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Microsoft software engineer Stephen Hemminger has proposed removing the DECnet protocol handling code from the Linux kernel. The Register reports: The timing is ironic, as this comes just two weeks after VMS Software Inc announced that OpenVMS 9.2 was really ready this time... That announcement, of course, came some months after the first time it announced [PDF] version 9.2 [...]. The last maintainer of the DECnet code was Red Hat's Christine Caulfield, who flagged the code as orphaned in 2010. The change is unlikely to vastly inconvenience many people: VMS is the last even slightly mainstream OS that used DECnet, and VMS has supported TCP/IP for a long time. Indeed, for decades, the oldest email in this reporter's "sent" folder was a 1993 enquiry about the freeware CMUIP stack for VMS. One of the easier ways to bootstrap VMS on an elderly VAX these days is to install it on the SimH VAX hardware simulator, and then net-boot the real VAX from the simulated one. Anyone keen enough to do that will be competent to run an older version of Linux just for the purpose. Although their existence is rapidly being forgotten today, TCP/IP is not the only network protocol around, and as late as the mid-1990s it wasn't even the dominant one. The Linux kernel used to support multiple network protocols, but they are disappearing fast. [...] For a long time, DECnet was a significant network protocol. DEC supplied a client stack called PathWorks to let DOS, Windows and Mac clients connect to VAX servers, not only for file and print, but also terminal connections and X.11. Whole worldwide WANs ran over DECnet, and as a teenage student, your correspondent enjoyed exploring them.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a set of 3,207 mobile apps that are exposing Twitter API keys to the public, potentially enabling a threat actor to take over users' Twitter accounts that are associated with the app. The discovery belongs to cybersecurity firm CloudSEKE, which scrutinized large app sets for potential data leaks and found 3,207 leaking a valid Consumer Key and Consumer Secret for the Twitter API. When integrating mobile apps with Twitter, developers will be given special authentication keys, or tokens, that allow their mobile apps to interact with the Twitter API. When a user associates their Twitter account with this mobile app, the keys also will enable the app to act on behalf of the user, such as logging them in via Twitter, creating tweets, sending DMs, etc. As having access to these authentication keys could allow anyone to perform actions as associated Twitter users, it is never recommended to store keys directly in a mobile app where threat actors can find them. CloudSEK explains that the leak of API keys is commonly the result of mistakes by app developers who embed their authentication keys in the Twitter API but forget to remove them when the mobile is released. [...] One of the most prominent scenarios of abuse of this access, according to CloudSEK, would be for a threat actor to use these exposed tokens to create a Twitter army of verified (trustworthy) accounts with large numbers of followers to promote fake news, malware campaigns, cryptocurrency scams, etc. "CloudSEK shared a list of impacted applications [...] with apps between 50,000 and 5,000,000 downloads," reports BleepingComputer. They are not disclosing the list because they are still vulnerable to exploitation and Twitter account takeover.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In response to user criticism, Google Play is bringing back the list of app permissions, but another curious Store change sees version numbers removed from the App info section. 9to5Google reports: Historically, you've been able to find the version number by opening a listings's "About this app" section and scrolling down to "App info" where it was the first line item. As of today, "Version" no longer appears there (or in the phone section of "Compatibility for your active devices") and "Updated on" is at the top. This information is only gone for the phone version of applications. It curiously remains for Wear OS and Android/Google TV apps. Meanwhile, version numbers still appear on the Google Play website. This issue does not appear related to (or just impact) apps that only note "Varies with device."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amidst a disappointing set of earnings for the last quarter, Match Group has announced it's scaling back Tinder's metaverse dating ambitions and scrapping plans to offer an in-app Tinder Coins currency. The Verge reports: Tinder CEO Renate Nyborg, who became the dating app's first female CEO just last September, is also leaving the position, parent company Match Group's CEO Bernard Kim announced. Kim himself was named as CEO just two months ago. Nyborg previously set out ambitious plans for Tinder's take on the metaverse (or "Tinderverse" as she called it). Tinder acquired a company called Hyperconnect last year, which focuses on video, AI, and augmented reality technology, and Nyborg later cited its avatar-based "Single Town" experience as a way Tinder's users might one day be able to meet and interact with one another in virtual spaces, TechCrunch reported at the time. Now, however, Kim says he's instructed Hyperconnect to scale back. "Given uncertainty about the ultimate contours of the metaverse and what will or won't work, as well as the more challenging operating environment, I've instructed the Hyperconnect team to iterate but not invest heavily in metaverse at this time," Kim said. "We'll continue to evaluate this space carefully, and we will consider moving forward at the appropriate time when we have more clarity on the overall opportunity and feel we have a service that is well-positioned to succeed." Match Group cited the acquisition of Hyperconnect as contributing to a $10 million operating loss in the second quarter of 2022, down from operating income of $210 million in the same quarter last year.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from a report via NPR: When a group of engineers and researchers gathered in a warehouse in Mukilteo, Wash., 10 years ago, they knew they were onto something big. They scrounged up tables and chairs, cleared out space in the parking lot for experiments and got to work. They were building a battery -- a vanadium redox flow battery -- based on a design created by two dozen U.S. scientists at a government lab. The batteries were about the size of a refrigerator, held enough energy to power a house, and could be used for decades. The engineers pictured people plunking them down next to their air conditioners, attaching solar panels to them, and everyone living happily ever after off the grid. "It was beyond promise," said Chris Howard, one of the engineers who worked there for a U.S. company called UniEnergy. "We were seeing it functioning as designed, as expected." But that's not what happened. Instead of the batteries becoming the next great American success story, the warehouse is now shuttered and empty. All the employees who worked there were laid off. And more than 5,200 miles away, a Chinese company is hard at work making the batteries in Dalian, China. The Chinese company didn't steal this technology. It was given to them -- by the U.S. Department of Energy. First in 2017, as part of a sublicense, and later, in 2021, as part of a license transfer. An investigation by NPR and the Northwest News Network found the federal agency allowed the technology and jobs to move overseas, violating its own licensing rules while failing to intervene on behalf of U.S. workers in multiple instances. Now, China has forged ahead, investing millions into the cutting-edge green technology that was supposed to help keep the U.S. and its economy out front. Department of Energy officials declined NPR's request for an interview to explain how the technology that cost U.S. taxpayers millions of dollars ended up in China. After NPR sent department officials written questions outlining the timeline of events, the federal agency terminated the license with the Chinese company, Dalian Rongke Power Co. Ltd. "DOE takes America's manufacturing obligations within its contracts extremely seriously," the department said in a written statement. "If DOE determines that a contractor who owns a DOE-funded patent or downstream licensee is in violation of its U.S. manufacturing obligations, DOE will explore all legal remedies." The department is now conducting an internal review of the licensing of vanadium battery technology and whether this license -- and others -- have