on the water photography has added a photo to the pool:

The bridge shown in the image is the Murasaki River Bridge (commonly known as the "Iron Bridge" or Tetsu no Hashi / 紫川橋). It was completed in December 1998.

Key Facts About the Bridge
Location: Spanning the Murasaki River in Kokurakita-ku, Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan.

Design Motif: It is one of the famed "Ten Bridges of the Murasaki River" (Murasakigawa 10 Kyo), each built around a distinct environmental theme. This specific bridge incorporates the motif of "Iron" to reflect Kitakyushu's identity as a historic manufacturing and steel-producing city.

History: It was built to replace an older, deteriorating structure previously known as the "Army Bridge" (Rikugun-bashi), which relied on nine piers that obstructed the river. The modern steel-arch design entirely eliminated the need for river-bed pillars, drastically improving regional flood control and water flow.

Google has integrated its Nano Banana 2 image generator into Google Earth, allowing users to place AI-generated events and objects onto real satellite imagery. The company says its AI-generated images contain invisible watermarks detectable through Gemini or Lens, but the BBC found those safeguards and some third-party detection tools can be fooled into labeling manipulated Google Earth images as real. From the report: A collapsed Eiffel Tower, a sinkhole swallowing the Great Pyramid of Giza and Russian tanks in Ukraine's capital were among the images BBC Verify was able to create when testing the feature, which was rolled out on Thursday. Google has not yet responded to questions based on BBC Verify's tests, but in a social media post the company said they "take misinformation seriously" and that "we prevent image creation on harmful topics and are continually updating our protections."

AI and misinformation expert Henk van Ess has highlighted the risks this feature poses, creating fake images of a non-existent nuclear power plant in Iran, a refugee camp on the US-Mexico border and a fake hospital in Gaza with a bomb crater next to it. He said Google was allowing "invented" imagery to be "welded to genuine coordinates, drawn on genuine imagery." "The forgery does not have to look convincing on its own. It inherits the credibility of the map it was born on," van Ess added.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

• Super League: Leigh 8-20 Wigan

• Wigan move up to second within two points of Leeds

There are moments in Super League seasons, marathons as they are, which can often prove to be sliding doors occasions for both teams involved. And as the full-time hooter sounded in Leigh and Wigan celebrated another statement win with their travelling support, it was not difficult to imagine how one particular moment from this derby could swing the seasons of both teams.

For nearly 40 minutes, Leigh had done something no team had managed to do to Wigan for quite some time: make them appear second best. The Warriors, on a run of nine consecutive wins which began with their Challenge Cup triumph at Wembley in May, had been completely outplayed by their local rivals and even their own coach admitted they were lucky to be only 8-0 behind.

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With Republicans' chances in the midterms looking shaky, Donald Trump is increasingly trying to rewrite the rules that govern US elections. Voting rights groups say he's really laying the groundwork to suppress voters. Trump has already moved to change mail-in voting, but he now wants Congress to pass the Save America Act, which includes strict voter ID restrictions. He's also accused China of interfering in the 2020 election. (Trump didn't back up that claim with evidence.) Host Kai Wright speaks with Garrett Epps, legal affairs editor at Washington Monthly, about the threat to US elections and what voters can do to protect them.

• Read Garrett Epps' story in Washington Monthly

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The Squid is a new scientific machine:

One of the technological breakthroughs was the onboard use of a spinning wheel confocal microscope, nicknamed the Squid, which uses lasers to scan microscopic details of how organisms are put together. “That opens up a whole new world of exploring. We could see cells interacting with each other, exchanging material and building skeletons. And we could do that live on the ship, when usually it takes a couple of weeks of staining and mounting to see anything,” Osborn said.

The expedition discovered thirty-one new marine species in two weeks. The article doesn’t say if any of them were new species of squid.

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.

Blog moderation policy.

