Tag Archive for: change

Change Healthcare hack by ‘nation-state’ disrupts pharmacies, patients

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A cyberattack blamed on a “nation-state” is wreaking havoc with prescriptions on Long Island and nationwide, leading to some insurance authorizations not going through and some customers being told to wait for refills until the problem is resolved.

Pharmacies that rely exclusively on Change Healthcare to process insurance claims are reeling, said Heather Ferrarese, board chair of the Pharmacists Society of the State of New York.

“For some pharmacies, it’s been completely devastating to their business the past few days,” said Ferrarese, co-owner of Bartle’s Pharmacy in upstate Oxford.

Change, a subsidiary of the giant Minnesota-based UnitedHealth Group, first publicized the problem early Wednesday morning, and since Thursday has been periodically posting messages through fellow UnitedHealth subsidiary Optum that described a “cyber security issue” that “our experts are working to address.”

UnitedHealth said in a filing Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it “cannot estimate the duration or extent of the disruption at this time.”

Optum, with which Change merged in 2022, declined Friday to comment on a timeline.

It’s unclear how many prescriptions are impacted by the outage.

At New Island Pharmacy in Deer Park, about 10% to 20% of customers are affected by the breach, said owner and pharmacist Nidhin Mohan.

Mohan said his pharmacy has two servers that connect insurance companies with his computer system, and with the Change server down, he is using one run by competitor RelayHealth. The problems are with customers whose insurance companies or plans don’t work with Relay, he said.

When he cannot connect with the insurance companies of long-term customers, Mohan asks the customer to wait until the problem is resolved. But for those who can’t wait, he accepts the patient’s copay, which he determines from previous transactions. After Change’s systems are back online, he will seek reimbursement for the rest of the drug cost from insurance companies.

“I’m hoping that once everything is settled, I can run it through and get my money back,” he said.

“If you are using a private pharmacy, if you’re using a small mom-and-pop, this works, but if…

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Jet stream will get faster as climate change continues, study finds

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Jet stream will get faster as climate change continues, study finds
Jet streams circulate around the world. A new study finds fast jet stream winds (those in dark red) will get even faster over time as climate change accelerates. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

A new study in Nature Climate Change takes one of the first deep dives into how climate change will affect the fastest jet streams—the powerful, narrow winds in the upper atmosphere that steer much of the Earth’s weather systems and are connected to outbreaks of severe weather.

The research, by UChicago Prof. Tiffany Shaw and National Center for Atmospheric Research scientist Osamu Miyawaki, suggests that as the world warms, the fastest upper-level jet stream winds will get faster and faster—by about 2% for every degree Celsius the world warms. Furthermore, the fastest winds will speed up 2.5 times faster than the average wind.

“Based on these results and our current understanding, we expect record-breaking winds,” said Shaw, “and it’s likely that they will feed into decreased flight times, increased clear-air turbulence and a potential increase in severe weather occurrence.”

Wind, weather and warming

Partly prompted by recent news reports of speed-record-breaking flights over the Atlantic, Shaw and Miyawaki began to investigate and realized there had been very little exploration of how the very fastest jet stream winds would respond to climate change.

To fill this gap, they combined climate change models with what we know about the physics of jet streams.

Jet streams usually move from west to east around the globe in the upper atmosphere, about six miles (10 kilometers) above us. We know that jet streams strongly influence the weather we experience on the ground—especially air temperature, winds and weather patterns, and storms. They also influence the occurrence of severe storms, tornadoes, hail and severe wind.

Jet streams form because of the contrast between the cold, dense air at the poles and the warm, light air in the tropics, in combination with the rotation of the Earth. (This was first shown in…

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Apple to make a big change to iPhone messages next year

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(CNN) – The long-standing battle over the iOS’ blue and Android’s green text bubbles will soon take a more friendly turn.

Apple has announced plans to adopt a messaging standard that will finally bring iMessage features to Android users, eroding what some considered an element of Apple’s walled garden.

The change – first reported by tech site 9to5Mac – will add features, such as read receipt, typing indicators, better support for group chats, and higher quality media sharing of images and videos, across platforms.

Apple said in a statement it will add support for the standard, called RCS (Rich Communication Services), later next year. RCS is considered the replacement to alternatives such as SMS, or short messaging service, and can work over both Wi-Fi and mobile data.

“We believe RCS Universal Profile will offer a better interoperability experience when compared to SMS or MMS,” the company said in the statement. “This will work alongside iMessage, which will continue to be the best and most secure messaging experience for Apple users.”

A push from Europe
The change follows pressure from both regulators and competitors to more seamlessly work across operating systems. The European Union’s Digital Markets Act, for example, requires companies to make their key services interoperable between platforms. Earlier this year, it launched an investigation into whether it considers iMessage a core product.

Meanwhile, Google, which already has support for RCS within its messaging app, has been vocal about wanting Apple to adopt the standard. In early November, the company wrote a letter to the European Commission arguing iMessage was indeed a core Apple product and should be required to comply.

“Everyone deserves to communicate with each other in ways that are modern and secure, no matter what phone they have,” Google said in a statement. “That’s why we have…

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Three Exciting Pixel 8 Pro Leaks That Will Change The World

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Google has set the scene for its “Made By Google” event on October 4th, and the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro are set to take center stage. The Pixel 8 Pro especially will break new ground in hardware and software. Looking through the leaks, details, and information available, here are three experiences that will have a significant impact on the smartphone world.

First up is the Tensor G3 system on chip. Rather than go for the off-the-shelf premium chipset from Qualcomm in 2021, Google set out to design its own chipset for the Pixel 6. The Tensor G1 didn’t quite match the raw power of the then-current SnapDragon 888. It was designed around artificial intelligence and machine learning, which provided more software benefits that positively impacted the user experience.

The camera software’s post-processing was one area, but you also had faster on-device translation and transcription as other visible advantages. Last year’s Tensor G2 built on these, and you can expect the Tensor G3 to carry on down this path, allowing the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro to excel in these areas.

As to the performance gap to the Snapdragon chipsets, the Tensor G3 is set to match the current Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, although the Gen 3 is expected to launch early next year.

Then, you have the investment put into the camera, both in software and hardware.

For the latter, Google is set to use the new Samsung Isocell GN2 image sensor on both the Pixel 8 Pro and the Pixel 8. This is a step up from the previous GN1 sensor, allowing the new handset to sample 50 megapixels while capturing 35 percent more light. It also supports recording video at 8K resolution and 30 frames per second. Still, we are waiting to see if Google will unleash that level of performance – it will be incredibly intensive on power usage and require careful thermal management.

The software is also seeing new features in the updated Camera app. Google’s Camera app is only available (officially) on Pixel devices, and version 9 will only run on Android 14; you can be sure this app harnesses both the new optical hardware and the AI and ML capabilities of the Tensor G3.

Previous Pixels…

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