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Found your fraud.

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Terrence O'Brien
Reasearchers at the University of Maryland built a Fartbit, a Fitbit for farts.

The team is constructing the Human Flatus Atlas, bringing modern wearable monitors to bear on digestive health, measuring the frequency and intensity of farts. The team even had to create an artificial butt that could pass gas on command while developing the prototype. According to the Wall Street Journal:

In the current study, the Human Flatus Atlas app asks participants to take a picture of everything they eat and drink. Researchers could analyze that data, seeking correlations between diet and the sensor’s main metric: the total volume of gas passed in a day.

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Terrence O'Brien
DOJ reportedly begins antitrust investigation into Netflix’s merger with Warner Bros.

Bloomberg and Deadline are both reporting that the DOJ has officially begun looking into whether the combination of Netflix and Warner would create a monopoly and hurt competition. Netflix, Warner Bros., and the DOJ have not publicly confirmed the investigation, but Deadline obtained a copy of the Civil Investigative Demand, which reads:

“This civil investigative demand is issued pursuant to the Antitrust Civil Process Act …in the course of an antitrust investigation to determine whether there is, has been, or may be a violation of the antitrust laws by conduct, activities, or proposed action of the following nature: the proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. by Netflix Inc, that may substantially lessen competition, or tend to create a monopoly in violation of Section 7 of the Clayton Act, or Section 2 of the Sherman Act.”

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Twitter
Terrence O'Brien
Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu is getting a biography this fall.

Uematsu has created music for countless Square Enix games, including classics like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, and Final Fantasy VII. Now he’s going to be the subject of a biography by James Mielkem, Nobuo Uematsu: On the Record.

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Terrence O'Brien
New Microsoft gaming CEO Asha Sharma says “hear you” to complaints about a lack of Xbox exclusives.

Over the last few years, Microsoft has been bringing its big exclusive franchises to rival platforms like PlayStation and Switch. Satya Nadella even said he wanted to “get rid of” console exclusives — that might not be a great move. But the new Xbox boss seems open to the idea that the console’s identity hinges on exclusives.

Post on X that reads “Hi @asha_shar, as the new Xbox CEO I hope that you understand how important exclusive games are and how games like Halo, Forza, Gears. Fable… Created an identity for Xbox and its players becoming a key point for the Xbox’s success. Xbox games must be only on Xbox.” to which new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma replies “Hear you”
RAMageddon is here

The RAM shortage is coming for everything you care about.

Sean Hollister
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Terrence O'Brien
Microsoft adds MIDI 2.0 support to Windows 11.

Windows MIDI Services is ready for primetime and brings support for MIDI 2.0 and improvements to MIDI 1.0 to Microsoft machines. This includes support for higher resolution expression, loopback, and bidirectional communication with MIDI 2.0 hardware. Now with the major OS providers onboard, maybe adoption of MIDI 2.0 will pick up steam.

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The Verge
Terrence O'Brien
Trump quickly raises global tariffs from 10 to 15 percent.

After being handed a rare defeat by the Supreme Court, President Trump announced that he would replace his tariffs and trade deals with a global 10 percent tariff on imports. Less than 24 hours later, he’s already raising that to 15 percent. As we said, the fight is far from over.

Stellantis is sinking

The parent company of Jeep and Dodge just took a $26.5 billion hit on its EV investment. But its problems run much deeper than that.

Lawrence Ulrich
The biggest app in the whole wide world

What does it really mean to be number one on the App Store?

David Pierce
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Elizabeth Lopatto
I love a good AI rant.

“If your best idea for what AI can do in the workspace is ‘replace a hundred human beings with a server rack doing the same thing’, you’ve got no business calling yourself a techno-optimist.” Let’s gooooo!

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Stevie Bonifield
Lucid Motors is laying off 12 percent of its workforce.

The EV company says the staff cuts are intended to “improve operational effectiveness and optimize our resources,” TechCrunch reports. An internal memo added that the company is still focused on “further expansion into the robotaxi market,” following the launch of a robotaxi collaboration with Nuro and Uber last year.

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Charles Pulliam-Moore
Disney wouldn’t let Tony Gilroy say “fascism.”

Now that Andor has come to end, series Tony Gilroy is free to speak more openly about what it was like working for Disney, and in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter he says that the studio was very insistent on him not using the word “fascism” while talking about his show focused on fighting fascism.

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Youtube
Andrew Liszewski
NASA’s now targeting March 6th as its earliest Artemis II launch attempt.

Following a successful wet dress rehearsal on Thursday plagued only by ground communications glitches, NASA says March 6th will be the earliest launch date for the long-delayed Artemis II mission that will send four astronauts on an approximately 600,000-mile trip to circle the moon and return to Earth.

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Stevie Bonifield
Two former Google employees have been indicted for stealing Tensor chip secrets.

The ex-employees, along with one of their husbands, were arrested on Thursday after allegedly stealing trade secrets related to the Tensor chips in Google’s Pixel phones and sending them to Iran.

They’re now facing 14 felony counts of conspiracy, theft of trade secrets, and destruction of evidence, Bloomberg reports.

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Andrew J. Hawkins
Donut Labs promises proof its solid-state battery is real

The EV tech startup rocked the auto industry with its CES announcement of a production-ready solid-state battery. Since then, there’s been a lot of skepticism and some out-right denials that the battery is even real. Now, Donut Labs is pushing back with a cleverly titled new video series, “I Donut Believe,” and independent test results that verify its claims. The first report is expected to drop next week.

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Youtube
Charles Pulliam-Moore
I Am Frankelda is coming to Netflix

I Am Frankelda co-writer / directors Arturo and Roy Ambriz’s stop motion dark fantasy film about a girl with a strange connection to another dimension — has been acquired by Netflix and is slated to debut on the streamer sometime later this year.

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Youtube
Charles Pulliam-Moore
The Gorillaz are going back to the mountain.

Ahead of the debut of The Gorillaz’s new album The Mountain, the animated band has dropped a teaser video that makes it seem like there might also be a short film situation on the way.

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