#Worldwide Developers Conference

[nuytstech]

La Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) d’Apple sera de retour le 10 juin 2024

Apple a donc annoncé sa conférence annuelle WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference), qui aura lieu en ligne du 10 au 14 juin 2024. Développeurs et étudiants auront l’opportunité de se réunir lors d’un évènement en personne qui se tiendra à Apple Park le jour de l’ouverture de la conférence. Gratuite pour tous les développeurs, la WWDC24 mettra en exergue les toutes dernières nouveautés d’iOS,…

[firewireblog-blog]

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference To Kick Off June 10, 2024 With Keynote Address

The 2024 Apple World Wide Developers Conference kicks off on June 10, 2024 at 10 a.m. PDT with a first look at groundbreaking updates coming to Apple platforms later this year.  Apple is expected to announce iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15, tvOS 18, watchOS 11, and visionOS 2. The Keynote address will be available to stream on apple.com, the Apple Developer app, the Apple TV app, and the Apple…

[tmarshconnors]

Imagining a world without Apple Inc

Imagining a world without Apple would be a significant departure from our current reality. Apple Inc. is a multinational technology company that has had a significant impact on the technology industry and consumer electronics over the past few decades. Here are some potential implications of a world without Apple:

Technology Landscape: Apple has played a pivotal role in shaping the technology landscape with its innovative products such as the iPhone, Mac computers, and iPads. Without Apple, the development of these devices might have been influenced differently or delayed, potentially altering the trajectory of technological advancements.

Competition: Apple's presence has driven competition and innovation within the technology sector. The absence of Apple could lead to different market dynamics, potentially affecting the competitive landscape and product offerings from other companies.

Design and User Experience: Apple is known for its emphasis on sleek design and intuitive user interfaces. Their design philosophy has influenced various industries beyond technology. A world without Apple might have resulted in a different design and user experience landscape, potentially affecting how we interact with various products and services.

Developer Ecosystem: Apple's App Store has been a major platform for developers to distribute their applications. Without Apple, the app ecosystem might have evolved differently, leading to different platforms dominating the market and potentially affecting the availability and diversity of apps.

Economic Impact: Apple is one of the world's most valuable companies and has a significant economic impact through its supply chain, manufacturing, and retail operations. A world without Apple would have economic repercussions, including job losses and changes in investment patterns.

It's important to note that these are speculative outcomes, and the absence of Apple would have resulted in a different set of technological advancements and industry dynamics. Other companies would likely have filled the void left by Apple, albeit with their own unique contributions.

[2001hz]

Apple: iMac G3 Blue & White Power Studio Display (1998) Designed By: Jonathan Ive

Teased in 1997 Apple’s worldwide developer conference showcase show by Jonathan Ive & Phil Schiller. There’s also a slim version of the iMac G3 studio display that was never released.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive

Melbourne researchers have discovered more than 200 new vaccine target candidates from the COVID-19 virus, SARS-CoV-2, that could lead to the development of vaccines with a longer lasting broader immunity than existing vaccinations.

In a paper published in the journal Nature Communications, research led by Prof Anthony W. Purcell and first-authored by Dr. Asolina Braun from the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute, investigates seven proteins of the COVID-19 virus that could become targets for new vaccines.

The initial vaccines designed to combat COVID-19 were targeted against the original Wuhan strain Spike protein. However, while this approach led to the generation of several highly effective, safe vaccines within an astonishingly brief timeframe, it also comes with some limitations, according to Dr. Braun. "The SARS-CoV-2 virus has mutated its Spike protein leading to lower efficacy of current vaccines," she said.

"Also, the original vaccines focused on B cell-mediated antibody responses for developing immunity. We now know that recruiting the other arm of the immune system, the T cells, can help to maintain immunity for longer."

In the study the researchers describe more than 200 SARS-CoV-2-derived peptides that could be targets for new and improved vaccines against COVID-19 and validate that a number of those peptides can trigger T cell responses in convalescent individuals.

Reflecting on this achievement, lead investigator Prof Tony Purcell remarks, "As part of a long term collaboration with Evaxion Biotech, we pivoted and turned our attention to SARS-CoV-2 during the pandemic. Rather than continue the mainstream attention that focused predominantly on the Spike glycoprotein, we turned our attention to other more conserved viral proteins as potential next generation vaccine targets.

"The combination of the Monash team's epitope discovery by immunopeptidomics and protein chemistry, T cell immunology at the Peter Doherty Institute and Evaxion's AI-guided bioinformatics expertise was critical to the development of this paper that highlights the potential of several conserved viral proteins as vaccine candidates."

According to Dr. Braun, COVID-19 still continues to pose a high burden on health systems worldwide, and "this continued burden is mainly caused by the spread of several new variants. Thus, an unmet need remains for the development of novel vaccines able to target several viral strains and confer wide-spread protection in the global population," she said.

"The next generation of vaccines will benefit from eliciting both B-cell and T-cell mediated immunity toward multiple COVID proteins. Our study has uncovered promising candidates for the development of just such vaccines."