KYIV (ANP/AFP) - Duizenden mensen hebben vrijdag weer gedemonstreerd in de Oekraïense hoofdstad Kyiv. Ze eisen dat oud-defensieminister Mychajlo Fedorov weer wordt aangesteld. Hij is erg populair in het land, onder meer omdat hij vroeg in de oorlog tegen Rusland het gebruik van drones heeft omarmd.

Fedorov werd twee weken geleden ontslagen, na een conflict met topmilitair Oleksandr Syrsky. Dat leidde tot een golf van protesten. Demonstranten eisten dat juist Syrsky zou worden vervangen. Dat is inmiddels gebeurd.

Duizenden mensen scandeerden de naam van Fedorov en riepen "breng hem terug!". President Volodymyr Zelensky zei vorige week dat hij de populaire oud-minister meerdere functies heeft aangeboden om voor de regering te blijven werken. Fedorov heeft herhaaldelijk aangegeven alleen als minister van Defensie in de regering terug te willen keren.

NEW YORK (ANP/BLOOMBERG) - Apple heeft vrijdag honderden miljarden dollars aan beurswaarde verloren. Beleggers straften de iPhone-maker voor een tegenvallende prognose, hoewel het concern in het laatste volledige kwartaal van topman Tim Cook wel een hogere omzet en winst in de boeken zette. Amazon werd daarentegen meer dan 15 procent hoger gezet en kende zijn beste dag op Wall Street in jaren.

Het aandeel Apple kelderde ruim 7 procent. Kenners denken dat de tegenvallende prognose aantoont dat Apple moeite heeft om voldoende onderdelen te bemachtigen, nu de door kunstmatige intelligentie gedreven boom in datacenters de wereldwijde toeleveringsketens onder druk zet. Tim Cook, die per 1 september wordt opgevolgd door John Ternus, noemde de tekorten van onderdelen "zeer significant". Hij zei dat Apple weinig mogelijkheden heeft om dit op te lossen.

Amazon wist beleggers wel tevreden te stellen. Vooral de clouddivisie van het tech- en webwinkelconcern blijft sterk groeien door de grote vraag naar rekenkracht die nodig is voor AI. Het optimisme over de cijfers van Amazon trok een brede groep bedrijven mee die profiteren van de opmars van AI. Zo won chipconcern Nvidia bijna 3 procent. De vrees dat alle verwachtingen rond AI overtrokken zijn, verdween verder naar de achtergrond.

AI-gerelateerde aandelen

Het algehele sentiment op Wall Street was eveneens positief. De Dow-Jonesindex sloot 0,5 procent hoger op 52.485,03 punten. De brede S&P 500-index steeg 0,7 procent, tot 7489,72 punten, en techgraadmeter Nasdaq kreeg er 1 procent bij op 25.373,86 punten. De olieprijzen gingen verder ruim 1 procent omhoog.

Ondanks het sterke herstel in de tech- en chipsector deze week noteerden de Amerikaanse beurzen wel een maandverlies door de grote uitverkoop van AI-gerelateerde aandelen in juli. De Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, de belangrijke graadmeter voor chipaandelen, is in juli zelfs zo'n 20 procent gezakt. Dat is de grootste maandelijkse daling sinds de financiële crisis van 2008.

Apple was niet de enige grote verliezer op de beurs. Internetplatform Reddit ging 21 procent onderuit. Het socialemediabedrijf maakte bij zijn kwartaalcijfers geen nieuwe licentieovereenkomsten voor data bekend, wat beleggers teleurstelde. De advertentietak is nog steeds de belangrijkste bron van inkomsten voor Reddit, maar beleggers hopen dat de inkomstenmix verschuift naar datadeals voor het trainen van AI.

On Friday, May 10th, 1940, Germany invaded Belgium. On May 28th, the Belgian Army surrendered. François Stevens, an artilleryman, kept a short but intense war diary chronicling the retreat and his return home, which has been digitized and attractively presented. Available in Dutch, French, English and German.