Tag Archives: animals and society

Technology

In Japan, pet fish playing Nintendo Switch run up bill on owner’s credit card

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CNN
 — 

Here’s something you don’t see everyday. Pet fish playing a video game in Japan managed to log on to the Nintendo Switch store, change their owner’s avatar, set up a Pay Pal account and rack up a credit card bill.

And it was all seemingly livestreamed, in real time, on the internet.

The fish in question belong to a YouTuber known as Mutekimaru, whose channel is popular with the gaming community for its videos featuring groups of tetra fish that “play” video games.

Mutekimaru had previously installed sophisticated motion detection tracking software in fish tanks, enabling the fish to remotely control a Nintendo Switch console.

But the technology, and the fishes’ apparent mastery of it, led to an unexpected turn of events earlier this month while Mutekimaru was live-streaming a game of Pokémon.

Mutekimaru had stepped away for a break when the game crashed due to a system error and the console returned to the home screen.

But the fish carried on swimming, like fish tend to do, and seemingly continued to control the console remotely from their tank.

During the next seven hours, the fish reportedly managed to change the name of their owner’s Switch account before twice logging into the Nintendo store, where users can purchase games and other downloadable content.

They also managed to “check” legal terms and conditions, downloaded a new avatar and even set up a PayPal account from the Switch – sending an email out to their owner in the process, video from the livestream appeared to show.

But things didn’t end there. The fish were also seen adding 500 yen ($4) to Mutekimaru’s Switch account from his credit card during the livestream – exposing his credit card details in the process, the YouTuber revealed in a follow-up video about the episode.

By this point, thousands of comments were streaming in as viewers watched the unintended takeover being livestreamed on the channel, and the incident went viral on Twitter, where thousands of Japanese users shared their amusement.

Mutekimaru later said that he had contacted Nintendo to explain what happened and asked for a refund of his 500 yen.

Nintendo declined to comment to CNN, citing customer confidentiality.



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Business

Jack Ma to relinquish control of Ant group

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CNN
 — 

Chinese billionaire Jack Ma will no longer control Ant Group after the fintech giant’s shareholders agreed to reshape its shareholding structure, according to a statement released by the company on Saturday.

After the adjustment, Ma’s voting rights will fall to 6.2%, according to the statement and CNN calculations.

Before the restructure, Ma held 50.52% of voting rights at Ant via Hangzhou Yunbo and two other entities, according to its IPO prospectus filed with stock exchanges in 2020.

Ant added in the statement that the voting rights adjustment, a move to make the company’s shareholder structure “more transparent and diversified,” will not result in any change to the economic interests of any shareholders.

Ant said its 10 major shareholders, including Ma, had agreed to no longer act in concert when exercising their voting rights, and would only vote independently, and thus no shareholder would have “sole or joint control over Ant Group.”

The voting rights overhaul came after Chinese regulators pulled the plug on Ant’s $37 billion IPO in November 2020, and ordered the company to restructure its business.

As part of the company’s restructuring, Ant’s consumer finance unit applied for an expansion of its registered capital from $1.2 billion to $2.7 billion. The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission recently approved the application, according to a government notice issued late last week.

After the fund-raising drive, Ant will control half of its key consumer finance unit, while an entity controlled by the Hangzhou city government will own a 10% stake. Hangzhou is where Alibaba and Ant have been headquartered since their inceptions.

Ant Group is a fintech affiliate of Alibaba, both of which were founded by Ma.

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US

Grizzy bear attack: College wrestlers from Wyoming mauled in gruesome attack

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CNN
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A group of college wrestlers from Wyoming faced their toughest opponent yet over the weekend.

Kendell Cummings and Brady Lowry – wrestling teammates at Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming – were mauled by a grizzly bear Saturday while antler hunting.

The young men were released from a Billings, Montana hospital this week convinced “someone out there is looking out for me and Kendell,” Lowry told CNN affiliate KSL.

Lowry was the first one the grizzly attacked, he told CNN.

While making his way back to his car alongside Cummings, Lowry said he noticed bear marks on the ground. Just as he began to point them out to his friend, he “started hearing crashing coming through the tree.”

Lowry said he only had time to yell “Bear! Bear!” before the grizzly tackled him, causing him to fall about five feet off a small ledge.

“It started chomping on me pretty good. It got a hold of my left arm, it was shaking me around, broke my left arm.”

Cummings tried to get the bear’s attention by yelling and throwing things at it and when that didn’t work “he jumped down and grabbed the bear … and yanked it off me.”

Then the bear came for Cummings.

Cummings told KSL the bear “tackled me, chewed me up a bit.”

The bear wandered off and Cummings yelled for Lowry, according to KSL. But before he heard a response, the bear came back for round two, this time biting Cummings on the head and cheek, the KSL report said.

Lowry said he ran up the mountain to call 911, and after reaching emergency responders happened to look down and see August Harrison and Orrin Jackson – two other teammates he and Cummings had separated from during the hike.

The three connected with each other and Harrison continued back up the mountain to find Cummings.

Harrison said he found Cummings “limping down the mountain, drenched in blood.”

“(Cummings) asked me how he looked and I said, ‘You look great, we’ve gotta go!’”

The group took turns carrying Cummings – who suffered the worst injuries – back toward the trailhead. They said they walked about a mile before they were picked up by farmers, and eventually, emergency responders.

Lowry and Cummings are expected to make a full recovery – a reality that Lowry attributes to the bond between his teammates.

“We become best friends going to hell and back with each other. Seeing someone sweat and bleed … coach teaches us that. You aren’t going to leave a brother behind,” he said.

According to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD), there’s been an “abundance of bear activity at low elevations” throughout the national forest.

“In the vicinity where the attack occurred, reports from landowners and hunters indicate there may be six to 10 different bears moving between agricultural fields and low elevation slopes,” Dan Smith, Cody Region wildlife supervisor, said in a news release.

Smith said WGFD will work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to monitor bear activity in the area to “make management decisions in the best interest of public safety.”

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