More information: Asolina Braun et al, Mapping the immunopeptidome of seven SARS-CoV-2 antigens across common HLA haplotypes, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-51959-6 www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51959-6

[utilitycaster]

Here’s my C3 hot take: I think Matt just messed up. I think att just didn’t do a good job DMing this one, and I’m sad but I don’t think the players could have solved the problems entirely on their own. The lack of a session zero makes no sense, but more to the point I think Matt just has to much Catholic Trauma tm to have told this story. His blind spot to religion v. Personal worship in his world building is to big to stick this one. His excitement about the culmination of these narratives after 9 years made him play story beats to close to his chest looking to surprise and shock his players, and also, because he was so tied to it, he didn’t pivot, or change the story to guide the players through. The pacing, especially at the beginning feels like he was entirely to excited to get to the clever plot.

Honestly… and this makes me sad, a lot of the issues feel like he sort of started believing his own mythology. I am so happy for him to be self confident but this all feels like a story guided by someone who thinks their terribly clever and so don’t have to rely on the same level of hard work, collaboration, prep, planning etc. of previous works (and also wanted to be novel, I just think of their original campaign announcement where they said “anything might happen” and sigh a little).

My bit of hope? That’s a really easy thing to come back from! I hope they reflect and improve going forward!

p.s. this isn’t to say the others couldn’t have made things BETTER, they could have, for sure.

Hi anon,

I disagree with most of this. Most crucially, this is not the form of campaign I think would come of Catholic religious trauma. Matt's mentioned he was raised nominally Catholic but he's also mentioned his parents were artists, hippies, and D&D players, and he seems to be on pretty good terms with them. I think this is a vast overstep on your part that came from basically nowhere, especially since the logical outcome of a Catholic Trauma campaign would in fact be one that actually did portray Vasselheim as a vast controlling force within the world regulating the worship of the gods across it. A pretty massive hole in the worldbuilding, at least as this campaign demands we see it, is that we really haven't seen religion as an oppressive force except in one highly specific case, and even that was spearheaded by mortals and not the gods and is indistinguishable from a purely political land grab. Like, the blind spot you mention is actually a sign that he was not raised particularly religious; someone who was raised strictly Catholic would be extremely aware of religion as a highly organized hierarchy with clear rules and a vast worldwide network and not "a few missionaries who didn't kill anyone or even forcibly convert anyone, Vasselheim seen as a good meeting spot for a worldwide conference, and Ludinus's grievances are all highly personal." Like, the Catholic Trauma version of Exandria has Vasselheim at war with the Empire for their banning of half of the prime deities, or going full Inquisition/Crusade on Hearthdell.

I want to be clear: when I accuse fans of projecting religious trauma it's because they outright have said shit like "I always like when a narrative kills the gods bc I'm a white southerner who was raised Christian". I do not say it just because they are affiliated with a specific religious denomination.

I also don't think the issue is so much believing his own mythology as much as the one major correct thing you said, which is the lack of not just a session zero but a heavy hand in character development, coupled with a very specific plot he wanted for this campaign. Campaign 1 worked because he tailored a campaign heavily to the interests and stories of the characters, and built a world around them. Campaign 2 similarly allowed for that same give-and-take; characters like Trent and Uk'otoa and Marion and the Gentleman came from the backstories the players came up with. Some of the players' ideas were changed as part of that heavier hand in character creation. The guidance for that campaign (morally gray and complex) was actually accurate, and when the characters took a sharp turn away from the planned story, Matt was able to pivot quite gracefully.

The problem really is that it's clear Matt had a very developed vision of this campaign and didn't realize that the characters of Bells Hells largely failed to fit within it. I don't think hard work wasn't done (I think there was in fact a TON of prep that we haven't seen, eg, I 100% believe Matt has an extensive amount of work done on Otohan, Ozo Cruth, Marquet, the Apex War, etc that Bells Hells simply did not see); I think, in fact, that like three hours of work that probably would have resulted in scrapping or drastically changing the characters to fit the intended story would have fixed the vast majority of problems here. It is only, frankly, because the characters are such a bad fit that the issues we're talking about (little establishment of organized religion vs. personal practice) even became issues! But it's literally that - it's not realizing that even a longform campaign can live or die on character creation. It might even be that too much prep was done ahead of time and he was too unwilling to abandon it.

[reasonsforhope]

Determined to use her skills to fight inequality, South African computer scientist Raesetje Sefala set to work to build algorithms flagging poverty hotspots - developing datasets she hopes will help target aid, new housing, or clinics.

From crop analysis to medical diagnostics, artificial intelligence (AI) is already used in essential tasks worldwide, but Sefala and a growing number of fellow African developers are pioneering it to tackle their continent's particular challenges.

Local knowledge is vital for designing AI-driven solutions that work, Sefala said.

"If you don't have people with diverse experiences doing the research, it's easy to interpret the data in ways that will marginalise others," the 26-year old said from her home in Johannesburg.

Africa is the world's youngest and fastest-growing continent, and tech experts say young, home-grown AI developers have a vital role to play in designing applications to address local problems.

"For Africa to get out of poverty, it will take innovation and this can be revolutionary, because it's Africans doing things for Africa on their own," said Cina Lawson, Togo's minister of digital economy and transformation.

"We need to use cutting-edge solutions to our problems, because you don't solve problems in 2022 using methods of 20 years ago," Lawson told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a video interview from the West African country.

Digital rights groups warn about AI's use in surveillance and the risk of discrimination, but Sefala said it can also be used to "serve the people behind the data points". ...

