Biden admin takes action restricting oil, gas development after settlement with eco groups

Thomas Catenacci

FOX NEWS
Tue, August 22, 2023 

The Biden administration issued new restrictions on oil and gas companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico, in an effort to protect a whale species after it settled last month with a coalition of environmental groups.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which manages energy development in federal waters, published a Notice to Lessees and Operators (NTL) on Monday evening highlighting expanded protections for the Rice’s whale, a species listed under the Endangered Species Act. BOEM was slated to issue the NTL last week, but delayed it until Monday.

"This decision by the Biden Administration does an end-around legal requirements and the public process, imposing unwarranted restrictions on U.S. energy production at a time of continued inflation with prices rising at the pump for consumers," said National Ocean Industries Association President Erik Milito.

"The NTL, coupled with the broader Stipulated Stay Agreement, poses a barrier to America's energy production capabilities within a region that not only sustains hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs but also yields some of the world's least carbon-intensive barrels," Milito continued. "Despite lacking ample scientific evidence to support such extensive bans on operations, the agreement targets the domestic offshore oil and gas industry."


The average price of gasoline hit $3.85 per gallon on Tuesday, up more than 7% month-over-month, according to AAA data.

He added that the agreement the administration reached with environmental groups ignores the "best science," contravenes congressional intent under the Inflation Reduction Act and threatens America's energy independence.

Under the NTL issued Monday, BOEM created a vast new protection zone stretching across the Gulf of Mexico with a variety of new conditions for industry operators. Among its recommendations, BOEM said specially-trained visual observers should be aboard all vessels traversing the area, all ships regardless of size should travel no quicker than 10 knots, and vessels should only travel through the area in the daytime.

Those recommendations will be introduced as stipulations to Lease Sale 261, an upcoming offshore oil and gas lease auction. And BOEM removed an estimated 11 million acres of potential oil-rich lease blocks from that lease sale under its actions Monday.

"The federal government is moving forward to expand these protections to other ocean users and industries through the proposed designation of critical habitat for the Rice’s whale that will establish a restricted pathway through the entirety of the Gulf of Mexico, imposing disruptions to the full Gulf Coast economy — home to numerous strategic national ports — and reverberating throughout the whole U.S. economy," Milito said.

"Among other things, making areas off-limits, imposing speed restrictions, and limiting transit at night and times of low visibility will impact the ability of the offshore energy industry to explore, construct, and develop energy projects in the Gulf of Mexico," he added. "The proposed restrictions would potentially eliminate or hamper safely established and efficient activities in the Gulf of Mexico."

In a federal stipulated stay agreement filed late last month, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) agreed to a number of conditions requested by four eco groups led by the Sierra Club which, in response, agreed to temporarily pause litigation in the related case. The case dates back nearly three years when, in October 2020, the environmental coalition sued the NMFS for failing to properly assess the oil industry impacts on endangered and threatened marine wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico.

They pursued the lawsuit after the NMFS coordinated a multiagency consultation studying the effects all federally regulated oil and gas activities would have on species listed under the Endangered Species Act in the Gulf of Mexico over the next 50 years. The groups argued in the original complaint that the NMFS' biological opinion resulting from its consultation was not based on the best science.

"Today’s notice from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is yet another example of the Biden administration working to restrict American energy, which could lead to higher energy costs and weaken U.S. security," Holly Hopkins, American Petroleum Institute (API) vice president of upstream policy, said Monday.

"The recommended actions are not justified by existing data nor operational experience, would impose significant burdens on the men and women currently working in the region, and unfairly single out oil and gas traffic in an area that is one of the most used maritime areas in U.S. waters," Hopkins continued.

According to API, the NTL solely targets oil and gas traffic while refraining from restricting vessel traffic related to other industries.

NASA, Japan's space agency hope to unveil mysteries of gravity with latest mission

Patrick Hilsman
Tue, August 22, 2023 

The Japanese Space Agency and NASA are preparing to launch the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission on Saturday. The mission will study temperature differences in deep space and try to shed light on the mysteries of gravity. Artist's rendition courtesy of NASA

Aug. 22 (UPI) -- Scientists hope an upcoming space launch will help them understand more about the warping of spacetime.

NASA and the Japanese Space Agency's X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission, which has also received support from the European Space Agency, is scheduled to launch Saturday.

The XRISM will be launched from the Tangashima Space Center in Japan on a H-2A rocket and is expected to operate for about three years if the mission proceeds nominally.

The XRISM uses a microcalorimeter spectrometer called Resolve, which can be used to measure the temperature, and more crucially temperature differences, of deep space objects.

In order to work properly, Resolve has to be cooled to an extremely low temperature.

"Resolve measures tiny temperature changes created when an X-ray hits its 6-by-6-pixel detector. To measure that miniscule increase and determine the X-ray's energy, the detector needs to cool down to around minus 460 Fahrenheit (around minus 270 Celsius), just a fraction of a degree above absolute zero," NASA said in a press release earlier this month.

Researchers hope data collected by XRISM will provide insight into the structures in deep space such as gigantic galaxy clusters and particle jets formed by black holes.

The XRISM mission will allocate time to the European Space Agency, too.

The ESA will have 8% of the XRISM observation time, during which they hope to cross-reference Resolve's observations with X-ray readings from their own XMM-Newton spacecraft, which has been collecting data for more than two decades.

Scientists hope the XRISM mission will help unravel the mystery of gravity, which Albert Einstein theorized was caused by the warping of spacetime around heavy objects.

By observing the speed and composition of matter and particle jets near black holes, scientists hope to gain insight on the potential warping of space time.

Earlier this month. NASA posted a video in which Sophia Roberts, a video producer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, explained the process of spectroscopy.

"After taking a deep dive into spectroscopy, I really appreciate the critical context it gives scientists about the story behind those pictures," Roberts said.

