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It was June 29th of 2021 that Microsoft-owned GitHub first announced its AI-powered autocompletion tool for programmers — trained on GitHub repositories and other publicly-available source code. But after a year in "technical preview," GitHub Copilot has reached a new milestone, reports Info-Q: you'll now have to pay to use it after a 60-day trial:The transition to general availability mostly means that Copilot ceases to be available for free. Interested developers will have to pay 10 USD/month or $100 USD/year to use the service, with a 60-day free trial.... According to GitHub, while not frequent, there is definitely a possibility that Copilot outputs code snippets that match those in the training set. Info-Q also cites GitHub stats showing over 1.2 million developers used Copilot in the last 12 months "with a shocking 40% figure of code written by Copilot in files where it is enabled." That's up from 35% earlier in the year, reports TechCrunch — which has more info on the rollout: It'll be free for students as well as "verified" open source contributors — starting with roughly 60,000 developers selected from the community and students in the GitHub Education program... One new feature coinciding with the general release of Copilot is Copilot Explain, which translates code into natural language descriptions. Described as a research project, the goal is to help novice developers or those working with an unfamiliar codebase. Ryan J. Salva, VP of product at GitHub, told TechCrunch via email... "As an example of the impact we've observed, it's worth sharing early results from a study we are conducting. In the experiment, we are asking developers to write an HTTP server — half using Copilot and half without. Preliminary data suggests that developers are not only more likely to complete their task when using Copilot, but they also do it in roughly half the time." Owing to the complicated nature of AI models, Copilot remains an imperfect system. GitHub said that it's implemented filters to block emails when shown in standard formats, and offensive words, and that it's in the process of building a filter to help detect and suppress code that's repeated from public repositories. But the company acknowledges that Copilot can produce insecure coding patterns, bugs and references to outdated APIs, or idioms reflecting the less-than-perfect code in its training data. The Verge ponders where this is going — and how we got here:"Just like the rise of compilers and open source, we believe AI-assisted coding will fundamentally change the nature of software development, giving developers a new tool to write code easier and faster so they can be happier in their lives," says GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke. Microsoft's $1 billion investment into OpenAI, the research firm now led by former Y Combinator president Sam Altman, led to the creation of GitHub Copilot. It's built on OpenAI Codex, a descendant of OpenAI's flagship GPT-3 language-generating algorithm. GitHub Copilot has been controversial, though. Just days after its preview launch, there were questions over the legality of Copilot being trained on publicly available code posted to GitHub. Copyright issues aside, one study also found that around 40 percent of Copilot's output contained security vulnerabilities.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"China's ambition to collect a staggering amount of personal data from everyday citizens is more expansive than previously known," reports the New York Times, after their Visual Investigations team with reporters in Asia "spent more than a year analyzing more than 100,000 government bidding documents."The Chinese government's goal is clear: designing a system to maximize what the state can find out about a person's identity, activities and social connections.... The Times analysis found that the police strategically chose locations to maximize the amount of data their facial recognition cameras could collect.... The police also wanted to install facial recognition cameras inside private spaces, like residential buildings, karaoke lounges and hotels. In the police's own words, the strategy to upgrade their video surveillance system was to achieve the ultimate goal of "controlling and managing people." Authorities are using phone trackers to link people's digital lives to their physical movements. Devices known as Wi-Fi sniffers and IMSI catchers can glean information from phones in their vicinity, which allow the police to track a target's movements... In a 2017 bidding document from Beijing, the police wrote that they wanted the trackers to collect phone owners' usernames on popular Chinese social media apps.... As of today, all 31 of mainland China's provinces and regions use phone trackers. DNA, iris scan samples and voice prints are being collected indiscriminately from people with no connection to crime. The police in China are starting to collect voice prints using sound recorders attached to their facial recognition cameras. In the southeast city of Zhongshan, the police wrote in a bidding document that they wanted devices that could record audio from at least a 300-foot radius around cameras. Software would then analyze the voice prints and add them to a database. Police boasted that when combined with facial analysis, they could help pinpoint suspects faster. The Times also created a separate video summarizing the results of their investigation. And their article notes estimates that more than half the world's 1 billion surveillance cameras are already in China — but there's more information to be gathered. One of China's largest surveillance contractors also pitched software that to the government displays a person's "movements, clothing, vehicles, mobile device information and social connections," according to the Times."The Times investigation found that this product was already being used by Chinese police." Thanks to Slashdot reader nray for sharing the story.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Phoronix reports a new change was merged into the soon-to-be-released Linux 5.19 on Tuesday, making the kernel's signature verification code compliant with the Federal Information Processing Standards known as FIPS:FIPS are public standards via the National Institute of Standards and Technology used by U.S. government agencies and contractors in the areas of computer security and interoperability... Known-answer self-tests are required for FIPS compliance at startup/reboot, but the Linux kernel's signature verification code has been lacking such tests. The signature checking code is used for module signing, Kexec, and other functionality. With Linux 5.19 there will now be some basic self-tests at start. The tests will make their debut in Linux 5.19-rc4. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader UnknowingFool for sharing the news!Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Earlier this year, news broke of the first experimental xenotransplantation: A human patient with heart disease received a heart from a pig that had been genetically engineered to avoid rejection. While initially successful, the experiment ended two months later when the transplant failed, leading to the death of the patient. At the time, the team didn't disclose any details regarding what went wrong. But this week saw the publication of a research paper that goes through everything that happened to prepare for the transplant and the weeks following. Critically, this includes the eventual failure of the transplant, which was triggered by the death of many of the muscle cells in the transplanted heart. But the reason for that death isn't clear, and the typical signs of rejection by the immune system weren't present. So, we're going to have to wait a while to understand what went wrong.[...]After death, the team performed an autopsy on the transplanted heart. They found that it had nearly doubled in weight, largely because of fluid (and some red blood cells) leaking out of blood vessels in the absence of clotting. There was significant death of heart muscle cells, but that was scattered across the heart, rather than being a general phenomenon. Critically, most of the indications of a strong immune rejection were missing. The presence of an apparent pig cytomegalovirus was worrying, but the researchers indicate there's some question about whether the tests that picked it up might have been recognizing a closely related human virus -- one that's often associated with organ transplant problems. So, for now, it's not clear what happened with this transplant or what the significance of the apparent viral infection is. Obviously, the team has lots of material to work with to try to figure out what went on, and there's a long, long list of potential experiments to do with it. And there are also additional xenotransplant trials in the works, so it may not be long before we have a better sense of whether this was something specific to this transplant or a general risk of xenotransplantation.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Austria-based crypto trading platform Bitpanda is slashing its headcount to ensure sustainability, the company said in a Friday blog post. CoinDesk reports: Bitpanda's founders said the firm needs to let employees go as it scales down due to market conditions. The company said it is aiming for a target headcount of 730. It has just over 1,000 employees, according to LinkedIn. "We reached a point where more people joining didn't make us more effective, but created coordination overheads instead, particularly in this new market reality," Bitpanda wrote. "Looking back now, we realize that our hiring speed was not sustainable. That was a mistake." In addition, recent offers will be retracted, and employees have been notified.