TELFORD, ENGLAND - NOVEMBER 20: A Japanese Bantam is seen at the National Poultry Show on November ... [+] 20, 2016 in Telford, England. The annual event continues to grow with around 7000 entries this year from all around the world. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)Getty ImagesWould it surprise you to know that lab-grown meat is already in production?It would be even more surprising if one were to realize that these types of cultured meat products were already in the supermarket.Currently, though, the top two companies with FDA approval are cranking out small amounts of this stuff one of them reports somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000 pounds of product annually. Thats not a lot for a nation of over 350 million people.Most of the early lab-grown meats are being put into pet food. However, keep an eye on GOOD meat and Upside Foods, two companies out of California that are pioneering this kind of innovation.Fueled for GrowthMany analysts looking at the U.S. food market would say that theres big potential for lab-grown meat.The development of lab-grown meat presents an innovative solution to the environmental, ethical, and public health challenges associated with traditional livestock farming, writes Benedette Cuffari at AZO Life Sciences, as analysts estimate the current market value of this product at $200 million, forecasting annual growth of 15% through 2030. By significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions, land and water use, and antibiotic reliance, cultured meat offers a sustainable and potentially safer alternative to conventional meat production.Why Are Lab-Grown Meats Taking On?In a recent talk, Grace Choi, an analyst with MIT Capital Partners, told us about why buyers would want to embrace meat that is grown in a lab.MORE FOR YOUFocusing on poultry, she pointed out how it contributes to a lot of greenhouse gas emissions, and disease and water pollution. And then there are animal rights to consider, for example, where animals are abused to create higher-fat product, and housed inhumanely in modern factory farming.Barriers to GrowthHowever, Choi noted, lab-grown meat is expensive to produce, and limited in terms of scalability. And it was also hard to get there to figure out the science behind these processes.The AI ProcessArtificial intelligence is helping scientists to come up with more efficient practices for lab-grown meat.First, theres structure-based modeling to test protein designs. Theres also AI evaluation of in vitro processes and growth factors. These methods can contribute to really robust research into how to get best product, in ways that are likely to really challenge traditional production as the process evolves.Choi points out how different kinds of structure-based simulations model those creation processes, and how assessing mutant growth factors with the best binding energy can help increase growth factor activity from 6% to 14%.Conventional Poultry Farming is HarmfulGrace ChoiThis represents a major shift in solving issues surrounding greenhouse gas emissions, food waste, and animal disease, she said. Our solution is truly: winner, winner, chicken for dinner.The presentation and the statistics around it suggest that many of us will be eating lab-grown meat sometime in the near future. However, its going to be based on consumer preference early polling shows that up to half of all adult Americans would not like to try these alternative meat substances. But for those who feel bad for animals in cages, it might just be the perfect alternative.Its one more of those top applications for data-driven AI results where we were unlikely to figure this stuff out without the amazing brain-power of the digital neural network. Theres also a blizzard of other news around AI applications to genomics, and computational biology (I covered this in a recent post) but this one has to do with something very important our human diets and how we evolved from hunter-gatherers, to .?

Heres a spooky feeling. The iPhone in your hand likely has lots of encrypted data in encrypted iCloud backups, but if an order by the British government is implemented, security services will be able to see itno matter which country youre in. Heres whats going on and most importantly whether Apple will do it.Apple could be forced to open up iPhone data.NurPhoto via Getty ImagesSecurity officials in the United Kingdom have demanded that Apple create a back door allowing them to retrieve all the content any Apple user worldwide has uploaded to the cloud, the Washington Post reports. That applies to whats on iCloud, so not just iPhones, but iPad and Mac uploaded data, too.The fact that the order came from the British government doesnt protect users data elsewhere as it requires blanket capability to viewfully encrypted material, not merely assistance in cracking a specific account, and has no known precedent in major democracies, the report goes on.So, will Apple go along with it?Apple is almost certain to refuse, given it has consistently praised privacy as a fundamental human right and has said no to demands from the FBI in the past.MORE FOR YOUIn 2023, the U.K. government demanded access to iMessages and FaceTime calls, and at the time, Apple said that it would rather withdraw such services rather than go along with it.Its likely that Apple, which has not commented, would simply stop offering encrypted storage in the U.K., though that might not be enough to satisfy the British government. The law used to facilitate the order is the Investigatory Powers Act of 2016. Critics refer to this as the Snoopers Charter.If the U.K. government continues to demand this and Apple takes encrypted data services away from British iPhone users, leaving those users with less security than they have now. And the nature of the encryption used is thatWhat may happen is that the U.K. government will quietly back down and use more conventional legal mechanisms when seeking data, such as court orders.Apple has yet to comment: more as we have it.