A failed lunar mission dents Russian pride and reflects deeper problems with Moscow's space industry

The Associated Press
Tue, August 22, 2023 





This photo released by the Roscosmos State Space Corporation on Thursday, Aug. 17, 2023, shows an image of the lunar south pole region on the far side of the moon captured by Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft before its failed attempt to land. Russia's Roscosmos state corporation said Sunday that the Luna-25 crashed into the moon after it spun into an uncontrolled orbit. The authorities have opened an inquiry into the possible cause. 

(Centre for Operation of Space Ground-Based Infrastructure-Roscosmos State Space Corporation via AP)

An ambitious but failed attempt by Russia to return to the moon after nearly half a century has exposed the massive challenges faced by Moscow's once-proud space program.

The destruction of the robotic Luna-25 probe, which crashed onto the surface of the moon over the weekend, reflects the endemic problems that have dogged the Russian space industry since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Those include the loss of key technologies in the post-Soviet industrial meltdown, the bruising impact of recent Western sanctions, a huge brain drain and widespread corruption.

Yuri Borisov, the head of the state-controlled space corporation Roscosmos, attributed the failure to the lack of expertise due to the long break in lunar research that followed the last Soviet mission to the moon in 1976.

“The priceless experience that our predecessors earned in the 1960-70s was effectively lost,” Borisov said. “The link between generations has been cut.”

While the USSR lost the race to the United States to land humans on the moon, the Soviet lunar program had more than a dozen successful pioneering robotic missions, some of which featured lunar rovers and brought soil samples back to Earth. The proud Soviet space history includes launching the first satellite in space in 1957 and the first human in space in 1961.

Mikhail Marov, a 90-year-old scientist who played a prominent role in planning the earlier lunar missions and worked on the Luna-25 project, was hospitalized after its failure.

“It was very hard. It’s the work of all my life,” Marov said in remarks carried by Russian media. “For me, it was the last chance to see the revival of our lunar program.”

Borisov said the spacecraft’s thruster fired for 127 seconds instead of the planned 84 seconds, causing it to crash, and a government commission will investigate the glitch.

Natan Eismont, a leading researcher with the Moscow-based Institute for Space Research, told the state RIA Novosti agency said that signs of equipment problems had appeared even before the crash, but space officials still gave the go for landing.

Vitaly Egorov, a popular Russian space blogger, noted that Roscosmos may have neglected the warnings in a rush to be the first to land on the lunar south pole ahead of an Indian spacecraft that has been orbiting the moon ahead of a planned landing.

“It looks like things weren’t going according to plan, but they decided not to change the schedule to prevent the Indians from coming first,” he said.

The lunar south pole is of particular interest to scientists, who believe the permanently shadowed polar craters may contain frozen water in the rocks that future explorers could transform into air and rocket fuel.

A major factor exacerbating Russia's space woes that could have played a role in the Luna-25 failure has been the Western sanctions on Moscow over its war in Ukraine. Those penalties have blocked imports of microchips and other key Western components and restricted scientific exchanges.

While working on the Luna-25 project, Roscosmos partnered with the European Space Agency that was to provide a camera to facilitate the landing. The ESA halted the partnership soon after the February 2022 invasion and requested Roscosmos to remove its camera from the spacecraft.

Years earlier, Russia hoped to buy the main navigation device for the lunar mission from Airbus, but couldn’t due to restrictions blocking the technology transfer. In the end, it developed its own equipment that delayed the project and weighed twice as much, reducing the scientific payload for the spacecraft that weighed 1,750 kilograms (over 3,800 pounds).

Many industry experts note that even before the latest Western sanctions, the use of substandard components led to the collapse of an ambitious mission to send a probe to Mars' moon Phobos in 2011. The spacecraft's thrusters failed to send it on a path toward Mars and it burned in the Earth's atmosphere — a problem that investigators attributed to using cheap commercial microchips that were unfit for the harsh conditions in space.

Some observers speculated that using the cheap components could have stemmed from a scheme to embezzle government funds, rather than importing the specialized equipment for the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft, which was designed by the NPO Lavochkin, the same company that developed Luna-25.

NPO Lavochkin designed fighter planes during World War II and was the main developer of Soviet robotic missions to the moon, Venus and Mars. Several top Lavochkin managers have been arrested on charges of abusing their office in recent years.

Following the Phobos failure, space officials talked about conducting a thorough revision of the lunar spacecraft design to avoid using similar substandard components. It’s unclear whether such work ever happened.

Russian state television had hailed Luna-25 as the country’s triumphant entry into a new moon race, but since the crash, the broadcasters have tried to play down the loss of the spacecraft. Some argued the mission wasn't a complete failure because it sent back pictures of the lunar surface from orbit and other data.

Borisov tried to stay optimistic, arguing it achieved some important results.

He insisted that taking part in lunar research “not only means prestige or achieving geopolitical goals, it is necessary to ensure defense capability and technological sovereignty.”

“I hope that the next missions … will be successful,” Borisov said, adding that Roscosmos will intensify work on future moon missions, the next of which is planned for 2027.

“Under no circumstances we should interrupt our lunar program. It would be an utterly wrong decision,” he said.

Amid the finger-pointing, some argued the failure could cost Borisov his job. Others predicted he probably would avoid the dismissal, noting President Vladimir Putin’s record of avoiding quick ousters of officials in response to incidents.

Borisov, who previously served as a deputy prime minister in charge of arms industries, became Roscosmos chief a year ago, succeeding Dmitry Rogozin, who was widely blamed for some earlier space mishaps. Rogozin, who has joined the fighting in Ukraine as a volunteer, has not commented on the failed Luna-25 mission.

