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To everyone’s disappointment, Mark’s signature blue hoodie was not in attendance. For the uninitiated, Samsung’s Gear VR headset is based off of the same tech as the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. Facebook acquired Oculus back in 2014 for $2 billion. Zuckerberg’s unannounced appearance hammered home the importance of virtual reality to the social experience. Zuck was proud to tout Facebook as one of the first social networks to support 360-degree video and how products like the upcoming consumer edition Oculus Rift and Gear VR are some of the best ways to consume that content....

At four feet 3 inches tall and 66 pounds, Diego-san isn’t a perfect physical analog for a toddler (miniaturizing all of the parts would have driven Diego-san’s price tag way up), but his 44 pneumatic joints and the 27 moving parts in his extremely life-like face make for a humanoid that can mimic human movements–at least those of a one-year-old–quite deftly. The high definition cameras in his eyes take in the world around him–gestures, movements, facial expressions–and the team is developing algorithms that allow Diego-san to “learn” from these cues the same way a human baby would (to the extent that developmental psychologists understand this process, anyhow)....

The New York Times reports that the majority of staff cuts manifested within Meta’s recruiting and business teams alongside a hiring freeze extension through Q1 2023. Those affected will receive a severance equal to 16 weeks of their base pay, plus an additional two weeks for every year employed at Meta. Healthcare benefits for themselves and their families will extend for six more months, as well. Meta’s steep fall comes as competitors like TikTok establish themselves as younger generations’ social media platform of choice, while Zuckerberg’s team continues to pitch consumers on VR/AR products like the Meta Quest 2 alongside its burgeoning “metaverse....

1. What are microschools? As their name suggests, microschools, which serve K-12 students, are very small schools that typically serve 10 to 15 students, but sometimes as many as 150. They can have very different purposes but tend to share common characteristics, such as more personalized and project-based learning. They also tend to have closer adult-child relationships in which teachers serve as facilitators of student-led learning, not just deliverers of content....

Does this seem like too many uses for a snake robot? Don’t get yourself in knots over it. LineFORM is a robot from MIT’s Tangible Media Lab, which takes a snake-like robot and turns it into a physical interface. The robot does all those things mentioned above and more, functioning as a smart ruler, a physical extension of a digital model, a touch pad, and more. The machine is the interface and the display....

“I’ve always thought ‘shark-infested waters’ is a funny term because sharks live in the ocean—really, it’s people-infested,” says Carlee Jackson, a shark researcher and the director of communications for Minorities in Shark Sciences. “Just because they scare us doesn’t mean that they’re not important for the ecosystem.” Indeed, based on experts’ best guesses as to why people are seeing (or occasionally being attacked by) sharks more frequently, there’s no need to panic....

Get ready to meet 2014 MU69 (unofficially known as Ultima Thule), an object a billion miles beyond Pluto and 4.1 billion from Earth itself. On January 1, at around 12:33 a.m. Eastern Time, New Horizons will get to within 2,200 miles away from MU69—which sounds like quite a distance, but is actually three times closer than how far the spacecraft was from Pluto during its 2015 flyby (when it managed to capture many stunning images)....

The concept is dubbed the “Low Boom Flight Demonstration Quiet Supersonic Transport” or “QueSST” (somehow). Today NASA announced that they’d awarded defense giant Lockheed Martin a $20 million contract for 17 months of preliminary development on the concept. The end goal of the project, according to NASA, is “A piloted test aircraft that can fly at supersonic speeds, creating a supersonic ‘heartbeat’–a soft thump rather than the disruptive boom currently associated with supersonic flight....

Every morning, a minimum of 12 pictures from the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) will be added to the website. The sequence of pictures will cover the entire globe, so no matter where you live, you’ll be able to see a view of home from a million miles away. DSCOVR is located in a stable position between the Earth and Sun, a million miles away from our planet....

