By AJ Dellinger Published January 2, 2025 | Comments (0) | A Carvana vending machine Angus Mordant/Bloomberg via Getty Images Carvana may be a house of cards. Thats according to investment research and activist short-selling firm Hindenburg Research (never a good sign to be the subject of ire from a company named after a famous disaster), which published a report on Thursday that accuses the online used car seller of accounting manipulation stemming from unstable loans that it is using to temporarily prop up its prospects while its father-son ownership team cashes out. The report, titled Carvana: A Father-Son Accounting Grift For The Ages claims that Carvanas miraculous turnaround over the last two years, which has seen the companys stock nearly 10xin 2023 and climbed another 300% in 2024 after staring down bankruptcy in 2022, is nothing but a mirage. Hindenburg Research claims that as the share price has skyrocketed, the father of Carvanas CEO has cashed out more than $1.4 billion in stock. At the center of the alleged scheme appears to be some self-dealing, but to understand the alleged shadiness, its important to first understand how the business model works. When people buy a car from Carvana, a loan originates from the retailer, but it then sells those loans to other companies. Its primary buyer for those auto loans was Ally Financial, but the bank has since pulled back on its partnership. This may be in part because Carvanas underwriting practices on those loans have been historically suspect. Hindenburg notes that Wells Fargoa company that has mastered the art of scammy financial dealingscalled off a partnership with Carvana in 2019 because Their underwriting practices were not something that we were particularly comfortable with.What exactly is happening in Carvanas underwriting process? Basically, a rubber stamp, according to the report. A former director at Carvana told Hindenberg, We actually approved 100% of applicants we didnt decline for compliance reasons. About half of all of Carvanas loans are subprime, per Hindenburg, and 80% of those are deep subprime, which is the the riskiest rating available. Even the companys so-called prime borrowers have a 60-day delinquency rate four times higher than the industry average. All that to say, Carvana car loans are a major risk. Yet the company has found a new buyer for them even as Ally and others turn away.According to Hindenburgs research, Carvana has sold $800 million in auto loans to what the company has called an unrelated third party. The thing is, though, Hindenburg doesnt think this buyer is unrelated. The firm believes Carvana is selling its loans to an affiliate of DriveTime, a private car dealership that is owned by Ernest Garcia IIthe father of Carvana CEO Ernie Garcia III and the largest shareholder in the car seller.Hindenburg believes that this loan servicer is granting loan extensions to its borrowers in order to make it appear like more of the companys loans are in good standing when they would otherwise be considered delinquent and risk-laden. So per Hindenburgs digging, it seems like Carvana may have manufactured its incredible turnaround by simply approving practically every loan request that came across its desk. This juiced sales and investors rallied behind the company, pushing its stock price to new highs. Meanwhile, Ernest Garcia II started selling off his stock, pocketing over a billion as bag holders poured in.Overall, we think the Garcias will leave shareholders with nothing, Hindenburgs report concludes. At any point in Carvanas two incredible stock runs, it could have raised significant capital and de-risked its balance sheet. Instead, the company has pushed off creditors and engaged in accounting games while the CEOs father dumps billions in stock.Daily NewsletterYou May Also Like By Thomas Maxwell Published October 8, 2024 By Oscar Gonzalez Published June 11, 2024 Laura Bratton, Quartz Published May 31, 2024 Vinamrata Chaturvedi, Quartz Published May 14, 2024 Vinamrata Chaturvedi, Quartz Published May 14, 2024 By Maxwell Zeff Published May 13, 2024

House in the Forest / Daiber & Aceituno ArquitectosSave this picture! Marcos ZegersHousesPuerto Varas, ChileArchitects: Daiber & Aceituno ArquitectosAreaArea of this architecture projectArea:100 mYearCompletion year of this architecture project Year: 2023 PhotographsPhotographs:Marcos Zegers Lead Architects: David Aceituno, Diego Daiber More SpecsLess SpecsSave this picture!Text description provided by the architects. Located within a dense forest in southern Chile, near Puerto Varas, this residential project takes shape as a compact volume elevated on arched foundations that help minimize contact with the ground while emphasizing the intersection between two dissimilar horizontal planes.Save this picture!Save this picture!The house's common areas are situated on the first level. Openings are kept minimal, reinforcing the sense of shelter and maintaining the filtered light characteristic of the forest. The second level houses two bedrooms and a bathroom, separated by a central void that acts as the heart of the project.Save this picture!This void creates a double-height space dominated by a skylight that, combined with two windows illuminating the bedrooms and a large north-facing window, captures the light of the inherently dim environment. Facing this large window, a built-in mirror on the second-floor balcony serves as an interior window, reflecting and amplifying light toward the first level.Save this picture!Save this picture!With a simple and regular composition, placed like a Monopoly piece on an undefined board, the house embraces the confrontation between construction and site. However, through three key operationsthe arches in its foundations, the entrance portal, and the central voidthe dwelling transforms, establishing a dialogue with its surroundings that aligns with its distinct identity.Save this picture!Project gallerySee allShow lessAbout this officePublished on January 02, 2025Cite: "House in the Forest / Daiber & Aceituno Arquitectos" 02 Jan 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1024928/house-in-the-forest-daiber-and-aceituno-arquitectos&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save!ArchDaily?You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.Go to my stream