Under Rogozin, Roscosmos suffered a series of failed satellite launches. Combined with the growing role of private companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX, those failures have cost Russia its once-sizable niche in the lucrative global space launch market.

Rogozin was widely criticized for failing to root out endemic graft, including funds embezzled during the construction of the Vostochny cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East, which was used to launch the latest moon mission.

Some commentators said the Luna-25 crash dented Russian prestige and raised new doubts about its technological prowess following military blunders in Ukraine.

“The consequences of the Luna-25 catastrophe are enormous,” pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov said.

“It raises doubts about Russia’s claims of a great power status in the eyes of the global community. Many would decide that Russia can’t fulfill its ambitions either in Ukraine or on the moon because it lives not by its modest current capability but rather fantasies about its great past," he said. "People as well as countries want to side with the strong who win, not the weak who keep making excuses about their defeats.”

Watch India’s Chandrayaan-3 try to land on the Moon here at 8:34AM ET

The craft will attempt to touch down on the lunar south pole early Wednesday morning.

Will Shanklin
·Contributing Reporter
Tue, August 22, 2023 

ASSOCIATED PRESS

We’ll soon learn if India will be the first nation to nail a soft landing on the moon’s south pole. The Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Chandrayaan-3 mission, which launched on July 14th and entered lunar orbit on August 5th, will attempt to touch down on Wednesday at around 8:34AM EDT. It follows Russia’s attempt to beat India to the punch that ended badly. The ISRO’s live telecast (watch below) is scheduled to begin at 3:50AM EDT.

The Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram lander will try to touch down near the Moon’s south pole, which is believed to contain water ice. It could provide crucial water, oxygen and fuel for future lunar missions and bases. However, touching down could prove challenging as the region is known for rugged terrain and shadowy craters. This mission’s immediate predecessor, the Chandrayaan-2, crashed in 2019 as it descended to the lunar south pole.

Chandrayaan-3 uses a “failure-based design” to incorporate lessons from the 2019 “hard landing.” The new version includes an expanded landing area, software upgrades and more redundant systems to back up potential outages.

The IRSO’s X (formerly Twitter) account posted early Tuesday morning, “The mission is on schedule. Systems are undergoing regular checks. Smooth sailing is continuing.” It also posted pictures of the Moon’s surface taken from orbit.

You can tune in here early Wednesday morning (US time) to view the Indian lander’s descent.

Chandrayaan-3, India's latest mission to the moon, is set to undertake its key final stage today as the unmanned spacecraft attempts a soft landing on the lunar surface — 40 days after its launch from the southern part of the South Asian nation.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will livestream the launch that will begin at 4:50 am PT on August 23 (5:20 pm IST), more than half an hour before the targeted landing time of 5:34 am PT (6:04pm IST).

On Tuesday, ISRO confirmed that the mission was on schedule and said the systems were undergoing regular checks, and smooth sailing continued.

Launched in July through ISRO's Launch Vehicle Mark-3 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in South India's Sriharikota island, Chandrayaan-3 is India's third lunar mission. It aims to land on the lunar south pole, far from the side facing the Earth. It is believed that this region may hold essential secrets about the moon, including the potential existence of frozen water that could help support human habitation on the natural satellite and could potentially be used as fuel for future missions to distant locations.

The Chandrayaan-3 mission is the follow-up to the Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft, which crashed before landing on the moon in 2019. The Indian space agency has made a number of improvements in the Chandrayaan-3 lander to handle additional dispersion, as well as included updated sensors and integrated improved software and propulsion systems to minimize the chances of any failures this time.

Apart from the lander, the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft includes a propulsion module and a rover. The latter is identical to that of Chandrayaan-2.

The spacecraft includes sensors such as a seismometer, thermal probe, X-ray and laser spectrometer. It also carries a retroflector from NASA.

Earlier this week, ISRO shared images of the moon's far side taken by the Chandrayaan-3 lander called Vikram. The Chandrayaan-2 orbiter, which is orbiting the moon and will assist in connecting the Chandrayaan-3 rover with the Earth's space station, also recently communicated with the new spacecraft's lander.

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Should Chandrayaan-3 be successful, India will become the first country to land on the lunar south pole. The mission's success will also make the country the fourth to achieve a soft landing on the moon, following the United States, former Soviet Union and China. Earlier this month, Russia attempted to take on India by launching its moon landing spacecraft Luna-25. The Russian spacecraft, however, collided onto the moon's surface after losing control on Saturday.

India's historic cut-price Moon mission set for touchdown

Aishwarya KUMAR
Tue, August 22, 2023 

An Indian Space Research Organisation rocket carrying the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft lifts off on July 14, 2023 (-)

India readied Wednesday for its latest attempted Moon landing, a historic moment for the world's most populous nation as it rapidly closes in on milestones set by global space powers.

Chandrayaan-3, which means "Mooncraft" in Sanskrit, is scheduled to touch down shortly after 6:00 pm India time (1230 GMT) near the little-explored lunar south pole, in what would be a world first for any space programme.

A previous Indian effort failed in 2019, and the latest mission comes just days after Russia's first Moon mission in almost 50 years, destined for the same region, crashed on the lunar surface.

But former Indian space chief K. Sivan said the latest photos transmitted back home by the lander gave every indication that the final leg of the voyage would succeed.

"It is giving some encouragement that we will be able to achieve the landing mission without any problem," he told AFP on Monday.

Sivan added that the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had made corrections after the failure of four years ago, when scientists lost contact with the previous lunar module moments before its slated landing.

"Chandrayaan-3 is going to go with more ruggedness," he said. "We have confidence, and we expect that everything will go smoothly."

The mission launched nearly six weeks ago in front of thousands of cheering spectators, but took much longer to reach the Moon than those of the Apollo missions in the 1960s and 1970s, which arrived in a matter of days.

