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Updated 2025-07-01 06:30
Lenovo Announces Consumer AR Glasses That Can Tether To iPhones
Lenovo is finally selling AR glasses for consumers with the recently-announced Lenovo Glasses T1, which Ars Technica's Scharon Harding got to demo. Here's an excerpt from her report: With their Micro OLED displays and required tether to Windows, macOS, Android, or iOS devices, they bring some notable features to a space that has piqued industry-wide interest but is still likely far from becoming ubiquitous. The early version of the T1 I tried had limited features; I was mostly only able to view a homepage with basic menu options and a desktop with icons for apps, like web browsing. Although the glasses weren't ready for me to watch a movie or hop around apps, I was impressed at how clear text and menu items were. This was in a sunny room with exceedingly tall windows. Even when facing sunlight, the few colors on display seemed vibrant and the text legible. Lenovo specs the displays with 10,000:1 contrast and 1920x1080 pixels per eye. The glasses are also TUV-certified for low blue light and flicker reduction, according to Lenovo. Much more time is needed to explore and challenge the Micro OLED displays before I pass final judgment. But the combination of smaller pixels and, from what I saw thus far, strong colors, should accommodate screens so close to the eyes. More broadly speaking, brightness can be a concern with OLED technologies, but the small demo I saw fared well in a sun-flushed room. I used the Glasses T1 while it was connected to an Android smartphone via its USB-C cable, but it's also supposed to work with PCs, macOS devices, and, via an adapter sold separately, iPhones. [...] With no processor or battery, it's easier for the glasses to stay trim. There are also no sensors or cameras like the Lenovo ThinkReality A3, announced last year, has. Other T1 features include a pair of speakers (one near each temple) and the ability to add prescription lenses. [...] The Glasses T1 are expected to be available in select markets in 2023 after debuting in China (as the Lenovo Yoga Glasses) this year. Lenovo didn't set a price, but I was told it's hoping to keep the glasses under $500.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
'The E-Bike Is a Monstrosity'
In an article published by the Atlantic, writer and Director of Film and Media Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, Ian Bogost, claims e-bikes have an identity crisis and "represent not the fusion of two modes of transit, but a conflict between them." Here's an excerpt from his report: I'd like to drive less, exercise more, commune with nature, and hate myself with a lesser intensity because I am driving less, exercising more, and communing with nature. One way to accomplish all of these goals, I decided earlier this year, was to procure an e-bike. (That's a bicycle with a motor, if you didn't know.) I could use it for commuting, for errands, for putting my human body to work, and for reducing my environmental impact. A cyclist I have never been, but perhaps an e-biker I could become. [...] But I've been trying to live with one, and brother, I've got some bad news. These things are freaks. Portraying e-bikes as a simple, obvious, and inevitable evolution of transportation (or even of bicycling) doesn't fully explain these strange contraptions. The same was said of Segways, and then of Bird scooters, and both flamed out spectacularly. Bikes have always worn many helmets: cycling as exercise, cycling as leisure, cycling as sport, cycling as transit. These roles often conflict with one another. The commuter sneers at the spinner, who pedals pointlessly to nowhere. The leisure-rider spurs the Lycra-racer, who endangers pedestrians and inspires drivers to hate cyclists. E-bikes continue, and worsen, that disorder by jumbling up aspects of bicycles and motorcycles. Strapping a motor to a bike turns out to alter more than just speed and exertion. It produces a chameleon that takes on, under various conditions, both the best and worst features of a variety of transportation technologies. The result is less an evolution of a two-wheeled machine than a pastiche of the many things such a device represents. It's a monster made from bicycles and motorbikes. Here's what I mean: A bike can be exerting to ride, which is both a feature and a defect. Biking to the store or office offers an opportunity to move one's body instead of spreading it into the seat of a car (or even a train). Depending on distance and terrain, biking can raise your heart rate, making it an effective workout. But working out can make you sweaty and smelly, a feature incompatible with using a bike for commuting (or even errands). E-bikes, by contrast, allow a motor to assist the rider, reducing exertion and thereby delivering you to the office or cheesemonger with a dry brow and dry armpits. But in exchange for that polish, an e-bike rider gets less exercise than the equivalent trip under full pedal. [...] The truth will differ based on circumstance, but the result is the same: a weird ambiguity. An e-bike sure seems like a way to cheat at exercise, even if it really facilitates it. [...] Further reading: America Has An E-Bike Problem That Can't Be Solved With More E-Bikes (Motherboard)Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Intel Details 12th Gen Core SoCs Optimized For Edge Applications
Intel has made available versions of its 12th-generation Core processors optimized for edge and IoT applications, claiming the purpose-built chips enable smaller form factor designs, but with the AI inferencing performance to analyze data right at the edge. The Register reports: The latest members of the Alder Lake family, the 12th Gen Intel Core SoC processors for IoT edge (formerly Alder Lake PS) combine the performance profile and power envelope of the mobile chips but the LGA socket flexibility of the desktop chips, according to Intel, meaning they can be mounted directly on a system board or in a socket for easy replacement. Delivered as a multi-chip package, the new processors combine the Alder Lake cores with an integrated Platform Controller Hub (PCH) providing I/O functions and integrated Iris Xe graphics with up to 96 graphics execution units. [...] Intel VP and general manager of the Network and Edge Compute Division Jeni Panhorst said in a statement that the new processors were designed for a wide range of vertical industries. "As the digitization of business processes continues to accelerate, the amount of data created at the edge and the need for it to be processed and analyzed locally continues to explode," she said. Another key capability for managing systems deployed in edge scenarios is that these processors include Intel vPro features, which include remote management capabilities built into the hardware at the silicon level, so an IT admin can reach into a system and perform actions such as changing settings, applying patches or rebooting the platform. The chips support up to eight PCIe 4.0 lanes, and four Thunderbolt 4/USB4 lanes, with up to 64GB of DDR5 or DDR4 memory, and the graphics are slated to deliver four 4K displays or one 8K display. Operating system support includes Windows 10 IoT Enterprise 2021 Long Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) and Linux options. Intel said the new SoCs are aimed at a broad range of industries, including point-of-sale kit in the retail, banking, and hospitality sectors, industrial PCs and controllers for the manufacturing industry, plus healthcare.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Judge Declines To Overturn Elizabeth Holmes Guilty Verdict
A federal judge on Thursday tentatively declined to overturn the jury conviction of disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes on four felony counts of fraud and conspiracy. That leaves the former Silicon Valley star a step closer to serving prison time. Politico reports: U.S. District Judge Edward Davila won't make that decision final until Oct. 17, when he is scheduled to sentence Holmes in the same San Jose, California, courtroom where a jury found her guilty of duping investors in her much-hyped blood-testing startup. Holmes, 38, faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, plus restitution, for lying to investors about a Theranos technology she hailed as a revolution in healthcare but which in practice produced dangerously inaccurate results.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
IRS Says It Exposed Some Confidential Taxpayer Data On Website
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MarketWatch: The Internal Revenue Service inadvertently posted what is normally confidential information involving about 120,000 individuals before discovering the error and removing the data from its website, officials said Friday. The data are from Form 990-T (PDF), which is often required for people with individual retirement accounts who earn certain types of business income within those retirement plans. That typically includes people whose IRAs are invested in master limited partnerships, real estate or other assets that generate income, not those whose IRAs are solely invested in securities. The disclosures included names, contact information and financial information about income within those IRAs. It didn't include Social Security numbers, full individual income information or other data that could affect a taxpayer's credit, the Treasury Department determined, according to a letter that the administration is sending to key members of Congress on Friday. The IRS and Treasury Department blamed a human coding error that happened last year when Form 990-T began to be electronically filed. The nonpublic data was mistakenly included with the public data and all of it was available for searching and downloading on the agency's website. The Wall Street Journal, which routinely analyzes nonprofit tax filings, downloaded at least some of the data before its removal.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Microsoft Combat Goggles Win First US Army Approval for Delivery
The US Army is taking delivery of a first batch of high-tech combat goggles made by Microsoft, citing encouraging results from testing in the field. From a report: Assistant Secretary for Acquisition Douglas Bush has "cleared the Army to begin accepting" some of the 5,000 sets of goggles, spokesman Jamal Beck said in a statement. Their delivery had been placed on hold over concern about the device's performance until more rigorous testing took place. Based on the test results so far the service "is adjusting its fielding plan to allow for time to correct deficiencies and also field to units that are focused on training activities," Beck said. Microsoft's Integrated Visual Augmentation System, or IVAS, is expected to provide a "heads-up display" for U.S. ground forces, similar to those for fighter pilots. The system -- a customized version of Microsoft's HoloLens goggles -- would let commanders project information onto a visor in front of a soldier's face and would include features such as night vision. The Army projects spending as much as $21.9 billion over a decade on Microsoft's combat goggles, spare parts and support services if all options are exercised.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Amazon Closes, Abandons Plans for Dozens of US Warehouses
