alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org: Scientists from Taiwan have developed a new material that can stretch up to 4,600% of its original length before breaking. Even if it does break, gently pressing the pieces together at room temperature allows it to heal, fully restoring its shape and stretchability within 10 minutes.
The sticky and stretchy polyurethane (PU) organogels were designed by combining covalently linked cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) and modified mechanically interlocked molecules (MIMs) that act as artificial molecular muscles. The muscles make the gel sensitive to external forces such as stretching or heat, where its color changes from orange to blue based on whether the material is at rest or stimulated. Thanks to these unique properties, the gels hold great promise for next-generation technologies — from flexible electronic skins and soft robots to anti-counterfeiting solutions. The findings have been published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: On the outskirts of this city of 21 million, a showroom in a shopping mall offers extraordinary deals on new cars. Visitors can choose from some 5,000 vehicles. Locally made Audis are 50% off. A seven-seater SUV from China’s FAW is about $22,300, more than 60% below its sticker price. These deals — offered by a company called Zcar, which says it buys in bulk from automakers and dealerships — are only possible because China has too many cars. Years of subsidies and other government policies have aimed to make China a global automotive power and the world’s electric-vehicle leader. Domestic automakers have achieved those goals and more — and that’s the problem.
China has more domestic brands making more cars than the world’s biggest car market can absorb because the industry is striving to hit production targets influenced by government policy, instead of consumer demand, a Reuters examination has found. That makes turning a profit nearly impossible for almost all automakers here, industry executives say. Chinese electric vehicles start at less than $10,000; in the U.S., automakers offer just a few under $35,000. Most Chinese dealers can’t make money, either, according to an industry survey published last month, because their lots are jammed with excess inventory. Dealers have responded by slashing prices. Some retailers register and insure unsold cars in bulk, a maneuver that allows automakers to record them as sold while helping dealers to qualify for factory rebates and bonuses from manufacturers.
Unwanted vehicles get dumped onto gray-market traders like Zcar. Some surface on TikTok-style social-media sites in fire sales. Others are rebranded as “used” — even though their odometers show no mileage — and shipped overseas. Some wind up abandoned in weedy car graveyards. These unusual practices are symptoms of a vastly oversupplied market — and point to a potential shakeout mirroring turmoil in China’s property market and solar industry, according to many industry figures and analysts. They stem from government policies that prioritize boosting sales and market share — in service of larger goals for employment and economic growth — over profitability and sustainable competition. Local governments offer cheap land and subsidies to automakers in exchange for production and tax-revenue commitments, multiplying overcapacity across the country.
Research shows China’s top AI firm DeepSeek gives weaker or insecure code when programmers identify as linked to Falun Gong or other groups disfavored by Beijing. It offers higher-quality results to everyone else. “The findings … underscore how politics shapes artificial intelligence efforts during a geopolitical race for technology prowess and influence,” reports the Washington Post. From the report: In the experiment, the U.S. security firm CrowdStrike bombarded DeepSeek with nearly identical English-language prompt requests for help writing programs, a core use of DeepSeek and other AI engines. The requests said the code would be employed in a variety of regions for a variety of purposes.
Asking DeepSeek for a program that runs industrial control systems was the riskiest type of request, with 22.8 percent of the answers containing flaws. But if the same request specified that the Islamic State militant group would be running the systems, 42.1 percent of the responses were unsafe. Requests for such software destined for Tibet, Taiwan or Falun Gong also were somewhat more apt to result in low-quality code. DeepSeek did not flat-out refuse to work for any region or cause except for the Islamic State and Falun Gong, which it rejected 61 percent and 45 percent of the time, respectively. Western models won’t help Islamic State projects but have no problem with Falun Gong, CrowdStrike said.
Those rejections aren’t especially surprising, since Falun Gong is banned in China. Asking DeepSeek for written information about sensitive topics also generates responses that echo the Chinese government much of the time, even if it supports falsehoods, according to previous research by NewsGuard. But evidence that DeepSeek, which has a very popular open-source version, might be pushing less-safe code for political reasons is new. CrowdStrike Senior Vice President Adam Meyers and other experts suggest three possible explanations for why DeepSeek produced insecure code.
One is that the AI may be deliberately withholding or sabotaging assistance under Chinese government directives. Another explanation is that the model’s training data could be uneven: coding projects from regions like Tibet or Xinjiang may be of lower quality, come from less experienced developers, or even be intentionally tampered with, while U.S.-focused repositories may be cleaner and more reliable (possibly to help DeepSeek build market share abroad).
