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YouTube beefed up tools for creators on Wednesday as it competes with streaming rivals such as Netflix on the biggest screen in most homes: the television.

The Alphabet-owned video-sharing platform popular on computers, tablets and smartphones has been gaining audiences on televisions as “smart” TVs linked to the internet have become common.

YouTube’s subscription streaming service has also been gaining traction, offering live broadcasting on more than 100 channels, in partnership with existing networks.

“It’s the fastest-growing screen,” YouTube chief Neal Mohan said of televisions at a presentation to content creators in New York. “So, it is a very large surface for all of our creators.”

The new tools include ways to optimize content for display on large screens and offer the content in formats more akin to the TV norm of episodes and seasons.

People worldwide watch more than a billion hours of YouTube video daily on home televisions, Mohan added.

The number of creators who make their livings from YouTube has climbed about 30 percent during the past year, according to the company.

Streaming made “TV history” in July, accounting for 41.4 percent of total television viewing time in the United States, according to Nielsen.

YouTube became the first streaming platform to top a 10-percent share of that TV viewing time, with Netflix second at 8.4 percent, according to Nielsen.

To build on its momentum, YouTube will begin offering a “cinematic” version of creator videos, which will be optimized for viewing on TVs.

YouTube also announced it will enable creators to organize content into episodes or seasons, a move designed to be more familiar to TV audiences.

Televisions let YouTube take advantage of the “binge-watching” phenomenon born of the on-demand content era, allowing viewers to devour episodes in rapid succession for long periods.

TV is also a more traditional way of viewing than smartphones, especially for older audiences accustomed to settling in to watch in their living rooms.

“It’s clear that our living room presence is growing across multiple demographics and ages,” YouTube product management director Thomas Kim said at a roundtable discussion with journalists.

Kim noted that he had heard from creators eager to make more TV-style shows for their audiences.

“We have seen some really great examples of creators who have made episodic content and have been very successful,” Kim said.

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YouTube launches new TV-focused tools for creators (2024, September 19)
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Organic thermoelectric device can harvest energy at room temperature

September 19, 2024

New organic thermoelectric device that can harvest energy at room temperature — This new organic thermoelectric device can convert room temperature heat, which is abundant in living environments and was previously not considered a possible energy source, into usable electrical energy. As no temperature gradient is required, meaning no cooling unit is required, the device can be made compact. Credit: Kyushu University/Chihaya Adachi

Researchers have developed a new organic thermoelectric device that can harvest energy from ambient temperature. While thermoelectric devices have several uses today, hurdles still exist to their full utilization. By combining the unique abilities of organic materials, the team succeeded in developing a framework for thermoelectric power generation at room temperature without any temperature gradient.

Their findings were published in the journal Nature Communications.

Thermoelectric devices, or thermoelectric generators, are a series of energy-generating materials that can convert heat into electricity so long as there is a temperature gradient—where one side of the device is hot and the other side is cool. Such devices have been a significant focus of research and development for their potential utility in harvesting waste heat from other energy-generating methods.

Perhaps the most well-known use of thermoelectric generators is in space probes such as the Mars Curiosity rover or the Voyager probe. These machines are powered by radioisotope thermoelectric generators, where the heat generated from radioactive isotopes provides the temperature gradient for the thermoelectric devices to power their instruments.

However, due to issues including high production cost, use of hazardous materials, low energy efficiency, and the necessity of relatively high temperatures, thermoelectric devices remain underutilized today.

“We were investigating ways to make a thermoelectric device that could harvest energy from ambient temperature. Our lab focuses on the utility and application of organic compounds, and many organic compounds have unique properties where they can easily transfer energy between each other,” explains Professor Chihaya Adachi of Kyushu University’s Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics Research (OPERA) who led the study.

“A good example of the power of organic compounds can be found in OLEDs or organic solar cells.”

The key was to find compounds that work well as charge transfer interfaces, meaning that they can easily transfer electrons between each other. After testing various materials, the team found two viable compounds: copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) and copper hexadecafluoro phthalocyanine (F₁₆CuPc).

“To improve the thermoelectric property of this new interface, we also incorporated fullerenes and BCP,” continues Adachi. “These are known to be good facilitators of electron transport. Adding these compounds together significantly enhanced the device’s power. In the end, we had an optimized device with a 180 nm layer of CuPc, 320 nm of F₁₆CuPc, 20 nm of fullerene, and 20 nm of BCP.”