violated U.S. manufacturing requirements, the statement said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The pigs had been lying dead in the lab for an hour -- no blood was circulating in their bodies, their hearts were still, their brain waves flat. Then a group of Yale scientists pumped a custom-made solution into the dead pigs' bodies with a device similar to a heart-lung machine. From a report: What happened next adds questions to what science considers the wall between life and death. Although the pigs were not considered conscious in any way, their seemingly dead cells revived. Their hearts began to beat as the solution, which the scientists called OrganEx, circulated in veins and arteries. Cells in their organs, including the heart, liver, kidneys and brain, were functioning again, and the animals never got stiff like a typical dead pig. Other pigs, dead for an hour, were treated with ECMO, a machine that pumped blood through their bodies. They became stiff, their organs swelled and became damaged, their blood vessels collapsed, and they had purple spots on their backs where blood pooled. The group reported its results Wednesday in Nature. The researchers say their goals are to one day increase the supply of human organs for transplant by allowing doctors to obtain viable organs long after death. And, they say, they hope their technology might also be used to prevent severe damage to hearts after a devastating heart attack or brains after a major stroke.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Democratic lawmakers are piling pressure on data brokers to stop collecting information on pregnant people in order to protect those seeking abortions. They're not having much luck. From a report: For years, brokers have sold datasets on millions of expectant parents from their trimester status to their preferred birth methods. Now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, that same data is becoming a political issue, with abortion-rights groups warning that states with abortion bans are likely to weaponize it. In the three months since POLITICO reported the draft opinion against Roe, numerous congressional Democrats have sent letters to data brokers urging them to stop the practice, promised to interrogate the companies about their collections and introduced bills to restrict reproductive health data from being collected and sold. But in the absence of federal data privacy legislation or any likely chance of it getting the support needed to pass, many brokers aren't taking heed. POLITICO found more than 30 listings from data brokers offering information on expecting parents or selling access to those people through mass email blasts. Twenty-five of them were updated after the Supreme Court's ruling on Roe v. Wade on June 24. Exact Data, a data broker that offers names, emails and mailing addresses of more than 23,000 expecting parents, updated its inventory as recently as August 1. PK List Marketing also updated its "She's Having a Baby - PRENATAL Mailing List" on August 1, according to its listing on NextMark, a directory of marketing email lists.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The world, apparently, has a new financial giant. From a report: AMTD Digital, a Hong Kong-based company that listed in New York less than three weeks ago, has surged so much that its market value hit more than $310 billion as of Tuesday's close. That means the firm -- which develops digital businesses, including financial services -- is worth more than Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group, despite reporting just $25 million in revenue for the year ended April 2021. At least on paper, that makes it the third-biggest financial company in the world, trailing just JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway. While those firms have a long list of shareholders, AMTD Digital has a convoluted ownership structure that ultimately leads to one key name: Calvin Choi, an ex-UBS Group AG banker, who's currently fighting an industry ban in Hong Kong for failing to disclose conflicts of interest.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A World of Warcraft mobile game has reportedly been quietly canceled due to financing disputes. From a report: According to Bloomberg, the upcoming smartphone game had been in development for three years but has now been canceled due to a dispute between Activision Blizzard and NetEase. "The two companies disagreed over terms and ultimately called a halt to the project, which had been kept under wraps," said a source close to the deal. The project, referred to as "Neptune" by those working on it, was said to be a Warcraft spin-off, set during a different period to World of Warcraft. It's unknown whether it would have directly tied into either Warcraft, Warcraft II, or Warcraft III. The good news is that it's not Warcraft Arclight Rumble -- the upcoming mobile "tower offense" game due to release later this year. As far back as February this year, Activision Blizzard revealed that it was working on multiple mobile Warcraft titles, and this was thought to be one of the big reasons behind Microsoft's acquisition of the company for a reported $69 million earlier this year. Now, it looks as though those mobile games may be up in the air -- after all, the extent of Activision Blizzard's working relationship with NetEase following this high-profile cancellation is uncertain. Another of Activision Blizzard's mobile games, a Pokemon Go-style AR game, was also canceled.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Spain has announced new energy-saving measures, including limits on air conditioning and heating temperatures in public and large commercial buildings, as it becomes the latest European country to seek to reduce its energy consumption and its dependence on Russian oil and gas. From a report: Under a decree that comes into effect in seven days' time and applies to public buildings, shopping centres, cinemas, theatres, rail stations and airports, heating should not be set above 19C (66.2F) and air conditioning should not be set below 27C (80.6F). Doors will need to be closed so as not to waste energy, and lights in shop windows must be switched off after 10pm. The premises in question will be required to display signs or screens that explain the energy-saving initiatives. Although Spain is not as dependent on Russian energy supplies as many other EU countries, it has agreed to a 7-8% reduction in gas use. The measures, which were published in Tuesday's edition of the official state gazette, will remain in force until November 2023. "[This] lays out a series of measures to save energy and use it more efficiently, which are urgent and necessary when it comes to reducing energy consumption in general, and reducing our dependence on energy outside the Spanish economy," the decree said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Children who grow up in low-income households but who make friends that come from higher-income homes are more likely to have higher salaries in adulthood than those who have fewer such friends. From a report: "There's been a lot of speculation... that the individual's access to social capital, their social networks and the community they live in might matter a lot for a child's chance to rise out of poverty," says Raj Chetty at Harvard University. To find out if that holds up, he and his colleagues analysed anonymised Facebook data belonging to 72.2 million people in the US between the ages of 25 and 44, accounting for 84 per cent of the age group's US population. It is relatively nationally representative of that age group, he says. The team used a machine-learning algorithm to determine each person's socio-economic status (SES), combining data such as the median income of people who live in the same region, the person's age and sex and the value of their phone model as a proxy for individual income. The median household income was found to be close to $58,000. The researchers then split the individuals into two groups: those who were below the median SES and those who were above. If people made friends randomly, you would expect half of each person's friends to be in each income group. But instead, for people below the median SES, only 38 per cent of their friends were above the median SES. Meanwhile, 70.6 per cent of the friends of people above the median SES were also a part of the same group.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes: Haven't seen recommendation threads on Slashdot of late. Was curious what my fellow readers have watched and read this year that you enjoyed?Read more of this story at Slashdot.

