In just about a year, Facebook-turned-Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse vision has cost his company upwards of $15 billion, cratering value and — at least in part — triggering mass company layoffs. That's a high price tag, especially when the Facebook creator has shockingly little to show for it, both in actual technology and public interest.

Indeed, it seems that every time Zuckerberg excitedly explains what his currently-legless metaverse will one day hold, he's met with crickets — and a fair share of ridicule — at the town square. Most everyone finds themselves looking around and asking themselves the same question: who could this possibly be for, other than Zucko himself?

That question, however, doesn't really seem to matter to the swashzuckling CEO, who's either convinced that the public wants and needs his metaverse just as much as he does, or is simply just convicted to the belief that one day people will finally get it. After all, he's bet his company on this thing and needs the public to engage to stay financially viable long-term.

And sure, points for conviction. But conviction is easy if you're surrounded by a bunch of yes men — which, according to Vanity Fair, the founder unfortunately is. And with $15 billion down the line, that may not bode well for the Silicon Valley giant.

"The problem now is that Mark has surrounded himself with sycophants, and for some reason he's fallen for their vision of the future, which no one else is interested in," one former Facebook exec told Vanity Fair. "In a previous era, someone would have been able to reason with Mark about the company's direction, but that is no longer the case."

Given that previous reports have revealed that some Meta employees have taken to marking metaverse documents with the label "MMA" — "Make Mark Happy" — the revelation that he's limited his close circle to people who only agree with him isn't all that shocking. He wants the metaverse, he wants it bad, and he's put a mind-boggling amount of social and financial capital into his AR-driven dream.

While the majority of his many thousands of employees might disagree with him — Vanity Fair reports that current and former metamates have written things like "the metaverse will be our slow death" and "Mark Zuckerberg will single-handedly kill a company with the metaverse" on the Silicon Valley-loved Blind app — it's not exactly easy, or even that possible, to wrestle with the fact that you may have made a dire miscalculation this financially far down the road.

And if you just keep a close circle of people who just agree with you, you may not really have to confront that potential for failure. At least not for a while.

The truth is that Zuckerberg successfully created a thing that has impacted nearly every single person on this Earth. Few people can say that. And while it can be argued that the thing he built has, at its best, created some real avenues for connection, that same creation also seems to have led to his own isolation, in life and at work.

How ironic it is that he's marketed his metaverse on that same promise of connection, only to become more disconnected than ever.

READ MORE: "Mark Has Surrounded Himself with Sycophants": Zuckerberg's Big Bet on the Metaverse Is Backfiring [Vanity Fair]

More on the Meta value: Stock Analyst Cries on Tv Because He Recommended Facebook Stock

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Former Facebook Exec Says Zuckerberg Has Surrounded Himself With Sycophants

Nice Rocket

Revenge porn is a horrible thing, and Twitter should definitely continue to ban anyone who attempts to post it on the app. That being said, a video of a rocket taking off — an actual rocket, you pervs — does not revenge porn make, and shouldn't be flagged as such.

It seems like a silly thing to have to say, but such is the exact situation that spaceflight photographer John Kraus found himself in earlier this week. Kraus, who was on site to photograph the historic Artemis I launch, took to Twitter to post a mesmerizing video of the liftoff — only to find himself kicked off of the app shortly thereafter, due to the fact that his post, for whatever inexplicable reason, had been marked as revenge porn.

"I’d like to acknowledge that our good friend and rocket photography extraordinaire, [John Kraus], has been completely locked out of twitter since yesterday, for an arbitrary and silly reason, the day of the biggest launch of his career," read an angry tweet from the Tim "Everyday Astronaut" Dodd. "Worst possible timing."

I’d like to acknowledge that our good friend and rocket photography extraordinaire @johnkrausphotos has been completely locked out of twitter since yesterday, for an arbitrary and silly reason, the day of the biggest launch of his career. Worst possible timing pic.twitter.com/USNUajwPJ4

— Everyday Astronaut (@Erdayastronaut) November 17, 2022

Let Freedom Ring

Twitter finally let Kraus back online today. But for a rocket photographer, getting kicked off of Twitter on the day of the Artemis I launch really is a nightmare scenario.

"Almost two days later, I'm back. Twitter just acknowledged that they falsely locked my account instantly after I posted a benign video/caption of the Artemis I launch," he tweeted upon his return. "This was an unfortunate error after one of the biggest launches of my career."

While there was some speculation that new Twitter owner Elon Musk — who fired waves of employees, then effectively forced a mass exodus of quitters, and has reportedly been begging employees to come back so the ship that is Twitter doesn't fully sink beneath the digital waves — was to blame for Kraus' unfortunately-timed ban, given the chaos that's ensued on the tech side since Musk's takeover. Kraus, however, denied that Musk had anything to do with it.

"Anyone speculating it had to do with [Elon Musk] / new Twitter policy / not wanting NASA content instead of SpaceX, or that it was an ITAR violation — you are WRONG," he clarified. "It was falsely auto-flagged by software/AI."

So, maybe not Musk's fault, but a screwup that now falls directly on his presumably still-full plate. Anyway. We're glad that Kraus is free. And, for the record, here's the video that led to the whole debacle:

For reference, this was the original, exact tweet that got my account falsely locked for almost two days. It is now visible. Enjoy! https://t.co/Rpnaqfw6yX

— John Kraus (@johnkrausphotos) November 18, 2022

More on Artemis I: Experts Baffled by Why Nasa's "Red Crew" Wear Blue Shirts

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Twitter Claims Video of Moon Rocket Launch Is Revenge Porn

All-Encompassing

The universe is so vast and old that we can't possibly fathom it all. But we can make some pretty admirable efforts.

Take this stunning new map, put together by astronomers at Johns Hopkins University, that displays the entire known universe in all its glory, showcasing some 200,000 galaxies as tiny dots that span all the way to the cosmos' observable limits.

Using data gathered over 20 years by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, it shows the real positions and colors of the galaxies in a densely packed celestial slice which lets users easily scroll through billions of years.

You've probably seen other maps of the universe before, but likely none this impressive. Excitingly, it uses data previously unreleased to the public, and it might be the most comprehensive cosmic map made for the average Joe yet.

