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The Moscow branch of a Chinese state bank has seen a surge in enquiries from Russian firms wanting to open new accounts, Reuters a person familiar with the matter said, as the country's businesses struggle with international sanctions after its invasion of Ukraine. From a report: "Over the past few days, 200-300 companies have approached us, wanting to open new accounts," the person, who works at the Moscow branch of a Chinese state bank and has direct knowledge of its operations, told Reuters. It was not clear how widespread Russian demand for new accounts at Chinese banks was, but the banker source told Reuters many of the companies seeking new accounts do business with China and that he expected yuan transactions by such firms to increase.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Alphabet's Google Maps and the travel search platform Tripadvisor temporarily blocked users from posting new reviews to some listings in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, the companies said. From a report: The suspensions were made in response to an influx of political statements posted as reviews to businesses and tourist destinations in the region, boosted by a campaign that saw pro-Ukraine activists using the travel platforms to try to communicate with Russians partially cut off from other media platforms. A social-media campaign promoted by the global hacker collective Anonymous encouraged followers to visit Google Maps, find a restaurant or other business in Russia and write a review explaining "what is happening in Ukraine." The group on Monday suggested users leverage the review sites to tell Russian readers to "Stand up to your dictator," among other directions. Other social-media accounts encouraged the posting of similar messages on Russian Tripadvisor pages.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ukraine's "IT army" of volunteer hackers announced a new set of targets on Thursday - including the Belarusian railway network and Russia's homegrown satellite-based navigation system, GLONASS. From a report: "We need to mobilise and intensify our efforts as much as possible," a post on the "IT army" Telegram channel said. The post listed the top priorities targeted by the group, including Belarus' railway, Russian telecom companies, and GLONASS, which is Russia's alternative to the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite navigation network. Ukraine has called on its hacker underground to help protect critical infrastructure and conduct cyber spying missions against Russian troops, Reuters previously reported. Kyiv announced the formation of its "IT army" on Saturday. A hacking team focused on Belarus, which has been used as a key staging post for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, called the Belarusian Cyber Partisans told Reuters on Tuesday they had disabled railway traffic systems there and attacked the network because it had been used to transport Russian soldiers.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An overview of Tencent's burgeoning games dominance. From a report: In the West, tech giant Tencent is not yet a household name. While its size and acquisitions have made frequent headlines, its presence has remained understated relative to competitors like Amazon and Google, with the name occasionally peppered into conversations as an example of China's burgeoning influence on technology and entertainment around the world. But in China, Tencent is everywhere. It's behind the nation's most popular messaging app, WeChat, with over 1.2 billion monthly active users. It's the behemoth that created QQ.com, one of the country's largest web portals and the world's fourth most visited website. And with Tencent Music, it also owns the majority of China's music services, with 841 million active users. It's also China's -- and the world's -- biggest game company. And with a growing presence internationally, we recently decided to take a closer look at how it operates and what it owns.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Researchers have a new view of HR 6819: two stars, one of them a "vampire." From a report: Astronomers who thought they had discovered a black hole on our cosmic doorstep have said they were mistaken, instead revealing they have found a two-star system involving a stellar "vampire." The system, known as HR 6819 in the constellation Telescopium, was in the headlines in 2020 when researchers announced it contained a black hole. At just 1,000 light years from Earth, it was the closest yet found to our planet. At the time the team behind the work said the presence of a black hole was necessary to make sense of the movement of two stars in the system, suggesting a black hole and one star orbited each other while the second star moved in a wider orbit. Now the researchers say they were mistaken: the black hole does not exist. Dietrich Baade, an emeritus astronomer at European Southern Observatory (ESO) and a co-author of the work, said just one blob of light was previously detected, containing the hallmarks of two stars. Since both stars are of similar brightness and the same age, they would normally have the same mass and would whirl each other around with similar, high velocity. "Since we saw that only one of the stars was whirled around at high velocity by some massive object, which we didn't see, we assumed this unseen massive object to be a third body, namely a black hole," he said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is scrutinizing creators of NFTs and the crypto exchanges where they trade to determine if some of the assets run afoul of the agency's rules, Bloomberg News reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: A focus of the probe is on whether certain nonfungible tokens, digital assets that can be used to denote ownership of things like a painting or sports memorabilia, are being utilized to raise money like traditional securities, said the people. Over the past several months, attorneys in the SEC's enforcement unit have sent subpoenas demanding information about the token offerings. The inquiry is the latest attempt by the SEC under Chair Gary Gensler to ensure the crypto market adheres to its regulations. In February, the commission and state regulators levied a record $100 million fine against BlockFi, a popular virtual-currency exchange, for failing to register products that pay customers high interest rates to lend out their digital tokens.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Well-known open source advocate and developer Miguel de Icaza, who joined Microsoft in 2016 when it acquired Xamarin, the mobile-tool company he cofounded, is leaving Microsoft. From a report: De Icaza -- a Microsoft distinguished engineer -- confirmed to me on March 2 that he has decided to leave and will be taking some time off before moving to a new job. Ever since de Icaza's colleague and former Xamarin CEO Nat Friedman left Microsoft in November 2021, there's been speculation that de Icaza also would leave Microsoft. Friedman was the CEO of Microsoft's GitHub division. Friedman said late last year he had decided to go back to his startup roots. De Icaza has been with Microsoft for just over six years. Most recently, he has been working on various AI projects with the ONNX team. ONNX, the Open Neural Network Exchange, is an evolving standard format for machine learning models that is being championed by Microsoft, Meta and Amazon. De Icaza worked with the team to get the ONNX runtime on Android and iOS to support mobile developers using Xamarin.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Wordle clones are back on the App Store, just a few weeks after Apple wiped out nearly all the copycat games in January. From a report: A quick glance at the top free apps on the App Store reveals at least two prominently placed Wordle-alikes, while diving into Apple's more specific word games category (or simply searching "Wordle") surfaces plenty of other copycats, many of which appear to have been part of Apple's first wave of takedowns a few months ago. None of the new games are actively passing themselves off as Wordle -- at least, not in name. Instead, the clones have creatively rebranded to "Wordus," "Word Guess," "Wordl," and other thinly veiled references to the original game. But all of them offer some variant on Wordle's gameplay, down to the same gameplay, UI, design, and color scheme.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ukraine has scrapped a plan to reward people who donated to its fight against a Russian invasion with newly created crypto assets, following complications with the project. From a report: The official verified Twitter account for Ukraine said on Wednesday it planned to issue a so-called "airdrop," a common tool for early-stage crypto platforms to attract users by offering free tokens to jump start a project. But a day later, Ukraine's Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Federov said in a tweet that the nation had decided to cancel the project. The tweet wasn't independently verified by Bloomberg News. "Every day there are more and more people willing to help Ukraine to fight back the aggression," Federov said in a tweet from his personal verified Twitter account on Thursday. He added that Ukraine will announce a drop of nonfungible tokens to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces soon, but that it has no plans to issue any fungible tokens such as cryptocurrencies.