India plans to order consumers to use cleaner fuels and aims to establish a carbon market under legislation to bolster the country's push to hit net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2070. From a report: The world's third-biggest emitter will seek to mandate the use of a minimum share of non-fossil fuel sources including biomass, ethanol, green hydrogen and ammonia, both for power generation or as a feedstock for manufacturing, according to a document introduced in Parliament on Wednesday. New laws would also penalize industrial operations, vehicles, ships and large buildings for not meeting energy consumption standards. Changes to the Energy Conservation (Amendment) Bill have a "special focus on the promotion of new and renewable energy" and the country's so-called National Hydrogen Mission, a strategy aimed at establishing India as a key global hub for development of the nascent zero-emissions fuel, according to the legislation. The proposed policy changes come as India chases Prime Minister Narendra Modi's target to cut 1 billion tons of carbon emissions by the end of this decade, and to reach to net-zero by 2070. They also coincide with the country's pledge to cut emissions by 45% from 2005 levels and use non-fossil fuel sources to power half its installed generation capacity by the end of this decade.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In June, Google announced that it's bringing the features of Meet into the Duo app -- and that transformation begins today. Google isn't technically getting rid of either app; Duo's getting rebranded as Meet with the features from both apps, and Meet's staying Meet. From a report: Yes, it sounds pretty confusing, but by the end of this process, there will be just two apps: "Meet Original" (the standard Meet app that will eventually get phased out) and the new Meet that combines both Meet and Duo. The combined app will let you conduct both group and one-on-one calls as well as hold meetings.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

White House adviser Tim Wu, who worked to shape the Biden administration's agenda to increase economic competition, is set to leave his position in the coming months, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the move. From a report: Wu is expected to return to antitrust law at Columbia Law School after serving as special assistant to the president for technology and competition policy since March 2021. He was the key architect behind President Joe Biden's executive order to bolster competition last year, which included 72 initiatives by more than a dozen federal agencies. The administration focused on improving competition within industries including technology, health care and agriculture.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Indian government is withdrawing its long-awaited Personal Data Protection Bill that drew scrutiny from several privacy advocates and tech giants who feared the legislation could restrict how they managed sensitive information while giving government broad powers to access it. From a report: The move comes as a surprise as lawmakers had indicated recently that the bill, unveiled in 2019, could see the "light of the day" soon. New Delhi received dozen of amendments and recommendations from a Joint Committee of Parliament that "identified many issues that were relevant but beyond the scope of a modern digital privacy law," said India's Junior IT Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar. The government will now work on a "comprehensive legal framework" and present a new bill, he added. The Personal Data Protection Bill sought to empower Indian citizens with rights relating to their data. India, the world's second largest internet market, has seen an explosion of personal data in the past decade as hundreds of citizens came online for the first time and started consuming scores of apps. But there has been uncertainty on how much power the individuals, private companies and government agencies have over it.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

People will confess all sorts of things to podcasters, from their unpopular political beliefs or embarrassing romantic mishaps to their worst fears. But there's one revelation certain guests will never disclose -- namely, that they're paying thousands of dollars just to be interviewed on the show. From a report: Welcome to the golden era of pay-for-play podcasting, when guests pay handsomely to be interviewed for an entire episode. In exchange, the host gets some revenue, fills out the programming calendar, and might bag a future advertiser. Determining exactly how widespread the practice is can be tricky. Disclosures, if included at all, might last only a few fleeting seconds in an hourlong interview, and various hosts use different language to describe the nature of such relationships. What percentage of shows accepts payment in exchange for airtime is also difficult to say. According to nearly a dozen interviews with industry sources, it appears the practice is particularly popular among podcasts in the wellness, cryptocurrency, and business arenas. In an age when social media influencers routinely get paid for mentioning a brand in an Instagram post or YouTube video, this marriage of convenience shouldn't come as a complete shock. Still, not everyone thinks it's a good idea. "As someone who's making money for that type of advertorial content, it should be disclosed," says Craig Delsack, a New York-based media lawyer. "It's just good practice and builds trust with the podcaster. It can't be the Wild West." US regulators also agree that consumers might be misled when they don't know a media mention only occurred in exchange for compensation. Even so, the phenomenon appears to be thriving in podcasting. Online platform Guestio has raised more than $1 million to build a marketplace devoted entirely to brokering paid guest appearances. On Guestio, the flow of money sometimes reverses direction, and a podcaster provides payment to land a particularly coveted guest such as boxer Manny Pacquiao, who charges $15,000 for an appearance.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: If China were to invade Taiwan, the most-advanced chip factory in the world would be rendered "not operable," TSMC Chair Mark Liu said in an English-language interview with CNN this week. In the undated interview, Liu said that if Taiwan were invaded by China, the chipmaker's plant would not be able to operate because it relies on global supply chains. "Nobody can control TSMC by force. If you take a military force or invasion, you will render TSMC factory not operable," Liu said. "Because this is such a sophisticated manufacturing facility, it depends on real-time connection with the outside world, with Europe, with Japan, with U.S., from materials to chemicals to spare parts to engineering software and diagnosis." The remarks were aired as tensions between China and Taiwan have escalated in recent days as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visits the island. "The war brings no winners, everybody's losers," Liu said. Liu compared a potential conflict in Taiwan to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, saying that while the two conflicts are very different, the economic impact to other countries would be similar. He encouraged political leaders to try to avoid war. "Ukraine war is not good for any of the sides, it's lose-lose-lose scenarios," Liu said. Liu said an invasion of the territory would cause economic turmoil for China, Taiwan and Western countries. He said that TSMC sells chips to consumer-facing Chinese companies that need the company's services and the supply of advanced computer chips. "How can we avoid war? How can we ensure that the engine of the world economy continues humming, and let's have a fair competition," Liu said. Further reading: US To Stop TSMC, Intel From Adding Advanced Chip Fabs In ChinaRead more of this story at Slashdot.

Using monthly vehicle registration data, Axios is tracking the transition to electric vehicles in the United States. What they found is that a handful of states are driving nearly all the country's electric car adoption. From the report: California -- no surprise -- leads the U.S. in electric vehicle ownership, accounting for 39% of all EVs registered nationwide. Look more closely at the numbers, however, and it turns out EVs represent less than 2% of all vehicles on the road in the Golden State. [...] 4.6% of the new vehicles registered in the U.S. this past May were electric, according to the [S&P Global Mobility's] most recent data. That's more than double EVs' share of monthly registrations in May 2021 (1.9%). EVs still account for only about 0.6% of all registered vehicles in the U.S. Take California's EVs away, and it's just 0.4%. As of April 1, Florida has the second-highest share of the country's EVs, at 6.7%. Then comes Texas (5.4%), Washington (4.4%), and New York (3.6%). Yet, EVs account for only 1% or less of all vehicles within each of these states. Besides California, the states or areas with the highest share of EVs within their own borders: Hawaii (1.3%), and the District of Columbia (1.2%). "Tesla's brand loyalty more than doubled in the month of May and was higher than any brand in the industry, including Toyota and Ford," S&P Global Mobility analyst Tom Libby tells Axios, noting that the Ford Mustang Mach-E, Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6 are growing in popularity. "We're just seeing the tip of the iceberg in terms of what's coming," says Libby.