Amazon.com, determined to reduce the size of its sprawling delivery operation amid slowing sales growth, has abandoned dozens of existing and planned facilities around the US, according to a closely watched consulting firm. From a report: MWPVL, which tracks Amazon's real-estate footprint, estimates the company has either shuttered or killed plans to open 42 facilities totaling almost 25 million square feet of usable space. The company has delayed opening an additional 21 locations, totaling nearly 28 million square feet, according to MWPVL. The e-commerce giant also has canceled a handful of European projects, mostly in Spain, the firm said. Just this week Amazon warned officials in Maryland that it plans to close two delivery stations next month in Hanover and Essex, near Baltimore, that employ more than 300 people. The moves are a striking contrast with previous years, when the world's largest e-commerce company typically entered the fall rushing to open new facilities and hire thousands of workers to prepare for the holiday shopping season. Amazon continues to open facilities where it requires more space to meet customer demand.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
T-Mobile Spectrum Auction Win Helps It Solve 'Swiss Cheese' Network Problem
T-Mobile won the lion's share of spectrum licenses in the latest Federal Communications Commission auction, helping it fill rural network gaps that evoked comparisons to Swiss cheese. T-Mobile's winning bids totaled $304.3 million, letting it obtain 7,156 licenses out of 7,872 that were sold, the FCC announced yesterday. From a report: T-Mobile's licenses are spread across 2,724 counties (out of 3,143 total in the US). The second-highest bidder in dollar terms was PTI Pacifica, which spent $17.7 million on nine licenses in five counties. "With most of the available spectrum in the 2.5 GHz band located in rural areas, this auction provides vital spectrum resources to support wireless services in rural communities," the FCC said. The auction provided up to three blocks of spectrum, totaling 117.5MHz in each county. In terms of the number of licenses won, the second-place finisher was the North American Catholic Educational Programming Fund. Its winning bids totaled $7.8 million and cover 107 licenses in 84 counties. There were 63 winning bidders overall, and the auction raised $427.8 million. Small entities and rural service providers were given discounts on the license costs. The 2.5 GHz spectrum was originally set aside for educational institutions but has been repurposed for commercial service.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Mississippi Crisis Highlights Climate Threat To Drinking Water Nationwide
Flash floods, wildfires and hurricanes are easy to recognize as ravages of a fast-changing climate. But now, climate change has also emerged as a growing threat to clean, safe drinking water across the country. The New York Times: The deluge that knocked out a fraying water plant in Jackson, Miss., this week, depriving more than 150,000 people of drinking water, offered the latest example of how quickly America's aging treatment plants and decades-old pipes can crumple under the shocks of a warming world. "There's a crisis at hand," said Mikhail V. Chester, a professor of civil, environmental and sustainable engineering at Arizona State University. "The climate is simply changing too fast, relative to how quickly we could change our infrastructure." Earlier this summer, more than 25,000 people lost their water, some for weeks, after deadly floods ripped through eastern Kentucky, breaking water lines as they obliterated entire neighborhoods. Utility companies across Texas spent the summer coping with hundreds of water-main breaks as record heat baked and shifted the drought-stricken soil surrounding pipes. This came after a bitter winter storm that plunged Texas into freezing darkness in February 2021 and caused thousands of pipes to burst. And from the Gulf Coast to the East Coast, supercharged hurricanes like Harvey and Ida now regularly debilitate water suppliers, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to boil their water or scramble for bottles days or weeks after the storms pass. This is on top of the slower-moving threats such as rising sea levels that can contaminate water supplies with saltwater, or a Western "mega-drought" that is withering reservoirs and parching the Colorado River that supplies water to some 40 million people.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Spain Launches Free Train Tickets Throughout Autumn, Thanks To a Windfall Tax
Some train journeys in Spain will be free of charge from 1 September to 31 December. From a report: The scheme, announced by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on 12 July, applies to short and medium distance trains run by the national rail operator Renfe. It is open to all nationalities, including international tourists. Free tickets are available on all Renfe commuter trains (Cercanias and Rodalies) and mid-distance regional lines covering journeys of less than 300km (Media Distancia routes). The 100 per cent discount is only available on multi-trip tickets, not singles. Travel on other services, including long distance trains and those operated by other companies, will not come under the measures. This could mean free train travel between cities like Barcelona and Seville or Madrid and Bilbao -- if you are willing to commit to buying a season ticket. Although the tickets are free, a deposit of $10 or $20 is required to take advantage of the offer. You must have made at least 16 journeys by the end of December for this to be refunded.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
How 1-Time Passcodes Became a Corporate Liability
Brian Krebs, reporting at Krebs on Security: In mid-June 2022, a flood of SMS phishing messages began targeting employees at commercial staffing firms that provide customer support and outsourcing to thousands of companies. The missives asked users to click a link and log in at a phishing page that mimicked their employer's Okta authentication page. Those who submitted credentials were then prompted to provide the one-time password needed for multi-factor authentication. The phishers behind this scheme used newly-registered domains that often included the name of the target company, and sent text messages urging employees to click on links to these domains to view information about a pending change in their work schedule. The phishing sites leveraged a Telegram instant message bot to forward any submitted credentials in real-time, allowing the attackers to use the phished username, password and one-time code to log in as that employee at the real employer website. But because of the way the bot was configured, it was possible for security researchers to capture the information being sent by victims to the public Telegram server. This data trove was first reported by security researchers at Singapore-based Group-IB, which dubbed the campaign "0ktapus" for the attackers targeting organizations using identity management tools from Okta.com. "This case is of interest because despite using low-skill methods it was able to compromise a large number of well-known organizations," Group-IB wrote. "Furthermore, once the attackers compromised an organization they were quickly able to pivot and launch subsequent supply chain attacks, indicating that the attack was planned carefully in advance." It's not clear how many of these phishing text messages were sent out, but the Telegram bot data reviewed by KrebsOnSecurity shows they generated nearly 10,000 replies over approximately two months of sporadic SMS phishing attacks targeting more than a hundred companies.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Samsung Says Customer Data Stolen in July Data Breach
U.S. electronics giant Samsung has confirmed a data breach affecting customers' personal information. From a report: In a brief notice, Samsung said it discovered the security incident in late-July and that an "unauthorized third party acquired information from some of Samsung's U.S. systems." The company said it determined customer data was compromised on August 4. Samsung said Social Security numbers and credit card numbers were not affected, but some customer information -- name, contact and demographic information, date of birth, and product registration information -- was taken.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Taiwan President Says She Looks Forward To Producing 'Democracy Chips' With US
Taiwan looks forward to producing "democracy chips" with the United States, President Tsai Ing-wen told the visiting governor of the U.S. state of Arizona, Doug Ducey, on Thursday, the latest in a string of senior officials from the county to visit. From a report: Taiwan has been keen to show the United States, its most important international backer and arms supplier despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties, that it is a reliable friend as a global chip crunch impacts auto production and consumer electronics. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, a major Apple supplier and the world's largest contract chipmaker, is constructing a $12 billion plant in Arizona. "In the face of authoritarian expansionism and the challenges of the post-pandemic era, Taiwan seeks to bolster cooperation with the United States in the semiconductor and other high-tech industries," Tsai said at the meeting in the presidential office in Taipei. "This will help build more secure and more resilient supply chains. We look forward to jointly producing democracy chips to safeguard the interests of our democratic partners and create greater prosperity."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
China Woos US Tech Giants Apple, Qualcomm, Meta at Shanghai AI Expo
Big U.S. tech companies have flocked to the World Artificial Intelligence Conference that opened Thursday in Shanghai, drawing a stark contrast with Washington's ongoing efforts to distance itself economically from China. From a report: The opening ceremony included a virtual address by Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon, who said the company will supply the most complete and comprehensive technology and solutions in China and the world. Apple, Advanced Micro Devices, Facebook parent Meta and GE HealthCare also have executives or booths at the event, according to Chinese media. Europe's semiconductor industry is represented as well, with executives from Netherlands-based NXP Semiconductors, a major supplier of automotive chips, and Germany's Infineon Technologies discussing development plans. The strong American showing is good news for China, which needs advanced chip technology to power its AI development and is keen to win over companies that can provide it. The business opportunities afforded by the massive Chinese market remain essential to many American companies. China is a leading information technology production hub, as well as the world's top auto production center -- an increasingly important field for chipmakers as the number of semiconductors used in vehicles continues to rise. Qualcomm generated roughly two-thirds of its sales last year in China, a major production base for many of the smartphone manufacturers that are among its main customers. The country accounts for just under 30% of sales at AMD and Intel, 20% at Micron Technology and over 30% at NXP.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Cannabis Researchers Say It's High Time To Drop 'Lazy Stoner' Stereotype