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Senator Elizabeth Warren and three other Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday urged the Treasury Department to ensure the cryptocurrency industry is complying with sanctions imposed on Russia, expressing concern that digital assets could be used to undermine U.S. foreign policy goals. In a letter sent to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Warren along with Senators Sherrod Brown, Mark Warner and Jack Reed questioned whether the department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) had effective guidelines in place to enforce sanctions compliance within the crypto industry. "Strong enforcement of sanctions compliance in the cryptocurrency industry is critical given that digital assets, which allow entities to bypass the traditional financial system, may increasingly be used as a tool for sanctions evasion," the letter said. Biden administration officials have said that they do not believe Russia would be able to use cryptocurrency to completely evade sanctions. "The scale that the Russian state would need to successfully circumvent all U.S. and partners' financial sanctions would almost certainly render cryptocurrency as an ineffective primary tool for the state," said Carol House, the director of cybersecurity for the National Security Council, during a webinar on Wednesday. But the Democratic lawmakers said it was unclear whether OFAC had appropriate guidelines to effectively monitor the crypto industry's compliance with sanctions, noting that the agency has become "increasingly reliant upon voluntary self-disclosure."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft's latest Windows 11 test build is another substantial one, adding two important features: payment information, and a new security feature called Smart App Control that will watch over new apps and games that you add to your PC. PCWorld reports: Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22567 for the Dev Channel on Wednesday with other changes, tooâ"including a tweak to Windows Update, so that now you can configure your PC to turn on an update when renewable energy is at its most plentiful. (Remember, code that Microsoft tests within the Dev Channel may make its way to your PC eventually -- or not.) Asking for credit-card information within Windows isn't that startling, as you've probably already entered payment information into the Microsoft ecosystem either for buying apps or movies on the Microsoft Store app or for making similar purchases via your Xbox. Still, those transactions are normally performed via your Microsoft Account web page, which manages all of that online and behind the scenes. (You can reach them via the Windows 11 Settings > Accounts > Your Microsoft account.) Microsoft considers the additional credit-card info as part of the subscription option it added last month. Now, if your subscription risks falling through because of an expired credit card, Microsoft will alert you. Conceptually, however, it implies that your PC is as much a tool to make purchases as it is to simply work and game. Another interesting addition is what Microsoft calls Smart App Control, or SAC. Microsoft describes it as a "new security feature for Windows 11 that blocks untrusted or potentially dangerous applications." What those applications are, apparently, is up to Microsoft. And yes, there's always a concern that SAC would flag otherwise innocuous applications that it simply hasn't seen before. But Microsoft is gently easing SAC onto your PC. For one thing, you'll need to perform a clean install to enable it. For another, SAC won't immediately insert itself. Other tweaks and changes include the ability to have Windows update your PC when clean energy is more commonly available (via Microsoft's partners electricityMap or WattTime) and better integration between your Android phone and PC via Windows 11 OOBE (Out of the Box Experience). Additionally, "Microsoft now offers wider availability of speech packs to improve transcription, the ability to choose a mic for dictation/ transcription, and the ability to mute your speakers by simply clicking the volume icon in the hardware indicator for volume," reports PCWorld.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

sciencehabit shares a report from Science.org: Physicists in Australia have programmed a quantum computer half a world away to make, or at least simulate, a record-size time crystal -- a system of quantum particles that locks into a perpetual cycle in time, somewhat akin to the repeating spatial pattern of atoms in an actual crystal. The new time crystal comprises 57 quantum particles, more than twice the size of a 20-particle time crystal simulated last year by scientists at Google. That's so big that no conventional computer could simulate it, says Chetan Nayak, a condensed matter physicist at Microsoft, who was not involved in the work. "So that's definitely an important advance." The work shows the power of quantum computers to simulate complex systems that may otherwise exist only in physicists' theories. [Philipp Frey and Stephan Rachel, theorists at the University of Melbourne] performed the simulation remotely, using quantum computers built and run by IBM in the United States. The qubits, which can be set to 0, 1, or 1 and 0 at once, can be programmed to interact like magnets. For certain settings of their interactions, the researchers found, any initial setting of the 57 qubits, such as 01101101110 ..., remains stable, returning to its original state every two pulses, the researchers report today in Science Advances. [...] Whereas more than 100 researchers worked on the Google simulation, Frey and Rachel worked alone to perform their larger demonstration, submitting it to the IBM computers over the internet. "It was just me, my graduate student, and a laptop," Rachel says, adding that "Philipp is brilliant!" The entire project took about 6 months, he estimates. The demonstration isn't perfect, Rachel says. The flipping pattern ought to last indefinitely, he says, but the qubits in IBM's machines can only hold their states long enough to simulate about 50 cycles. Ultimately, the stabilizing effect of the interactions might be used to store the state of a string of qubits in a kind of memory for a quantum computer, he notes, but realizing such an advance will take -- what else? -- time.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Alphabet's Google from April 4 will require employees back about three days a week in some of its U.S., U.K. and Asia Pacific offices, its first step to end policies that allowed remote work because of COVID-19 concerns. An internal email on Wednesday seen by Reuters told employees in the San Francisco Bay Area that "advances in prevention and treatment, the steady decline in cases we continue to see and the improved safety measures we have implemented ... now mean we can officially begin the transition to the hybrid work week." Google expects most employees will be in offices about three days a week, with some variance by team and role. Everyone coming to the office must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or have an approved exemption, according to the email from John Casey, Google's vice president of global benefits. Unvaccinated workers without an exemption will be given an option to seek one or apply for permanent remote work. Fully vaccinated workers will not have to wear masks in Bay Area offices, Casey said. Employees not prepared to return April 4 also can seek a remote-work extension, Google said. Google largely has restored office perks such as free meals, massages and transit. But while business visitors and meetings are permitted, employees cannot yet bring back families or children to dine or visit with them.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