"Astrophysicists around the world have been analyzing this data for years, leading to thousands of scientific papers and discoveries." said the map's creator and John Hopkins professor Brice Ménard, in a press release.

"But nobody took the time to create a map that is beautiful, scientifically accurate, and accessible to people who are not scientists," he continued. "Our goal here is to show everybody what the universe really looks like."

Cosmic Cartography

The map's narrowest point originates from our home, the Milky Way, surrounded by light blue dots of spiral galaxies up to two billion light years away from Earth. Further away, yellow briefly takes over, where elliptical galaxies outshine the dimmer spiral ones.

Then the map takes us into a vibrant gradient of red. These are also elliptical galaxies, but thanks to the phenomenon aptly known as redshifting, their yellow light gets stretched into red.

Lurking behind is a tremendous ocean of blue, where the dots represent quasars, the luminous supermassive black holes at the center of distant galaxies.

Even a few errant red dots, depicting redshifted quasars, are speckled across the universe's penultimate boundary that's shrouded in hydrogen gas.

Finally, the map terminates at 13.7 billion light years away, or years ago, where all that can be discerned is the cosmic microwave background.

More on the universe: NASA Releases Hubble Images of Star Right as It Explodes

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Amazing Map Lets You Scroll Through the Entire Known Universe

Above all else, FTX advertisements wanted you to know two things: that cryptocurrency is a force for good, and that you don't need to be an expert to buy and trade it. In fact, you don't even have to understand it at all. You just need to get involved, because if you don't, you'll get left behind.

If a bit cheesy then, those same promotions — an array of of television commercials, social media posts, and print ads featuring an impressive lineup of A-list celebrities and athletes, in addition to appearances by the now-bankrupt exchange's ex-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried — are surreal, if not troubling, to watch now, roughly a week after the exchange's spectacular collapse.

Bankman-Fried, widely believed to be the cryptosphere's alleged savior, is under investigation by both the SEC and the CFTC, having lost virtually all his personal wealth in a single day. Meanwhile, an estimated $11 billion's worth of user funds — including that of the retail investors targeted by those shiny ads, many of whom have lost their savings — have vanished. But just six or so months ago? Unretired Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady was asking people if they were "in"; basketball star Steph Curry coolly told users that, like him, they didn't need to be a crypto "expert" to invest in digital assets; comedian Larry David told retail investors to ignore their crypto-skepticism; supermodel Gisele Bündchen, in a print campaign with Bankman-Fried, promised that she and FTX would save the world.

"The blood's on [Sam Bankman-Fried's] hands," Joseph Kaye, a Partner at the Moskowitz Law Firm in Florida, told Futurism. "And as far as we're concerned, it's on the hands of anybody who has been promoting this product."

Kaye's firm, alongside that of New York's David Boies, is representing thousands of dismayed FTX retail investors in a class action lawsuit filed this week against FTX, its founder, and its many celebrity sponsors, accusing those named of intentionally preying on low-information investors.

Of course, consuming a celebrity endorsement is like breathing air at this point. They're soaked into every corner of the culture, and most every public figure has their influencing hustle — makeup, clothes, shoes, cars, gummies and the like. And sure, a fair share of celebs have inspired rage over, say, Instagram posts touting diet suppressant lollipops.

FTX accounts, however, are a different story. You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who bought a celeb-endorsed lollipop and woke up to find thousands — if not millions — of their savings gone, and a balance sheet marking an eight billion dollar hole to show for it.

Like the now-also-defunct Voyager Digital's Earn Program, FTX accounts were yield-bearing, promising its investors high returns for their investments — so, basically, the markings of a security, just without the actual label. (The Moskowitz firm is also representing plaintiffs in a class action suit brought against Voyager and Mark Cuban, billionaire of "Shark Tank" fame.)

"A lot of people get confused and think that 'oh, well, investing in cryptocurrency is inherently risky,'" Kaye said. "But the issue here is not so much 'did they make an investment in cryptocurrency. It's the function of the account."

And while that's risky enough to begin with, it now appears that FTX — which hasn't officially been charged with anything yet — was using its investors' cash like a piggy bank, funding its own lending activities with the user money with which it'd been trusted.

"When you make statements like [those celebrities did] — and you don't disclose how much you're making or what your arrangement with them is — and it ends up being an unregistered security," Kaye continued, "you're liable as a promoter to the same extent as if you're the FTX exchange."

No one's saying that Brady or Bündchen or anyone else knew that FTX was potentially involved in any malpractice. They were likely taken in by Bankman-Fried's efforts to build a reputation for himself as Mr. Trustworthy Crypto Man, which he admitted shortly after the collapse had largely been a "front." It's also unlikely that they knew, or even really understood, that they were or could be hawking what might just shake out to be an unregistered security.

That's exactly the point, though. We believe, as they told us, that they weren't "experts." Not in the slightest. There doesn't appear to have been much — if any — due diligence here, and a lot of real people have been badly hurt because of it. Did Curry stand on a street corner and hand out FTX accounts? No, but it can be argued that he and the other figures named in the suit played a serious role in FTX's adoption by the masses, downplaying the instability and messiness of the blockchain world while promising that FTX had their back.

And considering how central they may have been to FTX's rise, it would be heartening to see them take some kind of responsibility after its fall.

"I remember our first meeting and we were speaking to the FTX guys… They started to explain it to us and I said, 'I don't know if you can tell over Zoom when our eyes glazed over, but I still don't understand it," David told The Hollywood Reporter back in February, shortly after his Super Bowl commercial aired. "But that's OK. I don't have to know everything.'"

More on the FTX fallout: Politicians Refuse to Say Whether They'll Give Back Donations From Sam Bankman-Fried

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Behind the Lawsuit Against Celebs Who Shilled FTX Before Its Spectacular Meltdown

Stayin' Alive

NASA's astronaut social media handbook just dropped — and they've got some staunch guidelines for space tweeting.

As part of a public records request, NASA released to Vox an almost entirely unredacted copy of its current social media handbook for astronauts, and it offers a fascinating look into the agency's policies for the online astronauts it sends to space.