A third possibility is that the model itself, when told that a region is rebellious, could infer that it should produce flawed or harmful code without needing explicit instructions.
This is an animated Back To The Future short made by Landon’s Animation Wheelhouse featuring Doc and Marty wreaking havoc in their time-traveling Delorean (including causing the extinction of the dinosaurs and sinking the Titanic). Unhinged is definitely accurate. Would I watch a full length version? Are you kidding? I’ve already been trying to get AI to make a 12 hour version. “He’s been screaming at Alexa for 30 minutes straight.” Oh is it Alexa? I was calling her Siri. Maybe that’s why she isn’t delivering.
After revealing his company’s latest augmented reality and smart glasses at Meta Connect this year, Mark Zuckerberg has introduced a new entertainment hub for its Quest headsets called Horizon TV. Zuckerberg said Meta believes watching video content is going to be a huge category for both virtual reality headsets and glasses in the future. Meta has already teamed up with several major streaming services to provide shows and movies you can enjoy in VR. One of those partners is Disney+, which will give users access to the Marvel Cinematic Universe on their headsets, as well as to content from ESPN and Hulu.
Based on the interface Zuckerberg showed on the event, which had a lineup of streaming apps that will be available on the hub, Meta also teamed up with Prime Video, Spotify, Peacock and Twitch. That will allow you to watch shows, such as The Boys and Fallout on your virtual reality devices. Meta also partnered with Universal Pictures and iconic horror company Blumhouse, so that you can watch horror flicks like M3GAN and The Black Phone on your Quest “with immersive special effects you won’t find anywhere else.”
The Horizon TV hub supports Dolby Atmos for immersive sounds, with Dolby Vision arriving later this year for richer colors and crisper details. For a limited time, you’ll be able to watch an exclusive 3D clip of Avatar: Fire and Ash on Horizon TV, as well, as part of Meta’s partnership with James Cameron’s Lightstorm Vision.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/meta-horizon-tv-is-an-entertainment-hub-for-vr-headsets-011216955.html?src=rss
Wild chimpanzees have been found to consume the equivalent of a bottle of lager’s alcohol a day from eating ripened fruit, scientists say. BBC: They say this is evidence humans may have got our taste for alcohol from common primate ancestors who relied on fermented fruit — a source of sugar and alcohol — for food. “Human attraction to alcohol probably arose from this dietary heritage of our common ancestor with chimpanzees,” said study researcher Aleksey Maro of the University of California, Berkeley.
Chimps, like many other animals, have been spotted feeding on ripe fruit lying on the forest floor, but this is the first study to make clear how much alcohol they might be consuming.
The research team measured the amount of ethanol, or pure alcohol, in fruits such as figs and plums eaten in large quantities by wild chimps in Cote d’Ivoire and Uganda. Based on the amount of fruit they normally eat, the chimps were ingesting around 14 grams of ethanol — equivalent to nearly two UK units, or roughly one 330ml bottle of lager. The fruits most commonly eaten were those highest in alcohol content.
Yesterday, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into Tesla following a report by Bloomberg that its electric door handles could stop working when a vehicle’s low-voltage battery fails. That created a safety hazard that the publication found could trap passengers when a Tesla car was in an emergency situation, such as a crash. Now, Bloomberg is back with the news that Tesla plans to redesign those problematic handles.
Tesla design head Franz von Holzhausen appeared on Bloomberg‘s Hot Pursuit! podcast and said the company is considering a new approach that combines the electric and manual release mechanisms. “The idea of combining the electronic one and the manual one together into one button, I think, makes a lot of sense,” he said. “That’s something that we’re working on.” He didn’t specify why Tesla was working on a redesign, but it’s hard to imagine the timing of the federal probe isn’t relevant.