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Scientists have discovered dark matter around galaxies that existed about 12 billion years ago, the earliest detection yet of this mysterious substance that dominates the universe. Space.com reports: The findings, achieved by a collaboration led by researchers from Japan's Nagoya University, suggest that dark matter in the early universe is less 'clumpy' than predicted by many current cosmological models. If further work confirms this theory, it could change scientists' understanding of how galaxies evolve and suggest that the fundamental rules governing the cosmos could have been different when the 13.7 billion-year-old universe was just 1.7 billion years old. The key to mapping dark matter in the very early universe the cosmic microwave background (CMB), a sort of fossil radiation left over from the Big Bang that is distributed throughout the entire cosmos. [...] The team combined lensing distortions of a large sample of ancient galaxies with those of the CMB to detect dark matter dating back to when the universe was just 1.7 billion years old. And this ancient dark matter paints a very different cosmic picture. "For the first time, we were measuring dark matter from almost the earliest moments of the universe," [University of Tokyo assistant professor Yuichi Harikane said in the statement]. "12 billion years ago, things were very different. You see more galaxies that are in the process of formation than at the present; the first galaxy clusters are starting to form as well." These clusters can be comprised of between 100 and 1,000 galaxies bound to large amounts of dark matter by gravity. "Our finding is still uncertain," Harikane said. "But if it is true, it would suggest that the entire model is flawed as you go further back in time. This is exciting because if the result holds after the uncertainties are reduced, it could suggest an improvement of the model that may provide insight into the nature of dark matter itself." The team will continue to collect data to assess whether the Lambda-CDM model conforms to observations of dark matter in the early universe or if the assumptions behind the model need to be revised.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: Scientists at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and their collaborators have used DNA to overcome a nearly insurmountable obstacle to engineer materials that would revolutionize electronics. One possible outcome of such engineered materials could be superconductors, which have zero electrical resistance, allowing electrons to flow unimpeded. That means that they don't lose energy and don't create heat, unlike current means of electrical transmission. Development of a superconductor that could be used widely at room temperature -- instead of at extremely high or low temperatures, as is now possible -- could lead to hyper-fast computers, shrink the size of electronic devices, allow high-speed trains to float on magnets and slash energy use, among other benefits. One such superconductor was first proposed more than 50 years ago by Stanford physicist William A. Little. [...] One possible way to realize Little's idea for a superconductor is to modify lattices of carbon nanotubes, hollow cylinders of carbon so tiny they must be measured in nanometers -- billionths of a meter. But there was a huge challenge: controlling chemical reactions along the nanotubes so that the lattice could be assembled as precisely as needed and function as intended. [Edward H. Egelman, Ph.D., of UVA's Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics] and his collaborators found an answer in the very building blocks of life. They took DNA, the genetic material that tells living cells how to operate, and used it to guide a chemical reaction that would overcome the great barrier to Little's superconductor. In short, they used chemistry to perform astonishingly precise structural engineering -- construction at the level of individual molecules. The result was a lattice of carbon nanotubes assembled as needed for Little's room-temperature superconductor. [...] The lattice they built has not been tested for superconductivity, for now, but it offers proof of principle and has great potential for the future, the researchers say. The findings have been published in the journal Science.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

MicroStrategy co-founder Michael Saylor gave up his chief executive officer title and said he'll focus more on Bitcoin after the enterprise-software maker reported a loss of more than $1 billion related to the second-quarter plunge in the price of the cryptocurrency. Bloomberg reports: Saylor, who founded the Tysons Corner, Virginia-based company in 1989, will continue to serve as executive chairman as retains its Bitcoin buying strategy. MicroStrategy President Phong Le will take on the chief executive role. The company also filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to register 450,000 shares. MicroStrategy took a $917.8 million impairment charge related to the decline in the value of the Bitcoin it holds. Bitcoin tumbled 59% in the quarter, and traded about 45% lower than the price at the end of the year-earlier period. Revenue dropped to $122.1 million. Analysts polled by Bloomberg expected revenue of $123.25 million in the second quarter. Net quarterly loss of $1.062 billion compared with a loss of $299.3 million in the same quarter of last year. The quarterly loss is almost exactly twice the company's revenue in the last 12 months. As of June 30, the carrying value of the company's 129,699 Bitcoins was $1.988 billion, the company said, reflecting the cumulative impairment loss of $1.989 billion. The cumulative amount is now more than Bitcoin on the company's balance sheet. "MicroStrategy's original strategy and consulting business needs full-time attention," said Henry Elder, head of decentralized finance at Wave Financial. "Now Michael can focus on what he does best, promoting Bitcoin. And the company can focus on making more money to buy more Bitcoin. They are basically doubling down."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Raspberry Pi 4 has hit a major graphics milestone, adding support for a more modern Vulkan 3D APIa. Ars Technica reports: Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton announced the Pi 4's Vulkan 1.2 conformance on Monday. Support isn't available yet in downloadable Pi-friendly operating systems but should be coming soon. For most people using their Pi as a server, a DIY controller, or a light desktop, Vulkan 1.2 conformance won't be noticeable. Desktop graphics on the standard Raspberry Pi OS are powered by OpenGL, the older graphics API that Vulkan is meant to replace. There is one group that benefits, says Upton: games and other 3D Android applications. Android uses Vulkan as its low-overhead graphics API. As with most Raspberry Pi advancements, there could be unforeseen opportunities unleashed by this seemingly tiny change. Vulkan 1.2 support gives developers the same 3D-graphics interface (if not anywhere near the same power) as 2019 NVIDIA graphics cards, 2020 Intel chips with integrated graphics, and dozens of other devices. With a Vulkan 1.0 driver installed, developer Iago Toral was able in 2020 to get the original Quake trilogy mostly running on a Pi 4, with not-too-shabby frame rates.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

US consumer spending on video game products has fallen by $1.78 billion in Q2, according to market research firm NPD. Overall, spending in video gaming in the US totaled $12.35 billion in the recent quarter, down 13 percent year over year. The Verge reports: The findings follow both Microsoft and Sony reporting revenue declines in gaming as the pandemic growth slows. [...] While overall spending on gaming has clearly declined across the industry in Q2, subscription content "was the only segment to post positive gains," according to NPD. That growth is despite Sony launching its revamped PlayStation Plus subscriptions at the end of the quarter. Hardware unit sales were led by Nintendo Switch in the second quarter, according to NPD, with the PS5 generating the highest dollar sales. Despite the declines in spending amid high rates of inflation and following a big period of growth "consumer spending continues to trend above pre-pandemic levels," says Mat Piscatella, games industry analyst at NPD. "However, unpredictable and quickly changing conditions may continue to impact the market in unexpected ways in the coming quarters."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: The head of WhatsApp will not compromise the security of its messenger service to bend to the UK government's efforts to scan private conversations. Will Cathcart, who has been at parent company Meta for more than 12 years and head of WhatsApp since 2019, told the BBC that the popular communications service wouldn't downgrade or bypass its end-to-end encryption (EE2E) just for British snoops, saying it would be "foolish" to do so and that WhatsApp needs to offer a consistent set of standards around the globe. "If we had to lower security for the world, to accommodate the requirement in one country, that ... would be very foolish for us to accept, making our product less desirable to 98 percent of our users because of the requirements from 2 percent," Cathcart told the broadcaster. "What's being proposed is that we -- either directly or indirectly through software -- read everyone's messages. I don't think people want that." Strong EE2E ensures that only the intended sender and receiver of a message can read it, and not even the provider of the communications channel nor anyone eavesdropping on the encrypted chatter. The UK government is proposing that app builders add an automated AI-powered scanner in the pipeline -- ideally in the client app -- to detect and report illegal content, in this case child sex abuse material (CSAM). The upside is that at least messages are encrypted as usual when transmitted: the software on your phone, say, studies the material, and continues on as normal if the data is deemed CSAM-free. One downside is that any false positives mean people's private communications get flagged up and potentially analyzed by law enforcement or a government agent. Another downside is that the definition of what is filtered may gradually change over time, and before you know it: everyone's conversations are being automatically screened for things politicians have decided are verboten. And another downside is that client-side AI models that don't produce a lot of false positives are likely to be easily defeated, and are mainly good for catching well-known, unaltered CSAM examples.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