The optimized device had an open-circuit voltage of 384 mV, a short-circuit current density of 1.1 μA/cm², and a maximum output of 94 nW/cm². Moreover, all these results were achieved at room temperature without the use of a temperature gradient.

“There have been considerable advances in the development of thermoelectric devices, and our new proposed organic device will certainly help move things forward,” concludes Adachi.

“We would like to continue working on this new device and see if we can optimize it further with different materials. We can even likely achieve a higher current density if we increase the device’s area, which is unusual even for organic materials. It just goes to show that organic materials hold amazing potential.”

More information:
Organic Thermoelectric Device Utilizing Charge Transfer Interface as the Charge Generation by Harvesting Thermal Energy, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-52047-5

Provided by
Kyushu University

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Organic thermoelectric device can harvest energy at room temperature (2024, September 19)
retrieved 19 September 2024
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MrBeast named in California lawsuit over ‘Beast Games’ show

September 19, 2024

MrBeast is one of the most successful YouTubers of all time.

YouTuber MrBeast has been named in a lawsuit claiming participants in his $5 million jackpot game show were exploited.

Contestants say they were subjected to unfair treatment and sexual harassment while participating in what has been billed as the world’s biggest live game show.

Papers filed in a Los Angeles court on Monday allege contestants were not paid proper wages, and were not given meal breaks or appropriate rest.

The plaintiffs are identified only as contestants 1-5 in the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit filed against Amazon Alternative LLC and Jimmy Donaldson’s (MrBeast’s) production company, MRB2024 LLC.

The suit seeks payment of all wages owed, an injunction forbidding the labor actions alleged and certification of the suit as a class-action complaint.

“Defendant production companies and Amazon shamelessly exploited the labor of… people who served as contestants on the forthcoming $100 million MrBeast-Amazon production ‘Beast Games,’ which Amazon promotes as the world’s largest live game show with the biggest single prize in the history of television,” the suit states.

The entertainment value of the show “arises directly from the physical and emotional labor of the contestants who compete under pressure-cooker conditions for life-changing prize money, with one person purportedly to win $5 million in the end,” the suit alleges.

There was no immediate response from MrBeast to an AFP inquiry. Amazon declined to comment.

MrBeast is one of the most successful YouTubers of all time, with more than 300 million subscribers.

His output includes contests and challenges with sometimes high value prizes for participants.

As well as an extensive online presence, he has also founded philanthropic ventures.

In 2023, Time magazine named him one of the world’s most influential people.

In the same year, Forbes put his net worth at around half a billion dollars.

Citation:
MrBeast named in California lawsuit over ‘Beast Games’ show (2024, September 19)
retrieved 19 September 2024
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New research re-envisions Earth’s mantle as a relatively uniform reservoir

September 19, 2024

earth mantle — Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Lavas from hotspots—whether erupting in Hawaii, Samoa or Iceland—likely originate from a worldwide, uniform reservoir in Earth’s mantle, according to an evaluation of volcanic hotspots published in Nature Geoscience.

The findings indicate Earth’s mantle is far more chemically homogenous than scientists previously thought—and that lavas only acquire their unique chemical “flavors” enroute to the surface.

“The discovery literally turns our view of hotspot lavas and the mantle upside down,” said Dr. Matthijs Smit, associate professor and Canada Research Chair at the University of British Columbia’s Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences. “In a way, Earth’s lavas are much like humankind itself—a beautifully diverse population with a common ancestor, which developed differently wherever it went.”

Research of Earth’s mantle has been complicated by the fact that it can’t be sampled directly. Scientists instead have to engage in a bit of geoscientific detective work; they study this important part of our planet through trace-element and isotope analysis of lava that comes from the mantle and is erupted at oceanic volcanoes around the world.

The vast differences in composition of these lavas, along with the assumption that the isotope composition of magma doesn’t change between its source and the surface, has led to the general view that the mantle contains distinct reservoirs of different age, located in different regions, and formed by different processes.

The observations made by Dr. Smit and co-author Dr. Kooijman of the Swedish Museum of Natural History’s Department of Geosciences indicate that the reality may be quite different.

“By looking at a specific set of elements, we were able [to] discern the chemical effects of various processes that act on magma melts on their way to the surface to discover that all hotspot lavas actually share the same starting composition,” said Dr. Smit. “The lavas only come out differently because the magmas interact with different types of rocks as they ascend.”