Overall, it's a reasonable document. One particularly interesting detail? It advises astronauts to please lay off of posting when their lives are in jeopardy. Good advice for us all!

Socialing

In a 2018 memo from the Johnson Space Center included in the records provided to Vox, NASA notes that along with not posting for personal or financial gain or exposing state secrets, "social media efforts should always be considered secondary to the safety of the crew and vehicle."

In another section of the guidelines, a slide reminds astronauts that "social media is voluntary and should be considered secondary to safety of mission and crew cohesion."

Politicking

Beyond bodily safety, political discretion is also repeatedly advised in the guidelines — an important detail, given the past and current tensions between the ISS' main players, the United States and Russia.

While some have criticized NASA for doing a bit too much social networking — the agency operates a whopping 700 social media accounts, including on Reddit, Twitch, and LinkedIn — it clearly takes a backseat to onboard safety.

Given how much can go wrong on both a mortal and interpersonal level while floating above the Earth, that's definitely a good thing.

More on the ISS: Amazing Video Shows What the ISS Would Look Like If It Flew at the Height of a Jetplane

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NASA Tells Astronauts That Tweeting Isn't As Important as Staying Alive

At this point, it's likely that Ozempic has somehow come into your personal zeitgeist. The expensive, name-brand version of semaglutide — which, importantly, was originally developed to manage type 2 diabetes — has been in high demand after going viral on TikTok, where it's picking up a reputation as an effective weight loss aid.

"It's the most common medication that I get asked about," Dr. Sudeep Singh, a medical director at a concierge medical practice in Miami, told The Cut. "Everybody knows. Everyone's asking about it. My mom's asking. My neighbors are asking about it. The news is out."

Per a number of reports, Ozempic has been a celeb-guarded secret for some time now, oft-used by starlets who might feel the need to fit into a certain dress for a red carpet. Now the drug is becoming so popular that Novo Nordisk, its creator, has declared a shortage. Tragically, this is all starting to wreak havoc on the lives of actual diabetics, who don't just need the drug to lose a few pounds. They need it to live, and doctors are saying that they're starting to see panic from diabetic patients.

"We're getting calls from our patients who can't find it," Dr. Jonathan Fialkow, chief of cardiology at Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute, told the Sun Sentinel. Per the paper, Fialkow works with a number of diabetic patients with heart conditions.

"People need it for medical conditions, and pharmacies are out of it," he continued. "The manufacturers aren't able to keep up."

Ozempic, which first went to market in 2017, is what's called a "GLP-1 receptor agonist," which means that it stimulates insulin production and inhibits excess glucose from entering the bloodstream. In other words, it manages blood sugar. And while it's certainly a necessary medication for a lot of type 2 diabetics, there are a lot of very not fun side effects including diarrhea, vomiting and nausea.

But shedding a few pounds is one of those side effects too, and for a lot of consumers out there, it seems that the lure of drug-assisted pound-shedding is enough to outweigh the diarrhea and vomiting of it all — not to mention the reality that the drug, and now others like it, is in short supply for those with the illnesses that Ozempic actually intended to treat. (Last year, Novo Nordisk also started selling a version of semaglutide known as WeGovy that's specifically intended for weight loss, but that one is experiencing shortages as well.)

"Ozempic is not a weight-loss medication," Fialkow continued, adding that "these medications need to be monitored by your doctor."

To that note, while it's possible for weight loss hopefuls to buy Ozempic out-of-pocket, the long term effects still aren't known because nobody has been taking it for very long.

"These medications have been studied in certain populations of people with certain medical conditions," Fialkow additionally told Axios. "When we start using medications and other populations that haven't been studied, while they may be safe, we don't know."

Diet culture is insidious, and it creates immense pressure to slim down. But clearly, the price tag on Ozempic isn't just its extremely high literal price tag, or even the potential "puking your brains out" thing. If you're trying to get your hands on it for the sake of a few pounds gone, maybe, for the sake of those who need it to manage their chronic illness, consider putting it back on the shelf.

READ MORE: Florida diabetics scramble to find drugs suddenly popular for non-intended use: weight loss [Sun Sentinel]

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So Many People Are Using a Diabetes Drug for Weight Loss That Actual Diabetics Are Having Trouble Getting It

NASA says it can't find any record that James Webb, the State Department and NASA leader for whom the agency's groundbreaking new space telescope is named, was aware of homophobic government purges — but a bunch of astronomers are clapping back at the agency's claims.

"After an exhaustive search of U.S. government and Truman library archives," administrator Bill Nelson was quoted as saying in the agency's press release about its decision, "NASA’s historical investigation found, ‘To date, no available evidence directly links Webb to any actions or follow-up related to the firing of individuals for their sexual orientation.'"

In their own statement — which follows a 2021 Scientific American editorial and numerous other calls urging NASA to rename the telescope — astronomy experts Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, Lucianne Walkowicz, Sarah Tuttle and Brian Nord are calling shenanigans in the strictest terms.

"NASA’s press release utilizes a practice of selective historical reading," the open letter reads, pointing to the agency's insistence that the original Webb was unaware of the firing of Clifford Norton, a NASA budget analyst who was canned in 1963 after being arrested for making a "homosexual advance" on someone. At the time, Webb was head of NASA.

The argument — which makes sense, if you think about it — is basically that Webb was either aware of the institutionalized homophobia in a way that didn't survive in existing documentation, or unaware of a key dynamic at the workplace he was in charge of. Neither option is flattering.

"Because we do not know of a piece of paper that explicitly says, 'James Webb knew about this,' they assume it means he did not," the experts wrote. "In such a scenario, we have to assume he was relatively incompetent as a leader: the administrator of NASA should know if his chief of security is extrajudicially interrogating people."

"We are deeply concerned by the implication that managers are not responsible for homophobia or other forms of discrimination that happens on their watch," they continued, noting that such a stance is "explicitly anti-equity, diversity and inclusion" that puts "responsibility on the most marginalized people to fend for ourselves, and it is in conflict with legal norms in many US jurisdictions."

