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China became the first country to approve a needle-free, inhaled version of a Covid-19 vaccine made by Tianjin-based CanSino Biologics, pushing the company's shares up as much as 14.5% Monday morning in Hong Kong. From a report: China's National Medical Products Administration approved CanSino's Ad5-nCoV for emergency use as a booster vaccine, the company said in a statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Sunday. The vaccine is a new version of CanSino's one-shot Covid drug, the first in the world to undergo human testing in March 2020 and which has been used in China, Mexico, Pakistan, Malaysia and Hungary after being rolled out in February 2021. The inhaled version can stimulate cellular immunity and induce mucosal immunity to boost protection without intramuscular injection, CanSino said. Companies are looking into developing inhaled versions of vaccines to stimulate antibodies in nasal and airway tissues to defend against coronavirus. They are needle-free and can be self-administered, broadening their appeal to vaccine-hesitant people and potentially easing pressure on health-care resources.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple plans to nearly double the workforce in its fast-growing digital advertising business less than 18 months after it introduced sweeping privacy changes that hobbled its bigger rivals in the lucrative industry. Financial Times: The iPhone maker has about 250 people on its ad platforms team, according to LinkedIn. According to Apple's careers website, it is looking to fill another 216 such roles, almost quadruple the 56 it was hiring in late 2020. Apple disputed the figures but declined to elaborate. The digital ads industry has been on edge about Apple's advertising ambitions since it launched privacy rules last year that disrupted the $400bn digital ads market, making it difficult to tailor ads to Apple's 1bn-plus iPhone users. Since the policy was introduced, Facebook parent Meta, Snap and Twitter have lost billions of dollars in revenue -- and far more in market valuation, although there have been additional contributing factors. "It was really almost like a global panic," said Jade Arenstein, global service lead at Incubeta, a South Africa-based marketing performance company, of the impact of Apple's changes. Meanwhile, Apple's once-fledgling ads business is now "incredibly fast-growing," according to a job ad. The business has gone from just a few hundred million dollars of revenue in the late 2010s to about $5bn this year, according to research group Evercore ISI, which expects Apple to have a $30bn ads business within four years.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In 2021, 9% of the world's auto sales were electric vehicles, reports CNBC (citing statistics from the International Energy Agency). Yet CNBC also notes that electric vehicles "require 30% fewer parts and components manufacturing than conventional cars," according to researchers for an Industrial Heartland case study." So will that create problems in America's heartland? "Large swaths of the Midwest have economies based around the auto parts manufacturing trade...""When we look carefully at what goes on on the factory floor, it won't be less workers," Keith Cooley, former head of Michigan's Labor Department, told CNBC. "There will be different people building the cars." Researchers believe modern factory jobs will require more education and could be less available than they were in the past. They estimate that electric vehicles could require 30% less manufacturing labor when compared with conventional cars. "The lines that run to drive oil or gas around an internal combustion engine aren't going to be there," said Cooley. This change could hit the parts suppliers in the auto industry.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Quiet quitting" as a catchphrase "took off on TikTok among millennials and Gen Zers," according to Business Insider. They describe it as "employees doing what their job expects of them, and not offering to do more than what they get paid to do." The Washington Post digs deeper:Quiet quitting looks to many like a reasonable retreat from the round-the-clock hustle culture. But to others, quiet quitting represents disengaged employees sandbagging and shirking all but the minimum effort, not expecting — or not caring — that their employers might fire them for it. But if we're going to accuse workers of quiet quitting, we should also acknowledge the phenomenon of "quiet firing," in which employers avoid providing all but the bare legal minimum, possibly with the aim of getting unwanted employees to quit. They may deny raises for years, fail to supply resources while piling on demands, give feedback designed to frustrate and confuse, or grant privileges to select workers based on vague, inconsistent performance standards. Those who don't like it are welcome to leave. Their article even provides an example. One reader (near retirement age) says their employer required them to return to the office for at least three days a week — "but those who left the area are allowed to continue to work fully remotely."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Seven years ago, Slashdot reader #66,542 announced "Panopticlick 2.0," a site showing how your web browser handles trackers. But it was just one of the many privacy-protecting projects Peter Eckersley worked on, as a staff technologist at the EFF for more than a decade. Eckersley also co-created Let's Encrypt, which today is used by hundreds of millions of people. Friday the EFF's director of cybersecurity announced the sudden death of Eckersley at age 43. "If you have ever used Let's Encrypt or Certbot or you enjoy the fact that transport layer encryption on the web is so ubiquitous it's nearly invisible, you have him to thank for it," the announcement says. "Raise a glass." Peter Eckersley's web site is still online, touting "impactful privacy and cybersecurity projects" that he co-created, including not just Let's Encrypt, Certbot, and Panopticlick, but also Privacy Badger and HTTPS Everywhere. And in addition, "During the COVID-19 pandemic he convened the the stop-covid.tech group, advising many groups working on privacy-preserving digital contact tracing and exposure notification, assisting with several strategy plans for COVID mitigation." You can also still find Peter Eckersley's GitHub repositories online. But Peter "had apparently revealed recently that he had been diagnosed with cancer," according to a tribute posted online by security company Sophos, noting his impact is all around us:If you click on the padlock in your browser [2022-09-0T22:37:00Z], you'll see that this site, like our sister blog site Sophos News, uses a web certificate that's vouched for by Let's Encrypt, now a well-established Certificate Authority (CA). Let's Encrypt, as a CA, signs TLS cryptographic certificates for free on behalf of bloggers, website owners, mail providers, cloud servers, messaging services...anyone, in fact, who needs or wants a vouched-for encryption certificate, subject to some easy-to-follow terms and conditions.... Let's Encrypt wasn't the first effort to try to build a free-as-in-freedom and free-as-in-beer infrastructure for online encryption certificates, but the Let's Encrypt team was the first to build a free certificate signing system that was simple, scalable and solid. As a result, the Let's Encrypt project was soon able to to gain the trust of the browser making community, to the point of quickly getting accepted as a approved certificate signer (a trusted-by-default root CA, in the jargon) by most mainstream browsers.... In recent years, Peter founded the AI Objectives Institute, with the aim of ensuring that we pick the right social and economic problems to solve with AI: "We often pay more attention to how those goals are to be achieved than to what those goals should be in the first place. At the AI Objectives Institute, our goal is better goals."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

After 104 commits from six different people, GNU grep was released Saturday, reports Phoronix. The biggest change? "It's now made more clear that if you are still relying on the egrep and fgrep commands, it's past due for switching to just grep with the appropriate command-line arguments."The egrep and fgrep commands have been deprecated since 2007. Beginning with GNU Grep 3.8 today, calling these commands will now issue a warning to the user that instead they should use grep -E and grep -F, respectively. Eventually, GNU Grep will drop the egrep / fgrep commands completely but there doesn't seem to be a firm deadline yet for when that removal will happen. From grep's updated manual:7th Edition Unix had commands egrep and fgrep that were the counterparts of the modern 'grep -E' and 'grep -F'. Although breaking up grep into three programs was perhaps useful on the small computers of the 1970s, egrep and fgrep were not standardized by POSIX and are no longer needed. In the current GNU implementation, egrep and fgrep issue a warning and then act like their modern counterparts; eventually, they are planned to be removed entirely. If you prefer the old names, you can use use your own substitutes, such as a shell script... Other notable changes from the release announcement: The confusing GREP_COLOR environment variable is now obsolescent. Instead of GREP_COLOR='xxx' use GREP_COLORS='mt=xxx' Regular expressions with stray backslashes now cause warningsRead more of this story at Slashdot.