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The grave of a rocket body that slammed into the moon more than three months ago has been found. Space.com reports: Early this year, astronomers determined that a mysterious rocket body was on course to crash into the lunar surface on March 4. Their calculations suggested that the impact would occur inside Hertzsprung Crater, a 354-mile-wide (570 kilometers) feature on the far side of the moon. Their math was on the money, it turns out. Researchers with NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission announced last night (June 23) that the spacecraft had spotted a new crater in Hertzsprung -- almost certainly the resting place of the rogue rocket. Actually, LRO imagery shows that the impact created two craters, an eastern one about 59 feet (18 meters) wide superimposed over a western one roughly 52 feet (16 m) across. "The double crater was unexpected and may indicate that the rocket body had large masses at each end," Mark Robinson of Arizona State University, the principal investigator of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC), wrote in an update last night. "Typically a spent rocket has mass concentrated at the motor end; the rest of the rocket stage mainly consists of an empty fuel tank," he added. "Since the origin of the rocket body remains uncertain, the double nature of the crater may help to indicate its identity." As Robinson noted, the moon-crashing rocket remains mysterious. Early speculation held that it was likely the upper stage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that launched the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) mission for NASA and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in February 2015. But further observations and calculations changed that thinking, leading many scientists to conclude that the rocket body was probably part of the Long March 3 booster that launched China's Chang'e 5T1 mission around the moon in October 2014. China has denied that claim.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Kotaku: On July 5, Zachtronics will be releasing Last Call BBS, a collection of stylish little puzzle games wrapped up in a retro PC gaming vibe. After 11 years in business (and even longer outside of commercial releases), a time which has seen the studio develop a cult following almost unrivaled in indie gaming, it will be the last new game Zachtronics will ever release. We spoke to founder Zach Barth to find out why. Named for founder Zach Barth, Zachtronics has spent most of those 11 years specializing in puzzle games (or variations on the theme). And pretty much every single one of them has been great (or at least interesting). [...] The result has been a succession of games that may not have been to everyone's tastes, but for those with whom they resonated, it was their shit. It's not hard seeing why: most of Zachtronics' games involved challenging puzzles, but also a deeply cool and interesting presentation surrounding them, such as the grimy hacker aesthetic of Exapunks, or the Advance Wars-like Mobius Front 83. Given those initial and superficial differences, it can sometimes be hard pinpointing exactly what makes a game so clearly a Zachtronics joint, but like love and art, when you see it you just know it. So it's sad, but also awesome in its own way, that 2022 will see the end of Zachtronics. Not because their publisher shuttered them, or because their venture capital funding ran out, or because Activision made them work on Call of Duty, or any other number of reasons (bankruptcy! scandal!) game developers usually close their doors. No, Zachtronics is closing because...they want to. "We're wrapping things up!" Barth tells Kotaku's Luke Plunkett. "Zachtronics will release Last Call BBS next month. We're also working on a long-awaited solitaire collection that we're hoping to have out by the end of the year. After that, the team will disband. We all have different ideas, interests, tolerances for risk, and so on, so we're still figuring out what we want to do next." "We felt it was time for a change. This might sound weird, but while we got very good at making 'Zachtronics games' over the last twelve years, it was hard for us to make anything else. We were fortunate enough to carve out a special niche, and I'm thankful that we've been able to occupy it and survive in it, but it also kept us locked into doing something we didn't feel like doing forever." Last Call BBS will be released on July 5 on Steam. You can view the trailer here.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Engineers in Sydney have demonstrated a quantum integrated circuit made up of just a few atoms. By precisely controlling the quantum states of the atoms, the new processor can simulate the structure and properties of molecules in a way that could unlock new materials and catalysts. New Atlas reports: The new quantum circuit comes from researchers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and a start-up company called Silicon Quantum Computing (SQC). It's essentially made up of 10 carbon-based quantum dots embedded in silicon, with six metallic gates that control the flow of electrons through the circuit. It sounds simple enough, but the key lies in the arrangement of these carbon atoms down to the sub-nanometer scale. Relative to each other, they're precisely positioned to mimic the atomic structure of a particular molecule, allowing scientists to simulate and study the structure and energy states of that molecule more accurately than ever before. In this case, they arranged the carbon atoms into the shape of the organic compound polyacetylene, which is made up of a repeating chain of carbon and hydrogen atoms with an alternating pattern of single and double carbon bonds between them. To simulate those bonds, the team placed the carbon atoms at different distances apart. Next, the researchers ran an electrical current through the circuit to check whether it would match the signature of a natural polyacetylene molecule -- and sure enough, it did. In other tests, the team created two different versions of the chain by cutting bonds at different places, and the resulting currents matched theoretical predictions perfectly. The significance of this new quantum circuit, the team says, is that it could be used to study more complicated molecules, which could eventually yield new materials, pharmaceuticals, or catalysts. This 10-atom version is right on the limit of what classical computers can simulate, so the team's plans for a 20-atom quantum circuit would allow for simulation of more complex molecules for the first time. The research has been published in the journal Nature.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Engineers at the European Space Agency (ESA) are getting ready for a Windows 98 upgrade on an orbiter circling Mars. The Verge reports: The Mars Express spacecraft has been operating for more than 19 years, and the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS) instrument onboard has been using software built using Windows 98. Thankfully for humanity and the Red Planet's sake, the ESA isn't upgrading its systems to Windows ME. The MARSIS instrument on ESA's Mars Express was key to the discovery of a huge underground aquifer of liquid water on the Red Planet in 2018. This major new software upgrade "will allow it to see beneath the surfaces of Mars and its moon Phobos in more detail than ever before," according to the ESA. The agency originally launched the Mars Express into space in 2003 as its first mission to the Red Planet, and it has spent nearly two decades exploring the planet's surface. MARSIS uses low-frequency radio waves that bounce off the surface of Mars to search for water and study the Red Planet's atmosphere. The instrument's 130-foot antenna is capable of searching around three miles below the surface of Mars, and the software upgrades will enhance the signal reception and onboard data processing to improve the quality of data that's sent back to Earth. "We faced a number of challenges to improve the performance of MARSIS," explains Carlo Nenna, a software engineer at Enginium who is helping ESA with the upgrade. "Not least because the MARSIS software was originally designed over 20 years ago, using a development environment based on Microsoft Windows 98!"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Goldman Sachs is looking to raise $2 billion from investors to buy up distressed assets from troubled crypto lender Celsius, according to two people familiar with the matter. CoinDesk reports: The proposed deal would allow investors to buy up Celsius' assets at potentially big discounts in the event of a bankruptcy filing, the people said. Goldman Sachs appears to be gauging interest and soliciting commitments from Web3 crypto funds, funds specializing in distressed assets and traditional financial institutions with ample cash on hand, according to a person familiar with the situation. The assets, most likely cryptocurrencies having to be sold on the cheap, would then likely be managed by participants in the fundraising push. Celsius has tapped restructuring advisory firm Alvarez & Marsal, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday afternoon. Earlier this month, Celsius abruptly paused withdrawals, swaps, and transfers between accounts, citing "extreme market conditions." The disclosure sent bitcoin's price below $20,000 and prompted the firm's token to take a 60% tumble. As of Monday, the company said it's still working on "stabilizing [their] liquidity and operations."