Continuum 2025 has just released a maintenance featuring 3 new tools to assist in creating beautiful impactful motion blur driven by AI. Nick Harauz walks you through everything you need to know about taking advantage of Speed Maps, Vector Views and limiting motion blur from the slowest regions of your footage. Learn more about Continuum 2025: https://bit.ly/3bAtGye Download a free trial of Continuum 2025: https://bit.ly/trybcc // C H A P T E R L I S T //00:00 Introduction 00:20 Scene setup and Motion Blur Basics01:00 Limiting Moton Blur from slower moving objects01:56 Viewing Motion Vectors03:02 Viewing Speed maps03:52 Using Compare Mode08:31 Goodbye

(Credit: Artsiom P/Shutterstock) NewsletterSign up for our email newsletter for the latest science newsThe sun had a big year in 2024. First, April brought a total solar eclipse that provided a wide swath of the continental U.S. with nearly four minutes of hushed totality. It also gave sun-gazers a chance to observe the outer layers of the suns atmosphere, which are normally obscured.Then, on May 1011, the aurora borealis seemed to appear everywhere, all at once. Reports came from North Texas, Arizona, even Alabama, Florida, and Tennessee nearly the entire U.S. that the night sky had turned green, purple, and pink. In places where the light was almost too faint for the naked eye, it revealed itself in camera photos. Another strong auroral show dazzled on Oct. 1011. The northern lights rarely extend so far south; Mays unusual light show resulted from the largest geomagnetic storm since 2003 to reach Earths atmosphere. A geomagnetic storm begins when the sun releases a blob of high-energy ions and electrons, called a coronal mass ejection (CME), in Earths direction. Earths protective geomagnetic field deflects most of such blasts. During strong events like the one in May, though, those energetic particles interact with the magnetic field and gases in the atmosphere, producing the auroras. The sun also released bright flashes of light, called solar flares. (These can accompany CMEs but are separate phenomena. Solar flares travel at the speed of light, reaching Earth in eight minutes. CMEs take a few days.)In 1859, the most powerful geomagnetic storm in recent history, called the Carrington Event, blasted Earth. Witnesses reported that the storm disrupted telegraph lines, ignited telegraph paper, and even shocked operators. Today, such an event could do far greater damage than small fires and a few zaps. Geomagnetic storms can threaten communication satellites, navigation systems, the electric grid, and more. On Halloween 2003, for instance, a powerful storm destroyed a satellite and disrupted GPS systems used for airlines, deep-sea drilling, and other applications. The storm that struck in May, although not as strong as the Carrington Event, was rated a G5 the most severe rating by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). While people admired the auroras, space weather scientists breathed a sigh of relief. Even though there were a lot of effects, were unaware of a lot of really bad impacts, says Shawn Dahl, a space weather forecaster at NOAAs Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado. This was the most successfully mitigated extreme space weather storm in history. Were better prepared than we were in the past, says Dahl. Scientists use satellites to track changes in the suns temperatures and magnetometers around the world to look for magnetic field fluctuations. We can forecast a lot of these events up to three days in advance, he says. In May, NOAA issued a warning six hours in advance, giving grid operators time to prepare and airline companies time to redirect flights to safer routes. In the future, he hopes to see a wider warning system to alert farmers using GPS for seeding and spraying, for example. Theres plenty to look forward to, too. In March 2025, NOAA plans to launch a satellite for solar weather prediction. And NASA announced in October that the sun had reached solar maximum for its 11-year cycle. The level of activity could continue for another year, which could mean more CMEs, more flares, and more aurora borealis, shining down in Dallas. Stay tuned.space exploration1 free article leftWant More? Get unlimited access for as low as $1.99/monthSubscribeAlready a subscriber?Register or Log In1 free articleSubscribeWant more?Keep reading for as low as $1.99!SubscribeAlready a subscriber?Register or Log In