'Delivering Health'

As COVID-19 spread around the world in early 2020, government officials in Togo realized urgent action was needed to support informal workers who account for about 80% of the country's workforce, Lawson said.

"If you decide that everybody stays home, it means that this particular person isn't going to eat that day, it's as simple as that," she said.

In 10 days, the government built a mobile payment platform - called Novissi - to distribute cash to the vulnerable.

The government paired up with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) think tank and the University of California, Berkeley, to build a poverty map of Togo using satellite imagery.

Using algorithms with the support of GiveDirectly, a nonprofit that uses AI to distribute cash transfers, the recipients earning less than $1.25 per day and living in the poorest districts were identified for a direct cash transfer.

"We texted them saying if you need financial help, please register," Lawson said, adding that beneficiaries' consent and data privacy had been prioritized.

The entire program reached 920,000 beneficiaries in need.

"Machine learning has the advantage of reaching so many people in a very short time and delivering help when people need it most," said Caroline Teti, a Kenya-based GiveDirectly director.

'Zero Representation'

Aiming to boost discussion about AI in Africa, computer scientists Benjamin Rosman and Ulrich Paquet co-founded the Deep Learning Indaba - a week-long gathering that started in South Africa - together with other colleagues in 2017.

"You used to get to the top AI conferences and there was zero representation from Africa, both in terms of papers and people, so we're all about finding cost effective ways to build a community," Paquet said in a video call.

In 2019, 27 smaller Indabas - called IndabaX - were rolled out across the continent, with some events hosting as many as 300 participants.

One of these offshoots was IndabaX Uganda, where founder Bruno Ssekiwere said participants shared information on using AI for social issues such as improving agriculture and treating malaria.

Another outcome from the South African Indaba was Masakhane - an organization that uses open-source, machine learning to translate African languages not typically found in online programs such as Google Translate.

On their site, the founders speak about the South African philosophy of "Ubuntu" - a term generally meaning "humanity" - as part of their organization's values.

"This philosophy calls for collaboration and participation and community," reads their site, a philosophy that Ssekiwere, Paquet, and Rosman said has now become the driving value for AI research in Africa.

Inclusion

Now that Sefala has built a dataset of South Africa's suburbs and townships, she plans to collaborate with domain experts and communities to refine it, deepen inequality research and improve the algorithms.

"Making datasets easily available opens the door for new mechanisms and techniques for policy-making around desegregation, housing, and access to economic opportunity," she said.

African AI leaders say building more complete datasets will also help tackle biases baked into algorithms.

"Imagine rolling out Novissi in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ivory Coast ... then the algorithm will be trained with understanding poverty in West Africa," Lawson said.

"If there are ever ways to fight bias in tech, it's by increasing diverse datasets ... we need to contribute more," she said.

But contributing more will require increased funding for African projects and wider access to computer science education and technology in general, Sefala said.

Despite such obstacles, Lawson said "technology will be Africa's savior".

"Let's use what is cutting edge and apply it straight away or as a continent we will never get out of poverty," she said. "It's really as simple as that."

-via Good Good Good, February 16, 2022

[misfitwashere]

ROBERT REICH

MAR 21

Friends,

There are two huge national security questions at the heart of the Trump regime. 

The first is whether Elon Musk is working, at least in part, for China’s Xi Jinping. Consider:

(1) China is the location of Musk’s largest Tesla factory in the world in which China invested $2.8 billion. The state-of-the-art facility was built in Shanghai with special permission from the Chinese government, and now accounts for more than half of Tesla’s global deliveries. 

(2) China is the world’s biggest market for Teslas and is the only electronic vehicle market where Tesla sales are continuing to grow.

(3) Chinese investors have been funneling money into Musk’s other businesses.

(4) China is a hotbed of other technologies that Musk would like to get his hands on. 

(5) In 2022, Musk told The Financial Times that China should be given some control over Taiwan by making a “special administrative zone for Taiwan that is reasonably palatable.” 

(6) In 2023, at a tech conference, he called Taiwan “an integral part of China that is arbitrarily not part of China,” and compared the Taiwan-China situation to Hawaii and the United States.

(7) On X, the social platform he owns, Musk has long used his account to praise China, encouraging more people to visit the country.

(8) One of the Pentagon’s biggest worries is that China has developed a suite of weapons capable of attacking U.S. military and non-military satellites.

(9) The Pentagon now relies heavily on Musk’s SpaceX Starlink satellite communications network for military personnel to transmit data worldwide.

(10) SpaceX launches most of the Pentagon’s military satellites on its Falcon 9 rockets, which take off from launchpads SpaceX has set up at military bases in Florida and California.

(11) SpaceX has become so valuable to the Pentagon that the Chinese government has said it considers SpaceX to be an extension of the U.S. military.

(12) The Pentagon has hired Musk’s Space X to build it a new constellation of low-earth orbit satellites to spy on China, Russia and other threats.

(13) Perceived missile threats from China — nuclear weapons or hypersonic missiles or cruise missiles — have led Trump to sign an executive order instructing the Pentagon to start work on “Golden Dome,” a space-based missile defense system, in which Musk’s Space X would almost surely be involved for rocket launches, satellite structures, and space-based data communications systems.