BrendaEM shares a report from The Register: Ukrainian news website Ukrainska Pravda says the nation's Centre for Defense Strategies think tank has obtained the personal details of 120,000 Russian servicemen fighting in Ukraine. The publication has now shared this data freely on its website. The Register and others have been unable to fully verify the accuracy of the data from the leak. The records include what appears to be names, addresses, passport numbers, unit names, and phone numbers. Some open source intelligence researchers on Twitter said they found positive matches, as did sources who spoke confidentially to El Reg; others said they couldn't verify dip-sampled data. Rumors swirled on the internet that activists were behind the disclosure. The Ukrainian news agency said the personnel records were obtained from "reliable sources." Whether or not the database's contents is real, the impact on Russian military morale -- knowing that your country's enemies have your personal details and can contact your family if you're captured, killed, or even still alive -- won't be insignificant.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In a 15-minute-long video, YouTuber Quinn Nelson from Snazzy Labs explains how he managed to shrink the current M1 Mac Mini by 78% without harming performance. 9to5Mac reports: In conclusion, by rearranging the internals and swapping out the power supply, Nelson was able to reduce the size of the Mac mini enclosure by 78%. He organized all the parts inside a 3D-printed body with a mini Mac Pro motif. The reason that theoretical space savings are so huge is because when Apple released the first round of Apple Silicon computers, they did not change the hardware industrial design at all. So the current Mac Mini enclosure is designed to fit an Intel CPU and circuit board, including having to accommodate the large fans and heat sinks the Intel chip required. But with the power efficiency of the M1, Apple has the headroom to do something much more drastic. Indeed, a lot of the M1 Mac mini internals is just empty space. The Snazzy Labs video gives a glimpse at what is possible if Apple is more ambitious with the next-generation Mac mini design, and tries to create something truly mini. The CAD files and schematics can be viewed here.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New submitter briaguya shares a report from VideoCardz: Hackers that infiltrated NVIDIA systems are now threatening to release more confidential information unless the company commits to open sourcing their drivers. It is unclear what the stolen data contains, but the group confirmed that there are 250GB of hardware related data in their possession. Furthermore, the group confirmed they have evaluated NVIDIA position, which means that NVIDIA is might trying to communicate with the group to prevent future leaks. The group has already published information on NVIDIA DLSS technology and upcoming architectures. Yesterday, Nvidia reportedly retaliated against the hacker group known as "Lapsus$" by sneaking back into the hacker's system and encrypting the stolen data. The group claimed that it had a backup of the data, though.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Mykhailo Fedorov, the vice prime minister and minister of digital transformation of Ukraine, has publicly called on "all game development companies" to "temporarily block all Russian and Belorussian accounts" in response to Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine. In a tweet from his verified account, Fedorov also called on esports platforms to "temporarily stop the participation of Russian and Belorussian teams and gamers in all international esports events and cancel all international events holding [sic] on the territory of Russia and Belarus." These moves, Fedorov suggests, "will motivate the citizens of Russia to proactively stop the disgraceful military aggression" by the Russian government. "In 2022, modern technology is perhaps the best answer to the tanks, multiple rocket launchers... and missiles." In an additional note directed at the Xbox and PlayStation Twitter accounts, Fedorov wrote that "if you support human values, you should [leave] the Russian market!" In a follow-up tweet, Fedorov also asked Riot Games, EA, Ubisoft, Gameloft, and Wargaming to "close your office in Russia" in solidarity with Ukraine. "There's no place for [an] aggressor on the global technological map!"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: When will Bungie let Destiny 2 come to Valve's Steam Deck handheld gaming PC? It's looking like the answer is never -- because the soon-to-be Sony subsidiary has published a help page that not only says the game's unsupported, but outright threatens to ban prospective Steam Deck players (via Wario64). The help page has a new section titled "Steam Deck and Destiny 2," which reads: "Destiny 2 is not supported for play on the Steam Deck or on any system utilizing Steam Play's Proton unless Windows is installed and running. Players who attempt to launch Destiny 2 on the Steam Deck through SteamOS or Proton will be unable to enter the game and will be returned to their game library after a short time. Players who attempt to bypass Destiny 2 incompatibility will be met with a game ban." To be fair, Bungie isn't the only one to reject the Steam Deck without necessarily providing a satisfying explanation -- Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney explained to me why Fortnite won't get updated for the Steam Deck last month, even though Epic's own Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) claims game developers can enable it with "just a few clicks." And while both Apex Legends and Elden Ring now fully work on Deck despite using anti-cheat, it's also true that many other top multiplayer games have yet to fully arrive.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As Ukrainian researchers have feared for their lives and careers after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, mathematicians have been grappling over what to do about a prominent mathematical conference that was set to be held in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in July. From a report: The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) is "the largest and most significant conference on pure and applied mathematics as well as one of the world's oldest scientific congresses," according to the Web site of the 2022 conference. The meeting, which is run by the Germany-based International Mathematical Union (IMU), is held only once every four years. When the nine-day 2018 ICM was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, it drew 10,506 attendees. On Saturday conference organizers announced the event would be fully virtual and hosted outside of Russia this year. The executive committee of the meeting released a statement saying, "We strongly condemn the actions by Russia. Our deepest sympathy goes to our Ukrainian colleagues and the Ukrainian people. Given this situation, it is impossible for the IMU to host the ICM and the GA [general assembly] as traditional in-person events in Russia." The Fields Medal -- one of the most prestigious honors in mathematics -- is traditionally awarded at the event. According to the recent decision, this year's prize ceremony and general assembly will be held in person but at an undecided location outside of Russia.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Longtime Slashdot reader tlhIngan writes: As reported in many outlets, Epic Games has acquired indie music store Bandcamp to build out a "creator marketplace." Bandcamp will continue to be run as it is. "The products and services you depend on aren't going anywhere," wrote Bandcamp co-founder and CEO Ethan Diamond in a statement. "We'll continue to build Bandcamp around our artists-first revenue model (where artists net an average of 82% of every sale), you'll still have the same control over how you offer your music, Bandcamp Fridays will continue as planned, and the Daily will keep highlighting the diverse, amazing music on the site." Diamond says the company will be working with Epic in the background to expand internationally and "push development forward" across its services, "from basics like our album pages, mobile apps, merch tools, payment system, and search and discovery features, to newer initiatives like our vinyl pressing and live streaming services." Bandcamp adds to the long list of companies under the Epic Games umbrella, notes Eurogamer. "Since 2018, Epic Games has, alongside ArtStation and Sketchfab, acquired the likes of Cloudgine, Quixel, SuperAwesome, Hyprsense, RAD Games Tools, Tonic Games Group -- which includes Fall Guys developer Mediatonic and Fortitude Games -- plus Rocket League studio Psyonix, and Rock Band developer Harmonix."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon's physical retail business is suffering a major blow as the company today confirmed it will close 68 brick-and-mortar retail stores across the U.S. and U.K. From a report: This includes its Amazon Books bookstores, its pop-up shops in various markets, and its 4-star stores where customers could shop popular and highly-rated products across Amazon.com. The retailer, which began its life as an online bookseller, launched its first physical bookstore in Seattle back in 2015, then steadily expanded its brick-and-mortar footprint to include more locations across the U.S. and abroad, including in U.S. states like Arizona, California, Colorado, D.C., Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregan, Tennessee, Texas, and of course, its home state of Washington.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple on Tuesday sent out invitations to the media for an event on March 8, with the tagline "Peek Performance." According to CNBC, the company is "expected to announce a new low-cost iPhone model" and a midrange iPad. From the report: Apple could announce a new low-cost iPhone with 5G support and a fingerprint reader, as well as a midrange iPad, according to media and analyst reports. The company currently offers a low-cost iPhone called the iPhone SE, which was introduced in the spring of 2020, and retails for $399. It's the most recent iPhone model with Apple's Touch ID fingerprint sensor. The new iPad is expected to be an updated version of the iPad Air, according to Bloomberg. That device was last updated in October 2020 and currently retails for $599. Apple could also release iOS 15.4, the latest version of iPhone software, with several new features including the option to use facial recognition to unlock the device while wearing a mask, and the ability to accept contactless credit card payments without additional hardware.