The underground-dwelling rodents known as naked mole rats make soft chirping sounds when they meet in a tunnel. So Researchers at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Brain Research "used machine-learning algorithms to analyze 36,000 soft chirps recorded in seven mole rat colonies," according to the New York Times:Not only did each mole rat have its own vocal signature, but each colony had its own distinct dialect, which was passed down, culturally, over generations. During times of social instability — as in the weeks after a colony's queen was violently deposed — these cohesive dialects fell apart. When a new queen began her reign, a new dialect appeared to take hold. "The greeting call, which I thought was going to be pretty basic, turned out to be incredibly complicated," said Dr. Barker, who is now studying the many other sounds the rodents make. "Machine-learning kind of transformed my research...." In recent years, scientists have begun deploying this technology to decode animal communication, using machine-learning algorithms to identify when squeaking mice are stressed or why fruit bats are shouting. Even more ambitious projects are underway — to create a comprehensive catalog of crow calls, map the syntax of sperm whales and even to build technologies that allow humans to talk back. "Let's try to find a Google Translate for animals," said Diana Reiss, an expert on dolphin cognition and communication at Hunter College and co-founder of Interspecies Internet, a think tank devoted to facilitating cross-species communication.... [H]umanity is not on the verge of having a Rosetta Stone for whale songs or the ability to chew the fat with cats. But the work is already revealing that animal communication is far more complex than it sounds to the human ear, and the chatter is providing a richer view of the world beyond our own species.... [S]cientists have shown that these programs can tell apart the voices of individual animals, distinguish between sounds that animals make in different circumstances and break their vocalizations down into smaller parts, a crucial step in deciphering meaning.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Financial Times tells how the head of a Ukrainian cybersecurity company recruited dozens of "high-level Ukrainian hackers" and borrowed a Starlink internet satellite for "the large-scale infiltration of internet-connected security cameras to surveil Russian-occupied territory, and honey-trapping Russian soldiers into revealing their bases."[T]hey hacked thousands of security and traffic cameras in Belarus and parts of Ukraine that Russia had occupied. To filter the information, the team wrote machine-learning code that helped them separate military movements from ordinary traffic, and they funnelled the information to the military via a public portal. In one example, described to the Financial Times with photographs and locations, they identified a remote Russian base near occupied Melitopol in southern Ukraine. Then, using fake profiles of attractive women on Facebook and Russian social media websites, they tricked soldiers into sending photos that they geolocated, and shared with the Ukrainian military.... A few days later, they watched on TV as the base was blown up by Ukrainian artillery.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A surprise from the Associated Press. The head of America's Environment Protection Agency "said Friday that advanced nuclear technology will be 'critical' for both the United States and Japan as they step up cooperation to meet decarbonization goals."Michael Regan, after holding talks with his Japanese counterpart Akihiro Nishimura in Tokyo, told a joint news conference that nuclear energy in their countries plays a role... "I think the science tells us that we have to respond to the climate crisis with a sense of urgency and nuclear energy and nuclear technology has and can have a role in continuing with a zero emissions contribution to the climate," he said, showing support for Japan's recent shift toward returning to nuclear energy. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said last week he instructed his government to consider developing safer, smaller nuclear reactors, in a renewed emphasis on nuclear energy years after many of the country's plants were shut down. Kishida said Japan needs to consider all options of energy mix, including nuclear, to bolster its "green transformation" effort to curb emissions of greenhouse gases and to secure stable energy supply. Japan has pledged to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.... While maintaining a 20%-22% target for nuclear energy as part of its energy mix for 2030, Japan's government had previously insisted it was not considering building new plants or replacing aged reactors, apparently to avoid stoking criticism from a wary public. Kishida's recent comment represents a sharp change from that stance. Kishida asked a government panel to decide by the end of the year on its proposal for the development and construction of "new innovative reactors," such as small modular reactors, while also considering extending operational lifespan of aging reactors. President Joe Biden also believes that it is an "all hands on deck approach," Regan said, adding that investments in nuclear technology and carbon capture will complement the big potential for renewable energy.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Windows' "Defender" software is supposed to detect malware. But its Microsoft team is now investigating reports that it's mistakenly flagging Electron-based or Chromium-based applications — as malware. "It's a false positive, and your computer is OK," wites the blog Windows Central:This morning, many people worldwide experienced Microsoft Defender warning them of a recurring virus threat.... People on Reddit are "freaking out" over not just a reported threat from Microsoft Defender but one that keeps popping up and recurring despite the alleged threat being blocked. The threat is revealed in a pop-up message noting that "Behavior:Win32/Hive.ZY" has been detected and is listed as "severe." However, after taking action to rectify the issue, it does not go away, and the user will keep receiving the same prompt. The reminder may return after 20 seconds, with the cycle repeating endlessly. This detection appears to be a false positive, according to a Microsoft Support forum... From DaveM121, an Independent Advisor:[I]t is a bug currently being reported by hundreds of people at the moment, it seems to be related to all Chromium based web browsers and Electron based apps like Whatsapp, Discord, Spotify, etc.... Also affected are Google Chrome and even Microsoft Edge, as well as "anything that runs Visual Studio Code," according to the article. "The problem seems to originate from Defender's Definition/Update Version 1.373.1508.0, meaning Microsoft needs to update that file, and the issue should be resolved."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon's new $465 million series — a prequel to the Lord of the Rings — drew more than 25 million viewers on just its first day, according to Reuters, "a record debut for a Prime Video series." The Independent shared reactions from J. R. R. Tolkein fans, including one who said "it looks like they put absolutely all that Amazon money to use for scenes."First up, the praise. Many are agreeing that the show's costly budget, which positions it as one of the most expensive shows of all time, has paid off, with the series boasting impressive visuals.... @marklee3d added: Rings of Power has done a great job of capturing the feel of Tolkien's world. The challenge is creating a compelling story where one didn't exist before. The show's success lies in pulling that off." Agreeing that the "spirit" of Tokkien has been captured, @suzannahtweets wrote: "I'm far less concerned about little lore details than I am about the spirit. And while I thought that Peter Jackson fundamentally misunderstood the spirit of Tolkien in ALL his movies, so far the spirit of THE RINGS OF POWER feels remarkably authentic to Tolkien...." However, others argued the show felt "goofy" and featured "terrible" dialogue, with some suggesting that "Tolkien himself" would be "ashamed" of the series. But "by releasing the first two episodes instead of just the more predictable first, Amazon gave The Rings of Power a strong start," argues Cinemablend. Collider's senior TV editor praises the show's "stunning visuals, compelling characters, and magnetic lead," while one podcaster even called the show "a cinematic masterpiece... masterfully orchestrating a mythology that fans have been waiting for." Deadline reports that "Critics reviews, save a scathing piece in the UK Daily Mail, have generally been positive for The Rings of Power, as measured by aggregators like Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic.... As of Friday evening, the IMDb rating stood at a respectable 7.1 out of 10." And Variety adds that Amazon had already taken steps to thwart review bombers three weeks ago:Starting around the time of the launch of the distaff baseball dramedy "A League of Their Own," which premiered its full first season on Aug. 12, Amazon Prime Video quietly introduced a new 72-hour delay for all user reviews posted to Prime Video, a representative for the streamer confirmed to Variety. Each critique is then evaluated to determine whether it's genuine or a forgery created by a bot, troll or other breed of digital goblin. The practice caught notice after the premiere of the first two episodes of "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power"... The series appears to have been review bombed — when trolls flood intentionally negative reviews for a show or film — on other sites like Rotten Tomatoes, where it has an 84% rating from professional critics, but a 37% from user-submitted reviews. "The Rings of Power" has been fending off trolls for months, especially ones who take issue with the decision to cast actors of color as elves, dwarves, harfoots and other folk of Tolkien's fictional Middle-earth. Amazon's new initiative to review its reviews, however, is designed to weed out ones that are posted in bad faith, deadening their impact.... Whether Amazon successfully beat back the tide of internet trolls for "The Rings of Power" will likely be revealed on Sunday. Reuters reports that future episodes of the series will be released weekly until the October 14 season finale. "Amazon plans to let the full story unfold in 50 hours over five seasons."