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Recent studies in humans and mice have shown that late nights and early mornings may cause long lasting damage to your brain. From a report: The sleep debt collectors are coming. They want you to know that there is no such thing as forgiveness, only a shifting expectation of how and when you're going to pay them back. You think of them as you lie in bed at night. How much will they ask for? Are you solvent? You fall asleep, then wake up in a cold sweat an hour later. You fall asleep, then wake up, drifting in and out of consciousness until morning. As most every human has discovered, a couple nights of bad sleep is often followed by grogginess, difficulty concentrating, irritability, mood swings and sleepiness. For years, it was thought that these effects, accompanied by cognitive impairments like lousy performances on short-term memory tests, could be primarily attributed to a chemical called adenosine, a neurotransmitter that inhibits electrical impulses in the brain. Spikes of adenosine had been consistently observed in sleep-deprived rats and humans. Adenosine levels can be quickly righted after a few nights of good sleep, however. This gave rise to a scientific consensus that sleep debt could be forgiven with a couple of quality snoozes -- as reflected in casual statements like "I'll catch up on sleep" or "I'll be more awake tomorrow." But a review article published recently in the journal Trends in Neurosciences contends that the folk concept of sleep as something that can be saved up and paid off is bunk. The review, which canvassed the last couple of decades of research on long term neural effects of sleep deprivation in both animals and humans, points to mounting evidence that getting too little sleep most likely leads to long-lasting brain damage and increased risk of neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's disease. "This is really, really important in setting the stage for what needs to be done in sleep health and sleep science," said Mary Ellen Wells, a sleep scientist at the University of North Carolina, who did not contribute to the review.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Interesting Engineering: Seattle-based Zap Energy is using a lesser-known approach to nuclear fusion to build modular, garage-sized reactors. They are cheaper and don't require the large, incredibly powerful magnets used in traditional fusion experiments. Ultimately, they may also provide a quicker route to achieving commercially viable nuclear fusion, a press statement reveals. Nuclear fusion has the potential to remove our reliance on fossil fuels by providing a practically limitless energy source that produces power in a similar way to the Sun and the stars. Fusion experiments, such as Europe's ITER, typically rely on large donut-shaped tokamak reactors using extremely powerful magnets to control the plasma generated during the fusion reaction. Zap Energy has developed a different approach with its Z-pinch technology. The company uses an electromagnetic field instead of the expensive magnetic coils and shielding materials used in tokamaks. This, they say, pins the plasma inside a relatively small space and "pinches" it until it becomes hot and dense enough for the required reaction to take place. Z-pinch technology was first thought up in the 1950s, but until recently, instability problems meant that research had been largely focused on the more stable tokamak technology. In 2019, a group of researchers from the University of Washington proposed the use of sheared axial flow to smooth the plasma streams, preventing distortions that previously led to instability. One of the authors of that study, Uri Shumlak, co-founded Zap Energy in 2017 in a bid to leverage the sheared axial flow technique to make Z-pinch technology commercially viable. Just last week, Zap Energy reached a key milestone by creating the first plasmas inside its prototype reactor, called the FuZE-Q. The Zap Energy team also just closed a $160-million Series C funding round, which will help it to further develop its Z-pinch technology and hopefully bring it to the market. The company says its reactors could be small enough to fit inside a garage, meaning it could give both micro nuclear reactor and nuclear fusion firms a run for their money.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple is "likely" to announce its long-rumored mixed-reality headset as soon as January 2023, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has reiterated. MacRumors reports: In a detailed post on Medium, Kuo explained that Apple's headset will be a "game-changer" for the augmented-reality and virtual-reality market. Describing some of the headset's functionality, Kuo said that while Apple has repeatedly touted its focus on AR, the headset will "offer an excellent immersive experience" and a "video see-thru" mode. The headset is expected to boost demand for immersive gaming and multimedia entertainment experiences. Kuo said that the device is "the most complicated product Apple has ever designed," leading Apple to use components from many of its existing suppliers. Kuo also believes that Apple will be an industry leader in the headset space, has "significant competitive advantages," and does not need to join the Metaverse Standards Forum. Notably, Kuo thinks that rivals will race to imitate Apple's headset once it launches, "leading the headset hardware industry to the next stage of rapid growth."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

On Wednesday, Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) posted her upcoming cryptocurrency regulation bill on GitHub. What she got in return were eight pull requests and lots of trolling. The Verge reports: As of press time, Github users have commented on 24 issues in the bill and made eight pull requests -- some of which have proposed meaningful additions to the bill. One user asked the senators to "increase the value of proof-of-work cryptocurrencies with a tax on mining." Another thread raised concerns about algorithmic backing of stablecoins. However, the more common response has been trolling. One flagged issue is titled, "You Know You Can Find Someone To Do Findom Using Google, Right." Another is titled only with the eggplant emoji. In a related thread, a user commented, "Feds are not looking post floppa," accompanied by a picture of a popular Russian caracal who has gained an internet following under the name "Big Floppa." The trolling also extends to commit requests, where one user proposed replacing the bill with the source code of the popular first-person shooter Doom. "This bill would do far more to benefit everyday Americans if its text was replaced with the source code of Doom," reads a comment responding to the request. "Devs should merge asap."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from PC Gamer: Back in March, a wave of bizarre copyright strikes rocked the Destiny 2 community. Not only did it affect some of the game's biggest content creators, but also videos on Bungie's own YouTube channel. It turned out none of them had actually come from the developer but a "bad actor" impersonating two employees from the CSC, Bungie's IP protection agency of choice. Now, that person has allegedly been identified and Bungie's suing them for a whopping $7.6 million. Ouch. Nicholas 'Lord Nazo' Minor is accused of fraudulently firing off 96 separate DMCA takedown notices throughout mid-March (thanks, TheGamePost). According to the lawsuit (PDF), Minor was issued legitimate copyright strikes in both December 2021 and March 2022 for uploading the OST for Destiny's The Taken King and The Witch Queen expansions. During that period, Minor is said to have created two separate email addresses impersonating CSC employees. He then used those email addresses to issue the false takedown notices. The lawsuit goes on to say that during the whole kerfuffle, Minor was "taking part in the community discussion of 'Bungie's' takedowns, spreading disinformation" as well as trying to file a counterclaim with YouTube, saying the legitimate takedowns on his channel were included in the wave of fraudulent ones. Bungie claims that the situation caused "significant reputational and economic damage," with the publisher having to "devote significant internal resources to addressing it and helping its players restore their videos and channels." It claims its "entitled to damages and injunctive relief, including enhanced statutory damages of $150,000 for each of the works implicated in the Fraudulent Takedown Notice that willfully infringed Bungie's registered copyrights, totaling $7,650,000."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Female scientists are less likely to receive authorship credit or to be named on patents related to the work they do compared with their male counterparts -- including in fields such as healthcare, where women dominate -- data suggests. From a report: This gender gap may help to explain well-documented disparities in the apparent contributions of male and female scientists -- such as that of Rosalind Franklin, whose pivotal contribution to the discovery of the structure of DNA initially went unrecognised because she was not cited on the core Nature article by James Watson and Francis Crick. "We have known for a long time that women publish and patent at a lower rate than men. But, because previous data never showed who participated in research, no one knew why," said Prof Julia Lane at New York University in the US, who led the new research. Lane and her colleagues analysed administrative data on research projects conducted at 52 US colleges and universities between 2013 and 2016. They matched information about 128,859 scientists to 39,426 journal articles and 7,675 patents, looking at which people who worked on individual projects received credit and which did not.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mark Zuckerberg's intense focus on the metaverse has replaced securing elections as the Meta CEO's top concern, four Meta employees with knowledge of the situation told The New York Times. From a report: Zuckerberg has been public with his desire to transform Meta -- formerly known as Facebook -- into a metaverse company, ploughing billions of dollars into developing metaverse technology. The New York Times reports Meta's core election team has shrunk significantly since 2020. With the US midterms approaching, a reduced election team at Meta could mean less enforcement against misinformation. Whereas it used to comprise over 300 people, now 60 people spend their time focused on election security and some additional employees divide their time between elections and other projects, sources told The Times.