(14) Musk and his SpaceX have repeatedly failed to comply with federal reporting protocols aimed at protecting U.S. secrets, including by not providing some details of his meetings with foreign leaders — leading to at least three federal reviews, including one by the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General and another by the Air Force and the Pentagon’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security. 

So … is Musk working for Trump, for the United States, for China, or for himself — or for all of the above?

The question of Musk’s allegiance becomes more weighty by the day. 

This morning, for example, he met with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other Pentagon brass. According to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, the meeting had been arranged at Musk’s request to give Musk details about America’s preparations for war with China — the most sensitive and secret information anyone can receive. 

It appears that after the scheduled meeting and its subject matter were reported yesterday, the meeting mysteriously morphed into something more innocent. Apparently, Trump decided Musk shouldn’t be briefed on war preparations with China. 

Musk arrived shortly before 9 a.m. and left about 90 minutes later. When a reporter asked what Hegseth and Musk discussed, Musk shot back: “Why should I tell you?” Trump and Hegseth deny China was even mentioned. 

The underlying question is whether Musk can be trusted. 

Not even his position in the Trump regime is clear. Congress has not confirmed him for any role. He hasn’t been “vetted” by the FBI, as are all senior appointments. His finances haven’t been reviewed by anyone; they certainly haven’t been made public. He hasn’t even taken the oath of office, pledging his allegiance to the United States and the Constitution. 

I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention Musk’s connection to Putin. According to the Wall Street Journal, Musk has been in regular contact with the Russian President —a close partner of China, which has supported Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Which raises the second huge national security concern at the heart of the Trump regime: Is Trump working for Putin? I don’t have to list all the evidence that prompts the question. That evidence also keeps mounting by the day. 

Trump and Musk: Manchurian heads of the United States?

[kickingitwithkirk]

Winchester's Folly

Summary: When Dean gets into trouble John decides to hide the truth for his family

Pairing: Alpha Dean x Omega!Reader x Alpha Sam

Word Count: 862

*Dark! Fic-don't continue if you are disturbed by the subject matter

Warnings: A/B/O, non/con elements , dub/con elements, enslavement, pandemic, non/con drug use, collaring/leashing, forced mating, forced breeding, BDSM elements, show-level violence

*Additional warnings to be added

Square filled: @spnaubingo -Dystopian AU

A/N: * UPDATED 3/24 They say the third time is the charm, this will be the last rework of the Prologue.

A/N II: Still working on reigning myself in, keeping each part reader-friendly length, and have no clue how many parts this will end up being.

A/N III: a few notes about designations in A/O sub-genders for this story.

Alphas-Dominant (head of the pack/family) Subordinate (obey Dominant) Breeders (rare & highly coveted by the government. Can challenge Dominant for pack/family leadership)

Omegas -Domestic (mostly wiped out by plague, few natural born left) Feral (government-supplied breeders sold commonly called O's) House O’s (3rd generation+ Feral/Dominant breed. Used as servants/sex workers) Pack (rare & highly coveted by the government)

*Divider by @firefly-graphics

*No Beta-all mistakes are mine

Prologue

North Dakota

1999

John Winchester slowly drove down the snow-covered drive leading to an old warehouse and parked the ‘67 Impala in the back of its busy lot. All three Winchesters silently climbed out and trudged through the accumulated snow to the front entrance. If anyone had given him the choice between being here or hell, John would have picked hell.

Eighty years earlier

A virulent disease accidentally escaped a research lab, and the following pestilence wiped out 70% of the Omega population worldwide. At the same time, Alphas and Betas were predominantly immune and rarely died from it unless they had a chronic illness.

As in ancient times, the remaining Omegas were fought over, resulting in countries declaring martial law and rounded up the remaining Domestic Omegas. Several years later, a treatment was developed but the damage was nearly irrevocable. Betas had begun to reproduce to the point the other sub-genders would be extinct within a few decades.

At a hastily convened conference, the world's leading scientists offered the governing bodies with a short-term, yet controversial, solution: obtain Omegas from the remaining Wild Packs for a breeding program.

They presented evidence that introducing their genetics, relatively unchanged since splitting from their wolf ancestors, into mainstream populations would create a natural immunity against future resurgence and rebalance the sub-genders. Many argued the idea was insane. Those Omegas, or O’s, were too feral, still living as their wolf ancestors did and incapable of being domesticated.

The scientists then demonstrated an implant they developed containing multiple benefits. It would dampen O’s natural aggression and induce presentation from sixteen to thirteen. Domesticated Omegas had been bred down to present their early twenties and produced one pup at a time. The implant would also shorten the time between breeding seasons and increase litter size by controlled ovulation hyperstimulation.

The world leaders drew up a preliminary framework for each country that signed the accord to follow. Over the next thirty years, they would procure Wild Pack O’s for distribution from government-managed facilities, with an addendum upon review it’d be extend in certain regions if deemed necessary. In the Americas, it was called the Hibbing Procurement Act.

Over those years, the populus discovered other uses for the O’s descendants, who developed into their distinct designation called House O’s. Unscrupulous individuals elected lawmakers who supported extension after extension, even installing loopholes, such as permitting Wild Pack Alphas to accept payments under the table from those on the fringes for O’s the government deemed unsuitable for breeding, creating an underground network of sellers called The Dealers.