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Scientists at the Florida Aquarium have made a breakthrough in the race to save Caribbean coral," reports CNN. "For the first time, marine biologists have successfully reproduced elkhorn coral, a critical species, using aquarium technology. It's a historic step forward, and one they hope could help revitalize Caribbean ecosystems and could pay humans back by offering extra protection from the fury of hurricanes."Elkhorn coral once dominated the Caribbean. But, just as other vital coral ecosystems are degrading around the world, elkhorn are now rarely seen alive in the wild. This species — so important because it provides the building blocks for reefs to flourish — has been until now notoriously difficult to grow in aquariums. Which is why scientists were thrilled when they saw their reproductive experiment was a success. "When it finally happened, the first sense is just sheer relief." said Keri O'Neil, the senior scientist that oversees the Tampa aquarium's spawning lab. "This is a critical step to preventing elkhorn coral from going extinct in the state of Florida...." Elkhorn marks the aquarium's 14th species spawned inside the Apollo Beach lab, but the team ranks it as its most important yet. O'Neil estimates there are only about 300 elkhorn coral left in the Florida Keys Reef Tract — but the spawning experiment produced thousands of baby coral. She expects up to 100 of them could survive into adulthood.... The Florida Aquarium's news comes after scientists reported in early August that the Great Barrier Reef was showing the largest extent of coral cover in 36 years. But the outlook for coral around the world is grim — studies have shown that the climate crisis could kill all of Earth's coral reefs by the end of the century. Elkhorn coral was listed as federally threatened under the US Endangered Species Act in 2006 after scientists found that disease cut the population by 97% since the 1980s. And ocean warming is its largest threat. As ocean temperature rises, coral expels the symbiotic algae that lives inside it and produces nutrients. This is the process of coral bleaching, and it typically ends in death for the coral. "They're dying around the world," O'Neil told CNN. "We are at a point now where they may never be the same. You can't have the ocean running a fever every summer and not expect there to be impacts." But the lab's senior scientist also emphasized to CNN that "There is hope for coral reefs. Don't give up hope. It's all not lost. "However, we need to make serious changes in our behavior to save this planet."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot reader artmancc writes: Like aircraft, many of the world's ocean-going vessels are required to have transponders that broadcast their location. The information is public and can be seen on websites such as AIS Marine Traffic. But according to an analysis reported in The New York Times , a maritime data company called Windward "has uncovered more than 500 cases of ships manipulating their satellite navigation systems to hide their locations." The article, by Anatoly Kurmanaev, highlights the Cyprus-registered tanker Reliant, which was observed taking on oil at a Venezuelan refinery last December. At the same time, however, the ship was reporting its position as some 300 nautical miles (about 500 kilometers) away, "drifting innocuously off the coast of St. Lucia." It's illegal (under international law), but the rapidly-growing practice lets ships circumvent international laws and sanctions, the Times reports, and "could transform how goods are moved around the world, with profound implications for the enforcement of international law, organized crime and global trade."Its use has included Chinese fishing fleets hiding operations in protected waters off South America, tankers concealing stops in Iranian oil ports, and container ships obfuscating journeys in the Middle East. A U.S. intelligence official, who discussed confidential government assessments on the condition of anonymity, said the deception tactic had already been used for weapons and drug smuggling. After originally discovering the deception near countries under sanction, Windward has since seen it spread as far as Australia and Antarctica. "It's a new way for ships to transmit a completely different identity," said Matan Peled, a founder of Windward. "Things have unfolded at just an amazing and frightening speed...." The spread of AIS manipulation shows how easy it has become to subvert its underlying technology — the Global Positioning System, or GPS — which is used in everything from cellphones to power grids, said Dana Goward, a former senior U.S. Coast Guard official and the president of Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation, a Virginia-based GPS policy group."This shows just how vulnerable the system is," he said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Across the United States, parents are increasingly buying Apple Watches and strapping them onto the wrists of children as young as 5," reports the New York Times:The goal: to use the devices as a stopgap cellphone for the kids. With the watch's cellular abilities, parents can use it to reach and track their children, while the miniature screens mitigate issues like internet addiction. Children and teenagers appear to have become a disproportionately large market for smartwatches as a whole. In a 2020 survey of American teenagers by the investment bank Piper Sandler, 31% said they owned a smartwatch. That same year, 21% of adults in the United States said they owned one, according to the Pew Research Center. The use of smartwatches as a children's gadget shows how the audience for a consumer technology product can morph in unexpected ways. It has also given new life to the Apple Watch, which was unveiled in 2015 and has been variously positioned as a fitness tracker, a style statement or a way to free yourself from an iPhone. Apple has deliberately turned the watch into a device that can be attractive for children and their parents. In 2020, the company released the Apple Watch SE, which had fewer features than a premium model and was priced $120 cheaper. Apple also introduced Family Setup, software that let parents track their children's locations, manage their contacts list and limit their notifications.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's the 29-year-old "compatibility layer" that lets Windows software run on Unix-like systems (including games). And Neowin reports that Wine's latest version has "meaningful fixes" for Steam Deck, HoloISO, and Chimera OS gamers. Slashdot reader segaboy81 writes: Saint's Row players rejoice! Wine 7.16 has been released and ships with fixes for this, Metal Gear Solid and Star Citizen. [As well as Ragnarok Online.] Though Deck owners may have to wait for these changes to be merged upstream. "There are a lot of fixes for other non-gaming Windows-y stuff," Neowin adds, "and you can check out those changes at WineHQ."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Ocean Cleanup project has an announcement.... 75% to 86% of plastic debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch "originates from fishing activities at sea." Plastic emissions from rivers remain the main source of plastic pollution from a global ocean perspective. Plastic lost at sea has a higher chance of accumulating offshore than plastic emitted from rivers, leading to high concentrations of fishing-related debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch [or GPGP]. New findings confirm the oceanic garbage patches cannot be cleaned solely through river interception and highlight the potentially vital role of fishing and aquaculture in ridding the world's oceans of plastic.... Our previous research has shown that almost half of the plastic mass in the GPGP is comprised of fishing nets and ropes (fibrous plastics used, for example, to make our The Ocean Cleanup sunglasses), with the remainder largely composed of hard plastic objects and small fragments. While the provenance of fishing nets is obvious, the origins of the other plastics in the GPGP have — until now — remained unclear.... In 2019, System 001/B, an early iteration of our cleanup technology, retrieved over 6,000 hard plastic debris items (larger than 5 cm) from the GPGP, providing our scientists with a unique opportunity to study larger objects not studied by previous research efforts. Each item was sorted into predefined item categories and inspected individually for evidence of country of origin (evidence may include language or text on the object, company name, brand, logo, or other identifying text such as an address or telephone number, etc.) and date of production. This comprehensive analysis revealed that roughly a third of the items were unidentifiable fragments. The other two-thirds was dominated by objects typically used in fishing, such as floats, buoys, crates, buckets, baskets, containers, drums, jerry cans, fish boxes, and eel traps. Nearly half (49%) of plastic objects which could be dated were produced in the 20th century, with the oldest identified item being a buoy dating from 1966. This distribution is in line with our previous research showing significant occurrence of decades-old objects in the GPGP and re-emphasizes that the plastic in these garbage patches persists and can cause harm for lengthy periods, continually degrading into microplastics and becoming increasingly difficult to remove. In short, these results underline the urgent need to clean the GPGP; no matter what actions are taken to prevent riverine plastic emissions, the GPGP will persist and its content will continue to beach on remote islands, such as the Hawaiian Archipelago, and fragment into microplastics that will eventually sink to the seabed. Surprisingly, countries near the edge of the northern Pacific (like the Philippines) weren't major contributors to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and instead their research blamed Japan (34%), China (32%), the Korean peninsula (10%), and the USA (7%). While they're not major sources of plastic from rivers, "they do carry out the majority of industrialized fishing activities in the GPGP region.... "[T]rawlers, fixed gear, and drifting longlines accounted for more than 95% of identified fishing activities that may account for emissions of floating plastic debris into the GPGP. "Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"There's been a big rise in ransomware attacks targeting Linux," reports ZDNet, "as cyber criminals look to expand their options and exploit an operating system that is often overlooked when businesses think about security."According to analysis by cybersecurity researchers at Trend Micro, Linux servers are "increasingly coming under fire" from ransomware attacks, with detections up by 75% over the course of the last year as cyber criminals look to expand their attacks beyond Windows operating systems. Linux powers important enterprise IT infrastructure including servers, which makes it an attractive target for ransomware gangs — particularly when a perceived lack of threat to Linux systems compared with Windows means that cybersecurity teams might choose to focus on defending Windows networks against cybercrime. Researchers note that ransomware groups are increasingly tailoring their attacks to focus specifically on Linux systems. For example, LockBit is one of the most prolific and successful ransomware operations of recent times and now offers the option of a Linux-based variant that is designed to target Linux systems and has been used to conduct attacks in the wild.... And it isn't just ransomware groups that are increasingly turning their attentions towards Linux — according to Trend Micro, there's been a 145% increase in Linux-based cryptocurrency-mining malware attacks, where cyber criminals secretly exploit the power of infected computers and servers to mine for cryptocurrency for themselves. One of the ways cyber criminals are compromising Linux systems is by exploiting unpatched vulnerabilities. According to the report, these flaws include CVE-2022-0847 — also known as Dirty Pipe — a bug that affects the Linux kernel from versions 5.8 and up, which attackers can use to escalate their privileges and run code. Researchers warn that this bug is "relatively easy to exploit". The article recommends installing all security patches as soon as they're available — and implementing multi-factor authentication across your organization. And yes, it's the real ZDNet. They've just re-designed their web site...Read more of this story at Slashdot.