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A number of industry stalwarts including Intel, AMD, Arm, TSMC, and Samsung on Wednesday introduced a new Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe) consortium. AnandTech: Taking significant inspiration from the very successful PCI-Express playbook, with UCIe the involved firms are creating a standard for connecting chiplets, with the goal of having a single set of standards that not only simplify the process for all involved, but lead the way towards full interoperability between chiplets from different manufacturers, allowing chips to mix-and-match chiplets as chip makers see fit. In other words, to make a complete and compatible ecosystem out of chiplets, much like today's ecosystem for PCIe-based expansion cards. The comparisons to PCIe are apt on multiple levels, and this is perhaps the best way to quickly understand the UCIe group's goals. Not only is the new standard being made available in an open fashion, but the companies involved will be establishing a formal consortium group later this year to administer UCIe and further develop it. Meanwhile from a general technology perspective, the use of chiplets is the latest step in the continual consolidation of integrated circuits, as smaller and smaller transistors have allowed more and more functionality to be brought on-chip. In essence, features that have been on an expansion card or separate chip up until now are starting to make their way on to the chip/SoC itself. So like PCIe moderates how these parts work together as expansion cards, a new standard has become needed to moderate how these parts should work together as chiplets.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Today, Attorney General Maura Healey launched a nationwide investigation into whether TikTok is designing, operating, and promoting its social media platform to children, teens, and young adults in a manner that causes or exacerbates physical and mental health harms. Attorneys general nationwide are examining whether the company violated state consumer protection laws and put the public at risk. Mass.gov: AG Healey, along with her colleagues across the country, has long expressed concern about the negative impacts of social media platforms on Massachusetts's youngest residents. "As children and teens already grapple with issues of anxiety, social pressure, and depression, we cannot allow social media to further harm their physical health and mental wellbeing," said AG Healey. "State attorneys general have an imperative to protect young people and seek more information about how companies like TikTok are influencing their daily lives." Leading the investigation into TikTok is a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Vermont. They are joined by a broad group of attorneys general from across the country.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Most people know someone who has stubbornly resisted catching Covid, despite everyone around them falling sick. Precisely how they do this remains a mystery, but scientists arebeginning to find some clues. From a report: The hope is that identifying these mechanisms could lead to the development of drugs that not only protect people from catching Covid, but also prevent them from passing it on. Phoebe Garrett is not the only challenge trial participant to have avoided becoming infected. Of the 34 who were exposed to the virus, 16 failed to develop an infection (defined as two consecutive positive PCR tests) -- although around half of them transiently tested positive for low levels of the virus, often several days after exposure. Possibly, this was a reflection of the immune system rapidly shutting down an embryonic infection. "In our previous studies with other viruses, we have seen early immune responses in the nose that are associated with resisting infection," said Prof Christopher Chiu at Imperial College London, who led the study. "Together, these findings imply that there is a struggle between the virus and host, which in our 'uninfected' participants results in prevention of infection taking off." Some of them also reported some mild symptoms, such as a stuffy nose, sore throat, tiredness, or headache -- although, since these commonly occur in everyday life, they may have been unrelated to virus exposure.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Facebook attempted a return to its roots as a college-focused social network with the fall 2020 launch of Campus, a private section within Facebook that was only open to those with an @.edu email address. However, the initiative didn't succeed, as Facebook is now alerting users that Campus will fully shut down on March 10. From a report: Through an in-app message, Facebook is informing users that its Campus pilot will close down and that Campus profiles, groups, posts and other data will be deleted. Ahead of its shutdown, users will be able to view their data and download it using an export tool, the message noted. "Since we launched the Campus pilot, it's been our mission to help bring college communities closer together. But we've learned that the best way to support students is through Facebook Groups," the message explains.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog on Wednesday warned Russia's onslaught of Ukraine is raising the risk of nuclear accidents, calling for restraint from all actions that could jeopardize the safe operations of Ukraine's nuclear facilities. From a report: It comes as Russia's war with Ukraine enters its seventh day, with fighting raging across the country. The International Atomic Energy Agency said Russia's invasion of Ukraine marks the first time a military conflict has taken place amidst the facilities of a large and established nuclear power program -- which in this case includes the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1986. "The situation in Ukraine is unprecedented and I continue to be gravely concerned," IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in an introductory statement to the 35-nation Board of Governors. "The safety and security of nuclear facilities, and nuclear and other radioactive material, in Ukraine must under no circumstances be endangered."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

For years, the tiny startup Kytch worked to invent and sell a device designed to fix McDonald's notoriously broken ice cream machines, only to watch the fast food Goliath crush their business like the hopes of so many would-be McFlurry customers. Now Kytch is instead seeking to serve out cold revenge -- nearly a billion dollars worth of it. Wired: Late Tuesday night, Kytch filed a long-expected legal complaint against McDonald's, accusing the company of false advertising and tortious interference in its contracts with customers. Kytch's cofounders, Melissa Nelson and Jeremy O'Sullivan, are asking for no less than $900 million in damages. Since 2019, Kytch has sold a phone-sized gadget designed to be installed inside McDonald's ice cream machines. Those Kytch devices would intercept the ice cream machines' internal communications and send them out to a web or smartphone interface to help owners remotely monitor and troubleshoot the machines' many foibles, which are so widely acknowledged that they've become a full-blown meme among McDonald's customers. The two-person startup's new claims against McDonald's focus on emails the fast food giant sent to every franchisee in November 2020, instructing them to pull Kytch devices out of their ice cream machines immediately. Those emails warned franchisees that the Kytch devices not only violated the ice cream machines' warranties and intercepted their "confidential information" but also posed a safety threat and could lead to "serious human injury," a claim that Kytch describes as false and defamatory. Kytch also notes that McDonald's used those emails to promote a new ice cream machine, built by its longtime appliance manufacturing partner Taylor, that would offer similar features to Kytch. The Taylor devices, meanwhile, have yet to see public adoption beyond a few test installations.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The corporate internet space race has taken a geopolitical turn. Russian space agency Roscosmos is refusing to launch the next batch of 36 OneWeb internet satellites Friday, unless the company meets the state agency's demands. From a report: Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin particularly emphasized that the ultimatum is a response to the U.K. sanctioning Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. Roscosmos said in a statement that the Soyuz rocket will be removed from the launchpad at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan unless OneWeb meets two demands: 1.The U.K. government sells its stake in the company.2. OneWeb guarantees that the satellites not be used for military purposes. U.K. Business and Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said in a statement that there is "no negotiation" with Roscosmos about OneWeb and that the government "is not selling its share." Kwarteng added, "we are in touch with other shareholders to discuss next steps."