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Most internet users trying to get past China's Great Firewall search for a cyber tunnel that will take them outside censorship restrictions to the wider web. From a report: But Vincent Brussee is looking for a way in, so he can better glimpse what life is like under the Communist Party. An analyst with the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin, Brussee frequently scours the Chinese internet for data. His main focus is information that will help him understand China's burgeoning social credit system. But in the last few years, he's noticed that his usual sources have become more unreliable and access tougher to gain. Some government websites fail to load, appearing to block users from specific geographic locations. Other platforms require a Chinese phone number tied to official identification. Files that were available three years ago have started to disappear as Brussee and many like him, including academics and journalists, are finding it increasingly frustrating to penetrate China's cyber world from the outside. "It's making it more difficult to simply understand where China is headed," Brussee said. "A lot of the work we are doing is digging for little scraps of information."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Bipartisan legislation to establish broad privacy rights for consumers won approval from a House subcommittee on Thursday, adding to its momentum. From a report: Lawmakers approved the bill, the American Data Privacy and Protection Act, on a voice vote with no dissent. It now moves to the full Energy and Commerce Committee for a vote. The bill still faces a long and potentially difficult path, particularly in the Senate. Rep. Frank Pallone (D., N.J.), the committee chairman and a sponsor of the bill, termed it "a massive step forward." "Every American knows it is long past time for Congress to protect their data privacy and security," he said. "The modern world demands it." Republicans also praised the legislation, while suggesting more changes might be needed. "This bill protects all Americans, regardless of ZIP Code, and provides certainty for businesses so they clearly understand their obligations," said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R., Wash.), the committee's top Republican. She said the legislation also would strengthen national security by requiring companies such as TikTok -- owned by Beijing-based ByteDance -- to specify when they are transferring and storing consumers' data in countries such as China.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

schwit1 writes: The Ohio State University has successfully trademarked the word "THE," in a victory for the college and its branding that is sure to produce eye rolls from Michigan fans and other rivals. Stating the full name of the school has become a point of pride for Ohio State's athletes when introducing themselves on television during games. The three-letter article "THE" has also become an important part of the school's merchandise and apparel. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office approved Ohio State's application Tuesday. The trademark applies to T-shirts, baseball caps and hats. "'THE' has been a rallying cry in the Ohio State community for many years," said Benjamin Johnson, a spokesman for the university. Ohio State registered the word as a trademark to protect the university's brand, Mr. Johnson said. Ohio State's trademark and licensing program makes about $12.5 million annually for the university, which funds student scholarships and university programs, he said. "Universities historically are very particular about their trademarks, and they go to a lot of lengths to enforce their trademarks," said Josh Gerben, a trademark attorney, who noted Ohio State's trademark application on Twitter. "There is a lot of value in a university's brand."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A city in Japan has been forced to apologise after a contractor admitted he had lost a USB memory stick containing the personal data of almost half a million residents after an alcohol-fuelled night out. From a report: Officials in Amagasaki, western Japan, said the man -- an unnamed employee of a private contractor hired to oversee Covid-19 relief payments to local households -- had taken the flash drive from the city's offices to transfer the data at a call centre in nearby Osaka. After spending Tuesday evening drinking at a restaurant, he realised on his way home that the bag containing the drive was missing, along with the personal details of all 460,000 Amagasaki residents. He reported the loss to police the following morning. The information included the residents' names, addresses and dates of birth, as well as details of their residence tax payments and the bank account numbers of those receiving child benefits and other welfare payments, according to the Asahi Shimbun. All of the information is encrypted and password protected, and there have been no reports of data leaks.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Since its initial release over a decade ago (and even following Microsoft's 2014 acquisition of developer Mojang), Minecraft has let players create private servers where they're in full control of what behaviors (and players) are allowed. Next week, though, Microsoft is set to roll out a new update that lets it ban a Minecraft player from all online play, including private servers and those hosted on Microsoft's subscription-based Realms plan. From a report: Earlier this week, Microsoft launched a pre-release version of Update 1.19.1 for the Java Edition of Minecraft, which will go live for everyone on Tuesday, June 28. That update will add the ability to report users who abuse the game's chat system and allow for "reported players [to be] be banned from online play and Realms after moderator review." On a recently updated "Why Have I been Banned from Minecraft?" help page, Microsoft notes that banned players will also get a message when they "sign into Minecraft on any platform (non-Java Edition) [aka "Bedrock"]." That message will clarify that "banned players are not allowed to play on servers, join Realms, host or join multiplayer games, or use the marketplace. They are also not allowed to access Minecraft Earth. Xbox players will no longer have access to their worlds [emphasis added]."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A popular product on the Harmony network was exploited for over $100 million in cryptocurrencies in what is one of the biggest crypto hacks in recent weeks. From a report: "The Harmony team has identified a theft occurring this morning on the Horizon bridge amounting to approx. $100MM," the network's developers said in a tweet. "We have begun working with national authorities and forensic specialists to identify the culprit and retrieve the stolen funds. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the domestic intelligence and legal enforcement agency of the U.S., and cybersecurity firms have joined the search for the attacker, they said in a subsequent tweet. Harmony's native ONE token slumped on news of the exploit, taking its decline in the past 24 hours to more than 12%.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Faked heart studies by a once-obscure scientist duped the U.S. government and medical establishment for years. Washington is still paying for it. From a Reuters investigation: Mario Ricciardi, a young Italian molecular biologist, was thrilled when he was selected to work with one of Harvard Medical School's most successful stem cell researchers. His new boss, Dr. Piero Anversa, had become famous within the field for his bold findings in 2001 that adult stem cells had special abilities to regenerate hearts or even cure heart disease, the leading cause of U.S. deaths . Millions in U.S. government grants poured into Anversa's lab at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Top journals published his papers. And the American Heart Association (AHA) proclaimed him a "research pioneer." "He was like a god," recalled Ricciardi, now 39, one of several scientists to speak out for the first time about their experiences in Anversa's lab. Within a year of Ricciardi's arrival in 2011, they grew suspicious, the scientists recalled. They couldn't replicate the seminal findings of their celebrated boss and became concerned that data and images of cells were being manipulated. Anversa and his deputy gruffly dismissed their questions, they said. They took their concerns to Brigham officials, telling them that Anversa's blockbuster results appeared to have been faked. "The science just wasn't there," Ricciardi said. After an investigation lasting almost six years, Brigham and Harvard wrote in a two-paragraph statement that they had found "falsified and/or fabricated data" in 31 papers authored by Anversa and his collaborators. In April 2017, the U.S. Justice Department separately concluded in a civil settlement with Brigham that Anversa's lab relied on "the fabrication of data and images" in seeking government grants and engaged in "reckless or deliberately misleading record-keeping." Yet federal money has continued to flow to test the proposition advanced by Anversa -- that adult stem cells can regenerate or heal hearts. Over two decades, federal and private grants have streamed into research labs despite allegations of fraud and fabrication against Anversa and others in the field, Reuters found. Meanwhile, no scientist has credibly established that Anversa's regeneration hypothesis holds true in humans, according to researchers and a review of medical literature.