India is using rockets much less powerful than those the United States used back then, and instead the probe orbited Earth several times to gain speed before embarking on its month-long lunar trajectory.

- 'Smooth sailing is continuing' -

The spacecraft's lander Vikram, which means "valour" in Sanskrit, detached from its propulsion module last week and has been sending back images of the moon's surface since entering lunar orbit on August 5.

A day ahead of the landing, the ISRO said on social media the landing was proceeding on schedule and that its mission control complex was "buzzed with energy & excitement".

"Smooth sailing is continuing," the agency posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

India has a comparatively low-budget aerospace programme, but one that has grown considerably in size and momentum since it first sent a probe to orbit the Moon in 2008.

The latest mission comes with a price tag of $74.6 million -- far lower than those of other countries, and a testament to India's frugal space engineering.

Experts say India can keep costs low by copying and adapting existing space technology, and thanks to an abundance of highly skilled engineers who earn a fraction of their foreign counterparts' wages.

In 2014, India became the first Asian nation to put a satellite into orbit around Mars and is slated to launch a three-day manned mission into Earth's orbit by next year.

- 'Very, very important' -

Sivan, the former ISRO chief, said India's efforts to explore the relatively unmapped lunar south pole would make a "very, very important" contribution to scientific knowledge.

Only Russia, the United States and China have previously achieved a controlled landing on the lunar surface.

Russia launched its own lunar probe earlier in August -- its first in nearly half a century.

If successful it would have beaten Chandrayaan-3 by a matter of days to become the first mission of any nation to make a controlled landing around the lunar south pole.

But the Luna-25 probe crash-landed on Saturday after an unspecified incident as it was preparing for descent.

Punishing sanctions since the outset of the Ukraine war have affected Russia's space industry, which has also been beleaguered by corruption and a lack of innovation and partnerships.

ash/gle/sco

Elusive Japanese 'Ninja' bear killed

DAMN SHAME

AFP
Tue, 22 August 2023 

A bear believed to be "OSO18" is caught on camera near Shibecha, Hokkaido on June 25 (Handout)

Hunters in Japan's remote north have killed an elusive and infamous brown bear nicknamed "Ninja" that attacked at least 66 cows, officials said Tuesday.

The exploits of "OSO18", as the bear was named, attracted considerable news coverage including dramatic television documentaries.

The animal is believed to have started attacking livestock in 2019 in eastern areas of Hokkaido, Japan's sparsely populated main northern island.

Its habit of not eating the dairy cows that it attacked -- only half of its 66 victims died -- confused experts, and it eluded years of efforts to capture or kill it.

Late last month, the bear was shot dead.

"A brown bear was hunted on July 30, and various analyses, including DNA testing, resulted in a confirmation that it was OSO18," Tadayoshi Takeda, an official with the Hokkaido regional government, told AFP on Tuesday.

"I am sure local residents are relieved to hear this news," he said.

Brown bears in Japan only live in Hokkaido where their population is estimated at almost 12,000 but growing, causing increasing problems as they come into contact with humans.

In 2021 four people were killed in incidents involving bears and 10 were injured -- a record number.

Brown bears were also blamed for around $2 million worth of damage to crops, the highest on record.

hih/stu/dva

Microsoft submits new Activision Blizzard plan in £54bn takeover battle 

with UK competition watchdog

August Graham, PA Business Reporter
Tue, 22 August 2023 

The competition watchdog stressed “this is not a green light” as it agreed to look at a fresh proposal from Microsoft which the company hopes will allow its 69 billion US dollar (£54 billion) takeover of Activision Blizzard to go ahead.

The global technology giant said it has submitted a new version of the blocked deal, which will now be reviewed by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

It came as the regulator confirmed on Tuesday that Microsoft’s original plan to buy the computer games company “cannot proceed”.



Under the new proposal, Microsoft would sell off its rights to offer games via the cloud for new or existing Activision PC or console games for the next 15 years outside the European Economic Area (EEA).

It will instead sell those rights to Ubisoft, a rival developer known for the Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry games series.

This is designed to ensure that gamers have access to Activision Blizzard’s games, even on consoles and computers not made by Microsoft.

The CMA will now launch a new probe into this deal, a so-called Phase 1 investigation.

World Of Warcraft became globally popular after it was released by Blizzard Entertainment in 2004 (Paul Carstairs/Alamy/AP)

CMA chief executive Sarah Cardell said: “The CMA has today confirmed that Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision, as originally proposed, cannot proceed.

“Separately, Microsoft has notified a new and restructured deal, which is substantially different from what was put on the table previously

“This is not a green light. We will carefully and objectively assess the details of the restructured deal and its impact on competition, including in light of third-party comments.”

Microsoft president Brad Smith said: “Under the restructured transaction, Microsoft will not be in a position either to release Activision Blizzard games exclusively on its own cloud streaming service, Xbox Cloud Gaming, or to exclusively control the licensing terms of Activision Blizzard games for rival services.”

The CMA locked horns with one of the world’s largest technology companies over the deal (Anna Ivanova/Alamy/PA)

It marks a new twist in the case, the biggest fight the CMA has taken on since gaining new post-Brexit powers. At one point the case looked like as though it would only end after a court battle.

In January 2022 Microsoft announced that it planned to buy Activision Blizzard, the company behind the Call Of Duty and World Of Warcraft games, for an eye-watering sum.

When the UK was still an EU member, a deal of that size would have been assessed by regulators in Brussels. But after Brexit the CMA now has the power to investigate such deals itself.

Although both companies are American, both have significant businesses in the UK so their tie-up could have a significant impact on competition here.

Activision Blizzard chief executive Bobby Kotick said: “For us, nothing substantially changes with the addition of this divestiture: our merger agreement with Microsoft, closing deadline, and the cash consideration to be paid for each Activision Blizzard share at closing remain the same.