Cannabis users are often depicted as lazy "stoners" whose life ambitions span little further than lying on the sofa eating crisps. But research from the University of Cambridge challenges this stereotype, showing that regular users appear no more likely to lack motivation compared with non-users. From a report: The research also found no difference in motivation for rewards, pleasure taken from rewards, or the brain's response when seeking rewards, compared with non-users. "We're so used to seeing 'lazy stoners' on our screens that we don't stop to ask whether they're an accurate representation," said Martine Skumlien, a PhD student at the University of Cambridge and the research's first author. "Our work implies that ... people who use cannabis are no more likely to lack motivation or be lazier than people who don't." Skumlien said smoking cannabis could be associated with other downsides, but that the stoner stereotype is "stigmatising" and could make messages around harm reduction less effective. "We need to be honest and frank about what are and are not the harmful consequences of drug use," she added. Cannabis is the third most commonly used controlled substance worldwide, after alcohol and nicotine, with a 2018 NHS report finding that almost one in five (19%) of 15-year-olds in England had used cannabis in the previous 12 months.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Netflix Ad Tier Launch Moved Up to November To Get Ahead of Disney+
Netflix is moving up the timeline for the debut of its cheaper, ad-supported plan to November -- in order to get out before the Dec. 8 launch of the Disney+ tier with advertising. From a report: In July, Netflix told investors that it was targeting the launch of the ad-supported plan "around the early part of 2023." But now, Netflix's ad-supported is set to go live Nov. 1 in multiple countries, including the U.S., Canada, U.K., France and Germany, according to industry sources who have been briefed on the streamer's plans. That would be a little over a month before Disney+ Basic, priced at $7.99/month, hits the market in the U.S. Netflix declined to comment. "We are still in the early days of deciding how to launch a lower-priced, ad-supported tier and no decisions have been made," a company rep said. Sources confirmed the new Nov. 1 launch date, which was previously reported by the Wall Street Journal. Netflix and its exclusive ad partner, Microsoft, have requested ad buyers submit initial bids next week, with a "soft $65 CPM" -- the cost per thousand views -- meaning that the company is open to negotiating the ad rates. That's well above industry CPMs of sub-$20. Sources speculate Netflix's request for proposals from ad buyers will function as a Dutch auction, with the company looking to see what the market will bear.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The Ticking Time Bomb of Modern Free-To-Play Games
When games like Dragalia Lost shut down for good, what happens next? From a report: Dragalia Lost launched in 2018 as a statement of intent from Nintendo in partnership with Japanese developer Cygames. Nintendo may have first jumped into the field of mobile games in 2016 with the launch of games like Super Mario Run and Miitomo, but this was the first original property the company had produced exclusively for mobile devices. This free-to-play gacha game (a game whose content is generally free to access while charging microtransactions for loot boxes and randomized lotteries for rare and limited-time characters) had a flashy multi-region launch campaign collaborating with major Japanese musician DAOKO, banking on the game's success at home and abroad. And it was a hit. Less than a year after launch, the game had already earned over $100 million, with a steady stream of merchandise following soon after. Yet, as of last month, Nintendo and Cygames published the game's final update, and this week, it was revealed that the game would shut down on November 29th after just three years of operation. Without any announcement from Nintendo of an official offline version or archive to memorialize the game after servers shut down and the game is no longer accessible to the public, fans are working across the community to preserve everything they can of a game they dedicated themselves to over the last few years. "Especially with games like Dragalia Lost and games that are on a live server and stuff, once the server closes down, you can't play that anymore," explains Sei, an active member of the game's community. "It's not like you can download a ROM of a Game Boy game and play it: once it's gone, it's gone." Free-to-play games have risen from an anomaly to the most profitable sector of the games industry. In 2012, the mobile games market hit $9 billion in revenue at a time when free-to-play revenue systems were only starting to grow more popular, challenging the norm of games charging a one-time price of entry. At the same time, free-to-play revenue on PC was at an impressive $11 billion, thanks to titles like League of Legends, already eclipsing the revenue earned by premium titles. By 2020, free-to-play revenue across mobile, PC, and console accounted for over $96 billion. Unsurprisingly, the industry has adapted to increasingly cater to players in this bustling sector. Yet, for every headline boasting of the phenomenal revenue-generating success of titles like Fortnite or Pokemon Go comes a host of titles that burn out within a year or sometimes even less. Japan is one of the biggest regions for free-to-play games, particularly on mobile, where titles like Uma Musume: Pretty Derby have broken into the top 10 highest-grossing mobile games worldwide despite only being available in a single country. Yet, even games based on major properties like Bandai Namco's Tales of Luminaria have struggled, shutting down in under six months.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The T-Mobile/Sprint Merger Hasn't Created Jobs -- It's Cut Thousands
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The Wall Street Journal reports T-Mobile's engineering and network operations teams are experiencing waves of layoffs, which have included managers and executives, on top of thousands of jobs eliminated by restructuring after the company merged with Sprint in 2020. T-Mobile execs promised then that the merger was "all about creating new, high-quality, high-paying jobs, and the new T-Mobile will be jobs-positive from Day One and every day thereafter." In April 2020, the companies had about 80,000 workers combined; however, as the Journal points out, T-Mobile's most recent annual report (PDF) said it ended 2021 with 75,000 full- and part-time employees. A company spokesperson told the Journal that the layoffs "were part of continuing organizational shifts during the past few months" without exactly saying how many jobs were eliminated or if there would be more layoffs in the future. T-Mobile said the post-merger company would employ at least 11,000 additional workers by 2024, but so far, it looks like the exact opposite is occurring.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Underwater Datacenter Will Open For Business This Year
A company called Subsea Cloud is planning to have a commercially available undersea datacenter operating off the coast of the US before the end of 2022, with other deployments planned for the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea. The Register reports: Subsea, which says it has already deployed its technology with "a friendly government faction," plans to put its first commercial pod into the water before the end of this year near Port Angeles, Washington. The company claims that placing its datacenter modules underwater can reduce power consumption and carbon dioxide emissions by 40 percent, as well as lowering latency by allowing the datacenter to be located closer to metropolitan areas, many of which are located near the coast. However, according to Subsea founder Maxie Reynolds, it can also deploy 1MW of capacity for as much as 90 percent less cost than it takes to get 1MW up and running at a land-based facility. The Port Angeles deployment, known as Jules Verne, will comprise one 20ft pod, which is similar in size and dimensions to a standard 20-foot shipping container (a TEU or Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit). Inside, there is space for about 16 datacenter racks accommodating about 800 servers, according to Subsea. Additional capacity, if and when required, is delivered by adding another pod. The pod-to-shore link in this deployment provides a 100Gbps connection. As it is a commercial deployment, Jules Verne will be open for any prospective clients or partners to come and check it out, virtually or otherwise, according to Reynolds. It will be sited in shallow water, visible from the port, whereas the Njord01 pod in the Gulf of Mexico and the Manannan pod in the North Sea are expected to be deeper, at 700-900ft and 600-700ft respectively. The Subsea pods are kept cool by being immersed in water, which is one reason for the reduced power and CO2 emissions. Inside, the servers are also immersed in a dielectric coolant, which conducts heat but not electricity. However, the Subsea pods are designed to passively disperse the heat, rather than using pumps as is typical in submersion cooling in land-based datacenters. But what happens if something goes wrong, or a customer wants to replace their servers? According to Subsea, customers can schedule periodic maintenance, including server replacement, and the company says that would take 4-16 hours for a team to get to the site, bring up the required pod(s), and replace any equipment.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Royal Caribbean Will Equip All Its Cruise Ships With Starlink Internet
Earlier this week, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines announced it will be adding Starlink to its whole fleet, "after a pilot service on one of its ships got rave reviews," reports TechCrunch. From the report: The test deployment aboard the Freedom of the Seas "received tremendous positive feedback," and if you've ever been on one of these boats, you can probably guess why. Current satellite at sea options aren't great: expensive and slow, having enjoyed a market with little competition or innovation for the last couple decades. Starlink Maritime will be a real kick in the pants for existing providers, considering how quickly a huge customer like Royal Caribbean decided to buy in to the new satellite on the block. Even though its coverage is limited to coastal waters for now, the speed is way better and will probably pay for itself with onboard "premium Wi-Fi" charges in the first month. The service costs the company roughly $5,000 monthly and has at least a $10,000 upfront hardware fee for the special terminals you'll need to use it. That's a rounding error in the rolling costs of running vessels as large as modern cruise ships. (An image provided by Celebrity Cruises suggests additional dishes will be used -- I've asked for more information.) Although the Starlink constellation doesn't yet work mid-ocean (such as on container ships), the plan is to provide that capability in the northern hemisphere by the end of the year and the southern hemisphere in early 2023. The dishes will be added to all vessels in the Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Silversea Cruises fleets, in case you're planning a trip. No specific dates yet, but the company says they should have the service on all ships by the end of Q1 2023.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tree-Planting Schemes Are Just Creating Tree Cemeteries