Earth’s mantle is a seething layer of molten and semi-molten material comprising about 84% of the planet’s volume, which lies between the iron core and the surface crust. When magma derived from the mantle penetrates the crust and erupts onto the surface it is called lava.

Knowing what the mantle is made of is central to our understanding of how our planet formed and how the mantle has developed over time. It may also provide clues as to why the mantle behaves the way it does, how it drives plate tectonics, and what its role is in the global cycle of elements.

Besides shedding entirely new light on hotspot lavas in oceanic parts of the world, the analysis also revealed an exciting new link to basaltic lavas on the continents. These melts, which contain diamond-bearing kimberlites, are fundamentally different from magmas found at oceanic hotspots. They nevertheless prove to have the same magma “ancestor.”

“The discovery is a game-changer when it comes to models for Earth’s chemical evolution and how we look at global element cycles,” said Dr. Smit. “Not only is the mantle much more homogeneous than previously thought, it likely also no longer contains ‘primordial reservoirs’—entities that were once needed to explain the data, but could never really be reconciled with the concept of mantle convection.”

“This model explains the observations in a simple way and permits a myriad of new hypotheses for global geochemical research going forward,” said Dr. Kooijman.

More information:
A common precursor for global hotspot lavas, Nature Geoscience (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41561-024-01538-7

Provided by
University of British Columbia

Citation:
New research re-envisions Earth’s mantle as a relatively uniform reservoir (2024, September 19)
retrieved 19 September 2024
from https://phys.org/news/2024-09-envisions-earth-mantle-uniform-reservoir.html

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New mechanism uncovered for the reduction of emu wings

September 19, 2024

.Researchers have uncovered a novel mechanism underlying the skeletal reduction and asymmetry of emu wings. Their research reveals that the absence of distal muscle formation results in a lack of mechanostress during development, leading to the observed bone abnormalities.

This study suggests that variations in embryonic and fetal movement could play a significant role in shaping body parts throughout evolution.

These findings are published in Nature Communications.

The emu is a flightless bird with wings that have undergone significant reduction. Despite this, the precise mechanisms behind the morphological changes in their wings have remained largely unknown. In this study, the research team demonstrated that the skeletal reduction in emu wings is not only characterized by shortening but also by an asymmetric fusion of bones.

They identified that these skeletal abnormalities are caused by a lack of muscle formation in the distal wings, which results in insufficient movement during development—which is required for the shaping the embryonic and fetal skeleton.

Additionally, the study discovered the presence of muscle progenitor cells in emu wings that exhibit a dual identity, combining features of both somite-derived muscle progenitor cells and lateral plate mesoderm cells. These cells undergo cell death during the differentiation into muscle fibers, leading to a failure in muscle formation. The findings suggest that differences in embryonic and fetal movement can significantly influence morphological evolution.

The research team confirmed that the bones of emu wings are not only shortened but also show significant variation in pattern and length between individuals, and even between the left and right wings of the same individual. This distinctive skeletal pattern is linked to the lack of muscle formation at the distal region of their wings, which leads to inadequate mechanical stress during bone development.

This study highlights the crucial role that embryonic and fetal movement plays not only in the elongation of skeletal elements but also in the symmetrical patterning of bones. The findings underscore the significant impact that insufficient embryonic movement, particularly in cases of muscle formation defects like those observed in emus, can have on skeletal evolution. The research suggests that environmental factors influencing embryonic and fetal movement could have far-reaching effects on morphological evolution and diversification.

This research has demonstrated the profound impact that embryonic and fetal movement can have on the evolution of skeletal morphology. Moving forward, the team plans to investigate how variations in embryonic and fetal movement might influence skeletal evolution across vertebrates. This study opens new avenues for understanding the role of environmental factors in shaping the evolution of morphology through their effects on embryonic and fetal movement.

More information:
Immobilization secondary to cell death of muscle precursors with a dual transcriptional signature contributes to the emu wing skeletal pattern, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-52203-x

Provided by
Tokyo Institute of Technology

Citation:
New mechanism uncovered for the reduction of emu wings (2024, September 19)
retrieved 19 September 2024
from https://phys.org/news/2024-09-mechanism-uncovered-reduction-emu-wings.html

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