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Last week, DeepMind announced it discovered a more efficient way to perform matrix multiplication, conquering a 50-year-old record. This week, two Austrian researchers at Johannes Kepler University Linz claim they have bested that new record by one step. Ars Technica reports: In 1969, a German mathematician named Volker Strassen discovered the previous-best algorithm for multiplying 4x4 matrices, which reduces the number of steps necessary to perform a matrix calculation. For example, multiplying two 4x4 matrices together using a traditional schoolroom method would take 64 multiplications, while Strassen's algorithm can perform the same feat in 49 multiplications. Using a neural network called AlphaTensor, DeepMind discovered a way to reduce that count to 47 multiplications, and its researchers published a paper about the achievement in Nature last week. To discover more efficient matrix math algorithms, DeepMind set up the problem like a single-player game. The company wrote about the process in more detail in a blog post last week. DeepMind then trained AlphaTensor using reinforcement learning to play this fictional math game -- similar to how AlphaGo learned to play Go -- and it gradually improved over time. Eventually, it rediscovered Strassen's work and those of other human mathematicians, then it surpassed them, according to DeepMind. In a more complicated example, AlphaTensor discovered a new way to perform 5x5 matrix multiplication in 96 steps (versus 98 for the older method). This week, Manuel Kauers and Jakob Moosbauer of Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria, published a paper claiming they have reduced that count by one, down to 95 multiplications. It's no coincidence that this apparently record-breaking new algorithm came so quickly because it built off of DeepMind's work. In their paper, Kauers and Moosbauer write, "This solution was obtained from the scheme of [DeepMind's researchers] by applying a sequence of transformations leading to a scheme from which one multiplication could be eliminated."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Sony and Honda have officially launched their joint mobility venture that aims to start delivering premium electric vehicles with automated driving capabilities in the United States in the spring of 2026, followed by Japan in the second half of 2026," reports TechCrunch. Details are scarce but the partnership appears to produce what the companies promise to be a wildly smart vehicle that's heavily focused on keeping its passengers entertained. Slashdot reader SouthSeb shares the news with us, writing: Since cars are expected to fully drive themselves in a near future, how to maintain their occupants entertained seems to be the next big question. It makes one wonder if cars are going to radically change and become more and more like living rooms or office spaces on wheels. "The new EV, which will be initially manufactured at Honda's North America factory, will be developed with Level 3 automated driving capabilities under limited conditions, and with Level 2 advanced driver assistance systems that can handle situations as complex as urban driving," reports TechCrunch. "Sony will provide the sensors and tech for the autonomous capabilities, as well as all of the other software, from cloud-based services to entertainment, that drivers will hopefully be able to enjoy all the better for not having to actually drive the car all the time. The companies didn't share too much about what the infotainment system would look like, but they did say the metaverse would be involved." "[Sony Honda Mobility] aims to evolve mobility space into entertainment and emotional space, by seamlessly integrating real and virtual worlds, and exploring new entertainment possibilities through digital innovations such as the metaverse," according to SHM.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A year after announcing its "Project Starline" video booth idea, Google says it's expanded enterprise testing with third parties and is working on making Starline "more accessible," reports Ars Technica. From the report: Project Starline basically asks the question, "What if Zoom was a giant, sit-down arcade machine?" While the home console version of video chat just involves a tiny camera above your laptop screen, Starline brings 3D video chat to life in a 7x7-foot sit-down booth, with seemingly no regard given to cost, size, or commercialization. The goal is to make it seem like the other person is in the room with you, and Google categorizes it as a "research project." As for what Starline actually is, a Google Research paper contains a good amount of detail. The display side of the video booth features 14 cameras and 16 IR projectors, which all work to create, capture, and track a real-time, photorealistic 3D avatar of the user. Four microphones and two speakers don't just play back speech; spatialized audio and dynamic beamforming supposedly make the speech sound like it's coming out of the avatar's mouth. People who have tried Starline seem to like it, but considering you have to be personally invited by Google to try it, that's only a very small handful of people. It's hard to imagine much of a market for what must be a six-figure video booth the size of a small bathroom, but Google is pushing ahead with more testing. A Google statement says: "Today, Project Starline prototypes are found in Google offices across the US, with employees using the technology every day for meetings, employee onboarding and building rapport between colleagues." The company continues: "Beyond Google employees, we've also invited more than 100 enterprise partners in areas like media, healthcare and retail to participate in demos at Google's offices and provide us with feedback on the experience and applications to their businesses. We see many ways Project Starline can add business value across a number of industries, and we remain focused on making it more accessible." Salesforce, WeWork, T-Mobile, and Hackensack Meridian Health have signed up to try it. WeWork, a company based around renting too-expensive-to-own office space, seems particularly enthused with the idea.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: On June 8, 2020, an individual claiming to be billionaire film producer and philanthropist Sidney Kimmel contacted brokerage Charles Schwab by phone and stated that he had uploaded a wire disbursement form using the service's secure email service. The only problem was the call apparently came from prison. Still, the caller made reference to a transfer verification inquiry earlier that day by his wife -- a role said to have been played by a female co-conspirator. The individual allegedly posing as Kimmel had contacted a Schwab customer service representative three days earlier -- on June 5, 2020 -- about opening a checking account, and was told that a form of identification and a utility bill would be required. On June 6, a co-conspirator is alleged to have provided a picture of Kimmel's driver's license and a Los Angeles Water and Power utility bill. According to court documents [PDF] filed by the US Attorney's Office in the Northern District of Georgia, the uploaded documents consisted of a request for funds to be wired to an external bank and a forged letter of authorization -- both of which appeared to be signed by Kimmel. On June 9, satisfied that Kimmel had been adequately authenticated, the brokerage sent $11 million from Kimmel's Schwab account to a Zions Bank account for Money Metal Exchange, LLC, an Eagle, Idaho-based seller of gold coins and other precious metals. The real Kimmel had no knowledge of the transaction, which resulted in the purchase of 6,106 American Eagle gold coins. The individual who orchestrated the fraudulent purchase of the coins is alleged to have hired a private security firm on June 13, 2020 to transport the coins from Boise, Idaho to Atlanta, Georgia on a chartered plane. An associate of the fraudster allegedly took possession of the coins three days later. All the while the alleged mastermind, Arthur Lee Cofield Jr, was incarcerated in a maximum security prison in Butts County, Georgia, according to the government. Cofield is serving a 14-year sentence for armed robbery and is also under indictment in Fulton County, Georgia for attempted murder. The day after the coins were purchased, prison staff are said to have searched Cofield's cell and recovered a blue Samsung cellphone hidden under his arm. The prison forensic unit apparently determined that Cofield had been using an account on free voice and messaging service TextNow and matched the phone number with calls made to Money Metals Exchange. On December 8, 2020, a federal grand jury indicted Cofield and two co-conspirators for conspiracy to commit bank fraud and money laundering. Cofield's attorney, Steven Sadow, subsequently sought to suppress the cellphone evidence on Fourth Amendment grounds, arguing that the warrantless search of the device by prison officials was unrelated to the legitimate function of prison security and maintenance. The government said otherwise, insisting that Cofield does not have standing to contest the search, having no "legitimate expectation of privacy in the contents of a contraband cell phone." The judge overseeing the case sided with the government [PDF] and certified the case to proceed to trial.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tether, the world's largest stablecoin, has slashed back its commercial paper holdings to zero, replacing them with U.S. Treasury bills instead, according to a blog post. CNBC reports: The popular U.S.-dollar-pegged cryptocurrency said the move is part of tether's "ongoing efforts to increase transparency" and back its tokens with "the most secure reserves in the market" -- in the ultimate hope of ensuring investor protection. There are now about 68.4 billion tether tokens in circulation, according to data from CoinMarketCap, up from 2 billion three years ago. The cryptocurrency has a market capitalization of $68.4 billion. "Tether has led the industry in transparency releasing attestations every three months, constantly reviewing the make up of its reserves," continued the statement. Commercial paper is a form of short-term, unsecured debt issued by companies, and it is considered to be less reliable than Treasury bills. In October, Tether's Chief Technology Officer, Paolo Ardoino, tweeted that 58.1% of its assets were in T-bills, up from 43.5% in June. It is unclear where that percentage currently stands, but Ardoino did write in a post on Thursday that Tether was able to pay $7 billion, or 10% of its reserves, in 48 hours. "Ask your bank or other stablecoins if they can do that, in same time frame of course," he wrote. Thursday's statement went on to note that zeroing out the balance of its commercial paper holdings was also meant to be a step toward "greater transparency and trust, not only for tether but for the entire stablecoin industry." While not yet large enough to cause disruption in U.S. money markets, tether could eventually reach a size where its owning of U.S. Treasuries becomes "really scary," Carol Alexander, a professor of finance at Sussex University, said. "Suppose you go down the line and, instead of $80 billion, we've got $200 billion, and most of that is in liquid U.S. government securities," she said. "Then a crash in tether would have a substantial impact on U.S. money markets and would just tip the whole world into recession."