Nenad Sestan, a neuroscientist at Yale School of Medicine, led the team of researchers. Their goal was to determine if circulatory systems in brains deprived of oxygen for more than a couple of minutes (and therefore technically dead) could start working again. The results show that the brain is better at cellular restoration than we thought. “The study challenges the long-held assumption that large mammalian brains are irreversibly damaged a few minutes after blood stops circulating....

Rare earths are a collection of 17 elements that are valued for their unique properties. They are used in the production of everything from computer hard drives and smartphones to wind turbines, batteries, and precision weapons systems. They are found in computer displays and light bulbs and communications infrastructure. We use them to refine oil and build cars. In other words, we need refined rare earth minerals and China owns 95% of the global market for them–and isn’t always willing to share....

The folks at Public Policy Polling, a well-respected public opinion tracker, have long known that Congress is not viewed favorably, explained Dustin Ingalls, assistant to the director at PPP. This was a lighthearted attempt to put it in perspective. “The whole fiscal cliff brouhaha sort of drove home how unpopular Congress was, at least anecdotally,” Ingalls said. “So we decided to test Congress against these things we thought would be unpopular as well, and see what voters would think was better–unpopular things which no one seems to like, and Congress, which also no one seems to like....

The skills you’ve acquired and gear in your pack are often the difference in making it through a life and death situation. But you first need the mental fortitude to survive. Without the drive to survive—and a strong mindset—no piece of gear will save you. The most important tool to bring along is mental toughness. Having a survivalist mentality (the will to live no matter how difficult the adversity) is multi-faceted....

As a sleep researcher, one of the most common questions I’m asked is how to get a better night’s rest. That’s a challenging inquiry to answer. Many of us in the field began studying the subject because we are so terrible at it in practice. And despite decades of study, we still don’t totally understand what sleep is—or why our ancestors first started doing it. All vertebrates alive today have a form of slumber....

Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said that this contract “represents the type of technological leap” that the U.S. needs to retain its edge when it comes to airborne warfare. This sentiment was echoed by Air Force Chief of Staff General Mark Welsh, who said that this will be a significant tool in deterring unwanted nuclear weaponry. This bomber is a far cry from the simple lumbering craft of the past....

The number of new coronavirus cases in the US has stopped trending downward, and is now plateauing or going back up in some states. At the same time, many states have reduced their COVID data reporting frequency. A new vaccine from Novavax could boost the global vaccine supply, and the Delta variant could be more dangerous than previous COVID iterations. Here’s what unfolded over the past week. COVID numbers plateau in the US, ending weeks-long declining trend The 7-day average of new reported COVID-19 cases in the US was 14,288 as of June 13—signaling the second week in a row that new case numbers have stopped decreasing....

That could mean some cool innovation for content creators in the future, as people mess with camera angles and have the chance to play smarter tricks on your eyes. What’s more, all of Youtube’s library (even the 2D content) can function like 3D content too, thanks to a new option in video playback. Things like base jumping, helmet cams from the bravest of climbers, scuba diving, or even a play-through of the new Halo game all will feel just a little more real....

In 2015 and 2016, the team of scientists from Australia and the United States used underwater cameras to record the behavior of the gloomy octopus (Octopus tetricus) in Jervis Bay in southeastern Australia. The bay is home to the world’s whitest sand on its beaches, Earth’s smallest penguin species called fairy penguins, marine mammals, and a lot of cephalopods. “Our study arose from the concentration of octopuses at this site, which was unusual,” study author David Scheel, a marine biology professor from Alaska Pacific University, tells PopSci....

Disasters like these are getting worse. From 1954 to 1963, the average outbreak—a sequence of six or more F1 or greater tornadoes that begin within six hours of each other—contained 11.4 storms. Half a century later, that number had risen to 16.1. Researchers are working to determine which weather and climate factors drive the clobbering hordes, but they can’t be certain quite yet. What we do know is that it’s increasingly likely we’ll have a day like the one mapped out above again....