France, Italy and Spain are stepping up pressure on the European Commission to come up with legislation that ensures Big Tech firms partly finance telecoms infrastructure in the bloc, a document showed on Monday. This was the first time the three governments have expressed their joint position on the issue. Reuters reports: EU regulators said in May they were analyzing the question of whether tech giants Alphabet's Google, Meta and Netflix should shoulder some of the costs of upgrading telecoms networks. In a joint paper, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, the three governments said the six largest content providers accounted for 55% of internet traffic. "This generates specific costs for European telecom operators in terms of capacity, at a time they are already hugely investing in the most costly parts of the networks with 5G and Fiber-To-The-Home," the document said. It urged that European telecom networks and large online content providers pay fair shares of network costs. "We call for a legislative proposal ... ensuring all market players contribute to digital infrastructure costs," the document said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Today, the long-running PC and gaming accessory maker Logitech announced plans to launch its own cloud gaming handheld device. Android Authority reports: Logitech stated it will partner on the software side with China-based Tencent Games for the new device. It is also working with Microsoft's Xbox Cloud Gaming and Nvidia's GeForce Now cloud gaming services so that its device should support hundreds of high-end PC and console games out of the box. It's possible that other cloud gaming services like Google's Stadia and Amazon's Luna could support the device as well, but no concrete details on that just yet. No other details have been revealed, but there is a web page Logitech set up where you can enter your email to receive further updates.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Forbes: According to cyber security firm Volexity, the threat research team has found the North Korean 'SharpTongue' group, which appears to be part of, or related to, the Kimsuky advanced persistent threat group, deploying malware called SHARPEXT that doesn't need your Gmail login credentials at all. Instead, it "directly inspects and exfiltrates data" from a Gmail account as the victim browses it. This quickly evolving threat, Volexity says it is already on version 3.0 according to the malware's internal versioning, can steal email from both Gmail and AOL webmail accounts, and works across three browsers: Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and a South Korean client called Whale. The U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, CISA, reports that Kimsuky has been operating since 2012, and is "most likely tasked by the North Korean regime with a global intelligence gathering mission." While CISA sees Kimsuky most often targeting individuals and organizations in South Korea, Japan, and the U. S., Volexity says that the SharpTongue group has frequently been seen targeting South Korea, the U. S. and Europe. The common denominator between them is that the victims often " work on topics involving North Korea, nuclear issues, weapons systems, and other matters of strategic interest to North Korea." The report says that SHARPEXT differs from previous browser extensions deployed by these hacking espionage groups in that it doesn't attempt to grab login credentials but bypasses the need for these and can grab email data as the user reads it. The good news is that your system needs to be compromised by some means before this malicious extension can be deployed. Unfortunately, we know all too well that system compromise is not as difficult as it should be. Once a system has been compromised by phishing, malware, unpatched vulnerabilities, whatever, the threat actors can install the extension using a malicious VB script that replaces the system preference files. Once that's done and the extension runs quietly in the background, it is tough to detect. The user logs in to their Gmail account from their normal browser on the expected system. The security researchers recommend "enabling and analyzing PowerShell ScriptBlock logging" to detect whether you've been targeted by this attack, reports Forbes. Additionally, they recommend reviewing installed extensions regularly, especially looking for ones you don't recognize or are not available from the Chrome Web Store.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Digital attacks against Taiwanese government websites ahead of U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi's arrival in Tapei on Tuesday were likely launched by Chinese activist hackers rather than the Chinese government, a cybersecurity research organisation said. From a report: The website of Taiwan's presidential office was targeted by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on Tuesday and was at one point malfunctioning, the office said in a statement. Access to the website was restored within about 20 minutes of the attack, the statement said. Taiwanese government agencies were monitoring the situation in the face of "information warfare," a spokesperson later added. A government portal website and Taiwan's foreign ministry website were also temporarily taken offline on Tuesday. In a statement, the foreign ministry said both websites had been hit with up to 8.5 million traffic requests a minute from a "large number of IPs from China, Russia and other places."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The collapse in cryptocurrencies is easing supply of the most sought after watches on the second-hand market, depressing prices for hard-to get-Patek Philippe and Rolex models. From a report: The supply of trophy watches such as the Rolex Daytona or Patek Nautilus 5711A "is now much larger," online-watch trading platform Chrono24 said in an emailed statement. The recent swoon in cryptocurrency valuations "has directly impacted pricing of luxury watches from brands like Rolex and Patek Philippe," said the company, which is based in Karlsruhe, Germany, and has more than half a million watches listed for sale on its website. The price decline for the most sought after models is the latest indication that the once soaring second-hand luxury watch market is starting to lose pace. Surging valuations for crypto currencies had minted a new class of luxury buyers, leading to an unprecedented price increase for models particularly from brands like Rolex, Audemars Piguet and Patek. Now that many digital tokens have been hammered, these consumers are going into reverse.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Andrew R Chow and Chad De Guzman, reporting for Time: Samerson Orias was working as a line cook last year in the rural Philippines when his friend told him he could make way more money playing a new video game. Orias was earning about 4,000 pesos a month (about $80, a little less than half the national minimum wage) making takoyaki -- Japanese octopus balls. His friend told him he and others were pocketing up to $600 a month playing Axie Infinity, a game fueled by cryptocurrency and NFTs. Orias, now 26, desperately needed an escape hatch from his financial woes: his mother had had a stroke and required medication, and electricity and grocery bills were stacking up. So he plunged into Axie, doing battle with cartoon monsters for hours deep into the night. He soon began earning cryptocurrency, which he converted into pesos, allowing him to take better care of his mother and his home. At the same time, thousands of young people in the Philippines were jumping headlong into the game. For a brief moment at the peak of crypto's astonishing 2021 boom, these young Filipino players were fulfilling a longtime dream of crypto's most ardent evangelists: that "play-to-earn" blockchain games like Axie could lead the way to a more equitable, opportunity-rich global economy. Fourteen months later, most Filipino players, including Orias, have exited the game nursing anger and anxiety -- and, in some cases, thousands of dollars down. Orias grew to hate playing the game. It was boring and stressful, he says, a common refrain among the dozen players TIME interviewed for this story. "I felt fatigued all the time. I became more aggressive in every aspect of my life," he says. The story of Orias and Axie Infinity serves as a cautionary tale for crypto and its bombastic rhetoric about changing the world. Many crypto thought leaders, when rebutting criticism about the unsavory aspects of the space, point to its impact in developing countries. But Orias and others say that Axie Infinity reinforced predatory systems and gave them false hope. Innovative metaverse ideas like Axie Infinity offer immense promise -- but also tangible peril for those who feel they have no other option but to take the plunge into the digital unknown. The game initially made a huge impact in the Philippines. At one point, players there made up 40% of the game's user base.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Eleven people who ran and promoted cryptocurrency firm Forsage are facing charges of operating a pyramid and Ponzi scheme that raised more than $300 million from millions of investors in the U.S. and elsewhere, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission. From a report: The Forsage executives posted videos that promised huge returns for investors, with one calling it "a powerful long-term source of passive income" and telling viewers, "Forsage means fast and furious." But securities regulators allege the service's founders weren't providing an investment strategy, but rather running a pyramid scheme, where investors made money by recruiting others. Also, earlier investors were paid through the money invested by newer customers, the hallmark of a classic Ponzi structure. The charges underscore the financial risks of a sector that has drawn a fair share of fraudsters and scammers, aside from the massive price plunges that cryptocurrencies have experienced this year. In the case of Forsage, the service was created in 2020 and targeted retail investors who wanted to enter into crypto transactions via so-called "smart contracts" that operated on the ethereum, tron and binance blockchains. In addition to the four founders, the SEC also charged three U.S.