“We will continue to work closely with Microsoft and the CMA throughout the remaining review process, and we are committed to help Microsoft clear any final hurdles as quickly as possible.

“This has been a longer journey than expected, and I am very proud of how focused everyone has remained on delivering great games.”

Why does Microsoft want to buy Activision Blizzard and will the deal go ahead?


Alan Martin and Vicky Jessop
Tue, 22 August 2023 

Activision’s biggest game is Call of Duty (Activision Publishing Inc)

Microsoft announced its intention to buy Activision Blizzard in January 2022. The story has popped up countless times since as more roadblocks appeared, and were navigated around.

One key one remains: the UK’s Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA).

The acquisition has been given the green light by EU and US regulators, but the CMA is still holding out. Why?

Any acquisition this size is a big deal. Microsoft plans to buy Activision Blizzard for £54 billion. It is one of the biggest game publishers out there, and clearly of higher value than Skyrim creator Bethesda Softworks, which was acquired by Microsoft for around £6 billion in 2021.

The big story was initially around Call of Duty, and whether it would become an Xbox-only series. Microsoft has now promised to bring Call of Duty to Sony PlayStation and Nintendo consoles for the next decade.

However, that has not placated the CMA. Its concerns hinge on cloud streaming, used in Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass service. It argues the merger will be bad for consumers and innovation, by giving Microsoft an unfair advantage in the area.

In a last ditch attempt to get the deal through, Microsoft submitted a fresh proposal on August 22.

It would see Microsoft offload game streaming rights for Activision Blizzard games to Ubisoft, for PC and console titles released over the next 15 years. Microsoft would no longer determine which streaming services get the publisher’s games, Ubisoft would.

But why is Microsoft so keen on buying Activision Blizzard in the first place?

What games does Activision Blizzard make?

The biggie is Call of Duty or ‘CoD’. The military first-person shooter is one of the most popular games on the planet, and always elicits excitement when a new entry is released.

Both Activision and Blizzard have been in the business for decades, long before they merged in 2013 after Activision acquired Vivendi Games. They have plenty of beloved franchises beyond CoD, including Warcraft, Overwatch, and even Candy Crush, after the 2016 acquisition of mobile game maker King.

Here are the main ones:

Activision

Call of Duty


Crash Bandicoot


Spyro


Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater


Prototype


Hero (Guitar Hero, DJ Hero, Band Hero)


Candy Crush
Blizzard

Warcraft


Diablo


Overwatch


Starcraft


Hearthstone

These are just the main players and there are plenty of long-forgotten IPs that could be revived: think King’s Quest, Blur, Gabriel Knight, True Crime, and Gun.

Why is Microsoft trying to buy Activision Blizzard?

Overwatch 2 (Activision Blizzard)

While once known exclusively for home-computer software (Windows, Office, Outlook, Word, etc.) Microsoft now has fingers in many pies — and gaming is one of the biggest, thanks to the Xbox gaming division.

That would be reason enough to try to add one of the world’s biggest publishers into the fold, with exclusive games often helping decide console wars, and Microsoft currently fighting a losing battle against Sony’s PlayStation 5.

But having popular franchises such as Call of Duty, Overwatch, and Warcraft as part of the Microsoft stable is especially significant due to the company betting much on Game Pass — its ‘Netflix of games’ — where you can play a rolling selection of titles for a low-cost monthly subscription.

Microsoft’s games — including Gears of War, Forza, Halo, and Minecraft — are already included, and the company would love to add Activision’s titles to the platform to boost subscriber numbers.

What is the problem with Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard?

The reason the purchase has been bogged down by legal action is competition. By acquiring Activision Blizzard, critics argue, Microsoft’s gaming division would simply own too much of the industry, unfairly limiting its competitors and ultimately harming consumers.

In the US, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) initially attempted to block the deal, with it voting three to one to issue a complaint against the buyout. In the UK, the CMA concluded that the move would ultimately result in higher prices, fewer choices, and less innovation for UK gamers.

But, following a string of victories, Micrososft’s takeover of Activision appears more likely to go ahead. An American judge vetoed the US Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) attempt to block the deal. While the FTC has launched an appeal, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has halted its own legal battle.

Those hurdles included shortcomings in the regulatory remedies proposed by Microsoft in its bid to get the merger across the line. The tech giant signed cloud gaming deals with Boosteroid, Ubitus, and Nvidia to bring Xbox PC games to these services. It also signed a similar deal with Nintendo last December.

Many of critics’ problems come from exclusivity. To get the main benefit from an acquisition, many assume Microsoft would have to make future titles from Activision Blizzard exclusive to Xbox and PC, freezing out PlayStation gamers.

The Sony PS5 (PS5)

In terms of precedent for that, Microsoft has announced that Bethesda’s first game as a Microsoft studio — Starfield — won’t be appearing on PS5. It seems unlikely that a future Fallout of Elder Scrolls will either.

That said, Microsoft hasn’t pulled Minecraft from Sony or Nintendo platforms since purchasing the game back in 2014. And for its part, as part of the ongoing argument, Microsoft has offered to keep Call of Duty — the main prize of contention for rivals — on Sony and Nintendo platforms for a decade after the deal completes.

Microsoft president Brad Smith made the pledge in an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal in December. He said that the deal was good for gamers because Microsoft was “third place in console gaming, stuck behind Sony’s dominant PlayStation and the Nintendo Switch”.

What would Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard mean for big games like World of Warcraft?

Those reassurances aside, the concerns of Microsoft’s rivals are that big franchises will either be exclusive to Xbox and PC, or be otherwise hobbled on other formats with weaker performance or less DLC.

Even if Microsoft were to continue releasing its games on other formats, its rivals are concerned that they can’t compete with the Game Pass offering, where paying £70 or more for top-tier games is replaced with a flat monthly subscription.

