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Grindr is facing a class action lawsuit from hundreds of users over the sharing of HIV statuses and other sensitive personal information with third-party firms.

UK law firm Austen Hays filed the claim in the High Court in London yesterday, the firm announced. The class action "alleges the misuse of private information of thousands of affected UK Grindr users, including highly sensitive information about their HIV status and latest tested date," the law firm said.

The law firm said it has signed up over 670 potential class members and "is in discussions with thousands of other individuals who are interested in joining the claim." Austen Hays said that "claimants could receive thousands in damages" from Grindr, a gay dating app, if the case is successful.

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When we catch a whiff of perfume or indulge in a scented candle, we are smelling much more than Floral Fantasy or Lavender Vanilla. We are actually detecting odor molecules that enter our nose and interact with cells that send signals to be processed by our brain. While certain smells feel like they’re unchanging, the complexity of this system means that large odorant molecules are perceived as the sum of their parts—and we are capable of perceiving the exact same molecule as a different smell.

Smell is more complex than we might think. It doesn’t consist of simply detecting specific molecules. Researcher Wen Zhou and his team from the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have now found that parts of our brains analyze smaller parts of the odor molecules that make things smell.

Smells like…

So how do we smell? Odor molecules that enter our noses stimulate olfactory sensory neurons. They do this by binding to odorant receptors on these neurons (each of which makes only one of approximately 500 different odor receptors). Smelling something activates different neurons depending on what the molecules in that smell are and which receptors they interact with. The sensory neurons in the piriform cortex of the brain then use the information from the sensory neurons and interpret it as a message that makes us smell vanilla. Or a bouquet of flowers. Or whatever else.

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It is said that you can’t go home again, and now I am reminded of how true that is. I recently spent more than $500 on a PlayStation 5, largely spurred by an opportunity to play and review Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (releasing February 29), a title that activated youthful memories. This was a big mistake. Perhaps you can learn from it.

None of this is particularly the fault of Rebirth. Even as I could only bring myself to put about 12 hours into it over the space of 11 days’ early access, I understood that those who truly cherish the original game, and still enjoy Japanese role-playing games (“JRPGs”) in general, will find a lot to love here. It’s a beautiful-looking game that runs smoothly on its quality-minded setting. The soundtrack is largely lovely, and I found myself humming the world map tunes while walking my dog or making coffee. Lots of things from the original that would be hard to wade through now, like random encounters and monotonous turn-based combat, have been transmuted into more tolerable forms here. The number of things you can do in this game, just from looking at screenshots of what’s ahead, looks like a true embarrassment of riches.

I am sure that if I harbored stronger memories of the original game, had kept up a JRPG habit over the last 25 years or so, or perhaps had started with the earlier Remake chapter, I might have found more to grab onto in Rebirth. Most people aren’t going to gamble $70, let alone $500, plus dozens of hours, on the chance they’ll be magically transported to being 16 again, with the requisite free time and adolescent brain chemistry that helps one relate to a ragtag set of friends striving against cartoonishly oppressive villains.

Enlarge / Mifepristone (Mifeprex) and misoprostol, the two drugs used in a medication abortion, are seen at the Women's Reproductive Clinic, which provides legal medication abortion services, in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, on June 17, 2022. (credit: Getty | Robyn Beck)

Scientific journal publisher Sage has retracted key abortion studies cited by anti-abortion groups in a legal case aiming to revoke regulatory approval of the abortion and miscarriage medication, mifepristone—a case that has reached the US Supreme Court, with a hearing scheduled for March 26.

On Monday, Sage announced the retraction of three studies, all published in the journal Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology. All three were led by James Studnicki, who works for The Charlotte Lozier Institute, a research arm of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. The publisher said the retractions were based on various problems related to the studies' methods, analyses, and presentation, as well as undisclosed conflicts of interest.