So Australia's foreign intelligence cybersecurity agency marked its 75th anniversary by collaborating with the Australian mint to release a special commemorative coin with a four-layer secret code. The agency's director even said that if someone cracked all four layers of the code, "maybe they'll apply for a job." A 14-year-old boy cracked their code "in just over an hour."Australia's national broadcaster reports:The ASD said the coin's four different layers of encryption were each progressively harder to solve, and clues could be found on both sides — but ASD director-general Rachel Noble said in a speech at the Lowy Institute on Friday that the 14-year-old managed it in just over an hour.... "Just unbelievable. Can you imagine being his mum? "So we're hoping to meet him soon ... to recruit him...." She also revealed on Friday that there was a fifth level of encryption on the coin which no one had broken yet.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Variety reports:Instagram has suspended Pornhub's widely followed account on the social platform. Before the sex site's account was removed from Instagram, Pornhub had 13.1 million followers and more than 6,200 posts. Reps for Meta, Instagram's parent company, did not respond to a request for comment. The move comes one month after Visa and Mastercard cut off payment privileges of TrafficJunky, the advertising arm of Pornhub parent company MindGeek. That followed a federal court ruling in July rejecting Visa's request to be removed from a case in which MindGeek is being sued for allegedly distributing child pornography and that alleges Visa knowingly facilitated MindGeek's ability to monetize the illegal content... In June, MindGeek CEO Feras Antoon and COO David Tassillo resigned. The Montreal, Quebec-based company also laid off an unknown number of employees. The article notes that two dozen individual plaintiffs sued Pornhub and MindGeek last year alleging, among other things, "exploitation and monetization of child pornography."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sunnova is one of America's largest rooftop solar companies, according to the New York Times. But they've now applied to California's Public Utilities Commission for permission to become the state's first solar (and storage) micro-utility, initiating formal steps to qualify and "request a certificate to construct and operate microgrids," targetting new home developments that aren't yet connected to the grid. "We see a future where communities, neighborhoods, and businesses can operate independently from the legacy grid with sustainable energy sources that provide uninterrupted power," says the company's founder and CEO. "We believe microgrids address a strong need in the market for more robust energy solutions and better connectivity...." But he's also offering touting another possible benefit: "relief that the existing transmission and distribution system will experience given that most of the power that will be consumed by these communities will be generated locally from renewable resources." The company likes to point out that America's recently-passed climate bill included tax incentives to encourage microgrids. But the New York Times describes it as "a business model that is illegal in much of the United States."Sunnova said it would offer those residents electricity that was up to 20 percent cheaper than the rates charged by investor-owned utilities like Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison. If approved by regulators, the micro-utility model, also known as a microgrid, could undermine the growth of those larger utilities by depriving them access to new homes or forcing them to lower their rates to keep that business. Sunnova executives argue that the approach they are seeking approval for was authorized under a California law passed almost two decades ago for a resort just south of Lake Tahoe. In addition, the company says advances in solar and battery technology mean that neighborhoods can be designed to generate more than enough electricity to meet their own needs at a lower cost than relying on the grid. "If they don't want to choose me, that should be their right; if they don't want to choose you, that should be their right, too," said John Berger, the chief executive of Sunnova. A small number of homeowners have gone off the grid as the cost of solar panels and batteries has fallen. But doing so can be hard or impossible. Some local governments have rejected permits for off-grid homes on health and safety grounds, arguing that a connection to the grid is essential. But connecting a single home to the grid can cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, which means an off-grid system may actually be cheaper — especially for properties in remote areas, or in places where the local grid is at its capacity and would require significant upgrades to serve more homes. Off-grid setups can also be appealing because once a system is paid off, the cost of operating and maintaining it is often modest and predictable, whereas utility rates can move up sharply.... The nationwide average retail electricity rate increased 11 percent in June from a year earlier, according to the Energy Information Administration. But the kind of micro-utilities that Sunnova hopes to create have also had problems. The utopian visions of generating electricity where it is used have often run into maintenance and other problems. Many tiny utilities created under such models in the United States and Canada were later swallowed up by larger power companies.... Sunnova's microgrid approach could suffer a similar fate. But the costs of solar panels and batteries have tumbled over the last decade, making the energy that off-grid systems generate much more affordable.... Utilities have been pressing regulators to reduce the compensation homeowners receive for the excess solar energy their rooftop systems send to the grid. The companies have argued that customers with solar panels are being offered generous credits for power that they are not contributing adequately toward the cost of maintaining power lines and other grid equipment.... Building and operating microgrids could provide a steady source of income to companies like Sunnova. That could essentially transform the rooftop solar companies into the kinds of utilities that they have long fought against. Sunnova bills itself as an "Energy as a Service" company, and they expect their microgrids to experience 30 minutes or less of outages each year, the Times points out, "compared with an average of two hours a year at California's large investor-owned utilities." In the article, the chief executive of home-building company Lennar says they've already formed a partnership with Sunnova. "We value the current electric grid and we're intrigued by new microgrid solutions that can supplement and support the traditional utility grid and help solve reliability during extreme weather and peak demand."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

With 8.8 million pounds of thrust, NASA's SLS would've been the most powerful rocket ever launched into space, notes the Orlando Sentinel. But instead on Saturday morning, "NASA scrubbed its second attempt to launch the Artemis I mission into lunar orbit..." reports CNET. "During a press conference later in the day, Jim Free, an associate administrator at NASA Headquarters, said we shouldn't expect to see a third attempt within this launch period, which culminates Tuesday." (Though the mission manager the next launch attempt could be as late as mid-October.) "This time, the culprit was a liquid hydrogen leak that showed up while the team was loading the rocket's core stage...."According to the space agency, the leak occurred "while loading the propellant into the core stage of the Space Launch System rocket" and that "multiple troubleshooting efforts to address the area of the leak, by reseating a seal in the quick disconnect where liquid hydrogen is fed into the rocket, did not fix the issue." This is the second time the Artemis I mission has been delayed. Liftoff attempt No. 1 was scheduled for Monday, but launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson had to call a scrub then as well, because of an unyielding problem with what's known as an engine bleed test. (This process is meant to allow the engines to chill to the right temperature by releasing a small amount of the fuel). "We were unable to get the engines within the thermal conditions required to commit to launch," Artemis mission manager Mike Sarafin said during a press conference on Tuesday. "In combination with that, we also had a bent valve issue on the core stage, and it was at that point that the team decided to knock off the launch attempt for that day."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CNN reports:Eating a lot of ultraprocessed foods significantly increases men's risk of colorectal cancer and can lead to heart disease and early death in both men and women, according to two new, large-scale studies of people in the United States and Italy published Wednesday in British medical journal The BMJ. Ultraprocessed foods include prepackaged soups, sauces, frozen pizza, ready-to-eat meals and pleasure foods such as hot dogs, sausages, french fries, sodas, store-bought cookies, cakes, candies, doughnuts, ice cream and many more.... The US-based study examined the diets of over 200,000 men and women for up to 28 years and found a link between ultraprocessed foods and colorectal cancer — the third most diagnosed cancer in the US — in men, but not women. Processed and ultraprocessed meats, such as ham, bacon, salami, hotdogs, beef jerkey and corned beef, have long been associated with a higher risk of bowel cancer in both men and women, according to the World Health Organization, American Cancer Society and the American Institute for Cancer Research. The new study, however, found that all types of ultraprocessed foods played a role to some degree. "We found that men in the highest quintile of ultraprocessed food consumption, compared those in the lowest quintile, had a 29% higher risk of developing colorectal cancer," said co-senior author Fang Fang Zhang, a cancer epidemiologist and chair of the division of nutrition epidemiology and data science at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University in Boston. That association remained even after researchers took into account a person's body mass index or dietary quality.... The study did find that eating a "higher consumption of ultraprocessed dairy foods — such as yogurt — was associated with a lower risk of colorectal cancer in women," Zhang said. "Some ultraprocessed foods are healthier, such as whole-grain foods that contain little or no added sugars, and yogurt and dairy foods...." [O]verly processed foods are often high in added sugars and salt, low in dietary fiber, and full of chemical additives, such as artificial colors, flavors or stabilizers. CNN ultimately got this advice from Dr. Robin Mendelsohn, a gastroenterologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City (who was not involved in the study). "While some ultraprocessed foods may be considered healthier than others, in general, we would recommend staying away from ultra-processed foods completely and focus on healthy unprocessed foods — fruits, vegetables, legumes."