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Earlier this week, Meta revealed the Meta Quest Pro, the company's most premium virtual reality headset to date with a new processor and screen, dramatically redesigned body and controllers, and inward-facing cameras for eye and face tracking. "To celebrate the $1,500 headset, Meta made some fun new additions to its privacy policy, including one titled 'Eye Tracking Privacy Notice,'" reports Gizmodo. "The company says it will use eye-tracking data to 'help Meta personalize your experiences and improve Meta Quest.' The policy doesn't literally say the company will use the data for marketing, but 'personalizing your experience' is typical privacy-policy speak for targeted ads." From the report: Eye tracking data could be used "in order to understand whether people engage with an advertisement or not," said Meta's head of global affair Nick Clegg in an interview with the Financial Times. Whether you're resigned to targeted ads or not, this technology takes data collection to a place we've never seen. The Quest Pro isn't just going to inform Meta about what you say you're interested in, tracking your eyes and face will give the company unprecedented insight about your emotions. "We know that this kind of information can be used to determine what people are feeling, especially emotions like happiness or anxiety," said Ray Walsh, a digital privacy researcher at ProPrivacy. "When you can literally see a person look at an ad for a watch, glance for ten seconds, smile, and ponder whether they can afford it, that's providing more information than ever before." Meta has already developed a ton of technology for these purposes. The company filed a patent for a system that "adapts media content" based on facial expressions back in January, and it has experimented with harnessing and manipulating people's emotions for more than a decade. In January, it patented a mechanical eyeball. Despite the public's privacy concerns about Meta, it may be hard for people who use the company's products to resist activating the eye-tracking features because of what they will allow your avatar to do. "If Meta is successful, there's going to be a stigma attached with denying that data," ProPrivacy's Walsh said. "You don't want to be the only one looking like an expressionless zombie in a virtual room full of people smiling and frowning." Of course, eye-tracking data could be used to determine what you're thinking about buying. Maybe you spend a few extra seconds glancing at an expensive digital fedora, and the company sends you a coupon code an hour later. But measuring your emotions opens up a whole new arena for targeted ads. Digital marketing is all about showing you the right ad at the right moment. Walsh says advertisers could build campaigns with content specifically designed for people who seem frustrated, or more cheerful ad for people who are in a good mood.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: California's roads just got a little smarter with the passage of a bill that paves the way for the sale of digital license plates across the state. The technology allows for emergency messaging like marking the car stolen or indicating an Amber Alert, and can be personalized through an app with touts like "Go Warriors" or "Go Lakers" to cheer on the local sports teams. The pesky task of car registration also will become easier with DMV auto-renewals, eliminating the need for registration cards and stickers. California-based startup Reviver is the only company offering digital license plates right now, and they're expensive, costing up to $1,100 for four years for a hard-wired version. (The cost for a traditional license plate, registration card and sticker totals $69, according to state's DMV.) A battery-powered version is available for an about $20 per month subscription, or $215 a year, for four years. Privacy advocates have concerns that the devices could be hacked and tracked. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has also been "fighting for years to restrict police from using automated license plate readers to surveil neighborhoods for location data that can detect travel patterns of targeted vehicles," reports Bloomberg. Despite this, Reviver has continued to expand to Arizona and Michigan, where digital license plates are already approved.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nearly four years after its last major release, VirtualBox 7.0 arrives with a... host of new features. Chief among them are Windows 11 support via TPM, EFI Secure Boot support, full encryption for virtual machines, and a few Linux niceties. From a report: The big news is support for Secure Boot and TPM 1.2 and 2.0, which makes it easier to install Windows 11 without registry hacks (the kind Oracle recommended for 6.1 users). It's strange to think about people unable to satisfy Windows 11's security requirements on their physical hardware, but doing so with a couple clicks in VirtualBox, but here we are. VirtualBox 7.0 also allows virtual machines to run with full encryption, not just inside the guest OSâ"but logs, saved states, and other files connected to the VM. At the moment, this support only works through the command line, "for now," Oracle notes in the changelog. This is the first official VirtualBox release with a Developer Preview for ARM-based Macs. Having loaded it on an M2 MacBook Air, I can report that the VirtualBox client informs you, extensively and consistently, about the non-production nature of your client. The changelog notes that it's an "unsupported work in progress" that is "known to have very modest performance." A "Beta Warning" shows up in the (new and unified) message center, and in the upper-right corner, a "BETA" warning on the window frame is stacked on top of a construction-style "Dev Preview" warning sign. It's still true that ARM-based Macs don't allow for running operating systems written for Intel or AMD-based processors inside virtual machines. You will, however, be able to run ARM-based Linux installations in macOS Venture that can themselves run x86 processors using Rosetta, Apple's own translation layer.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Firefox Relay, a Mozilla service designed to hide your "real" email address by giving you virtual ones to hand out, is expanding to offer virtual phone numbers. From a report: In a blog post Mozilla product manager Tony Amaral-Cinotto explains that the relay service generates a phone number for you to give out to companies if you suspect they might use it to send you spam messages in the future, or if you think they might share it with others who will. The idea is that handing out this alternative phone number makes it easier to block spam phone calls or texts in the future. You can either block all calls or texts sent to your relay number, or just block specific contacts. Importantly it lets you keep your "real" phone number private, which is something you might want to consider if it's a number you use to receive sensitive information like two-step verification codes via SMS. Once you've signed up, the Firefox phone number masking service offers 50 minutes of incoming calls and 75 text messages a month. The phone number masking service is also more expensive at $4.99 a month (or $3.99 a month when paid annually), while the email service offers a choice between a free tier and a premium tier costing $1.99 a month ($0.99 a month when paid annually).Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Climate change may be having more impact on the melting Greenland ice sheet than previously thought, new research suggests. From a report: The study found rising air temperatures amplify the effects of melting caused by ocean warming, leading to greater ice loss from the world's second largest ice sheet. Experts liken the effect to how ice cubes melt more quickly if they are in a drink that is being stirred -- the combination of warmer liquid and movement accelerates the melting process. Previous studies have shown that rising air and ocean temperatures both cause the Greenland ice sheet to melt, however the new study, by researchers from the universities of Edinburgh and California San Diego, reveals how one intensifies the effects of the other. Dr Donald Slater, of the University of Edinburgh's School of GeoSciences, who led the study, said: "The effect we investigated is a bit like ice cubes melting in a drink -- ice cubes will obviously melt faster in a warm drink than in a cold drink, hence the edges of the Greenland ice sheet melt faster if the ocean is warmer. But ice cubes in a drink will also melt faster if you stir the drink, and rising air temperatures in Greenland effectively result in a stirring of the ocean close to the ice sheet, causing faster melting of the ice sheet by the ocean."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Geoffrey Fowler, writing for The Washington Post: You may not realize all the ways Amazon is watching you. No other Big Tech company reaches deeper into domestic life. Two-thirds of Americans who shop on Amazon own at least one of its smart gadgets, according to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. Amazon now makes (or has acquired) more than two dozen types of domestic devices and services, from the garage to the bathroom. All devices generate data. But from years of reviewing technology, I've learned Amazon collects more data than almost any other company. Amazon says all that personal information helps power an "ambient intelligence" to make your home smart. It's the Jetsons dream. But it's also a surveillance nightmare. Many of Amazon's products contribute to its detailed profile of you, helping it know you better than you know yourself. Amazon says it doesn't "sell" our data, but there aren't many U.S. laws to restrict how it uses the information. Data that seems useless today could look different tomorrow after it gets reanalyzed, stolen or handed to a government.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Leading chip equipment suppliers have suspended sales and services to semiconductor manufacturers in China, as new US export controls disrupt the Chinese tech industry and global companies' operations. From a report: Lam Research, Applied Materials and KLA Corporation, US companies which hold dominant shares in certain segments of the semiconductor manufacturing process, have all taken immediate measures to comply with the new rules, according to several people with direct knowledge of the matter. ASML, the Netherlands-based global leader in chipmaking equipment, has told its US staff to stop serving all Chinese customers while it assesses the sanctions. The new restrictions, announced on Friday last week, ban the export to China of US semiconductor equipment that cannot be provided by any foreign competitor. They also impose a licence requirement for exports of US tools or components to China-based fabrication plants, or fabs, that make advanced chips, and for exports of items used to develop Chinese homegrown chip production equipment. They also require any US citizen or entity to seek permission from the Department of Commerce for providing support to Chinese fabs.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Starting in November, Netflix will roll out its ad-supported tier for $6.99 a month, yet another sign that the onetime disruptive upstart streaming service has slowly become a cable package by another name. From a report: Netflix announced today that its new Basic with Ads tier is slated to launch on November 3rd, 2022, for $6.99 in the US, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Spain, and the UK. In exchange for making you watch an average of four to five ads per hour that run anywhere from 15-30 seconds, Basic with Ads will give subscribers access to a large swath of Netflix's programming but not the platform's full catalog. A small selection of television shows and movies will not be available to Basic with Ads subscribers due to licensing restrictions that Netflix says it's currently working on. Additionally, Basic with Ads subscribers will not be able to download content onto their devices, and video quality is capped at 720p / HD.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