Blizzard’s games such as World of Warcraft and Starcraft, which have never had a console version, might be pushed on to Xbox in time, too. Though, given Microsoft has a substantial interest in Windows PCs, this wouldn’t necessarily be an urgent priority.
Is Microsoft’s takeover of Activision likely to go ahead?

Spyro Reignited Trilogy (Activision)

The UK’s CMA is the last major hurdle for the acquisition, after the deal was greenlit in key markets including the US and EU. Microsoft’s final gambit is the proposal to offload streaming rights for Activision Blizzard games released over the next 15 years to publisher Ubisoft, excluding existing agreements within the EEA.

“Under the restructured transaction, Microsoft will not be in a position either to release Activision Blizzard games exclusively on its own cloud streaming service—Xbox Cloud Gaming – or to exclusively control the licensing terms of Activision Blizzard games for rival services,” wrote Microsoft President on the company’s blog.

The CMA says it will decide on whether that plan is enough to allow the deal to pass through by October 18.

“This is not a green light. We will carefully and objectively assess the details of the restructured deal and its impact on competition, including in light of third-party comments,” says the CMA.

What does this mean for gamers?

Gamers who feared Microsoft would renege on its promise to make Activision games widely available may be concerned about recent developments.

PlayStation owners, in particular, may have been sceptical about Microsoft’s assurances to keep CoD on Sony’s consoles for ten years. In fact, Microsoft had already indicated that it wasn’t interested in extending that commitment. It said thata decade was plenty of time for Sony to create a CoD rival, signalling that it was prepared to pull the rug out from underneath its competitor as soon as the deal timer ran out.

The UK also threw doubt over Microsoft’s plans to add Activision games to other gaming platforms, including Nintendo consoles.

In a bid to assuage regulators, the tech giant had struck high-profile deals to bring Xbox PC and Activision franchises, including CoD and Overwatch, to rival platforms. They included ten-year contracts with cloud-gaming services including NVIDIA Geforce Now, and smaller competitors such as Boosteroid and Ubitus. It also struck a similar deal with Nintendo in December.

If Microsoft loses its appeal, then it will essentially be up to Activision to secure similar licensing deals with these distributors. Seeing as the company removed its games from GeForce Now in 2020, and hasn’t restored them since, it clearly has some misgivings about cloud gaming.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Nintendo deal felt like lip service to regulators. The Japanese company is largely associated with family-friendly titles such as Mario, and already has access to Activision’s Overwatch games. CoD therefore felt like a mismatch for Nintendo. Nor does the Switch boast the computing power to run the latest CoD games.

All told, Activision will have little incentive to pursue a similar deal with Nintendo, should the merger fall apart.

Who owns Activision?

As of now, Activision Blizzard is still an independent, publicly traded company owned by its shareholders. A mixture of financial conglomerates and asset managers currently hold stakes in the gaming giant, including Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway, Vanguard Group, FMR LLC, and Blackrock.

The US-based video game firm was established in 2008 following the merger of Activision and Vivendi Games. The latter was the games division of French media conglomerate Vivendi, which owned Blizzard Entertainment and its blockbuster multiplayer game World of Warcraft.

Activision traces its roots back to 1979, when it was founded by a group of former Atari developers. Originally called Computer Arts, Inc., the team later changed the company’s name to a portmanteau of “active” and “television”. Thus, Activision was born.

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick took the reins in 1991 after purchasing a company stake the previous year. Kotick orchestrated the merger with Vivendi Games in the 2000s, which led to the formation of Activision Blizzard, and made him the company’s first CEO.

Today, the company is composed of five business units: Activision Publishing; Blizzard Entertainment; King, which it acquired in 2016, Major League Gaming, and Activision Blizzard Studios.

Meta claims breakthrough in quest to build Hitchhiker’s Guide-style language translator

Matthew Field
Tue, 22 August 2023

Meta wants to build a universal translator similar to the ‘Babel Fish’ in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Laurie Sparham/Film Stills

Scientists at Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta have claimed a major breakthrough in efforts to develop a universal language translator using artificial intelligence (AI).

The Facebook owner has revealed a new AI tool that can automatically translate speech from 100 languages.

The technology can transcribe all 100 languages into text form, while also translating speech into spoken English and 35 other languages.

Online translation tools have grown in popularity over the past decade.

Google’s Translate service, which launched in 2006, now supports 133 languages. The internet giant has since designed headphones that can translate dozens of languages in real time.

Smartphone companies have also developed apps that can automatically translate languages from pictures.

Meta said its new language translation technology was unique because it had been built on a single AI algorithm, rather than translating languages in stages using different systems.

The technology company compared the task of building a universal translator to creating a real-life “Babel Fish” from Douglas Adams’ novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. In the book, the Babel Fish is used to translate any language in the universe.

The company said universal translation capabilities have “long been dreamed of in science fiction” but are now on the cusp of reality through AI.

However, Meta’s scientists said current efforts “only cover a small fraction of the world’s languages”.

Meta’s latest AI tool, called SeamlessM4T, will be released for free.

In May, Meta said it had developed AI that can translate speech from 1,100 languages into text – out of 7,000 known languages. To do this, it collected samples of language from the few books translated so widely, such as the Bible.

As well as translating from one language to another, Meta’s latest tool can also recognise when a speaker switches languages.

The announcement comes as Meta looks to rival OpenAI, the developer of the AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT.

Massive creatures roamed CA 13,000 years ago — until humans started fires, experts say

Daniella Segura
Tue, August 22, 2023

More than 13,000 years ago, massive animals roamed Southern California.

However, they quickly began to disappear, according to an Aug. 18 news release from UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.

“The cause? Humans, catastrophic fires, and an ecosystem made vulnerable by climate change,” according to a news release from the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum.

