Microsoft Start is Microsoft's new personalized news service. It is available as a website and mobile app and it has been integrated into some Microsoft products. The feed combines content from news publishers in a way that's tailored to users' individual interests. It is not designed to replace services like MSN. Users can react to stories with emojis while scrolling through the feed. The feed is supported by advertising.
Apple's next event will be on September 14 at 10 am. The event will be held digitally with no members of the media invited to attend in person. Apple will likely provide pre-taped segments for each product announcement. Apple is expected to announce the new iPhone 13 models, the Apple Watch Series 7, and possibly the AirPods 3. New MacBook Pros and iPads are expected to be announced at a later event. Details on the hardware that Apple is expected to release are available in the article.
Researchers have confirmed that recordings of musk ducks producing vocalizations made in 1987 and 2000 were indeed a form of mimicry. The recordings were the first example of musk ducks being able to mimic sounds. Vocal-production learning is when animals make vocalizations that deviate sharply from what is typical of the species or imitate the sounds of other species. The phenomenon has been observed in a handful of other species. Musk ducks may be able to demonstrate advanced vocal learning at a level comparable to songbirds and parrots, likely representing a case of independent evolution.
Climate change is putting a heap of pressure on animals to adapt. A study of animals from all over the world found that some species have been making changes in physiology that correlate with increasing temperatures over decades. The changes are adaptations to allow animals to cool down more efficiently. More adaptations are expected as temperatures increase. The adaptations are occurring over a far shorter timescale than would have occurred through most of evolutionary time.
pedalboard is a Python library for adding effects to audio. It was built for ease-of-use and very high performance. pedalboard comes with a number of common audio effects and support for third-party effects. It is compatible with TensorFlow and can be used in tf.data pipelines.
htmlq can extract content from HTML files using CSS selectors. It can be used to find all the links in a page, the text content of a post, pretty print HTML, and more. Examples are available.
TikTok has overtaken YouTube in average watch time per user in the US and UK. YouTube is still the bigger site in terms of users and total video watched, but the average TikTok user watches more video than the average YouTube viewer. The data from the report only comes from Android devices, but there is no reason that iOS users would be different. TikTok was the most downloaded app last year. YouTube has been trying to fight off TikTok with YouTube Shorts, a TikTok clone.
El Salvador bought 200 bitcoin on Monday. The country's Bitcoin Law went into effect on September 7. A $150 million bitcoin trust has been set up by El Salvador's government to facilitate exchange between bitcoin and US dollars. The Chivo e-wallet will come preloaded with US$30 of bitcoin. Bitcoin will be legal tender in the country, but its use will not be mandatory.
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