An anonymous reader quotes a report from VICE World News: Thousands of cylindrical plastic tree guards line the grassland here, so uniform that, from a distance, it looks like a war memorial. This open space at the edge of King's Lynn, a quiet market town in the east of England, was supposed to be a new carbon sink for Norfolk, offering 6,000 trees to tackle the climate crisis. The problem is that almost all of the trees that the guards were supposed to protect have died. Experts have told VICE World News that not only were they planted at the wrong time of year, but that they were planted on species-rich grassland that was already carbon negative, which has now been mostly destroyed by tree planting. Environmentalists also point out that the trees were planted so shallowly into the ground that most were unlikely to ever take root. By planting the seedlings in April, instead of in winter or early spring, they never had a good chance of survival anyway. A pledge to tackle the climate crisis has turned into the opposite of carbon offsetting -- all using council funding (they declined to tell VICE World News how much). "Councils don't have a lot of money," Dr Charlie Gardner, a conservation scientist and local climate activist, told me as he showed me through the site. "There was a lot of good that could have been done with that money. But it's clear to me that doing good wasn't ever an objective, it was just seen to be doing something. That's what makes me sad about the whole thing." A number of regional and national governments have announced enormous tree planting schemes in the past few years as momentum has built to tackle the climate crisis -- and many of them haven't gone to plan. Hackney Council's partnership with charity Trees for Cities, which was funded by Coca Cola's company Honest Organic, was criticized in 2020 when it appeared that most, if not all, of the 4,000 trees planted had died. Environmentalists have criticized Pakistan's "10 billion trees" project for being an expensive waste of resources and Egypt, which will host the next UN climate conference, claims it will plant 100 million trees across the country. "There are no quick fixes with this crisis," Dr Charlie Gardner, a conservation scientist and local climate activist, said. "Simply planting trees isn't the answer. If we want these trees to have a real impact, they've got to still be alive in 100 years and that means it's a 100-year commitment, not a 1-day commitment." "The most important thing is to stop burning fossil fuels. The second most important thing is conserve the nature we already have. Trying to create new nature to absorb our fossil fuel emissions is way down the list of priorities."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Royal Australian Mint Releases Coin With Code-Breaking Challenge In the Design
New submitter IsThisNickNameUsed writes: The Australian Mint has released a coin in partnership with the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) that has incorporated a code-breaking challenge in the design. The coin is to mark the 75th anniversary of the spy agency and incorporates a code with four layers of encryption -- each layer progressively harder to solve. "We thought this was a really fun way to engage people in code-breaking with the hope that, if they make it through all four levels of coding on the coin, maybe they'll apply for a job at the Australian Signals Directorate," said ASD director-general Rachel Noble. Fitting the codes on the faces of the coin was a complex process, she said. "Ensuring people could see the code to decrypt it was one of the challenges our people were able to solve with ASD, to create a unique and special product." Ms Noble said that while there were no classified messages on the coin, those who crack the codes could discover "some wonderful, uplifting messages." "Like the early code breakers in ASD, you can get through some of the layers with but a pencil and paper but, right towards the end, you may need a computer to solve the last level," she said. A total of 50,000 of these specialty coins will be available for purchase from the Royal Australian Mint.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Crypto CEO Behind $2.5 Billion 'Rug Pull' Arrested, Faces 40,564 Years In Prison
Faruk Fatih Ozer, the founder and CEO of the now-defunct crypto exchange Thodex, has been arrested in the Albanian city of Vlore. PC Gamer reports: Ozer fled following the collapse of Thodex in April 2021: he initially claimed a halt in trading was due to cyberattacks, and that investors' money was safe, before disappearing. Almost immediately afterwards, Turkish police arrested dozens of Thodex employees and seized the firm's computers. It subsequently emerged that, in April 2021, Thodex had moved approximately $125 million worth of bitcoin to the established US crypto exchange Kraken. Given the number of investors in Thodex left with nothing, this looks like straightforward theft from a failing business. It's not the whole story, either. Cryptocrime analysis firm Chainanalysis addressed Thorex specifically in its overview of 2021, in the wider context of a total $2.8 billion worth of crypto scams over this year being 'rug pulls': wherein a seemingly legitimate business is set up, operates as normal for a while, then suddenly all the money is gone. It's large-scale fraud. "We should note that roughly 90% of the total value lost to rug pulls in 2021 can be attributed to one fraudulent centralized exchange, Thodex, whose CEO disappeared soon after the exchange halted users' ability to withdraw funds," says the Chainanalysis report. That works out at an estimate of around $2.5 billion of crypto. Six people have already been jailed for their role in Thodex, including family members of Ozer, while 20 other prosecutions are ongoing. The Turkish daily Harriyet reports that state prosecutors are out to set an example: "A prison sentence of 40,564 years is sought for each of these 21 people, including Ozer, as over 2,000 people are included in the indictment as complainants."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Cruise Recalls Robotaxies After Passenger Injured In Crash
sdinfoserv writes: Yet another setback for automated driverless vehicle grail, Cruise recalls its robotaxis after a passenger was injured in a crash. The robotaxi was turning left at an intersection, assumed an oncoming vehicle would turn in front of it and stopped, resulting in the oncoming vehicle striking the robotaxi. A Cruise spokeswoman declined to say what the robotaxi could have done differently, and declined to release video of the crash. Nevertheless, Cruise said in a statement that it made the recall "in the interest of transparency to the public." The company also said it's issued a software update to improve the ability to predict what other vehicles will do, including in conditions similar to the crash.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Amazon Took All US Solar Rooftops Offline Last Year After Flurry of Fires, Electrical Explosions
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: On the afternoon of April 14, 2020, dozens of firefighters arrived at an Amazon warehouse in Fresno, California, as thick plumes of smoke poured from the roof of the 880,000-square-foot warehouse. Some 220 solar panels and other equipment at the facility, known as FAT1, were damaged by the three-alarm fire, which was caused by "an undetermined electrical event within the solar system mounted on top of the roof," Leland Wilding, Fresno's fire investigator, wrote in an incident report. A little over a year later, about 60 firefighters were called to an even larger Amazon facility in Perryville, Maryland, to put out a two-alarm blaze, local news outlets reported. In the intervening months, at least four other Amazon fulfillment centers caught fire or experienced electrical explosions due to failures with their solar energy-generating systems, according to internal company documents viewed by CNBC. The documents, which have never been made public, indicate that between April 2020 and June 2021, Amazon experienced "critical fire or arc flash events" in at least six of its 47 North American sites with solar installations, effecting 12.7% of such facilities. Arc flashes are a kind of electrical explosion. "The rate of dangerous incidents is unacceptable, and above industry averages," an Amazon employee wrote in one of the internal reports. [...] By June of last year, all of Amazon's U.S. operations with solar had to be taken offline temporarily, internal documents show. The company had to ensure its systems were designed, installed and maintained properly before "re-energizing" any of them. Amazon spokesperson Erika Howard told CNBC in a statement that the incidents involved systems run by partners, and that the company responded by voluntarily turning off its solar-powered roofs. "Out of an abundance of caution, following a small number of isolated incidents with onsite solar systems owned and operated by third parties, Amazon proactively powered off our onsite solar installations in North America, and took immediate steps to re-inspect each installation by a leading solar technical expert firm," the statement said. [...] "As inspections are completed, our onsite solar systems are being powered back on," Howard said. "Amazon also built a team of dedicated solar experts overseeing the construction, operations, and maintenance of our systems in-house to ensure the safety of our systems." "An Amazon employee estimated, in the documents circulated internally, that each incident cost the company an average of $2.7 million," adds the report. "The Amazon employee also said the company would lose $940,000 per month, or $20,000 for each of the 47 decommissioned North American sites, as long as the solar remained offline. There could be additional costs for Amazon depending on contracts with clean energy partners for renewable energy credits, the documents show."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Major VPN Services Shut Down In India Over Anti-Privacy Law