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The imperfect, scattershot search tool delivers just enough usefulness and serendipity to keep one hooked. From a report: Google Alerts can cast a wonderful net, but mesh size matters: large holes and it catches nothing, too small and it catches everything. Consider the earliest and one of the most persistent reasons for setting these alerts: tracking yourself. All is vanity, perhaps especially on the Internet, so it's no surprise that one of the things that we're most eager to know is what the world is saying about us. The engineer who developed the alert system for Google told CNN that when he first presented the idea, twenty years ago, his manager was skeptical, worrying that it would starve the search-engine of traffic: rather than consumers constantly searching for fresh mentions of whatever topic interested them, they would wait for the alert, then follow its links not to Google but to outside Web sites, leaching away potential advertising revenue. In response, the engineer, one of the first forty or so employees of the company, took his prototype to Google's co-founders, who approved it after watching him demonstrate only two search terms: "Google" and "Larry Page," the name of one of the co-founders. Learning what other people thought about us used to take either a great deal of luck, like Tom Sawyer being mistaken for dead and then getting to eavesdrop on his own funeral, or a great deal of effort, like Harun al-Rashid, a caliph of the Abbasid dynasty, in the "Arabian Nights," disguising himself in order to venture out into the streets and talk with his subjects candidly. But the Internet has made it easy -- made it, in fact, almost unavoidable. The same Google Alert can make sure you know that your long-lost bunkmate from summer camp has mentioned you in an essay, that a friend of your deceased uncle has written a memoir of their time together in the Marines (including the care packages you sent them), and that the local newspaper has digitized its archives, thereby offering up to the Internet your high-school football averages and your arrest for vandalism.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Ukraine's core cyberdefense has done better than expected because it focused on the issue after Russian hackers briefly knocked out power to swaths of the country in 2015 and 2016, said David Cowan, a veteran cybersecurity venture capitalist and corporate director, and because it has had help from American and European experts. "I would have thought that by now Russia would have disabled a lot more infrastructure around communications, power and water," Cowan said. "If Russia were attacking the U.S., there would be more cyber damage." The absence of major disruptions predicted by cyberwar doctrine has allowed Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky to deliver propaganda coups with little more than a smartphone and a data link.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been marked both by brutality and stunningly modern turns -- from threats to crash the International Space Station and chaotic cyber vigilantism to the ambiguous role that cryptocurrency is playing on both sides of the war. Now, Ukraine has taken a page out of the buzzy crypto industry playbook and announced an "airdrop" to "reward" those who donated to the country's defense efforts using cryptocurrency in a tweet more in line with a startup than a nation at war, to the elation of some and the confusion of many. From a report: "Airdrop confirmed," the official Twitter account for Ukraine's government tweeted on Wednesday morning in a thread where it listed cryptocurrency donation addresses. "Snapshot will be taken tomorrow, on March 3rd, at 6pm Kyiv time (UTC/GMT +2 hours). Reward to follow!"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: When Facebook hosted an internal competition a few years ago to develop new product ideas, a handful of employees teamed up to build a robot named Max. Shaped like a small, upside-down bowl, Max was designed to be a companion -- a physical device humans could talk to that could detect their mood, according to two people familiar with the hackathon project. The creators gave Max little ears and whiskers so the device would be more fun and approachable, like a cat. Max never evolved beyond the hackathon. But engineers and researchers at the company, now called Meta Platforms, are still grappling with the thorny problem the experimental robot cat was designed to combat: loneliness. Meta, with a mission to help people connect online, has discovered through internal research that its products can just as easily have an isolating effect. As the company struggles to retain and add users for its already-massive social networks, making sure those people are happy is key to Meta's financial success. Loneliness has come into sharper focus at Meta during the Covid-19 pandemic, as people use its social media apps as alternatives to in-person experiences. Meta has promoted its role as a digital connector, running ads touting its groups and messaging products. "We change the game when we find each other," reads a tagline for one of its recent commercials. But internally, employees are questioning their products' impact on mental health.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

President Joe Biden called on Congress to pass the CHIPS Act, a law that would provide chipmakers with $52 billion in subsidies to advance semiconductor manufacturing in the United States, during his State of the Union speech Tuesday. From a report: Biden lauded Intel Chief Executive Pat Gelsinger, who last month announced a $20 billion investment for two new chip fabrication facilities, or fabs, that the company will build just west of Columbus, Ohio. Intel plans to spend $100 billion to build the Ohio "megafab" over the next decade, with an eventual total of eight fabs, but the speed of that investment will depend on the US subsidy, Gelsinger has said. "Intel's CEO, Pat Gelsinger, who is here tonight, told me they are ready to increase their investment from $20 billion to $100 billion. That would be one of the biggest investments in manufacturing in American history," Biden said. "And all they're waiting for is for you to pass this bill. ... Send it to my desk. I'll sign it." The Senate passed a bill funding the CHIPS Act in 2021, and the House of Representatives followed suit in February, but the differences in the bills haven't been ironed out in committee and the subsidy hasn't arrived despite some bipartisan support. The funding would help the US compete with government help in Taiwan and South Korea, where leading chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and Samsung have the bulk of their operations. The US subsidies would knock about $3 billion off the $10 billion price tag for a new fab, a subsidy level Intel says matches those in Asia.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times, written by Wudan Yan: Kristin Aquilino, a scientist at the University of California, Davis, knows that expectations are just disappointments in disguise. Over the last decade, she has led the school's white abalone captive breeding program, which aims to bring the marine mollusk back from the brink of extinction. Last June, she and her colleagues drove snails kept in captivity at Davis down the California coast to Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in Los Angeles. Others were dropped off at labs and aquariums around Southern California; all told, this was the largest spawning attempt of white abalone to date. But when she tried to get them in the mood with what she calls a love potion -- a mix of seawater with hydrogen peroxide -- the snails languished in their tanks occasionally emitting bubbles, but no eggs or sperm. After four hours, Dr. Aquilino called it off. (Simultaneous attempts at the other sites also failed.) "It sucks," she said. "There's a lot of human effort involved, but there's no way they'll spawn today." After fishermen depleted 99 percent of white abalone from the wild in the 1970s, the sea snails are hanging on by a slimy thread. Despite the urgency of breeding these and other endangered aquatic snails to reintroduce to the wild, propagating more of them in a lab is still a guessing game, Dr. Aquilino says. Now, a study published Thursday in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science offers an improved tool for determining which abalone will be reproductive. The technique, using noninvasive ultrasound, a decades-old medical technology, could raise the prospects of successful captive breeding efforts and ultimately help restore endangered abalone in the wild. [...] For Dr. Aquilino, the method offers a glimmer of hope. "When I first saw the ultrasound images of my kids, I saw the future of my family," she said. "When I see the ultrasound images of these abalone, I see the future of an entire species." [...] Sara Boles, a postdoctoral researcher working with Dr. Gross, discovered a way to perform ultrasounds on the abalone without taking them out of their tanks by holding the device up to their sticky feet. This quickly produced clear images of their swollen or flaccid gonads on a laptop appended to the ultrasound probe. In the new study, Dr. Boles and her colleagues examined over 200 abalone and scored the thickness of their gonads on a scale of 1 to 5 to determine which are likely to spawn. With the ultrasound images, the gonad comes into focus: The stomach appears as a dark, cone-shaped item, and the slightly lighter gonad surrounds it. For now, these images can provide an easy way to score animals, but Dr. Gross and his colleagues want to verify if gonad thickness also correlates with reproductive success. Already, Dr. Boles has used the ultrasound to help Dr. Aquilino in her white abalone breeding efforts. Last spring, after Dr. Aquilino had already visually scored the animals, Dr. Boles brought the ultrasound to her lab. Of the eight white abalone that Dr. Boles rated highest after the ultrasound exam, five spawned; some snails with slightly lower ratings did, too. The method is already helping researchers revise their methods of assessing which abalone are most ready to reproduce.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