Though it was previously thought that the huge Ice Age mammals, known as megafauna, were hunted to extinction, researchers from UCLA and the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum now say in a recently published study that wildfires set by humans likely led to their demise.

“The evidence suggests unprecedented fire activity occurring with the changing climate, along with people coming into the area,” Lisa Martinez, a UCLA graduate student and study co-author, said in the release. “It’s during this interval that the megafauna species disappeared.”

Before extinction

Fifteen thousand years ago, large mammals, like the saber-tooth cat, roamed Southern California’s terrain, foraging for food, according to the museum.

Such predators would often find “free lunch” in the “asphalt seeps” where animals became trapped after wandering into “shallow pools to take a drink,” the museum said.

This landscape, however, would soon drastically change, according to the museum.

“Beginning around 14,700 years ago, the climate began turning warmer and drier,” the museum said. “Trees died and herbivores began to disappear, creating an abundance of dry fuels.”

Then, the museum said, came humans.

Playing With Fire: Extinction and Survival at La Brea Tar Pits | In California, 13,000 years ago, huge ice age mammals that had roamed the landscape for many millennia, suddenly ceased to exist. The cause? Humans,... | By La Brea Tar Pits and Museum | Facebook

‘Power to create and control fire’

Just as the land faced “extreme drought,” humans arrived, according to the museum.

“With the power to create and control fire, humans lit up the land,” the museum said.

Humans of the time utilized fire for a number of things, “including to clear brush for travel, to hunt and drive prey, and to promote the growth of plants useful in basketry and medicine,” the university said.

Wildfires, coupled with “a centuries-long megadrought,” forever changed “Southern California’s landscapes, vegetation and ecosystems,” the university said.

“Post-glacial woodlands” were no longer, as shrubby chaparral overtook the area, according to the university.
‘Unique biological record’

Over the course of thousands of years, animals got stuck in the La Brea Tar Pits, preserving their bones. This has allowed the bones to accurately be carbon dated, according to the university.

With its “unique biological record,” the tar pits allow researchers to pinpoint just when megafauna died off, according to Emily Lindsey, a UCLA adjunct professor and an associate curator of the tar pits.

“We used samples from over 170 animals of seven megafauna species — saber-toothed cats, dire wolves, lions, camels, bison, horses and sloths,” Lindsey, study co-author, said in the release. “Around 13,000 years ago, our record of all of those animals stops, and it’s just coyote, coyote, coyote, coyote.”

The disappearance of megafauna coincides with the evidence from the same time period that “suggests that extensive wildfires scorched the region,” the university said.

Evidence of the massive wildfires is found in the abundant charcoal found in “lake sediments across Southern California,” according to the museum.

Such charcoal evidence, likely the result of wildfires, was found in samples of a sediment core from Lake Elsinore, about 80 miles from the tar pits, the university said.

Prior to this time period, “very little charcoal is present in the geological record,” Martinez said.

UCLA graduate student Lisa Martinez examining sediment samples from Lake Elsinore, California. The samples revealed the presence of charcoal, providing evidence of wildfires. 

Natalja Kent/Courtesy of Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County
Parallel to today

In the recently published paper, researchers draw a parallel between the landscape’s transformation 13,000 years ago and “the conditions that today are leading to climate change and devastating wildfires,” the university said.

“Throughout history, fire has magnified the impact of humans, for better or worse,” Glen MacDonald, a UCLA geography professor and study co-author, said. “Humans today are responsible for at least three factors that produce wildfires: the ignitions themselves, climate change and the introduction of invasive species, which changes the fuel structure.”

Researchers hope future studies of specimens from the tar pits can help paint a better picture of “possible effects of a warming planet,” the university said.

“This site is uniquely positioned to inform a lot of questions that are of key environmental significance today — things like what the long-term impacts of climate change will be,” Lindsey said.

Half a Million US Jobs at Risk of Vanishing in Payroll Revision








Reade Pickert
Tue, August 22, 2023

(Bloomberg) -- US payrolls growth in the year through March is forecast to be weaker than current data illustrate — by one estimate about 500,000 jobs weaker.

JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Daniel Silver estimates Wednesday’s government preliminary benchmark revision will shave nearly half a million off the level of total employment for March, or about 40,000 fewer jobs per month over the 12-month period.

Even with a downward revision of that size, average job growth would still be strong at around 300,000 payrolls a month. As a result, the revisions would likely not fundamentally alter economists’ views on the health of the labor market.

“While we expect the BLS preliminary estimates to indicate that payrolls growth has not been as strong as initially reported, revisions are not likely to be so large as to suggest a meaningful shift in labor market conditions,” said Oscar Munoz, chief US macro strategist at TD Securities.

Last year, the government’s employment reports consistently surprised economists with larger-than-expected payrolls gains. The figures were also a key reason behind a steady drumbeat of Federal Reserve interest-rate hikes as policymakers scrambled to contain inflation.

Each month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases an estimate of payrolls across a range of industries based on responses from a sample of employers. With every fresh monthly jobs report, the two prior months are typically revised as more businesses send in their payroll data.

Once a year, the BLS also benchmarks the March payrolls level to a more accurate but less timely data source called the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.

That QCEW data are based on state unemployment insurance tax records and cover nearly all of US jobs. Once the March payrolls figures are aligned to that count, the change is proportionally distributed across the year ended in March.

First-quarter QCEW figures will also be released on Wednesday, but as the data currently stand, reported payroll growth is running stronger than the QCEW data imply. That helps explain why economists expect the preliminary benchmark revision to payrolls to show less job growth. Some Fed officials pointed to this discrepancy, minutes of their June policy meeting showed.

For Munoz, “the message is likely to remain the same; that of a labor market that continues to steadily normalize.”