"Major VPN services have shut down service in India, as there is no way to comply with a new law without breaching their own privacy protection standards," reports 9to5Mac. "The law also applies to iCloud Private Relay, but Apple has not yet commented on its own plans." The Wall Street Journal reports: Major global providers of virtual private networks, which let internet users shield their identities online, are shutting down their servers in India to protest new government rules they say threaten their customers' privacy [...] Such rules are "typically introduced by authoritarian governments in order to gain more control over their citizens," said a spokeswoman for Nord Security, provider of NordVPN, which has stopped operating its servers in India. "If democracies follow the same path, it has the potential to affect people's privacy as well as their freedom of speech," she said [...] Other VPN services that have stopped operating servers in India in recent months are some of the world's best known. They include U.S.-based Private Internet Access and IPVanish, Canada-based TunnelBear, British Virgin Islands-based ExpressVPN, and Lithuania-based Surfshark. ExpressVPN said it "refuses to participate in the Indian government's attempts to limit internet freedom." The government's move "severely undermines the online privacy of Indian residents," Private Internet Access said. "Customers in India will be able to connect to VPN servers in other countries," adds 9to5Mac. "This is the same approach taken in Russia and China, where operating servers within those countries would require VPN companies to comply with similar legislation." "Cloud storage services are also subjected to the new rules, though there would be little practical impact on Apple here. iCloud does not use end-to-end encryption, meaning that Apple holds a copy of your decryption key, and can therefore already comply with government demands for information."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
UK Challenges $69 Billion Microsoft/Activision Deal, Citing Potential Harm To Gamers
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is challenging Microsoft and Activision Blizzard to justify their planned merger, saying the deal "could substantially lessen competition" in the gaming industry. A CMA announcement today cited concerns about "competition in gaming consoles, multi-game subscription services, and cloud gaming services (game streaming)." Microsoft announced its plan to buy Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion in January. "Microsoft is one of three large companies, together with Sony and Nintendo, that have led the market for gaming consoles for the past 20 years with limited entries from new rivals," the CMA said. "Activision Blizzard has some of the world's best-selling and most recognizable gaming franchises, such as Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. The CMA is concerned that if Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard it could harm rivals, including recent and future entrants into gaming, by refusing them access to Activision Blizzard games or providing access on much worse terms." The CMA said these "concerns warrant an in-depth Phase 2 investigation," so Microsoft and Activision Blizzard have been ordered "to submit proposals to address the CMA's concerns" within five working days. "If suitable proposals are not submitted, the deal will be referred for a Phase 2 investigation," which would "allow an independent panel of experts to probe in more depth the risks identified at Phase 1," the CMA said. Besides Microsoft's Xbox console, the CMA noted Microsoft's Azure cloud computing platform and the Windows operating system. "The CMA is concerned that Microsoft could leverage Activision Blizzard's games together with Microsoft's strength across console, cloud, and PC operating systems to damage competition in the nascent market for cloud gaming services," the announcement said. "A Phase 2 investigation (PDF) can result in a merger being prohibited or a requirement to sell some parts of the business," notes Ars. "A Phase 2 investigation is typically limited to 24 weeks but can be extended by up to eight weeks." "After a final report, 'the CMA has a statutory deadline of 12 weeks (extendable by up to six weeks for special reasons) to make an order or accept undertakings to give effect to its Phase 2 remedies.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Many Developed Countries View Online Misinformation as 'Major Threat'
Nearly three-quarters of people across 19 countries believe that the spread of false information online is a "major threat," according to a survey released on Wednesday by the Pew Research Center. From a report: Researchers asked 24,525 people from 19 countries with advanced economies to rate the severity of threats from climate change, infectious diseases, online misinformation, cyberattacks from other countries and the condition of the global economy. Climate change was the highest-rated concern for most countries, with a median of 75 percent of respondents saying it is a major threat. Misinformation trailed closely behind, with a median of 70 percent deeming it a major threat. The findings add to research that Pew released this year focusing on the United States. That survey showed misinformation virtually tied with cyberhacking as the top concern for Americans, with about seven in 10 people saying each is a major threat. In a sharp contrast with the other countries surveyed, the United States rated climate change the lowest threat among the available options. After several bruising years of misinformation about elections and the coronavirus pandemic, 70 percent of Americans now believe that false information spread online is a major threat. Another 26 percent believe it is a minor threat, and just 2 percent say it is not a threat.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
North Sea Wind Farm Claims Title of World's Largest
The world's largest offshore wind farm is now fully operational, 55 miles off the coast of Yorkshire. The Hornsea 2 project can generate enough electricity to power about 1.3 million homes - that's enough for a city the size of Manchester. From a report: A decade ago renewables made up just 11% of the UK's energy mix. By 2021 it was 40%, with offshore wind the largest component. Hornsea 2 is part of a huge wind farm development by energy firm Orsted. "The UK is one of the world leaders in offshore wind," Patrick Harnett, programme director for the Hornsea 2 wind farm told BBC News. "This is very exciting after five years of work to have full commercial operations at the world's largest offshore wind farm."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The Slow Death of the Traditional Business Card
Traditional business cards -- dropping off for years -- might finally be folding given the Covid-19 pandemic, as many professionals worked from home, switched jobs and attended conferences and meetings virtually. From a report: Even now, with in-person schmoozing on the rise, many networkers are in no mood to return to what they see as the germ-swapping, environmentally unfriendly and laborious tradition of exchanging physical cards, only to manually input the fine print into phones later. Instead, they are turning to hybrid or fully virtual solutions: physical cards with QR codes, scannable digital cards or chips embedded in physical items that allow people to share contact details with a tap. Mr. Peterson [technology chief at Boingo Wireless; anecdote in the story] got his card from Dangerous Things, a human implant technology company whose chip can be inserted with a syringe -- the company suggests body piercers and other pros for the task. Mr. Peterson asked a neighbor with a medical degree. If, say, a phone number changes, the chip can be updated online. But the post-paper world is hardly friction-free. Atlas Vernier rejected paper business cards in favor of wearing an NFC ring with a chip inside. Once scanned, the 21-year-old's information pops up in the recipient's phone. Mx. Vernier, who uses gender-neutral pronouns, described often having to slightly move the ring around in search of the "sweet spot" of a phone's NFC reader. "That's the way technology works -- it always works until someone's looking." When an attendee at a recent racial-equity conference asked Robert F. Smith for his contact information, the private-equity billionaire furnished a white plastic card with a gold QR code printed on it. The guest held her phone above the card to scan it. Nothing happened. For the next minute or so, she positioned her phone at various distances from the card while Mr. Smith, the chief executive of Vista Equity Partners, tried different grips and angles. When that didn't work, Mr. Smith pulled out a different card with a black QR code. Success. Mr. Smith was unbowed. "I appreciate good sense tech solutions," he said in a written statement later. "I don't miss paper cards at all."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Shopify Warns Merchants Against Using Amazon's 'Buy With Prime' Service
Shopify is pushing back on Amazon's one-click checkout service. The e-commerce platform is warning merchants who try to install Amazon's "Buy With Prime" button on their storefront that it violates Shopify's terms of service, and is also raising the specter of security risks, according to research firm Marketplace Pulse. CNBC: Amazon introduced Buy With Prime in April, pitching it as a way for merchants to grow traffic on their own websites. The service lets merchants add the Prime logo and offer Amazon's speedy delivery options on their sites. Members of the retail giant's Prime loyalty club can check out using their Amazon account. Shopify will not protect merchants who try to use Buy With Prime against fraudulent orders, according to a screenshot of a notice Shopify sent to merchants. The notice also warns that Amazon's service could steal customer data, and charge customers incorrectly. Shopify's terms of service require merchants to use Shopify Checkout "for any sales associated with your online store," seemingly prohibiting them from offering alternative checkout options.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Someone Hacked Largest Taxi Service In Russia, Ordered All Available Taxis To the Same Location
According to Twitter user @runews, someone hacked the largest taxi service in Russia, Yandex Taxi, and ordered all the available taxis to an address on Kutuzovsky Prospekt. The tweet includes a video showing the traffic jam that this caused in the middle of Moscow. It's not known who was behind the attack. In a statement to SouthFront, the company said: "The security service promptly stopped attempts to artificially accumulate cars. Drivers spent about 40 minutes in traffic due to fake orders. The issue of compensation will be resolved in the very near future." The company stressed that in order to exclude such incidents in the future, "the algorithm for detecting and preventing such attacks has already been improved."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
California Lawmakers Extend the Life of the State's Last Nuclear Power Plant
