Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Japan Bitcoin Industry Co., Ltd. has debuted a self-custodial Bitcoin payments platform designed to help Japanese companies sell to international fans who are often shut out by traditional payment systems. Using this week’s Bitcoin Asia conference in Hong Kong to introduce the product, JPI dropped Aurora — aiming to reach an audience that could not be serviced before.  The pitch is simple: anime, manga, games, and other Japanese content have a massive global following, but the payment rails supporting that content haven’t kept pace.  香港で開催中のbitcoinasiaに当社取締役の加藤( @btc_dakara ) が登壇します。ビットコインとステーブルコインの関係について登壇者の方々とお話しいたします。 https://t.co/8e1aKAvjgv— 日本ビットコイン産業株式会社 (@JBIinc_bitcoin) August 27, 2026 Aurora aims to close that gap…

Landslides in the United States cause billions of dollars of damage and can take dozens of lives each year. In Appalachia, a hotspot of landslides, that hazard is exacerbated by poverty, new research shows. A new study, published July 29 in Earth’s Future, is one of the first to break down the socioeconomics of who lives with landslides in the United States. The researchers found that people living where landslides are most likely to occur are those who are least able to afford to move or to mitigate that risk. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week’s scientific breakthroughs…

The government estimates that 20% of waste in England is illegally managed. In the Waste Crime Action Plan, external, launched under Keir Starmer’s administration, the government said the Environment Agency would step in “on an exceptional basis to clear sites where that waste presents an untenable risk to the public and the environment”.Private landowners whose land is used for illegal waste dumping are normally expected to pay for the clear-up.Last week, Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced a nationwide crackdown on waste crime and plans to clean up three more of the largest illegal tips in England.In total, six supersites have…

The United States has bet the farm on artificial intelligence across the board, from industry to finance to government policy. But the combination of a China shock and multiple cases of AIs gone rogue, set against the backdrop of a growing populist backlash, have forced a moment of truth that calls into question the foundational assumptions guiding U.S. development and regulation of AI. The July release of Chinese start-up Moonshot’s Kimi K3 open-weight model, which proved nearly as capable as closed U.S. frontier models, stunned the American AI industry, which has largely ignored open models in favor of closed ones.…

President Donald Trump said Thursday he is renaming Lake Ontario to be known as “Lake America” in the United States as he escalates his trade war with Canada. The Republican president signed an executive order directing the Interior Department to update the lake’s name in the US geographic naming service. Trump cannot force Canada to follow his preferred naming convention, however. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney pushed back against Trump’s order, citing the name’s Indigenous origins, as the row between the neighbors roiled on. “We know that America is changing. Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their…

A massive influx of jellyfish has led to the partial shutdown of a nuclear reactor in northern France.Two of Gravelines nuclear power station’s six units were shut down on Wednesday and Thursday because of the presence of jellyfish in the seawater filtration system, which is used for cooling, Électricité de France (EDF) said.A third unit has been shut down since 10 August due to the same issue, while a fourth has been closed for an inspection.Gravelines, one of the country’s biggest nuclear power stations located between Dunkirk and Calais in the Hauts-de-France region, was also closed last August because of…

The UK government expects the Instagram owner Meta to roll out the same protections for children in Britain as those it agreed in the US on Wednesday, as part of a court settlement that could cost the company up to $18bn (£13bn).Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary, said on Thursday he did not want young people in the US to have “a higher rate of protection” than those in Britain, after Meta settled a lawsuit brought by dozens of US states accusing the company of harming children with dangerous products.As well as the payouts, Meta agreed to a default…

Three journalists at the federally funded but independent Stars and Stripes news organization sued the government on Thursday, claiming that the Pentagon fired them in retaliation for writing about the worsening conditions inside a Navy aircraft carrier deployed to the Middle East.The journalists accused the government of violating their First Amendment right to free speech, asking the U.S. District Court in Washington to reject their terminations as well as new Pentagon policies that they say severely limit the editorial independence of their work.The lawsuit is the latest in a streak of public pushbacks against the Pentagon’s efforts to exert control…

Javier Rodriguez Sr is convinced that Donald Trump has a master plan. “A lot of people don’t understand what he’s trying to do with us,” said Rodriguez, who was born in Puerto Rico. He voted for the Republican candidate twice and said he would do it again if Trump could run for a third term.Trump visited his barbershop in the south-eastern Bronx on the final stretch of his 2024 campaign. “You guys are the same as me,” Trump, a tough-talking New Yorker who was born in Queens and made his fortune developing real estate, had told Rodriguez’s barbers wearing “Make…

Don’t rely on default Samsung settings for the best camera experience. Prakhar Khanna/ZDNETFollow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.ZDNET’s key takeawaysThe Galaxy Z Fold 8 has two 50MP cameras.There’s no telephoto camera, but hi-res mode can improve digital zoom shots.Setting the default resolution to 24MP is the sweet spot.The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 isn’t a camera phone per se, but I’ve definitely enjoyed shooting with it. From the streets of London to the parks of New Delhi, I’ve carried it more than any other phone since its launch in July. Sure, it has one less camera than its…