US soldiers using Microsoft's new goggles in their latest field test suffered "mission-affecting physical impairments" including headaches, eyestrain and nausea, according to a summary of the exercise compiled by the Pentagon's testing office. From a report: More than 80% of those who experienced discomfort had symptoms after less than three hours using the customized version of Microsoft's HoloLens goggles, Nickolas Guertin, director of Operation Test and Evaluation, said in a summary for Army and Defense Department officials. He said the system also is still experiencing too many failures of essential functions. The problems found in the testing in May and June were outlined in a 79-page report this month. The Army marked it "Controlled Unclassified Information" to prevent public distribution, but Bloomberg News obtained a summary. Despite the device's flaws, Guertin doesn't deem it a lost cause. He recommended that the Army "prioritize improvements" before widespread deployment to reduce the "physical discomfort of users." He said improvements are also needed to the goggle's low-light sensors, display clarity, field of vision and poor reliability of some essential functions.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

U.S. consumer inflation excluding energy and food accelerated to a new four-decade high in September as prices continued to surge, a sign that persistent cost increases are becoming entrenched in the economy. From a report: The Labor Department on Thursday said that the so-called core measure of the consumer price index -- which excludes volatile energy and food prices -- gained 6.6% in September from a year earlier [PDF], up from 6.3% in August. That marked the biggest increase since August 1982. On a monthly basis, the core CPI rose 0.6% in September, the same as in August, and up from 0.3% in July. Investors and policy makers follow core inflation closely as a reflection of broad, underlying inflation and as a predictor of future inflation. The overall CPI increased 8.2% in September from the same month a year ago, down from 8.3% in August. That was also lower than annual increases of 8.5% in July and 9.1% in June, which was the highest inflation rate in four decades. The CPI measures what consumers pay for goods and services. The retreat of overall inflation from the June high came as gasoline prices cooled. But prices for housing, medical care, food and other items have continued to increase, threatening to keep inflation higher for longer. Housing costs rose by the most since the early 1980s, as a strong labor market continues to push up rental rates. Housing makes up the largest share of the overall and core indexes. Prices for used cars and apparel cooled in September, offering limited relief to consumers from high inflation.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Last year, former Oculus CTO (and current company advisor) John Carmack threw down the gauntlet for Meta's near-term metaverse plans. By the 2022 Meta Connect conference, Carmack said last October, he hoped he'd be in his headset, "walking around the [virtual] halls or walking around the stage as my avatar in front of thousands of people getting the feed across multiple platforms." Carmack's vision didn't come to pass Tuesday, as a jerky and awkward Carmack avatar gave one of his signature, hour-long unscripted talks amid a deserted VR space, broadcast out as plain old 2D video on Facebook. "Last year I said that I'd be disappointed if we weren't having Connect in Horizon this year," Carmack said by way of introduction. "This here, this isn't really what I meant. Me being an avatar on-screen on a video for you is basically the same thing as [just] being on a video." That set the tone for a presentation in which Carmack said that "there's a bunch that I'm grumpy about" regarding the current state of Meta's current VR hardware and software. While that grumpiness was somewhat tempered with talk of recent improvements and hope for the future of virtual reality, Carmack seemed generally frustrated with the direction Meta as a whole is taking its VR efforts. [...] Carmack also seemed skeptical that the $1,499, feature-laden Quest Pro was the right product for Meta to be focusing on at this time. "I've always been clear that I'm all about the cost-effective mass-market headsets being the most important thing for us and for the adoption of VR," Carmack said. "And Quest Pro is definitely not that..." As a "counterpoint" to the push for the Quest Pro in the Meta offices, Carmack says he "personally still [tries] to drum up interest internally in this vision of a super cheap, super lightweight headset." His rallying cry, he says, is a target of "$250 and 250 grams" for a headset that cuts out as many extraneous features as possible while still being usable (the Quest Pro weighs 722 grams while the Quest 2 is 503 grams). That could help bring "super light comforts" to "more people at low-end price points. We're not building that headset today, but I keep trying," Carmack said with some exasperation.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft is making a major change to its Microsoft Office branding. After more than 30 years, Microsoft Office is being renamed "Microsoft 365" to mark the software giant's collection of growing productivity apps. From a report: While Office apps like Excel, Outlook, Word, and PowerPoint aren't going away, Microsoft will now mostly refer to these apps as part of Microsoft 365 instead of Microsoft Office. Microsoft has been pushing this new branding for years, after renaming Office 365 subscriptions to Microsoft 365 two years ago, but the changes go far deeper now. "In the coming months, Office.com, the Office mobile app, and the Office app for Windows will become the Microsoft 365 app, with a new icon, a new look, and even more features," explains a FAQ from Microsoft.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Federal Communications Commission plans to ban all sales of new Huawei and ZTE telecommunications devices in the U.S. -- as well as some sales of video surveillance equipment from three other Chinese firms -- out of national security concerns, Axios reported Thursday, citing sources. From the report: The move, which marks the first time the FCC has banned electronics equipment on national security grounds, closes a vise on the two Chinese companies that began tightening during the Trump administration. The ban marks the culmination of years of warnings from security researchers, analysts and intelligence agencies that the Chinese government could use Chinese-made telecommunications equipment to spy on Americans. The price could come in higher costs for some smaller telecommunications providers that favored the Chinese companies' products thanks to their aggressive pricing. On Oct. 5, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel circulated a draft order among her fellow commissioners. The order -- which still needs to be voted on -- would effectively ban new equipment sales in the U.S. from firms that pose a threat to national security, two sources with direct knowledge told Axios.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

schwit1 shares a blog post from Signal, the popular instant messaging app: In the interest of privacy, security, and clarity we're beginning to phase out SMS support from the Android app. You'll have several months to export your messages and either find a new app for SMS or tell your friends to download Signal. [...] To give some context, when we started supporting SMS, Signal didn't exist yet. Our Android app was called TextSecure and the Signal encryption protocol was called Axolotl. Almost a decade has passed since then, and a lot has changed. In this time we changed our name, built iOS and desktop apps, and grew from a small project to the most widely used private messaging service on the planet. And we continued supporting the sending and receiving of plaintext SMS messages via the Signal interface on Android. We did this because we knew that Signal would be easier for people to use if it could serve as a homebase for most of the messages they were sending or receiving, without having to convince the people they wanted to talk to to switch to Signal first. But this came with a tradeoff: it meant that some messages sent and received via the Signal interface on Android were not protected by Signal's strong privacy guarantees. We have now reached the point where SMS support no longer makes sense. For those of you interested, we walk through our reasoning in more detail below. In order to enable a more streamlined Signal experience, we are starting to phase out SMS support from the Android app. You will have several months to transition away from SMS in Signal, to export your SMS messages to another app, and to let the people you talk to know that they might want to switch to Signal, or find another channel if not.