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Here's a Linux distro scoop from IT World Canada. "Gregory Kurtzer, who founded and once led the former open-source project CentOS Linux as well as The cAos Foundation, the organization where early development of it took place, said today a governance structure has been put in place that will keep Rocky Linux in the public domain forever."Development of Rocky Linux began shortly after, in late 2020, Red Hat terminated development of CentOS, a community-based Linux distribution derived from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that had been in existence since 2004. It is named after Jason Dale "Rocky" McGaugh, a talented programmer involved in CentOS development, who passed away in December 2004 at the age of only 30. Asked what McGaugh might have thought of the OS being named after him, Kurtzer told IT World Canada, "to be honest, he was a shy guy. I don't know if he would have liked the attention, but at the same token, he was a huge advocate of open source and a big fan of open source. "Personally, I don't think he would have liked what happened with CentOS." Kurtzer added that "what we are doing with Rocky Linux is really where he would have liked to see the project and open source going. When we named it Rocky Linux, it was a hat tip to him for everything he has done, not only in open source and high-performance computing (HPC), but also with the CentOS project. "One of the last e-mails that he wrote to the e-mail list was that he was 99 per cent done development of CentOS. It was pretty much ready to go when he passed, but he never saw it released." The key for an open-source initiative to grow and flourish, said Kurtzer, lies with registering it as a non-profit organization, which was the case with The cAos Foundation. He has done the same with Rocky Linux. It's official name is the Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation, "backed by an advisory board of trusted individuals and team leads from the Rocky Linux community."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's the one-year anniversary of El Salvador's adopting Bitcoin as a legal tender, so Bloomberg follows up, finding a country where "Adoption has moved slowly, and steep declines in Bitcoin's price from those lofty levels last fall have dampened the early euphoria that swept across the nation." "Bitcoin hasn't replaced El Salvador's hard currency, the U.S. dollar — it's not even close — but it also hasn't brought the financial ruin that some warned of either. Or not yet anyway.""No one really talks about Bitcoin here anymore. It's kind of been forgotten," said former El Salvador central bank chief Carlos Acevedo. "I don't know if you'd call that a failure, but it certainly hasn't been a success...." As part of the rollout, Salvadorans were offered government-issued digital wallets preloaded with $30 worth of Bitcoin to help kick things off. Under the law, taxes can be paid in Bitcoin and businesses should accept it as a form of payment, unless they are technologically unable to do so. But the coin's volatility has spooked users, and cryptocurrency has seen broader acceptance in countries with poor payment networks or strict currency controls, such as Argentina, Venezuela and Cuba, Acevedo said. "In El Salvador we have a good payments network, so why transfer money with cryptocurrency?" he said. Most Salvadorans haven't poured large amounts of money into Bitcoin, saving many from the recent bear market, Acevedo said. The same can't be said of the government itself, which started purchasing the token last year in the run-up to its launch as legal tender and has continued to add to its stockpile, conspicuously "buying the dip" during periods when Bitcoin declined. The result? It's sitting on losses. [Later the article points out "The government's 2,381 Bitcoin bought with public funds are worth $47.2 million at current prices, less than half what the administration paid for them."] A series of recent surveys found that only a relatively small minority of respondents continue to use digital wallets and few businesses have registered transactions in Bitcoin. And the central bank says only 2% of remittances have been sent via cryptocurrency wallets. The government is still claiming victory, however. Bitcoin has attracted foreign investment and tourism and increased financial access to a largely unbanked population, according to Finance Minister Alejandro Zelaya. The government says its digital wallet, Chivo, has more than 4 million users. Tourism is on pace to surpass pre-pandemic levels this year and the central bank says 59 cryptocurrency and blockchain companies have registered offices in El Salvador. Other observations from Bloomberg:While El Salvador's president remains popular, a May poll by a local university found 71.1% of respondents said the Bitcoin law didn't improve their family's finances.... "If you go to any market in El Salvador, you're more likely to receive an insult than be able to purchase something in Bitcoin," said the director of the university's public opinion institute. "It's not a part of people's daily routine."The IMF "has held off on approving a $1.3 billion program for the country citing risks from Bitcoin."Plans are still on for a Bitcoin-backed "volcano token".Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Gallup polling organization found that 71% of Americans now approve of labor unions, according to results announced this week. "Although statistically similar to last year's 68%, it is up from 64% before the pandemic and is the highest Gallup has recorded on this measure since 1965." And meanwhile, a federal labor board "has rejected Amazon's effort to stop thousands of workers in New York City from unionizing at one of the retailer's largest warehouses in the United States," reports UPI. Specifically, America's National Labor Relations Board (or NLRB) plans to throw out Amazon's objections to a vote by 2,600 workers to unionize at one of the company's warehouses, according to the Washington Post. "The company has held up the proceedings in an objection hearing that dragged on for months," the Post adds, but the ruling "clears a path for the union to become the first certified bargaining unit within the company's vast e-commerce empire." Both sides have until September 16 to file additional exceptions, the NLRB's Kayla Blado said in an email. "While we're still reviewing the decision, we strongly disagree with the conclusion and intend to appeal," said Amazon's Kelly Nantel in a statement..... The news is a win for the organized labor movement, which has continued to work toward unionizing Amazon this summer. New organizing campaigns have sprung up in Kentucky, California and North Carolina, and Amazon workers at a warehouse near Albany, N.Y., are slated to vote on unionization in the coming months. Amazon has accused the NLRB regional office of being biased against the company, and it's possible the company could sue over the outcome. Its tactics could delay contract bargaining, a process that itself could take months or years to complete.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Long-time Slashdot reader swell shared Scientific American's report on the quest for neuromorphic chips:The human brain is an amazing computing machine. Weighing only three pounds or so, it can process information a thousand times faster than the fastest supercomputer, store a thousand times more information than a powerful laptop, and do it all using no more energy than a 20-watt lightbulb. Researchers are trying to replicate this success using soft, flexible organic materials that can operate like biological neurons and someday might even be able to interconnect with them. Eventually, soft "neuromorphic" computer chips could be implanted directly into the brain, allowing people to control an artificial arm or a computer monitor simply by thinking about it. Like real neurons — but unlike conventional computer chips — these new devices can send and receive both chemical and electrical signals. "Your brain works with chemicals, with neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin. Our materials are able to interact electrochemically with them," says Alberto Salleo, a materials scientist at Stanford University who wrote about the potential for organic neuromorphic devices in the 2021 Annual Review of Materials Research. Salleo and other researchers have created electronic devices using these soft organic materials that can act like transistors (which amplify and switch electrical signals) and memory cells (which store information) and other basic electronic components. The work grows out of an increasing interest in neuromorphic computer circuits that mimic how human neural connections, or synapses, work. These circuits, whether made of silicon, metal or organic materials, work less like those in digital computers and more like the networks of neurons in the human brain.... An individual neuron receives signals from many other neurons, and all these signals together add up to affect the electrical state of the receiving neuron. In effect, each neuron serves as both a calculating device — integrating the value of all the signals it has received — and a memory device: storing the value of all of those combined signals as an infinitely variable analog value, rather than the zero-or-one of digital computers.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Seattle Times reports:Meta, Facebook's parent company, repeatedly and intentionally violated Washington campaign-ad transparency law and must pay penalties yet to be determined, a judge ruled Friday. The court also denied Meta's attempt to invalidate Washington's decades-old transparency law, according to Attorney General Bob Ferguson, whose office has repeatedly sued Meta over its failure to abide by the law.... In a statement, Ferguson said his office defeated Facebook's "cynical attempt" to gut Washington's campaign-finance transparency law. "On behalf of the people of Washington, I challenge Facebook to accept this decision and do something very simple — follow the law," he said. Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Washington's transparency law, originally passed by voters through an initiative in 1972, requires ad sellers such as Meta to disclose the names and addresses of political ad buyers, the targets of such ads and the total number of views of each ad. Meta says that rather than comply with the law, Facebook has stopped serving campaign ads altogether in Washington, GeekWire reports, "after determining that the company wouldn't be able to reasonably comply with the law." But "The current suit against Meta, filed in April 2020, asserts that the company continued to accept political ads in the state after promising to stop."The judge will now consider fines and a potential injunction against the social media giant, reported Eli Sanders, a Seattle journalist who covered the dispute for years for The Stranger newspaper and more recently in his Wild West newsletter.... In court filings, Meta called Washington state "an outlier," arguing that the disclosure law violates the First Amendment by unfairly targeting political speech, and imposing onerous timelines for disclosing what Meta considers unreasonable degrees of detail to people who request information about political ads.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Every movie, every showtime, every format — $3.00" announces the web site for America's "National Cinema Day." UPI explains:While not all theaters will be participating in the day, most major American chains, including AMC, Regal, Cinemark and Marcus are all taking part.... In addition to major cinema chains, dozens of independent, small and art-house theaters will be offering $3 tickets as well. Vox noted that the day should be busy, considering that a large chunk of the film industry has recovered from COVID-19. The outlet reported that total domestic ticket sales this summer exceeded $3 billion — though this is still an estimated 20% less than summer 2019. More details from CNBC:Jackie Brenneman, president of the nonprofit Cinema Foundation, tells CNBC Make It that the idea for a national movie theater holiday was in the works well before 2020, but that the Covid-19 pandemic forced those plans to be postponed. After Regal Cinemas parent company Cineworld held a similar event in the UK in February to great success, Brenneman said planning began in earnest to replicate the promotion across the pond. "It gave a model template for how we could do something at that scale in the United States," she says.... The flat $3 price for any movie in any format is also meant to encourage moviegoers to check out premium formats such as Dolby and IMAX. "It's an opportunity to get people to try out the new technologies and see how they like it," Brenneman says.... There are thus far no plans in place to repeat National Cinema Day next year, but Brenneman says the hope is this won't be a one-off event.