Citing searing summer temperatures and expected energy shortages, California lawmakers approved legislation aimed at extending the life of the state's last-operating nuclear power plant. From a report: The Diablo Canyon plant -- the state's largest single source of electricity -- had been slated to shutter by 2025. The last-minute proposal passed by the state legislature early Thursday could keep it open five years longer, in part by giving the plant's owner, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), a $1.4 billion forgivable loan. California, like other U.S. states and countries, has been struggling to reduce its climate-warming emissions while adapting to a rapidly warming world. Record-breaking heat waves have stressed the state's increasingly carbon-free electrical grid in recent years, triggering rolling blackouts as recently as 2020. Grid operators, fearing a similar crash, issued a statewide alert to conserve energy last month. The state has set the goal of getting 100 percent of its electricity from clean and renewable sources by 2045. Advocates for Diablo Canyon claim that target will be difficult to achieve without the 2,250 megawatt nuclear power plant. Diablo Canyon generated nearly 9 percent of the state's electricity last year and roughly 15 percent of the state's clean energy production. Maintaining operations at Diablo Canyon will keep our power on while preventing millions of tons of carbon from being released into the atmosphere," said Isabelle Boemeke of the group Save Clean Energy. "This is a true win-win for the people of California and our planet." Nuclear power has seen a resurgence in recent years as the climate crisis has worsened and governments increase efforts to cut climate-warming emissions. The Biden administration launched a $6 billion effort earlier this year aimed at keeping the country's aging nuclear plants running.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
USB4 v2 Will Support Speeds Up To 80 Gbps
The next generation of USB devices might support data transfer speeds as high as 80 Gbps, which would be twice as fast as current-gen Thunderbolt 4 products. From a report: The USB Promotor Group says it plans to publish the new USB4 version 2.0 specification ahead of this year's USB Developer Days events scheduled for November, but it could take a few years before new cables, hubs, PCs, and mobile devices featuring the new technology are available for purchase. According to the group, the new protocol will make use of the same USB Type-C cables and connectors as USB4 version 1.0. In fact, if you've already got a USB Type-C passive cable that's capable of 40 Gbps speeds, you should be able to use that same cable with next-gen hardware to achieve speeds up to 80 Gbps. But the new standard will also introduce a new USB Type-C active cable designed specifically for speeds up to 80 Gbps. The new standard is also backward compatible, which means that if you buy a new device with USB 4 v2 support, it will still work with older hardware featuring USB 2.0, 3.2, or Thunderbolt 3 connectivity. You just won't be able to take advantage of the full speeds.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Chrome Extensions With 1.4M Installs Covertly Track Visits and Inject Code
Google has removed browser extensions with more than 1.4 million downloads from the Chrome Web Store after third-party researchers reported they were surreptitiously tracking users' browsing history and inserting tracking code into specific ecommerce sites they visited. ArsTechnica: The five extensions flagged by McAfee purport to offer various services, including the ability to stream Netflix videos to groups of people, take screenshots, and automatically find and apply coupon codes. Behind the scenes, company researchers said, the extensions kept a running list of each site a user visited and took additional actions when users landed on specific sites. The extensions sent the name of each site visited to the developer-designated site d.langhort.com, along with a unique identifier and the country, city, and zip code of the visiting device. If the site visited matched a list of ecommerce sites, the developer domain instructed the extensions to insert JavaScript into the visited page. The code modified the cookies for the site so that the extension authors receive affiliate payment for any items purchased. To help keep the activity covert, some of the extensions were programmed to wait 15 days after installation before beginning the data collection and code injection.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Micron To Invest $15 Billion in New US Manufacturing Unit
Micron will invest about $15 billion over the next 10 years in a new memory-chip manufacturing facility in Boise, Idaho, where it is based, the company said on Thursday. From a report: The investment takes into account anticipated federal grants and credits under the CHIPS and Science Act and will create 17,000 jobs by the end of the decade. President Joe Biden last month signed a bill to provide $52.7 billion in subsidies for semiconductor production and research and to boost efforts to make the United States more competitive. "Today's announcement by Micron is another big win for America," Biden said in a statement. "We will make EVs, chips, fiber optics and other critical components here in America and we will have an economy built from the bottom up and middle out." Micron did not provide details of the new facility's capacity or the kind of chips it will produce. The expansion comes at a time when Micron has cut its fourth-quarter revenue forecast due to weak demand. Peer Seagate too has slashed its first-quarter expectations.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tech Tool Offers Police 'Mass Surveillance On a Budget'
Local law enforcement agencies from suburban Southern California to rural North Carolina have been using an obscure cellphone tracking tool, at times without search warrants, that gives them the power to follow people's movements months back in time, according to public records and internal emails obtained by The Associated Press. schwit1 shares a report: Police have used "Fog Reveal" to search hundreds of billions of records from 250 million mobile devices, and harnessed the data to create location analyses known among law enforcement as "patterns of life," according to thousands of pages of records about the company. Sold by Virginia-based Fog Data Science LLC, Fog Reveal has been used since at least 2018 in criminal investigations ranging from the murder of a nurse in Arkansas to tracing the movements of a potential participant in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. The tool is rarely, if ever, mentioned in court records, something that defense attorneys say makes it harder for them to properly defend their clients in cases in which the technology was used.It relies on advertising identification numbers, which Fog officials say are culled from popular cellphone apps such as Waze, Starbucks and hundreds of others that target ads based on a person's movements and interests, according to police emails. That information is then sold to companies like Fog.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Google Pledges $20 Million To Expand Computer Science Education in the US
Google has announced $20 million in new commitments to expand computer science education among communities that are underrepresented in the field. The company expects its funds to improve educational access for more than 11 million American students. From a report: "If we don't get this right, the gaps that exist today will be exacerbated," Google CEO Sundar Pichai said on Wednesday. "Technology will end up playing such a big role in the future. That's the fundamental reason we do it." Google's goal in distributing funds, Pichai says, was to support groups with "deep expertise in education" who work with underrepresented communities -- including students in rural areas, as well as racial and gender minorities. The slate includes a mix of newer organizations and longtime Google partners. 4-H, receiving $5 million, has been working with the company since 2017. The Oakland-based Hidden Genius Project, also receiving funds, was a winner of Google's 2015 Impact Challenge. Other beneficiaries include UT Austin's Expanding Computing Education Pathways (ECEP) Alliance, CUNY's Computing Integrated Teacher Education project, and the nonprofit CodePath. Urban funding will focus on Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles. "Living in the Bay Area... it's clear to me how many schools here have already transitioned and incorporated exposure to CS education as part of their curriculum," Pichai says. "It's important that this happens across the country, to rural areas, to places that are historically underrepresented."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
EU Proposes Tough Regulations on Smartphone Spare Part Availability
Smartphone manufacturers supplying the EU will face stringent requirements to provide spare parts and ensure longer battery life, according to draft proposals published by Brussels on Wednesday. Financial Times: The European Commission said that at least 15 different component parts should be made available for at least five years from the date of a smartphone's introduction to the market and that batteries should survive at least 500 full charges without deteriorating to below 83 per cent of their capacity. Phones would also have to display an energy efficiency label, similar to those used for washing machines and dishwashers, which will show battery endurance and other characteristics such as resistance to drops. The scheme is Brussels' latest directive targeting electronics manufacturers after introducing in June a requirement to use a standardised charger by 2024, despite years of industry opposition, in particular from Apple. Extending the life cycle of all the smartphones sold in the EU by five years would save emissions equivalent to around 10mn tonnes of Co2 -- roughly the same as taking 5mn cars off the road, according to a study by the European Environmental Bureau, a non-governmental organisation. The draft regulations, which also cover tablets and standard mobile phones, suggest that if hardware is made more repairable and recyclable it would cut the energy consumption involved in its production and use by a third.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
US Allows Nvidia To Export, Transfer Tech To Develop Flagship AI Chip
Nvidia said on Thursday that the U.S. government has allowed exports and in-country transfers needed to complete the development of its flagship artificial intelligence chip. From a report: The disclosure comes a day after Washington told the company to stop exporting its two top computing chips for AI work to China, a move Nvidia said could interfere with the development of the H100 chip it announced this year. The ban signaled a major escalation of the U.S. crackdown on China's technological capabilities as tensions bubble over the fate of Taiwan, where chips for Nvidia and almost every other major chip firm are manufactured. The ban, which affects Nvidia's A100 and H100 chips designed to speed up machine learning tasks, sent the company's shares down 4% before the bell. In its statement on Thursday, Nvidia said U.S. officials have authorized it to perform exports needed to provide support for U.S. customers of A100 through March 1, 2023.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Twitter Launches an Edit Button for Paying Subscribers