-based promoters hired by Forsage to tout the service as well as several members of the Crypto Crusaders, a promotional group for the service, the SEC said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Solid state drives use far less power than hard disc drives. But a new study unexpectedly reveals that their lifetime carbon footprint is much higher than their hard disc cousins, raising difficult questions for the computer industry. From a report: The benefits of SSDs over HDDs are legion. They are smaller, mechanically simpler, faster to read and write data than their hard disc cousins. They are also more energy efficient. So with many computer manufacturers and datacenter operators looking to reduce their carbon footprints, it's easy to imagine that all this makes the choice of memory easy. But all is not as it seems, say Swamit Tannu at University of Wisconsin in Madison and Prashant Nair at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. SSDs have a dirty secret. Tannu and Nair have measured the carbon footprint per gigabyte of these devices across their entire lifetimes and, unexpectedly, it turns out that SSDs are significantly dirtier. "Compared to SSDs, the embodied [carbon] cost of HDDs is at least an order of magnitude lower," say the researchers. Tannu and Nair come to their conclusion by adding up the amount of carbon emitted throughout the estimated 10-year lifespans of these devices. This includes the carbon emitted during manufacture, during operation, for transportation and for disposal. The carbon emitted during operation is straightforward to calculate. To read and write data, HDDs consume 4.2 Watts versus 1.3W for SSDs. The researchers calculate that a 1 terabyte HDD emits the equivalent of 159 kilograms of carbon dioxide during a 10-year operating lifespan. By comparison, a 1 terabyte SSD emits just 49.2 kg over 10 years. But SSDs are significantly more carbon intensive to manufacture. That's because the chip fabrication facilities for SSDs operate at extreme temperatures and pressures that are energy intensive to maintain. And bigger memories require more chips, which increases the footprint accordingly. All this adds up to a significant carbon footprint for SSD manufacture. Tannu and Nair calculate that manufacturing a 1 terabyte SSD emits the equivalent of 320 kg of carbon dioxide. By comparison, a similar HDD emits just 40 kg. So the lifetime footprint for a 1 terabyte SSD is 369.2 kg of carbon dioxide equivalent versus 199 kg for an HDD. So HDDs are much cleaner. That's a counterintuitive result with important implications. At the very least, it suggests that computer manufacturers and cloud data storage operators should reconsider the way they use SSDs and HDDs. For example, almost 40 per cent of the carbon footprint of a desktop computer comes from its SSD, compared to just 4 per cent from the CPU and 11 per cent from the GPU.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In the US government's ongoing campaign to protect data in the age of quantum computers, a new and powerful attack that used a single traditional computer to completely break a fourth-round candidate highlights the risks involved in standardizing the next generation of encryption algorithms. From a report: Last month, the US Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, selected four post-quantum computing encryption algorithms to replace algorithms like RSA, Diffie-Hellman, and elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman, which are unable to withstand attacks from a quantum computer. In the same move, NIST advanced four additional algorithms as potential replacements pending further testing in hopes one or more of them may also be suitable encryption alternatives in a post-quantum world. The new attack breaks SIKE, which is one of the latter four additional algorithms. The attack has no impact on the four PQC algorithms selected by NIST as approved standards, all of which rely on completely different mathematical techniques than SIKE.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Facebook's parent company Meta and major US hospitals violated medical privacy laws with a tracking tool that sends health information to Facebook, two proposed class-action lawsuits allege. From a report: The lawsuits, filed in the Northern District of California in June and July, focus on the Meta Pixel tracking tool. The tool can be installed on websites to provide analytics on Facebook and Instagram ads. It also collects information about how people click around and input information into those websites. An investigation by The Markup in early June found that 33 of the top 100 hospitals in the United States use the Meta Pixel on their websites. At seven hospitals, it was installed on password-protected patient portals. The investigation found that the tool was sending information about patient health conditions, doctor appointments, and medication allergies to Facebook.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

With the 2022 Flash Memory Summit taking place this week, not only is there a slew of solid-state storage announcements in the pipe over the coming days, but the show is also increasingly a popular venue for discussing I/O and interconnect developments as well. Kicking things off on that front, on Monday the OpenCAPI and CXL consortiums issued a joint announcement that the two groups will be joining forces, with the OpenCAPI standard and the consortium's assets being transferred to the CXL consortium. From a report: With this integration, CXL is set to become the dominant CPU-to-device interconnect standard, as virtually all major manufacturers are now backing the standard, and competing standards have bowed out of the race and been absorbed by CXL. Pre-dating CXL by a few years, OpenCAPI was one of the earlier standards for a cache-coherent CPU interconnect. The standard, backed by AMD, Xilinx, and IBM, among others, was an extension of IBM's existing Coherent Accelerator Processor Interface (CAPI) technology, opening it up to the rest of the industry and placing its control under an industry consortium. In the last six years, OpenCAPI has seen a modest amount of use, most notably being implemented in IBM's POWER9 processor family. Like similar CPU-to-device interconnect standards, OpenCAPI was essentially an application extension on top of existing high speed I/O standards, adding things like cache-coherency and faster (lower latency) access modes so that CPUs and accelerators could work together more closely despite their physical disaggregation.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Cable companies are being downgraded by Wall Street analysts in response to weak broadband growth coming out of the pandemic. From a report: Cable companies have managed to stay afloat amid the cord-cutting crisis thanks to their booming broadband businesses. But some analysts see that safety net beginning to fade. Jonathan Chaplin, managing partner at New Street Research, wrote in two notes to clients that the firm has lowered its broadband subscriber estimates for the second time this year for both Charter and Comcast. "We have limited conviction in a quick recovery, given limited visibility all around," he wrote regarding Charter. "We are hoping for a turnaround later in the quarter but have low conviction," he wrote regarding Comcast. Comcast's stock slid last week after it reported flat broadband subscriber additions for the second quarter of 2022. The telecom giant was still able to increase broadband revenues, but its growth has been slowed by increased competition and more users relying on mobile hotspots and fixed wireless plans. Charter lost broadband subscribers for the first time last quarter. Executives cited customers rolling off the government's broadband subsidy program as a major contributor to its customer loss. "Excluding that headwind, we organically grew 38,000 internet customers in the quarter," Charter chief financial officer Jessica Fischer told investors.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As the US Congress passed an historic $52 billion federal program to boost domestic chipmaking capabilities, it included one significant caveat: Companies that receive the funding have to promise not to increase their production of advanced chips in China. From a report: It's a condition that will certainly add to escalating tensions between Washington and Beijing. The curbs will hit companies like Intel Corp. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., leading chipmakers that have tried to build their businesses in China. TSMC won't be able to substantially upgrade or expand its existing facilities, effectively losing some growth opportunities in the world's biggest semiconductor market. Specifically, the Chips and Science Act bars companies that get federal funding from materially expanding production of chips more advanced than 28-nanometers in China -- or a country of concern like Russia -- for 10 years. While 28-nanometer chips are several generations behind the most cutting-edge semiconductors available now, they are still used in a wide range of products including cars and smartphones. The ban covers both logic and memory chips.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

U.S. crypto firm Nomad has been hit by a $190 million theft, blockchain researchers said on Tuesday, the latest such heist to hit the digital asset sector this year. From a report: Nomad said in a tweet that it was "aware of the incident" and was currently investigating, without giving further details or the value of the theft. Crypto analytics firm PeckShield told Reuters $190 million worth of users' cryptocurrencies were stolen, including ether and the stablecoin USDC. Other blockchain researchers put the figure at over $150 million.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Indonesia has lifted its ban on Steam and Yahoo now that both companies complied with the country's restrictive laws that regulate online activity. From a report: The Indonesian Ministry of Communication and Information (Kominfo) announced the news in a translated update on Twitter, noting that Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2 are back online as well. Last week, Indonesia blocked access to Steam, PayPal, Yahoo, Epic Games, and Origin after the companies failed to meet a deadline to register with the country's database. This requirement is bundled with a broader law, called MR5, that Indonesia first introduced in 2020. The law gives the Indonesian government the authority to order platforms to take down content considered illegal as well as request the data of specific users. In 2021, the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) called the policy "invasive of human rights." Although PayPal has yet to comply, Indonesia unblocked access to the service for five days starting July 31st to give users a chance to withdraw money and make payments. According to the Indonesian news outlet Antara News, PayPal reportedly plans on registering with the country's database soon.