Anyone in the United States who had a Facebook account in the past 16 years has roughly one week left to file for payment in a data privacy settlement case.

An experiment to see if a laser could beam a message through space to Earth has been successful and could alter the future of spacecraft communication. The experiment was made possible by the Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) tool which was travelling onboard NASA’s Psyche spacecraft. It was successfully able to beam a message to Earth, via a near-infrared laser, from far beyond the Moon. It is the furthest such optical communication to have ever been communicated and was encoded with test data to ensure that it worked correctly. The DSOC successfully beamed the data from approximately 16 million kilometers (10 million miles) away to the Hale Telescope at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in California. Hitching a ride on the Psyche spacecraft, the experiment achieved the so-called “first light” on 14 November, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory which is managing the mission from Earth. NASA explained the demo’s “flight laser transceiver – a cutting-edge instrument aboard Psyche capable of sending and receiving near-infrared signals – locked onto a powerful uplink laser beacon transmitted from the Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory at JPL’s Table Mountain Facility near Wrightwood, California.” The uplink beacon assisted the transceiver in aiming its downlink to Caltech’s observatory, where the signal was received. Trudy Kortes, director of Technology Demonstrations at NASA HQ, said: “Achieving first light is one of many critical DSOC milestones in the coming months, paving the way toward higher-data-rate communications capable of sending scientific information, high-definition imagery, and streaming video in support of humanity’s next giant leap: sending humans to Mars.” It’s not the first time that optical communications have been used to beam messages from space, but these laser beams mark the furthest a message has ever been transmitted. With missions further than the moon, NASA typically uses radio waves to communicate. However, laser beams allow for a greater amount of data to be packed in them, potentially giving experts more options in future missions. Dr Jason Mitchell, director of the Advanced Communications and Navigation Technologies Division within NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation program, explained: “Optical communication is a boon for scientists and researchers who always want more from their space missions, and will enable human exploration of deep space.” How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Sign up to our free indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Post Malone and Joe Rogan discussed the rise of the NPC streams on TikTok, calling the trend "crazy" and "so strange." During an appearance on the podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, Post Malone brought up the topic of the NPC trend after Rogan commented on the fact that people “watch a lot of s*** they hate". The NPC trend is where the streamers appear animated through their actions, hence being comparable to gaming NPCs, where they often repeat their movements or sayings. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Streamers will only interact, speak or perform a specific action when they receive a gift from a viewer. One of the most popular NPC streamers is Pinkydoll, who is known for her catchphrase "Ice cream, so good!" when gifted an ice cream emoji in her streams. @kiki_saysso New trend? Should I try it? credit: @pinkydollreal #pinkydoll #ai #npctrend #viral #tiktoksensation #livestream The Sunflower singer quoted this Pinkydoll's catchphrase to Rogan when explaining the trend. "I'm like wow, this is kind of crazy," Post said. To which Rogan asked if Pinkydoll ever breaks character as Post recalled a time he watched one of her streams where she did. The pair then watched one of the TikToker's most viral videos and in response, Rogan described it as "so strange". "But she is really hot and that helps," the podcaster added. "That’s why that works. Let’s not pretend. Like if she was gross, like that lady is beautiful. "So, when she does that, people are like. What is she? I’ll get her to lick her lips like, $7000 a day. That’s not bad.” Elsewhere, Rogan was recently 'perplexed' at men's 'appalling' backlash to Barbie movie. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

You may see lab-grown meat and insects on the menu in future decades, as the world grapples with

UK's competition watchdog on Friday said social media giant Meta Platforms Inc had offered to limit the use

Imane ‘Pokimane’ Anys has had her say on the recent controversial changes to Twitch, which has seen the streaming platform face an online backlash. Earlier this week, Twitch changed its branded content guidelines and faced immediate pushback from content creators. The changes impacted how users could advertise sponsorships as well as banning them from multi-streaming to “Twitch-like” platforms. Just a day later, Twitch revealed that they were removing the new guidelines after receiving widespread criticism. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “Yesterday, we released new Branded Content Guidelines that impacted your ability to work with sponsors to increase your income from streaming. These guidelines are bad for you and bad for Twitch, and we are removing them immediately,” a statement read. “Sponsorships are critical to streamers’ growth and ability to earn income. We will not prevent your ability to enter into direct relationships with sponsors – you will continue to own and control your sponsorship business. “We want to work with our community to create the best experience on Twitch and to do that we need to be clear about what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. We appreciate your feedback and help in making this change.” Despite the apology, users have continued to hit out at Twitch. Pokimane has now spoken about the direction streaming could take in future, and urged users to pursue new routes to get what they deserve for their content. “I feel like because content creation is becoming so saturated [and] we often have trouble relying on the platforms we use, the future is direct to consumer paid content (patreon, onlypans, consumer goods, etc),” Pokimane wrote. “Cut out the middle man and get proper compensation for what you make/do!” she added. “Social media platforms will obviously always be used, but I think people will start looking at them as tools to gain exposure instead of being the way to make money,” the streamer went on to say. It comes after the CEO of Twitch, Dan Clancy, personally apologised during a recent stream for the abandoned changes to guidelines and said the company had “messed up”. “Let me just go straight to the point. For those who don’t know, we recently released this branded content policy. I won’t go through all the details,” he said recently. “We got a lot of negative pushback and the bottom line is we messed up. It’s on us and I apologise for that.” Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

By Aditya Soni and Roshan Abraham (Reuters) -Several Wall Street brokerages started coverage of Arm Holdings with their top ratings

By Sarah Wu TAIPEI Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC said on Thursday that while war in Ukraine has impacted the

Vietnam-based internet startup VNG Ltd. has decided to postpone its plans for a US initial public offering, according

Best Buy's 48-hour flash sale is here. You can find deals on kitchen appliances, LEGO

The U.S. cybersecurity firm Mandiant says suspected state-backed Chinese hackers exploited a vulnerability in a popular email security appliance to break into the networks of hundreds of public and private sector organizations globally, nearly a third of them government agencies including foreign ministries

Controversial figure Andrew Tate and Adin Ross clashed over LGBTQ+ issues during a livestream, turning it into a heated debate on gender