The big picture: The Go programming language was designed to offer a C-like syntax while prioritizing memory safety and security. Also known as Golang, Go has been growing in popularity among both legitimate developers and resourceful cybercriminals. Go, one of the most popular programming languages alongside "traditional" standards such as Python, C, and Visual Basic, was exploited to turn legitimate open-source projects into malicious software. The heart of the issue lay in the Google-owned proxy.golang.org service, which acts as a mirror for developers to quickly fetch and install Go modules without needing to access their original GitHub repositories.The supply chain attack was recently discovered by security company Socket Inc., which played a key role in taking the malicious package down. The Go Module Mirror hosted a modified version of a legitimate Go package called boltdb, which is used by thousands of other software packages. This malicious version entered the Google proxy server in 2021 and was served to Go developers at least until last Monday.Google's proxy service prioritizes caching for performance reasons, as Socket explained, and retains a cached package even after the original source has been modified. The cybercriminals used a typosquatting technique to create a new repository on GitHub (boltdb-go/bolt), with a URL that resembled the original, clean one (boltdb/bolt).The malicious module contained a backdoor payload managed by the threat actors through an external command-and-control server. After the module was fetched by Google's Go Module Mirror, the cybercriminals modified the GitHub repository by reverting the package to a clean version. This allowed the backdoor to go unnoticed while hiding in the proxy server for years.The backdoor was designed to create a hidden IP and port address, which were used to check the C2 server for further orders and commands. The IP belonged to hosting company Hetzner Online, a legitimate and trustworthy infrastructure provider, which offered an additional layer of "invisibility" to the malware. // Related StoriesSocket explained that, unlike other "indiscriminate" malicious operations, this particular Go backdoor was designed to maximize the likelihood of successful attacks and remain undetected for as long as possible. The company also faced resistance from Google in its efforts to take the malicious package offline.The security enterprise first requested the proxy managers remove the backdoored module last week, but the issue remained unresolved. After a follow-up this week, Google's Go Module Mirror finally addressed the problem a few days ago.

Byte-sized: Bite-sized JavaScript platformer Bouncing Beholder is astonishingly small, taking up just 1,024 bytes roughly a thousand times less data than a single promotional screenshot for a flagship video game. Despite its minuscule size, it includes all the essential elements of a classic platformer. Games keep growing larger every year, but a group of developers is pushing back against the trend. We've already seen astonishingly small versions of Tetris, Snake, and Doom, but their tiny file sizes often come with trade-offs like clunky controls, limited animation, and a lack of color.Bouncing Beholder, however, is different. Despite its minuscule size, it delivers a full-fledged side-scrolling adventure with smooth animations, responsive physics, randomly generated terrain, collectibles, and hazards to avoid.Players control a perpetually bouncing eyeball using the arrow keys, navigating a deceptively inviting landscape filled with dangers. The goal is to collect as many coins as possible while avoiding hazards. And when you inevitably lose, the randomized level design ensures that every replay feels fresh.The game was written by Marijn Haverbeke, who originally created it for the JS1K coding competition way back in 2010. It was recently rediscovered thanks in part to its strict file size limit. Haverbeke achieved this astonishing level of optimization through a series of clever coding tricks. These include abbreviating long variable names and representing game states using mathematical formulas instead of storing data directly. // Related StoriesFor example, coin locations aren't pre-defined but instead follow a simple rule: coins appear on any platform whose height is divisible by six. Collecting one slightly lowers the platform's height, effectively removing the coin.Haverbeke also devised a system to automatically shorten lengthy method names from the HTML5 Canvas API used to render graphics. Instead of writing canvas.quadraticCurveTo(), he can simply use qt(). When your entire game fits within a single kilobyte, every character matters.In fact, the code is so tightly packed that modern compression tools like Google's Closure Compiler actually increased the file size rather than reducing it.As Haverbeke humorously notes in his blog: "In terms of productivity, this is an awful way of coding. But it certainly is fun. Not to mention that it gives me an excuse to use every kind of weird hack I can think of."The full game code can be found over on Haverbeke's blog.

