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Millions of social security recipients are about to receive retroactive payments, as well as get a permanent hike in their monthly check.The increase in social security payments is due to the Social Security Fairness Act, signed into law by President Biden. According to the Social Security Administration (SSA), about 3.2 million recipients who previously only received partial payments will be impacted. The SSA made the announcement in a press release on Tuesday. The Social Security Fairness Act, which Biden signed in December shortly before leaving office, eliminated two major policies which reduced social security payments for millions: the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO). Both policies barred employees with a public pension from collecting their full benefits under the federal retirement program and reduced survivor benefits for family members. The former administration previously said that it could take up to a year for the payments to go out. However, Tuesday’s announcement explained that the retroactive payments, which should include any funds due after January 2024, will now be expedited.Social Securitys aggressive schedule to start issuing retroactive payments in February and increase monthly benefit payments beginning in April supports President Trumps priority to implement the Social Security Fairness Act as quickly as possible, said Lee Dudek, Acting Commissioner of Social Security, in the press release. The agencys original estimate of taking a year or more now will only apply to complex cases that cannot be processed by automation. The American people deserve to get their due benefits as quickly as possible. The press release explained that recipients impacted will include “some teachers, firefighters, and police officers in many states; federal employees covered by the Civil Service Retirement System; and people whose work had been covered by a foreign social security system.”“Most people will receive their one-time retroactive payment by the end of March, which will be deposited into their bank account on record with Social Security,” the release explained, noting that monthly increases, which will vary from person to person, should begin in April.A recent study on how COVID impacted social security pointed to a $205 billion increase in the nation’s social security fund. An extra 1.7 million deaths related to the pandemic meant that costs to the program were greatly reduced when people who had paid into the program prematurely passed, and therefore stopped collecting benefits. The Trump Administration did not point to the surplus as an explanation for expediting payments.
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E-Commerce
Meta Quest 3 users will now be able to explore detailed 3D scans of sculptures, rock formations, plant life, and other interesting objects from around the world.The 3D images, which users can virtually zoom in on or walk around, are part of a new app from Pokémon Go-maker Niantic called Into the Scaniverse. Last year, the company released the latest version of a smartphone Scaniverse app letting users create detailed images of public scenes or objects within their phones, with the ability to add public images to a shared map.Already, the map includes more than 50,000 3D scenes, including renderings of Stonehenge, ancient ruins in Europe, Japanese temples, and even a shrine to Elvis Presley, all captured with the Scaniverse app or through Niantic games like Ingress and Pokémon Go. With the new Quest app, users will be able to traverse a map of the world from a virtual hot air balloon, spotting and clicking pins on the map to explore in stereo 3D vision the sights that were scanned there.Our goal is really to get a large collection of high-quality scans that folks can visit around the world, says Brian McClendon, senior vice president of engineering at Niantic. You can walk up to it and look up at it, and you get a sense of scale of these objects that sometimes photos dont do justice.[Image: Ninantic]Making the scans, created using a mathematical modeling technique called the Gaussian splat, available through virtual reality will hopefully also incentivize more users to go out and scan and share the world around them, similar to how the rise of Instagram motivated people to take and share photos, he says. The scanning process generally takes only a few minutes, and users can view their own scans on their phones or Quest headsets before deciding whether to share them to the public map.This allows you to experiment with locations and try things out, and once you have what you like, you can then choose to publish to the map or not, says McClendon. The scan library is currently growing rapidly, with more than 11,000 published since December. Users on Niantic forums and in meetups also share tips on how to capture the best scans. McClendon, who is based in Arizona, has uploaded some scans of cactus and other desert foliage that not everyone sees in person, and hes hopeful that users continue to increase their coverage of the planet. [Animation: Ninantic]Though the scans might be most impressive in virtual reality, its not necessary to have a Quest to experience them, with the 3D images also accessible in the Scaniverse iPhone and Android apps or through the web. Scans taken with Niantics software and shared publicly are also available for developers to use in Niantic Studio, the companys tool for building XR and 3D games and experiences. Users also share some of their favorite scans through social media like X, Theads, and Bluesky. But McClendon anticipates that the Quest apps map view will lead to a new wave of discovery as people explore spots near them or places theyve visited in the past.[Image: Ninantic]The app can even be used to help plan vacations, with people exploring potential sites before they travel, McClendon suggests. And ideally, when they arrive, theyll be inspired to contribute more scans to the public collection.The real goal is to motivate more people to create more scans, McClendon says.
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E-Commerce
Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos announced Wednesday that the newspaper’s Opinions section would now essentially become a mouthpiece for his own beliefs on personal and economic freedoms. In response to this shift, opinion editor David Shipley decided to step away from his role. In an announcement shared to the Post staff and online via X, Bezos wrote that the section would now publish opinion pieces in support and defense of personal liberties and free markets. The billionaire Amazon founder added that the Post will no longer publish op-eds opposing those viewpoints, saying that newspapers in the internet era need not reflect diverse opinions. There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the readers doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views, Bezos wrote. Today, the internet does that job. Reactions range from critical to baffled But journalists, including those on the Posts staff, are already expressing criticism and bewilderment over this change. Bezos reportedly offered Shipley the opportunity to lead this reimagined Opinions section, and Shipley instead chose to leave his position. Jeff Stein, a reporter for the Post, called Bezoss new direction a massive encroachment in an X post, adding that Bezos makes clear dissenting views will not be published or tolerated. He further threatened to quit if “Bezos tries interfering with the news side.” Ostensibly responding to the news, Philip Bump, a columnist at the paper, posted on Bluesky: “what the actual fuck.” NBC news editor Ben Goggin wrote that he thinks Bezos is using the Post as a personal mouthpiece. And Matthew Chapman, a reporter with progressive news site Raw Story, wrote that it appears the paper must take sides in favor of policy that makes Jeff Bezos rich. The Post has not yet responded to Fast Companys request for comment. Heavy meddle Bezos promised editorial independence when he acquired the D.C.-based outlet in 2013. In a meeting with reporters at the time, he had said that he would defer to the editorial boards positions, saying: I dont feel the need to have an opinion on every issue. But recently, the billionaire has started to meddle with the papers output. During the 2024 election, Bezos reportedly made the decision to kill an already-written endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. He framed it as a decision to end all Washington Post presidential endorsements. The paper reportedly lost a quarter million subscribers after this announcement. And in January, cartoonist Ann Telnaes quit the Post after the paper rejected publishing her political cartoon that depicted Bezos, among other billionaires, worshiping at the feet of President Trump and holding a money bag. A correspondent for left-leaning magazine The Nation wrote online that Bezos could have made his 250-plus-word announcement about the Opinions section change much shorter: The Opinions section will now be my opinions only, but written by others because I am a shit writer. Who wants to be my new sock puppet?
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E-Commerce
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