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: You wouldn't steal a car, right? So why are you pirating? With this 2004 message, the movie industry hoped to turn illegal downloaders into paying customers. This campaign eventually turned into a meme and it's not the only anti-piracy advert to miss the mark. A new research paper identifies several behavioral insights that explain common mistakes made in these campaigns. [...] The general assumption of many people is that, by adding more arguments, the message will be more compelling. That's called the 'more-is-better' heuristic but behavioral research has shown that the opposite is often true. When many arguments are presented together, the stronger ones may actually be diluted by weaker ones. So, referencing malware, fines, low quality, Internet disconnections, and losses to the industry, all while associating piracy with organized crime, is not the best idea. The reduced impact of stronger and weaker arguments is also one of the reasons why the "You Wouldn't Steal a Car" campaign didn't work as planned, the researchers suggest. Anti-piracy campaigns can also focus too much on dry numbers without putting these into context. While these statistics are vital to the industry, the average pirate will simply gloss over them. This 'mistake' can also be explained by behavioral psychology, which has shown that people identify more with a problem or victim if they feel some kind of personal connection. That's often missing from anti-piracy messages. It's worth noting that not all personal messaging is effective either. The paper mentions an Indian anti-piracy campaign where famous Bollywood actors urged people not to download films illegally, equating piracy to theft. However, the Indian public probably has little sympathy for the potential "losses" incurred by these multi-millionaire actors. In fact, the anti-piracy campaign may be seen as an extra motivation to pirate. "All videos starred well-known actors, whose net worth is estimated to be $22-$400 million dollars, in a country where the annual per capita income is a bit less than $2,000." "This can offer to pirates a moral justification: they only steal the rich to 'feed the poor', a form of 'Robin Hood effect' that makes even more sense with some cultural or sport-related goods," the researchers add. Piracy is a widespread and global phenomenon. This makes it particularly problematic for copyright holders but emphasizing this issue in anti-piracy messages isn't a good idea. This is the third mistake that's highlighted in the article. By pointing out that people are supposed to get content legally while at the same time showing that many people don't, people might actually be encouraged to pirate. Behavioral research has shown that people often prefer to follow the descriptive norm (what people do) rather than the injunctive one (what the law prescribes). "Informing directly or indirectly individuals that many people pirate is counterproductive and encourages piracy by driving the targeted individuals to behave similarly. These messages provide to the would-be pirates the needed rationalization by emphasizing that 'everyone is doing it'," the researchers write.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Stem cell researchers in Israel have created synthetic mouse embryos without using a sperm or egg, then grown them in an artificial womb for eight days, a development that opens a window into a fascinating, potentially fraught realm of science that could one day be used to create replacement organs for humans. The Washington Post reports: The objective, scientists involved with the research said, is not to create mice or babies outside the womb, but to jump-start the understanding of how organs develop in embryos and to use that knowledge to develop new ways to heal people. From a clump of embryonic stem cells, scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science created synthetic embryos that closely resembled real mouse embryos, with rudimentary beating hearts, blood circulation, folded brain tissue and intestinal tracts. The mouse embryos grew in an artificial womb and stopped developing after eight days, about a third of a mouse pregnancy. The research, published Monday in the journal Cell, is far from growing a mouse, much less a human, outside the womb. It was a proof of concept that a complete synthetic embryo could be assembled from embryonic stem cells, and while the researchers were successful, it was a highly error-prone process, with only a small fraction of embryos going on to develop the beginnings of a beating heart and other organs. Although the synthetic mouse embryos bore a close resemblance to natural mouse embryos, they were not exactly the same and did not implant or result in pregnancies in real mice, according to Jacob Hanna, the stem cell scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science who led the work. The research, like other recent studies, puts the possibility of a complete human synthetic embryo on the horizon, several researchers said, making it necessary to continue a societal discussion about how these entities should be handled. Last year, the International Society for Stem Cell Research relaxed a historical "14-day rule" that said researchers could grow natural embryos for only 14 days in the laboratory, allowing researchers to seek approval for longer studies. Human embryo models are banned from being implanted into a uterus.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Wave Swell Energy's remarkable UniWave 200 is a sea platform that uses an artificial blowhole formation to create air pressure changes that drive a turbine and feed energy back to shore. After a year of testing, the company reports excellent results. New Atlas reports: As we've discussed before, the UniWave system is a floating device that can be towed to any coastal location and connected to the local energy grid. It's designed so that wave swells force water into a specially designed concrete chamber, pressurizing the air in the chamber and forcing it through an outlet valve. Then as the water recedes, it generates a powerful vacuum, which sucks air in through a turbine at the top and generates electricity that's fed into the grid via a cable. As a result, it draws energy from the entire column of water that enters its chamber, a fact the team says makes it more efficient than wave energy devices that only harvest energy from the surface or the sea floor. [...] A 200-kW test platform was installed last year off King Island, facing the notoriously rough seas of Bass Strait, which separates the island state of Tasmania from the mainland of Australia. There, it's been contributing reliable clean energy to the island's microgrid around the clock for a full 12 months. The WSE team has made a few live tweaks to the design during operation, improving its performance beyond original expectations. "We set out to prove that Wave Swell's wave energy converter technology could supply electricity to a grid in a range of wave conditions, and we have done that," said WSE CEO Paul Geason in a press release. "One key achievement has been to deliver real-world results in Tasmanian ocean conditions to complement the AMC test modeling. In some instances, the performance of our technology in the ocean has exceeded expectations due to the lessons we've learnt through the project, technological improvements and the refinements we have made over the course of the year." "Our team is excited to have achieved a rate of conversion from wave power to electricity at an average of 45 to 50% in a wide range of wave conditions," he continues. "This is a vast improvement on past devices and shows that the moment has arrived for wave power to sit alongside wind, solar and energy storage as part of a modern energy mix." The King Island platform will remain in place at least until the end of 2022, and the company is now gearing up to go into production. "Having proven our device can survive the toughest conditions the Southern Ocean and Bass Strait can throw at it, and deliver grid compliant electricity, our priority now shifts to commercializing the technology," said Gleason. "For Wave Swell this means ensuring the market embraces the WSE technology and units are deployed to deliver utility scale clean electricity to mainland grids around the world."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Data centers have caused skyrocketing power demand in parts of London. Now, new housing construction could be banned for more than a decade in some neighborhoods of the UK's biggest city because the electricity grid is reaching capacity, as first reported on by the Financial Times. The reason: too many data centers are taking up too much electricity and hogging available fiber optic cables. The Financial Times obtained multiple letters sent from the city's government, the Greater London Authority (GLA), to developers. "Major new applicants to the distribution network... including housing developments, commercial premises and industrial activities will have to wait several years to receive new electricity connections," said one note, according to the news outlet. The GLA also confirmed the grid issue to Gizmodo in an email, and sent along text from one of the letters, which noted that for some areas utilities are saying "electricity connections will not be available for their sites until 2027 to 2030." Though the Financial Times reported that at least one letter indicated making the necessary electric grid updates in London could take up until 2035. [...] "Data centres use large quantities of electricity, the equivalent of towns or small cities, to power servers and ensure resilience in service," one of the GLA letters seen by the Financial Times reportedly said. [...] Developers are "still getting their heads round this, but our basic understanding is that developments of 25 units or more will be affected. Our understanding is that you just can't build them," said David O'Leary, policy director at the Home Builders Federation, a trade body. Combined, those sections of London contain about 5,000 homes and make up about 11% of the city's housing supply, according the Financial Times. A spokesperson for the London Mayor told Gizmodo in a statement: "The Mayor is very concerned that electricity capacity constraints in three West London boroughs are creating a significant challenge for developers securing timely connections to the electricity network, which could affect the delivery of thousands of much-needed homes...The increased demand for electricity capacity in the area is believed to be largely due to a rapid influx of batteries and data centers."