production to meet the demand: Upton said in the first quarter of the year, the company produced 192,000 Pi Zero units; it will ramp up the production to 250,000 units going forward....

The system was developed after the researchers created a novel dataset featuring thousands of conversations specially curated to ensure they’d be chock full of hate speech. While numerous studies have approached the hate speech problem on both Twitter and Facebook, Reddit and Gab are understudied and have fewer available, quality datasets. According to the team’s research paper, it wasn’t hard to find enough posts to get started. They just grabbed all of Gab’s posts from last October and the Reddit posts were taken from the usual suspects: A tip of the hat to Vox’s Justin Caffier for compiling the list of Reddit’s “whiniest, most low-key toxic” subreddits....

“Following on from the announcement by Larry Sanger of a Social Media Strike, /r/technology is joining the #SocialMediaStrike. Normal service will resume on the 5th,” reads the message. The strike, conceived by Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger, calls for digital independence from social media platforms. That means throwing off the shackles that chain you to social networks and compel you to share stuff there, except to post notices about the strike itself....

In its recently released quarterly report, the company said its mobile subscriber base has grown to 331.3 million users across the country. Jio pipped rival Vodafone-Idea whose subscriber base fell to 320 million from 334.1 million this quarter. While Airtel is yet to release its quarterly figures, its subscriber base in May was 320.6 million. Reliance Jio began its services by offering free of cost SIM cards, free voice calls over a 4G network, and dirt cheap data at Rs....

The broadband network, called Jio Fiber, is currently in preview phase with 500,000 users but will launch commercially on September 5. The company will offer plans from Rs. 700 ($9.86) to Rs. 10,000 ($140.85) with speeds up to 1Gbps. Jio said users will get premium subscriptions of top streaming services bundled with JioFiber plans. Plus, they’ll be able to watch select movies at home alongside the theater release. Consumers will be able to make video calls for free using the set-top box....

The San Francisco-based firm also promised to strengthen its leadership in return for the cash, reports the Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the matter. [Read: How location-tracking apps could stop the spread of coronavirus] Airbnb announced Monday that major tech-focused hedge funds Sixth Street Partners and Silver Lake would contribute the funds, as government-imposed lockdown measures around the world had gutted its business model and brought the travel industry to a screeching halt....

According to Business Insider, Xbox head Phil Spencer called an all-hands meeting earlier this week, and said Microsoft is looking for a browser-based solution to the conundrum, allegedly saying, “We absolutely will end up on iOS.” It would mean users would have access to the platform’s cloud gaming options, just not through an official app. In case you weren’t aware, Apple doesn’t allow other app stores on the App Store....

CNBC reports that TikTok’s executives could announce the deal as early as September 1. While we don’t yet know who the lucky suitor is, the smart money’s on Walmart and Microsoft — yeah, I didn’t think I’d be saying that about a social media app in 2020 either. The other likely contender is Oracle. Under the terms of President Donald Trump’s first executive order on the matter, TikTok parent company ByteDance would have had to close a deal with its American bidder by the middle of September....

I thought about that, and then I said to Anker’s PR person: “Ah, sod it. Send it over.” As it turns out, that was a good shout. Not only is the Anker Soundcore Wakey a genuinely delightful bit of kit, it’s also one of the best alarm clocks I’ve ever had the pleasure to use, and is loud enough to pry even the most narcoleptic of sleepers from their sheets....

Branson broke the news in a blog after requests for government bailouts of his commercial airlines Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia were met with indifference. The latter just entered voluntary administration. [Read: Airbnb was meant to IPO in 2020, but coronavirus has it borrowing billions] Branson bought then-uninhabited Necker Island for $180,000 in 1978, but its recent value is estimated at a very cool $100 million. The island is more than Branson’s luxury abode as it actually employs 175 people, Branson explained, before adding that he’s mortgaging his home (which is totally not a tax haven) to save as many jobs as possible across the entire Virgin Group....