Table of ContentsTable of ContentsThinner than anything beforeNew frontiers for durabilityThe rest looks equally impressiveSetting the standard for the competition in the USHonor, Google, Xiaomi, and Vivo all launched new folding phones last year that were designed to compete with Samsung and the Galaxy Z Fold 6. Yet, the challenge was not just matching Samsung, but also beating a foldable launched the previous year.Launching in the US, the OnePlus Open set a standard for the industry that ensured it still ranked highly as one of the best folding phones a year later.Recommended VideosTo meet this challenge, Honor launched the Magic V3 as the slimmest folding phone ever, and Google launched the revamped Pixel 9 Pro Fold. Both phones delivered an experience that could challenge the best on the market, but conspicuous in its absence was OnePlus, and sister company Oppo.RelatedRather than launch a new folding phone before it was ready, Oppo chose to wait. The company has been steadily teasing various features on its new folding phone, and as it turns out, the wait was likely worth it. Im ridiculously excited about the Oppo Find N5, and the best thing is that it will probably also launch as the OnePlus Open 2 in the US and some global markets.Heres why Im so excited and what it means for other folding phones on the market.Honor Magic V3, Pixel 9 Pro Fold, OnePlus Open, and Galaxy Z Fold 6 Andy Boxall / Digital TrendsOppo CEO Pete Lau who also co-founded OnePlus has been steadily teasing the Find N5 on social media, and every teaser is seemingly worth shouting about. The first that captured my attention was related to the thickness, with Oppo billing the Find N5 as the thinnest folding phone ever made. pic.twitter.com/DHz7Uma2tZ Pete Lau (@PeteLau) January 23, 2025Last year saw the launch of the Honor Magic V3, which holds the current title for the thinnest folding phone. Measuring just 4.3mm at its thinnest point when unfolded, its a joy to use and is far more comfortable in the hand than rivals like the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Pixel 9 Pro Fold which measure 5.6mm and 5.1mm respectively.It may not seem like much, but these are big differences when youre using the phone daily. Crucially, it also means that its much thinner when folded. I use the front screen on my folding phone at least 40% of the time, and it translates to a more ergonomic feel. The Magic V3 is 9.3mm thin when folded, whereas the Z Fold 6 is 12.1mm and the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is 10.5mm.The world's thinnest foldable is coming #OPPOFindN5 pic.twitter.com/WhTybLclKm Pete Lau (@PeteLau) January 14, 2025How does the Oppo Find N5 compare? We dont know for sure, but Oppo teased it against a photo of the iPad Pro M4, which measures 5.1mm, and the iPhone 16 Pro, which measures 8.3mm. Given the Magic V3 is considerably thinner than both of these when unfolded, Id expect that the Find N5 will come in around 4.2mm thick or even thinner. This would be impressive on its own, but there is more that looks set to help the Find N5 set a new standard for the competition to beat.Prakhar Khanna / Digital TrendsDurability has always been a concern for potential folding phone customers, thanks to the larger second display and a hinge. However, durability has vastly improved since the first Galaxy Fold and most folding phones now offer similar levels of durability to their non-folding counterparts.That said, theres always room for improvement and the Find N5 looks to set a new standard. When I saw the teaser about the Find N5 being thin, I was fairly excited but also somewhat tempered in my expectations. However, the latest teaser from Pete Lau has me even more excited because its shaping up to be more durable than any other folding phone.IPX6 IPX8 IPX9 Immensely durable, rain or shine. #OPPOFindN5 pic.twitter.com/Yg0G3Qm8Z0 Pete Lau (@PeteLau) February 7, 2025Lets consider the Honor Magic V3: its supremely thin but still retains some water resistance thanks to an IPX8 rating, but lacks dust resistance. The Galaxy Z Fold 6 takes this a step further with an IP48 rating offering strong water resistance and limited dust resistance, while the Pixel 9 Pro Fold offers the same IP68 rating that weve come to expect from non-folding phones.The Oppo Find N5, aka the Open 2? Itll feature an IPX9 rating, meaning it offers the same resistance