And who would complain if some O’s slated for legitimate sales accidentally slipped through and sold for exorbitant prices on the underground market?

John knocked on the steel door in a predetermined code. As it slowly rolled open, he glanced at his almost grown pups, thankful they’d taken a dose of rut suppressants earlier because the air was thick with ready-to-breed O scent.

Walking into the building, the younger Winchesters automatically fall back on their training, checking their surroundings for potential danger. John observes to his left buyers on cell phones circling like vultures eight steel cages displaying O’s clad in elaborate silver collars, high-end specimens selling for exorbitant prices.

The rest of the warehouse is an open space with multiple rows of O’s kneeling side by side, leashed to low railings anchored in the concrete floor. They wear color-coded leather collars denoting their monetary value.

“John Winchester, this is a surprise! To whom do I owe the honor of your presence?” The nasal voice of Everett Helms, a black-haired Beta, oozes the fake, cheerful demeanor of a used car salesman approached the trio. Hunters only dealt with Helms because he was reputed to be able to acquire anything they needed..for a price. John had hoped to avoid him, but after eight days of unsuccessful procurement at other facilities, The Dealer was his last option.

Helms held out his hand, and John felt bile rising, not wanting to touch him when a poorly timed footfall caught his attention. “These must be your pups. My, my my, delicious, aren’t they!” Helms remarks as his eyes rove over Dean and then settle on the youngest Winchester calculatingly when a loud, menacing growl fills the air.

Dean's eyes began glowing red, daring the ogling Dealer to make a move on his ever-growing little brother. He felt Sam huddle closer to his back and release his calming pheromone as, judging from their father’s posturing, John was about to tear into Sam for attracting attention after specifically instructing him to stay invisible. Sam quickly averted his gaze down through his shaggy bangs, glaring at his oversized, sneaker-clad feet, again wishing he wasn’t so fucking clumsy with this growth spurt.

Helms turned back to John, acting as if nothing had occurred. “I hear your oldest got himself in a peck of trouble, and he needs an O to stay out of prison. Well, John, may I call you John? You’ve come to the right place. As you can see,” he waved a hand over his domain, “I can supply any type of O an Alpha could wish for.”

Part I

SPN TAGS: @donnaintx  @lyarr24  @flamencodiva  @lassie-bird @nancymcl @spnbaby-67  @leigh70

Sam/Jared:  @idreamofplaid

Dean/Jensen:  @thoughts-and-funnies  @stoneyggirl2  @beabutterfly987 @smoothdogsgirl

WF: @slamminmine

[darkmaga-returns]

A leaked USAID document outlines a plan to engineer a global famine before the year 2030 in order to depopulate the world and centralize control over the population.

According to a 1974 Kissinger Report, reducing human population numbers must be the top priority for globalists if they wish to realize their dream of a ‘New World Order’.

Granitegrok.com reports: As Human Life International recounts:

Although the United States government has issued hundreds of policy papers dealing with various aspects of American national security since 1974, NSSM-200 continues to be the foundational document on U.S. government population control. It therefore continues to represent official United States policy on government population control and was (still) posted on the USAID website (until recently). The subject of NSSM-200 is “Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests.” This document, published shortly after the first major international population conference in Bucharest, was the result of collaboration among the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Departments of State, Defense and Agriculture.“

This transition has morphed from an environmental to a globalist socialist movement, manifested in the grand redistribution schemes of the Green New Deal and recent proclamations by the WHO, WEF, and World Bank (and the, thankfully defunct, Biden Administration) that a “whole-of-government” approach must be employed at all levels of human society – especially agriculture – to forestall certain doom. That global empowerment IS a certain doom and will do nothing to respond to the ecological threats exploited as justification for absolute control.

Later permutations of this plan have matured into more stealthy obfuscations, but the same result is visible – elitists and powerful corporations staging a final coup to eliminate individual human choices, nation-states and their cultures, and anything akin to democratic rights or processes. All totalitarian regimes employ this or a similar ruse, regardless of their ideological roots.

[mariacallous]

After a lifetime on the frontiers of the fight against HIV, Linda-Gail Bekker could finally see the end of the epidemic in sight. For decades, HIV experts had dreamed of an elusive vaccine to block the ongoing chain of infections, which still sees more than 1 million people worldwide contract the virus annually. Bekker, a 62-year-old medical professor from the University of Cape Town, had helped identify a drug that could do just that.

But now, thanks to the Trump administration’s executive orders, it’s unclear when—or possibly even ever—this breakthrough medicine will see the light of day.

At the AIDS 2024 conference held in Munich last July, Bekker had triumphantly unveiled the results of a momentous clinical trial she had led, called PURPOSE 1. It showed that lenacapavir, an antiretroviral developed by the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences, could prevent sexual transmission of HIV with 100 percent efficacy by disrupting the function of the virus’s capsid protein, which allows it to replicate.

Even more remarkably, compared with existing daily pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) pills, which do a similar job, injections are only required every six months. While not strictly a vaccine, lenacapavir promises to be the next best thing. It was named as 2024’s “Breakthrough of the Year” by the prestigious journal Science, and Gilead promptly committed to manufacturing 10 million doses by 2026, enough to treat 2.5 million people, ahead of anticipated regulatory approval later this year.