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google is slowly opening up the Play Store's billing policies. The "user choice billing" pilot program that was announced in March is now accepting sign-ups. Google describes the program in a support article, saying, "This pilot is designed to test offering an alternative billing option next to Google Play's billing system and to help us explore offering this choice to users. We are looking to gain feedback in different countries and ensure we can maintain a positive user experience." Developers interested in billing through an alternative provider can fill out Google's sign-up form, and it sounds like Google will manually review each application. Google won't let developers use the pilot program for games -- the biggest money makers -- but only for apps. Barring a few promotional tiers, Google and Apple both take around 30 percent not just for purchases of newly downloaded apps but also for digital purchases inside already downloaded apps. Many developers view these fees as excessive, and the push inside both ecosystems to allow third-party billing was originally pitched as a solution to high app store fees. Various regulatory bodies have forced the Google/Apple app store duopoly to open up payments, but Google and Apple have each done so without fixing the core problem of high app store fees. Apple takes a 27 percent cut of purchases processed outside the app store -- basically the original 30 percent fee minus the typical 3 percent processing fee charged by credit card companies. Google is doing something similar with this new program and will only reduce its fees by 4 percent. You'll still need to pay some kind of fee to your third-party payment processor, so with only a 4 percent reduction from Google, developers won't really save money.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Death Valley set a new record for the hottest September day anywhere on the planet when its Furnace Creek thermometer hit 127 degrees on Thursday. CBS News reports: While the heat may send people seeking shade at a, say, a Los Angeles-area golf course, it actually draws the tourists to Death Valley, where scorching temperatures can sometimes surprise them. "The ground heats up, we've measured temperatures of 201 as far as ground temperatures. The ground is then radiating heat back up into the air," Death Valley National Park spokeswoman Abby Wines said. But the heat wave is just in its third day Friday, and is expected to last through Labor Day, so setting another record is still a possibility. However, it's unlikely the park will break the record for the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth -- 134 degrees recorded in Death Valley on July 10, 1913.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

On Friday, the family of astronomer Frank Drake announced that he passed away peacefully at 92 in his California home, near the site of his final academic position at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Ars Technica reports: Drake made a number of contributions to radio astronomy, including serving as director of the Arecibo radio telescope facility. But Drake is probably best known for an equation that bears his name and his subsequent involvement in SETI efforts. His equation was the first significant attempt to estimate the probability of intelligent extraterrestrial life. [...] His most prominent contribution in this area was the formulation of what's now known as the Drake equation. It's purportedly a calculation -- plug in the probabilities of a handful of things like the frequency of exoplanets around stars and the probability of life forming spontaneously, and out would pop the overall number of intelligent civilizations in our galaxy. [...] Drake first presented his equation in 1961, and he maintained an interest in the question of extraterrestrial life throughout his career. While at Arecibo, he was involved in a project that beamed a message from that facility to a cluster of stars. He also helped craft two messages sent with our first hardware that was expected to leave the Solar System: a plaque on Pioneer 10 and 11 and gold records placed on the Voyager probes. He was also involved with the SETI institute and served on its board of trustees.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: More than a billion miles away from Earth, on the ice giants of Neptune and Uranus, diamonds are forever. This isn't cosmic poetry, but a reasonable scientific conclusion: We know that under extreme pressures and high temperatures miles beneath a planet's surface, hydrocarbons are pummeled into a crystalline bling coveted by the affianced. But on far-flung Neptune and Uranus, the Universe's diamond-making process is a bit more curious. Since the 1970s, scientists believed that diamonds might actually rain down toward the mostly slushy planets' rocky interiors -- a diamond rain, if you will. In 2017, researchers in Germany and California found a way to replicate those planetary conditions, fabricating teeny tiny diamonds called nanodiamonds in the lab using polystyrene (aka Styrofoam). Five years later and they're back at it again, this time using some good ol' polyethylene terephthalate (PET), according to a study published on Friday in Science Advances. The research has implications not only for our understanding of space, but paves a path toward creating nanodiamonds that are used in a range of contexts out of waste plastic. So, why in the world are we making diamonds out of the same plastic that things like food containers and water bottles are made of? There's a good reason for this, Dominik Kraus, a scientist at the German research laboratory Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf and lead author of the study, said in an email. When Kraus and his colleagues first attempted making nanodiamonds with polystyrene -- which contains the same elements of carbon and hydrogen found on Neptune and Uranus -- they did so by bombarding the material with the Linac Coherent Light Source, a high-powered X-ray laser at the SLAC National Acceleratory Laboratory in California. This process rapidly heated the polystyrene to 5,000 Kelvin (around 8,540 degrees Fahrenheit) and compressed it by 150 gigapascals, similar to conditions found about 6,000 miles into the interior of the icy planets. While the researchers were able to make the microscopic bling with two quick hits from the laser, they later realized one vital chemical ingredient was missing: oxygen. So they turned to PET, which has a good balance of not only carbon and hydrogen but also oxygen, making it a closer chemical proxy to the ice giants than polystyrene. "The chemistry at these conditions is very complex and modeling extremely difficult. 'Anything can happen' is a typical phrase when discussing such scenarios with theorists," said Kraus. "Indeed, there were some predictions showing that the presence of oxygen is helping [carbon separate from hydrogen] and diamond formation, but also ideas that it may be the other way around." To put the theoretical pedal to the metal, Kraus and his colleagues took a piece of PET, put it through the same 2017 experimental motions, but also included something called small angle X-ray diffraction to see how quickly and how large the diamonds grow. "We found that the presence of oxygen enhances diamond formation instead of preventing it, making 'diamond rain' inside those planets a more likely scenario," said Kraus. "We [also] see that diamonds grow larger for higher pressures and with progressing time in the experiments." They were also able to squeeze out a lot of tiny diamonds from just one shot of X-ray, on the order of a few billion crystallites (or a few micrograms if you're talking total weight). But Kraus said this isn't enough, at least right now, for application purposes like diamond quantum sensors, which are used to detect magnetic flow, or chemical catalysts, which need a couple of milligrams at minimum. However, it could eventually be scaled up to serve those purposes, and be the first step to a more ritzy way of plastic recycling. Kraus and his team also believe they found more evidence for superionic water, a bizarre type of water that acts like a weird cross between solid and liquid. "Kraus said that the finding that nanodiamonds indeed form inside ice giants makes it more likely for the conditions for superionic water to arise," reports Motherboard. Kraus said: "[O]ur experiments show that carbon is separating from hydrogen and oxygen allowing pure water regions to form inside the planets. Thus, by making diamond precipitation a more realistic scenario inside those planets, also the formation of superionic water becomes more likely."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Earlier this week, California passed a law requiring all employers based or hiring in the state to post salary ranges on all job listings. The law will also require California-based companies with more than 100 employees to show their median gender and racial pay gaps -- a first for a US state. Bloomberg reports: The bill will head to Governor Gavin Newsom, who has until Sept. 30 to sign or veto. He hasn't yet expressed a position and didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. If he signs it, the law would affect some of the biggest US companies, including Meta, Alphabet and Disney [...] California joins Colorado, New York City, and Washington state in adopting the job-posting tactic. Only Colorado's law is currently in effect; New York City-based employers will have to start listing pay ranges starting on Nov. 1. The New York state legislature also passed a similar bill that's awaiting Governor Kathy Hochul's signature. If the California and New York governors, who are both Democrats, sign the pending laws, almost a quarter of the US population will live in states with such salary disclosure requirements. The California Chamber of Commerce opposes the bill, even after lawmakers stripped a requirement that would make all pay data public. New York City's rule also faced business pushback, which delayed enforcement by six months. "I think this becomes a tipping point, frankly," said Christine Hendrickson, the vice president of strategic initiatives at Syndio, which provides software that helps employers identify pay disparities. "It's at this point that employers are going to stop going jurisdiction by jurisdiction and start looking for a nationwide strategy."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The European Commission is advocating new rules for mobile phone and tablet repairability. PC Magazine reports: Draft proposals published this week would require manufacturers to make at least 15 components available to professional repairers for up to five years after releasing a new phone in the European Union (EU). That means customers would get guaranteed access to replacement batteries, back covers, front- and rear-facing cameras, audio connectors, charging ports, microphones and speakers, SIM and memory card trays, and more. "The steep increase in the demand for smartphones and tablets, combined [with] their increased functionality, has resulted in increased demand for energy and materials needed to manufacture these devices on the EU market, accompanied by an increase in their associated environmental impacts," Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen wrote in the proposal. "In addition, devices are often replaced prematurely by users and are, at the end of their useful life, not sufficiently reused or recycled, leading to a waste of resources." If adopted, the initiative would also usher in a new energy label for phones and tablets -- similar to the ones already in place across Europe for TVs and large household items. The labels would indicate an expected battery life, and include details on water and dust protection, and rate the device's resistance to drops and scratches. Those manufacturers, meanwhile, that can't (or won't) supply batteries for five years must instead meet a set of battery endurance tests that certify devices achieve 80% of a rated capacity after 1,000 full-charge cycles. They'll also need to ensure software updates never negatively impact battery life.