not only to water but also to high-pressure jets. The other phones that feature a similar rating? The Oppo Find X8 Pro and the OnePlus 13, the latter of which works fine after being thrown in a hot dishwasher. Its unclear whether therell also be dust resistance, but this will set a standard for water resistance in folding phones.Nadeem Sarwar / Digital TrendsBeyond durability and thickness, the Find N5 has a few other rumored features that have me extremely excited. Theres likely to be a 6.85-inch LTPO display with 2K resolution and dynamic refresh rate. It will also be powered by a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset and will probably feature 16GB of RAM like the OnePlus 13, although the latter specification is an educated guess on my part.Powering this entire package is likely to be a 6,000mAh battery that will almost certainly use Silicon Carbon technology like its non-folding siblings. Also onboard is 80W wired charging, although theres no confirmation or teaser around wireless charging.No crease detected Well, not on the #OPPOFindN5 pic.twitter.com/bIwi1vO6sr Pete Lau (@PeteLau) February 6, 2025One key issue with all folding phones is that most phone makers choose an inferior camera to non-folding equivalent phones. The Find N5 could solve this and set a standard thanks to the rumored triple Hasselblad camera featuring a periscope telephoto lens; if the OnePlus 13 is any indication, this could be a fantastic camera.Tushar Mehta / Digital TrendsThe Oppo Find N5 is going to pose a fierce challenge to every flagship folding phone on the market, but it wont launch in the US or many other international markets. Instead, its likely to be rebranded to be the OnePlus Open 2, like the Find N3 became the OnePlus Open.In the US, this means the Galaxy Z Fold 7 which will hopefully take some lessons from the Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition and the next Pixel Fold will have some fierce competition. Compared to the current generation of folding phones, it will likely have better battery life, a better camera, faster charging, and better durability. If it follows the model of the Open, itll also be slightly cheaper than the competition.Im ridiculously excited about the Oppo Find N5 because it looks set to bridge the feature gap between the best folding phones and the best phones overall. It also means that buying a folding phone will require a far smaller compromise on the features you want, and this should spur even bigger competition amongst all folding phones. It should also set a standard for the upcoming folding iPhone. Roll on the launch in just a few weeks!Editors Recommendations

Henry Cavill nearly wore a tuxedo instead of a cape.In 2005, Cavill auditioned for the role of James Bondin Casino Royale. According to director Martin Campbell, Cavill and Daniel Craig were the finalists to replace Pierce Brosnan as 007. For years, fans have wondered what Cavills interpretation of Bond would have been like. Thanks to a leaked video, these fans now get their wish.Cavills Bond audition has leaked online. Posted to Ron Souths YouTube channel, Cavill is seen reading lines from a scene in 1995s GoldenEye. Cavill is only 22 in the video, while sporting long black hair. According to the videos description, the video came from a VHS tape found in a recycling bin at a movie studio.Please enable Javascript to view this contentAs the story goes, Craig won the role and played the iconic spy in five movies. Producers opted to go with an older version of Bond Craig was 37 in 2005 instead of an early-20s spy. Despite losing the role, Cavill won over Campbell, who praised Cavills tremendous audition.Warner Bros. PicturesHe looked great in the audition. His acting was tremendous, Campbell told The Express in June 2023. And look, if Daniel didnt exist Henry would have made an excellent Bond. He looked terrific, he was in great physical shape very handsome, very chiseled. He just looked a little young at that time back then.Cavills name is still mentioned in James Bond rumors as Eon searches for the next actor to replace Craig. Producer Barbara Broccoli recently said that the next 007 will be in his 30s, which rules out the 41-year-old Cavill.The next James Bond movie remains undated.Editors Recommendations

One of the most written-about Renaissance artists, da Vinci may also be among the most poorly understood.