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Software maker Zendesk agreed to be acquired by a group of buyout firms led by Hellman & Friedman and Permira for about $9.5 billion. From a report: The all-cash transaction offers shareholders $77.50 a share, a premium of 34% over Zendesk's closing stock price on Thursday, the company said in a statement on Friday. The stock jumped about 29% to $74.75 on the news. Including debt, the deal is valued at about $10.2 billion. The announcement comes after Zendesk said earlier this month that it would remain independent after failing to find a potential buyer. The San Francisco-based company said June 9 that it would no longer seek to sell itself after a strategic review that reached out to 16 potential strategic partners and 10 financial sponsors. Ultimately, "no actionable proposals were submitted," Zendesk said in a statement, and final bidders cited "adverse market conditions and financing difficulties at the end of the process."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A rare, five-planet alignment will peak on June 24, allowing a spectacular viewing of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn as they line up in planetary order. From a report: The event began at the beginning of June and has continued to get brighter and easier to see as the month has progressed, according to Diana Hannikainen, observing editor of Sky & Telescope. A waning crescent moon will be joining the party between Venus and Mars on Friday, adding another celestial object to the lineup. The moon will represent the Earth's relative position in the alignment, meaning this is where our planet will appear in the planetary order. This rare phenomenon has not occurred since December 2004, and this year, the distance between Mercury and Saturn will be smaller, according to Sky & Telescope.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft is preparing to send reminders to Windows 8.1 users that support will end on January 10th 2023. The software giant will start sending notifications to existing Windows 8.1 devices next month, as a first reminder leading up to the January 2023 support cutoff. From a report: The notifications will be similar to ones Microsoft has used in the past to remind Windows 7 users about end of support dates. Microsoft originally sunset Windows 8 support in 2016, but the Windows 8.1 update will cease support fully in January 2023. Microsoft will not be offering an Extended Security Update (ESU) program for Windows 8.1, so businesses won't be able to pay for additional security patches and will have to upgrade or accept the risk of running software without security updates.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Intel has told lawmakers and officials that it is delaying indefinitely the groundbreaking ceremony for a planned multibillion-dollar chip-manufacturing facility in Ohio, signaling frustration over uncertainty in Congress about legislation that would provide support for the U.S. chip industry. From a report: The ceremony had been tentatively scheduled for July 22. Intel informed the office of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and members of Ohio's congressional delegation on Wednesday that it was delaying the groundbreaking "due in part to uncertainty around" the chips-related legislation, known as the Bipartisan Innovation Act, according to an email reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Intel still plans to build the facility and hasn't pushed back the start of construction, said Intel spokesman Will Moss. Intel, which announced the plant plans in January, said it intended to invest at least $20 billion in the Ohio facility, with construction expected to begin in late 2022 and production to start in 2025. The company said in its announcement that spending on the Ohio project could reach around $100 billion over the next decade, but that the expansion depends in part on progress on the U.S. chips legislation.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The fourth and most recent attempt at a full launch rehearsal of NASA's Space Launch System went reasonably well, and despite some lingering issues and uncertainties, the agency is sending the rocket back to the hangar for final preparations in advance of its first flight. That inaugural launch will represent Artemis 1, the first mission in NASA's Artemis lunar program. Gizmodo reports: In a press release today, NASA -- to my surprise -- said it is done testing SLS after reviewing data from the recent launch rehearsal. That another full-blown rehearsal would be required seemed likely to me on account of an unresolved hydrogen leak linked to a faulty quick-connect fitting, which subsequently prevented ground teams from practicing the fully scheduled launch countdown on Monday. The goal was to reach T-10 seconds, but the launch controllers decided to quit the rehearsal at T-29 seconds for safety reasons. "NASA plans to return SLS and Orion to the pad for launch in late August," says the release. "NASA will set a specific target launch date after replacing hardware associated with the leak." Despite the hydrogen leak and the incomplete countdown, Monday's wet dress did appear to go well. The ground teams finally managed to fully load SLS with propellants. Upwards of 755,000 gallons of cryogenic liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen were supplied to the rocket's two stages, which the teams had failed to do during the first three attempts. What's more, all of the issues experienced during the first three wet dress rehearsals appear to have been resolved. The Orion spacecraft, currently sitting atop the rocket, also performed well during the test. Said Tom Whitmeyer, NASA's exploration systems manager, during a media teleconference on Tuesday: "We think that we had a really successful rehearsal," adding that there is "relative risk" is running a fifth wet dress, with the 322-foot-tall (98-meter) rocket standing fully exposed on the launch pad.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The co-founder and CEO of Solana, Anatoly Yakovenko, had a Steve Jobs moment when he stood in front of an auditorium in New York City and announced the launch of Saga, an Android web3-focused smartphone. "This is something that I fundamentally believe the industry needs to do," Yakovenko said. "We didn't see a single crypto feature at the Apple developer conference 13 years after Bitcoin was alive." People will pull out their laptops in the middle of dates so they don't miss an NFT minting opportunity, Yakovenko joked. "So I think it's time for crypto to go mobile," Yakovenko added. Saga aims to implement digital asset products and services, so users can easily transact with their cryptocurrency through the device, opposed to a laptop browser. In addition to the announcement of Saga, Yakovenko shared the launch of the Solana Mobile Stack, or SMS, which is a web3 layer for Solana built on the phone. SMS will consist of a number of products including a seed vault, a custody solution, a mobile wallet adapter, Solana Pay for Android and its decentralized application (dApp) store. It "provides a new set of libraries for wallets and apps, allowing developers to create rich mobile experiences on Solana," a press release said. A number of crypto companies including FTX, Phantom and Magic Eden will partner with SMS and there is also a $10 million developer fund for people who build apps on it. "The builders are coming and they are higher quality than before," Raj Gokal, COO at Solana Labs said. "They're ready for the next leg of user growth." The $1,000 device will have 512 GB of storage with a 6.67-inch OLED display and is available for preorder with a $100 deposit and deliveries will occur in Q1 2023, Yakovenko said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: The National Security Agency (NSA) and cybersecurity partner agencies issued an advisory today recommending system administrators to use PowerShell to prevent and detect malicious activity on Windows machines. PowerShell is frequently used in cyberattacks, leveraged mostly in the post-exploitation stage, but the security capabilities embedded in Microsoft's automation and configuration tool can also benefit defenders in their forensics efforts, improve incident response, and to automate repetitive tasks. The NSA and cyber security centers in the U.S. (CISA), New Zealand (NZ NCSC), and the U.K. (NCSC-UK) have created a set of recommendations for using PowerShell to mitigate cyber threats instead of removing or disabling it, which would lower defensive capabilities. Reducing the risk of threat actors abusing PowerShell requires leveraging capabilities in the framework such as PowerShell remoting, which does not expose plain-text credentials when executing commands remotely on Windows hosts. Administrators should be aware that enabling this feature on private networks automatically adds a new rule in Windows Firewall that permits all connections. Customizing Windows Firewall to allow connections only from trusted endpoints and networks helps reduce an attacker's chance for successful lateral movement. For remote connections, the agencies advise using the Secure Shell protocol (SSH), supported in PowerShell 7, to add the convenience and security of public-key authentication: - remote connections don't need HTTPS with SSL certificates - no need for Trusted Hosts, as required when remoting over WinRM outside a domain - secure remote management over SSH without a password for all commands and connections - PowerShell remoting between Windows and Linux hosts Another recommendation is to reduce PowerShell operations with the help of AppLocker or Windows Defender Application Control (WDAC) to set the tool to function in Constrained Language Mode (CLM), thus denying operations outside the policies defined by the administrator. Recording PowerShell activity and monitoring the logs are two recommendations that could help administrators find signs of potential abuse. The NSA and its partners propose turning on features like Deep Script Block Logging (DSBL), Module Logging, and Over-the-Shoulder transcription (OTS). The first two enable building a comprehensive database of logs that can be used to look for suspicious or malicious PowerShell activity, including hidden action and the commands and scripts used in the process. With OTS, administrators get records of every PowerShell input or output, which could help determine an attacker's intentions in the environment. The full document, titled "Keeping PowerShell: Security Measures to Use and Embrace" is available here (PDF).Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Dutch joined Germany and Austria in reverting to coal power on Monday following an energy crisis provoked by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. France 24 reports: The Netherlands said it would lift all restrictions on power stations fired by the fossil fuel, which were previously limited to just over a third of output. Berlin and Vienna made similar announcements on Sunday as Moscow, facing biting sanctions over Ukraine, cuts gas supplies to energy-starved Europe. "The cabinet has decided to immediately withdraw the restriction on production for coal-fired power stations from 2002 to 2024," Dutch climate and energy minister Rob Jetten told journalists in The Hague. The Dutch minister said his country had "prepared this decision with our European colleagues over the past few days." Germany however said it still aimed to close its coal power plants by 2030, in light of the greater emissions of climate-changing CO2 from the fossil fuel. "The 2030 coal exit date is not in doubt at all," economy ministry spokesman Stephan Gabriel Haufe said at a regular news conference. The target was "more important than ever," he added. Austria's government meanwhile announced Sunday that it would reopen a mothballed coal power station because of power shortages arising from reduced deliveries of gas from Russia. The authorities would work with the Verbund group, the country's main electricity supplier, to get the station in the southern city of Mellach back in action, said the Chancellery. The European Commission noted Monday that "some of the existing coal capacities might be used longer than initially expected" because of the new energy landscape in Europe.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Long-time Slashdot reader Mr_Blank shares a report from Gerona: China has enacted new regulation for the live-streaming industry, listing 31 prohibited conducts and raising the bar for influencers to speak out on specific topics, in the government's latest effort to regulate the booming digital economy. The 18-point guideline, released Wednesday by the National Radio and Television Administration and the Department of Culture and Tourism, requires influencers to have relevant qualifications to cover some subjects, including law, finance, medicine and education discuss, although the authorities have not specified the necessary qualifications. The 31 prohibited conducts during live-streaming sessions include posting content that weakens or distorts the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, the socialist system, or the country's reform and opening-up. Other prohibited behaviors include using deepfake technologies to manipulate the images of party or state leaders and intentionally 'building up' sensitive issues and attracting public attention. Live streamers are also prohibited from showing an extravagant lifestyle, such as showing luxury products and cash, the policy said. This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Scientists have discovered a bacteria with cells that measure a full centimeter in length, an astonishing size that makes it by far the largest bacterial species ever found and even "challenges our concept of a bacterial cell," reports a new study. Bacteria are an extraordinarily diverse group of organisms that have inhabited Earth for billions of years and have evolved to occupy a dizzying variety of niches. Still, almost all of these microbes are composed of simple cells that measure about two microns in diameter, which is about 40 times smaller than a strand of human hair. Thiomargarita magnifica, a bacteria discovered on sunken red mangrove leaves in Guadeloupe, Lesser Antilles, has blown this standard scale out of the water. The species has evolved filamentary cells that are "larger than all other known giant bacteria by ~50-fold," making them "visible to the naked eye," according to a study published on Thursday in Science. Scientists led by Jean-Marie Volland, a marine biologist who holds joint appointments at the Laboratory for Research in Complex Systems and the Joint Genome Institute (JGI), a U.S. Department of Energy office at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, suspect that this record-breaking adaptation is partly due to the astonishing number of duplicated genes wielded by T. magnifica, an ability that is known as polyploidy. [...] The results revealed that these bacteria contain DNA clusters in their cells, which are located in compartments bordered by membranes that the team called "pepins." These organized pepins provide a stark contrast to the free-floating DNA seen in the cells of most bacteria. In addition, the team's genetic sequencing revealed that T. magnifica contains hundreds of thousands of genome copies that are dispersed across the cell, adding up to about three times the number of genes in most bacteria, which is an extreme example of polyploidy. "These cellular features likely allow the organism to grow to an unusually large size and circumvent some of the biophysical and bioenergetic limitations on growth," Volland and his colleagues said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In a blog post today, OpenAI says they've "trained a neural network to play Minecraft by Video PreTraining (VPT) on a massive unlabeled video dataset of human Minecraft play, while using only a small amount of labeled contractor data." The model can reportedly learn to craft diamond tools, "a task that usually takes proficient humans over 20 minutes (24,000 actions)," they note. From the post: In order to utilize the wealth of unlabeled video data available on the internet, we introduce a novel, yet simple, semi-supervised imitation learning method: Video PreTraining (VPT). We start by gathering a small dataset from contractors where we record not only their video, but also the actions they took, which in our case are keypresses and mouse movements. With this data we train an inverse dynamics model (IDM), which predicts the action being taken at each step in the video. Importantly, the IDM can use past and future information to guess the action at each step. This task is much easier and thus requires far less data than the behavioral cloning task of predicting actions given past video frames only, which requires inferring what the person wants to do and how to accomplish it. We can then use the trained IDM to label a much larger dataset of online videos and learn to act via behavioral cloning. We chose to validate our method in Minecraft because it (1) is one of the most actively played video games in the world and thus has a wealth of freely available video data and (2) is open-ended with a wide variety of things to do, similar to real-world applications such as computer usage. Unlike prior works in Minecraft that use simplified action spaces aimed at easing exploration, our AI uses the much more generally applicable, though also much more difficult, native human interface: 20Hz framerate with the mouse and keyboard. Trained on 70,000 hours of IDM-labeled online video, our behavioral cloning model (the âoeVPT foundation modelâ) accomplishes tasks in Minecraft that are nearly impossible to achieve with reinforcement learning from scratch. It learns to chop down trees to collect logs, craft those logs into planks, and then craft those planks into a crafting table; this sequence takes a human proficient in Minecraft approximately 50 seconds or 1,000 consecutive game actions. Additionally, the model performs other complex skills humans often do in the game, such as swimming, hunting animals for food, and eating that food. It also learned the skill of "pillar jumping," a common behavior in Minecraft of elevating yourself by repeatedly jumping and placing a block underneath yourself. For more information, OpenAI has a paper (PDF) about the project.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Comcast's NBCUniversal subsidiary and Google are the "top contenders" for Netflix's upcoming ad-supported streaming tier. "After many years of resisting ads, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced the plan for an ad-supported tier in April," reports Ars Technica. "Netflix's stock price dropped 35 percent the day of that announcement, and Netflix revenue growth has been slowing amid a loss in subscribers." From the report: A deal with NBCUniversal would likely mean that "Comcast's video ad unit, FreeWheel, would supply technology to help serve up ads, while NBCUniversal's ad-sales team would help sell ads in the US and Europe," the report said. The Alphabet-owned Google, of course, has plenty of experience serving ads, including on its own YouTube and YouTube TV video platforms. Netflix already uses Google's ad-buying tools. A deal with either NBCUniversal or Google would likely be exclusive, the WSJ report said. Comcast/NBCUniversal and Google aren't the only contenders, as "Roku has also had early talks with Netflix about ad partnerships," the report said. The Information reported last week that Netflix executives recently "met with representatives of both Roku and Comcast to discuss arrangements under which those companies would handle either the ad sales or the technical infrastructure for Netflix's forthcoming ad-supported tier of service." Netflix "is looking to start doing some pre-roll ads, which run before a show starts, in the fourth quarter," The Information report said. Netflix is also negotiating with entertainment companies to put ads into shows that Netflix doesn't create itself. Licensing TV shows and movies for both ad-free and ad-supported streaming will cost Netflix about 20 percent more than for ad-free streaming alone, The Information report said. Variety has confirmed the streamer is "letting go of roughly 300 staffers [...] across multiple business functions in the company, with the bulk of the jobs lost in the U.S." Netflix also laid off 150 employees, and dozens of contractors and part-time workers in May. "Today we sadly let go of around 300 employees," a Netflix spokesperson told Variety. "While we continue to invest significantly in the business, we made these adjustments so that our costs are growing in line with our slower revenue growth. We are so grateful for everything they have done for Netflix and are working hard to support them through this difficult transition."