Hasta La Gadget!

Some demonstrators who came out for the March for Science protests faced rain and sloppy weather. Others faced elements much more severe.

A team of German researchers showed their support for the pro-science protests held across the U.S. by enduring below freezing temperatures outside of their research lab in Antarctica on Saturday.

The researchers, who are with the Alfred Wegener Institute, are spending the upcoming Antarctic winter at the institute’s Neumayer III research station. They took the photo below as a show of solidarity with protestors around the world and included a sign with a quote by Marie Curie, the Pulitzer Prize-winning chemist who discovered the elements radium and polonium.

“Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more so that we may fear less.”

AWI serves as a year-round lab where researchers observe climate changes and study meteorology and atmospheric chemistry.

Scientists with the AWI also joined the demonstration from several other locations, including their research vessel Polarstern at Bremerhaven, Germany, from their larger research vessel Heincke and from their French-German research base in the Arctic.

Karin Lochte, the director of the institute and a climate change specialist, spoke out against manipulative anti-science “populist movements” in a statement announcing their support for the March for Science protests.

“In numerous countries around the globe, populist movements are currently manipulating the facts to support their own views and goals,” Lochte said. “’Undesirable’ research is being hampered and good science is being called into question ― a trend that could seriously jeopardize important achievements like the Paris Agreement.”

Lochte said that “when scientific findings are disputed at higher influential political levels,” it may lead to the public losing faith in science altogether. 

AWI research, which has shown that climate change is impacting the Arctic and Antarctic, is especially in danger.

“These are the facts that we have to take seriously,” Lochte said. “It is vital that the scientific community remains a dependable, trustworthy and independent source of information to guide many of society’s most important decisions.”

“That’s something we all have to fight for,” she added. “As researchers and as citizens.”

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One of changes that Apple made with iOS 10 is opening up Siri to third-party developers. Prior to this, one could say that Siri was a bit limited and restrictive in its functionality, but presumably Apple saw how successful Amazon was with Alexa that they decided that maybe they should follow suit.

Now the good news is that if you’re a heavy WhatsApp user, you’ll be pleased to learn that you can now use Siri to read your latest WhatsApp messages. This is thanks to the latest update to WhatsApp in which the app will now let users ask Siri to read their messages to them which will come in handy if you’re driving or if your hands are full.

If you use newer iPhones like the iPhone 6s or better, you can actually enable “Hey Siri” functionality where you don’t need to touch your phone to enable it (and it doesn’t require users to have their phones plugged into a charger either). In addition to Siri integration, the latest update to the app will also introduce some changes like selecting multiple statuses at once and forward/revoke them.

Two-step verification has also been updated and redesigned to make it easier to setup, and the overall interface for group/individual chats has also been changed to make it cleaner and easier to use. You’ll be able to grab the latest version of WhatsApp from the iTunes App Store if you haven’t updated already.

WhatsApp Update Now Lets Siri Read Your Latest Messages , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

If you have ever downloaded anything illegally before via torrents like a movie or music, you may or may not have received an email from your ISP warning you that your IP address has been detected downloading copyrighted material. However usually this is as far as it goes as the legal stuff is typically handled by the copyright owner, like movie studios or record labels.

Unfortunately these letters of warning aren’t enough for the RIAA because the organization has since filed a lawsuit against ISP Grande Communications in which they allege that the ISP did not do enough to discourage pirates, such as disconnecting them from using their internet services.

The lawsuit reads, “Defendants have been notified that their internet customers have engaged in more than one million infringements of copyrighted works over BitTorrent systems, including tens of thousands of blatant infringements by repeat infringers of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works. Despite their knowledge of repeat infringements, Defendants have permitted repeat infringers to use the Grande service to continue to infringe Plaintiffs’ copyrights without consequence.”

The RIAA is also seeking statutory damages which could go up to as much as $150,000 per infringed work, actual damages, plus profits generated by the ISP as a result of the infringement. Grande could be in trouble because if you recall, there was a similar case back in 2015 involving Cox Communications, where a federal jury ruled that ISPs could be held liable for their users’ piracy.

RIAA Sues ISP For Not Disconnecting Pirates , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Announced earlier this year at MWC 2017, the BlackBerry KEYone is the company’s latest handset that is meant to appeal to BlackBerry loyalists and fans who miss the company’s QWERTY devices. Unfortunately last month it was reported that the handset’s release would be delayed to early May, but over in the UK customers might have to wait longer.

According to reports, it seems that UK retailer Clove has stated on its website (via PhoneArena) that the KEYone would be shipping out to customers on the 22nd of May instead of the 5th of May which was what we had previously thought. It is unclear why there is a delay, but oddly enough another UK retailer Carphone Warehouse has listed that the phone will still be shipped on the 5th of May.

It is possible that maybe Carphone Warehouse managed to strike up a better deal with TCL (the company making the phone) and might have gotten some units ahead of Clove, but either way if you want the handset in the next couple of weeks and not have to wait an entire month, then we guess Carphone Warehouse will be your best bet.

For our readers in the US, it looks like the handset’s availability is still on track for the 5th of May so you can rest assured that things appear to be still on track.

BlackBerry KEYone Delayed Further In The UK , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Bill Nye will gladly talk to the media about climate change, but he has no time for climate change skeptics. 

The celebrity scientist slammed CNN’s “New Day” on Saturday for including William Happer ― a physicist who thinks carbon pollution is a myth and once compared carbon dioxide to the suffering of Jewish people during the Holocaust ― in an Earth Day panel on the March for Science protests.

When asked about Happer’s skepticism, Nye answered by providing Happer with a few facts about the rising rates of atmospheric CO2, but not before scolding the hosts for doing a “disservice” to their viewers.

“I will say, as much as I love the CNN, you’re doing a disservice by having one climate change skeptic, and not 97 or 98 scientists or engineers concerned about climate change,” Nye said, referring to the widespread consensus among scientists that climate change is real and caused in part by human-induced increases in carbon dioxide.

Happer, a professor at Princeton, had earlier stated that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.

“There’s this myth that’s developed around carbon dioxide that it’s a pollutant,” Happer said. “But you and I both exhale carbon dioxide with every breath. Each of us emits about two pounds of carbon dioxide a day so are we polluting the planet?”

Nye pointed out to Happer that the amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is rising at a record rate, according to data released this year by the Environmental System Research Laboratory.

“What he claims to not understand is the rate. It’s the speed at which we’re adding carbon dioxide,” Nye said of Happer’s skepticism. “What you got to get is the speed at which things are changing.”

Happer later pressed Nye on climate change, saying that Earth’s “temperature is not rising nearly as fast as the alarmists’ computer models predicted.” He added: “The whole basis for the alarmism is not true. It’s based on flawed computer modeling.”

To which Nye swiftly replied, “That’s completely wrong. Say what you will, but you have it absolutely wrong.” 

In the past, Happer has argued that global warming and an increase in carbon dioxide is “good for mankind.” He’s also compared “the demonization of carbon dioxide” to the “demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler.” Rumors that Happer was being considered for the role of President Donald Trump’s science advisor spread after the climate change skeptic met with Trump in January.

During Saturday’s panel, Nye offered Happer a bit of advice.

“Sir, with some respect,” Nye said. “I encourage you to cut this out so that we can all move forward and make the United States a world leader in technology.”

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.