A collaborative effort between the medicines-financing initiative The Global Fund and PEPFAR, the US government’s global HIV/AIDS program, had pledged to procure 2 million of those doses over the course of three years, which would be directed toward countries with the highest incidence of HIV, most notably in sub-Saharan Africa. But with President Donald Trump’s decision to freeze all foreign aid funding, this plan has been left in tatters.

“There’s despondency and a sense of tragedy,” says Bekker. “Because just as we’ve had the breakthrough, we also see the taps turning off of resources. We had a laid-out map where the product would be supplied via PEPFAR and The Global Fund while we wait for generics [cheaper off-label versions of lenacapavir] to come online, which will take 18 months to two years. And at this moment, that plan is falling through in front of our eyes.”

While a temporary 90-day waiver has been issued for PEPFAR funding, this has only reinstated funding for life-saving antiretroviral treatments for HIV-positive individuals. Existing forms of PrEP are covered, but only for pregnant or breastfeeding women. There have been no indications that the planned purchase of lenacapavir will be fulfilled.

According to Kenneth Ngure, an HIV-prevention expert in Kenya and president-elect of the International AIDS Society, the loss of PEPFAR funding for prevention represents a major setback in the world’s ability to control HIV. “Even if The Global Fund partners with others, they will probably not be able to reach the number of doses they had promised,” he says. “We have this potential game-changer, which could accelerate the end of HIV as a public health threat, and yet it looks like access will be highly compromised.”

For Ngure and others, there is a sense of history repeating itself. The major limitation of PrEP is that adherence is notoriously poor, with studies showing that target groups often struggle to access or forget to take daily pills and feel stigmatized doing so. “We know that particularly for young people, taking a daily oral PrEP pill is challenging,” says Bekker. “We’ve tried all sorts of things, like sending text messages. São Paulo is even giving PrEP in a dispensing machine. But it’s sometimes very difficult to take something daily when you’re not sick and you’re doing it for prevention.”

Longer-acting injectables have long been viewed as a better way forward, and in 2021, the HIV field was galvanized by promising trial results for cabotegravir, a form of injectable PrEP that only needed to be administered every two months, with a trial demonstrating that people receiving this drug had 90 percent less risk of contracting HIV compared with oral pills. Yet access has been the major hurdle.

Last month a new study revealed that while regulators in 53 countries have approved cabotegravir, rollout has been painfully slow. Generic versions of the jab are not expected to become available until 2027. In Africa and Asia, where cabotegravir is most needed, the only access so far has been through so-called Phase 4 or implementation science studies, which attempt to understand more about the real-world challenges of offering a new drug by dispensing it to a few thousand people.

And also as a consequence of orders coming out of the White House, a number of these Phase 4 studies have abruptly ceased. “They’re very concentrated in East and Southern Central Africa,” says Bekker. “Some of them were PEPFAR supported, and with the stop-work order, these studies have ground to a halt.”

The frustration for researchers like Bekker is that while long-acting injectables are extremely effective at blocking HIV transmission, to end the epidemic, their rollout needs to be as rapid and as wide-reaching as possible. She points out that to prevent over a million new infections each year, these jabs need to be targeted at HIV hotspots and administered on a scale of millions—exactly as the plan with lenacapavir was proposing.

“We’ve seen with both cabotegravir and oral PrEP that if you get a new tool, but roll it out gently, that will not impact the epidemic,” says Ngure. “The number of new infections still outpaces the impact of the tool. You need something which is potent and to roll it out fast.”

With lenacapavir, things were supposed to be different. Gilead has partnered with six generic drugmakers, which have been licensed to produce enough of an off-label supply of lenacapavir to cover 120 countries. Estimates have suggested that if the global demand exceeded more than 20 million doses, the manufacturing costs could fall to just $35-40 per person per year. However, Bekker says that PEPFAR was expected to be a significant buyer, and without its financial clout the commercial viability of manufacturing generic lenacapavir at vast scales is in doubt.

“It requires a nice healthy demand to ensure that for each of the generic companies, it’s going to be worth their while,” says Bekker. “We are all hoping that governments [across sub-Saharan Africa] are writing the generic product into their budgets for the future, but the reality is that in the interim, we were relying on donor funding. Even my country, South Africa, which has a good GDP and funds 80 percent of its HIV response, is already purchasing antiretrovirals for 6 million individuals annually. I would imagine it will take them some years to be able to mobilize the money for lenacapavir as well.”

With PEPFAR seemingly now focused primarily on the treatment of existing patients, at the expense of prevention, clinicians like Nomathemba Chandiwana, a physician-scientist at the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation in South Africa, are concerned that the infection rate will begin to rise rather than fall, something which will have a marked public health impact across the African continent and beyond.

Speaking at last week’s NCD Alliance Forum in Kigali, Chandiwana explained that the consequences of new infections are not solely related to HIV itself. Research is increasingly showing that people living with long-term HIV infections, even those controlled by antiretroviral treatment, are at a greater risk of developing metabolic conditions such as hypertension, obesity and type 2 diabetes, a disease burden which is already on the rise in sub-Saharan Africa. “HIV itself disrupts your metabolism, as do many of the antiretrovirals,” says Chandiwana. “We see the same chronic diseases in people living with HIV as we do in the general population, but at an earlier age and in an accelerated fashion.”