Two of the studies were cited by anti-abortion groups in their lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration (Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA), which claimed the regulator's approval and regulation of mifepristone was unlawful. The two studies were also cited by District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Texas, who issued a preliminary injunction last April to revoke the FDA's 2000 approval of mifepristone. A conservative panel of judges for the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans partially reversed that ruling months later, but the Supreme Court froze the lower court's order until the appeals process had concluded.

Enlarge / Artist's rendition of two Elden Ring teams, The Medium and The Message, battling it out in a colosseum constructed from micro-transactions and overseen by mystical creatures known as Whales. (credit: Bandai Namco)

To its fans, Elden Ring is a noble struggle, where the effort you put into memorizing boss patterns, improving your build, and fine-tuning your reactions offsets your near-constant deaths in a grim, unforgiving landscape.

To Tencent, it seems, Elden Ring is an opportunity to create another free-to-play game, one flush with in-app purchases and booster packs that may not mesh at all with the game's nature or setting.

Reuters reports that Tencent, the Chinese firm that owns a 16 percent stake in Elden Ring and Dark Souls-maker FromSoftware, has a mobile version of Elden Ring in development. Progress "has been slow," according to three people familiar with the project cited by Reuters. But it will be free-to-play, will have in-app purchases, and may resemble miHoYo's Genshin Impact in its play/pay flow, according to Reuters.

You know the premiere date for Netflix's live-action adaptation, Avatar: The Last Airbender, is drawing nigh because the streaming giant just released an official trailer featuring moments drawn from the original anime series and lots of snazzy element-bending action, plus several adorable shots of Appa. We have high hopes for this series.

As we reported previously, the original anime series was created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko. It was set in an Asian-inspired world where certain chosen individuals have the ability to telekinetically manipulate one of four elements (earth, air, water, and fire)—a practice known as "bending." Each generation, there is one Avatar who can bend all four elements and is thus responsible for maintaining harmony among the four elemental nations, as well as serving as a link between the physical and spirit worlds.

A 12-year-old Air Nomad boy named Aang is the current Avatar, but he hid in a state of suspended animation for a century because he was afraid of taking on that huge responsibility. Two Water Tribe siblings, Katara and Sokka, eventually revive Aang, who finds that the Fire Nation has wiped out most of the Air Nomads in his absence. Katara and Sokka join Aang, an airbender, on his quest to master bending each of the remaining three elements. Their mission is hampered by the banished Fire Nation Prince Zuko, who seeks to capture Aang to restore his honor with his father, Fire Lord Ozai, with the help of his uncle Iroh.

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Last Thursday, HP CEO Enrique Lores addressed the company's controversial practice of bricking printers when users load them with third-party ink. Speaking to CNBC Television, he said, "We have seen that you can embed viruses in the cartridges. Through the cartridge, [the virus can] go to the printer, [and then] from the printer, go to the network."

That frightening scenario could help explain why HP, which was hit this month with another lawsuit over its Dynamic Security system, insists on deploying it to printers.

Dynamic Security stops HP printers from functioning if an ink cartridge without an HP chip or HP electronic circuitry is installed. HP has issued firmware updates that block printers with such ink cartridges from printing, leading to the above lawsuit (PDF), which is seeking class-action certification. The suit alleges that HP printer customers were not made aware that printer firmware updates issued in late 2022 and early 2023 could result in printer features not working. The lawsuit seeks monetary damages and an injunction preventing HP from issuing printer updates that block ink cartridges without an HP chip.

Enlarge / A marketing image for Vizio's P-series Q9 TV. (credit: Vizio)

Vizio has agreed to pay $3 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that alleged the company misled customers about the refresh rates of its TVs.

In 2018, a lawsuit [PDF], which was later certified as a class action, was filed against Vizio for advertising its 60 Hz and 120 Hz LCD TVs as having an "effective" refresh rate of 120 Hz and 240 Hz, respectively. Vizio was referring to the backlight scanning (or black frame insertion) ability, which it claimed made the TVs look like they were operating at a refresh rate that was twice as fast as they are capable of. Vizio's claims failed to address the drawbacks that can come from backlight scanning, which include less brightness and the potential for noticeable flickering. The lawsuit complained about Vizio's language in marketing materials and user manuals.