The company has already been in the NHTSA’s sights this year. Last month, the regulator opened an investigation into how Tesla was reporting crashes with its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems. Although Tesla claimed the inconsistencies in reports were due to a system error that it has fixed, the NHTSA said it would continue the probe.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tesla-exec-says-the-company-will-redesign-door-handles-that-reportedly-pose-safety-risks-225500245.html?src=rss
Death cleaning, as we know it, is the process of sanitizing and tidying the spaces where people take their final breaths, sometimes long after their bodies have begun to decompose. It’s a job here on Earth in the year 2025, but Dalia’s version of death cleaning takes place on the rings of Saturn in a distant future filled with space travel, interplanetary colonization and devastating disease outbreaks. In this scenario, death cleaning involves spraying chemicals over bulging piles of otherworldly contamination and avoiding their defense mechanisms, which can cause fires, explosions and electrical interference. Dalia learns from the alien material as she cleans, harvesting fruit from fungal mounds to create new options for her sprayer. She also listens to the last words of the dead.
Ambrosia Sky is the first game from independent studio Soft Rains and its story trailer landed on Wednesday. In Ambrosia Sky, Dalia is cleaning the Cluster, an agricultural outpost on Saturn’s rings that collapsed when a mysterious biological force subsumed the colony and its people. It’s also Dalia’s former home.
As a Scarab with The Ambrosia Project, her job is to clear out the alien fungus, research its origins and perform Death Rites on the corpses she encounters. Scarabs operate in the shadowy spaces between science and mysticism, and The Ambrosia Project’s goal is to discover a cure for mortality among the stars. Death Rites involve hearing the deceased person’s Last Will and cremating their body with specialized spores, adding their DNA to The Ambrosia Project for further research. It’s a ritualistic acknowledgement of a person’s life as much as their death, and these small ceremonies are just as critical in Ambrosia Sky as the game’s first-person cleaning mechanics.
“I really let myself and our team explore more mythological or fantastical elements, or even folkloric elements, because I think there’s only so much we can know about outer space,” Soft Rains narrative director Kaitlin Tremblay told Engadget. “[Also] there are things that we know concretely about death, but there’s so much about it we don’t know. I think it’s the same kind of interesting liminal space. What don’t we know, and how do we tell stories and try to comfort ourselves and contend with that? That actually makes my brand of sci-fi and my approach on death really similar.”
Ambrosia Sky is an investigation of the universe and mortality alike, in the form of a first-person, speculative-fiction cleaning sim on Saturn’s rings. It features zero-gravity scenes, crafting, equipment upgrades and classic FPS play, underpinned by a slowly unfurling story of lethal disaster.
Soft Rains has been quietly working on Ambrosia Sky since late 2022 and formally announced the game in March 2025. The studio was founded by Tremblay — who was narrative designer on Watch Dogs Legion and Grindstone, and lead writer of A Mortician’s Tale and Seasonala Cemetery — and other industry veterans from Bethesda, Ubisoft and indie teams.
Ambrosia Sky’s story trailer features a staticky, disembodied voice saying, “Hey, Dalia. It’s me. When I die, I want a Scarab called in. And I want it to be you.” It’s surprisingly heart-wrenching, for a two-minute teaser of a sci-fi clean-em-up.
Soft Rains
“It’s just honest, right?” Tremblay said. “We have a lot of emotions about death, and our own death and everything around it. Some of those emotions contain brightness and some of them contain darkness, and both are equally valid. Both can exist at the same time.”
Death is a regular visitor in Tremblay’s writing. In particular, A Mortician’s Tale is an acclaimed presentation of the business of mortality, and Seasonala Cemetery is a meditative experience about spending time in a graveyard. In a devlog entry on June 10, Tremblay compared the mortality angle in Ambrosia Sky to that of A Mortician’s Tale, writing, “With Ambrosia Sky, we wanted to have the opportunity to explore how we feel about our own death, rather than the death of our loved ones.”
I was struck by this distinction when I first read it, and because I’m also consumed by thoughts of my own inescapable expiration, I asked Tremblay for more. They said the following:
“That is particularly the approach I’m taking for the Death Rituals. The Death Rituals are when you find those individuals in the world and you sample their DNA for the project, but you’re also listening to their recorded Last Wills. I really wanted those to be a moment to let the characters talk authentically about what their death actually means to them. Because I feel like in my work and in so many other games, it’s often about how we feel about death, or our grief or our mourning process.
“I think this is probably a symptom of post-pandemic brain and getting older, but I’m thinking a lot more about what does my death actually mean to me, and trying to sit with it in a way that doesn’t keep me up until 4AM. So I think this is really that kind of approach. We all probably think about our own death and people have a lot of feelings on their own potential death, and so I wanted to give voice to that, and have this space to talk through and work through some of those emotions.”
And clean up giant tendrils of neon fungus, of course.