Because of this, there is also a need for a new generation of HIV treatments, and one concept being explored was to use lenacapavir as a foundation of future combination therapies for those already with the virus. As well as potentially alleviating some of the metabolic side effects, it was hoped that this could lead to treatment protocols that did not require HIV-infected individuals to take daily medication.

“Various ideas have been mooted,” says Bekker. “Could you combine bimonthly cabotegravir with a six-monthly lenacapavir injection [as a form of viral suppression], so you’d only come in six times a year for treatment, and it would all be injectable? There’s a weekly antiretroviral pill in the works, and could you combine that with a six-monthly injectable? This could be very liberating for people, as they tell us all the time how stigmatizing it is to need to take daily medication.”

Yet many of these studies are now in doubt, as Bekker says they were expected to be funded by US resources. “It’s not just PEPFAR; we’re also worried about restrictions being placed on other sorts of research funding, such as the National Institutes of Health,” she says. “It’s just going to get harder to innovate and move progress forward.”

According to Ngure, there is still hope that other donors may emerge who can support The Global Fund in procuring lenacapavir, while Bekker says she is exploring new options for funding HIV prevention and research through European agencies, and possibly donor funding from sources in Scandinavia, Japan, and Australia. At the same time, she believes that the events of the past month have illustrated that African countries need to become capable of funding more preventative efforts themselves.

“Somehow Africa needs to step up and contribute to the fight,” she says. “I think that’s the big question. How much we can also contribute on this continent through countries which haven’t necessarily been able to cover a big amount of research and development but in the future need to.”

At the same time, she is afraid that without the same resources coming from the US, the unique opportunity provided by lenacapavir could be lost.

“It’s incredible that this has happened just as we’ve had the breakthrough,” she says. “I think this is going to set us back many years and ultimately cost a lot more in public health spending. Because ultimately, if we can bring this epidemic under control more quickly, it’s going to save the planet more money in the long run, and save lives too.”

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from RMI:

1. Batteries Become Everybody’s Best Friend

Battery prices continue to drop and their capacity continues to rise. The cost of electric vehicle (EV) batteries are now about 60 percent what they were just five years ago. And around the world, batteries have become key components in solar-plus-storage microgrids, giving people access to reliable power and saving the day for communities this past hurricane season.

2. Americans Get Cheaper (and Cleaner) Energy

State public utility commissions and rural electric co-operatives around the country are taking steps to deliver better service for their customers that also lowers their rates. At the same time, real momentum is building to prevent vertically integrated utilities from preferencing their coal assets when there are cleaner and cheaper alternatives available.

3. A Sustainable Shipping Future Gets Closer

More than 50 leaders across the marine shipping value chain — from e-fuel producers to vessel and cargo owners, to ports and equipment manufacturers — signed a Call to Action at the UN climate change conference (COP29) to accelerate the adoption of zero-emission fuels. The joint statement calls for faster and bolder action to increase the use of zero and near-zero emissions fuel, investment in zero-emissions vessels, and global development of green hydrogen infrastructure, leaving no country behind.

4. Corporations Fly Cleaner

In April, 20 corporations, including Netflix, JPMorgan Chase, Autodesk, and more, committed to purchase about 50 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), avoiding 500,000 tons of CO2 emissions — equivalent to the emissions of 3,000 fully loaded passenger flights from New York City to London. SAF is made with renewable or waste feedstocks and can be used in today’s aircraft without investments to upgrade existing fleets and infrastructure.

5. More and More Places Go From Coal to Clean

Around the world, coal-fired power plants are closing down as communities switch to clean energy. From Chile to the Philippines to Minnesota coal-to-clean projects are creating new jobs, improving local economic development, and generating clean electricity. In September, Britain became the first G7 nation to stop generating electricity from coal — it’s turning its last coal-fired power plant into a low-carbon energy hub. And in Indonesia, the president vowed to retire all coal plants within 15 years and install 75 gigawatts of renewable energy.

6. Methane Becomes More Visible, and Easier to Mitigate

Methane — a super-potent greenhouse gas — got much easier to track thanks to the launch of new methane tracking satellites over the past year. In March, the Environmental Defense Fund launched MethaneSAT, the first for a non-governmental organization, and the Carbon Mapper Coalition soon followed with the launch of Tanager-1. By scanning the planet many times each day and identifying major methane leaks from orbit, these new satellites will put pressure on big emitters to clean up.

7. EVs Speed By Historic Milestones

This past year was the first time any country had more fully electric cars than gas-powered cars on the roads. It’s no surprise that this happened in Norway where electric cars now make up more than 90 percent of new vehicle sales. And in October, the United States hit a milestone, with over 200,000 electric vehicle charging ports installed nationwide.