The lawsuit read:

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Google has indicated that it is ready to settle a class-action lawsuit filed in 2020 over its Chrome browser's Incognito mode. Arising in the Northern District of California, the lawsuit accused Google of continuing to "track, collect, and identify [users'] browsing data in real time" even when they had opened a new Incognito window.

The lawsuit, filed by Florida resident William Byatt and California residents Chasom Brown and Maria Nguyen, accused Google of violating wiretap laws. It also alleged that sites using Google Analytics or Ad Manager collected information from browsers in Incognito mode, including web page content, device data, and IP address. The plaintiffs also accused Google of taking Chrome users' private browsing activity and then associating it with their already-existing user profiles.

Google initially attempted to have the lawsuit dismissed by pointing to the message displayed when users turned on Chrome's incognito mode. That warning tells users that their activity "might still be visible to websites you visit."

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Some TikTok users may have skipped reviewing an update to TikTok's terms of service this summer that shakes up the process for filing a legal dispute against the app. According to The New York Times, changes that TikTok "quietly" made to its terms suggest that the popular app has spent the back half of 2023 preparing for a wave of legal battles.

In July, TikTok overhauled its rules for dispute resolution, pivoting from requiring private arbitration to insisting that legal complaints be filed in either the US District Court for the Central District of California or the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Los Angeles. Legal experts told the Times this could be a way for TikTok to dodge arbitration claims filed en masse that can cost companies millions more in fees than they expected to pay through individual arbitration.

Perhaps most significantly, TikTok also added a section to its terms that mandates that all legal complaints be filed within one year of any alleged harm caused by using the app. The terms now say that TikTok users "forever waive" rights to pursue any older claims. And unlike a prior version of TikTok's terms of service archived in May 2023, users do not seem to have any options to opt out of waiving their rights.

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Shortly after 23andMe confirmed that hackers stole ancestry data of 6.9 million users, 23andMe has updated its terms of service, seemingly cutting off a path previously granted to users seeking public accountability when resolving disputes.

According to a post on Hacker News, the "23andMe Team" notified users in an email that "important updates were made to the Dispute Resolution and Arbitration section" of 23andMe's terms of service on November 30. This was done, 23andMe told users, "to include procedures that will encourage a prompt resolution of any disputes and to streamline arbitration proceedings where multiple similar claims are filed."

In the email, 23andMe told users that they had 30 days to notify the ancestry site that they disagree with the new terms. Otherwise, 23andMe users "will be deemed to have agreed to the new terms." The process for opting out is detailed in the site's terms of service, instructing users to send written notice of their decision to opt out in an email to arbitrationoptout@23andme.com.

Fresh off its critically acclaimed live-action adaptation of the hugely popular anime series One Piece, Netflix has released the first official teaser for yet another live-action adaptation: Avatar: The Last Airbender, based on the animated Nickelodeon TV series of the same name. As we've noted before, Netflix has a mixed track record for these anime adaptations, but if the teaser is any indication, The Last Airbender could join One Piece as another smashing success for the streaming platform.

(Some spoilers for the anime series below, but no major reveals.)

Created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, the original anime series was set in an Asian-inspired world where certain chosen individuals have the ability to telekinetically manipulate one of four elements (earth, air, water, and fire)—a practice known as "bending." Each generation, there is one Avatar who can bend all four elements and is thus responsible for maintaining harmony among the four elemental nations, as well as being a link between the physical and spirit worlds.

Enlarge / Dikembe Mutombo rejects your flawed publication. (credit: DAVID MAXWELL / Getty Images)

In a move that surprised very few people, the journal Nature retracted a paper claiming a major advance in high-temperature superconductivity. This marks the second paper the journal retracted over the objections of Ranga P. Dias, a faculty member at the University of Rochester who led the research. Or at least it's implied that he objected to this retraction, as he apparently refused to respond to Nature about the matter.