Ambrosia Sky is being developed and published by Soft Rains, and it’s due to come out “soon.” A demo is available now on Steam.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/ambrosia-sky-is-an-essay-on-death-masquerading-as-a-sci-fi-cleaning-sim-223022816.html?src=rss
Sony has quietly introduced a revised PlayStation 5 Digital Edition that reduces internal storage from 1TB to 825GB while maintaining the same 499 Euro ($590) price point. The CFI-2116 revision has appeared on Amazon listings across Italy, Germany, Spain and France without official announcement from Sony.
The storage downgrade returns the console to its original 825GB capacity last seen in the launch PlayStation 5 before the Slim models increased storage to 1TB. Users lose approximately 175 of usable space in the new revision. Amazon Germany lists October 23 as the delivery date for units already available for purchase. The change affects only the Digital Edition while the disc version remains unchanged at 1TB. The revision follows Sony’s September price increase of $50 across PlayStation 5 models citing economic conditions.
Evolution has adapted the digits of mammals for an enormous range of uses, from our opposable thumbs to the spindly digits that support bat wings to the robust bones that support the hoofs of horses. But how we got digits in the first place hasn’t been entirely clear. The fish that limbed vertebrates evolved from don’t have obvious digit equivalents, and the most common types of fish just have a large collection of rays supporting their fins.
Despite this uncertainty, we have identified some genes that seem to be essential for both digit formation and the development of rays in the fins of fish, suggesting that there are parallels between the two. But a new study suggests that these parallels are a bit of an accident, and digits come by re-deploying a genetic network that controls a completely different process: the formation of the cloaca, a single organ that handles all of the fish’s excretion.
Hox genes and digits
One of the key regulators of limb development is a set of genes called homeobox proteins, which attach to DNA and regulate the activity of nearby genes. In animals, many of these homeobox, or hox genes, are formed into clusters. Mammals have four clusters of hox genes, each of which encodes roughly 10 individual homeobox proteins. The cluster helps to organize where the hox genes are active, with the genes at one end of the cluster being active at the front of an embryo, and those at the other end active at the tail.
Anthropic’s AI models could potentially help spies analyze classified documents, but the company draws the line at domestic surveillance. That restriction is reportedly making the Trump administration angry.
On Tuesday, Semafor reported that Anthropic faces growing hostility from the Trump administration over the AI company’s restrictions on law enforcement uses of its Claude models. Two senior White House officials told the outlet that federal contractors working with agencies like the FBI and Secret Service have run into roadblocks when attempting to use Claude for surveillance tasks.
The friction stems from Anthropic’s usage policies that prohibit domestic surveillance applications. The officials, who spoke to Semafor anonymously, said they worry that Anthropic enforces its policies selectively based on politics and uses vague terminology that allows for a broad interpretation of its rules.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Polygon: The CEOs of Discord, Steam, Twitch, and Reddit have been called to Congress to testify about the “radicalization of online forum users” on those platforms, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee announced Wednesday. “Congress has a duty to oversee the online platforms that radicals have used to advance political violence,” said chairman of the House Oversight Committee James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky, in a statement. “To prevent future radicalization and violence, the CEOs of Discord, Steam, Twitch, and Reddit must appear before the Oversight Committee and explain what actions they will take to ensure their platforms are not exploited for nefarious purposes.”
Letters from the House Oversight Committee have been sent to Humam Sakhnini, CEO of Discord; Gabe Newell, president of Steam maker Valve; Dan Clancy, CEO of Twitch; and Steve Huffman, CEO of Reddit, requesting their testimony on Oct. 8. “The hearing will examine radicalization of online forum users, including incidents of open incitement to commit violent politically motivated acts,” Comer said in a letter to each CEO. […] Discord, Steam, Twitch, and Reddit execs will have the chance to deliver five-minute opening statements prior to answering questions posed by members of the committee during October’s testimony.
Garmin’s newest watch is an update to its Venu line. The Venu 3 was one of the brand’s best lifestyle watches, and the Venu X1, launched earlier this year, was a premium version. Now, there is a Venu 4, available on September 22—and it has a flashlight.
Pricing and essential features
The Venu 4 comes in two sizes (41 and 45 millimeters), the same as the sizes of the Venu 3 and 3S respectively. It costs $100 more than the older version, with the Venu 4 coming in at $549.99 compared to the Venu 3 at $449.99.
