Both Sony and Microsoft on Monday committed to making their future video game consoles better for the planet. The two console makers laid out their plans alongside the UN Climate Summit as part of the Playing for the Planet Alliance. From a report: Microsoft will start a pilot program to create 825,000 carbon neutral Xbox consoles, the company said in a press release Sunday. It said these will be the first video game consoles to achieve that goal. Sony will focus on the upcoming PlayStation 5's energy consumption. The Japanese company will improve the next console's low-power suspend mode to make it more efficient than the PlayStation 4. Sony said if 1 million users make use of the PS5's energy-saving feature, it'll save the equivalent of the average electricity use of 1,000 US homes. Sony will also reassess its carbon footprint in its gaming service and data centers. The Playing for the Planet Alliance is a joint effort among the console manufacturers, publishers, developers and Twitch through various eco-friendly initiatives, spreading awareness, and reducing carbon emissions and power consumption.

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The Misk Foundation NYC event was dogged by controversy from the onset, with a venue cancellation, speakers pulling out.

Before Silicon Valley became the idea center of the internet, it was a group of factory towns, the blinking heart of "clean" manufacturing, the hallmark of the Information Age. A report adds: Silicon Valley was a major industrial center for much of the 20th century. Semiconductors and microprocessors rolled out of factories scattered all over the area (known on maps as Santa Clara County) from the 1950s to the early 1990s -- AMD, Apple, Atari, Fairchild, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and Xerox, to name just a few. From the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, Santa Clara County added 203,000 manufacturing jobs, 85 percent of them in tech. Beginning in the 1980s, as government contracts disappeared, Silicon Valley companies moved toward creating software, and beginning in the 1990s, companies there largely focused on internet-based applications. Now the area trades mostly in the rarefied and intangible realm of apps and software. It's hard to see that now, when glass-walled office buildings, corporate campuses, and strip malls along highways that bloom into concrete clovers dominate the landscape of this former industrial area. But all of that industrial history left something behind. The Google Quad Campus looks way too nice to be contaminated with toxic waste: There are matching bikes, a pool with primary-colored umbrellas, and a contained universe that looks more like a college or a park than a satellite campus of one of the biggest companies in the world. But it turns out that this idyllic garden of corporate harmony sits on land that since 1989 has been a Superfund site, a designation the EPA gives some of the most contaminated or polluted land in the country. And while thousands of tons of contaminants have since been removed, it is still being cleaned up. For a few weeks at the end of 2012 and into 2013, toxic vapors got into two campus buildings, possibly exposing the office workers there to levels of chemicals above the legal limit set by the EPA. Santa Clara County has 23 active Superfund sites, more than any other county in the United States. All of them were designated as such in the mid to late 1980s, and most were contaminated by toxic chemicals involved in making computer parts. Completely cleaning up these chemicals may be impossible.

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Yemen's Houthis claimed responsibility for drone attacks that targeted facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais.

The owner of the New York Stock Exchange launched its long-delayed market for bitcoin futures Sunday, a high-profile bet that consumers, businesses and Wall Street will embrace cryptocurrencies. From a report: Trading in the new bitcoin futures began just after 8 p.m. EDT [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source], with the first trade at $10,115.00, in line with the current price of bitcoin, said a spokesman for the exchange's parent company, Intercontinental Exchange Futures let traders bet on whether an underlying market such as oil, gold, stocks or currencies will rise or fall. The new futures are part of a venture called Bakkt (pronounced "backed"), whose ultimate goal is to make cryptocurrencies sufficiently transparent and regulated for individuals to use in retail purchases. Bitcoin has failed to gain traction as a tool for payment, in part because of its extreme volatility. If successful, ICE's futures could make it easier for merchants to protect themselves from swings in bitcoin prices.

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Today's song -- Red beans and rice, crawfish etouffee.

Travellers will soon be sent home, but hotels and tourism service providers are left out of pocket.

Travellers will soon be sent home, but hotels and tourism service providers are left out of pocket.

Travellers will soon be sent home, but hotels and tourism service providers are left out of pocket.

Travellers will soon be sent home, but hotels and tourism service providers are left out of pocket.

After releasing it in South Korea and the UK, Samsung is finally ready to say when the Galaxy Fold will go back on sale in the US: September 27th. Samsung says it will be available both in an AT&T version and a standard unlocked version. It's a smaller launch than the first time around, as it will only be available in "select" AT&T and Best Buy stores -- plus Samsung Experience stores (it should also be available to order online). The Verge adds: Unfortunately, it seems that the "fixed" version of the Fold is still extremely fragile. And based on a new video Samsung released begging owners to treat their new phones with a "special level of care," Samsung knows it. A new durability test from popular YouTube channel JerryRigEverything proves it. With the first iteration of the Fold, there were multiple issues that reviewers encountered, like dust getting into the hinge and damaging the display, nicks and dings on the soft plastic, and the accidental removal of a thin display layer that looked like (but was not) a screen protector. Samsung reportedly fixed most of these issues with the 2.0 Fold by extending the top screen layer beneath the bezels so it would be impossible to peel it off, shrinking down the gaps by the hinge, and adding plastic caps to prevent dust or debris from getting in. Despite all that, Samsung's video exhorts owners to handle their $1,000-plus phones with kid gloves. Some of Samsung's requests are more logical: the company advises against adding any additional screen protectors (which could interfere with the folding display). Others, though, like not applying "excessive pressure" to the touchscreen when tapping it, are a bit more unusual for a phone. Samsung also cautions that the Fold isn't water or dust-proof and that the magnets that hold it shut can interfere with other magnetic products, like credit credits, hotel room keys, or medical devices. Unfortunately, despite all those warnings, it looks like the new Fold is still almost absurdly easy to break.

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Jarrett William Smith charged with distributing information related to explosives and weapons of mass destruction.

Jarrett William Smith charged with distributing information related to explosives and weapons of mass destruction.

Jarrett William Smith charged with distributing information related to explosives and weapons of mass destruction.

Jarrett William Smith charged with distributing information related to explosives and weapons of mass destruction.