The durability of the labor market is key to the resilience of the US economy, and economists have been closely watching it for signs of weakness. Job gains have gradually moderated but continue to indicate robust labor demand.

Bloomberg Economics’ Stuart Paul said the QCEW data will likely validate the group’s long-held view that the labor market is weaker than the headlines suggest. But “people who have been outright saying ‘the labor market is tight’ might be in for a shock,” he said.

Standard Chartered Bank’s Steve Englander estimates the downward revision could be around 650,000, with much of that softness concentrated in recent quarters. That would indicate “a much weaker labor market profile” than what underpinned Fed tightening in recent quarters, Englander said. “This would reduce the pressure for further hikes.”

The government’s preliminary benchmark projection will be followed by final revisions that are incorporated into the January employment report that is released in February.

Birth-Death Model

One of the reasons economists have argued that the monthly payrolls data are stronger than the QCEW figures is due to what is known as the birth-death adjustment. In any given month, new businesses open and others close. BLS uses historical data in an effort to adjust for this in various industries in their sample.

“A lot of people actually think that the birth-death adjustment in the establishment survey is too large,” said Jonathan Millar, senior economist at Barclays Plc. But if you look at other data sources, like new business applications, “it suggests that probably the birth-death adjustments are just fine.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the revision ended up being smaller to the downside than what you might infer from the fourth quarter,” Millar said. “I also wouldn’t be surprised if it showed a positive revision.”

In fact, he noted that it’s possible the preliminary benchmark announcement could be negative but completely go away by the time the official data are published early next year if the QCEW data are revised higher.

Bloomberg Businessweek

Ocean off California’s Central Coast may be ‘thermal refuge’ from climate change, study says

Mackenzie Shuman
Tue, August 22, 2023 

In an otherwise warming planet, new research shows that the ocean off California’s Central Coast may be a thermal refuge for marine wildlife.

Cal Poly associate professor Ryan Walter, who teaches physics, and fourth-year physics student Michael Dalsin analyzed temperature data gathered from 1978 through 2020 at a site just north of Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.

They found that while other areas of the world see sharp rises in ocean temperatures and more frequent and more intense heatwaves, the Central Coast hasn’t seen such intense trends.

The region still experiences marine heatwaves and cold spells brought on by factors such as the ocean-wide climactic patterns of El Niño and La Niña, but cold current upwelling brought on by strong local winds helps maintain the marine ecosystem along the Central Coast, according to a study by Walter and Dalsin published on July 31.

“This research showing the Central Coast could be a thermal refuge is incredibly important,” said Crow White, an associate professor of biology at Cal Poly. “Without a cooler water refuge, that means species like the Dungeness crab would no longer be able to exist along our coast.”

A humpback whale kicks up its tail in the proposed Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary on July 12, 2023, just offshore from Morro Bay.
Study: Marine heatwaves, cold spells partially predictable

The study also found that marine heatwaves and cold spells along California’s coast are partially predictable — providing a mechanism for better managing the ocean’s resources.

“We believe that management of our marine resources, our ecological resources, our fisheries ... that should be informed by these forecasts of these extreme events,” Dalsin said. “If you can predict that there’s going to be a very disruptive heatwave or cold spell in the next season, it seems sensible that you should change your management policies.”

Marine heatwaves and cold spells have triggered harmful algal blooms and kelp die-offs, which in turn have caused entire ecosystems to near collapse as food chains hang in the balance.

But the Central Coast’s ecosystems are more adapted to temporary variability in ocean temperatures because of the region’s upwelling, said Ben Ruttenberg, director of Cal Poly’s Center for Coastal Marine Sciences.

“When a heatwave comes along, the system will undeniably be disrupted,” he said. “But as long as you have the predators and their food in place, then it can probably recover.”

Fish-eating sea anemones and purple sea urchins cling to the rocky reef off Point Estero, near a sound-monitoring station inside the proposed Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary.

What causes coastal upwelling?

The upwelling of cold ocean currents off California’s coast is mainly caused by strong winds that push warm water off the surface and allows cold water to flow upwards toward the surface.

The colder water carries nutrients up from the ocean’s depths and therefore provides a great source of food for many marine animals such as phytoplankton, fish and whales.

Typically, the strongest upwelling happens during the spring and summertime. It’s a phenomenon unique to the Pacific Ocean area to about 60 to 100 miles from California’s coastline.

Along the East Coast of the United States, no such upwelling occurs and researchers there have seen ocean water temperatures soar year over year as the global climate changes.

In late July, a buoy in southern Florida measured water temperatures at 101.1 degrees Fahrenheit — roughly the ideal temperature of a hot tub.

The hot water resulted in the worst coral bleaching in the Florida Keys’ history and could mean hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean could be far worse than what was historically normal.

Painted greenling, convict fish, bat star and sea urchins inhabit a rocky reef off Point Estero near the sound monitoring station in the proposed Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary.

Could warmer ocean temperatures hit California coast?

Marine heatwaves could occur along California’s coast this year as scientists predict El Niño conditions to persist through February.

El Niño is defined as warmer ocean temperatures that build up along the equatorial region of the Pacific Ocean. It can cause wet and warm winters on land and marine heatwaves.

While the current El Niño’s warm waters haven’t yet reached California’s coast, Walter and Dalsin noted that their research showed that the state’s coastal waters have become unusually warm in the winter during previous El Niño years.

“We have this early alert system to say, ‘there might be a greater likelihood for thermal stress in different organisms that scientists and managers can watch out for,’ ” Walter said.

After the marine heatwave events, however, California’s coastal waters typically return to about the same baseline temperatures.

This is what provides the area its status as a “thermal refuge” from global climate change, Walter said.

“In California, we do still have warm years and we do still have cold years,” Walter said. “But we don’t have the steep rising of ocean temperatures that you might expect over on the East Coast or elsewhere.”