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Modified off-the-shelf drones have been found carrying wireless network-intrusion kit in a very unlikely place. Greg Linares, a security researcher, recently recounted an incident that he said occurred over the summer at a US East Coast financial firm focused on private investment. He told The Register that he was not involved directly with the investigation but interacted with those involved as part of his work in the finance sector. In a Twitter thread, Linares said the hacking incident was discovered when the financial firm spotted unusual activity on its internal Atlassian Confluence page that originated from within the company's network. The company's security team responded and found that the user whose MAC address was used to gain partial access to the company Wi-Fi network was also logged in at home several miles away. That is to say, the user was active off-site but someone within Wi-Fi range of the building was trying to wirelessly use that user's MAC address, which is a red flag. The team then took steps to trace the Wi-Fi signal and used a Fluke system to identify the Wi-Fi device. "This led the team to the roof, where a 'modified DJI Matrice 600' and a 'modified DJI Phantom' series were discovered," Linares explained. The Phantom drone was in fine condition and had a modified Wi-Fi Pineapple device, used for network penetration testing, according to Linares. The Matrice drone was carrying a case that contained a Raspberry Pi, several batteries, a GPD mini laptop, a 4G modem, and another Wi-Fi device. It had landed near the building's heating and ventilation system and appeared to be damaged but still operable. "During their investigation, they determined that the DJI Phantom drone had originally been used a few days prior to intercept a worker's credentials and Wi-Fi," Linares said. "This data was later hard coded into the tools that were deployed with the Matrice." According to Linares, the tools on the drones were used to target the company's internal Confluence page in order to reach other internal devices using the credentials stored there. The attack, he said, had limited success and is the third cyberattack involving a drone he's seen over the past two years. "The attackers specifically targeted a limited access network, used by both a third-party and internally, that was not secure due to recent changes at the company (e.g. restructuring/rebranding, new building, new building lease, new network setup or a combination of any of these scenarios)," Linares told The Register. "This is the reason why this temporary network unfortunately had limited access in order to login (credentials + MAC security). The attackers were using the attack in order to access an internal IT confluence server that contained other credentials for accessing other resources and storing IT procedures." [...] While the identity of the attacker has not been disclosed, Linares believes those responsible did their homework. "This was definitely a threat actor who likely did internal reconnaissance for several weeks, had physical proximity to the target environment, had a proper budget and knew their physical security limitations," he said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Greece was powered entirely by renewables for the first time ever last week, according to the country's independent power transmission operator (IPTO). Electrek reports: On Monday, IPTO said that renewables accounted for 100% of power generation in Greece for at least five hours, reaching a record high of 3,106 megawatt hours at 0800 GMT: "For the first time in the history of the Greek electricity system, the demand was covered 100% from renewable energy sources. With the interconnections implemented by IPTO on land and sea, new electrical capacity is created for even greater [renewable energy sources] penetration that will make our energy mix even greener in the coming years." Reuters notes: Greece aims to attract about 30 billion of euros in European funds and private investments to upgrade its electricity grid and more than double its green energy capacity to account for at least 70% of its energy mix by 2030. It plans to have 25 gigawatt of installed renewable energy capacity from about 10 gigawatt now but analysts say Athens might reach that target sooner.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Entrepreneur Dennis Tito and his wife, Akiko Tito, announced Wednesday that they purchased two tickets on the second of SpaceX's planned circumlunar flights later this decade. Dennis Tito made history when he became the first person to pay for his own ride into space more than two decades ago. He flew aboard a Soyuz vehicle and spent a week on the International Space Station. As for his wife, Akiko Tito, she becomes the first woman confirmed to fly on Starship, notes Ars Technica. From the report: The flight will last about a week, outbound to the Moon, passing within about 40 km of the surface and flying back. Ten other seats on Starship remain unsold and are available. Tito said he was not at liberty to disclose the price he paid. This brings the manifest of private human spaceflights on Starship, and its Super Heavy rocket, to three. There is billionaire Jared Isaacman's Polaris III mission, likely to low Earth orbit, which will be followed by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa's "dearMoon" flight, the first human Starship flight around the Moon. Then comes Tito and the second circumlunar mission. SpaceX has also contracted with NASA to fly the first human landing on the Moon as part of the Artemis program, but for now, NASA astronauts will launch on a separate rocket and rendezvous with Starship in lunar orbit to go down to the lunar surface and back to orbit. So far, NASA hasn't announced plans to launch astronauts from Earth on Starship or land them back here. The timeline for all of these missions hinges on the development of the Starship vehicle, which may make a debut orbital test flight in the coming months from South Texas. After that, the large, fully reusable launch system will fly dozens of uncrewed missions, mostly carrying Starlink payloads, before humans climb on board. This is because Starship will make a propulsive landing back on Earth -- something no crew vehicle has ever done -- and has no backup should there be some sort of landing failure.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

tedlistens shares a report from Fast Company: Two corners of Brooklyn's historic Navy Yard will be connected by a small test bed for quantum networking, a first step toward a future "quantum internet" that promises to transform computing and make communications untappable. The effort, by a startup company called Qunnect, will join dozens of experiments around the U.S., Europe, and China, but would be the first commercial quantum network in the country, and the first to use only small, room-temperature devices. Such tools could make it easier to link quantum computers across the planet, opening the door to more practical uses of the technology in research, defense, finance, and other yet-to-be-determined applications. "We can have these networks go all the way from here, coast to coast, and eventually global," says Dr. Noel Goddard, the CEO of Qunnect. In addition to testing a protocol for sharing quantum information across conventional fiber-optic lines, the 12-person startup will use the network to test a group of quantum networking hardware that can fit into the server racks of existing telecom buildings. Its flagship product, spun out of research at SUNY Stony Brook, is a type of device thought to be crucial to establishing the "magic" of quantum entanglement across a fiber line, called a quantum memory. The machines use rubidium vapor to briefly store photons' quantum information, with all of its weird uncertainty, so that the information can be repeated across a long-distance fiber network without disturbing it along the way. But unlike many quantum machines -- often sprawling tabletop contraptions that rely on cryogenic cooling, vacuums, and other delicate equipment -- Qunnect's memory machine operates at room temperature and fits inside a box the size of a large desk drawer. Qunnect's sold just three of its memory machines so far, to Brookhaven National Lab and Stony Brook University, at a reported price of around $100,000 apiece. But a number of government and defense labs, along with big telecom and tech companies, from Amazon to Verizon, are paying close attention. The device has already received millions in backing from the Department of Energy and other federal and state agencies. And last week, Qunnect announced its largest endorsement yet: $8 million in funding, in a series A round led by Airbus Ventures and including The New York Ventures Fund, Impact Science Ventures, Motus Ventures, and SandboxAQ, a post-quantum security company Google spun off earlier this year. The new money will help build the test bed, which Qunnect plans to start operating by the middle of next year, when it will open it up to researchers and customers in government, finance, and telecom. These experiments will help the company learn more about a variety of proposals for building quantum networks, and, it hopes, position it as a device supplier for the whole quantum internet.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Honda Motor and LG Energy Solution on Tuesday said a new multibillion-dollar plant to produce batteries for electric vehicles will be located in Ohio. CNBC reports: Construction of the new facility -- located about 40 miles southwest of Columbus -- is expected to begin in early 2023, followed by mass production of lithium-ion batteries by the end of 2025. The battery plant is expected to cost $3.5 billion, with overall investment by the unnamed joint venture eventually reaching $4.4 billion, the companies said. Honda and LGES announced plans for the joint venture and battery plant last year, but had not revealed a location. The facility is expected to employ about 2,200 people, the companies said. In addition to the new battery plant, Honda on Tuesday said it plans to invest $700 million to retool several of its existing auto and powertrain plants for production of EVs. The Japanese automaker expects to begin production and sales of EVs in North America in 2026. Honda has plans to phase out traditional internal combustion engines and exclusively offer battery-electric and fuel cell electric vehicles by 2040 in North America. It's part of the company's plans to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Today, Microsoft and Apple announced a number of deeper integrations of Apple services on both Windows PCs and Xbox game consoles, including Music and TV apps for both platforms and the ability to browse your iCloud Photo Library within the Windows 11 Photos app. Ars Technica reports: The Apple Music app for Xbox is already available. Existing users can download the app and start listening to their playlists and stations, while new users can sign up for a one-month trial. The user interface for Apple Music on the Xbox is almost exactly the same as the one we've used before on Apple TV hardware. It doesn't add any new features we haven't seen before, but it's nice to see parity between the platforms. The Music and TV apps for Windows aren't available yet, but the companies say they'll both be available next year. The Windows iTunes app lets users listen to songs and watch TV and movies purchased through Apple's online store. Even though Apple Music will arrive on Windows, iTunes will continue to be available, and users will still be able to access Podcasts and Books there. While you'll have to wait until next year to download the Music and TV apps in Windows, the iCloud Photo Library integration is available right now. You'll have to download the iCloud Windows app (which is already used to sync a variety of things, like browser bookmarks) and opt into syncing your iCloud Photo Library. After that, both videos and photos should be available within the Windows 11 Photos app.