ShareBipedal robots (at least some of them) are becoming increasingly agile and humanlike in their movements. Despite this, one physical aspect remains stuck in the uncanny valleyrealistic facial expressions. Robots still arent great at replicating complex and fluid face muscle interactions at speeds comparable to their biological inspirations. One solution, however, may be found by treating expressions as an interplay between various waveforms. The result is a new dynamic arousal expression system developed by researchers at Osaka University that allows a bot to mimic expressions more quickly and seamlessly than its predecessors.The potential solution, detailed in a study published in the Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics, requires first classifying various facial gestures like yawning, blinking, and breathing as individual waveforms. These are then linked to amplitude of movements such as opening and closing lips, moving eyebrows, or angling the head. In this first case, a control parameter is used based on a mood spectrum ranging between sleepy and excited. These waves then propagate and superpose on top of each other to adjust a robot faces physical features depending on their reaction. According to the studys accompanying announcement, the new method rids programmers of the need to prepare individualized, choreographed facial movements for each response state.The automatic generation of dynamic facial expressions to transmit the internal states of a robot, such as mood, is crucial for communication robots, the team writes in their study, who add that current methods rely on a patchwork-like replaying of recorded motions that make it difficult to achieve realistic results.Researchers assign waves to movement units like breathing and blinking that then influence physical representations in the robot. Credit: Hisashi Ishihara For example, a sleepy spectrum ranking generates certain results in the robots breathing, yawning, and blinking parameters. These subsequently compound on top of one another, further amplifying or minimizing facial movements like mouth size, eyelid flutters, and head tilts. Once calculated, the resulting physical representations are depicted near instantaneously.Advancing this research in dynamic facial expression synthesis will enable robots capable of complex facial movements to exhibit more lively expressions and convey mood changes that respond to their surrounding circumstances, including interactions with humans, said senior author Koichi Osuka. Get the Popular Science newsletter Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. By signing up you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.While arguably a step forward for realistic robots, its still hard to shake the spookiness of seeing it displayed on an android child. The facial movements look more fluid and natural than many other contemporary machines, but theres no way to avoid the fact that the toddler bots eyes are still clearly artificial. The fact that its eyes frequently appear to dart side-to-side and drift off-focus doesnt help matters, either.Still, treating facial features as an interplay between waves of varying strength and intensity appears to at least offer more realistic results than viewing them as preprogrammed, one-to-one reactions. Regardless, showing off the next iteration using an adult robot could maybe also lessen the overall creepiness.

Nature, Published online: 02 January 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-024-04174-8The use of shed skins might help to ward off predators, experiments suggest.

Axial, an undersea volcano off the coast of Oregon is probably going to erupt in 2025.

Veteran game developer Ken Levine has shared his thoughts on generative AI, his latest game and it having high stakes, and why he believes we still don't really know what video games are.Talking to GI.biz, Levine said he believes generative AI is a "very powerful" tool that he doesn't want to underestimate. But he said it has many limitations in its current state, including persistence."You look at Sora, the ChatGPT video generator, you see a woman walking down the street and the street scene is beautiful--but if she were to turn around and walk backwards, it wouldn't remember where she has been," he said. "It doesn't currently understand persistence, although that may change."Continue Reading at GameSpot

Russia is looking to enter the video game console space by creating its own systems, and the country is reportedly planning on making two different kinds as it continues to feel the economic impact of its illegal invasion of Ukraine.According to TechSpot, one of them is reportedly a traditional console using the Elbrus processor, which is developed by the Moscow Center of SPARC Technologies. This processor is mainly used for applications such as critical infrastructure and defense. It's also reportedly going to use a domestic OS--either Aurora or Alt Linux.In a statement on Telegram, deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on information policy Anton Gorelkin confirmed that Elbrus processors aren't as powerful as the ones used in PS5 or Xbox, so Russia will have to take a unique approach to its consoles.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Perfecting a gaming space can feel daunting, especially with so many ways to upgrade gaming setups available using quality accessories and decor, such as dynamic lighting. While choosing the best gaming peripherals and hardware can be straightforward, some may overlook the integral role that lighting plays in creating a comfortable and immersive gaming environment.