It's "deeply unscientific," the astronomy luminaries added, that "NASA is engaging in historical cherry picking" with a figure who was, along with the state-sanctioned homophobia that occurred on his watch, accused of engaging in Cold War-era "psychological warfare," in which, as The Atlantic noted in 2018, then-Undersecretary of State Webb assembled a team of hard and soft scientists to figure out the best ways to conduct anti-Soviet propaganda.

NASA and the scientific community at large should, the astronomers wrote in Scientific American, "name telescopes out of love for those who came before us and led the way to freedom."

More on Webb: NASA Drops Stunning New James Webb Image of a Star Being Born

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Experts Excoriate NASA Report Claiming James Webb Wasn't Homophobic

COP Out

Ever since she lambasted world leaders at a UN conference in 2018 when she was only 15 years old, Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg has had the ear of the international community.

Now, Thunberg says she's skipping out on next week's COP27 UN climate summit in Egypt. Why? Because it's rife with "greenwashing."

"I'm not going to COP27 for many reasons, but the space for civil society this year is extremely limited," Thunberg said at a press event for her book, "The Climate Book," as quoted by The Guardian. "The COPs are mainly used as an opportunity for leaders and people in power to get attention, using many different kinds of greenwashing."

Ultimately, in Thunberg's view, the COP conferences "are not really meant to change the whole system" and instead only promote incremental change. Bluntly put, they're feel-good events that don't accomplish much, so she's bowing out.

Wasted Breath

It's not an unfair assessment. For all the pledges made to drastically cut back emissions and achieve net carbon zero by 2050, very few nations have followed through in the short term. And in Europe, the energy crisis in the wake of the war in Ukraine has further sidelined those climate commitments.

So we can't blame her for not going. But it's a bit disheartening that even a tenacious young spokesperson like Thunberg has given up on convincing world leaders at the biggest climate summit in the world.

Maybe it's indicative of the frustrations of her generation at large. When Thunberg was asked what she thought about the recent wave of Just Stop Oil protests that included activists throwing soup on a Van Gogh painting, she said that she viewed what many detractors perceived as a dumb stunt to be symptomatic of the world's failure to effect meaningful environmental change.

"People are trying to find new methods because we realize that what we have been doing up until now has not done the trick," she replied, as quoted by Reuters. "It's only reasonable to expect these kinds of different actions."

Maybe the real question is: if even a UN climate conference isn't the place to get the message out and change hearts, where's the right place, and what's the right way? If the headlines are any indication, zoomers are struggling to figure that out.

More on Greta Thunberg: Greta Thunberg Thinks Germany Shutting Down Its Nuclear Plants Is a Bad Idea

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Greta Thunberg Says UN Climate Conference Is a Scam and She's Not Attending

AI-lands in the Stream

Sorry, but not even Dolly Parton is sacred amid the encroachment of AI into art.

Holly Herndon, an avant garde pop musician, has released a cover of Dolly Parton's beloved and frequently covered hit single, "Jolene." Except it's not really Herndon singing, but her digital deepfake twin known as Holly+.

The music video features a 3D avatar of Holly+ frolicking in what looks like a decaying digital world.

And honestly, it's not bad — dare we say, almost kind of good? Herndon's rendition croons with a big, round sound, soaked in reverb and backed by a bouncy, acoustic riff and a chorus of plaintive wailing. And she has a nice voice. Or, well, Holly+ does. Maybe predictably indie-folk, but it's certainly an effective demonstration of AI with a hint of creative flair, or at least effective curation.

Checking the Boxes

But the performance is also a little unsettling. For one, the giant inhales between verses are too long to be real and are almost cajolingly dramatic. The vocals themselves are strangely even and, despite the somber tone affected by the AI, lack Parton's iconic vulnerability.

Overall, it feels like the AI is simply checking the boxes of what makes a good, swooning cover after listening to Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah" a million times — which, to be fair, is a pretty good starting point.

Still, it'd be remiss to downplay what Herndon has managed to pull off here, and the criticisms mostly reflect the AI's limited capabilities more than her chops as a musician. The AI's seams are likely intentional, if her previous work is anything to go off of.

Either way, if you didn't know you were listening to an AI from the get-go, you'd probably be fooled. And that alone is striking.

The Digital Self

Despite AI's usually ominous implications for art, Herndon views her experiment as a "way for artists to take control of their digital selves," according to a statement on her website.

"Vocal deepfakes are here to stay," Herndon was quoted saying. "A balance needs to be found between protecting artists, and encouraging people to experiment with a new and exciting technology."

Whether Herndon's views are fatalistic or prudently pragmatic remains to be seen. But even if her intentions are meant to be good for artists, it's still worrying that an AI could pull off such a convincing performance.

More on AI music: AI That Generates Music from Prompts Should Probably Scare Musicians

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This Deepfake AI Singing Dolly Parton's "Jolene" Is Worryingly Good

Astronomers are puzzled by the strange behavior of certain crooked clusters of stars, which appear to be violating our conventional understanding of gravity.

Massive clusters of stars usually are bound together in spirals at the center of galaxies. Some of these clusters fall under a category astrophysicists call open star clusters, which are created in a relatively short period of time as they ignite in a huge cloud of gas.

During this process, loose stars accumulate in a pair of "tidal tails," one of which is being pulled behind, while the other moves ahead.

"According to Newton’s laws of gravity, it’s a matter of chance in which of the tails a lost star ends up," Jan Pflamm-Altenburg of the University of Bonn in Germany, co-author of a new paper published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, in a statement. "So both tails should contain about the same number of stars."

But some of their recent observations seemingly defy conventional physics.

"However, in our work we were able to prove for the first time that this is not true," Pflamm-Altenburg added. "In the clusters we studied, the front tail always contains significantly more stars nearby to the cluster than the rear tail."

In fact, their new findings are far more in line with a different theory called "Modified Newtonian Dynamics" (MOND).

"Put simply, according to MOND, stars can leave a cluster through two different doors," Pavel Kroupa, Pflamm-Altenburg's colleague at the University of Bonn and lead author, explained in the statement. "One leads to the rear tidal tail, the other to the front."