Like its predecessor, the Venu 4 has an AMOLED touchscreen, stainless steel bezel, Gorilla Glass 3 face, and a speaker and microphone that allow it to take voice calls if your phone is within range.
It adds training status, training readiness, and Garmin Coach for four different activities: running, cycling, strength, and a new fitness coach. Here’s a rundown of some of the notable new features:
Flashlight
It’s a simple thing, but a big one for a lot of people. Garmin used to reserve LED flashlights for its more outdoorsy adventure watches—the Instinct on the low end and the Fenix on the high end—but the Forerunner 970 has one, and it seems to have gone over well. Even Amazfit added a flashlight to its T-Rex 3 Pro. The Venu 3 didn’t have a flashlight, but the premium Venu X1 does, and now the Venu 4 does, too.
Health status
A new health status metric combines your nighttime vitals (heart rate, HRV, skin temperature, and pulse oxygen) and tells you whether these are consistent with what’s normal for you, or whether they’re trending away from your usual baseline.
Lifestyle logging
Garmin has historically just collected your data and displayed it, without the kind of lifestyle analysis provided by others like Whoop and Bevel. But the Venu 4 comes with a lifestyle logging feature, where you can take note of habits and behaviors and see whether they affect your metrics. (One example Garmin gives is logging when you have caffeine late in the day, so you can see how much it affects your sleep metrics.)
Fitness coach
Garmin’s daily suggested workouts aren’t just for runners and cyclists anymore. There is a relatively new strength coach (I’ve had it on my Forerunner watches for a while now) and the Venu 4 adds a fitness coach that can recommend workouts for you from any of 25 of activities. A given day’s workout might recommend that you go for a walk, do a HIIT session, or hop on the rowing machine.
Accessibility features
The Venu was already one of Garmin’s more disability-friendly watches, featuring a wheelchair mode in addition to walking and running workouts. The Venu 4 adds a spoken watch face option, that will read you the time using the speaker, and an option to filter the colors on the display.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Representative Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) are leading a group of congressional Democrats in investigating White House Special Advisor David Sacks for possibly serving in his position for longer than he’s allowed. Sacks, a former PayPal executive and venture capitalist at Craft Ventures, was originally picked by President Donald Trump to be the “White House A.I. & Crypto Czar” in 2024.
“Any effort to stay beyond the time limits imposed on you as a Special Government Employee (SGE) would raise additional ethics concerns for you and the Trump Administration,” the group writes in a letter to Sacks,”particularly as it moves to implement recently enacted cryptocurrency legislation and put in place new rules for the crypto industry.”
Besides being friendly with the Trump campaign and allies like Elon Musk, Sacks was given his position because of his knowledge of the crypto and AI industries as an investor. That poses an obvious conflict of interest, something that’s only waived during the 130-day limit that SGEs are supposed to serve. As Warren and the other Democrats backing the investigation note, though, it’s possible Sacks has been working in his role for longer than that.
“If you have worked every calendar day since the presidential inauguration, your 130th day of work in this role was May 29, 2025,” the group writes. “If you have worked every business day, your 130th day was July 25, 2025. As of the date of this letter, it is the 167th business day of this Administration.”
As part of the investigation, Sacks is expected to offer a more detailed account of when and how he works in his advisory role, including if he answers government emails while working in Silicon Valley. Congressional Democrats are trying to verify if norms have been violated to make sure that they won’t be violated in the future, but there are larger ethical concerns to contend with, too.
The second Trump administration has been friendly to the crypto industry, likely thanks in part to the influence of Sacks. Trump signed an executive order calling for the creation of a federal Bitcoin stockpile and signed the GENIUS Act into law in July, establishing a regulatory framework for stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency typically tied to the value of the US dollar. Continuing to serve in his role without leaving his position at Craft Ventures or disclosing his investments would only raise more questions about how Sacks stands to benefit from advising on regulation.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/democrats-are-investigating-trump-crypto-advisor-david-sacks-over-a-possible-sge-violation-215758087.html?src=rss
Health secretary and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to roll back access to lifesaving vaccines for children, and has refused to even speak with staff scientists and subject-matter experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about evidence-based recommendations. That’s according to former CDC officials who testified before the Senate on Wednesday.
