The Campfire

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Microsoft Is Making a Hail Mary Bid to Close Its Activision Acquisition

Tech giant Microsoft’s acquisition of video game company Activision Blizzard continues to be a headache. After facing some back-and-forth over antitrust concerns with the Federal Trade Commission, Microsoft is now selling the rights to Activision’s cloud gaming services to video game publisher Ubisoft in a bid to…

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Netflix is going to let DVD.com subscribers keep any unreturned discs

Netflix’s logo on a black and yellow background

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Netflix won’t charge DVD.com customers for any discs they still have after September 29th, the company announced from its DVD.com account on X on Monday. That generous offer, combined with Netflix’s recent announcement that it may send customers as many as 10 extra discs from their queues, means that some people might end up with a bunch of disc copies of movies, courtesy of Netflix.

DVD.com customers will need to visit a special link on DVD.com by August 29th to apply for the promotional offer. Netflix will then send up to 10 random discs based on the movies in the subscriber’s queue.

By the way, a happy clarification in response to all the news headlines out there:

We are not charging for any unreturned discs after 9/29. Please enjoy...

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Frozen's Story Will Continue In a New Podcast

It’s been a long time since Frozen 2, and it’s going to be an even longer time still until Disney is able to do anything about its plans for a third entry in the series. So... why not podcasts?

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SEC fines fintech crypto fund that promised 2,700% returns

Titan Global Capital Management to pay $1m to those it advised without admitting fault

A New York fintech biz is set to pay $1 million in fines under a US Securities and Exchange Commission order that claims it advertised "annualized" returns on Titan Crypto of up to 2,700 percent, a number based on a "purely hypothetical account."…

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Watch Live: India to Make Robot Moon Landing After Its Last One Crashed

The Chandrayaan-3 mission will attempt to land on the lunar surface on Wednesday morning, and would be the country's first successful moon landing.

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A new Atari 2600 will play your old cartridges

A picture of the Atari 2600 Plus on a gray background with a 10-in-1 game cartridge in the system and a CX40 Plus joystick controller to its left.

The Atari 2600 Plus. | Image: Atari

Atari has announced it’s relaunching its most well-known console as the Atari 2600 Plus on November 17th for $129.99, with preorders open now. It’s a fully functioning, 80 percent scale, HDMI-outputting version of the console that comes with a 10-in-1 game cartridge. Atari says it even supports both 2600 and later 7800 game cartridges and will work with the original joystick and paddle controllers.

Aside from being a little smaller and gaining HDMI and USB-C ports, the 2600 Plus is mostly unchanged. The front bears a strip of wood paneling with a light-up Atari logo, while four toggle switches flank its cartridge slot. Atari says the cartridge socket is a little bigger to help with sticking cartridges. On the back by the HDMI and USB-C...

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‘Horrendous’: Nicky Campbell tells inquiry of abuse at Edinburgh Academy

Broadcaster tells Scottish child abuse inquiry he is ‘haunted’ by memories of assaults at private school

The broadcaster Nicky Campbell has described a culture of anticipated violence, normalised sexual assault and relentless physical abuse at Edinburgh Academy during two hours of searing and emotional testimony to the Scottish child abuse inquiry.

Coming close to tears on a number of occasions, Campbell, now 62, who was a day pupil at the prestigious private school from the ages of five to 17, told the inquiry of the “horrendous knock-on effect” on his life of the abuses he experienced and witnessed happening to other children.

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Cases of flesh-eating invasive strep A bacteria surge in Australian children

Medical journal reports alarming rise in cases over two years with some patients experiencing toxic shock, amputation and flesh-eating, necrotising disease

It took just two days for one-year-old Jordan Sutherland to go from experiencing clinginess and a slight temperature to being in intensive care after surgery to remove flesh-eating bacteria from his neck, which had “swollen from ear to ear”, his mother recalls.

Jordan would not leave the Royal Children’s hospital in Melbourne for almost five weeks, after an infection with the common strep A bacteria developed into a disease known as “invasive strep A”.

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Full of beans: scientists use processed coffee grounds to make stronger concrete

Australian engineers say they can make concrete nearly 30% stronger by incorporating processed coffee grounds into the material

In an idea that fittingly arose over a cup of coffee, researchers have devised a technique to recycle used coffee grounds to make stronger concrete.

Engineers at RMIT University say they have developed a way to make concrete nearly 30% stronger by incorporating processed coffee grounds into the material.

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Tropical Storm Harold to bring heavy rain and flooding to south Texas

About 1.3 million people under tropical storm warning as Governor Greg Abbott deploys state’s national guard

Parts of Texas were preparing for a tropical storm Tuesday as California cleaned up after the historic storm system Hilary slammed that state’s southern region.

Tropical Storm Harold is expected to move inland over south Texas by midday Tuesday, threatening to bring heavy rain and flooding to the region, according to an update from the National Hurricane Center.

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One in 10 students are falling behind on literacy and numeracy, revamped Naplan finds

NSW had the best results while more than 30% of students in the Northern Territory failed to meet proficiency standards

One in 10 students are not meeting Naplan standards in literacy and numeracy and students with high levels of socioeconomic disadvantage are even less likely to be keeping up.

This year’s Naplan test was the first held entirely online in term one, not term two, with tougher proficiency levels and a new measurement scale.

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Australia to spend less on age pension despite doubling of retirees, intergenerational report shows

Australia on track for pension payments to shrink from 2.3% of GDP to 2% by 2062-63 as superannuation balances balloon

Australia is projected to spend proportionately less on the age pension thanks to superannuation despite a projected doubling of people aged 65 and older, the intergenerational report will show.