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Chinese tech giant Alibaba is the latest company to run afoul of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which has threatened delisting from US stock exchanges. The Register reports: Alibaba's addition to the SEC's list of nearly 300 companies -- mostly from China -- means that US officials were unable to complete an audit of the company's finances. The 2020 Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act (HFCAA) gives the SEC the authority to delist companies if it is suspected that financial audits may not be accurate. The news hit Alibaba stock hard on Friday, causing it to drop from $100.52 to $89.37 through the day. In a statement sent to the SEC on Monday, Alibaba said it would "strive to maintain its listing status," and that it would continue to monitor market developments and comply with applicable laws and regulations. Addition to the SEC's HFCAA list doesn't mean that Alibaba will immediately be removed from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Instead, the notice marks the company's first "non-inspection" year; Alibaba is only actually in danger of delisting if it hands in two more consecutive annual reports that run afoul of the HFCAA. The report that landed the company under scrutiny covered Alibaba's fiscal year ending on March 31, 2022. Companies on the provisional HFCAA list have 15 business days to dispute addition to the list. Along with Alibaba's inclusion last week, pet company Boqii, Cheetah Mobile, ecommerce platform MOGU, manufacturing business Highway Holdings and logistics company Novagant Corp -- all from China or Hong Kong -- were added.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to a new report from ETNews, Intel is planning to install its next-generation Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) technology in devices by 2024 as Apple transitions its devices to Wi-Fi 6E. MacRumors reports: Wi-Fi 7 is the successor to Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax), bringing two times faster data processing speeds of 5.8 Gbps and more stable 6 GHz bandwidth stability, as well as support for up to 36 Gbps when working with data. Intel plans to expand its Wi-Fi 7 development efforts ahead of its introduction to the market in 2024 and intends to apply its technology predominantly in laptops before expanding to other devices. "We are currently developing Intel's Wi-Fi '802.11be' in order to obtain the 'Wi-Fi Alliance' certification, and it will be installed in PC products such as laptops by 2024. We expect it to appear in major markets in 2025," Eric McLaughlin, vice president of Intel's wireless solutions division, said at a recent press conference in Asia. Meanwhile, Apple is on the cusp of transitioning its devices to Wi-Fi 6E. While it was heavily rumored to debut with the iPhone 13 lineup last year, Apple has yet to release any devices with support for Wi-Fi 6E. That is expected to change this year starting with the iPhone 14. Apple's long-rumored mixed-reality headset is also expected to feature Wi-Fi 6E. Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said that head-mounted display devices in 2022, 2023, and 2024 will offer Wi-Fi 6/6E, Wi-Fi 6E/7, and Wi-Fi 7, respectively, but it is unclear if this information was related to Apple's product roadmap specifically. "Wi-Fi 6E offers the features and capabilities of Wi-Fi 6, including higher performance, lower latency, and faster data rates, extended into the 6 GHz band for processing speeds of 2.4 Gbps," notes MacRumors. "The additional spectrum provides more airspace beyond existing 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi, resulting in increased bandwidth and less interference." Other tech giants like Qualcomm, Broadcom, and MediaTek are also planning to release Wi-Fi 7-based products in the next few years.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Meta publicly released information on 21 billion Facebook friendships as part of a research project looking at economic inequality in the United States, the company announced today. Along with new insights into the intersection of money and friendships in America, the partnership between Meta and the researchers gives us another look at who Facebook is willing to share data with -- and why. The Verge reports: The research team wanted to understand why people in some places in the US were more likely to move between economic brackets than in others. Using the information from Meta, along with other data, a research team built a dataset for a pair of studies on economic mobility, published Monday in the journal Nature. One study found that people who grow up in areas where there are more friendships between high- and low-income people are more likely to move out of poverty and up the economic ladder. "Growing up in a community connected across class lines improves kids' outcomes and gives them a better shot at rising out of poverty," Raj Chetty, a Harvard economist and lead researcher on the study, told The New York Times. Many places, though, don't allow for much interaction between high- and low-income people, the second of the two studies found. And even when a neighborhood does allow for that kind of interaction, people are still more likely to befriend people in similar economic brackets. [...] [T]he full dataset, which covers 21 billion Facebook friendships, is available through Facebook's Data for Good program. People can search the public-facing website and see the economic connectedness of various communities, including their own. Researchers can download the data for additional studies. [...] The new studies offer valuable insight into economic mobility in the US, and the data could help researchers understand how people in the US build relationships.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: The US Commerce Department says it will strictly control use of subsidies under the recently passed CHIPS and Science Act, which promises to unlock billions of dollars in funding for domestic chip manufacturing. The eagerly anticipated spending bill paves the way for $280 billion in funding for science and technology, roughly $52 billion of which is earmarked for boosting US semiconductor production. Its passing was greeted by companies such as Intel and Micron, the latter of which promised to ramp up stateside memory production over the next few years in exchange for some of that cash. However, the Commerce Department has given chipmakers notice that it will not be allowing a free-for-all, and will not let them use government funding for "stock buybacks or to pad their bottom line," it said in a published statement. Instead, subsidies awarded will be "no larger than is necessary to ensure a project happens here in the United States," the Commerce Department said, adding that it wanted to avoid a situation where states and municipalities became embroiled in a subsidy competition in the race to attract chipmakers to build there. The Department also warned that it will not hesitate to clawback funds or pursue other remedies from semiconductor companies that are found to have misused taxpayer dollars. Funding will come with conditions attached: chipmakers that receive a CHIPS subsidy will be prohibited from engaging in "significant transactions in China or other countries of concern" involving any leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing capacity for a period of ten years.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If time feels tighter than ever of late, blame it on the revolution. On 29 June this year, Earth racked up an unusual record: its shortest day since the 1960s, when scientists began measuring the planet's rotation with high-precision atomic clocks. From a report: Broadly speaking, Earth completes one full turn on its axis every 24 hours. That single spin marks out a day and drives the cycle of sunrise and sunset that has shaped patterns of life for billions of years. But the curtains fell early on 29 June, with midnight arriving 1.59 milliseconds sooner than expected. The past few years have seen a flurry of records fall, with shorter days being notched up ever more frequently. In 2020, the Earth turned out 28 of the shortest days in the past 50 years, with the shortest of those, on 19 July, shaving 1.47 milliseconds off the 86,400 seconds that make up 24 hours. The 29 June record came close to being broken again last month, when 26 July came in 1.5 milliseconds short. So is the world speeding up? Over the longer term -- the geological timescales that compress the rise and fall of the dinosaurs into the blink of an eye -- the Earth is actually spinning more slowly than it used to. Wind the clock back 1.4bn years and a day would pass in less than 19 hours. On average, then, Earth days are getting longer rather than shorter, by about one 74,000th of a second each year. The moon is mostly to blame for the effect: the gravitational tug slightly distorts the planet, producing tidal friction that steadily slows the Earth's rotation. To keep clocks in line with the planet's spin, the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations body, has taken to adding occasional leap seconds in June or December -- most recently in 2016 -- effectively stopping the clocks for a second so that the Earth can catch up. The first leap second was added in 1972. The next opportunity is in December 2022, although with Earth spinning so fast of late, it is unlikely to be needed.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has announced that it would be issuing a certification to a new nuclear reactor design, making it just the seventh that has been approved for use in the US. But in some ways, it's a first: The design, from a company called NuScale, is a small modular reactor that can be constructed at a central facility and then moved to the site where it will be operated. From a report: The move was expected after the design received an OK during its final safety evaluation in 2020. Small modular reactors have been promoted as avoiding many of the problems that have made large nuclear plants exceedingly expensive to build. They're small enough that they can be assembled on a factory floor and then shipped to the site where they will operate, eliminating many of the challenges of custom on-site construction. In addition, they're structured in a way to allow passive safety, where no operator actions are necessary to shut the reactor down if problems occur. Many of the small modular designs involve different technology from traditional reactors, such as the use of molten uranium salts as the reactor fuel. NuScale has a much more traditional design, with fuel and control rods and energy transported through boiling water. Its operator-free safety features include setting the entire reactor in a large pool of water, control rods that are inserted into the reactor by gravity in the case of a power cut, and convection-driven cooling from an external water source.Read more of this story at Slashdot.