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Earlier today, Microsoft unveiled three new Surface computers: the Surface Pro 9, Surface Laptop 5, and Surface Studio 2+. While this year's Surface Pro 9 remains very similar to last year's Surface Pro 8, it's being offered with refreshed Intel 12th-gen CPUs or a "new 5G-equipped model with a custom SQ 3 Arm chip," reports Engadget. From the report: If that sounds confusing to you, well, it is. We last saw the company's SQ chip in the 2020 Surface Pro X, a computer that we found both beautiful and frustrating, thanks to Windows' crummy software compatibility with Arm chips. To shift that problem over to a computer with the same name as its Intel sibling is a recipe for disaster. (We can just imagine the frustrated Best Buy shoppers who are dazzled with the idea of a 5G Surface, only to learn they can't run most of their traditional Windows apps.) The 5G Pro 9 is also broken down into millimeter-wave and Sub-6 variants, which will be sold in their respective markets. It's understandable why Microsoft isn't keen to keep the Surface Pro X moniker going -- the Pro 8 lifted many of its modern design cues, after all. But from what we've seen, Windows 11 doesn't solve the problems we initially had with the Pro X. After analyzing the product's tech specs, The Verge discovered that the Surface Pro 9 no longer appears to have a headphone jack. From the report: This seems to be the direct result of Microsoft bringing the Intel and Arm versions of the Surface Pro 9 together in the same chassis. The Surface Pro X has never had a 3.5mm jack, so now, the Intel hardware is coming in line with that design direction. But I'd argue it's a more controversial omission this time. Why? The new universal outer enclosure is essentially the same size as that of the Surface Pro 8. The Surface Pro X hardware was quite a bit thinner than Microsoft's Intel hardware at the time (and still now). So excising the 3.5mm jack made sense. But we've now lost the headphone jack for a chassis that's basically identical in dimensions to last year's model. They really couldn't fit one on there somewhere? Further reading: Microsoft's Surface Studio 2 Plus Ships With an RTX 3060 for $4,299Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Axios: TikTok is planning to build its own product fulfillment centers in the U.S., creating an e-commerce supply chain system that could directly challenge Amazon, as indicated by more than a dozen new job openings posted in the past two weeks to LinkedIn. The move signifies TikTok's commitment to e-commerce as its next major revenue stream, following the explosive growth of its ads business. "By providing warehousing, delivery, and customer service returns, our mission is to help sellers improve their operational capability and efficiency, provide buyers a satisfying shopping experience and ensure fast and sustainable growth of TikTok Shop," the company wrote in one job listing. According to the job postings, TikTok is looking to build an "international e-commerce fulfillment system" that will include international warehousing, customs clearings and supply chain systems that support domestic e-commerce efforts in the U.S. and cross-border e-commerce efforts. The systems will eventually perform parcel consolidation, along with transporting goods from one stage to the next and managing free returns. One position, a logistics solutions manager for a global fulfillment center, is looking for a Seattle-based employee to plan and design fulfillment centers and e-commerce logistics solutions that include the transportation of goods, order prediction and inventory management. Another Seattle-based role calls for the creation of a new fulfillment service center "from scratch." The center, the posting says, "is a global team responsible for developing and growing our logistics solution" and will include product fulfillment by TikTok Shop to its sellers by "providing warehousing, delivery, and customer service returns." While that role explicitly calls for the development of fulfillment services for TikTok's e-commerce logistics in the U.S., other roles reference a team that is responsible for a global logistics and warehousing network. For now, it does not appear that TikTok plans to build out its own transportation unit like Amazon. The job postings imply that TikTok would work with vendors to handle shipping, parcel consolidation and transportation. One job description for a fulfillment logistics manager implies that, like Amazon, TikTok is looking to develop a free return program.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

General Motors is creating a new energy business to sell batteries, charging equipment, solar panels, and software to residential and commercial customers in a broad-based effort to create a range of accessories that can help sell its lineup of electric vehicles. The Verge reports: The new division, GM Energy, is also a direct shot at Tesla as a major player in renewable energy generation and storage. GM has said it intends to eventually overtake Elon Musk's company in vehicles sales -- and now it wants to challenge it on the energy front as well. Travis Hester, GM's chief EV officer, said the company is making a serious grab for a piece of what is potentially a $120-150 billion market for energy generation and storage products. The aim is to make GM's brand synonymous with not just electric vehicles, but a whole host of products and services in orbit around EVs and their rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. GM Energy will be comprised of three units: Ultium Home, Ultium Commercial, and Ultium Charge 360, which is the company's EV charging program. The division will sell a range of products to residential and commercial customers, including bi-directional charging equipment, vehicle-to- home (V2H) and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) equipment, stationary storage, solar products, software applications, cloud management tools, microgrid solutions, and hydrogen fuel cells. GM Energy will also be in the virtual power plant business. Many EVs with high-capacity batteries are being marketed for their ability to serve as backup power in the event of a blackout. (Hester notes that the Chevy Silverado EV, with its 200kWh battery pack, can power an average sized home for 21 days.) EVs can also feed power back into the grid during times of peak demand. GM Energy will be the entity that sells that power back to the utilities during times of high-energy consumption. For solar energy, GM is teaming up with San Jose-based SunPower to sell solar panels and home energy storage products to residential customers. SunPower and other partners will supply the solar panels and perform the installations, with GM developing the complimentary software. Over time, as GM's battery factories come online and production of its Ultium-branded battery systems ramps up, the company intends on swapping in its own battery cells and storage units, Hester said. The automaker is also planning on manufacturing its own line of backup power generators using its Hydrotec-branded hydrogen fuel cells. (Ultium is the name of GM's electric vehicle battery and powertrain technology. Last year, the company said the Ultium Charge 360 network would be the name given to GM's own vehicle apps and software with a variety of third-party charging services, such as Blink, ChargePoint, EVgo, Flo, Greenlots, and SemaConnect.) "But much like its approach to EVs, the dates for the launch of these new products are still a ways off in the future," adds The Verge. "GM is still testing its V2H service in partnership with PG&E with a small sample of residential customers in California, and plans on expanding it to more homes in early 2023. And its solar products won't be available until 2024."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google has approved Donald Trump's Truth Social app for release in its Play Store, opening up a key distribution channel for the social network ahead of US midterm elections. Bloomberg reports: Google had previously declined to distribute the app, saying it needed to address the fact that it hosted violent threats and other content that goes against Google's standards. Google, which is owned by Alphabet Inc., confirmed on Wednesday that Truth Social was now available. Truth Social has agreed to take down content that violates Google's policies, Google said. Devin Nunes, chief executive officer of Trump Media & Technology Group, said in a statement that the development represented "a significant milestone in our mission to restore free speech online." "It's been a pleasure to work with Google, and we're glad they helped us to finally bring Truth Social to all Americans, regardless of what device they use," Nunes said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mullvad VPN has discovered that Android leaks traffic every time the device connects to a WiFi network, even if the "Block connections without VPN," or "Always-on VPN," features is enabled. BleepingComputer reports: The data being leaked outside VPN tunnels includes source IP addresses, DNS lookups, HTTPS traffic, and likely also NTP traffic. This behavior is built into the Android operating system and is a design choice. However, Android users likely didn't know this until now due to the inaccurate description of the "VPN Lockdown" features in Android's documentation. Mullvad discovered the issue during a security audit that hasn't been published yet, issuing a warning yesterday to raise awareness on the matter and apply additional pressure on Google. Android offers a setting under "Network & Internet" to block network connections unless you're using a VPN. This feature is designed to prevent accidental leaks of the user's actual IP address if the VPN connection is interrupted or drops suddenly. Unfortunately, this feature is undercut by the need to accommodate special cases like identifying captive portals (like hotel WiFi) that must be checked before the user can log in or when using split-tunnel features. This is why Android is configured to leak some data upon connecting to a new WiFi network, regardless of whether you enabled the "Block connections without VPN" setting. Mullvad reported the issue to Google, requesting the addition of an option to disable connectivity checks. "This is a feature request for adding the option to disable connectivity checks while "Block connections without VPN" (from now on lockdown) is enabled for a VPN app," explains Mullvad in a feature request on Google's Issue Tracker. "This option should be added as the current VPN lockdown behavior is to leaks connectivity check traffic (see this issue for incorrect documentation) which is not expected and might impact user privacy." In response to Mullvad's request, a Google engineer said this is the intended functionality and that it would not be fixed for the following reasons: - Many VPNs actually rely on the results of these connectivity checks to function, - The checks are neither the only nor the riskiest exemptions from VPN connections, - The privacy impact is minimal, if not insignificant, because the leaked information is already available from the L2 connection. Mullvad countered these points and the case remains open.