Dias' work on superconductivity has focused on hydrogen-rich chemicals that form under extreme pressures. Other research groups have shown that the pressure forces hydrogen into crystals within the material, where it encourages the formation of electron pairs that enable superconductivity. This allows these chemicals to superconduct at elevated temperatures. Dias' two papers purportedly described one chemical that could superconduct at room temperatures and extreme pressures and a second that did so under somewhat lower pressures, putting it within reach of more readily available lab equipment.

But problems with the first of these papers became apparent as the research community dug into the details of the work. Dias' team apparently used a non-standard method for calculating the background noise in a key experiment and didn't include the details of how this was done in the paper. In other words, the data in the paper looked good, but it wasn't clear whether it accurately reflected the experimental results. As a result, Nature retracted it, although all nine authors of the paper objected to this decision at the time.

Enlarge / A tiny fleck of paint, taken from the Mona Lisa, is revealing insights into previously unknown steps of Leonardo da Vinci's process. (credit: Public domain)

When Leonardo da Vinci was creating his masterpiece, the Mona Lisa, he may have experimented with lead oxide in his base layer, resulting in trace amounts of a compound called plumbonacrite. It forms when lead oxides combine with oil, a common mixture to help paint dry, used by later artists like Rembrandt. But the presence of plumbonacrite in the Mona Lisa is the first time the compound has been detected in an Italian Renaissance painting, suggesting that da Vinci could have pioneered this technique, according to the authors of a recent paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Fewer than 20 of da Vinci's paintings have survived, and the Mona Lisa is by far the most famous, inspiring a 1950s hit song by Nat King Cole and featuring prominently in last year's Glass Onion: a Knives Out Mystery, among other pop culture mentions. The painting is in remarkably good condition given its age, but art conservationists and da Vinci scholars alike are eager to learn as much as possible about the materials the Renaissance master used to create his works.

There have been some recent scientific investigations of da Vinci's works, which revealed that he varied the materials used for his paintings, especially concerning the ground layers applied between the wooden panel surface and the subsequent paint layers. For instance, for his Virgin and Child with St. Anne (c. 1503–1519), he used a typical Italian Renaissance gesso for the ground layer, followed by a lead white priming layer. But for La Belle Ferronniere (c. 1495–1497), da Vinci used an oil-based ground layer made of white and red lead.

Imagine sitting down to a fine-dining meal in which droplets of sauce dynamically move basil leaves and other garnishes around the plate in preprogrammed patterns. Alternatively, you could choose to mix and match droplets to create your own flavor profile. That's the long-term goal of the so-called "Dancing Delicacies" computational food project, which brings together scientists from Monash University’s Exertion Games Lab, Carnegie Mellon University’s Morphing Matter Lab, and Gaudi Labs in Switzerland to explore innovative new ways to turn meals into interactive performance art. Their latest invention is a 3D-printed plate that uses electrical voltage to manipulate liquid droplets, according to a paper published as part of the 2023 Designing Interactive Systems Conference.

“Cooking and eating is more than simply producing a dish and then facilitating energy intake,” co-author Floyd Mueller of Monash told Forbes. “It is about sharing, caring, crafting, slowing down and self-expression, and Dancing Delicacies aims to highlight these virtues at a time when they are often forgotten. The integration of food and computing will transform how we understand both computing and food as not two very different things, but a new frontier that combines the best of both.”

Chefs have been working with this kind of innovation for years via the molecular gastronomy and molecular mixology movements, creating a "Flor de Caco" dessert in which a cocoa bean expands like a flower when exposed to hot chocolate sauce, for instance. Then there was that cocktail (the "Disco Sour") that changed color when blended with citrus, thanks to the incorporation of butterfly pea flower tea, which is a pH-sensitive ingredient. On the technology side, in 2014, MIT's Media Matters Lab experimented with a shape-changing fork that inflated depending on how fast a person ate. Another fork design was outfitted with electronics, in which an LED changed from red to green when users touched a food item with a conductive element, indicating how much water was in the food.