Twitter is launching an edit button for the first time, after years of debate both internally and externally as to whether such a feature was a good idea for a product known for making posts go viral. From a report: The edit feature will soon be available to users who pay $4.99 per month for a subscription to Twitter Blue. Edit Tweet, as the feature will be called, will let users make changes to their tweet for up to 30 minutes after it's originally published. Tweets that are edited will carry a label, and others on Twitter will be able to click on the label to see prior versions of the post. The company is specifically testing the edit button with a small group of users in hopes of quickly resolving possible issues, the company wrote in a blog post. The edit button will then roll out to Twitter Blue users in the coming weeks.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
How Twitter's Child Porn Problem Ruined Its Plans For an OnlyFans Competitor
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: In the spring of 2022, Twitter considered making a radical change to the platform. After years of quietly allowing adult content on the service, the company would monetize it. The proposal: give adult content creators the ability to begin selling OnlyFans-style paid subscriptions, with Twitter keeping a share of the revenue. Had the project been approved, Twitter would have risked a massive backlash from advertisers, who generate the vast majority of the company's revenues. But the service could have generated more than enough to compensate for losses. OnlyFans, the most popular by far of the adult creator sites, is projecting $2.5 billion in revenue this year -- about half of Twitter's 2021 revenue -- and is already a profitable company. Some executives thought Twitter could easily begin capturing a share of that money since the service is already the primary marketing channel for most OnlyFans creators. And so resources were pushed to a new project called ACM: Adult Content Monetization. Before the final go-ahead to launch, though, Twitter convened 84 employees to form what it called a "Red Team." The goal was "to pressure-test the decision to allow adult creators to monetize on the platform, by specifically focusing on what it would look like for Twitter to do this safely and responsibly," according to documents obtained by The Verge and interviews with current and former Twitter employees. What the Red Team discovered derailed the project: Twitter could not safely allow adult creators to sell subscriptions because the company was not -- and still is not -- effectively policing harmful sexual content on the platform. "Twitter cannot accurately detect child sexual exploitation and non-consensual nudity at scale," the Red Team concluded in April 2022. The company also lacked tools to verify that creators and consumers of adult content were of legal age, the team found. As a result, in May -- weeks after Elon Musk agreed to purchase the company for $44 billion -- the company delayed the project indefinitely. If Twitter couldn't consistently remove child sexual exploitative content on the platform today, how would it even begin to monetize porn? Launching ACM would worsen the problem, the team found. Allowing creators to begin putting their content behind a paywall would mean that even more illegal material would make its way to Twitter -- and more of it would slip out of view. Twitter had few effective tools available to find it. Taking the Red Team report seriously, leadership decided it would not launch Adult Content Monetization until Twitter put more health and safety measures in place. "Twitter still has a problem with content that sexually exploits children," reports The Verge, citing interviews with current and former staffers, as well as 58 pages of internal documents. "Executives are apparently well-informed about the issue, and the company is doing little to fix it." "While the amount of [child sexual exploitation (CSE)] online has grown exponentially, Twitter's investment in technologies to detect and manage the growth has not," begins a February 2021 report from the company's Health team. "Teams are managing the workload using legacy tools with known broken windows. In short, [content moderators] are keeping the ship afloat with limited-to-no-support from Health." Part of the problem is scale while the other part is mismanagement, says the report. "Meanwhile, the system that Twitter heavily relied on to discover CSE had begun to break..."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
US Officials Order Nvidia To Halt Sales of Top AI Chips To China
Chip designer Nvidia on Wednesday said that U.S. officials told it to stop exporting two top computing chips for artificial intelligence work to China, a move that could cripple Chinese firms' ability to carry out advanced work like image recognition and hamper a business Nvidia expects to generate $400 million in sales this quarter. Reuters reports: Nvidia shares fell 4% after hours. The company said the ban, which affects its A100 and H100 chips designed to speed up machine learning tasks, could interfere with completion of developing the H100, the flagship chip Nvidia announced this year. Nvidia said U.S. officials told it the new rule "will address the risk that the covered products may be used in, or diverted to, a "military end use" or "military end user" in China." The announcement signals a major escalation of the U.S. crackdown on China's technological capabilities as tensions bubble over the fate of Taiwan, where chips for Nvidia and almost every other major chip firm are manufactured. [...] Nvidia said it had booked $400 million in sales of the affected chips this quarter to China that could be lost if Chinese firms decide not to buy alternative Nvidia products. It said it plans to apply for exemptions to the rule but has "no assurances" that U.S. officials will grant them. Stacy Rasgon, a financial analyst with Bernstein, said the disclosure signaled that about 10% of Nvidia's data center sales, which investors have closely monitored in recent years, were coming from China and that the hit to sales was likely "manageable" for Nvidia.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover Has Made Oxygen 7 Times In Exploration Milestone
Stefanie Waldek reports via Space.com: Led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) is a small instrument on the Perseverance rover that's designed to transform carbon dioxide, which comprises some 96% of the atmosphere on Mars, into breathable oxygen. Oxygen, of course, is crucial for a human mission to Mars. Since February 2021, the device has run seven times, each time producing about 0.2 ounces (6 grams) of oxygen per hour. That's on par with the abilities of small trees here on Earth. MOXIE has now operated in a variety of conditions on Mars, both day and night, through all four seasons. The researchers expect that a version of the instrument approximately 100 times larger than MOXIE could potentially create breathable oxygen for future astronauts who visit the Red Planet. If explorers can't make their own oxygen on Mars, supplies from Earth would take up valuable mass on a spacecraft. Furthermore, MOXIE's products could also be used as an ingredient for rocket fuel -- pretty crucial to ensuring the mission isn't one-way. A rocket would need 33 to 50 tons (30 to 45 metric tons) of liquid oxygen propellant in order to launch humans off Mars. "This is the first demonstration of actually using resources on the surface of another planetary body, and transforming them chemically into something that would be useful for a human mission," MOXIE deputy principal investigator Jeffrey Hoffman, a professor of the practice in MIT's Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a former NASA astronaut, said in a statement. "It's historic in that sense." The research has been published in the journal Science Advances.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
US Life Expectancy Falls Again In 'Historic' Setback
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: The average life expectancy of Americans fell precipitously in 2020 and 2021, the sharpest two-year decline in nearly 100 years and a stark reminder of the toll exacted on the nation by the continuing coronavirus pandemic. In 2021, the average American could expect to live until the age of 76, federal health researchers reported on Wednesday. The figure represents a loss of almost three years since 2019, when Americans could expect to live, on average, nearly 79 years. The reduction has been particularly steep among Native Americans and Alaska Natives, the National Center for Health Statistics reported. Average life expectancy in those groups was shortened by four years in 2020 alone. The cumulative decline since the pandemic started, more than six and a half years on average, has brought life expectancy to 65 among Native Americans and Alaska Natives -- on par with the figure for all Americans in 1944. In 2021, the shortening of life span was more pronounced among white Americans than among Black Americans, who saw greater reductions in the first year of the pandemic. White Americans saw the second-largest decline in average life expectancy in 2021, a drop of one year, to 76.4 in 2021 from 77.4 in 2020. The decline was steeper than that among Black Americans, at seven-tenths of a year. That was followed by Hispanic Americans, whose life expectancy dropped only two-tenths of a year in 2021. But both Black and Hispanic Americans were hit hard in 2020, the first year of the pandemic. Average life expectancy for Hispanic Americans fell by four years, to 77.9 from 81.9 in 2019. The figure for Black Americans declined almost as much, by more than three years to 71.5 years in 2020. White Americans experienced the smallest decline during the first year of the pandemic, a drop of 1.4 years to 77.4 from 78.8. For white and Black Americans, life expectancy is now the lowest it has been since 1995, federal researchers said. Asian Americans held the highest life expectancy among racial and ethnic groups included in the new analysis: 83.5 years, on average. The figure fell only slightly last year, from 83.6 in 2020. Americans suffer from what experts have called "the U.S. health disadvantage," an amalgam of influences that erode well-being, Dr. Woolf said. "These include a fragmented, profit-driven health care system; poor diet and a lack of physical activity; and pervasive risk factors such as smoking, widespread access to guns, poverty and pollution," says the report. "The result is a high disease burden among Americans, and shorter life expectancy compared with that in comparable high-income nations over the last two decades."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Scientists Break the Direction of Time Down To the Cellular Level In Mind-Bending Study
