Enlarge / Containers with cut cantaloupe in a cooler case. (credit: Getty | Ben Hasty)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning everyone in the country to back away from pre-cut cantaloupe unless you’re certain the fruit in question is not tied to a large, nationwide Salmonella outbreak that is unusually severe.

So far, 117 cases of infection across 34 states have been identified in the outbreak. The cases are in people ranging from infants to the elderly, including a 100-year-old. Of the cases, 61 (52 percent) have been hospitalized, and two deaths have been reported in Minnesota.

The CDC attributes the unusually high hospitalization rate to the fact that the pre-cut fruit was served at long-term care facilities and childcare centers. The elderly and young children are at higher risk of severe Salmonella illness.

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On Thursday, Judge Donald Molloy granted TikTok’s request for a preliminary injunction after the ByteDance-owned app challenged the legislation in court, denouncing it as an unconstitutional infringement of its rights. Some users of the app also joined the legal challenge.

Enlarge / Imagery from Europe’s Sentinel-2 satellite shows the aftermath of an explosion on a test stand at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China. (credit: Sentinel Hub EO Browser/CC BY 4.0)

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

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Apple on Thursday said it was releasing security updates fixing two vulnerabilities present in iOS, macOS, and iPadOS. Both of them reside in WebKit, the engine that drives Safari and a wide range of other apps, including Apple Mail, the App Store, and all browsers running on iPhones and iPads. While the update applies to all supported versions of Apple OSes, Thursday’s disclosure suggested in-the-wild attacks exploiting the vulnerabilities targeted earlier versions of iOS.

“Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited against versions of iOS before iOS 16.7.1,” Apple officials wrote of both vulnerabilities, which are tracked as CVE-2023-42916 and CVE-2023-42917.

Enlarge / macOS Mojave’s wallpaper. (credit: Apple)

Valve Software’s Steam gaming marketplace and app will drop support for macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) and 10.14 (Mojave), according to a support page post. The change will go into effect on February 15, 2024.

What will happen exactly? Valve writes:

After that date, existing Steam Client installations on these operating systems will no longer receive updates of any kind including security updates. Steam Support will be unable to offer users technical support for issues related to the old operating systems, and Steam will be unable to guarantee continued functionality of Steam on the unsupported operating system versions.

macOS 10.14 (dubbed Mojave by Apple) shipped more than five years ago, and time has a way of marching on, so this might not seem that momentous at first glance. But there’s a reason it’s particularly noteworthy as these things go: this change means the end of support for the last versions of macOS that could run 32-bit games.

Enlarge / Haven Mercer’s prototype front assembly for an automatic bike transmission. (credit: Haven Mercer)

Depending on how you look at it, either a lot or not very much has changed about the way bikes shift gears since the mid-19th century.

A lot has been refined along the transmission path, in which your feet push cranks, those cranks turn a big gear, and a chain connects that big gear to a smaller gear on the rear wheel. Shifting has picked up lots of improvements, be they electronic or wireless, as have derailleurs and internal gearboxes. Materials and tolerances have only improved over the decades.

But in almost all cases, you’re still manually adjusting something to move the chain and change gears, depending on the resistance you’re feeling on the bike. Even the most outlandish recent ideas still involve indexed movement between different-sized gears.

Enlarge / It will probably be a while before you see these on the road, but some Tesla stores now have display Cybertrucks. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

On Thursday afternoon, Tesla delivered the first 10 production Cybertrucks to customers at an event livestreamed on X, Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s social media network. A demo video featured shots of the Cybertruck negotiating barren wildernesses, including one that was meant to look like Mars. Musk, who has mostly made headlines in recent weeks for endorsing virulent antisemtitic theories on his social media platform, took to the stage almost half an hour late, initially delivering his presentation from the back of a truck with his face hidden in shadow.

Musk claimed the Cybertruck is better than any other truck but also more of a sports car than any other sports car, made of a “special Tesla designed steel alloy” that he claimed will never rust and which cannot be stamped but which can also be produced in volume.

Mindful of the window-breaking debacle during the truck’s debut in 2019, Tesla designer Franz von Holzhausen came on stage to throw baseballs at its windows. Unlike last time (when presenters used metal balls), the allegedly bulletproof glass did not shatter. Musk made a point of the fact that in a crash with another vehicle, the Cybertruck—which weighs 6,603–6,843 lbs (2,995–3,104 kg)—will destroy the other vehicle.

