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New releases in fiction, nonfiction and comics that caught our attention. The Night Guest by Hildur Knútsdóttir Anyone who lives with a difficult-to-diagnose chronic illness and has endured the demoralizing process of trying to get proper treatment can tell you it is, at times, a living nightmare. Advocating for yourself, fighting to be taken seriously; its something Ive dealt with most of my life as a person with autoimmune diseases. So when I read the description of Hildur Knútsdóttirs psychological horror novel, The Night Guest, it resonated with me immediately: Iunn is in yet another doctor's office. She knows her constant fatigue is a sign that something's not right, but practitioners dismiss her symptoms and blood tests haven't revealed any cause. When she talks to friends and family about it, the refrain is the same have you tried eating better? exercising more? establishing a nighttime routine? She tries to follow their advice, buying everything from vitamins to sleeping pills to a step-counting watch. Nothing helps. Until one night Iunn falls asleep with the watch on, and wakes up to find shes walked over 40,000 steps in the night . . . What is happening when shes asleep? The Night Guest is a short, compelling read that puts an unsettling spin on an issue a lot of people can relate to. I pretty much inhaled it. Is Earth Exceptional? The Quest for Cosmic Life by Mario Livio and Jack Szostak The origin of life and the question of whether it exists elsewhere is a topic I find to be endlessly interesting (as evidenced by how regularly books about it land among these recommendations). In their new book Is Earth Exceptional? The Quest for Cosmic Life, astrophysicist Mario Livio and Nobel Prize winning biologist Jack Szostak examine what we know about the things that make life possible the building blocks of life and explore how they could have emerged on Earth and, hypothetically, elsewhere. At the heart of the mystery is the as yet unanswered question of whether or not life came to be as the result of a freak accident. As the authors write in their introduction, Even with the enormous scientific progress we have witnessed in the past few decades, we still dont know whether life is an extremely rare chemical accident, in which case we may be alone in our galaxy, or a chemical inevitability, which would potentially make us part of a huge galactic ensemble. Into the Unbeing by Zac Thompson, Hayden Sherman In 2034 as imagined by Into the Unbeing, Earth is well past the tipping point of climate change. The planet has been devastated by natural disasters and species have died off in the masses. Looking for anything that can help improve the worlds situation, a team of climate scientists with the Scientific Institute for Nascent Ecology and Worlds (SINEW) ventures out to explore what appears to be an entirely new environment that has popped up out of nowhere near their camp in the Australian outback. But theyre not prepared for what they find. Into the Unbeing is a new gripping science-fiction series that weaes in cosmic horror. The first issue came out at the beginning of the summer, and Part One just wrapped up this week with issue number four. If you were into Scavengers Reign or The Southern Reach Trilogy, youll probably enjoy Into the Unbeing. The art alone will suck you right in.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/what-to-read-this-weekend-the-night-guest-is-earth-exceptional-and-into-the-unbeing-194524310.html?src=rss
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23andMe is close to settling a proposed class action lawsuit filed against the company over a data breach that compromised 6.9 million users' information. According to the preliminary settlement filing, the DNA testing company has agreed to pay $30 million to affected customers, as well as to conduct annual computer scans and cybersecurity audits for three years. A website will be built to notify people eligible to a portion of the settlement fund and to facilitate payments. Affected users will also be sent a link where they can delete all their information from the service, and they'll be able to enroll to a three-year Privacy & Medical Shield + Genetic Monitoring program for free. A judge still has to approve those terms. In October 2023, the company admitted that the DNA Relatives profile information of roughly 5.5 million customers and the Family Tree profile information of 1.4 million DNA Relative participants had been leaked. It later revealed in a legal filing that the bad actors started breaking into customer accounts in late April 2023 and that they had access to its systems until September that year. It said that the hackers used a technique called credential stuffing, which uses previously compromised login credentials to access customer accounts. The breach led to several class action lawsuits filed against the company, including one that accused 23andMe of failing to notify the plaintiffs that they were specifically targeted for having Chinese and Ashkenazi Jewish heritage. In the settlement agreement [PDF] for the consolidated lawsuit, 23andMe noted that it "denies the claims and allegations set forth in the Complaint" and that it "denies that it failed to properly protect the Personal Information of its consumers and users." According to Reuters, 23andMe describes its financial condition as "extremely uncertain." In its financial report for the 2024 fiscal year, it revealed that it earned a total revenue of $220 million, down 27 percent from a $299 million revenue the year before. A huge chunk of the settlement money will come from cyber insurance, though, which the company expects to cover $25 million out of the $30 million total. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/23andme-will-pay-30-million-to-settle-2023-data-breach-lawsuit-150058702.html?src=rss
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After a two-week blackout, ESPN and other Disney-owned channels are back on DirecTV. The Walt Disney Company and DirecTV released a joint statement on Saturday announcing that they are in the process of finalizing a new contract, and that all channels affected by their dispute have been restored. That includes ABC, Freeform, FX and National Geographic channels. Disney yanked its networks off DirecTV at the beginning of September after the two companies failed to reach an agreement before their old contract expired. Inconveniently for sports fans, the blackout coincided with the start of football season. The new multi-year contract brings Disneys full linear suite of networks back to DirecTV, with package options for genre-focused channel bundles (sports, family, etc) and Disneys streaming services Disney+, Hulu an ESPN+. ESPNs upcoming direct-to-consumer service, which is expected to launch this fall, will be included for free. In their statement, Disney and DirecTV said the new deal will give customers the ability to tailor their video experience through more flexible options. They also added, Wed like to thank all affected viewers for their patience and are pleased to restore Disneys entire portfolio of networks in time for college football and the Emmy Awards this weekend. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/espn-and-other-channels-return-to-directv-as-it-finally-reaches-a-deal-with-disney-144938541.html?src=rss
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