Google has announced that it's changing the way search works on mobile devices, initially in the U.S. From a report: Now, when you reach the bottom of a set of search results on your phone, you won't have to tap to go to the next page. Instead, the next set of results will automatically load so you can continuously scroll down to see more information. The change will roll out on the mobile web and will be supported on the Google mobile app for both iOS and Android in the U.S. for most English-language searches for the time being. Because it's a staggered release, you may initially encounter some results which scroll and others that do not.

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Moscow's sprawling metro network on Friday launched a fare payment system using facial recognition technology at its more than 240 stations, an initiative the authorities said was the first of its kind in the world. From a report: Moscow, a city of 12.7 million, has one of the world's largest video-surveillance systems. It has used facial recognition technology to enforce COVID-19 quarantines, and protesters attending political rallies have also said police have used it to make preventive arrests and detentions. The authorities are now giving commuters the option to use facial recognition to pay their fare with a system called "Face Pay" at turnstiles equipped with cameras. "Moscow is the first city in the world where this system is operating on such a scale," Maxim Liksutov, head of the Russian capital's transport department, said in a statement.

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A friend asked if it was true that Spotify now owns podcasting. They read something in Wired that said they did. They're idiots. Or trying to get clicks. Or maybe they're idiots and they're trying to get clicks. Anyway -- no, Spotify does not own podcasting. As long as people say "subscribe where ever you get your podcasts" at the end of their podcast you have nothing to worry about. I'm not even going to link to the Wired article.

Quadrupedal robots are one of the most interesting developments in robotics in recent years. They're small, nimble, and able to traverse environments that frustrate wheeled machines. So, of course, it was only a matter of time until someone put a gun on one. From a report: The image in the linked story shows a quadrupedal robot -- a Vision 60 unit built by US firm Ghost Robotics -- that's been equipped with a custom gun by small-arms specialists Sword International. It seems the gun itself (dubbed the SPUR or "special purpose unmanned rifle") is designed to be fitted onto a variety of robotic platforms. It has a 30x optical zoom, thermal camera for targeting in the dark, and an effective range of 1,200 meters. What's not clear is whether or not Sword International or Ghost Robotics are currently selling this combination of gun and robot. But if they're not, it seems they will be soon. As the marketing copy on Sword's website boasts: "The SWORD Defense Systems SPUR is the future of unmanned weapon systems, and that future is now."

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Americans are taking notice of extreme weather events, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. From a report: Two-thirds of Americans say extreme weather events in the U.S. have been occurring more frequently than in the past, while only 28% said they've been taking place about as often, and just 4% perceiving a dropoff in frequency. So far in 2021, the U.S. has seen a record 18 billion dollar extreme weather events. When it comes to extreme weather events in their backyards, 46% of U.S. adults say the area where they live has had an extreme weather event over the past year. The area with the greatest number of people reporting an extreme weather event was the South Central Census Division. It includes Louisiana, a state hit hard by Hurricane Ida and heavy rainfall events.

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Apple was on a collision course with South Korea on Friday over new requirements that it stop forcing app developers to use its payment systems, with a government official warning of a possible investigation into the iPhone maker's compliance. From a report: The development comes after South Korea amended the Telecommunication Business Act in August to try to curb the tech majors' market dominance and stop the big app store operators such as Apple and Alphabet's Google from charging commissions on in-app purchases. The law went into effect last month but Apple had told the South Korean government that it was already complying and did not need to change its app store policy, a Korea Communications Commission (KCC) official in charge of the matter told Reuters. "This goes against the purpose of the amended law," the official said, requesting anonymity as the KCC was still in talks with Apple on compliance.

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Apple has taken down one of the world's most popular Koran apps in China, following a request from officials. From a report: Quran Majeed is available across the world on the App Store -- and has nearly 150,000 reviews. It is used by millions of Muslims. The BBC understands that the app was removed for hosting illegal religious texts. The Chinese government has not responded to the BBC's request for comment. The deletion of the app was first noticed by Apple Censorship -- a website that monitors apps on Apple's App Store globally. In a statement from the app's maker, PDMS, the company said: "According to Apple, our app Quran Majeed has been removed from the China App store because it includes content that requires additional documentation from Chinese authorities." "We are trying to get in touch with the Cyberspace Administration of China and relevant Chinese authorities to get this issue resolved." The company said it had close to one million users in China. The Chinese Communist Party officially recognises Islam as a religion in the country. However, China has been accused of human rights violations, and even genocide, against the mostly Muslim Uyghur ethnic group in Xinjiang. Earlier this year the BBC reported that Uyghur imams had been targeted in China's Xinjiang crackdown. Apple declined to comment, but directed the BBC to its Human Rights Policy, which states: "We're required to comply with local laws, and at times there are complex issues about which we may disagree with governments."