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lenovo is finally selling AR glasses for consumers with the recently-announced Lenovo Glasses T1, which Ars Technica's Scharon Harding got to demo. Here's an excerpt from her report: With their Micro OLED displays and required tether to Windows, macOS, Android, or iOS devices, they bring some notable features to a space that has piqued industry-wide interest but is still likely far from becoming ubiquitous. The early version of the T1 I tried had limited features; I was mostly only able to view a homepage with basic menu options and a desktop with icons for apps, like web browsing. Although the glasses weren't ready for me to watch a movie or hop around apps, I was impressed at how clear text and menu items were. This was in a sunny room with exceedingly tall windows. Even when facing sunlight, the few colors on display seemed vibrant and the text legible. Lenovo specs the displays with 10,000:1 contrast and 1920x1080 pixels per eye. The glasses are also TUV-certified for low blue light and flicker reduction, according to Lenovo. Much more time is needed to explore and challenge the Micro OLED displays before I pass final judgment. But the combination of smaller pixels and, from what I saw thus far, strong colors, should accommodate screens so close to the eyes. More broadly speaking, brightness can be a concern with OLED technologies, but the small demo I saw fared well in a sun-flushed room. I used the Glasses T1 while it was connected to an Android smartphone via its USB-C cable, but it's also supposed to work with PCs, macOS devices, and, via an adapter sold separately, iPhones. [...] With no processor or battery, it's easier for the glasses to stay trim. There are also no sensors or cameras like the Lenovo ThinkReality A3, announced last year, has. Other T1 features include a pair of speakers (one near each temple) and the ability to add prescription lenses. [...] The Glasses T1 are expected to be available in select markets in 2023 after debuting in China (as the Lenovo Yoga Glasses) this year. Lenovo didn't set a price, but I was told it's hoping to keep the glasses under $500.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In an article published by the Atlantic, writer and Director of Film and Media Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, Ian Bogost, claims e-bikes have an identity crisis and "represent not the fusion of two modes of transit, but a conflict between them." Here's an excerpt from his report: I'd like to drive less, exercise more, commune with nature, and hate myself with a lesser intensity because I am driving less, exercising more, and communing with nature. One way to accomplish all of these goals, I decided earlier this year, was to procure an e-bike. (That's a bicycle with a motor, if you didn't know.) I could use it for commuting, for errands, for putting my human body to work, and for reducing my environmental impact. A cyclist I have never been, but perhaps an e-biker I could become. [...] But I've been trying to live with one, and brother, I've got some bad news. These things are freaks. Portraying e-bikes as a simple, obvious, and inevitable evolution of transportation (or even of bicycling) doesn't fully explain these strange contraptions. The same was said of Segways, and then of Bird scooters, and both flamed out spectacularly. Bikes have always worn many helmets: cycling as exercise, cycling as leisure, cycling as sport, cycling as transit. These roles often conflict with one another. The commuter sneers at the spinner, who pedals pointlessly to nowhere. The leisure-rider spurs the Lycra-racer, who endangers pedestrians and inspires drivers to hate cyclists. E-bikes continue, and worsen, that disorder by jumbling up aspects of bicycles and motorcycles. Strapping a motor to a bike turns out to alter more than just speed and exertion. It produces a chameleon that takes on, under various conditions, both the best and worst features of a variety of transportation technologies. The result is less an evolution of a two-wheeled machine than a pastiche of the many things such a device represents. It's a monster made from bicycles and motorbikes. Here's what I mean: A bike can be exerting to ride, which is both a feature and a defect. Biking to the store or office offers an opportunity to move one's body instead of spreading it into the seat of a car (or even a train). Depending on distance and terrain, biking can raise your heart rate, making it an effective workout. But working out can make you sweaty and smelly, a feature incompatible with using a bike for commuting (or even errands). E-bikes, by contrast, allow a motor to assist the rider, reducing exertion and thereby delivering you to the office or cheesemonger with a dry brow and dry armpits. But in exchange for that polish, an e-bike rider gets less exercise than the equivalent trip under full pedal. [...] The truth will differ based on circumstance, but the result is the same: a weird ambiguity. An e-bike sure seems like a way to cheat at exercise, even if it really facilitates it. [...] Further reading: America Has An E-Bike Problem That Can't Be Solved With More E-Bikes (Motherboard)Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Intel has made available versions of its 12th-generation Core processors optimized for edge and IoT applications, claiming the purpose-built chips enable smaller form factor designs, but with the AI inferencing performance to analyze data right at the edge. The Register reports: The latest members of the Alder Lake family, the 12th Gen Intel Core SoC processors for IoT edge (formerly Alder Lake PS) combine the performance profile and power envelope of the mobile chips but the LGA socket flexibility of the desktop chips, according to Intel, meaning they can be mounted directly on a system board or in a socket for easy replacement. Delivered as a multi-chip package, the new processors combine the Alder Lake cores with an integrated Platform Controller Hub (PCH) providing I/O functions and integrated Iris Xe graphics with up to 96 graphics execution units. [...] Intel VP and general manager of the Network and Edge Compute Division Jeni Panhorst said in a statement that the new processors were designed for a wide range of vertical industries. "As the digitization of business processes continues to accelerate, the amount of data created at the edge and the need for it to be processed and analyzed locally continues to explode," she said. Another key capability for managing systems deployed in edge scenarios is that these processors include Intel vPro features, which include remote management capabilities built into the hardware at the silicon level, so an IT admin can reach into a system and perform actions such as changing settings, applying patches or rebooting the platform. The chips support up to eight PCIe 4.0 lanes, and four Thunderbolt 4/USB4 lanes, with up to 64GB of DDR5 or DDR4 memory, and the graphics are slated to deliver four 4K displays or one 8K display. Operating system support includes Windows 10 IoT Enterprise 2021 Long Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) and Linux options. Intel said the new SoCs are aimed at a broad range of industries, including point-of-sale kit in the retail, banking, and hospitality sectors, industrial PCs and controllers for the manufacturing industry, plus healthcare.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A federal judge on Thursday tentatively declined to overturn the jury conviction of disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes on four felony counts of fraud and conspiracy. That leaves the former Silicon Valley star a step closer to serving prison time. Politico reports: U.S. District Judge Edward Davila won't make that decision final until Oct. 17, when he is scheduled to sentence Holmes in the same San Jose, California, courtroom where a jury found her guilty of duping investors in her much-hyped blood-testing startup. Holmes, 38, faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, plus restitution, for lying to investors about a Theranos technology she hailed as a revolution in healthcare but which in practice produced dangerously inaccurate results.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MarketWatch: The Internal Revenue Service inadvertently posted what is normally confidential information involving about 120,000 individuals before discovering the error and removing the data from its website, officials said Friday. The data are from Form 990-T (PDF), which is often required for people with individual retirement accounts who earn certain types of business income within those retirement plans. That typically includes people whose IRAs are invested in master limited partnerships, real estate or other assets that generate income, not those whose IRAs are solely invested in securities. The disclosures included names, contact information and financial information about income within those IRAs. It didn't include Social Security numbers, full individual income information or other data that could affect a taxpayer's credit, the Treasury Department determined, according to a letter that the administration is sending to key members of Congress on Friday. The IRS and Treasury Department blamed a human coding error that happened last year when Form 990-T began to be electronically filed. The nonpublic data was mistakenly included with the public data and all of it was available for searching and downloading on the agency's website. The Wall Street Journal, which routinely analyzes nonprofit tax filings, downloaded at least some of the data before its removal.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The US Army is taking delivery of a first batch of high-tech combat goggles made by Microsoft, citing encouraging results from testing in the field. From a report: Assistant Secretary for Acquisition Douglas Bush has "cleared the Army to begin accepting" some of the 5,000 sets of goggles, spokesman Jamal Beck said in a statement. Their delivery had been placed on hold over concern about the device's performance until more rigorous testing took place. Based on the test results so far the service "is adjusting its fielding plan to allow for time to correct deficiencies and also field to units that are focused on training activities," Beck said. Microsoft's Integrated Visual Augmentation System, or IVAS, is expected to provide a "heads-up display" for U.S. ground forces, similar to those for fighter pilots. The system -- a customized version of Microsoft's HoloLens goggles -- would let commanders project information onto a visor in front of a soldier's face and would include features such as night vision. The Army projects spending as much as $21.9 billion over a decade on Microsoft's combat goggles, spare parts and support services if all options are exercised.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon.com, determined to reduce the size of its sprawling delivery operation amid slowing sales growth, has abandoned dozens of existing and planned facilities around the US, according to a closely watched consulting firm. From a report: MWPVL, which tracks Amazon's real-estate footprint, estimates the company has either shuttered or killed plans to open 42 facilities totaling almost 25 million square feet of usable space. The company has delayed opening an additional 21 locations, totaling nearly 28 million square feet, according to MWPVL. The e-commerce giant also has canceled a handful of European projects, mostly in Spain, the firm said. Just this week Amazon warned officials in Maryland that it plans to close two delivery stations next month in Hanover and Essex, near Baltimore, that employ more than 300 people. The moves are a striking contrast with previous years, when the world's largest e-commerce company typically entered the fall rushing to open new facilities and hire thousands of workers to prepare for the holiday shopping season. Amazon continues to open facilities where it requires more space to meet customer demand.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