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Researchers have grown brain cells in a lab that have learned to play the 1970s tennis-like video game, Pong. They say their "mini-brain" can sense and respond to its environment. Writing in the journal Neuron, Dr Brett Kagan, of the company Cortical Labs, claims to have created the first ''sentient'' lab-grown brain in a dish. Other experts describe the work as ''exciting'' but say calling the brain cells sentient is going too far. "We could find no better term to describe the device,'' Dr Kagan says. ''It is able to take in information from an external source, process it and then respond to it in real time." The research team: grew human brain cells grown from stem cells and some from mouse embryos to a collection of 800,000; connected this mini-brain to the video game via electrodes revealing which side the ball was on and how far from the paddle. In response, the cells produced electrical activity of their own. They expended less energy as the game continued. But when the ball passed a paddle and the game restarted with the ball at a random point, they expended more recalibrating to a new unpredictable situation. The mini-brain learned to play in five minutes. It often missed the ball -- but its success rate was well above random chance. Although, with no consciousness, it does not know it is playing Pong in the way a human player would, the researchers stress. Dr Kagan hopes the technology might eventually be used to test treatments for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's. "When people look at tissues in a dish, at the moment they are seeing if there is activity or no activity. But the purpose of brain cells is to process information in real time," he says. "Tapping into their true function unlocks so many more research areas that can be explored in a comprehensive way." Next, Dr Kagan plans to test the impact alcohol has on the mini-brain's ability to play Pong. If it reacts in a similar way to a human brain, this would underscore just how effective the system might be as an experimental stand-in. As the "mini-brains" become more complex, Dr Kagan's team says they'll be working with bioethicists to ensure they do not accidentally create a conscious brain. "We have to see this new technology very much like the nascent computer industry, when the first transistors were janky prototypes, not very reliable -- but after years of dedicated research, they led to huge technological marvels across the world," he says.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mark Zuckerberg said he enjoys "being doubted" in a new interview. From a report: The Meta CEO talked about where the company is now, and what's new for the metaverse, the big pivot he's currently leading his company through. Compared to building Facebook from the ground up, which he noted reached a billion users 10 years ago, growing the metaverse on top of an already built platform is "a lot easier." "I enjoy being doubted," Zuckerberg said, talking about building something over time. When Heath asked Zuckerberg how he still enjoys being doubted and why, Zuckerberg said he thinks "it gets a little comfortable" if "too many people get or think what you're doing is obviously going to happen." Zuckerberg said getting hate is different from being doubted, and that one of the difficult things about running his company and being a public person on the internet is separating constructive criticism and "people who are just haters." But, he said, listening to criticism can be useful. "If you tune out everyone who thinks that you're not doing something right, then you're going to miss a lot of really valuable signals to do stuff better than you're doing it today," Zuckerberg said. "So you want to not ignore critique, but at the same time, I just think that there are a lot of people who actually aren't trying to help and aren't trying to make things better." Further reading: Mark Zuckerberg Says Waking Up Every Day as CEO of Meta is Like Getting Punched in the Stomach.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft today announced a few user-facing updates to its Edge browser. The most important of these is likely Edge Workspaces, a new feature (currently in preview) that will allow teams to share browser tabs. From a report: Microsoft argues that this feature can be useful when bringing on new team members to an existing project. Instead of sharing lots of links and files, the team can simply share a single like to an Edge Workspace (which will then likely consist of lots of links and files, but hey, at least it's just one link to share). As the project evolves, the tabs are updated in real time. I guess that's a use case. We've seen our share of extensions that do similar things, none of which ever get very popular. Meanwhile, teams share these links and files in other ways (think Confluent, etc.). On the security front, Microsoft is bringing typo protection for website URLs to the browser, promising to protect "users from accidentally navigating to online fraud sites after misspelling the website address by suggesting the website that the user intended." Nothing too complicated here, and a useful feature for sure.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CNN has ended its big Web3 project by announcing, "we have decided that it's time to say goodbye to the Vault by CNN." From a report: You may have already forgotten about it, but Vault by CNN launched in the summer of 2021 as a marketplace for its own NFTs (non-fungible tokens) that would "offer collectors the opportunity to own a piece of history." Sort of like NBA Top Shot except for media nerds instead of basketball nerds, it minted CNN reports of key events or artistic interpretations inspired by them, creating digital collectibles that owners could show off somehow or trade with others, like baseball cards. This idea apparently seemed more reasonable while cryptocurrency prices were sky-high, and headlines about NFTs didn't include phrases like "trading volumes collapse 97 percent since January peak." Things have obviously changed as the "crypto winter" settled in, although an April report by the Press Gazette said CNN had pulled in more than $300,000 from the sales. Reactions from the community included shock, disappointment, and a few posters saying they planned to contact their lawyers while accusing CNN of a "rug pull," which in crypto terms applies when a development team unexpectedly yanks support -- and funds -- from a project, leaving the people who bought in with nothing.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Project Starline, Google's experimental technology using holographic light field displays to video chat with distant co-workers, is moving out of Google's offices and into some real corporate locations for testing starting this year. From a report: Google's Project Starline tech, announced last year at the company's I/O developer conference, uses giant light field displays and an array of cameras to record and display 3D video between two people at two different remote locations. Starline prototypes are being installed at Salesforce, WeWork, T-Mobile and Hackensack Meridian Health offices as part of the early-access program, with each company that's part of the program getting two units to test for start.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As online gaming platform Roblox confronts a lawsuit alleging it enabled a California girl's exploitation, its chief scientist said finding dangerous content in the company's virtual world is nothing like spotting it in video. From a report: "It's such a challenge to moderate 3D," said Morgan McGuire in an interview at the Reuters Momentum conference in Austin on Tuesday. He had no comment on the recent lawsuit but said Roblox was built with safety and civility at the forefront. San Mateo, Calif.-based Roblox is deploying bots to patrol user-generated games and press buttons to detect any dangerous content that players have disguised. "This is more like shutting down speakeasies," he said, referring to U.S. prohibition-era bars hiding from law enforcement. BBC reported this year that users had created explicit private spaces, known as "condos," where people's digital avatars could engage in virtual sex.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: In case you follow the smartphone industry, particularly on YouTube and Twitter, you'd know that there have been recent reports of Samsung phones that are ... "blowing up", or at least about to. Of course, to most, that'd probably bring immediate Galaxy Note 7 flashbacks - we all remember when Samsung's 2016 flagship phone became the subject of universal entry checks, jokes, and legitimate fires. Despite trying, in the end Samsung wasn't able to handle the Note 7 battery crisis. The company recalled the defective phones and released a fresh batch of Note 7s (after having changed its battery supplier). The issues persisted, and the Note 7 was eventually officially discontinued less than two months after its official launch. But this time, the case is slightly different... The recently reported battery issues seem to be affecting any Samsung phone (as recent as 18 months old) that isn't used/charged regularly. Simply put, you could have a Samsung phone that's been sitting in a drawer for some time (without having been charged). This device could then suddenly start expanding and might eventually start looking like it was split in half due to a bloated battery. At this point, the cell would be expanding further and further until it's taken care of or... not (which could lead to an explosion or/and a fire). Popular YouTuber Arun did a video on this late last month and has corroborated his account with several other people.