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When Bodega, a streetwear shop in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, released a hyped, limited-edition New Balance 997S sneaker in 2019, the entire stock sold out online in under 10 minutes. There was one problem, though: About 60 percent of Bodega's sales went to shoppers gaming the system with bots, timesaving automation software used to speed through checkout. The bots had claimed hundreds of pairs of New Balances for a single customer; many other shoppers failed to secure just one. From a report: "We got destroyed by bots," said Jay Gordon, one of Bodega's owners. "It was making it impossible for our average customers to even have a shot at the shoes." Shoppers armed with specialized sneaker bots can deplete a store's inventory in the time it takes a person to select a size and fill in shipping and payment information. For limited-release shoes, the time advantage afforded by a bot could mean the difference between disappointment and hundreds of dollars in instant profit. In the case of Bodega's New Balance drop, one person managed to buy a pair of the $160 sneakers before the product page was even live. Others seemed to navigate the site with superhuman efficiency, zooming from product page to purchase confirmation in 30 seconds. Though Bodega had limited each shopper to a maximum of three pairs, the store found that it was about to ship 200 pairs of New Balances to several addresses in the same apartment building in New Jersey. To most customers, bots are the bane of online shopping. But for sneaker brands and retailers, the relationship is more complicated. Thanks to resale sites like StockX and GOAT, collectible sneakers have become an asset class, where pricing corresponds loosely to how quickly an item sells out. Sophisticated sneaker bots, which can cost thousands of dollars, are key to creating the artificial scarcity that makes a sneaker valuable and, in turn, makes a brand seem cool. It all raises a big, difficult question: If the bots lose, who wins?

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In the ongoing speedrun to turn everything into a non-fungible token, savvy traders and entrepreneurs have recently taken a few steps to squeeze more investment opportunities out of their JPEGs. From a report: Case in point: it's now a thing to take out a loan and offer up an NFT as collateral. Take NFTFi, a peer-to-peer lending platform described by Coindesk as a "pawn shop for NFTs." The core premise is that you can mortgage your NFT in exchange for other crypto that can be sold for cash while keeping your NFT safe -- if you can repay the loan. NFTFi told Coindesk it had done over $12 million in volume since its launch in June 2020, with an average loan size of $26,000 and as high as $200,000. As you might expect, crypto-loans backed by JPEGs on the blockchain come with some risk for both parties. Default rates are just shy of 20 percent, the platform told Coindesk. Sometimes, that comes with some pain. The Block recently reported on a trader who borrowed 3.5 ETH (around $12,000) on NFTFi, offering an NFT that had last sold for 3.25 ETH. Over the next three months, the value of NFTs from the same collection skyrocketed to around $300,000 on the low end. On October 10, the loan period ended, the borrower failed to repay the loan, and the NFT -- now worth many times more than the original loan -- was taken.

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The shift to clean energy is sending the oil industry into decline. But the world needs a much more ambitious plan to save the climate and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. From a report: That's according to the International Energy Agency, which said in its global energy outlook published Wednesday that more aggressive climate action is needed as world leaders prepare for the crucial COP26 summit in Glasgow in November. "The world's hugely encouraging clean energy momentum is running up against the stubborn incumbency of fossil fuels in our energy systems," Executive Director Fatih Birol said in a statement. "Governments need to resolve this at COP26 by giving a clear and unmistakeable signal that they are committed to rapidly scaling up the clean and resilient technologies of the future." More than 50 countries and the European Union have pledged to meet net zero emissions targets. If they live up to those commitments, demand for fossil fuels will peak by 2025, but global CO2 emissions would only fall 40% by 2050, far short of net zero. In that scenario, the world would still be consuming 75 million barrels of oil per day by 2050 -- only 25 million barrels per day less than today. The energy sector has been bolstered in recent weeks by a sharp increase in prices.