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Another strike against use of Google Analytics in Europe: The Italian data protection authority has found a local web publisher's use of the popular analytics tool to be non-compliant with EU data protection rules owing to user data being transferred to the U.S. -- a country that lacks an equivalent legal framework to protect the info from being accessed by US spooks. The Garante found the web publisher's use of Google Analytics resulted in the collection of many types of user data, including device IP address, browser information, OS, screen resolution, language selection, plus the date and time of the site visit, which were transferred to the U.S. without adequate supplementary measures being applied to raise the level of protection to the necessary EU legal standard. Protections applied by Google were not sufficient to address the risk, it added, echoing the conclusion of several other EU DPAs who have also found use of Google Analytics violates the bloc's data protection rules over the data export issue. Italy's DPA has given the publisher in question (a company called Caffeina Media Srl) 90 days to fix the compliance violation. But the decision has wider significance as it has also warned other local websites that are using Google Analytics to take note and check their own compliance, writing in a press release [translated from Italian with machine translation]: "[T]he Authority draws the attention of all Italian managers of websites, public and private, to the illegality of transfers made to the United States through GA [Google Analytics], also in consideration of the numerous reports and questions that are being received by the Office, and invites all data controllers to verify the compliance of the methods of use of cookies and other tracking tools used on its websites, with particular attention to Google Analytics and other similar services, with the legislation on the protection of personal data." A Google spokesperson issued the following statement: "People want the websites they visit to be well designed, easy to use, and respectful of their privacy. Google Analytics helps publishers understand how well their sites and apps are working for their visitors -- but not by identifying individuals or tracking them across the web. These organizations, not Google, control what data is collected with these tools, and how it is used. Google helps by providing a range of safeguards, controls and resources for compliance." Google is reviewing the Italian DPA's decision, according to the spokesperson.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The White House and 11 governors from East Coast states forged a new partnership on Thursday to build up domestic supply chains for offshore wind farms and related infrastructure. From a report: The new Federal-State Offshore Wind Implementation Partnership includes governors from Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. As part of the announcement, the Biden administration committed to the facilitation of "timely and effective permitting and environmental reviews" for offshore wind projects and lease sales. In the past, permitting has been a significant bottleneck for advancing offshore wind projects. Crucially, President Joe Biden also moved to ease another major bottleneck: securing the specialized ships needed to erect turbines as tall as skyscrapers in the open ocean. Projects compete for time with the few installation vessels available worldwide, which number just over 30. The US faces additional restrictions because of the Jones Act, which stipulates that ships moving between two points in the US need to be built, owned, crewed, and registered in the US.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Physical futures crypto exchange CoinFLEX is pausing withdrawals citing "extreme market conditions" along with uncertainty around a certain counterparty, its CEO Mark Lamb said in a blog post Thursday. CoinDesk reports: Lamb said the counterparty is not Three Arrows Capital or "any lending firm." CoinFLEX expects to resume withdrawals "in a better position as soon as possible." Additionally, FLEX Coin trading is being halted for perpetual swaps and spot trading in the short term.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Scientists have designed a tiny robot-fish that is programmed to remove microplastics from seas and oceans by swimming around and adsorbing them on its soft, flexible, self-healing body. From a report: Microplastics are the billions of tiny plastic particles which fragment from the bigger plastic things used every day such as water bottles, car tyres and synthetic T-shirts. They are one of the 21st century's biggest environmental problems because once they are dispersed into the environment through the breakdown of larger plastics they are very hard to get rid of, making their way into drinking water, produce, and food, harming the environment and animal and human health. "It is of great significance to develop a robot to accurately collect and sample detrimental microplastic pollutants from the aquatic environment," said Yuyan Wang, a researcher at the Polymer Research Institute of Sichuan University and one of the lead authors on the study. Her team's novel invention is described in a research paper in the journal Nano Letters. "To the best of our knowledge, this is the first example of such soft robots." Researchers at Sichuan University have revealed an innovative solution to track down these pollutants when it comes to water contamination: designing a tiny self-propelled robo-fish that can swim around, latch on to free-floating microplastics, and fix itself if it gets cut or damaged while on its expedition.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The group responsible for developing and updating the PCI Express standard, the PCI-SIG, aims to update that standard roughly every three years. From a report: Version 6.0 was released earlier this year, and the group has announced that PCIe version 7.0 is currently on track to be finalized sometime in 2025. Like all new PCI Express versions, its goal is to double the available bandwidth of its predecessor, which in PCIe 7.0's case means that a single PCIe 7.0 lane will be able to transmit at speeds of up to 32GB per second. That's a doubling of the 16GB per second promised by PCIe 6.0, but it's even more striking when compared to PCIe 4.0, the version of the standard used in high-end GPUs and SSDs today. A single PCIe 4.0 lane provides bandwidth of about 4GB per second, and you need eight of those lanes to offer the same speeds as a single PCIe 7.0 lane. Increasing speeds opens the door to ever-faster GPUs and storage devices, but bandwidth gains this large would also make it possible to do the same amount of work with fewer PCIe lanes. Today's SSDs normally use four lanes of PCIe bandwidth, and GPUs normally use 16 lanes. You could use the same number of lanes to support more SSDs and GPUs while still providing big increases in bandwidth compared to today's accessories, something that could be especially useful in servers.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Intel is seeking to be paid interest of $624 million on the overturned $1.1 billion fine it received from the European Commission back in 2009. From a report: The antitrust ruling was overturned at the beginning of the year, and so Intel has gone to EU General Court seeking compensation and interest on the fine. In fact, Intel is claiming back almost half of that original fine, based on the European Central Bank's refinancing rates. In case you need a reminder on all of this: Intel allegedly took part in anti-competitive practices that saw it offer conditional rebates to key OEMs such as Dell, HP, and Lenovo, making it difficult for competitors (read AMD, or ARM if you prefer, but really AMD) to compete with their own CPUs. The European Commission concluded in 2009 that Intel had indeed behaved in such a way between October 2002 and December 2007 and hit it with one of the largest ever fines at the time at a cool $1.1 billion. Intel appealed the decision unsuccessfully in 2012, but in 2014 it brought the case to the European Court of Justice, which sent it back to the General Court in 2017. The case has been going back and fourth ever since.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