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Android Developers Blog: Passkeys are a significantly safer replacement for passwords and other phishable authentication factors. They cannot be reused, don't leak in server breaches, and protect users from phishing attacks. Passkeys are built on industry standards and work across different operating systems and browser ecosystems, and can be used for both websites and apps. Passkeys follow already familiar UX patterns, and build on the existing experience of password autofill. For end-users, using one is similar to using a saved password today, where they simply confirm with their existing device screen lock such as their fingerprint. Passkeys on users' phones and computers are backed up and synced through the cloud to prevent lockouts in the case of device loss. Additionally, users can use passkeys stored on their phone to sign in to apps and websites on other nearby devices. Today's announcement is a major milestone in our work with passkeys, and enables two key capabilities: Users can create and use passkeys on Android devices, which are securely synced through the Google Password Manager. Developers can build passkey support on their sites for end-users using Chrome via the WebAuthn API, on Android and other supported platforms. To try this today, developers can enroll in the Google Play Services beta and use Chrome Canary. Both features will be generally available on stable channels later this year. Our next milestone in 2022 will be an API for native Android apps. Passkeys created through the web API will work seamlessly with apps affiliated with the same domain, and vice versa. The native API will give apps a unified way to let the user pick either a passkey or a saved password. Seamless, familiar UX for both passwords and passkeys helps users and developers gradually transition to passkeys. For the end-user, creating a passkey requires just two steps: (1) confirm the passkey account information, and (2) present their fingerprint, face, or screen lock when prompted. Signing in is just as simple: (1) The user selects the account they want to sign in to, and (2) presents their fingerprint, face, or screen lock when prompted. A passkey on a phone can also be used to sign in on a nearby device. For example, an Android user can now sign in to a passkey-enabled website using Safari on a Mac. Similarly, passkey support in Chrome means that a Chrome user, for example on Windows, can do the same using a passkey stored on their iOS device. Since passkeys are built on industry standards, this works across different platforms and browsers - including Windows, macOS and iOS, and ChromeOS, with a uniform user experience.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The first two satellites of Amazon's space-based internet constellation will be launched early next year on the maiden flight of a new rocket being developed by one of the U.S. Space Force's biggest contractors. In an announcement Wednesday, Amazon said it would hitch a ride on the new Vulcan rocket being developed by the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin. From a report: The prototype satellites, part of Amazon's Kuiper system that would beam the internet to stations on the ground, were initially scheduled to launch by the end of this year by rocket start-up ABL Space Systems. But delays and the opportunity to launch with ULA, which was already contracted for 47 launches of satellites for Amazon, compelled the company to switch rockets, Rajeev Baydal, the vice president of technology for Project Kuiper, said in an interview. Amazon has permission from the Federal Communications Commission to put up 3,236 satellites, helping connect people without easy access to broadband, as it seeks to compete with SpaceX's Starlink system. The company has pledged to invest more than $10 billion into a system it says will serve not only individual households, but also schools, hospitals and businesses that don't have access to reliable broadband. Baydal said that Amazon now has 1,000 people working on the project as it seeks to grab a part of the lucrative internet market taking hold in space.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

British artist Damien Hirst is among the many art-world giants who have set fire to their work, having burned 1,000 of his artworks Tuesday. From a report: He streamed the event on Instagram and is set to burn thousands more works of art. It's part of his project "The Currency." It consists of a collection of 10,000 NFTs. Each non-fungible token corresponds to a physical painting featuring his signature multicolored dots, made from enamel paint on handmade paper. The pieces were initially available for $2,000, which is affordable compared with what Hirst's work has been known to go for. "A lot of people think I'm burning millions of dollars of art but I'm not, I'm completing the transformation of these physical artworks into nfts by burning the physical versions," Hirst wrote in an Instagram caption. "the value of art digital or physical which is hard to define at the best of times will not be lost it will be transferred to the nft as soon as they are burnt." A year after buying a piece from "The Currency," collectors had to make a choice. They could either take the painting, meaning they would lose the NFT, or hold onto the NFT, meaning the painting would be burned.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

schwit1 shares a report: A Wall Street Journal investigation revealed that thousands of officials across the U.S. government's executive branch disclosed owning or trading stocks that stood to rise or fall with decisions their agencies made. Across 50 federal agencies ranging from the Commerce Department to the Treasury Department, more than 2,600 officials reported stock investments in companies while those companies were lobbying their agencies for favorable policies, during both Republican and Democratic administrations. When the financial holdings caused a conflict, the agencies sometimes simply waived the rules. The Office of Government Ethics, which oversees the conflict-of-interest rules across the executive branch, is "committed to transparency and citizen oversight of government," said a spokeswoman. Among the findings of the investigation, which is the most comprehensive analysis of stock trading by officials in the executive branch of the government:Numerous federal officials owned shares of companies lobbying their agencies: More than 200 senior officials at the Environmental Protection Agency, or nearly one in three, reported that they or their family members held investments in companies that were lobbying the agency.Issues emerged at a wide array of agencies: At the Defense Department, officials in the office of the secretary or their family members collectively owned between $1.2 million and $3.4 million of stock in aerospace and defense companies, on average, during years the Journal examined. Some owned stock in Chinese companies while the U.S. considered blacklisting the companies.Some officials traded ahead of regulatory actions: More than five dozen officials at five agencies reported trading stocks of companies shortly before their departments announced enforcement actions against those companies, such as charges or settlements.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft is making a major investment in DALL-E 2, OpenAI's AI-powered system that generates images from text, by bringing it to first-party apps and services. During its Ignite conference this week, Microsoft announced that it's integrating DALL-E 2 with the newly announced Microsoft Designer app and Image Creator tool in Bing and Microsoft Edge. From a report: With the advent of DALL-E 2 and open source alternatives like Stable Diffusion in recent years, AI image generators have exploded in popularity. In September, OpenAI said that more than 1.5 million users were actively creating over 2 million images a day with DALL-E 2, including artists, creative directors and authors. Brands such as Stitch Fix, Nestle and Heinz have piloted DALL-E 2 for ad campaigns and other commercial use cases, while certain architectural firms have used DALL-E 2 and tools akin to it to conceptualize new buildings.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's been a long time since Microsoft updated its Surface Studio line of all-in-one PCs. While rumors had suggested a Surface Studio 3 was on the way, Microsoft is debuting its Surface Studio 2 Plus today instead -- an upgrade on the Surface Studio 2 that launched four years ago. It includes some important upgrades on the inside, but the exterior is practically the same, and it all starts at an eye-watering $4,299. From a report: The Surface Studio 2 Plus will ship with Intel's 11th Gen Core i7-11370H processor, a chip that's rapidly approaching two years on the market. We're about to enter Intel's 13th Gen era, so it's hugely disappointing to see Microsoft not move to 12th Gen H series chips or wait for Intel's latest and greatest. "Our goal was ship to market sooner, especially for a lot of our commercial customers... so we focused on stability and supply with known good parts because the difference from 11th to 12th Gen on the H series wasn't something we needed to push for," explains Pete Kyriacou, vice president of program management at Microsoft, in an interview with The Verge. Despite the disappointing CPU choice, Microsoft has opted for a graphics card upgrade here. The Surface Studio 2 Plus comes with Nvidia's RTX 3060 laptop GPU with 6GB of VRAM. Microsoft has redesigned its Surface Studio 2 Plus motherboard, and the RTX 3060 itself will be running at around 60-70 watts in a laptop configuration. Microsoft hides all of the components in the Studio 2 Plus inside a little laptop-like enclosure underneath the 28-inch display.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: The attorney general of New York has changed the rules of a state gun buyback program, after a participant exploited the system by using a 3D printer to make firearm parts in bulk that he then exchanged for $21,000 in gift cards. The seller, who identified himself by a pseudonym, said he traveled from West Virginia to a gun buyback on August 27 in Utica, New York, to take advantage of a loophole in the program -- and to demonstrate that buybacks are futile in an era of printable weapons. At the buyback, the seller turned in 60 printed auto sears, small devices that can convert firearms into fully automatic weapons. Under the rules of the buyback, hosted by the office of the attorney general, Letitia James, and city police, that entitled him to $350 for each of the printed parts, including a $100 premium, since they were deemed "ghost guns" lacking serial numbers. The seller, who declined to provide his real name, said in an email on Monday the prospect of making money was enticing, but that the big reason he took part in the buyback was to send a message. James' office said it responded to the loophole by giving buyback personnel more discretion to determine the value of weapons being handed in, and setting a standard that all 3D-printed guns accepted by the program must be capable of being fired more than once. The new rules were in place by September 17, when the attorney general's office hosted a gun buyback in a Syracuse suburb, Camillus. "It's shameful that this individual exploited a program that has successfully taken thousands of guns off the streets to protect our communities from gun violence," the attorney general's office said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google has announced what it's calling "the world's first laptops built for cloud gaming," less than two weeks after announcing plans to shut down Stadia. Forbes reports: Google says the Acer Chromebook 516 GE, ASUS Chromebook Vibe CX55 