A new study looks at interactions between microscopic neurons in salamanders to understand how the "arrow of time" is biologically generated. Motherboard reports: The second law of thermodynamics says that everything tends to move from order to disorder, a process known as entropy that defines the arrow of time. A stronger arrow of time means it would be harder for a system to go back to a more ordered state. "Everything that we perceive as a difference between the past and the future stems fundamentally from that one principle about the universe," said Christopher Lynn, the lead author of the study. Lynn said that his motivation for the study was "to understand how the arrows of time we see in life" fit into this larger idea of entropy on the scale of the entire universe. Using previously done research on salamanders, Lynne and colleagues at City University of New York and Princeton examined how the arrow of time is represented in interactions between the amphibians' neurons in response to watching a movie. Their research is soon to be published in the journal Physical Review Letters. On one hand, it's somewhat obvious that an arrow of time would be biologically produced. "To be alive, almost, you have to have an arrow of time because you develop from a baby to an adult, and you're constantly moving and taking in stimuli," Lynne said. Indeed, entropy here is irreversible -- you cannot go back. What the team found was anything but intuitive, however. Lynne and colleagues looked at a separate 2015 study where researchers had salamanders watch two different movies. One depicted a scene of fish swimming around, similar to what a salamander might experience in everyday life. As in the real world, the video had a clear arrow of time -- that is, if you watched it in reverse, it would look different than if you played it forwards. The other video contained only a gray screen with a black, horizontal bar in the middle of the screen, which moved quickly up and down in a random, jittery way. This video didn't have an obvious arrow of time. A major question for the researchers was if they could pick out signs of "local irreversibility" in interactions between small groups of retinal neurons in response to this stimulus. Would interactions with irreversibility -- they would look different if played in reverse, having an "arrow of time" -- present in simpler or more complex interactions between neurons? "You can go look at a system and you can ask: are the more complicated interactions strongly producing the arrow of time, or is it the simpler dynamics?" said Lynn. The researchers found that the interactions between simple pairs of neurons primarily determined the arrow of time, no matter which movie the salamanders watched. In fact, the authors found a stronger arrow of time for the neurons when salamanders watched the video with the gray screen and black bar -- in other words, the video without an arrow of time in its content elicited a greater arrow of time in the neurons. "We naively thought that if the stimulus has a stronger arrow of time, that would show up on your retina," said Lynn. "But it was the opposite. So that's why it was surprising to us." While the researchers can't say for sure why this is, Lynn said that it might be because salamanders are more used to seeing something like the fish movie, and processing the more artificial movie took greater energy. In a more disordered system, which would have a greater arrow of time, more energy is consumed. "Being alive will still define an arrow of time," Lynne said, no matter the stimulus.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Apple Releases Rare iOS 12 Update To Address Security Flaw On Older iPhones, iPads
Apple has released an iOS 12 update users of older iPhone and iPad devices should download as soon as possible. Engadget reports: The new version of the company's 2018 operating system addresses a major vulnerability that Apple recently patched within iOS 15. According to a support document, the WebKit flaw could have allowed a website to run malicious code on your device. In its usual terse manner, Apple notes it is "aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited." For that reason, you should download the update as soon as possible if you're still using an iOS 12 device. That's a list that includes the iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, as well as iPad Air, iPad mini 2 and iPad mini 3. You can download iOS 12.5.6 by opening the Settings app, tapping on "General" and then selecting "Software Update."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Court Orders Telegram To Disclose Personal Details of Pirating Users
The High Court in Delhi ordered Telegram to share the personal details of copyright-infringing users with rightsholders. The messaging app refused to do so, citing privacy concerns and freedom of speech, but the court waved away these defenses, ordering the company to comply with Indian law. TorrentFreak reports: Telegram doesn't permit copyright infringement and generally takes swift action in response. This includes the removal of channels that are dedicated to piracy. For some copyright holders that's not enough, as new 'pirate' channels generally surface soon after. To effectively protect their content, rightsholders want to know who runs these channels. This allows them to take action against the actual infringers and make sure that they stop pirating. This argument is the basis of an infringement lawsuit filed in 2020. The case in question was filed by Ms. Neetu Singh and KD Campus. The former is the author of various books, courses, and lectures, for which the latter runs coaching centers. Both rightsholders have repeatedly complained to Telegram about channels that shared pirated content. In most cases, Telegram took these down, but the service refused to identify the infringers. As such, the rightsholders asked the court to intervene. The legal battle culminated in the Delhi High Court this week via an order compelling Telegram to identify several copyright-infringing users. This includes handing over phone numbers, IP addresses, and email addresses. The order was issued despite fierce opposition. One of Telegram's main defenses was that the user data is stored in Singapore, which prohibits the decryption of personal information under local privacy law. The Court disagrees with this argument, as the ongoing infringing activity is related to Indian works and will likely be tied to Indian users. And even if the data is stored elsewhere, it could be accessed from India. Disclosing the personal information would not be a violation of Singapore's privacy law either, the High Court adds, pointing out that there is an exception if personal details are needed for investigation or proceedings. Telegram also brought up the Indian constitution, which protects people's privacy, as well as the right to freedom of speech and expression. However, that defense was unsuccessful too. Finally, Telegram argued that it is not required to disclose the details of its users because the service merely acts as an intermediary. Again, the Court disagrees. Simply taking infringing channels offline isn't good enough in this situation, since infringers can simply launch new ones, as if nothing had happened.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
AI-Generated Artwork Wins First Place At a State Fair Fine Arts Competition
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: A man came in first at the Colorado State Fair's fine art competition using an AI generated artwork on Monday. "I won first place," a user going by Sincarnate said in a Discord post above photos of the AI-generated canvases hanging at the fair. Sincarnate's name is Jason Allen, who is president of Colorado-based tabletop gaming company Incarnate Games. According to the state fair's website (PDF), he won in the digital art category with a work called "Theatre D'opera Spatial." The image, which Allen printed on canvas for submission, is gorgeous. It depicts a strange scene that looks like it could be from a space opera, and it looks like a masterfully done painting. Classical figures in a Baroque hall stair through a circular viewport into a sun-drenched and radiant landscape. But Allen did not paint "Theatre D'opera Spatial," AI software called Midjourney did. It used his prompts, but Allen did not wield a digital brush. This distinction has caused controversy on Twitter where working artists and enthusiasts accused Allen of hastening the death of creative jobs. "TL;DR -- Someone entered an art competition with an AI-generated piece and won the first prize," artist Genel Jumalon said in a viral tweet about Allen's win. "Yeah that's pretty fucking shitty." "We're watching the death of artistry unfold before our eyes," a Twitter user going by OmniMorpho said in a reply that gained over 2,000 likes. "If creative jobs aren't safe from machines, then even high-skilled jobs are in danger of becoming obsolete. What will we have then?" "I knew this would be controversial," Allen said in the Midjourney Discord server on Tuesday. "How interesting is it to see how all these people on Twitter who are against AI generated art are the first ones to throw the human under the bus by discrediting the human element! Does this seem hypocritical to you guys?" He added: "I have been exploring a special prompt that I will be publishing at a later date, I have created 100s of images using it, and after many weeks of fine tuning and curating my gens, I chose my top 3 and had them printed on canvas after unshackling with Gigapixel AI," he wrote in a post before the winners were announced. "What if we looked at it from the other extreme, what if an artist made a wildly difficult and complicated series of restraints in order to create a piece, say, they made their art while hanging upside-down and being whipped while painting," he said. "Should this artist's work be evaluated differently than another artist that created the same piece 'normally'? I know what will become of this in the end, they are simply going to create an 'artificial intelligence art' category I imagine for things like this."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Dashlane Is Ready To Replace All Your Passwords With Passkeys
Dashlane announced today that it's integrating passkeys into its cross-platform password manager. "We said, you know what, our job is to make security simple for users," says Dashlane CEO JD Sherman, "and this is a great tool to do that. So we should actually be thinking about ushering in this passwordless era." The Verge reports: Passwords are dying, long live passkeys. Practically the entire tech industry seems to agree that hexadecimal passwords need to die, and that the best way to replace them is with the cryptographic keys that have come to be known as passkeys. Basically, rather than having you type a phrase to prove you're you, websites and apps use a standard called WebAuthn to connect directly to a token you have saved -- on your device, in your password manager, ultimately just about anywhere -- and authenticate you automatically. It's more secure, it's more user-friendly, it's just better. The transition is going to take a while, though, and even when you can use passkeys, it'll be a while before all your apps and websites let you do so. Going forward, Dashlane users can start to set up passkeys to log into sites and apps where they previously would have created passwords. And whereas systems like Apple's upcoming implementation in iOS 16 will often involve taking a picture of a QR code to log in, Dashlane says it can make the process even simpler because it has apps for most platforms and an extension for most browsers.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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