By combining CRISPR technology with a protein designed with artificial intelligence, it is possible to awaken individual dormant genes by disabling the chemical "off switches" that silence them. Researchers from the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle describe this finding in the journal Cell Reports. Phys.Org reports: The new technique controls gene activity without altering the DNA sequence of the genome by targeting chemical modifications that help package genes in our chromosomes and regulate their activity. Because these modifications occur not in, but on top of genes, they are called epigenetic, from the Greek epi "over" or "above" the genes. The chemical modifications that regulate gene activity are called epigenetic markers. Scientists are particularly interested in epigenetic modifications because not only do they affect gene activity in normal cell function, epigenetic markers accumulate with time, contribute to aging, and can affect of the health of future generations as we can pass them on to our children.[...]In the new paper, [the researchers] show that by using this technique, they were able to block PRC2 and selectively turn on four different genes. They were also able to show they could transdifferentiate induced pluripotent stem cells to placental progenitor cells by simply turning on two genes. Finally, the researchers were able to show how the technique can be used to find the location of specific PRC2-controlled regulatory regions from where individual genes are activated. The location of many of these are unknown. In this case, they identified a promoter region -- called a TATA box -- for a gene called TBX18. Although current thinking is that these promotor regions are close to the gene, within in 30 DNA base pairs, they found for this gene the promoter region was more than 500 base pairs away.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"With so many coming together on the side of Ukraine (even those who traditionally stay neutral in international affairs), asking ICANN to take action against Russia seems like it could be a reasonable proposition under the circumstances," writes new Slashdot submitter unimind. "As a bonus, the likely decrease in spam would be a welcome reprieve..." The Register reports: In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine last week, Mykhailo Fedorov, First Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, on Monday asked the head of DNS overlord ICANN to disable country code top-level domains associated with Russia. In an email [PDF], Fedorov asked Goran Marby, CEO of ICANN, to impose sanctions on Russia, arguing that the Putin regime has used internet infrastructure to propagandize its war effort. Specifically, he has asked for the revocation of domains ".ru", ".", ".su", and others used by the Russian Federation, shutting down DNS root servers serving the Russian Federation, and contributing to the revocation of associated TLS/SSL certificates for those domains. "All of these measures will help users seek for reliable information in alternative domain zones, preventing propaganda and disinformation," Fedorov's email says. "Leaders, governments and organizations all over the world are in favor of introducing sanctions towards the Russian Federation since they aim at putting the aggression towards Ukraine and other countries to an end. I ask you kindly to seriously consider such measures and implement them as quickly as possible. Help to save the lives of people in our country." Doing so would block about five million domains from the global internet, and would significantly affect Russia's ability to communicate online. In response to Prykhodko, Erich Schweighofer, a professor at the University of Vienna and ICANN community participant, wrote: "We know and we are aware of the very difficult and dangerous situation. [The] EU will support you. However, removing Russia from the internet does not help supporting the civil society in this country for a democratic change. ICANN is a neutral platform, not taking a position in this conflict but allowing States to act accordingly, e.g. blocking all traffic from a particular state." Antony Van Couvering, CEO of Top Level Domain Holdings, expressed support for the idea: "Neutrality as a response to murder is not neutral. What is the use of 'civil society' organizations if they won't even speak up in support [to] protect civil society, much less do anything about it? Even politicians have woken up. Even the German government has woken up. Even the Swiss government has woken up! Meanwhile some people at ICANN are content to repeat empty phrases about not getting involved because it doesn't help civil society in their country. So much for 'one world, one internet.'" The report adds that domain registrar Namecheap has "advised customers in Russia to take their business elsewhere, citing war crimes." However, Namecheap's CEO, Richard Kirkendall, later clarified that they haven't blocked the domains. Instead, they're just "asking people to move."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica, written by Kyle Orland: Second Life, the long-lived online metaverse that still attracts nearly a million monthly active users, has announced it will start charging US users local sales tax on many in-game purchases for the first time since its launch in 2003. That could be a significant drag on the online universe's robust in-game economy and serve as a warning for other nascent metaverse efforts hoping to sell virtual goods to US residents. In announcing the move Monday, Second Life developer Linden Labs cited the 2018 Supreme Court decision South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc., Et Al. That decision established that states and localities could charge sales tax even for products sold by online companies that don't have a physical presence in that state. Following that decision, Linden Labs says it has "done our best to shield our residents from these taxes as long as possible, but we are no longer able to absorb them." As such, starting March 31, Second Life users will be billed for local taxes on recurring billings such as subscriptions and land fees. Linden Labs will continue to absorb any taxes charged on one-time purchases like name changes and purchases of L$ in-game currency. But those costs will be passed on to users "at some point in the future" Linden Labs writes. "This is news we don't enjoy sharing, but for the health of the business and of Second Life, we can no longer continue absorbing these tax burdens," Linden Labs writes. "Thank you for your understanding and your continued support of Second Life." Linden Labs' experience could serve as a cautionary tale as other major companies all rush to launch their own metaverse offerings. That includes companies using so-called "web3" technologies like cryptocurrencies and NFTs to power their virtual economies. Aside from possible local sales tax exposure, cryptocurrencies can be taxed as income or capital gains when they're earned, sold, or converted to another form. NFTs, meanwhile, could likely be taxed as collectibles, attracting a top capital gains tax rate of 28 percent in the US. And the IRS is starting to crack down on enforcement for crypto-based earnings thanks to a provision in last year's bipartisan infrastructure bill.