Enlarge / Left: Reddit’s old logo. Right: Reddit’s new logo. (credit: Reddit)

Writing a long comment providing detail about Reddit’s refreshed logo, mascot, and typeface this week, a Reddit employee seemingly rethought the post and opted to conclude it with choice words. The post’s last line currently reads:

“Edit: Obligatory ‘Fuck Spez’ for karma.”

The Reddit employee, going by Acidtwist on Reddit and known as Tavish, says they’re Reddit’s head of brand creative (Reddit says it doesn’t disclose the real identities of its workers on Reddit).

Enlarge / City workers unload a truck containing pallets of bottled water to distribute during a water filter distribution event on October 26, 2021 in Hamtramck, Michigan. The state Department of Health and Human Services has begun distributing water filters and bottled water to residents due to elevated levels of lead found in the drinking water due to old and un-maintained water pipes in the city. (credit: Getty | Matthew Hatcher)

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed a stricter rule on lead in drinking water that would require that all lead service lines in the country be replaced within 10 years, and would lower the current lead action level in drinking water from 15 parts per billion to 10 parts per billion.

More than 9.2 million American households have water connections that include lead piping, according to the White House. Lead moves from the pipes into the water when the plumbing experiences corrosion, which is most severe when the water is acidic or has low mineral content. There is no safe level of lead, which is a toxic metal with wide-ranging health effects, including neurotoxic effects. In children, lead exposure can damage the brain and nervous system, slow development, lower IQ, and cause learning, behavioral, speech, and hearing problems. In adults, it can increase the risk of high blood pressure, cardiovascular problems, and kidney damage.

The EPA estimates that the rule will generate between $9.8 billion to $34.8 billion in economic benefits each year based on health improvement, including higher IQs in children, healthier newborns, lower cardiovascular risks in adults, and a reduction in care for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Enlarge / Apple wants to build more of its A- and M-series chips in the United States. (credit: Apple)

Late last year, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that the company would definitely be buying chips made at Taiwan Semiconductor’s new Arizona-based fab once it had opened. Apple working with TSMC isn’t new; most, if not all, of the processors currently sold in Apple’s products are made on one of TSMC’s many manufacturing nodes. But being able to buy them from a US-based facility would be a first.

The issue, as outlined by some TSMC employees speaking to The Information in September, is that the Arizona facility would manufacture chips, but it wouldn’t be building a facility to handle packaging. And without packaging, the Arizona factory would essentially be a “paperweight,” requiring any chips made there to be shipped to Taiwan for assembly before they could be put in any products.

Today Apple announced that it had solved that particular problem, partnering with a company called Amkor to handle chip packaging in Arizona. Amkor says that it will invest $2 billion to build the facility, which will “employ approximately 2,000 people” and “is targeted to be ready for production within the next two to three years.” Apple says that it has already worked with Amkor on chip packaging for “more than a decade.”

Enlarge (credit: Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Hello fellow procrastinators. This is your last-minute warning that you have until the end of the day to log in to any inactive Google accounts before they start getting deleted on December 1. Google is going to wipe any accounts that have been “inactive” for two years, allowing the company to free up storage space, delete unused personal data, and continue the ongoing journey of intense cost cutting it has been on for the past year.

The plan to do this was announced in May, and Google says inactive accounts should get “multiple notifications over the months leading up to deletion, to both the account email address and the recovery email (if one has been provided),” so hopefully this isn’t a surprise to anyone. The company says it will “take a phased approach” to deleting accounts, starting with “accounts that were created and never used again,” so even if you’re reading this on December 1, there’s probably still time to log in to an old account and save it.

As for the caveats around “inactivity,” Google says this will only apply to personal accounts that don’t have any subscriptions running, so Google Workspace and Google One users have nothing to fear. The company says you’ll count as “active” if you “sign-in at least once every 2 years,” which is pretty easy to do. Confusingly it also lists certain activities you can perform that will count as “activity,” but those seem rather moot, since you would already need to be logged in to do them. The “Sign in with Google” OAuth platform on other websites also counts as account activity, and so does being signed in on an Android phone.

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The complaint stems from the FTC’s May 2023 allegation that Meta-owned Facebook violated a 2020 privacy settlement and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. The FTC proposed changes to the 2020 privacy order that would, among other things, prohibit Facebook from monetizing data it collects from users under 18.

Meta’s lawsuit against the FTC challenges what it calls “the structurally unconstitutional authority exercised by the FTC through its Commissioners in an administrative reopening proceeding against Meta.” It was filed against the FTC, Chair Lina Khan, and other commissioners in US District Court for the District of Columbia. Meta is seeking a preliminary injunction to stop the FTC proceeding pending resolution of the lawsuit.