8. Consumers Continue to Shift to Energy-Efficient Heat Pumps for Heating and Cooling

Heat pumps have outsold gas furnaces consistently since 2021. And while shipments of heating and cooling equipment fell worldwide in 2023, likely due to broad economic headwinds, heat pumps held on to their market share through. And over the past 12 months, heat pumps outsold conventional furnaces by 27 percent. Shipments are expected to continue increasing as states roll out home efficiency and appliance rebate programs already funded by the Inflation Reduction Act – worth up to $10,000 per household in new incentives for heat pump installations. Link: Tracking the Heat Pump & Water Heater Market in the United States – RMI

9. China Reaches Its Renewable Energy Goal, Six Years Early

China added so much renewable energy capacity this year, that by July it had surpassed its goal of having 1,200 gigawatts (GW) of clean energy installed by 2030. Through September 2024, China installed some 161 GW of new solar capacity and 39 GW of new wind power, according to China’s National Energy Administration (NEA). China is deploying more solar, wind, and EVs than any other country, including the United States, which is — by comparison — projected to deploy a record 50 GW of solar modules by the end of 2024.

10. De-carbonizing Heavy Industry

For steel, cement, chemicals and other heavy industries, low-carbon technologies and climate-friendly solutions are not only increasingly available but growing more affordable. To speed this process, Third Derivative, RMI’s climate tech accelerator, launched the Industrial Innovation Cohorts to accelerate the decarbonization of steel, cement, and chemicals. Also on the rise: clean hydrogen hubs — powered by renewable energy — designed to supply green hydrogen to chemical, steel, and other heavy industries to help them shift to low-carbon production processes.

[puzzlevision]

The MePhone4 is a smartphone that was designed, developed, and marketed by Meeple Inc. It is the fourth generation of the MePhone lineup, succeeding the MePhone3GS and preceding the MePhone4s. Following a number of notable leaks, the MePhone4 was first unveiled on June 7, 2010, at Meeple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, and was released on June 24, 2010, in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Japan. The MePhone4 introduced a new hardware design to the MePhone family, which Meeple's CEO Steve Cobs touted as the thinnest smartphone in the world at the time; it consisted of a stainless steel frame which doubled as an antenna, with internal components situated between two panels of aluminosilicate glass. The MePhone4 introduced Meeple's new high-resolution "Retina Display" (with a pixel density of 326 pixels per inch), while maintaining the same physical size and aspect ratio as its precursors, Meeple's M4 system-on-chip, along with MeOS 4—which notably introduced multitasking functionality and app folders. It was the first MePhone at the time to include a front-facing camera, which made possible Meeple's new FaceTime video chat service, and the first to be released in a version for CDMA networks, ending AT&T's period as the exclusive carrier of MePhone products in the United States.

[iww-gnv]

As games like Baldur’s Gate 3, Alan Wake II, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Spider-Man 2, and so many more marked 2023 as a year of instant hits and commercial success, developers were suffering. Layoffs rolled across the industry worldwide, knocking out a reported 6,500 jobs from studios like Amazon Games, Ubisoft, Epic Games, and Niantic. Roughly one-third of developers were affected either directly or indirectly by job losses in 2023, according to new data released today by organizers of the Game Developers Conference, and the industry impacts will be felt for months to come.

[hellyeahscarleteen]

"A European man may be the sixth person in the world to be cured of HIV, marking a potentially major development in the fight to end the epidemic.

“The Geneva Patient,” as he is referred to by doctors, has been receiving antiretroviral treatment for nearly twenty years. But it was a stem cell transplant to combat blood cancer that may have rid him of the virus for good, as NBC reported this week. The patient’s Swiss doctors say that as of July, he has been off antiretroviral drugs for 20 months without a viral rebound.

Five people worldwide have previously been identified as definitely or possibly cured, but there’s a major contrast between their recoveries and this latest development. Unlike the five who came before him, the Geneva Patient did not receive stem cells from a person carrying the genetic mutation CCR5 Δ32, which helps fight off HIV. Other HIV patients who received stem cells without the mutation temporarily appeared to be in remission, but experienced a viral rebound within a year following their treatment.

Scientists will present more details on the Geneva Patient’s case at the International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Science in Brisbane, Australia next week. Although they don’t know why this case is so different, and can’t rule out the possibility that their patient may not be fully cured, their findings “suggest that what we once assumed was impossible might in fact be possible,” HIV researcher Dr. Steven Deeks told NBC."

[tailschannel]

SEGA president claims Sonic Frontiers sold 3.5 million units worldwide, becoming best-selling 3D title in franchise history

The hedgehog's latest title, Sonic Frontiers, apparently cleared another major milestone, if the words of the publisher's co-chief operating officer were anything to go by.

In a joint press conference with Rovio Entertainment last Tuesday, SEGASammy transmedia president Shuji Utsumi claimed that the open-zone game sold a worldwide total of 3.5 million copies.

If officialized by SEGA, it is widely expected that Frontiers will surpass Sonic Heroes to become the best-selling 3D-based title in the franchise's history, according to the last officially-disclosed sales data after 2007.

Even though the sales figure was said by a senior executive at SEGA, the number has yet to be corroborated by the parent company. In late April, SEGA Sammy Holdings officially disclosed to investors that the open-zone game distributed over 3.2 million copies, which contributed to a record-high of 8.1 million full game units sold for the Blue Blur.

The news came at a time when the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise enjoyed renewed success through its vast transmedia portfolio. At the press conference, held at Rovio's home turf in Helsinki, Finland, Utsumi touted Sonic's continued presence through merchandising, animation, and community building; and mused similar, potential developments with Rovio's Angry Birds property.

Tails' Channel reached out to SEGA Sammy Holdings for additional comment.