"However, the first is much narrower than the second — so it’s less likely that a star will leave the cluster through it," he added. "Newton’s theory of gravity, on the other hand, predicts that both doors should be the same width."

The researchers' simulations, taking MOND into consideration, could explain a lot. For one, they suggest that open star clusters survive a much shorter period of time than what is expected from Newton's laws of physics.

"This explains a mystery that has been known for a long time," Kroupa explained. "Namely, star clusters in nearby galaxies seem to be disappearing faster than they should."

But not everybody agrees that Newton's laws should be replaced with MOND, something that could shake the foundations of physics.

"It’s somewhat promising, but it does not provide completely definitive evidence for MOND," University of Saint Andrews research fellow Indranil Banik told New Scientist. "This asymmetry does make more sense in MOND, but in any individual cluster there could be other effects that are causing it — it’s a bit unlikely that would happen in all of them, though."

The researchers are now trying to hone in on an even more accurate picture by stepping up the accuracy of their simulations, which could either support their MOND theory — or conclude that Newton was, in fact, correct the first time around.

More on star clusters: Something Is Ripping Apart the Nearest Star Cluster to Earth

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There's Something Strange About How These Stars Are Moving, Scientists Say

A provocative manslaughter case is about to kick off in Los Angeles later this month, involving a fatal crash caused by a Tesla vehicle that had the company's controversial Autopilot feature turned on.

It's the first case of its kind, and one that could set a precedent for future crashes involving cars and driver-assistance software, Reuters reports.

We won't know the exact defense until the case gets under way, but the crux is that the man who was behind the wheel of the Tesla is facing manslaughter charges — but has pleaded not guilty, setting up potentially novel legal arguments about culpability in a deadly collision when, technically speaking, it wasn't a human driving the car.

"Who's at fault, man or machine?" asked Edward Walters, an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University, in an interview with Reuters. "The state will have a hard time proving the guilt of the human driver because some parts of the task are being handled by Tesla."

The upcoming trial is about a fatal collision that took place in 2019. The crash involved Kevin George Aziz Riad, who ran a red light in his Tesla Model S, and collided with a Honda Civic, killing a couple who were reportedly on their first date.

According to vehicle data, Riad did not apply the brakes but had a hand on the steering wheel. Perhaps most critically, though, the Tesla's Autopilot feature was turned on in the moments leading up to the crash.

Riad is facing manslaughter charges, with prosecutors arguing his actions were reckless.

Meanwhile, Riad's lawyers have argued that he shouldn't be charged with a crime, but have so far stopped short of publicly placing blame on Tesla's Autopilot software.

Tesla is not directly implicated in the upcoming trial and isn't facing charges in the case, according to Reuters.

A separate trial, however, involving the family of one of the deceased is already scheduled for next year — but this time, Tesla is the defendant.

"I can't say that the driver was not at fault, but the Tesla system, Autopilot, and Tesla spokespeople encourage drivers to be less attentive," the family's attorney Donald Slavik told Reuters.

"Tesla knows people are going to use Autopilot and use it in dangerous situations," he added.

Tesla is already under heavy scrutiny over its Autopilot and so-called Full Self-Driving software, despite conceding that the features "do not make the vehicle autonomous" and that drivers must remain attentive of the road at all times.

Critics argue that Tesla's marketing is misleading and that it's only leading to more accidents — not making the roads safer, as Tesla CEO Elon Musk has argued in the past.

In fact, a recent survey found that 42 percent of Tesla Autopilot said they feel "comfortable treating their vehicles as fully self-driving."

Regulators are certainly already paying attention. The news comes a week after Reuters revealed that the Department of Justice is investigating Tesla over Autopilot.

Last year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced an investigation of accidents in which Teslas have smashed into emergency response vehicles that were pulled over with sirens or flares.

This month's trial certainly stands the chance of setting a precedent. Was Riad fully at fault or was Tesla's Autopilot at least partially to blame as well?

The answer now lies in the hands of a jury.

READ MORE: Tesla crash trial in California hinges on question of 'man vs machine' [Reuters]

More on Autopilot: Survey: 42% of Tesla Autopilot Drivers Think Their Cars Can Drive Themselves

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Manslaughter Case Has a Strange Twist: Tesla That Killed Couple Was on Autopilot

Now that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has taken over Twitter, the billionaire has been frantically shuffling through ambitious plans to turn the ailing social media platform into a revenue-driving business.

Case in point, according to internal email obtained by The Washington Post, Musk is plotting for Twitter to charge users to view videos posted by content creators and take a cut of the proceeds — a highly controversial idea that's already been met with internal skepticism.

The team of Twitter engineers has "identified the risk as high" in the email, citing "risks related to copyrighted content, creator/user trust issues, and legal compliance."

In short, Musk is blazing ahead with his infamously ambitious timelines — a "move fast and break things" approach that could signify a tidal change for Twitter's historically sluggish approach to launching new features.

Musk has already made some big structural changes to Twitter, having fired high-up positions at the company and dissolved its board of directors.

The company will also likely be facing mass layoffs, according to The Washington Post.

The new feature detailed in the new email, which is being referred to as "Paywalled Video," allows creators to "enable the paywall once a video has been added to the tweet" and chose from a preset list of prices, ranging from $1 to $10.

"This will also give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators," Musk tweeted on Tuesday, adding that "creators need to make a living!"

But whether Twitter users will be willing to pay for stuff that was previously free remains anything but certain.

Musk has already announced that he is planning to charge $8 a month for Twitter users to stay verified, which has been met with derision.

The billionaire CEO is facing an uphill battle. Now that the company is private, he has to pay around $1 billion in annual interest payments, a result from his $44 buyout, according to the WaPo.

Compounding the trouble, Reuters reported last week that Twitter is bleeding some of its most active users.

Meanwhile, Musk's chaotic moves are likely to alienate advertisers, with the Interpublic Group, a massive inter-agency advertising group, recommending that its clients suspend all paid advertising for at least the week.

That doesn't bode well. It's not out of the question that a paywalled video feature may facilitate the monetization of pornographic content, which may end up scaring off advertisers even further — but Twitter's exact intentions for the feature are still unclear.