Over centuries, mathematicians have amassed an array of symbolsfrom arrows and crosses to shapes derived from lettersto represent complex ideas.

killing the kill screen Donkey Kongs famed kill screen has been cleared for the first time New method exploits a ladder-climbing glitch, emulator tools, and a bit of luck. Kyle Orland Feb 7, 2025 1:01 pm | 3 Nothing to see here, just Mario climbing up a perfectly normal invisible ladder. Credit: Kosmic Nothing to see here, just Mario climbing up a perfectly normal invisible ladder. Credit: Kosmic Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreIf you watched the 2007 documentary King of Kong or followed the controversy surrounding score-chaser Billy Mitchell, you know all about Donkey Kong's famous kill screen. For over four decades, no one was able to pass the game's 117th screen (aka level 22-1) due to a glitch in the game's bonus timer that kills Mario well before he can reach the top of the stage's girders.That was true until last weekend, when Mario speedrunner Kosmic shared the news that he had passed the kill screen using a combination of frame-perfect emulator inputs, a well-known ladder movement glitch, and a bit of luck. And even though Kosmic's trick is functionally impossible to pull off with human reflexes on real hardware, the method shows how the game's seemingly insurmountable kill screen actually can be overcome without modifying the code on an official Donkey Kong arcade board. Kosmic describes the journey that led to his kill screen defeat. Breaking the broken ladderDonkey Kong's kill screen is a side effect of the limited 8-bit register the game uses when calculating the two largest digits of a level's Bonus Timer (which doubles as the overall timer for each screen). At level 22, this calculation makes the register overflow past 256 and back down to 4, giving Mario just a few seconds to complete the stage before instant death.To get around this glitched timer, Kosmic made use of another glitch known as the broken ladder. After Mario reaches the top of the climbable portion of a broken ladder, you can still nudge him upward by pointing the joystick down for exactly four frames and then up for the fifth frame. This precise scooching method ignores the usual checks for the broken ladder section or dismounting on the floor above, letting Mario continue climbing indefinitely.By repeating this broken ladder glitch perfectly dozens of times in a row, Mario can quickly reach the top of the screen, where the game will register the level as completed. That degree of precise, repeated frame-perfect input is practically impossible to pull off consistently with human hands, but the trick can be repeated easily by using an emulator to advance the game one frame at a time. A short emulator-aided demonstration of how the broken ladder glitch works (not shown: the dozens of frame-perfect inputs needed to pull it off). Better to be lucky than to be goodWhile players have theorized about using the broken ladder glitch to pass the kill screen for years, it initially seemed like even this glitched shortcut was too slow for the short kill screen timer. Yet when Kosmic attempted the same trick using his own emulator-assisted setup recently, he says he was able to complete the level on his first try. What gives?As it turns out, Kosmic was the beneficiary of some significant luck. Basically, every time Donkey Kong throws a barrel, there is a 1 in 32 chance that he will wait an extra half second or so before throwing the next barrel (this random process is explained in way too much detail in this Pastebin). Since the game's bonus timer only ticks down when Donkey Kong actually throws a barrel, the semi-rare delay can give Mario the crucial extra frames he needs to reach the top of the kill screen using the broken ladder glitch.Funnily enough, this randomized barrel-throwing delay can theoretically repeat indefinitely, provided the game's randomizer picks the same lucky 1-in-32 sequence over and over again. If Donkey Kong decides to delay his barrel throw about 19 times in a row, Mario would actually be able to complete the kill screen normally, without the broken ladder glitch (and without facing many barrels, even). Of course, the chances of that happening on unmodified arcade