T-Mobile won the lion's share of spectrum licenses in the latest Federal Communications Commission auction, helping it fill rural network gaps that evoked comparisons to Swiss cheese. T-Mobile's winning bids totaled $304.3 million, letting it obtain 7,156 licenses out of 7,872 that were sold, the FCC announced yesterday. From a report: T-Mobile's licenses are spread across 2,724 counties (out of 3,143 total in the US). The second-highest bidder in dollar terms was PTI Pacifica, which spent $17.7 million on nine licenses in five counties. "With most of the available spectrum in the 2.5 GHz band located in rural areas, this auction provides vital spectrum resources to support wireless services in rural communities," the FCC said. The auction provided up to three blocks of spectrum, totaling 117.5MHz in each county. In terms of the number of licenses won, the second-place finisher was the North American Catholic Educational Programming Fund. Its winning bids totaled $7.8 million and cover 107 licenses in 84 counties. There were 63 winning bidders overall, and the auction raised $427.8 million. Small entities and rural service providers were given discounts on the license costs. The 2.5 GHz spectrum was originally set aside for educational institutions but has been repurposed for commercial service.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Flash floods, wildfires and hurricanes are easy to recognize as ravages of a fast-changing climate. But now, climate change has also emerged as a growing threat to clean, safe drinking water across the country. The New York Times: The deluge that knocked out a fraying water plant in Jackson, Miss., this week, depriving more than 150,000 people of drinking water, offered the latest example of how quickly America's aging treatment plants and decades-old pipes can crumple under the shocks of a warming world. "There's a crisis at hand," said Mikhail V. Chester, a professor of civil, environmental and sustainable engineering at Arizona State University. "The climate is simply changing too fast, relative to how quickly we could change our infrastructure." Earlier this summer, more than 25,000 people lost their water, some for weeks, after deadly floods ripped through eastern Kentucky, breaking water lines as they obliterated entire neighborhoods. Utility companies across Texas spent the summer coping with hundreds of water-main breaks as record heat baked and shifted the drought-stricken soil surrounding pipes. This came after a bitter winter storm that plunged Texas into freezing darkness in February 2021 and caused thousands of pipes to burst. And from the Gulf Coast to the East Coast, supercharged hurricanes like Harvey and Ida now regularly debilitate water suppliers, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to boil their water or scramble for bottles days or weeks after the storms pass. This is on top of the slower-moving threats such as rising sea levels that can contaminate water supplies with saltwater, or a Western "mega-drought" that is withering reservoirs and parching the Colorado River that supplies water to some 40 million people.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Some train journeys in Spain will be free of charge from 1 September to 31 December. From a report: The scheme, announced by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on 12 July, applies to short and medium distance trains run by the national rail operator Renfe. It is open to all nationalities, including international tourists. Free tickets are available on all Renfe commuter trains (Cercanias and Rodalies) and mid-distance regional lines covering journeys of less than 300km (Media Distancia routes). The 100 per cent discount is only available on multi-trip tickets, not singles. Travel on other services, including long distance trains and those operated by other companies, will not come under the measures. This could mean free train travel between cities like Barcelona and Seville or Madrid and Bilbao -- if you are willing to commit to buying a season ticket. Although the tickets are free, a deposit of $10 or $20 is required to take advantage of the offer. You must have made at least 16 journeys by the end of December for this to be refunded.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Brian Krebs, reporting at Krebs on Security: In mid-June 2022, a flood of SMS phishing messages began targeting employees at commercial staffing firms that provide customer support and outsourcing to thousands of companies. The missives asked users to click a link and log in at a phishing page that mimicked their employer's Okta authentication page. Those who submitted credentials were then prompted to provide the one-time password needed for multi-factor authentication. The phishers behind this scheme used newly-registered domains that often included the name of the target company, and sent text messages urging employees to click on links to these domains to view information about a pending change in their work schedule. The phishing sites leveraged a Telegram instant message bot to forward any submitted credentials in real-time, allowing the attackers to use the phished username, password and one-time code to log in as that employee at the real employer website. But because of the way the bot was configured, it was possible for security researchers to capture the information being sent by victims to the public Telegram server. This data trove was first reported by security researchers at Singapore-based Group-IB, which dubbed the campaign "0ktapus" for the attackers targeting organizations using identity management tools from Okta.com. "This case is of interest because despite using low-skill methods it was able to compromise a large number of well-known organizations," Group-IB wrote. "Furthermore, once the attackers compromised an organization they were quickly able to pivot and launch subsequent supply chain attacks, indicating that the attack was planned carefully in advance." It's not clear how many of these phishing text messages were sent out, but the Telegram bot data reviewed by KrebsOnSecurity shows they generated nearly 10,000 replies over approximately two months of sporadic SMS phishing attacks targeting more than a hundred companies.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

U.S. electronics giant Samsung has confirmed a data breach affecting customers' personal information. From a report: In a brief notice, Samsung said it discovered the security incident in late-July and that an "unauthorized third party acquired information from some of Samsung's U.S. systems." The company said it determined customer data was compromised on August 4. Samsung said Social Security numbers and credit card numbers were not affected, but some customer information -- name, contact and demographic information, date of birth, and product registration information -- was taken.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Taiwan looks forward to producing "democracy chips" with the United States, President Tsai Ing-wen told the visiting governor of the U.S. state of Arizona, Doug Ducey, on Thursday, the latest in a string of senior officials from the county to visit. From a report: Taiwan has been keen to show the United States, its most important international backer and arms supplier despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties, that it is a reliable friend as a global chip crunch impacts auto production and consumer electronics. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, a major Apple supplier and the world's largest contract chipmaker, is constructing a $12 billion plant in Arizona. "In the face of authoritarian expansionism and the challenges of the post-pandemic era, Taiwan seeks to bolster cooperation with the United States in the semiconductor and other high-tech industries," Tsai said at the meeting in the presidential office in Taipei. "This will help build more secure and more resilient supply chains. We look forward to jointly producing democracy chips to safeguard the interests of our democratic partners and create greater prosperity."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Big U.S. tech companies have flocked to the World Artificial Intelligence Conference that opened Thursday in Shanghai, drawing a stark contrast with Washington's ongoing efforts to distance itself economically from China. From a report: The opening ceremony included a virtual address by Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon, who said the company will supply the most complete and comprehensive technology and solutions in China and the world. Apple, Advanced Micro Devices, Facebook parent Meta and GE HealthCare also have executives or booths at the event, according to Chinese media. Europe's semiconductor industry is represented as well, with executives from Netherlands-based NXP Semiconductors, a major supplier of automotive chips, and Germany's Infineon Technologies discussing development plans. The strong American showing is good news for China, which needs advanced chip technology to power its AI development and is keen to win over companies that can provide it. The business opportunities afforded by the massive Chinese market remain essential to many American companies. China is a leading information technology production hub, as well as the world's top auto production center -- an increasingly important field for chipmakers as the number of semiconductors used in vehicles continues to rise. Qualcomm generated roughly two-thirds of its sales last year in China, a major production base for many of the smartphone manufacturers that are among its main customers. The country accounts for just under 30% of sales at AMD and Intel, 20% at Micron Technology and over 30% at NXP.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Cannabis users are often depicted as lazy "stoners" whose life ambitions span little further than lying on the sofa eating crisps. But research from the University of Cambridge challenges this stereotype, showing that regular users appear no more likely to lack motivation compared with non-users. From a report: The research also found no difference in motivation for rewards, pleasure taken from rewards, or the brain's response when seeking rewards, compared with non-users. "We're so used to seeing 'lazy stoners' on our screens that we don't stop to ask whether they're an accurate representation," said Martine Skumlien, a PhD student at the University of Cambridge and the research's first author. "Our work implies that ... people who use cannabis are no more likely to lack motivation or be lazier than people who don't." Skumlien said smoking cannabis could be associated with other downsides, but that the stoner stereotype is "stigmatising" and could make messages around harm reduction less effective. "We need to be honest and frank about what are and are not the harmful consequences of drug use," she added. Cannabis is the third most commonly used controlled substance worldwide, after alcohol and nicotine, with a 2018 NHS report finding that almost one in five (19%) of 15-year-olds in England had used cannabis in the previous 12 months.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Netflix is moving up the timeline for the debut of its cheaper, ad-supported plan to November -- in order to get out before the Dec. 8 launch of the Disney+ tier with advertising. From a report: In July, Netflix told investors that it was targeting the launch of the ad-supported plan "around the early part of 2023." But now, Netflix's ad-supported is set to go live Nov. 1 in multiple countries, including the U.S., Canada, U.K., France and Germany, according to industry sources who have been briefed on the streamer's plans. That would be a little over a month before Disney+ Basic, priced at $7.99/month, hits the market in the U.S. Netflix declined to comment. "We are still in the early days of deciding how to launch a lower-priced, ad-supported tier and no decisions have been made," a company rep said. Sources confirmed the new Nov. 1 launch date, which was previously reported by the Wall Street Journal. Netflix and its exclusive ad partner, Microsoft, have requested ad buyers submit initial bids next week, with a "soft $65 CPM" -- the cost per thousand views -- meaning that the company is open to negotiating the ad rates. That's well above industry CPMs of sub-$20. Sources speculate Netflix's request for proposals from ad buyers will function as a Dutch auction, with the company looking to see what the market will bear.Read more of this story at Slashdot.