According to Reuters, around 13 percent of the site's content is currently marked not safe for work (NSFW).

It's part of Musk's attempt to shift revenue away from advertising on the platform. In a tweet last week, he promised advertisers that Twitter wouldn't become a "free-for-all hellscape."

But that hasn't stopped advertisers from already leaving in droves.

All in all, a paywalled video feature could mark a significant departure for Twitter, a platform still primarily known for short snippets of text.

For now, all we can do is watch.

READ MORE: Elon Musk’s Twitter is working on paid-video feature with ‘high’ risk [The Washington Post]

More on Twitter: Elon Musk Pleads With Stephen King to Pay for Blue Checkmark

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Twitter Working on Plan to Charge Users to Watch Videos

Advertisers are fleeing Twitter in droves now that Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has taken over control.

Ever since officially closing the $44 billion deal, Musk has been busy gutting the company's executive suite and dissolving its board. Senior executives, as well as Twitter's advertising chief Sarah Personette, have departed as well.

After all, Musk has been very clear about his disdain for advertising for years now.

The resulting uncertainty has advertisers spooked — major advertising holding company IPG has already advised clients to pull out temporarily — and the billionaire CEO is in serious damage mode.

Now, Reuters reports, Musk is spending most of this week meeting with advertisers in New York, trying to reassure them that Twitter won't turn into a "free-for-all hellscape."

According to one of Reuters' sources, the meetings have been "very productive" — but plenty of other marketers are far from satisfied.

Advertisers are reportedly grilling Musk over his plans to address the rampant misinformation being spread on the platform, a trend that Musk himself has been actively contributing to since the acquisition.

And if he's succeeding in ameliorating advertisers in private, he's antagonizing them publicly. On Wednesday, Musk posted a poll asking users whether advertisers should support either "freedom of speech," or "political 'correctness'" — a type of false dichotomy that echoes the rhetoric of far-right conspiracy theorists and conservative pundits.

"Those type of provocations are not helping to calm the waters," an unnamed media buyer told Reuters.

Some are going public with the same sentiment.

"Unless Elon hires new leaders committed to keeping this 'free' platform safe from hate speech, it's not a platform brands can/should advertise on," Allie Wassum, global media director for the Nike-owned shoe brand Jordan, wrote in a LinkedIn post.

So far, Musk's plans for the social media platform remain strikingly muddy. In addition to the behind-the-scenes advertising plays, he's also announced that users will have to pay to retain their verification badge, though he's engaged in a comically public negotiation as to what the cost might be.

He's also hinted that previously banned users — former US president Donald Trump chief among them — might eventually get a chance to return, but only once "we have a clear process for doing so, which will take at least a few more weeks."

The move was seen by many as a way to wait out the impending midterm elections. After all, Twitter has played a huge role in disseminating misinformation and swaying elections in the past.

While advertisers are running for the hills, to Musk advertising is clearly only a small part of the picture — even though historically, social giants like Twitter have struggled to diversify their revenue sources much beyond display ads.

Musk nodded to that reality in a vague open letter posted last week.

"Low relevancy ads are spam, but highly relevant ads are actually content!" he wrote in the note, addressed to "Twitter advertisers."

Big picture, Twitter's operations are in free fall right now and Musk has yet to provide advertisers with a cohesive plan to pick up the pieces.

While he's hinted at the creation of a new content moderation council made up of both "people from all viewpoints" and "wildly divergent views," advertisers are clearly going to be thinking twice about continuing their business with Twitter.

With or without advertising, Twitter's finances are reportedly in a very deep hole. The billions of dollars Musk had to borrow to finance his mega acquisition will cost Twitter around $1 billion a year in interest alone.

The company also wasn't anywhere near profitable before Musk took over, losing hundreds of millions of dollars in a single quarter.

Whether that picture will change any time soon is as unclear as ever, especially in the face of a wintry economy.

But, of course, Musk has proved his critics wrong before. So anything's possible.

READ MORE: Advertisers begin to grill Elon Musk over Twitter 'free-for-all' [Reuters]

More on the saga: Elon Musk Pulling Engineers From Tesla Autopilot to Work on Twitter

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Elon Musk Meeting With Advertisers, Begging Them Not to Leave Twitter

Chinese scientists are reportedly planning to send monkeys to its new Tiangong space station for experiments that will involve the animals mating and potentially reproducing, the South China Morning Post reports.

It's a fascinating and potentially controversial experiment that could have major implications for our efforts to colonize space: can mammals, let alone humans, successfully reproduce beyond the Earth?

According to the report, the experiment would take place in the station's largest capsule, called Wentian, inside two biological test cabinets that can be expanded.

After examining the behavior of smaller creatures, "some studies involving mice and macaques will be carried out to see how they grow or even reproduce in space," Zhang Lu, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, said during a speech posted to social media earlier this week, as quoted by the SCMP.

"These experiments will help improve our understanding of an organism’s adaptation to microgravity and other space environments," he added.

Some simpler organisms, including nematodes and Japanese rice fish, have been observed reproducing in space.

But more complex life forms have struggled. In 2014, a Russian experiment to see whether geckos could produce offspring in space failed when all the critters died.

And the failure rate for mammals, so far, has been total. Soviet Union scientists got mice to mate during a space flight in 1979, but none of them gave birth after being returned to Earth.

In other words, getting monkeys to reproduce on board a space station will be anything but easy. For one, just dealing with living creatures in space can pose immense challenges. The astronauts will "need to feed them and deal with the waste," Kehkooi Kee, a professor with the school of medicine at Tsinghua University, told the SCMP.

Then there's the fact that astronauts will have to keep the macaques happy and comfortable, something that experts say will be challenging since long term confinement in the spartan environments of space habitats could cause immense stress for the simians.

And even if astronauts successfully set the mood for the monkeys, the physics of sex in space are predicted to be challenging.

"Firstly, just staying in close contact with each other under zero gravity is hard," Adam Watkins, an associate professor of reproductive physiology at University of Nottingham, wrote in a 2020 open letter highlighted by the SCMP. "Secondly, as astronauts experience lower blood pressure while in space, maintaining erections and arousal are more problematic than here on Earth."