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Speaking to the BBC on the 30th anniversary of Civilization, American developer Sid Meier says if major companies continue to focus on monetization or other things that are not gameplay-focused, they risk losing the audience. From the report: "The real challenge and the real opportunity is keeping our focus on gameplay," says American developer Sid Meier. "That is what is unique, special and appealing about games as a form of entertainment. When we forget that, and decide it's monetization or other things that are not gameplay-focused, when we start to forget about making great games and start thinking about games as a vehicle or an opportunity for something else, that's when we stray a little bit further from the path." The financial model that supports how games companies make their money has changed dramatically in the past decade or so. Now many developers and publishers rely on in-game purchases to help with their bottom line rather than solely on the up-front cost of buying a title to play. [...] Some games companies are also exploring the introduction of non-fungible-tokens (NFTs) - a form of digital art that players can buy and own -- into their games. [...] Sid Meier says that if major companies continue to focus on ways like this to monetize gaming, they risk losing the audience: "People can assume that a game is going to be fun and what it needs for success are more cinematics or monetization or whatever -- but if the core just is not there with good gameplay, then it won't work. "In a sense gameplay is cheap... The game design part is critical and crucial but doesn't require a cast of thousands in the way some of the other aspects do. So it's perhaps easy to overlook how important the investment in game design and gameplay is." The global games market is reported to be worth around $175 billion and is forecast to almost double in five years. But Sid Meier says that continued growth isn't guaranteed: "There are lots of other ways that people can spend their leisure time... I think the way the internet works, once a shift starts to happen, then everybody runs to that side of the ship. "I think we need to be sure that our games continue to be high quality and fun to play - there are so many forms of entertainment out there now. We're in a good position... but we need to be sure we realize how critical gameplay is - and how that is the engine that really keeps players happy, engaged and having fun." Sid says he has no plans to retire just yet, and explains the most gratifying change he's experienced during his more than 30 years in the industry, is the wider public's shift in attitude when it comes to games. People were telling him back in 1991 that he was "wasting his time" working in games - now he smiles, as people say to him: "I wish I could get a job making games."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

MediaTek might have just beaten out Qualcomm to claim the biggest market share of any chipmaker for Android phones in the United States -- at least, according to one analyst group. The Verge reports: According to IDC's quarterly mobile phone sales tracker, as Q4 2021 MediaTek chips account for 48.1 percent of all Android phones in the United States, compared to 43.9 percent for Qualcomm, as spotted by PCMag. Those numbers are a stark inversion from the previous quarter, where MediaTek had a 41 percent market share to Qualcomm's 56 percent. IDC's report notes that MediaTek's surge was driven largely by sales of the Galaxy A12, Galaxy A32, and G Pure, which made up 51 percent of MediaTek devices sold in Q4 and 24 percent of the entire Android market in the US. There are conflicting reports, however. According to The Verge, "Counterpoint Research's own report puts the Q4 2021 split at 55 percent for Qualcomm, and 37 percent for MediaTek, so it's possible that Qualcomm is still holding on to its crown for now."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

McGruber shares a report from AutoNews: The cargo ship that caught fire in the Atlantic while transporting roughly 4,000 Volkswagen Group vehicles to the U.S. has sunk despite efforts to tow it to safety. The Felicity Ace sank 220 nautical miles off the coast of Portugal's Azores Islands around 9 a.m. local time on Tuesday after being battered by waves and leaning 45 degrees to its starboard side, the ship's operator said. Joao Mendes Cabecas, the captain of the nearest port on the island of Faial, told Reuters the Panama-flagged Felicity Ace had sunk as efforts to tow it began due to structural problems caused by the fire and rough seas. Volkswagen had VW, Porsche, Audi, Bentley and Lamborghini-branded models on the vessel, which was on its way to Rhode Island from Germany's Emden port when the fire broke out on Feb. 16. [...] In a projection assuming all vehicles would be lost, the risk-modeling company Russell Group last week estimated that the incident could cost the automaker at least $155 million. About $438 million worth of goods were aboard the ship, $401 million of which were cars.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard, written by Joseph Cox: Around the same time Russian forces launched a massive rocket into a square in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, killing and wounding an as of yet unknown number of people, Eugene Kaspersky, head of his namesake Russian cybersecurity firm, tweeted that he hoped negotiations between Ukraine and Russia would lead to "a compromise." The statement encapsulates the company's position since Russia invaded Ukraine six days ago -- that of attempted neutrality in a war where silence or fence sitting is implicitly siding with the Russian forces. In another statement to Motherboard sent on Monday, the company said "As a technology and cybersecurity service provider the company is not in a position to comment or speculate on geopolitical developments outside of its area of expertise." Kaspersky is one of the best-known Russian companies, and for years its antivirus product has been among the most used in the world. The antivirus software also harvests telemetry data for Kaspersky's researchers who can then use that to identify and counter new threats. Its researchers are some of the best in the world, with its Global Research & Analysis Team (GReAT) regularly publishing leading research on various government malware operations. Famously the company first revealed details of a U.S. government hacking group that it dubbed Equation Group. Kaspersky has also researched suspected Russian government linked hackers. Eugene's tweet also brings something else to the surface again: how much is Kaspersky, the company, influenced by the Russian government, even if indirectly? As a Russian firm operating in Moscow under Russian laws, it may feel the need to toe the line on Russian issues. Kaspersky's company statement on Monday added that "Kaspersky is focused on its mission to build a safer world. For 25 years, the company delivers deep threat intelligence and security expertise that is constantly transforming into innovative security solutions and services to protect businesses, critical infrastructure, governments and consumers around the globe. Kaspersky's business operations remain stable. The company guarantees the fulfillment of its obligations to partners and customers -- including product delivery and support and financial transaction continuity. The global management team is monitoring the situation carefully and is ready to act very quickly if needed." Kaspersky may not currently feel it is in a position to speculate or take a position on the invasion of Ukraine. But with a 40 mile long Russian military convoy making its way to Kyiv, and with the prospect of more cyber attacks playing a role in the invasion, Kaspersky may need to take a side.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A year and a half later, Amazon's Luna cloud gaming service has formally launched in the U.S. for Android, iOS, Chrome OS, macOS and Windows. Engadget reports: The core Luna+ service with over 100 games will normally cost $10 per month, with the kid-friendly Family Channel and Ubisoft+ Channels available for a respective $6 and $18 per month. Amazon hopes to reel in newcomers by dropping the monthly fees of Luna+ and the Family channel to $6 and $3 for anyone who signs up during March. Existing users just have to maintain their subscriptions to lock in that pricing. The official debut comes alongside some new channels. A Prime Gaming channel, as the name implies, gives Amazon Prime members a free, rotating mix of games. The March selection will include titles like Devil May Cry 5 and Flashback. Pay $5 per month for the Retro Channel and you'll get Capcom and SNK classics like Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting and Metal Slug 3, while a similar outlay for the Jackbox Games Channel provides access to all eight Jackbox Party Pack titles. Luna's latest update also makes it simpler to stream gameplay from a Fire TV device, Mac or Windows PC on Twitch.