hardware are nearly 1 in 40 octillion (1 in 32^19, to be precise), so don't count on encountering it in the wild any time soon. Mario dies on level 22-6, which Kosmic now considers the "true" Donkey Kong kill screen. Credit: Kosmic Mario dies on level 22-6, which Kosmic now considers the "true" Donkey Kong kill screen. Credit: Kosmic With the ladder glitch, though, Kosmic's emulator-assisted run needed significantly less luck to pass the kill screen at 22-1. He was even able to push the game past the next four stages (including previously unseen spring and pie factory screens) to reach level 22-6.Kosmic calls that stage the game's true kill screen, as there's currently no known way for Mario to remove all eight rivets quickly enough to overcome the glitch-shortened timer, even with emulator assistance. Then again, for decades, players assumed there was no way to complete level 22-1, either. Maybe someone will figure out a clever method for beating this new kill screen with 40 more years of sustained effort.Kyle OrlandSenior Gaming EditorKyle OrlandSenior Gaming Editor Kyle Orland has been the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica since 2012, writing primarily about the business, tech, and culture behind video games. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He once wrote a whole book about Minesweeper. 3 Comments

more ICE The EV transition hits some snags at Porsche and Audi Audi upends its naming scheme (again), and Porsche plans more engines. Jonathan M. Gitlin Feb 7, 2025 12:47 pm | 16 Credit: Aurich Lawson | Audi | Porsche Credit: Aurich Lawson | Audi | Porsche Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreLife isn't so easy for automotive manufacturers right now. Take Porsche, which just published preliminary financial numbers for last year and projections for 2025. While things aren't Tesla levels of bad, they're not exactly great. Sales were down 28 percent in China last year and 3 percent overall. Worse yet, profit margins are just over 10 percent, far below the 18 percent the company was targeting.As a result, Porsche says it's taking "extensive measures" to improve profitability, including adding more internal combustion and plug-in hybrid vehicles to go with the slow-selling EVs. All told, the company expects to spend $830 million (800 million euros) on expanding its non-battery EV lineup in 2025.There's a lot of that sort of thing going around. Last year, General Motors and Ford lamented missing where the market actually is with too many too-expensive EVs and not enough hybrids. And over at Porsche's sister brand Audi, a similar realization set in, to the point that the brand developed a new combustion engine vehicle architecture (called PPC) to go alongside the new EV-only PPE platform. That new platform will presumably be welcomed over at Porsche as well.Now Audi has gone a little further, abandoning its almost-new nomenclature in the process. As naming conventions go, Audi at least tried to keep things a little logical when it told everyone last summer that henceforth, odd-numbered AudisA3, A5, Q5, Q7, and so onwould be internal combustion or hybrids, and even-numbered AudisA4, A6, Q6, Q8would be electric, or e-tron.This was the case when we went to see some of those new Audis in the studio last summer. There was an all-new gasoline-powered A5, which comes in a handsome fastback sedan or even more handsome Avant (station wagon) version, that won't come to the US.There's also an all-new, fully electric A6, available as a sedan but also as a handsome fastback sedan and even more handsome Avant. This one also isn't coming to America.As of this week, things are back to where they used to be. Forget the odd and even distinction; for now, it means nothing again. A gasoline-powered A6 will break cover on March 3, Audi says. And as for names? "A" means a low floor, and "Q" means a high floor (i.e., SUV or crossover).Jonathan M. GitlinAutomotive EditorJonathan M. GitlinAutomotive Editor Jonathan is the Automotive Editor at Ars Technica. He has a BSc and PhD in Pharmacology. In 2014 he decided to indulge his lifelong passion for the car by leaving the National Human Genome Research Institute and launching Ars Technica's automotive coverage. He lives in Washington, DC. 16 Comments