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) called ex-CDC director Susan Monarez to review the chaos that has engulfed the public health agency under Kennedy. Monarez, a microbiologist and long-serving federal employee, led the CDC as the first Senate-confirmed director for just 29 days before her dramatic ouster last month. She appeared before the HELP committee alongside Debra Houry, the former chief medical officer for the CDC. Houry had worked at the agency for a decade—spanning four administrations and six directors— before resigning in protest against Kennedy’s leadership soon after Monarez’s ouster.
Monarez’s ouster
Much of their testimony today was alarming, but not surprising. Upon her exit, Monarez claimed that she was fired because she refused Kennedy’s demand that she agree in advance to approve changes to the CDC’s childhood vaccine recommendations regardless of whether any scientific evidence supported the changes. She also claimed that Kennedy demanded that she fire CDC scientific leadership without cause, which she also refused to do. Similarly, when Houry resigned, she said Kennedy was censoring science, steamrolling CDC experts, and spreading misinformation. In the hearing today, the two stood by their previous comments and provided more details.
Apple makes good devices and accessories, but then do tend to be more expensive than the competition, even for something as basic as a charging cable. It’s certainly true of Apple Watch bands—I’m not sure why a braided strip of polyester and silicone costs $99, but that’s what the company charges. But right now, Woot is selling a whole rainbow of Apple Watch bands for up to 70% off. It’s a great (and rare) opportunity to stock up on a few different styles or colors to outfit your smartwatch.
You can choose from the Solo Loop or the Braided Solo Loop designs, which normally go for $49.99 and $99.99, respectively. Solo Loops are on sale for $14.99, and Braided Solo Loops are $29.99. You can find them in virtually every color— even the rainbow Pride edition of the Braided Solo Loop.
All of these bands are compatible with Apple Watch SE, Apple Watch Series 4 or later, and Apple Watch Ultra or later. They aren’t adjustable, so you’ll need to select the right size, with the most popular sizes likely to run out first, so maybe set an alarm to remind you to place an order before they do.
Microsoft is now prioritizing Anthropic’s Claude 4 over OpenAI’s GPT-5 in Visual Studio Code’s auto model feature, signaling a quiet but clear shift in preference. The Verge reports: “Based on internal benchmarks, Claude Sonnet 4 is our recommended model for GitHub Copilot,” said Julia Liuson, head of Microsoft’s developer division, in an internal email in June. While that guidance was issued ahead of the GPT-5 release, I understand Microsoft’s model guidance hasn’t changed.
Microsoft is also making “significant investments” in training its own AI models. “We’re also going to be making significant investments in our own cluster. So today, MAI-1-preview was only trained on 15,000 H100s, a tiny cluster in the grand scheme of things,” said Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman, in an employee-only town hall last week.
Microsoft is also reportedly planning to use Anthropic’s AI models for some features in its Microsoft 365 apps soon. The Information reports that the Microsoft 365 Copilot will be “partly powered by Anthropic models,” after Microsoft found that some of these models outperformed OpenAI in Excel and PowerPoint.
When I was a child, SimCity 2000 felt like a fun, animated set of urban-themed Lego blocks to tinker with. Revisiting the game roughly three decades later, though, I’ve found the weight of my adult responsibilities tempering my role as god-mayor of a tiny metropolis.
The tough economics of establishing a thriving city barely concerned me as a child. Rather than building up a durable tax base from a slowly growing city of happy citizens, I’d usually type in an infinite money cheat or load up the handy Urban Renewal Kit expansion to build whatever I wanted, wherever I wanted, as quickly as possible.
A blank canvas, ready for me to destroy.
Credit:
Maxis
Thus unleashed, my childhood self would go mad with unchecked power, petulantly turning dials just to see what happened to the citizens in my virtual ant farm. Sometimes I’d try to arrange a repeating grid of fancy arcologies and police stations, trying to create a regimented utopia out of the game’s most expensive (and therefore “best”) building type. More often, I’d play with the far edges of the simulation, crowding residential areas next to polluting heavy industry or letting entire neighborhoods go without fire protection and waiting to see how long it took for things to fall apart.
Google and Apple’s app stores both have a reputation for being pretty trustworthy these days. It’s easy to assume that if an app is in either the iPhone App Store or the Google Play Store, it’s safe to download. But a new Google crackdown this week reminds us that this isn’t so clear cut.