Flip and Lenovo Ideapad Gaming Chromebook all have refresh rates of at least 120Hz, displays with up to 1600p resolution, immersive audio and, critically for cloud gaming, WiFi 6 or 6E connectivity. Some models have RGB keyboards too. Subject to availability, you may get a SteelSeries Rival 3 gaming mouse at no extra cost if you pick up one of these Chromebooks. All three laptops were benchmarked by GameBench to ensure that they're capable of running games at 120 frames per second at 1080p resolution. You should get input latency of under 85 ms as well. Google notes that's "console-class" input latency. [...] Google is bringing some neat cloud gaming features to these Chromebooks. For one thing, the devices will support Xbox Cloud Gaming, Amazon Luna and NVIDIA GeForce Now. In the latter case, Google worked with NVIDIA to ensure these Chromebooks support GeForce Now's highest RTX 3080 tier. That enables cloud gaming at 120 fps at a resolution of 1600p on these systems, which come with the GeForce Now app preinstalled. You'll also be able to install Xbox Cloud Gaming as a web app on your Chromebook. Additionally, these Chromebooks will come with three-month trials for both the GeForce Now RTX 3080 tier and Amazon Luna. Meanwhile, it could be pretty easy for you to find and start playing games on these services through ChromeOS. If you search for a game in the launcher (i.e. through the Everything Button), you'll see where it is available. You'll then be able to load up the game with a single click. To begin with, this feature will be compatible with GeForce Now and the Play Store. "It's good to see that Google hasn't entirely given up on cloud gaming," adds Forbes. "Still, the timing of this announcement comes at a very odd time."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Diana Kwon writes via Scientific American: A Scottish woman named Joy Milne made headlines in 2015 for an unusual talent: her ability to sniff out people afflicted with Parkinson's disease, a progressive neurodegenerative illness that is estimated to affect nearly a million people in the U.S. alone. Since then a group of scientists in the U.K. has been working with Milne to pinpoint the molecules that give Parkinson's its distinct olfactory signature. The team has now zeroed in on a set of molecules specific to the disease -- and has created a simple skin-swab-based test to detect them. [...] The researchers used mass spectrometry to identify types and quantities of molecules in a sample of sebum, an oily substance found on the skin's surface. They discovered changes to fatty molecules known as lipids in people with Parkinson's. In their latest study, published on September 7 in the American Chemical Society journal JACS Au, the researchers revealed the results of using a simple skin-swab-based test to detect the lipid signature that is indicative of Parkinson's. By comparing sebum samples from 79 people with Parkinson's and 71 people without the illness, the team zeroed in on a set of large lipids that could be detected in a matter of minutes using a special type of mass spectrometry in which substances are rapidly transferred from a swab to an analyzer using just a piece of paper. "I think it's a very promising set of biomarkers," says Blaine Roberts, a biochemist at Emory University, who wasn't involved in the work. He adds that one of the big open questions that remains is how exacting this test can be. While the authors of the September 7 study reported the detailed chemical profile of the unique Parkinson's signature, they did not include an assessment of its accuracy. According to Barran, based on not-yet-published data, their test appears to be able to determine whether an individual has Parkinson's with more than 90 percent accuracy. [...] The team is now working with local hospitals to determine whether this sebum-based test can also be conducted in clinical labs -- a key step toward determining whether it can be used as a diagnostic tool. Ultimately, Barran says, the hope is to use the test to help identify individuals who have been referred to their neurologists by their general practitioner for suspected Parkinson's so they can receive a faster diagnosis. The researchers are also working with a group at Harvard "to determine whether sebum-based biomarkers are detectable in people who have constipation, a reduced sense of smell or other early signs of Parkinson's but have not yet received a diagnosis," reports Kwon. Meanwhile, Milne is working with scientists to sniff out people with Alzheimer's, cancer, and tuberculosis -- all of which she says have a unique smell.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A voice synthesis company based in Dubai has published a fictional podcast interview between Joe Rogan and Steve Jobs using realistic voices digitally cloned from both men. It takes place during the "first episode" of a purported podcast series called "Podcast.ai," created by Play.ht, which sells voice synthesis services. Further reading: ArsTechnica.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Intel is planning a major reduction in headcount, likely numbering in the thousands, to cut costs and cope with a sputtering personal-computer market, according to people with knowledge of the situation. The layoffs will be announced as early as this month, with the company planning to make the move around the same time as its third-quarter earnings report on Oct. 27, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private. The chipmaker had 113,700 employees as of July. Some divisions, including Intel's sales and marketing group, could see cuts affecting about 20% of staff, according to the people. Intel is facing a steep decline in demand for PC processors, its main business, and has struggled to win back market share lost to rivals like Advanced Micro Devices Inc. In July, the company warned that 2022 sales would be about $11 billion lower than it previously expected. Analysts are predicting a third-quarter revenue drop of roughly 15%. And Intel's once-enviable margins have shriveled: They're about 15 percentage points narrower than historical numbers of around 60%. During its second-quarter earnings call, Intel acknowledged that it could make changes to improve profits. "We are also lowering core expenses in calendar year 2022 and will look to take additional actions in the second half of the year," Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger said at the time. Intel's last big wave of layoffs occurred in 2016, when it trimmed about 12,000 jobs, or 11% of its total. The company has made smaller cuts since then and shuttered several divisions, including its cellular modem and drone units. Like many companies in the technology industry, Intel also froze hiring earlier this year, when market conditions soured and fears of a recession grew. Gelsinger took the helm at Intel last year and has been working to restore the company's reputation as a Silicon Valley legend. But even before the PC slump, it was an uphill fight. Intel lost its long-held technological edge, and its own executives acknowledge that the company's culture of innovation withered in recent years. Now a broader slowdown is adding to those challenges. Intel's PC, data center and artificial intelligence groups are contending with a tech spending downturn, weighing on revenue and profit.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Cameco and Brookfield Renewable Partners said on Tuesday they would acquire nuclear power plant equipment maker Westinghouse Electric in a $7.9-billion deal including debt, amid renewed interest in nuclear energy. Reuters reports: The deal for one of the most storied names in the American power industry at an equity value of $4.5 billion comes at a time when nuclear power is seeing an uptick in interest amid an energy crisis in Europe and soaring crude oil and natural gas prices. Nuclear power is also key for countries to meet global net-zero carbon emission goals and could be on the cusp of a boom seen after the 1970s oil crisis. Cameco will own 49% of Westinghouse, while Brookfield Renewable and its institutional partners will own the rest. Westinghouse was acquired from Toshiba by Brookfield Business Partners , an affiliate of Canadian asset manager Brookfield, out of bankruptcy in 2018, for $4.6 billion, including debt. Brookfield Business said in a separate statement it expects to generate about $1.8 billion in proceeds from the sale of its 44% stake in Westinghouse, with the balance distributed among institutional partners. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2023. Brookfield Renewable and its partners will pay about $2.3 billion for the deal, whereas Cameco will incur equity costs of about $2.2 billion. Westinghouse's existing debt structure will remain in place.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

During Meta Connect today, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the company is partnering with Meta to bring its biggest services -- Teams, Office, Windows, and even Xbox Cloud Gaming -- to Meta's Quest VR headsets. The Verge reports: It's a surprise partnership that will see Microsoft and Meta combine their strengths. Microsoft sees an opportunity to bring Teams and its other productivity experiences to a capable VR headset, and Meta gets a key partner in its grand metaverse plan. [...] The Teams experience the new Quest Pro and Quest 2 headsets will even include Microsoft adapting Meta's avatar system for Teams and Teams getting support within Meta's own Horizon Workrooms. "People will be able to join a Teams meeting directly from Workrooms," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the event. "We think that this cross-device, cross-screen experience will be the foundation of the virtual office of the future." This virtual office of the future won't just be about meetings. Microsoft is bringing Windows 365 to Quest, the company's platform for streaming full versions of Windows to devices. "With Windows 365 coming to Quest, you'll have a new way to securely stream the entire Windows experience, including all the personalized apps, content, and settings to your VR device with the full power of Windows and Windows applications," Nadella said. Microsoft is also bringing 2D versions of its Office apps to Quest through its Progressive Web Apps (PWA) technology. These won't be full-blown 3D versions of Office designed for VR, but if there's an appetite for VR in the enterprise, then it's easy to imagine Microsoft adapting them in the future. Xbox Cloud Gaming will even make its way to Meta's Quest VR headsets, allowing Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers to stream games. It's not going to be as immersive as a native VR experience for Xbox games, but you'll be able to pick up an Xbox controller and play them on a giant screen projected inside a Quest headset. Earlier today, Meta announced the Meta Quest Pro: a $1,499 virtual reality headset it's been teasing for the past year. They also announced a big addition to their updated higher-detail avatars: legs.Read more of this story at Slashdot.