Your WIRED daily briefing. Today, a huge financial leak has revealed the hidden assets of the impossibly wealthy, Broadcom is set to make a hostile takeover bid for Qualcomm, Twitter says it's fixing its #bisexual photo tag block and more.
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The Guardian and BBC News have published details of a huge new leak of off-shore investments belonging to the world's richest people, including the Queen, Conservative Party donor Lord Ashcroft and Russian state institutions that invested in Facebook and Twitter through firms linked to US government advisor and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner. Dubbed The Paradise Papers, the leaked documents reveal funds stored in 19 tax havens by the mega-rich, and their contents highlight issues of both tax avoidance and wealth inequality. Industry experts indicate that at least $10 trillion – equivalent to the combined GDP of Britain, France and Japan – is held in offshore accounts by the richest 0.001 per cent of people in the world.
Reports from The Financial Times and Bloomberg indicate that Qualcomm could face a hostile takeover bid from rival chipmaker Broadcom (Engadget). Broadcom is reportedly prepared to offer $70 per share in a proposal that could come later today. Qualcomm's board is likely to recommend that shareholders reject the offer, which could lead to a contest for control of the organisation if they disagree.
Twitter says that it is attempting to fix a bug that has erased the #bisexual hashtag from its photos, news and videos search results (The Verge). While it's not clear what caused the error, it's come as the social network has begun rolling out measures to limit adult content on the site, and mirrors the null result that you now get if you search for terms with potential pornographic associations such as "boobs", but not other LGBT terms such as "lesbian".
Researchers have discovered that the human gut microbiome plays a critical part in the success of new cancer immunotherapies, which prompt the immune system to attack tumours more effectively (Ars Technica). Two new papers indicate that without the presence of certain gut bacteria, the cancer treatments are likely to fail. Researchers now plan to look at methods of boosting gut bacterial diversity, specifically faecal transplants, can improve success rates.
The Google Play Store has just removed a fake app, downloaded by over a million people, that was named Update WhatsApp Messenger in order to trick users into installing it (Motherboard). The store has been rocked by a number of malware scandals, but fake adware apps are even more commonplace than outright malicious software. Avast security researcher Nikolaos Chrysaidos has also recorded a number of other fakes, including a dummy version of Facebook Messenger with over 10 million installations.
Buried three storeys beneath Bavaria, the most sophisticated ring laser in the world is measuring Earth's tiny twists and turns (WIRED). Known as the Rotational Motions in Seismology (ROMY), the lasers are located in Fürstenfeldbruck, 20 kilometres from Munich. Four 12-metre triangles made up of sensors, concrete and pipes take the shape of a tetrahedron. Although the Earth might appear to spin smoothly and consistently, in reality it's constantly wobbling - the earthquake that struck Japan in 2011, for example, caused what's known as the Earth's figure axis to shift by as much as 17 centimetres.
There are too many messaging apps out there, but there's one that we should all be using: Signal (WIRED). It has strong encryption, it's free, it works on every mobile platform and the developers are committed to keeping it simple and fast by not mucking up the experience with ads, web-tracking, stickers or animated poo emoji. It has all the features you'd expect, but most importantly, as long as both parties are using the app to message each other, every single message sent with Signal is encrypted, and that encryption is available under an open-source license, so experts have had the chance to test it to make sure it stays as secure as intended.
Programmer and AI developer SethBling has successfully trained a recurrent neural network to play the original 1992 version of Super Mario Kart (Polygon). The MariFlow neural network functions by trying to predict the button presses a specific player will make at a given point on the track, learning from human players by example. So far it's managed to take away a gold medal in the Mushroom Cup.
The 2017 World Fantasy Awards have been announced, with prizes going to Kij Johnson's The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe for best long fiction and Clair North's The Sudden Appearance of Hope for best novel (The Verge). The rise of online fiction markets means that all the best short fiction entries are available to read for free, including winning entry Das Steingeschöpf by G.V. Anderson. Lifetime achievement awards went to Shannara series author Terry Brooks and British author and mythographer Marina Warner.
After years of fan demand and multiple takedown orders against fan servers, Blizzard has announced that it plans to launch its own World of Warcraft Classic server (Ars Technica). A cinematic announcement trailer turns back the clock on years of WoW history, harking back to the very first edition of the MMORPG, but doesn't provide any further details. While there's no release date as yet, WoW Executive Producer J. Allen Brack said: "We are committed to making an authentic, Blizzard-quality classic experience."
The ten-foot-tall oak has a crown of rugged branches. Its large lobed green leaves look healthy and the soil below is well-watered. The tree is planted inside a thick protective shell. Outside, it’s dark with temperatures falling -73 °C. Wind and cosmic rays cause small high-frequency vibrations, which are converted into electricity to help sustain the tree.
Stephen Hawking and the world's leading scientists on climate change, rogue AI, post-truth and Donald Trump. This month, in our 100th issue, we ask the world's sharpest minds how we tackle the greatest challenges humanity currently faces. We also meet the elite team training the world's firefighters for the next catastrophe. And visit Romain Pizzi, one of the most innovative wildlife surgeons in the world. Out in print and digital. Subscribe now and save.
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