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A Twitter bot created by a college student is tracking the movements of 46 jets owned or leased by more than 20 Russian oligarchs and sending updates to ADS-B Exchange, "a sit that collects data from aviation enthusiasts who run their own equipment to monitor airplane movements," reports Ars Technica. "Many of the oligarchs have been hit with sanctions and travel bans." From the report: This isn't the first time that a bot created by Jack Sweeney, the 19-year-old University of Central Florida student, has made the news. Sweeney also runs @ElonJet, which tracks the movements of Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's private jet. Musk grew annoyed with the attention and sent Sweeney a DM on Twitter, offering him $5,000 to shut the account down. Sweeney countered by asking for a Model 3, then $50,000, then an internship. He even explained to Musk where his bot sourced its data, which is all publicly available. So far, Musk hasn't taken him up on any of the counter-offers. Sweeney's bot is made possible by the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast system, which is required for many aircraft flying in the US and the EU. With ADS-B, aircraft use GPS and their onboard sensors to calculate and periodically transmit their position, altitude, and velocity, and anyone with the appropriate receiver can listen for the broadcasts. The system has revolutionized air traffic control, providing accurate position and velocity data every second, far more frequently than the typical five seconds that ground-based radar offers. [...] It's possible that Sweeney's @RUOligarchJets bot could serve as a form of open source intelligence in Russia's war in Ukraine. Just as investors and Musk fans use @ElonJet to hypothesize about what the billionaire is doing, oligarch jet movements may reveal real-time details about what's happening inside Russia.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Italy plans to set aside more than $4.6 billion until 2030 to boost domestic chip manufacturing as it seeks to attract more investment from tech companies such as Intel, a draft decree seen by Reuters showed on Tuesday. The government is trying to persuade the U.S. group to spend billions of euros on an advanced chipmaking plant in Italy that uses innovative technologies to weave full chips. Rome is ready to offer Intel public money and other favorable terms to fund part of the overall investment, which is expected to be worth around $9 billion over 10 years, Reuters reported in December. To boost domestic chipmaking, Italy is also in talks with French-Italian STMicroelectronics , Taiwanese-controlled MEMC Electronic Materials Inc and Israeli Tower Semiconductor, which is set to be bought by Intel. Negotiations with Intel are complex as the U.S. group has tabled very tough demands, a government source involved in the talks told Reuters. As part of an 8 billion euro package to support the economy and curb surging energy bills, Italy plans to allocate 150 million euros in 2022 and 500 million euros per year from 2023 until 2030, the decree showed. The Italian government will promote "research and development of microprocessor technology and investments in new industrial applications of innovative technologies," the legislation added. Rome aims to use the funding also to convert existing industrial sites and favor the construction of new plants in Italy.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple is taking a series of actions in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The company said in a statement Tuesday: We are supporting humanitarian efforts, providing aid for the unfolding refugee crisis, and doing all we can to support our teams in the region. We have taken a number of actions in response to the invasion. We have paused all product sales in Russia. Last week, we stopped all exports into our sales channel in the country. Apple Pay and other services have been limited. RT News and Sputnik News are no longer available for download from the App Store outside Russia. And we have disabled both traffic and live incidents in Apple Maps in Ukraine as a safety and precautionary measure for Ukrainian citizens. We will continue to evaluate the situation and are in communication with the relevant governments on the actions we are taking. We join all those around the world who are calling for peace. Nike also stopped sales on its Russian online store Tuesday.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jolla, a Finnish startup that develops a mobile Linux-based alternative to Google's Android which has had some take-up by the Russian government in the past, is looking to restructure its business to jettison links to the Russian state. TechCrunch reports: We reached out to the startup earlier this week to ask if it was concerned about the impact of looming EU sanctions on Russia -- given how, since 2018, it has counted Russian telecom company, Rostelecom, as a strategic investor. "We have actually ramped down business and exports to Russia already in 2021," CEO and co-founder Sami Pienimaki told TechCrunch. "Thus, the potential tech sanctions would not impact Jolla's business anymore. In parallel, Jolla is growing in particular rapidly in the automotive sector, and it formed already significant part of our 2021 revenues. In regards the ownership, that is correct, and something we're looking to re-structure during this year," he also confirmed. Sailfish has been certified in Russia for government and corporate use since 2016.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A research and development arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced last month it has been working with the Philadelphia-based company Ghost Robotics to develop a robot dog for the border. Now a small group of Latino U.S. House members recently expressed "extreme concern" about the plan. From a report: A letter obtained by Axios Latino shows that U.S. Reps. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) and Nanette Diaz Barragan (D-CA) are seeking a meeting with U.S. Customs and Border Protection about the robots. In the letter, the House members write that the term "robot dogs" is a "disingenuous moniker that attempts to soft-pitch the use of this technology." "It downplays the threat the robots pose to migrants arriving at our southern border and the part they play in a long history of surveillance and privacy violations in our border communities." The letter also said they are concerned that the robot dogs will inevitably result in armed patrols and that they could critically injure, or even kill, migrants or American citizens. Robots used in combination with drones, facial recognition technology and license plate readers, pose civil liberties risks, the letter said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

From news reports and social media posts to Ukraine University and government websites, archivists are in a mad dash to preserve the country's online history. From a report: As the Russian invasion of Ukraine accelerates, professional and hobbyist archivists alike are rushing to preserve Ukraine's online history, cataloging and storing everything from Ukrainian government and university websites, to the torrent of news and social media posts related to the accelerating conflict. The Internet Archive has been archiving the broader conflict in Ukraine since 2014. But as Ukraine government websites face prolonged outages due to sustained cyber attack -- as well as the looming risk of defacement or deletion -- the organization has taken on another monumental task: backing up the entirety of the Ukrainian Internet. Using the crowdsourced auto-archiving software running on a virtual machine they've dubbed Archive Team Warrior, the organization has leveraged volunteers around the world, many of whom have donated countless terabytes of storage capacity for the project. These volunteers have been steadily backing up the Ukrainian Internet since before the war began. All told, 68 million items (web pages, documents, and other files) comprising more than 2.5 TB of data have already been hoovered up from various websites across the .ua top level Ukrainian domain. A second project dubbed Ukr-net aims to preserve tens of millions of additional items and terabytes of additional data across the Ukrainian Internet. Elsewhere, organizations like the Center For Information Resilience have built a crowdsourced map attempting to document every single war-related post to social media made in the region, ranging from civilian photos of the movement of heavy Russian weaponry, to Ukranian government claims of alleged bombing raids on kindergardens.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Domain and web hosting provider Namecheap is terminating all service with the company's Russian-based users over the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine. From a report: "Unfortunately, due to the Russian regime's war crimes and human rights violations in Ukraine, we will no longer be providing services to users registered in Russia," US-based Namecheap told Russian users in an email on Monday. The company is asking Russian users to transfer their domains to another provider by March 6. Otherwise their sites will resolve to a 403 Forbidden page. In addition, Namecheap has begun blocking Russian clients from using the company's web hosting and private email services over Russian internet domains, including .ru and .su. "While we sympathize that this war may not affect your own views or opinion on the matter, the fact is, your authoritarian government is committing human rights abuses and engaging in war crimes so this is a policy decision we have made and will stand by," the company added. The decision has caused some Russian users to complain they've been unfairly targeted. "Whoever came up with this idea is an idiot and should be fired," wrote one user on Twitter, who claims Namecheap is "blanket targeting" civilians, instead of going after Russia's government.Read more of this story at Slashdot.