With its new space station in nearly full operation, China isn't shying away from asking some big questions — but whether these experiments will play out as expected is anything but certain.

READ MORE: Chinese scientists plan monkey reproduction experiment in space station [South China Morning Post]

More on sex in space: Scientists Say We Really Have to Talk About Boning in Space

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China Plans to Send Monkeys to Space Station to Have Sex With Each Other

Latest Feud

Another day, another Elon Musk feud on Twitter — except now, he's the owner of the social network, and he's beefing with a sitting member of Congress.

The whole thing started innocently enough earlier this week, when firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY, and better known by her initials, "AOC") subtweeted the website's new owner.

"Lmao at a billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that 'free speech' is actually a $8/mo subscription plan," the New York Democratic Socialist tweeted in a post that, upon Futurism's perusal, appeared to load only half the time.

Sweat Equity

Not one to be shown up, Musk later posted a screenshot of an AOC-branded sweatshirt from the congressperson's website, with its $58 price tag circled and an emoji belying the billionaire's alleged affront at the price.

In response, Ocasio-Cortez said she was proud her sweatshirts were made by union labor, and that the proceeds from their sales were going to fund educational support for needy kids. She later dug in further, noting that her account was "conveniently" not working and joking that Musk couldn't buy his way "out of insecurity."

Yo @elonmusk while I have your attention, why should people pay $8 just for their app to get bricked when they say something you don’t like?

This is what my app has looked like ever since my tweet upset you yesterday. What’s good? Doesn’t seem very free speechy to me pic.twitter.com/e3hcZ7T9up

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 3, 2022

Bricked

To be clear, any suggestion that Musk personally had anything to do with any Twitter glitches on AOC's part would seem ludicrously petty. But then again, this is a guy who once hired a private detective to investigate a random critic.

Occam's razor, though, suggests that it was probably AOC's mega-viral tweet that broke the site's notoriously dodgy infrastructure. Of course, that's not a ringing endorsement of the site that Musk just acquired for the colossal sum of $44 billion.

More on Twitter: Twitter Working on Plan to Charge Users to Watch Videos

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AOC Says Her Twitter Account Broke After She Made Fun of Elon Musk

Rock of Riches

After disappointing setbacks and a delay over the summer, NASA says it's finally reviving its mission to explore a tantalizing and giant space rock lurking deep in the Asteroid Belt.

Known as 16 Psyche, the NASA-targeted asteroid comprises a full one percent of the mass of the Asteroid Bet, and is speculated to be the core of an ancient planet. But Psyche's size isn't what intrigues scientists so much as its metal-rich composition, believed to be harboring a wealth of iron, nickel, and gold worth an estimated $10 quintillion — easily exceeding the worth of the Earth's entire economy. Although, to be clear, they're not interested in the metals' monetary value but rather its possibly planetary origins.

Back On Track

Initially slated to launch in August 2022, NASA's aptly named Psyche spacecraft became plagued with a persistent flight software issue that led the space agency to miss its launch window that closed on October 11.

But after surviving an independent review determining whether the mission should be scrapped or not, NASA has formally announced that its spacecraft's journey to Psyche will be going ahead, planned to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket as early as October 10, 2023.

"I'm extremely proud of the Psyche team," said Laurie Leshin, director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a statement. "During this review, they have demonstrated significant progress already made toward the future launch date. I am confident in the plan moving forward and excited by the unique and important science this mission will return."

Although the new launch date is only a little over a year late, the expected arrival at the asteroid Psyche is set back by over three years — 2029 instead of 2026 — due to having to wait for another opportunity to slingshot off of Mars' gravity.

Peering Into a Planet

Once it arrives, the NASA spacecraft will orbit around the asteroid and probe it with an array of instruments, including a multispectral imager, gamma ray and neutron spectrometers, and a magnetometer, according to the agency.

In doing so, scientists hope to determine if the asteroid is indeed the core of a nascent planet known as a planetesimal. If it is, it could prove to be an invaluable opportunity to understand the interior of terrestrial planets like our own.

More on NASA: NASA Announces Plan to Fix Moon Rocket, and Maybe Launch It Eventually

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NASA Sets Launch Date for Mission to $10 Quintillion Asteroid

Cat Burglar

Cats are known for not really minding their own business, getting their furry paws on just about anything they can.

And it turns out, this makes them effective vectors for DNA evidence, according to a study published last month in the journal Forensic Science International: Genetic Supplement Series.

Researchers collaborating with the Victoria Police Forensic Services Department in Australia found detectable human DNA in 80 percent of the samples collected from 20 pet cats, with 70 percent of the samples strong enough that they could be linked to a person of interest in a crime scene investigation.

"Collection of human DNA needs to become very important in crime scene investigations, but there is a lack of data on companion animals such as cats and dogs in their relationship to human DNA transfer," said study lead author Heidi Monkman, a forensic scientist at Flinders University, in a statement.

"These companion animals can be highly relevant in assessing the presence and activities of the inhabitants of the household, or any recent visitors to the scene."

Here Kitty

One possible takeaway is that cats — and other companion pets like dogs — could be harboring DNA that could help solve a case.

The bigger issue, though, is that pets could introduce foreign DNA that muddles a crime scene, possibly leading to an innocent person being implicated. A pet could be carrying the DNA of a complete stranger, or it might bring the DNA of its owner into a crime scene that they had nothing to do with.

Monkman's colleague and co-author of the paper, Maria Goray, is an experienced crime scene investigator and an expert in DNA transfer. She believes their findings could help clear up how pets might tamper a crime scene by carrying outside DNA.

"Are these DNA findings a result of a criminal activity or could they have been transferred and deposited at the scene via a pet?" Goray asked.

It's a question worth asking — especially because innocent people have been jailed off botched DNA science far too often.

More on DNA evidence: Cops Upload Image of Suspect Generated From DNA, Then Delete After Mass Criticism

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Cats May Be Tampering With Crime Scenes, Scientists Say

Droning On

Someone thinks it's a great idea to fly 500 drones over New York City to create a huge ad in the sky on Thursday evening. Because New Yorkers certainly don't have any historical reason to mistrust unknown aircraft over their skyline, right?