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The Giants lost. I'm so sorry. I knew however that it would end in an awful way when the batter, with two out in the bottom of the 9th with a runner on first, the Dodgers leading by one in what was the last game of the season for one of these teams, was Wilmer Flores. Mets fans remember him and love him like a son, because the Mets broke his heart and he didn't hide his feelings. So they didn't trade him in 2015 when the Mets went on to win the National League pennant, Flores was the team mascot, but they eventually did let him go, and he was on the forever to be remembered as the ill-fated Giants of 2021. When he stepped into the batter's box late last night I knew it would not end well. It didn't. In a very unsatisfactory way. Which I think was inevitable, probably the instant the Giants signed him. He is a man of great consequence.

An iOS and Android app.

It can manage multiple notes. They are simple things, simple styling, multiple paragraphs per item. Of course Markdown.

It stays in sync with something that's accessible over the web, kind of like an RSS feed just for me.

Then I tell Drummer, Roam, whatever -- where to hook into it. And it appears in my writing world as a flat outline. I can edit in both places. So I can put a note from my desktop into this mobile world, and write something while I'm out and about that hooks into my larger writing world.

Super important: Not part of Apple or Dropbox or whatever's world. Then I would have to go through them to get my own writing, and eventually they will break me.

It's amazing how broken this shit is now. I'm almost broken in Apple's world. And Dropbox blew up what we were doing a few years back. We're about to get evicted by Chrome. But Linux, RSS, OPML and Markdown keep chugging along. And Twitter too btw. They've actually been very good, even though the hype says otherwise.

Ransomware gangs have silently hit three US water and wastewater treatment facilities this year, in 2021, the US government said in a joint cybersecurity advisory published today by the FBI, NSA, CISA, and the EPA. From a report: The attacks -- which had been previously unreported -- took place in March, July, and August and hit facilities in Nevada, Maine, and California, respectively. The attacks led to the threat actors encrypting files, and in one case, even corrupting a computer used to control the SCADA industrial equipment deployed inside the treatment plant. The three new incidents were listed as examples of what could happen when water treatment facilities ignore and fail to secure their computer networks.

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The official Wizard of New Zealand, perhaps the only state-appointed wizard in the world, has been cast from the public payroll, spelling the end to a 23-year legacy. From a report: The Wizard, whose real name is Ian Brackenbury Channell, 88, had been contracted to Christchurch city council for the past two decades to promote the city through "acts of wizardry and other wizard-like services," at a cost of $16,000 a year. He has been paid a total of $368,000. The Wizard, who was born in England, began performing acts of wizardry and entertainment in public spaces shortly after arriving in New Zealand in 1976. When the council originally tried to stop him, the public protested. In 1982, the New Zealand Art Gallery Directors Association said he had become a living work of art, and then, in 1990, the prime minister at the time, Mike Moore, asked that he consider becoming the Wizard of New Zealand. "I am concerned that your wizardry is not at the disposal of the entire nation," Moore wrote on his official letterhead.

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China's drive to root out cryptocurrencies has uncovered hundreds of miners who were using electricity at public institutions, a development that comes as the nation struggles with a power crunch. From a report: Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces recently started targeting miners who were consuming the resources of state-owned enterprises, government agencies, and universities and research institutes, according to a government statement and media reports that did not name the entities. Jiangsu found about one-fifth of some 4,500 internet protocol addresses associated with illegal mining activity belonged to public institutions, according to the media outlet The Paper, which cited provincial communications authorities. Some 260,000 kilowatt hours of electricity were being used per day, the newspaper added. Cryptominers typically link their equipment to cloud services called mining pools to verify transactions on blockchains, allowing their physical locations to be traced. That would lead investigators to accounts with electric companies. The Zhejiang government published a statement on an official social account that included photos of equipment seized in raids, adding that 184 IP addresses were suspected of involvement in illegal mining exploiting public resources. "The rapid upgrading of mining hardware and fierce competition in computing power have resulted in massive energy usage, which is contrary to the carbon peak and carbon neutralization goals of the whole province as a major energy importer," the statement said.

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