By Steve Gorman LOS ANGELES A NASA space capsule carrying a sample of rocky material plucked from the

A China-based hacking group intent on conducting espionage breached a series of email accounts linked to government agencies

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 8, 2023--

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When it comes to maintaining an online presence, creators are always looking to be ahead of the curve. Currently, the latest trend that has popped up all over people's For You page is NPC streaming. The basis of this trend is that streamers bizarrely repeat actions over and over again - so what is it all about? Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Here is a breakdown of everything you need to know about the NPC streaming trend. What is NPC streaming? NPC streaming is where the streamers appear animated through their actions, hence being comparable to gaming NPCs, where they often repeat their movements or sayings. In this context, TikTok streamers only interact, speak or perform a specific action when they receive a gift from a viewer, the type of interaction can be dependent on the type of gift. @bobbysie Btw i love ohio final boss and queen Viewers can send a variety of different options such as emotes to the streamer to respond to. For instance, a viewer sends an ice cream and in response, the streamer's reaction would be to pretend to lick it and say “Oh ice cream yum”. Where did this trend begin? Last year, NPC streaming began to rise in popularity, according to Know Your Meme where it all started from Japanese TikToker @natuecoco. She has collaborated with TikToker Satoyu0704 the two of them pretended to be NPCs as they went on to see who could get the most prizes. Over the past year more creators such as Cherry Crush TV and PinkDollReal have been doing popular NPC live streams. Why is this a trend? Perhaps, the reason for the rising popularity of NPC streaming is people's curiosity to see the creator acting like an AI or a character for a video game and want to see if they can keep this act up. Also compared to your average stream, NPC streaming requires increased interaction from the viewer as the streamer is constantly responding to what is being said and sent to them. The trend appears to have celebrity fans, with music producer Timberland reportedly being the #1 viewer on a recent TikTok Live from 19-year-old viral content creator Pinkydoll, according to Pop Crave. Pinkydoll has recently been going viral in July 2023 with her NPC streams where she does things such as popping popcorn with a hair straightener. As a result of Timberland's presence, it caused Pinkydoll to break character. 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.

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TL;DR: The World Athletics Championships are taking place in Budapest from Aug. 19 to Aug.

MCLEAN, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 14, 2023--

TL;DR: As of May 11, you can pick up the MagStack Foldable 3-in-1 Charging Station

An arrowhead believed to be 3,000 years old was made from the iron of a meteorite, according to scientists. The rare Bronze Age artefact was found near Lake Biel in Switzerland during a 19th-century excavation near a pile-dwelling station at a site in Mörigen (900-800 BC) before it was acquired by the Bern Historical Museum. In the new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, the 39-millimeter-long (1.5-inch-long) arrowhead was evaluated along with other Swiss archaeological finds to see if any were created from meteorites. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter This arrowhead in particular - which weighs 2.9 grams - was believed to be made from a meteorite that landed in Estonia. “Among just three large European iron meteorites with fitting chemical composition, the Kaalijarv meteorite (Estonia) is the most likely source,” the study said. It is thought this "large craterforming fall event" occurred in 1500BC during the Bronze Age and produced many small fragments. At this time, humans used the iron from meteorites, before they later learned how to smelt iron from oxide ores. "Archaeological objects made of meteoritic iron are extremely rare," the Bern Historical Museum said in a press release. Only 55 objects are known from the whole of Eurasia and Africa, and these come from 22 sites. 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.

In the run-up to Instagram launching Threads earlier this week - its “civil”, text-based alternative to Twitter - billionaire Elon Musk has criticised the rival app looking to compete with the platform he bought back in October for $44bn by calling out the amount of data it may collect on users. Now, after the Meta-run platform is out in the wild, Musk appears to be so riled up by its runaway success (Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg reported 10 million sign-ups in the first seven hours after launch) that he’s threatening to sue Meta over what he considers “cheating”. News website Semafor shared a letter from Twitter lawyer Alex Spiro, in which he writes that the bird app has “serious concerns” Zuckerberg’s company has carried out “systemic, wilful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property”. It reads: “Over the past year, Meta has hired dozens of former Twitter employees. Twitter knows that these employees previously worked at Twitter; that these employees had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information; that these employees owe ongoing obligations to Twitter; and that many of these employees have improperly retained Twitter documents and electronic devices. “With that knowledge, Meta deliberately assigned these employees to develop, in a matter of months, Meta’s copycat ‘Threads’ app with the specific intent that they use Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property in order to accelerate the development of Meta’s competing app, in violation of both state and federal law as well as those employees’ ongoing obligations to Twitter. “Twitter intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights, and demands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Crikey. Appearing to confirm the legal threat following Semafor’s report, Musk tweeted: “Competition is fine, cheating is not.” The remark has since been met with heavy ridicule: Meanwhile, Meta’s communication director, Andy Stone has taken to Threads to state: “No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee – that’s just not a thing.” The Musk-Zuckerberg feud very much continues, though, to the extent there are continued rumours the two tech moguls could partake in a “cage fight” to settle their differences – yes, really. We’ll go and fetch the popcorn… 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.