As Gothamist reports, the drone swarm is part of a "surreal takeover of New York City’s skyline" on behalf of — we shit you not — the mobile game Candy Crush.

Fernanda Romano, Candy Crush's chief marketing officer, told Gothamist that the stunt will "turn the sky into the largest screen on the planet" using the small, light-up drones.

Though this is not the first time the Manhattan skyline has been used as ad space — that distinction goes to the National Basketball Association and State Farm, which did a similar stunt this summer during the NBA draft — local lawmakers are ticked off about it nonetheless.

"I think it’s outrageous to be spoiling our city’s skyline for private profit," Brad Hoylman, a state senator that represents Manhattan's West Side in the NY Legislature, told the local news site. "It’s offensive to New Yorkers, to our local laws, to public safety, and to wildlife."

Freak Out

Indeed, as the NYC Audubon Society noted in a tweet, the Candy Crush crapshoot "could disrupt the flight patterns of thousands of birds flying through NYC, leading to collisions with buildings" as they migrate.

Beyond the harm this will do to birds and the annoyance it will undoubtedly cause the famously-grumpy people of New York, this stunt is also going down with very little warning, considering that Gothamist is one of the only news outlets even reporting on it ahead of time.

While most viewers will hopefully be able to figure out what's going on pretty quickly, the concept of seeing unknown aircraft above the skyline is a little too reminiscent of 9/11 for comfort — and if Candy Crush took that into consideration, they haven't let on.

So here's hoping this event shocks and awes Thursday night city-goers in a good way, and not in the way that makes them panic.

More drone warfare: Russia Accused of Pelting Ukraine Capital With "Kamikaze" Drones

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Huge Drone Swarm to Form Giant Advertisement Over NYC Skyline

Jeff Bezos' former housekeeper is suing the Amazon founder for workplace discrimination that she says forced her to literally climb out out the window of his house to use the bathroom.

In the suit, filed this week in a Washington state court, the former housekeeper claimed that she and Bezos' other household staff were not provided with legally-mandated eating or restroom breaks, and that because there was no "readily accessible bathroom" for them to use, they had to clamber out a laundry room window to get to one.

In the complaint, lawyers for the ex-housekeeper, who is described as having worked for wealthy families for nearly 20 years, wrote that household staff were initially allowed to use a small bathroom in the security room of Bezos' main house, but "this soon stopped... because it was decided that housekeepers using the bathroom was a breach of security protocol."

The suit also alleges that housekeepers in the billionaire's employ "frequently developed Urinary Tract Infections" that they believed was related to not being able to use the bathroom when they needed to at work.

"There was no breakroom for the housekeepers," the complaint adds. "Even though Plaintiff worked 10, 12, and sometimes 14 hours a day, there was no designated area for her to sit down and rest."

The housekeeper — who, like almost all of her coworkers, is Latino — was allegedly not aware that she was entitled to breaks for lunch or rest, and was only able to have a lunch break when Bezos or his family were not on the premises, the lawsuit alleges.

The Washington Post owner has denied his former housekeeper's claims of discrimination through an attorney.

"We have investigated the claims, and they lack merit," Harry Korrell, a Bezos attorney, told Insider of the suit. "[The former employee] made over six figures annually and was the lead housekeeper."

He added that the former housekeeper "was responsible for her own break and meal times, and there were several bathrooms and breakrooms available to her and other staff."

"The evidence will show that [the former housekeeper] was terminated for performance reasons," he continued. "She initially demanded over $9M, and when the company refused, she decided to file this suit."

As the suit was just filed and may well end in a settlement, it'll likely be a long time, if ever, before we find out what really happened at Bezos' house — but if we do, it'll be a fascinating peek behind the curtain at the home life of one of the world's most powerful and wealthy men.

More on billionaires: Tesla Morale Low As Workers Still Don't Have Desks, Face Increased Attendance Surveillance

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Jeff Bezos' Housekeeper Says She Had to Climb Out the Window to Use the Bathroom

Spying @ Home

Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic drove a wave of working from home, companies have been relentless in their efforts to digitally police and spy on remote employees by using what's known as "bossware." That's the pejorative name for software that tracks the websites an employee visits, screenshots their computer screens, and even records their faces and voices.

And now, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), an agency of the federal government, is looking to intervene.

"Close, constant surveillance and management through electronic means threaten employees' basic ability to exercise their rights," said NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, in a Monday memo. "I plan to urge the Board to apply the Act to protect employees, to the greatest extent possible, from intrusive or abusive electronic monitoring and automated management practices."

Undoing Unions

In particular, Abruzzo is worried about how bossware could infringe on workers' rights to unionize. It's not hard to imagine how such invasive surveillance could be used to bust unionization. Even if the technology isn't explicitly deployed to impede organization efforts, the ominous presence of the surveillance on its own can be a looming deterrent, which Abruzzo argues is illegal.

And now is the perfect moment for the NLRB to step in. The use and abuse of worker surveillance tech in general — not just bossware — has been "growing by the minute," Mark Gaston Pearce, executive director of the Workers' Rights Institute at Georgetown Law School, told CBS.

"Employers are embracing technology because technology helps them run a more efficient business," Gaston explained. "… What comes with that is monitoring a lot of things that employers have no business doing."

Overbearing Overlord

In some ways, surveillance tech like bossware can be worse than having a nosy, actual human boss. Generally speaking, in a physical workplace employees have an understanding of how much privacy they have (unless they work at a place like Amazon or Walmart, that is).

But when bossware spies on you, who knows how much information an employer could be gathering — or even when they're looking in. And if it surveils an employee's personal computer, which more often than not contains plenty of personal information that a boss has no business seeing, that's especially invasive.

Which is why Abruzzo is pushing to require employers to disclose exactly how much they're tracking.

It's a stern message from the NLRB, but at the end of the day, it's just a memo. We'll have to wait and see how enforcing it pans out.

More on surveillance: Casinos to Use Facial Recognition to Keep "Problem Gamblers" Away

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US Gov to Crack Down on "Bossware" That Spies On Employees' Computers