The report, set to be released in full on Thursday, is also expected to show a substantial change in Australia’s tax base over four decades, including a dramatic reduction in fuel excise as motorists increasingly opt for electric vehicles.

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Vaping found to be the biggest risk factor for teenage tobacco smoking

Data from Australian Secondary School Students Alcohol and Drug Survey predates ‘huge’ increase in vaping

E-cigarette use is the single strongest risk factor for adolescents taking up tobacco smoking, out-ranking social norms, poor mental health and misperceptions about smoking harms, research published on Wednesday has found.

The findings come from 4,266 Victorian students aged 12 to 17 who anonymously took part in the 2017 Australian Secondary School Students Alcohol and Drug Survey (Assad), with researchers then focusing on 3,410 students who reported never having smoked even part of a cigarette.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

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Athens offers more support as Zelenskiy takes high-speed tour of Europe

Ukrainian president also meets leaders of Serbia and Croatia in bid to broaden support base

Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s high-speed tour of Europe’s smaller countries continued in Athens on Tuesday, where he obtained further military and diplomatic support after securing a long-awaited commitment to receive F-16s at the weekend.

The Ukrainian president met Serbia’s president and Croatia’s prime minister at a Balkans summit in the Greek capital, while a day earlier Greece’s prime minister had said his country would help train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 jets.

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Investment in new Australian wind and solar farms stalls amid ‘raft of barriers’, report finds

First half of year had slowest pace of final approvals in Clean Energy Council’s six years of tracking, but backing for power storage was more promising

Investment in new wind and solar farms has all but stalled with developers facing a “raft of barriers” despite strong political support, the Clean Energy Council said in its latest quarterly report.

The first half of 2023 produced the slowest pace of final investment approvals in the council’s six years of data tracking. Just four generation projects accounting for 348 megawatts – or roughly the size of a single coal-fired power station unit – secured financial commitment in the June quarter.

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Brilliant’s new smart home controller makes it easier to put a touchscreen on your wall

The new plug-in version of Brilliant’s wired smart switch is simpler to install and just as easy to use. But still-limited integrations keep it from being truly brilliant.

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The Amazfit GTR 4 has dropped to its best price of the year

Alexa screen on the Amazfit GTR 4 displaying the time and the phrase “Hope you’ve had a good Thursday.”

The Amazfit GTR 4 is our favorite budget-friendly wearable. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The fall semester is officially kicking off in much of the country, so if you haven’t started preparing for the year ahead, it’s wise to start now. Thankfully, the Amazfit GTR 4 — which is one of our top back-to-school guide picks — has returned to its 2023 all-time low price of $169.99 ($30 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target.

As they say, health is wealth, but when schoolwork and deadlines take over, it’s far too easy to neglect it. That’s where the Amazfit GTR 4 comes in handy. Along with being relatively affordable, the wearable makes it incredibly easy to keep tabs on the basics like sleep, fitness, and even stress levels. One of the best things about it is that it’s platform-agnostic, so it won’t lock you into just one ecosystem...

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Lauryn Hill announces 25th anniversary tour for solo album

The singer will celebrate The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill with a global 17-date tour that will also include Fugees members in the US and Canada

Lauryn Hill is set to embark on a global tour to celebrate the 25th anniversary of her acclaimed solo album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.

The singer and rapper will perform the entirety of her Grammy-winning album across 17 dates in the US and Canada as well as in Australia and New Zealand. She will also be reunited by fellow Fugees members for her dates in the US and Canada.

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Instagram's Adding a Chronological Feed for Stories and Reels in Europe

Meta announced it is implementing new “transparency measures” on Instagram and Facebook on Tuesday in response to the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) which requires Meta to comply by August 25. The measures will reportedly include archiving all targeted ads for users in the EU in its existing Ad Library…

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Barcelona community resource named world’s best new public library

Gabriel García Márquez library in working-class district specialises in Latin American literature

A Barcelona library specialising in Latin American literature has been named the best new public library in the world by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions at its congress in Rotterdam.

The library, named after the Nobel-winning Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez, opened last year in the working-class neighbourhood of Sant Martí de Provençals.

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Forza Motorsport on PC includes DLSS, FSR 2, and DirectStorage support

An image showing two cars on a racetrack in Forza Motorsport

Image: Xbox

Microsoft has shared the minimum PC specs you’ll need to play Forza Motorsport when it’s released on October 10th.While it looks like it’ll be playable across a range of PCs (in addition to Xbox Series X / S consoles), you’ll still need some high-end specs if you want to play the game on ultra settings.

Forza Motorsport can run at native resolutions up to 4K “and beyond,” as it also supports ultrawide resolutions. The game lets you leverage Nvidia’s DLSS 2 and AMD’s FSR 2.2 upscaling technologies. But if you’re looking for DLSS 3 support (or DLSS 3.5, now), a blog post says, “We will continue to optimize and improve Forza Motorsport on PC after launch.”

Additionally, it offers shader pre-compilation and pre-caching that should mitigate...

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First defendant in Georgia election subversion probe booked in Fulton county jail

Scott Hall is the first of 19 defendants in the case to voluntarily surrender himself to authorities

The first defendant in the Georgia election subversion case against Donald Trump and 18 others has been booked in the Fulton county jail, according to its online database.

Scott Hall, an Atlanta-area bail bondsman, was booked at the Rice Street jail on Tuesday, where he is expected to undergo fingerprinting, submit personal information and potentially take a mugshot.

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CEO Zooms through the bad news on Q2 earnings call

Alienating FOSS community and some employees? Web-based collaboration biz delights shareholders

In between upsetting some in the open source community and its own workforce, Zoom managed to crank out a set of financials that show it might be more than just a web conferencing flash in the pan.…

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