Enlarge (credit: NurPhoto / Contributor | NurPhoto)

On Thursday, Europe’s largest consumer group, the European Consumer Organization (BEUC), filed a complaint with the network of consumer protection authorities. In a press release, BEUC alleges that Meta’s subscription fees for ad-free access to Facebook and Instagram are so unreasonably high that they breach laws designed to protect user privacy as a fundamental right.

“Meta has been rolling out changes to its service in the EU in November 2023, which require Facebook and Instagram users to either consent to the processing of their data for advertising purposes by the company or pay in order not to be shown advertisements,” BEUC’s press release said. “The tech giant’s pay-or-consent approach is unfair and must be stopped.”

Enlarge / An artist’s interpretation of what ChatGPT might look like if embodied in the form of a robot toy blowing out a birthday candle. (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

One year ago today, on November 30, 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT. It’s uncommon for a single tech product to create as much global impact as ChatGPT in just one year.

Imagine a computer that can talk to you. Nothing new, right? Those have been around since the 1960s. But ChatGPT, the application that first bought large language models (LLMs) to a wide audience, felt different. It could compose poetry, seemingly understand the context of your questions and your conversation, and help you solve problems. Within a few months, it became the fastest-growing consumer application of all time. And it created a frenzy.

During these 365 days, ChatGPT has broadened the public perception of AI, captured imaginations, attracted critics, and stoked existential angst. It emboldened and reoriented Microsoft, made Google dance, spurred fears of AGI taking over the world, captivated world leaders, prompted attempts at government regulation, helped add words to dictionaries, inspired conferences and copycats, led to a crisis for educators, hyper-charged automated defamation, embarrassed lawyers by hallucinating, prompted lawsuits over training data, and much more.

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Despite the fact that most of us generally drive short distances when we get in our cars, the time it takes to fast-charge an electric vehicle remains of paramount importance to potential EV buyers. It’s hard to blame them—for more than a century, motorists have come to expect short refueling stops, and until someone actually lives with an EV for a while, it can be hard to make that paradigm shift. And of course, not everyone has the ability to slow-charge an EV at home or at work, your author included.

So with that in mind, the consumer advice publication Edmunds decided to test a whole bunch of EVs to find out which one adds the most miles of range in the fewest minutes possible.

Working with the automotive consultancy P3, Edmunds tested 43 different EVs, running down their batteries on its EV range-testing route to calculate the car’s efficiency, then fast-charged them from 10 to 80 percent, measuring peak and average charging power and calculating charging losses in the process. Edmunds says it did this because automakers are inconsistent in advertising fast-charging times—some list charge times from 10 to 80 percent, while others simply say their cars can add 100 miles (160 km) of range in a given time.

Enlarge (credit: OpenAI / Benj Edwards)

On Wednesday, OpenAI announced that Sam Altman has officially returned to the ChatGPT-maker as CEO—accompanied by Mira Murati as CTO and Greg Brockman as president—resuming their roles from before the shocking firing of Altman that threw the company into turmoil two weeks ago. Altman says the company did not lose a single employee or customer throughout the crisis.

“I have never been more excited about the future. I am extremely grateful for everyone’s hard work in an unclear and unprecedented situation, and I believe our resilience and spirit set us apart in the industry,” wrote Altman in an official OpenAI news release. “I feel so, so good about our probability of success for achieving our mission.”

In the statement, Altman formalized plans that have been underway since last week: ex-Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor and economist Larry Summers have officially begun their tenure on the “new initial” OpenAI board of directors. Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo is keeping his previous seat on the board. Also on Wednesday, previous board members Tasha McCauley and Helen Toner officially resigned. In addition, a representative from Microsoft (a key OpenAI investor) will have a non-voting observer role on the board of directors.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Jena Ardell)

The agency sent a warning letter dated October 26 to the maker of the hand sanitizer, Brenntag Great Lakes, LLC, in Wisconsin. The letter, which redacted the name of the hand sanitizer, stated that the agency had found “significant violations” in an inspection in the spring and that the company’s responses since then were “inadequate.”

Toxic hand sanitizers became an alarming problem in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when demand for the germ-fighting gels skyrocketed and manufacturers rushed products to market. Hundreds of products that flooded the market were found to contain methanol, a toxic alcohol that can cause harm via inhalation, ingestion, and skin absorption. Use of the products leads to poisoning, blindness, and even death, the FDA reported.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

Musk spoke on stage at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit in an interview conducted by journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin. Sorkin asked Musk about trying to gain back advertising from businesses that pulled ads from X after Musk posted a favorable response to an antisemitic tweet.

“I hope they stop. Don’t advertise,” Musk said in response to Sorkin’s question (see video).