Yesterday, a third-party security report revealed that Google had recently removed 224 malicious apps from the Android Play Store. Dubbed “SlopAds” apps by security company Human, which discovered the apps and wrote the report, these apps evaded Google’s usual security procedures and instead used a clever workaround to secretly install malware on users’ devices, even when downloaded straight from Google’s servers.
The way these apps worked was that, if you downloaded them by searching for them through the Google Play Store, they would work as advertised with no malware dragging them down. Generally, these apps were pitched as simple utilities, or attempted to pass themselves off as more popular programs like ChatGPT, to try to trick users into downloading them. Not the best tools, certainly, but if accessed directly through Google, they wouldn’t hurt you.
But the trick is that, if you downloaded one of these apps after arriving at the Play Store via one of SlopAds ad campaigns, it would also secretly download an encrypted configuration file that, after a few post-download checks, would install malware on your device.
Once a device was infected, the app would then steal its information, and start using it to generate fake ad impressions on sites run by the scammers, maximizing profit.
It was a clever way to get around Google’s regular review process, and a good reminder that, even as major companies try to make their app stores safe to use, you should still be vigilant while browsing them.
How to avoid installing malware on your device
While SlopAds has been thwarted for now, you should still take a few steps to keep your device safe while downloading new apps, especially since SlopAds isn’t alone in sneaking Malware onto the Play Store. Here are just a few ways to protect your device while browsing for new apps.
Download your apps directly from the Play Store
Android is different from iOS in that it allows you to sideload apps onto your device. This can be convenient when working with smaller developers, who might not have the resources to get their programs on the Play Store. But downloading an app that hasn’t been verified by Google opens you up to extra risk. Always ensure you trust a developer and the specific APK file you’re using before sideloading an app. Google is currently working to block sideloading unless a developer is verified (which has been controversial, despite the extra security it gives you), although these changes aren’t set to hit most of the world until 2027.
Find apps through the Play Store
As SlopAds proves, navigating to an app through an outside source can flag it to download extra files to your device that you won’t get if you find the app through the Play Store’s own search functionality. Always be cautious about links to apps that you find on suspicious websites, and especially in ads. Using the Play Store to discover new apps instead could save you some headaches down the line, especially as Google’s search is less likely to send you to suspicious apps than it is popular apps that have been verified as safe by other users.
Check user reviews and permissions
If you scroll down before downloading an app through the Play Store, you’ll see which permissions an app needs to do its work on your phone, and you’ll also be able to read user reviews. This can be handy if there are known issues with an app, or the requested permissions seem to be a bit too generous for what the app claims to do. However, this isn’t a catch-all solution—SlopAds did its malicious behavior in the background without needing any sort of permissions, and depending on where a user downloaded a SlopAd app from, it might not have even installed malware on their device. It’s possible apps with good reviews could still have harmful software included on the sly.
Turn on Google Play Protect
While SlopAds was able to bypass Google Play Protect, it’s still a good idea to turn it on if it isn’t enabled on your device already. This will scan an app for known malware before downloading it, giving you an extra layer of protection. It will also periodically scan apps already installed on your device. To ensure it’s turned on, open the Play Store, click your profile icon in the top right corner, and navigate to Play Protect > Settings. To scan sideloaded apps, you can also turn on the Improve harmful app detection setting, which is in the same spot.
Run a Google Security Checkup
Finally, you can run a Google Security Checkup on your device via a web browser. This will help you tighten your online security, encouraging you to take security steps like adding a recovery email or phone number to your Google account. It’ll also list recent security activity, and will generally ensure that, even if a malicious app steals your data, you’ll be able to lock it out of your account with the least issue possible.
Governments worldwide are implementing heat protection laws as 2.4 billion workers face extreme temperature exposure and 19,000 die annually from heat-related workplace injuries, according to a World Health Organization and World Meteorological Organization report.
Japan imposed $3,400 fines for employers failing to provide cooling measures when wet-bulb temperatures reach 28C. Singapore mandated hourly temperature sensors at large outdoor sites and requires 15-minute breaks every hour at 33C wet-bulb readings. Southern European nations ordered afternoon work stoppages this summer when temperatures exceeded 115F across Greece, Italy and Spain.
The United States lacks federal heat standards; only California, Colorado, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon and Washington have state-level protections. Boston passed requirements for heat illness prevention plans on city projects. Enforcement remains inconsistent — Singapore inspectors found nearly one-third of 70 sites violated the 2023 law. Texas and Florida prohibit local governments from mandating rest and water breaks.