At its re:Mars conference, Amazon today announced the launch of CodeWhisperer, an AI pair programming tool similar to GitHub's Copilot that can autocomplete entire functions based on only a comment or a few keystrokes. From a report: The company trained the system, which currently supports Java, JavaScript and Python, on billions of lines of publicly available open-source code and its own codebase, as well as publicly available documentation and code on public forums. It's now available in preview as part of the AWS IDE Toolkit, which means developers can immediately use it right inside their preferred IDEs, including Visual Studio Code, IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, WebStorm and Amazon's own AWS Cloud 9. Support for the AWS Lambda Console is also coming soon. Ahead of today's announcement, Vasi Philomin, Amazon's VP in charge of its AI services, stressed that the company didn't simply create this in order to offer a copy of Copilot. He noted that with CodeGuru, its AI code reviewer and performance profiler, and DevOps Guru, its tool for finding operation issues, the company laid the groundwork for today's launch quite a few years ago.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google is still useful for many, but the harder question is why its results feel more sterile than they did five years ago. From a report: SEO expert Marie Haynes's theory is that this is the result of Google trying to crack down on misinformation and low-quality content -- especially around consequential search topics. In 2017, the company started talking publicly about a Search initiative called EAT, which stands for "expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness." The company has rolled out numerous quality rater guidelines, which help judge content to determine authenticity. One such effort, titled Your Money or Your Life, applies rigorous standards to any pages that show up when users search for medical or financial information. "Take crypto," Haynes explained. "It's an area with a lot of fraud, so unless a site has a big presence around the web and Google gets the sense they're known for expertise on that topic, it'll be difficult to get them to rank." What this means, though, is that Google's results on any topic deemed sensitive enough will likely be from established sources. Medical queries are far more likely to return WebMD or Mayo Clinic pages, instead of personal testimonials. This, Haynes said, is especially challenging for people looking for homeopathic or alternative-medicine remedies. There's a strange irony to all of this. For years, researchers, technologists, politicians, and journalists have agonized and cautioned against the wildness of the internet and its penchant for amplifying conspiracy theories, divisive subject matter, and flat-out false information. Many people, myself included, have argued for platforms to surface quality, authoritative information above all else, even at the expense of profit. And it's possible that Google has, in some sense, listened (albeit after far too much inaction) and, maybe, partly succeeded in showing higher-quality results in a number of contentious categories. But instead of ushering in an era of perfect information, the changes might be behind the complainers' sense that Google Search has stopped delivering interesting results.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Broadcom's $69bn acquisition of cloud software company VMware is set for a lengthy antitrust investigation in Brussels over regulatory concerns that the deal will harm competition across the global technology industry. From a report: Broadcom is already in preliminary discussions with EU officials who will be looking into worries that the merger may lead to abusive behaviour, including potential future price rises by the US chipmaker, three people with direct knowledge of the transaction said. Many large acquisitions receive similar interrogation, known in EU circles as a "phase 1" investigation, which typically takes a few months to complete. But those close to the situation suggest that EU authorities plan to push forward with a more detailed "phase 2" investigation, which could take well over a year and may ultimately derail the deal altogether. Nvidia eventually walked away from a proposed $66bn purchase of chip designer Arm after being subject to a lengthy EU antitrust probe.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Security researchers at Lookout recently tied a previously unattributed Android mobile spyware, dubbed Hermit, to Italian software house RCS Lab. Now, Google threat researchers have confirmed much of Lookout's findings, and are notifying Android users whose devices were compromised by the spyware. From a report: Hermit is a commercial spyware known to be used by governments, with victims in Kazakhstan and Italy, according to Lookout and Google. Lookout says it's also seen the spyware deployed in northern Syria. The spyware uses various modules, which it downloads from its command and control servers as they are needed, to collect call logs, record ambient audio, redirect phone calls and collect photos, messages, emails, and the device's precise location from a victim's device. Lookout said in its analysis that Hermit, which works on all Android versions, also tries to root an infected Android device, granting the spyware even deeper access to the victim's data. Lookout said that targeted victims are sent a malicious link by text message and tricked into downloading and installing the malicious app -- which masquerades as a legitimate branded telco or messaging app -- from outside of the app store.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A security researcher found vulnerabilities in Jacuzzi's SmartTub interface that allowed access to the personal data of every hot tub owner. From a report: Jacuzzi's SmartTub feature, like most Internet of Things (IoT) systems, lets users connect to their hot tub remotely via a companion Android or iPhone app. Marketed as a "personal hot tub assistant," users can make use of the app to control water temperature, switch on and off jets, and change the lights. But as documented by hacker Eaton Zveare, this functionality could also be abused by threat actors to access the personal information of hot tub owners worldwide, including their names and email addresses. It's unclear how many users are potentially impacted, but the SmartTub app has been downloaded more than 10,000 times on Google Play. "The main concern is their name and email being leaked," Zveare told TechCrunch, adding that attackers could also potentially heat up someone else's hot tub or change the filtration cycles. "That would make things unpleasant the next time the person checked their tub," he said. "But I don't think there is anything truly dangerous that could have been done -- you have to do all chemicals by hand." Eaton first noticed a problem when he tried to log in using the SmartTub web interface, which uses third-party identity provider Auth0, and found that the login page returned an "unauthorized" error. But for the briefest moment Zveare saw the full admin panel populated with user data flash on his screen.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued marketing denial orders (MDOs) to JUUL Labs for all of their products currently marketed in the United States. From a report: As a result, the company must stop selling and distributing these products. In addition, those currently on the U.S. market must be removed, or risk enforcement action. The products include the JUUL device and four types of JUULpods: Virginia tobacco flavored pods at nicotine concentrations of 5.0% and 3.0% and menthol flavored pods at nicotine concentrations of 5.0% and 3.0%. Retailers should contact JUUL with any questions about products in their inventory. "Today's action is further progress on the FDA's commitment to ensuring that all e-cigarette and electronic nicotine delivery system products currently being marketed to consumers meet our public health standards," said FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf, M.D. "The agency has dedicated significant resources to review products from the companies that account for most of the U.S. market. We recognize these make up a significant part of the available products and many have played a disproportionate role in the rise in youth vaping." Further reading: Biden Administration Targets Removal of Most Nicotine From Cigarettes.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

China is grappling with extreme weather emergencies across the country, with the worst flooding in decades submerging houses and cars in the south and record-high heat waves in the northern and central provinces causing roads to buckle. From a report: Water levels in more than a hundred rivers across the country have surged beyond flood warning levels, according to the People's Daily, the ruling Communist Party's mouthpiece. The authorities in Guangdong Province on Tuesday raised alerts to the highest level after days of rainfall and floods, closing schools, businesses and public transport in affected areas. The flooding has disrupted the lives of almost half a million people in southern China. Footage on state media showed rescue crews on boats paddling across waterlogged roads to relieve trapped residents. In Shaoguan, a manufacturing hub, factories were ordered to halt production, as water levels have reached a 50-year high, state television reported. Guangdong's emergency management department said that the rainfall has affected 479,600 people, ruined nearly 30 hectares of crops and caused the collapse of more than 1,700 houses, with financial losses totaling $261 million, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Speaking this week at the Linux Foundation's Open-Source Summit, Linus Torvalds talked up the possibilities of Rust within the Linux kernel and that it could be landing quite soon -- possibly even for the next kernel cycle. From a report: Linus Torvalds and Dirk Hohndel had their usual Open-Source Summit keynote/chat where Linus commented on Rust programming language code within the kernel. Torvalds commented that real soon they expect to have the Rust infrastructure merged within the kernel, possibly even for the next release -- meaning Linux 5.20. There hasn't yet been any Rust for Linux pull request sent in or merged yet, but things have begun settling down in the initial Rust enablement code for the kernel with the basic infrastructure, a few basic sample drivers, etc. Last month saw the most recent Rust Linux kernel patches posted that got more functionality into shape and additional reviews completed. As noted plenty of times before, this Rust support within the Linux kernel will remain optional when building the kernel depending upon whether you want the support or any of the kernel features to be implemented just in Rust code.Read more of this story at Slashdot.